Liza | Page 3

and German translations of M. Turgénieff's works are
excellent. From the French versions of M. Delaveau, M. Xavier
Marmier, M. Prosper Mérimée, M. Viardot, and several others, a very
good idea may be formed by the general reader of M. Turgénieffs
merits. For my own part, I wish cordially to thank the French and the
German translators of the Dvoryanskoe Gnyezdo for the assistance their
versions rendered me while I was preparing the present translation of
that story. The German version, by M. Paul Fuchs,[A] is wonderfully
literal. The French version, by Count Sollogub and M.A. de Calonne,
which originally appeared in the Revue Contemporaine, without being
quite so close, is also very good indeed.[B]
[Footnote A: Das adelige Nest. Von I.S. Turgénieff. Aus dem
Russicher ubersetzt von Paul Fuchs. Leipzig, 1862.]
[Footnote B: Une Nichée de Gentilshommes. Paris, 1862]

I, too, have kept as closely as I possibly could to the original. Indeed,
the first draft of the translation was absolutely literal, regardless of style
or even idiom. While in that state, it was revised by the Russian friend
who assisted me in my translation of Krilofs Fables--M. Alexander
Onegine--and to his painstaking kindness I am greatly indebted for the
hope I venture to entertain that I have not "traduced" the author I have
undertaken to translate. It may be as well to state that in the few
passages in which my version differs designedly from the ordinary text
of the original, I have followed the alterations which M. Turgénieff
made with his own hand in the copy of the story on which I worked,
and the title of the story has been altered to its present form with his
consent.
I may as well observe also, that while I have inserted notes where I
thought their presence unavoidable, I have abstained as much as
possible from diverting the reader's attention from the story by
obtrusive asterisks, referring to what might seem impertinent
observations at the bottom of the page. The Russian forms of name I
have religiously preserved, even to the extent of using such a form as
Ivanich, as well as Ivanovich, when it is employed by the author.
INNER TEMPLE, June 1, 1869.

LIZA.

I.
A beautiful spring day was drawing to a close. High aloft in the clear
sky floated small rosy clouds, which seemed never to drift past, but to
be slowly absorbed into the blue depths beyond.
At an open window, in a handsome mansion situated in one of the
outlying streets of O., the chief town of the government of that name--it
was in the year 1842--there were sitting two ladies, the one about fifty
years old, the other an old woman of seventy.

The name of the first was Maria Dmitrievna Kalitine. Her husband,
who had formerly occupied the post of Provincial Procurator, and who
was well known in his day as a good man of business--a man of bilious
temperament, confident, resolute, and enterprising--had been dead ten
years. He had received a good education, and had studied at the
university, but as the family from which he sprang was a poor one, he
had early recognized the necessity of making a career for himself and
of gaining money.
Maria Dmitrievna married him for love. He was good-looking, he had
plenty of sense, and, when he liked, he could be very agreeable. Maria
Dmitrievna, whose maiden name was Pestof, lost her parents while she
was still a child. She spent several years in an Institute at Moscow, and
then went to live with her brother and one of her aunts at Pokrovskoe, a
family estate situated fifteen versts from O. Soon afterwards her brother
was called away on duty to St. Petersburgh, and, until a sudden death
put an end to his career, he kept his aunt and sister with only just
enough for them to live upon. Maria Dmitrievna inherited Pokrovskoe,
but she did not long reside there. In the second year of her marriage
with Kalitine, who had succeeded at the end of a few days in gaining
her affections, Pokrovskoe was exchanged for another estate--one of
much greater intrinsic value, but unattractive in appearance, and not
provided with a mansion. At the same time Kalitine purchased a house
in the town of O., and there he and his wife permanently established
themselves. A large garden was attached to it, extending in one
direction to the fields outside the town, "so that," Kalitine, who was by
no means an admirer of rural tranquillity, used to say, "there is no
reason why we should go dragging ourselves off into the country."
Maria Dmitrievna often secretly regretted her beautiful Pokrovskoe,
with its joyous brook, its sweeping meadows, and its verdant woods,
but she never opposed her husband in any thing, having