Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume XII).djvu/23

 We were a party of six, gathered together one winter evening at the house of an old college friend. The conversation turned on Shake-speare, on his types, and how profoundly and truly they were taken from the very heart of humanity. We admired particularly their truth to life, their actuality. Each of us spoke of the Hamlets, the Othellos, the Falstaffs, even the Richard the Thirds and Macbeths — the two last only potentially, it is true, resembling their prototypes — whom he had happened to come across.

‘And I, gentlemen,’ cried our host, a man well past middle age, ‘used to know a King Lear !’

‘How was that?’ we questioned him.

‘Oh, would you like me to tell you about him?’

‘Please do.’

And our friend promptly began his narrative.