The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
page 192 of 235 (81%)
page 192 of 235 (81%)
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I don't know whether it sounds true or not, but I know that all I have told is the absolute and literal truth. However, I gave myself up all that day to a feverish gaiety, assured myself that I simply did not deserve such happiness; but next morning.... A wonderful thing is sleep! It not only renews one's body: in a way it renews one's soul, restoring it to primaeval simplicity and naturalness. In the course of the day you succeed in _tuning_ yourself, in soaking yourself in falsity, in false ideas ... sleep with its cool wave washes away all such pitiful trashiness; and on waking up, at least for the first few instants, you are capable of understanding and loving truth. I waked up, and, reflecting on the previous day, I felt a certain discomfort.... I was, as it were, ashamed of all my own actions. With instinctive uneasiness I thought of the visit to be made that day, of my interview with Ivan Semyonitch.... This uneasiness was acute and distressing; it was like the uneasiness of the hare who hears the barking of the dogs and is bound at last to run out of his native forest into the open country...and there the sharp teeth of the harriers are awaiting him.... 'Why was I in such a hurry?' I repeated, just as I had the day before, but in quite a different sense. I remember the fearful difference between yesterday and to-day struck myself; for the first time it occurred to me that in human life there lie hid secrets--strange secrets.... With childish perplexity I gazed into this new, not fantastic, real world. By the word 'real' many people understand 'trivial.' Perhaps it sometimes is so; but I must own that the first appearance of _reality_ before me shook me profoundly, scared me, impressed me.... What fine-sounding phrases all about love that didn't come off, to use |
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