This novel is about the homecoming of Lavretsky, who returns to his estate and finds love again only to lose it. The sense of loss and of unfulfilled promise re... » 

This novel is about the homecoming of Lavretsky, who returns to his estate and finds love again only to lose it. The sense of loss and of unfulfilled promise reflects the underlying theme that humanity is not destined to experience happiness except as something ephemeral and inevitably doomed. «