Ivan Sergejevič Turgenev

First love

maia

Oh, gentle feelings, soft sounds, the goodness and the gradual stilling of a soul that has been moved; the melting happiness of the first tender, touching joys of love - where are you? Where are you?

Angelica Garcia

My blood was in a ferment within me, my heart was full of longing, Sweetly and foolishly; I was all expectancy and wonder; I was tremulous and waiting;

On the morning of the very day on which he had the stroke, he had beguna letter to me, written in French. 'My son' he wrote, 'beware of the love of women; beware of that ecstasy - that slow poison.'

And here am I...what did I hope - what did I expect? What rich promise did the future seem to hold out to me, when with scarcely a sigh - only a bleak sense of utter desolation - I took my leave from the brief phantom, risen fora fleeting instant, of my first love?

What has come of it all - of all that I had hoped for? And now when the shades of evening are beginning to close in upon my life, what have I left that is fresher, dearer to me, than the memories of that brief storm that came and went so swiftly one morning in the spring?

kite

"I sat still, hardly looking round and not moving, drew slow breaths, and only from time to time laughed silently at some recollection, or turned cold within at the thought that I was in love, that this was she, that this was love. Zinaïda's face floated slowly before me in the darkness ⎯ floated, and did not float away; her lips still wore the same enigmatic smile, her eyes watched, a little from one side, with a questioning, dreamy, tender look... as at the instant of parting from her."

"But it too, this image, seemed more tranquil: like a swan rising out of the reeds of a bog, it stood out from the other unbeautiful figures surrounding it, and as I fell asleep, I flung myself before it in farewell, trusting adoration."

"Oh, sweet emotions, gentle harmony, goodness and peace of the softened heart, melting bliss of the first raptures of love, where are they, where are they?"

"It turned to a sweet ache in all my limbs and found expression at last in joyful hops and skips and shouts. Yes, I was still a child."

First love quotes

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