Ivan Turgenev: Rudin (Russian Edition)

Into a provincial country estate comes Rudin, who impresses everyone by his idealism, his eloquence and his intelligence; the young and impressionable daughter of the house predictably falls in love with him but, as time progresses, Rudin appears not quite so admirable as he previously had done, and by the time he leaves, under something of a cloud, general opinion has turned against him. As an epilogue, we see him again many years later still idealistic, still eloquent, and still ineffectual; but now, he is sadly aware of his own failure, though unable to account for it.