A Month in the Country (Nicolaeff)
by Ivan Turgenev, Ariadne Nicolaeff

THE STORY: The place is the country estate of the Islayevs, a wealth Russian family, the time the middle of the nineteenth century.

It is summer, and the lives of the family and their entourage reflect the bored indolence so characteristic of the aristocracy of the time.

However conflict arises when Natalya, the lady of the house, conceives an infatuation for Belyayev, her young son's tutor, and finds herself in competition with her ward, Vera, who is also smitten with the engaging, if ingenuous, young man.

Moved by her emotions, but fearful of compromising her position, Natalya nevertheless manages to upset the others in the household: her husband; her mother-in-law; her lovelorn admirer, Rakitin; and her ward.

Only the village doctor, a self-made man whose cynical observations provide a telling counterpoint to the actions of the others, seems to be removed from their problems.

In the end, of course, the crisis ebbs, the tutor departs, tangled relationships are sorted out, and lives resume the gentle ease from which they had been stirred by this brief and unlikely flicker of passion.