'mute and secret fires'

I rose, went to the window, and stood there till morning . . . the lightning did not cease for an instant. It was what the peasants call a Sparrow Night. I looked at the silent, sandy stretch, at the dark mass of the Neskootchny Gardens, at the yellowish façades of distant buildings which seemed to quiver too, with each faint flash. I gazed, and could not tear myself away. This silent lightning, this controlled light, seemed to answer to the mute and secret fires which were blazing within me. Morning began to dawn. The sky was stained crimson. As the sun rose, the lightning became fainter and less frequent; the flashes came more and more seldom, and finally ceased, drowned in the clear and unambiguous light of the rising day. And the flashes within me died down too. I felt weary and at peace, but the image of Zinaida still hovered triumphant over my soul, though even this image seemed more tranquil. Like a swan rising from the grasses of the marsh, it stood out from the unlovely shapes which surrounded it, and I, as I fell asleep, in parting for the last time clung to it, in trusting adoration.

Oh, gentle feelings, soft sounds, the goodness and the gradual stilling of a soul that has been moved; the melting happiness of the first tender, touching joys of love—where are you? Where are you?

—Ivan Turgenev, First Love (1860, trans. I. Berlin 1950)