Annouchka: A Tale

by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

We at first exchanged some commonplaces, then there was a silence. We fixed our eyes upon the transparent waters of the river.

"I should like to know what you think of Annouchka," said Gaguine suddenly, with his usual smile. "Does she not appear somewhat fantastic?"

"Yes," I replied, much surprised at the question, as I hardly expected him to venture upon such ground.

"That comes from not knowing her; thus you cannot judge her well," said he. "She has an excellent heart, but a very bad head. You must bear a great deal from her! You would not reproach her if you knew her history."

"Her history?" I exclaimed; "is she not then your"—

Gaguine stopped me with a look.

"You are not going to imagine that she is not my sister?" he replied, without paying any attention to my embarrassment. "Yes, she is indeed the daughter of my father. Give me your attention. I have confidence in you and am going to tell you everything.

"My father was an excellent man, having intelligence and a cultivated mind, but whose life was nevertheless very sad. It was not that he was more ill-used by fortune than any one else, but he had not the strength to bear a first misfortune. While still young he had made a love marriage; his wife, who was my mother, did not live long; I was only six months old when she died. My father then took me into the country, and for twelve years did not put foot outside of his domain. He himself began my education, and would never have separated himself from me if his brother, my paternal uncle, had not come to see him on his estate. This uncle lived at Petersburg, and he held an important position there. He succeeded in persuading my father to confide me to his care, so that he would never need to leave his estate; he represented to him that isolation was injurious to a boy already grown, and who in the hands of a preceptor as sad and stern as my father would be far behind children of my own age, and that even my character would suffer.

"My father resisted his attempts for a long time, but finally yielded. I cried on being separated from him, for I loved him, though I had never seen a smile upon his lips. Arrived at Petersburg, I soon forgot the sad, dark place where my infancy was passed. I entered the military school, then a regiment of the Guard. I went every year to pass some weeks in the country. Each time I found my father more morose, more reserved and pensive, until at times he became fierce. He went every day to church, and almost entirely lost the habit of talking.

"During one of these visits (I was about twenty years of age) I perceived for the first time a slight girl with black eyes, about twelve years old; it was Annouchka. My father told me she was an orphan whom he took care of, and I paid but little attention to this child, wild, silent, and active as a young fallow deer. When I entered my father's favorite room, the vast chamber where my mother died, and so dark that they kept it lighted in broad day, Annouchka hid herself behind a large arm-chair or the bookcase. It happened that for three or four days after this last visit I was prevented by my duties from returning to my father's, but every month I received a few lines from his hand, in which he rarely spoke of Annouchka, and always without going into any details of the subject. He was already over fifty, but appeared still a young man. You may imagine the shock when I suddenly received a letter from our steward, in which he announced to me that my father was dangerously ill, and implored me to come as soon as possible if I wished to see him before he died.