A Serendipitous Error, an early novella of 1839, written when Goncharov
was still in his twenties, is accompanied here by 'Two Incidents at
Sea', a story penned almost twenty years later and based on two
dangerous scrapes the author survived during his recent voyage on the
frigate Pallada. Taken together, these two stories - translated for the
first time into English by Stephen Pearl - are further proof of the
eclectic narrative skills of the celebrated author of Oblomov.
It is a winter evening, and Yegor Aduyev, the scion of a wealthy family
from the landed gentry, slips into the house of Baron Neilein with the
intention of asking his beautiful daughter, the eighteen-year-old
Yelena, to be his wife. Will the besotted lover be successful in his
pursuit or will the young coquette - who seems at times to reciprocate
his feelings, but who lavished lingering looks on two dashing princes
during a recent ball - shatter his hopes, his dreams and his entire
world?