Excerpt from Ivan Turgenieff's Spring Floods, and a Lear of the Steppe Never yet had he experienced such utter weariness, morally or physically. He had spent the whole of that evening in the society of agreeable and educated people; some of the women were pretty, almost all the men were distinguished for their intellect and talents; he, himself, had spoken well, if not brilliantly; yet never had that medium vitae, already experienced by the Romans - that aversion from life - taken such strong hold of him before. Had he been some years younger, he would have wept tears of anguish, lonesomeness, and irritability, for his heart was full of bitterness. A heavy gloom encircled him like a dark autumnal night, and he could find no way out of this darkness and bitterness. The only remedy for such a gloomy state of mind was sleep, but that solace he felt was denied him. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.