Ivan Turgenev

I was all hope and anticipation, was a little frightened of something, and full of wonder at everything, and was on the tiptoe of expectation

It seemed to me I had known her a long while and had never known anything nor lived at all till I met her… .

the sunshine, streaming in through the blind, shed a soft light over her fluffy golden curls, her innocent neck, her sloping shoulders, and tender untroubled bosom.

I would gladly, I felt, have kissed every fold of that dress and apron.

I could have bowed down in adoration to those shoes… .

Nikolai Petrovitch too had left his bed, and, on going to visit Arkady, found him fully dressed; wherefore father and son proceeded to repair to the terrace, and there seated themselves under the shade of the awning.

He wandered from place to place like a man possessed; he still went into society; he still retained the habits of a man of the world; he could boast of two or three fresh conquests; but he no longer expected anything much of himself or of others, and he undertook nothing.

Where had it all vanished? She had been his wife, he had been happy as few on earth are happy. … “But,” he mused, “these sweet first moments, why could one not live an eternal, undying life in them?”

“He has fallen asleep,” she answered, hardly audibly. Bazarov was not fated to awaken. Towards evening he sank into complete unconsciousness, and the following day he died.

However passionate, sinning, and rebellious the heart hidden in the tomb, the flowers growing over it peep serenely at us with their innocent eyes; they tell us not of eternal peace alone, of that great peace of “indifferent” nature; tell us too of eternal reconciliation and of life without end.