Virgin Soil

“Do you know, Mariana... excuse the coarse expression... but, to my mind, combing the scurfy head of a gutter child is a sacrifice; a great sacrifice of which not many people ar...

“Goodbye, my dear friend, goodbye! When this reaches you, I shall be no more. Don’t ask why or wherefore, and don’t grieve; be sure that I am better off now. Take up our immorta...

“Oh, he’s not bad... knows what he’s about. One of the new generation. He’s very polite, wears cuffs, and has his eyes about him no less than the old sort. He would skin a flint...

“Because in such enterprises the first always perish even if they come off victorious. And in this thing not only the first and second, but the tenth and twentieth will perish—”

Valentina Mihailovna was going to say God, but hesitated and added, “before the whole world! I can’t be silent when I hear such utter madness! And why can’t I understand you, pr...

“The merchant Falyaeva has nothing whatever to do with it,” Sipiagin began; “I know nothing of his ideas; I was only talking of his factory where Mr. Nejdanov is to be found at...

The toast was drunk in silence. The empty space on Sipiagin’s left, in the form of Nejdanov, did certainly make several sounds of disapproval; but arousing not the least attenti...

Ostrodumov remained motionless for a time, then he looked around, stood up, bent down, turned up one of the legs of his trousers, and carefully pulled a piece of blue paper out...

Neither Fomishka nor Fimishka had ever been ill, and if one or the other ever felt the slightest indisposition they would both drink some concoction made of lime-flower, rub war...

“Alexai Dmitritch,” she said, “please don’t think my aunt is a bad woman. She is not. She is deceitful all over, she’s an actress, a poser—she wants everyone to bow down before...

Nejdanov took the portrait, but a strange sensation oppressed his heart. It seemed to him that he had no right to take this gift; that if Markelov knew what was in his, Nejdanov...

Turgenev was the first writer who was able, having both Slavic and universal imagination enough for it, to interpret modern Russia to the outer world, and Virgin Soil was the la...

Exactly at ten o’clock Nejdanov gave Kolia his first lesson before Valentina Mihailovna, who had asked him if she might be present, and sat very quietly the whole time. Kolia pr...

Nejdanov felt a strange weariness at heart. So much had been said the night before about the impossibility of holding back any longer, about the necessity of making a beginning....

“What an amusing man!” Solomin remarked as he was walking along arm-in-arm with Nejdanov; “if we should ever be sent to Siberia, which Heaven forbid, there will be someone to en...

The footman left the room respectfully and Solomin sent for Pavel, had a talk with him, ran across to the factory once more, then putting on a black coat with a very long waist,...

The little cripple rushed up to him and extended his hand. Solomin pressed it. He was obviously acquainted with him. They both disappeared.... Soon their footsteps were heard co...

Sipiagin greeted Paklin affably, and with an energetic movement of the hand pointed to the carriage and asked him to take his seat. “Mr. Paklin, you are coming with me, Mr. Pakl...

“I say, Aliosha,” he began in a persuasive tone of voice, “you have only just refused me, and I know you will not be short of money now; but, all the same, do allow me to sacrif...

“Yes, how well—how well!” she repeated, also in a whisper. She imitated him unconsciously—her voice, too, gave way. “And it means,” she continued, “that I am at your disposal, t...

“I have a feeling,” Kollomietzev declared, “a feeling, that he’s a revolutionist. When I served on a special commission at the governor-general’s of Moscow _avec Ladislas_, I le...

The young people found Golushkin in his study, where he was sitting comfortably wrapped up in a long dressing-gown, with a cigar between his lips, pretending to be reading a new...

“Why not? Don’t you think we could do it better than these ignorant, hungry loafers who know nothing and imagine themselves to be men of genius? We could appoint Boris Andraevit...