A review by lindalindilindum
First Love by Ivan Turgenev

4.0

‘I had no first love,’ he said at last; ‘I began with the second.’ It seemed to me I had known her a long while and had never known anything nor lived at all till I met her…“

Was ich an der russische. Literatur am meisten Liebe, ist wie autobiografisch sie ist. Turgenev erzählt von seiner ersten jungen Liebe - Obsession trifft es vielleicht besser und wie die Dinge nun mal ihren Lauf nehmen. 

„I got up in the morning with a headache. My emotion of the previous day had vanished. It was replaced by a dreary sense of blankness and a sort of sadness I had not known till then, as though something had died in me“

Zugegebenermaßen hat sich First Love von der klassischen Russischen Form distanziert und fühlt sich westlicher an. 

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?

Es wirkt wie ein Shakespearian Akt eines Jungen Tölpels der in einem Gefühlssturm gefangen ist und letztlich erwacht. Nicht nur sein crush entwickelt sich. Auch seine Beziehung zu seinem Vater 

Sometimes he was in high spirits, and then he was ready to romp and frolic with me, like a boy; once – it never happened a second time – he caressed me with such tenderness that I almost shed tears…. But high spirits and tenderness alike vanished completely, and what had passed between us, gave me nothing to build on for the future – it was as though I had dreamed it all.

Er durchläuft so viele Gefühle dass ich meinte es seien meine. Turgenevs Prosa lädt dazu ein, mit ihm zu fühlen und lässt die Selbstreflektion erst am Ende zu.

I had grown much older during the last month; and my love, with all its transports and sufferings, struck me as something small and childish and pitiful beside this other unimagined something, which I could hardly fully grasp, and which frightened me like an unknown, beautiful, but menacing face, which one strives in vain to make out clearly in the half-darkness….

I, now…what did I hope for, what did I expect, what rich future did I foresee, when the phantom of my first love, rising up for an instant, barely called forth one sigh, one mournful sentiment?

And what has come to pass of all I hoped for? And now, when the shades of evening begin to steal over my life, what have I left fresher, more precious, than the moments of the storm – so soon over – of early morning, of spring?