First Love

Notes on Turgenev, Complaints, Harrassment

As a way to find some order amongst the chaos that is my own life, I’ve started revisiting the classics. One of which I’ve read recently was First Love by Ivan Turgenev, a novella about a horny teenager, Vladimir, who falls for a princess in her early twenties, Zinaida. The age gap is only one of many things keeping them apart, although I suspect if the genders were reversed, an older man would find no issue in developing a relationship with a child, but I digress. Vladimir must simultaneously contend with the enigmatic nature of young love and the hordes of neighborhood boys and men also fawning over the princess and showering her with more gifts and attention than she desires. The odds are stacked against him and (spoiler alert) he fails. Not only does he fail, but he loses to none other than his own father. However, the author seems to clearly be on the side of Vladimir as he ensures both Zinaida and the father meet untimely deaths like the star-crossed lovers they were destined to be. The perfect ending in many ways.

I find myself thinking of this story often because Turgenev has no shame in indulging in the sappier side of human nature, I dare say it’s where he thrives. His depictions of romance fit the stereotypes of the genre: verbose, cosmic, a bit obsessive. For instance, here is Vladimir’s internal dialogue as he observes Zinaida.

“I took advantage of the fact that her eyes remained lowered, to scrutinize her features, at first stealthily and then more and more boldly. Her face appeared to me even more lovely than on the previous day. Everything in it was so delicate, clever and charming. She was sitting with her back to a window which was shaded by a white blind. A sunbeam filtering through the blind shed a gentle light on her soft golden hair, on her pure throat, on her tranquil breast. I gazed at her, and how dear she already was to me, and how near. It seemed to me that I had known her for a long time, and that before her I had known nothing and had not lived. … She was wearing a dark rather worn dress with an apron. How gladly would I have caressed every fold of that apron. The tips of her shoes looked out from under her skirt. I could have knelt in adoration to those shoes.”  — Turgenev 33

The sun, the shoes, the white blind, it’s enough to make someone go get a restraining order. I love it. While on the surface it seems a bit much, the writing retains a charming quality, perhaps because of the age of the suitor himself. There’s a certain gravity surrounding declarations of love from men because we assume all men contain a tremendous propensity for violence. Fear of rejection heightens the stakes. But Vladimir isn’t a man, he’s merely a boy. A misguided one who may be learning and growing into a violent man, but a boy nonetheless. We ascribe to him a level of innocence that gives him the latitude to engage in these overt displays of affection. The aforementioned proclamation, even if nothing was changed, would have a dramatically different impact on the Princess if it came from a violent man, or perhaps a woman. Two personal examples come to mind.

Sometime last year while I was on my habitual morning coffee run an older lady stopped me in the shop and asked if I was ok. She noticed I had a gash on my leg from a tug of war tournament the previous day (I know, it’s ridiculous) and seemed genuinely concerned. I explained in vague terms what had happened, afraid that if I told the truth she would think I was lying to her or trying to make her look foolish. She expressed her condolences and was about to leave, but stuttered for a brief moment before telling me that I was a very handsome young man.

Now let’s fast forward to two weeks ago.

I was sitting on the craggy coastline with some friends, gossiping, laughing, eating lunch and talking about all the ways in which it becomes hard to build community in a pandemic. We were taking turns sharing our personal experience of moving into the city when I heard a man yell my way. I didn’t hear him at first, since he was a man, I didn’t need to wait long before he yelled even louder and more confidently “You have beautiful lips!” Our group went silent as we tried to collectively process what was happening. I don’t remember my immediate response, but I do remember the feeling of his words grinding against me. I had become more self-conscious at that moment than I wanted to. Queasy, turned off.

I think back to Vladimir mulling over this woman and I wonder how the same intention can have such contrasting outcomes. 

The first and easiest explanation is power. In First Love, the protagonist is a sixteen year old boy admiring a woman in her early twenties. This age gap upends the usual power dynamic that men have over women. Without the potential for violence or harm, the boy’s words become endearing, cute. This obvious dynamic played out in my own two scenarios as well. An older woman can hardly intimidate me the same way a man my age can. But I think chalking it up to only power would be a mistake. Because while the older woman is less intimidating than the man my age, neither posed a threat in my mind.

It’s easy to mistake sexual attraction for love and care. I think men in general are often so emotionally neglected that they are willing to take whatever intimacy they can get, whether it’s a little acknowledgement in a coffee shop, or sexually charged remarks on the coastline. So I have no doubt that the man on the beach thought he had good intentions. In his mind he was likely doing me a service, because he knows how rare it can be for others to acknowledge any part of you.

But these superficial words do very little for me. I, like so many others, want full recognition of my being, my character, and of course my body, but in ways that uplift and affirm. 

Much of Vladimir’s internal dialogue occupied the physical realm: the throat, the breast, the dress. His obsession with her could hardly be more than physical given how little he knows about the Princess at this point in time. However, the sheer detail and volume demonstrates that he’s taken a certain level of care in his observation. Given this faint outline, he’s able to construct the most vivid portrait. While his praise comes from a place of desire, it’s clear that he sees and adores every ounce of Princess Zinaida. Her presence is a gift from the gods, and he deems himself so unworthy that he would gladly languish in her shadow.

The nature of a “first love”, while highly impractical, is the most honest love we have, because our lack of experience guarantees that we haven’t yet learned the many ways to deceive and conceal our true intention. Though Vladimir is unsuccessful, and very likely will take away the wrong lessons from his first love, the thing he and the rest of us should remember is that we need to be more honest with the feelings we have for one another. Own and acknowledge your sexual desires rather than deifying or turning someone into an object of desire.