De Russische schrijver Ivan Sergejevitsj Toergenjev werd geboren op 9 november 1818 in Orjol, in de Oekraïne. Zie ook mijn blog van 9 november 2010 en ook alle tags voor Ivan Toergenjev op dit blog.
Uit: Fathers and sons (vertaling Richard Hare)
“The peasants have given me a lot of trouble this year,” went on Nikolai Petrovich, turning to his son. “They won’t pay their rent. What is one to do?”
“And are you satisfied with your hired laborers?”
“Yes,” said Nikolai Petrovich between his teeth. “But they’re being set against me, that’s the worst of it, and they don’t really work properly; they spoil the tools. However, they’ve managed to plough the land. We shall manage somehow–there will be enough flour to go round. Are you starting to be interested in agriculture?”
“What a pity you have no shade,” remarked Arkady, without answering the last question.
“I have had a big awning put up on the north side over the veranda,” said Nikolai Petrovich; “now we can even have dinner in the open air.”
“Won’t it be rather too like a summer villa? . . . But that’s a minor matter. What air there is here! How wonderful it smells. Really it seems to me no air in the world is so sweetly scented as here! And the sky too . . .” Arkady suddenly stopped, cast a quick look behind him and did not finish his sentence.
“Naturally,” observed Nikolai Petrovich, “you were born here, so everything is bound to strike you with a special—-“
“Really, Daddy, it makes absolutely no difference where a person is born.”
“Still—-“
“No, it makes no difference at all.”
Nikolai Petrovich glanced sideways at his son, and the carriage went on half a mile farther before their conversation was renewed.
“I forget if I wrote to you,” began Nikolai Petrovich, “that your old nurse Yegorovna has died.”
“Really? Poor old woman! And is Prokovich still alive?”
“Yes, and not changed a bit. He grumbles as much as ever. Indeed, you won’t find many changes at Maryino.”
“Have you still the same bailiff?”
“Well, I have made a change there. I decided it was better not to keep around me any freed serfs who had been house servants; at least not to entrust them with any responsible jobs.” Arkady glanced towards Pyotr. “Il est libre en effet,” said Nikolai Petrovich in an undertone, “but as you see, he’s only a valet. My new bailiff is a townsman–he seems fairly efficient. I pay him 250 rubles a year. But,” added Nikolai Petrovich, rubbing his forehead and eyebrows with his hand (which was always with him a sign of embarrassment), “I told you just now you would find no changes at Maryino, . . . That’s not quite true . . . I think it my duty to tell you in advance, though . . . .”
Ivan Toergenjev (9 november 1818 – 3 september 1883)
Toergenjev als jager. Portret door Nikolai Dmitriev-Orenburgsky, 1879