I was jealous and felt conscious of my worthlessness. I pined away, but her presence brought me no relief. The suitors belittle him, but he is too in love with the princess to care.įor whole days I did nothing but think intensely about her.

My rifle slipped to the grass I forgot everything: my eyes devoured the graceful figure, the lovely neck, the beautiful arms, the slightly dishevelled fair hair under the white kerchief –- and the half-closed perceptive eyes, the lashes, the soft cheek beneath them…Įventually he gets to meet the young woman, Princess Zasyekin, who is five years his senior, andįalls into her circle of friends –- a quintet of suitors comprising a count, doctor, poet, captain and soldier. there was in the girl’s movements (I saw her in profile) something so enchanting, imperious and caressing, so mocking and charming, that I nearly cried out with wonder and delight. He would spend his days studying, horse riding and strolling through the Neskootchny Park, but when he notices a “tall, slender girl in a striped pink dress with a white kerchief on her head” in the garden next door he is immediately smitten. He is 40 now, but he recalls the time he stayed in a holiday house – “a wooden building with pillars and two small, low lodges” - in the country with his parents. First Love is exactly what the title suggests: a man looks back on his first love. First published in 1860, it has been beautifully repackaged and republished as part of Penguin’s Great Love series.Īt just over 100 pages, this is a book that can quickly be read in one sitting (I achieved it via two 20-minute train journeys), although its brevity should not be mistaken for shallowness.

Translated from the Russian by Isaiah Berlin.įirst Love is Russian writer Ivan Turgenev’s most famous novella. Fiction – paperback Penguin Classics 102 pages 2007.

First love ivan