A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

 “The Singers” is a story by Ivan Turgenev, written in 1852. It opens with a description of Kolotovka, an impoverished town where a pub called the Cozy Corner is located. It is a town split in half by a ravine, populated by peasants and drunkards. On the day that the unnamed narrator of the story visits the pub, it is stiflingly hot. The narrator is an outsider in all ways: a man from a higher social class exploring a different milieu.  

The narrator is led into the Cozy Corner by two peasants, Booby and Blinker. The other patrons of the pub regard the narrator warily at first, but his acquaintance with Nicolas Ilynanych, the pub owner, puts them at ease. Nicolas Ilynanych is a cagey but diplomatic man, self-centered but also well-regarded. His wife, who is also at the pub, is shrewd and tough.

A singing competition begins between two men: “the contractor” and a Turkish man named Yashka. The contractor’s dazzling, virtuosic singing is assured and showy. He uses many trills and flourishes and sings in “a high falsetto”: “His transitions were sometimes rather daring, sometimes rather amusing; they would have given the connoisseur great pleasure” (92). The patrons of the pub are impressed, if not moved, by his performance. Booby, whom the narrator describes as impetuous and oafish, embraces the contractor and tells him that he has surely won the competition already.

There is a break in the narration, during which the narrator describes the different characters in the pub, some more fully than others, depending on how well he knows their history. The most central of these peripheral characters is a mysterious man known as the Wild Gentleman, whom everyone in the pub respects and fears. He does not fit into any one social caste, and the narrator speculates that he may have had a painfully isolating episode in his past.

The narration returns to the competition, as a Turkish man named Yashka starts to sing. Although he begins his performance haltingly, he soon loses his self-consciousness and abandons himself to his song: “Yashka was evidently overcome by ecstasy: he was no longer diffident; he gave himself up entirely to his feeling of happiness” (97). All of the patrons of the pub, even the taciturn Wild Gentleman, are moved to tears by his performance. Yashka is declared the winner.  

The narrator decides to leave the pub, so as to preserve a good memory of his time there. The weather outside remains hot and still. He goes to a nearby hayloft and takes a brief nap. When he wakes up, it is night time. The pub is a scene of squalor and disorder: Everyone is drunk and rowdy; Yashka is sitting outside with his shirt off, playing guitar.

The narrator begins his journey back home. On his way down the hill he hears a boy calling out his brother’s name—Antropka—telling him to come home. Antropka answers reluctantly, as his brother warns that “dad wants to give you a hiding” (101). Antropka is silent after this, though his brother continues to sing out his name repeatedly. The narrator hears the boy’s voice even from a nearby town.