Natasha by Alexandr Kuprin. Short summary

5 seconds

Natasha is a young girl, almost 16 years old. She is not pretty, but she attracts men. She is being wooed by a 36-year-old man who has returned from a trip to America.

1 minute

15-year-old Natasha came to the southern seaside town, where she was staying at her uncle Yegor Ivanovich Bogomolov’s dacha. She was not beautiful, but her whole body breathed with such youth and lust for life that it attracted absolutely all men. Soon a whole horde of all kinds of men began to gather at Bogomolov’s dacha house. But all of them, except the stuttering Ptitsyn, seemed rude to her. Ptitsyn stopped going to see Natasha, and all applicants for her hand and heart completely disgusted her.

One day Bogomolov was visited by his old friend Gerd, who had recently come back from America. He talked endlessly about his adventures and travels. Natasha watched him and liked him more and more. Gerd, 36, said he wanted to get married, but surely to a Russian girl.

At night he talked at length about something with the owner of the dacha. The next day the traveler told Natasha that he wanted to take her as his wife and she agreed, confessing her love for him.