A quiet afternoon. Good times.Sitting here holding this book with its stories dating back to 1852. Never fails to make me think of how much difference 150 years can make. Or how 150 fleeting years didn't manage to change most things.
This has to be my favourite short story yet, "Mumu" by Ivan Turgenev. I have read this story over and over, and it has never failed (to date) to push my buttons. The story of how an odd, misfit peasant/serf with a disability lived to fall in love but to never find love, found hope and then to lose it, realising that this is really a cruel, cruel world. A deaf and dumb serf, he almost basically had nothing of his own, and his circumstances caused him to watch as the woman he loved (a seamstress/maidservant) got taken away (by orders of his landowner) by a drunk, irresponsible peasant. But oh, the intensity of his love for her!! And just as he found solace in a stray dog (Mumu, as that was all he could pronounce), his beloved companion, and only best friend, everyone did all they could to take even her away.
He hid her, protected her and loved her in his uncanny way, but his master will have none of it. After being found, he promised out of his nobility and loyalty to his master to "destroy" the dog, his best friend.
Tying her to a rock, and with a silent yelp (which he could not hear) and tears streaming down his face, he drowned her.
And the poor man, desolate and dejected ran away to his home town.
For all you interested souls..!!!I get the book, you get to read it online:
http://www.online-literature.com/turgenev/1972/
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