A House of Gentlefolk

Fyodor Lavretsky comes home to his Russian estate a wounded man, having discovered his glamorous wife’s affair in Paris and left her behind. Among his relatives he meets Liza, a young woman of deep religious feeling, and the two fall into a quiet, hopeful love. A newspaper notice of his wife’s death seems to clear the way, until she reappears very much alive. Turgenev handles this reversal with restraint rather than melodrama, drawing a tender, melancholy picture of duty overriding happiness and of a whole class of cultivated Russians drifting without purpose. The novel was among his most beloved works in his own lifetime. Free to read as a PDF and EPUB edition.