First Love

Vladimir Petrovich Voldemar a 16-year-old is staying in the country with his family and meets Zinaida Alexandrovna Zasyekina a beautiful 21-year-old woman staying with her mother Princess Zasyekina in a wing of the manor. This family as with many of the Russian minor nobility with royal ties of that time were only afforded a degree of respectability because of their titles; the Zasyekins in the case of this story are a very poor family. The young Vladimir falls irretrievably in love with Zinaida who has a set of several other (socially more eligible) suitors whom he joins in their difficult and often fruitless search for the young ladys favour.