Necessitas--Vis--Libertas

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Title:     Necessitas--Vis--Libertas
Author: Ivan Turgenev [More Titles by Turgenev]

Translated From The Russian
By Isabel Hapgood

A BAS-RELIEF

A tall, bony old woman with an iron face and a dull, impassive gaze is walking along with great strides, and pushing before her, with her hand as harsh as a stick, another woman.

This woman, of vast size, powerful, corpulent, with the muscles of a Hercules, and a tiny head on a bull-like neck-and blind--is pushing on in her turn a small, thin young girl.

This girl alone has eyes which see; she resists, turns backward, elevates her thin red arms; her animated countenance expresses impatience and hardihood.... She does not wish to obey, she does not wish to advance in the direction whither she is being impelled ... and, nevertheless, she must obey and advance.

_Necessitas--Vis--Libertas_:

Whoever likes may interpret this.

May, 1878.

[The end]
Ivan Turgenev's poem: Necessitas--Vis--Libertas

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