Necessitas - Vis - Libertas! A Bas-Relief

A tall, bony old woman, with iron face and dull, fixed look, moves with long strides, and, with an arm dry as a stick, pushes before her another woman.

This woman - of huge stature, powerful, thick-set, with the muscles of a Hercules, with a tiny head set on a bull neck, and blind - in her turn pushes before her a small, thin girl.

This girl alone has eyes that see; she resists, turns round, lifts fair, delicate hands; her face, full of life, shows impatience and daring.... She wants not to obey, she wants not to go, where they are driving her ... but, still, she has to yield and go.

Necessitas - Vis - Libertas!

Who will, may translate.

May 1878.

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His novel 'Fathers and Sons' is regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century fiction. Turgenev's work is often considered a reflection of the social and political atmosphere of his time, marked by his opposition to serfdom and his advocacy of liberal reforms. He spent much of his later life in Western Europe and was a contemporary of fellow Russian literary figures Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

The Monk

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, Simple Poetry

The Last Meeting

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, Simple Poetry

Masha

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, Simple Poetry

The Nymphs

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, Simple Poetry

English

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The Old Woman

I was walking over a wide plain alone.

And suddenly I fancied light, cautious footsteps behind my back.... Some one was walking after me.

I looked round, and saw a little, bent old woman, all muffled up in grey rags. The face of the old woman alone peeped out from them; a yellow, wrinkled, sharp-nosed, toothless face.

I went up to her.... She stopped.

'Who are you? What do you want? Are you a beggar? Do you seek alms?'

The old woman did not answer. I bent down to her, and noticed that both her eyes were covered with a half-transparent membrane or skin, such as is seen in some birds; they protect their eyes with it from dazzling light.

But in the old woman, the membrane did not move nor uncover the eyes ... from which I concluded she was blind.

'Do you want alms?'...

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

Nature

I dreamed I had come into an immense underground temple with lofty arched roof. It was filled with a sort of underground uniform light.

In the very middle of the temple sat a majestic woman in a flowing robe of green colour. Her head propped on her hand, she seemed buried in deep thought.

At once I was aware that this woman was Nature herself; and a thrill of reverent awe sent an instantaneous shiver through my inmost soul.

I approached the sitting figure, and making a respectful bow, 'O common Mother of us all!' I cried, 'of what is thy meditation? Is it of the future destinies of man thou ponderest? or how he may attain the highest possible perfection and happiness?'

The woman slowly turned upon me her dark menacing eyes. Her lips moved, and I heard a ringing voice like the clang of iron.

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

N.N.

Calmly and gracefully thou movest along the path of life, tearless and smileless, and scarce a heedless glance of indifferent attention ruffles thy calm.

Thou art good and wise ... and all things are remote from thee, and of no one hast thou need.

Thou art fair, and no one can say, whether thou prizest thy beauty or not.
No sympathy hast thou to give; none dost thou desire.

Thy glance is deep, and no thought is in it; in that clear depth is emptiness.

So in the Elysian field, to the solemn strains of Gluck's melodies, move without grief or bliss the graceful shades.

November 1879.

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

Work.

Yet life is not a vision nor a prayer,
    But stubborn work; she may not shun her task.
After the first compassion, none will spare
    Her portion and her work achieved, to ask.
She pleads for respite, - she will come ere long
When, resting by the roadside, she is strong.


Nay, for the hurrying throng of passers-by
    Will crush her with their onward-rolling stream.
Much must be done before the brief light die;
    She may not loiter, rapt in the vain dream.
With unused trembling hands, and faltering feet,
She staggers forth, her lot assigned to meet.


But when she fills her days with duties done,
    Strange vigor comes, she is restored to health.
New aims, new interests rise with each new sun,
    And life still holds for her unbounded we...

Emma Lazarus

To The Memory Of U. P. Vrevsky

On dirt, on stinking wet straw under the shelter of a tumble-down barn, turned in haste into a camp hospital, in a ruined Bulgarian village, for over a fortnight she lay dying of typhus.

She was unconscious, and not one doctor even looked at her; the sick soldiers, whom she had tended as long as she could keep on her legs, in their turn got up from their pestilent litters to lift a few drops of water in the hollow of a broken pot to her parched lips.

She was young and beautiful; the great world knew her; even the highest dignitaries had been interested in her. Ladies had envied her, men had paid her court ... two or three had loved her secretly and truly. Life had smiled on her; but there are smiles that are worse than tears.

A soft, tender heart ... and such force, such eagerness for sacrifice! To help th...

Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

Envy And Avarice.

("L'Avarice et l'Envie.")

[LE CONSERVATEUR LIITÉRAIRE, 1820.]


Envy and Avarice, one summer day,
Sauntering abroad
In quest of the abode
Of some poor wretch or fool who lived that way -
You - or myself, perhaps - I cannot say -
Along the road, scarce heeding where it tended,
Their way in sullen, sulky silence wended;

For, though twin sisters, these two charming creatures,
Rivals in hideousness of form and features,
Wasted no love between them as they went.
Pale Avarice,
With gloating eyes,
And back and shoulders almost double bent,
Was hugging close that fatal box
For which she's ever on the watch
Some glance to catch
Suspiciously directed to its locks;
And Envy, too, no doubt with silent winking
At her green, ...

Victor-Marie Hugo