(1878-1882)
_From the Editor of the "European Messenger_"
In compliance with our request, Iván Sergyéevitch Turgénieff has given
his consent to our sharing now with the readers of our journal, without
delay, those passing comments, thoughts, images which he had noted down,
under one impression or another of current existence, during the last
five years,--those which belong to him personally, and those which
pertain to society in general. They, like many others, have not found a
place in those finished productions of the past which have already been
presented to the world, and have formed a complete collection in
themselves. From among these the author has made fifty selections.
In the letter accompanying the pages which we are now about to print, I.
S. Turgénieff says, in conclusion:
"... Let not your reader peruse these 'Poems in Prose' at one sitting;
he will probably be bored, and the book will fall from his hands. But
let him read them separately,--to-day one, to-morrow another,--and then
perchance some one of them may leave some trace behind in his soul...."
The pages have no general title; the author has written on their
wrapper: "Senilia--An Old Man's Jottings,"--but we have preferred the
words carelessly dropped by the author in the end of his letter to us,
quoted above,--"Poems in Prose"--and we print the pages under that
general title. In our opinion, it fully expresses the source from which
such comments might present themselves to the soul of an author well
known for his sensitiveness to the various questions of life, as well as
the impression which they may produce on the reader, "leaving behind in
his soul" many things. They are, in reality, poems in spite of the fact
that they are written in prose. We place them in chronological order,
beginning with the year 1878.