Natalya Petrovna is bewildered by her emotions when she falls in love with the young tutor engaged to teach her son. When she realizes, however, that she has a rival in her ward, Verochka, she attempts to engineer the girl's marriage to another. Turgenev's tragic comedy is a remarkably acute study of the absurdity of romantic love and one of the great classics of Russian theater. This new translation, specially commissioned for the World's Classics series, is accompanied by a full and up-to-date editorial apparatus.