Smoke

Smoke is a novel written by Ivan Turgenev and first published in 1867.

Grigori Litvinov is a Russian nobleman who, while vacationing in the popular spa town of Baden-Baden, Germany, is reunited with an old love from his youth: Irina Pavlovna.

He is already engaged to another woman, Tatiana, but the appearance of the strange and seductive Irina will cause the protagonist a conflict in his harmonious life and fan the flames of his former passion.

Against the backdrop of this love story, Turgenev explores and satirizes the differences between the liberal and conservative factions of 19th-century Russian society.

A story of love, of disillusionment, of teaching, delivered by a great and magnificent pen like Turgenev's. Why do you need more reasons to read this short and great novel?

"On the 10th of August 1862, at four o'clock in the afternoon, a great number of people were thronging before the well-known Konversation in Baden-Baden. The weather was lovely; everything around—the green trees, the bright houses of the gay city, and the undulating outline of the mountains—everything was in holiday mood, basking in the rays of the kindly sunshine"

This edition of Smoke is based on Constance Garnett's translation.