THE DOG
by: Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883)
- S two in the room; my dog and
me. . . . Outside a fearful storm is howling.
-
- The dog sits in front of me, and looks me straight in the
face.
-
- And I, too, look into his face.
-
- He wants, it seems, to tell me something. He is dumb, he
is without words, he does not understand himself -- but I understand
him.
-
- I understand that at this instant there is living in him
and in me the same feeling, that there is no difference between
us. We are the same; in each of us there burns and shines the
same trembling spark.
-
- Death sweeps down, with a wave of its chill broad wing. .
. .
-
- And the end!
-
- Who then can discern what was the spark that glowed in each
of us?
-
- No! We are not beast and man that glance at one another.
. . .
-
- They are the eyes of equals, those eyes riveted on one another.
-
- And in each of these, in the beast and in the man, the same
life huddles up in fear close to the other.
"The Dog" is reprinted
from Dream Tales and Prose Poems. Ivan Turgenev. (Trans.
Constance Garnett). New York: The Macmillan Company, 1920. |
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POEMS BY IVAN TURGENEV |
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