Ася

Translated by Constance Garnett

УДК 
372.8
ББК 
84(2Рос=Рус)
 
81.2 Англ
 
Т 87

ISBN 978-5-9925-0981-6

 
Тургенев И. С.
Т 87 Ася: пер. с рус. К. Гарнетт. — СПб.: КАРО, 
2014. — 224 с.: — (Русская классическая литература на иностранных языках).

ISBN 978-5-9925-0981-6.

Вашему вниманию предлагается перевод двух извест нейших лирических повестей знаменитого писателя 
И. С. Тур генева — «Ася» и «Первая любовь», объединенных 
темой воспоминаний о юношеской любви. Тургенев — непревзойденный мастер трагичных и поэтических историй 
о стремлении к счастью и невозможности его достижения.
Английский перевод повестей, выполненный Констанс 
Гарнетт, снабжен постраничными, в большей степени культурологическими, комментариями. Книга адресована студентам языковых вузов, носителям языка и всем любителям 
русской классической литературы.

УДК 372.8
ББК 81.2 Англ

© КАРО, 2014

ACIA
by
Ivan Turgenev

Translated by Constance Garnett

This edition contains two best-known lyrical stories by the famous Russian writer Ivan Turgenev — “Acia” and “First Love,” connected by a common subject — the memoirs of young love. Turgenev 
is an inimitable master of tragic and poetical stories about pursuit of 
happiness in love and inability to achieve it.
The English translation of the stories made by Constance Garnett is complemented with footnotes. The book may be of interest to 
the University or College students who study English, the native English speakers and everyone who admires Russian Classic Literature.

The Life and Works 
of Ivan Turgenev

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev is a famous Russian 
writer. Called “the novelist’s novelist” by Henry James, 
Ivan Turgenev was actually the fi rst Russian author to 
achieve widespread international fame. Although he 
was originally linked with Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo 
Tolstoy as a member of the triumvirate of the greatest 
Russian novelists of the nineteenth century, Turgenev’s 
reputation began to diminish during the course of the 
twentieth century.
Turgenev was born in 1818 in a city called Orel in 
a noble family. Turgenev spent most of his childhood 
in the family estate and was taught by private tutors. 
Th e future writer learned not only the usual school 
subjects, he learned also to feel the nature — and to 
despise serfdom. Th ese two themes later became the 
main ones in his works.
Turgenev enrolled at the Moscow University in 
1833. Before a year had passed he transferred to the 

THE LIFE AND WORKS OF IVAN TURGENEV 

5

St. Petersburg University, from which he graduated 
in 1837.
Turgenev travelled for some time in Europe, 
espe cial ly in Germany, and studied chiefl y philo sophy. 
Turgenev was impressed by German society and 
returned home believing that Russia could best improve 
itself by incorporating ideas from the Age of 
Enlightenment. In 1843, he accepted a minor post at 
the Ministry of Interior and also made the acquaintance 
of Pauline Viardot, a sophisticated French singer whom 
he would remain devoted to for the rest of his life and 
for whose sake he would oft en stay abroad for long 
periods of time. By the mid-1850’s, he had been 
spending as much time in Europe as in Russia, and in 
1857 Pauline Viardot gave birth to a child, allegedly 
Turgenev’s.
Turgenev had hinted at the theme of emancipating the serfs early in his career with “A Sportsman’s 
Sketches”, collected and fi rst published as a complete 
set of peasant sketches in 1852. It is impossible to 
imagine Turgenev’s books neither without his attitude 
to serfdom, nor without his descriptions of nature. By 
these descriptions, Turgenev makes his readers feel 
connected to the heroes of his works. Such a psychologically rich writing is always interesting to read — 
it gives more chances to understand not only the 
strange Russian soul but also to look inside ourselves 
with a question: “How am I different from these 
characters?”

THE LIFE AND WORKS OF IVAN TURGENEV

During the period of 1853–1862 Turgenev wrote 
some of his fi nest stories and novellas and the fi rst four 
of his six novels: “Rudin” (1856), “A Nest of Gentlefolk” 
(1859), “On the Eve” (1860) and “Fathers and Sons” 
(1862). Th e central themes of these works were (except 
social problems) the beauty of early love, failure to 
reach one’s dreams, and frustrated love, which partly 
reflected the author’s lifelong passion for Pauline 
Viardot. Love was a secondary theme in “Fathers and 
Sons”, Turgenev’s most famous novel revealing the 
“generation gap.”
In 1863, Turgenev was summoned to answer 
charges of having aided a London group of expatriates, 
but was soon exonerated, bought land in Baden near 
the Viardots’ estate and settled there. In 1869, he ran 
into fi nancial diffi  culties and had to sell his newly built 
villa, but remained there as a tenant while he prepared 
an edition of his collected works. During the next ten 
years, Turgenev worked on his novel, “Virgin Soil,” and 
several plays, spending time in Baden, Paris, Great 
Britain, and Russia. In 1879, his brother Nikolai had 
died, and upon Turgenev’s arrival in Moscow he 
discovered that he was celebrated by the liberals. Th is 
same year he received an honorary degree from Oxford 
University and began to prepare another collection of 
his works. 
At the end of 1870s — beginning of 1880s the 
popularity of Turgenev’s books grew really fast, partly 
because of his so-called “mystic stories.” 

THE LIFE AND WORKS OF IVAN TURGENEV 

Aft er a long illness the writer died in France on 
September 3, 1883. The year before his death, he 
published a book of what he called “an old man’s 
jottings” under the title of “Poems in Prose.”

***
Th e theme of love was not alien to Turgenev. But 
love in his books is always unrequited, it always has too 
much barriers on its way — and even his love stories 
are aff ected by the theme of serfdom.
Turgenev has been working on “Acia” from July till 
November of 1857. Such a slow rate can be explained 
by writer’s illness. As Turgenev himself said, he devised 
a story aft er seeing a following scene in a German town: 
an old woman, looking from the window on the ground 
fl oor, and a head of a young girl in the window above. 
Turgenev tried to imagine the life of these people, and 
that’s how “Acia” was born.
Th e prototypes of the heroes of “Acia” are probably 
Turgenev and his illegitimate daughter Polina Bruer, 
who was exactly in the same situation as Acia: daughter 
of a nobleman and a serf, she entered the world of the 
nobility unexpectedly and felt like a stranger in it. 
Another prototype of Acia could be Turgenev’s 
illegitimate sister.
Th e novel had been translated into diff erent languages during the lifetime of Turgenev but he wasn’t 
satisfi ed with these translations, so he made his own 
translation into French.

THE LIFE AND WORKS OF IVAN TURGENEV

Lots of Turgenev’s works are reflections of his 
childhood’s thoughts, feelings, and ideas. One of the 
most impressing memories was his father’s relationship 
with princess Shakhovskaya, with whom young Ivan 
fell in love himself, and this aff ection was refl ected in 
his story called “First love” (1860). Turgenev wrote 
about this story: “I depicted a real event without any 
embroidery, I delineated my father. Lots of people 
blamed me for that, especially for the fact that I never 
kept it back. But I think there’s nothing wrong with 
that. I have nothing to conceal.”
Serfdom doesn’t exist anymore in Russia, but 
differences between social classes still take place, 
and love bumps into diff erent barriers. Th at is why 
Turgenev’s stories are still essential.

ACIA

I

At that time I was five-and-twenty, began 
N. N., — the deeds of ages long gone by1, as you 
perceive. I had only just gained my freedom and 
gone abroad, not to “fi nish my education,” as the 
phrase was in those days; I simply wanted to have 
a look at God’s world. I was young, and in good 
health and spirits, and had plenty of money. 
Troubles had not yet had time to gather about me. 
I existed without thought, did as I liked, lived like 
the lilies of the fi eld, in fact. It never occurred to 
me in those days that man is not a plant, and 
cannot go on living like one for long. Youth will 

1 Th e deeds of ages long gone by — a quotation 
from the epic fairy tale poem by Alexander Pushkin 
(1799–1837) “Ruslan and Ludmila” (1818–1820), the 
beginning of the fi rst canto.

IVAN TURGENEV

10

eat gilt gingerbread and fancy its daily bread too; 
but the time comes when you’re in want of dry 
bread even. There’s no need to go into that, 
though.
I travelled without any sort of aim, without a 
plan; I stopped wherever I liked the place, and 
went on again directly I felt a desire to see new 
faces — faces, nothing else. I was interested in 
people exclusively; I hated famous monuments 
and museums of curiosities, the very sight of a 
guide produced in me a sense of weariness and 
anger; I was almost driven crazy in the Dresden 
“Grüne-Gewölbe.”1 Nature aff ected me extremely, 
but I did not care for the so-called beauties of 
nature, extraordinary mountains, precipices, 
and waterfalls; I did not like nature to obtrude, to 
force itself upon me. But faces, living human 
faces — people’s talk, and gesture, and laughter — 
that was what was absolutely necessary to me. In 
a crowd I always had a special feeling of ease and 
comfort. I enjoyed going where others went, 
shouting when others shouted, and at the same 

1 Grüne-Gewölbe — (German Green Vault) a museum in Dresden, Germany. One of the richest treasure 
chambers in Europe.