Smoke and Ashes: Baden Chronicles

Set in the fashionable German spa town of Baden-Baden in the summer of 1862, 'Smoke and Ashes' follows Grigory Litvinov, a young Russian on the edge of a sensible future. He has come to meet Tatyana, the woman he is to marry; instead he finds Irina Ratmirova, the dazzling, worldly beauty who broke his heart years before, and who now holds the key to everything he once dreamed of. Around them swirls a crowd of Russian exiles, theorists, and idlers, talking endlessly and building nothing, their brilliant cities and plans evaporating like smoke. In prose that moves from romantic longing to quiet satire, Turgenev asks what a life is worth when passion and duty pull in opposite directions. This edition renders the 1867 classic in vivid, contemporary English while keeping every twist of its plot and the aching clarity of its famous final image. Part of Timeless Classics.