The Project Gutenberg EBook of On the Eve, by Ivan Turgenev

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Title: On the Eve

Author: Ivan Turgenev

Commentator: Edward Garnett

Translator: Constance Garnett

Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6902]
Posting Date: April 22, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE EVE ***

Produced by Eric Eldred

ON THE EVE

A Novel

By Ivan Turgenev

Translated from the Russian By Constance Garnett

[With an introduction by Edward Garnett]

London: William Heinemann 1895

INTRODUCTION

This exquisite novel, first published in 1859, like so many great works
of art, holds depths of meaning which at first sight lie veiled under
the simplicity and harmony of the technique. To the English reader _On
the Eve_ is a charmingly drawn picture of a quiet Russian household,
with a delicate analysis of a young girl's soul; but to Russians it is
also a deep and penetrating diagnosis of the destinies of the Russia of
the fifties.

Elena, the Russian girl, is the central figure of the novel. In
comparing her with Turgenev's other women, the reader will remark that
he is allowed to come into closer spiritual contact with her than even
with Lisa. The successful portraits of women drawn by men in fiction are
generally figures for the imagination to play on; however much that is
told to one about them, the secret springs of their character are left
a little obscure, but when Elena stands before us we know all the
innermost secrets of her character. Her strength of will, her serious,
courageous, proud soul, her capacity for passion, all the play of her
delicate idealistic nature troubled by the contradictions, aspirations,
and unhappiness that the dawn of love brings to her, all this is
conveyed to us by the simplest and the most consummate art. The diary
(chapter xvi.) that Elena keeps is in itself a masterly revelation of
a young girl's heart; it has never been equalled by any other novelist.
How exquisitely Turgenev reveals his characters may be seen by an
examination of the parts Shubin the artist, and Bersenyev the student,
play towards Elena. Both young men are in love with h