Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories

Tchulkaturin, a guy who has learned that he has two weeks left to live, is the person we encounter at Sheep's Springs. He alternates between sharing the events of his life, upbringing, relationships with his family, and experiences, but he believes these activities are just unrelated to where he is right now. Yegor's final cow passed away the night before, and he says of the guy, "That man understands how to bear in quiet," in 1058. If one were to do the arithmetic, that would be everyone suffering in the world. Asanov's letters are given to our narrator by his buddy Pasinkov, who discovers that they are from the same female who has expressed interest in him. When he broaches the subject with her, he discovers that he has been despised and stumbles off pitifully. With Turgenev's justification that "the man who leaves a woman at that great and bitter moment when he is forced to recognize that his heart is not entirely, not fully, hers, has a truer and deeper comprehension of the sacredness of love," Kosolov ultimately succeeds in his claim to be a remarkable man (2070). This is a correspondence between Marya Alexandrovna and Alexy Petrovitch. 15 letters were sent over around two years, in which each party confides and fears the other.