First Love 1971

In 19th-century Russia, Princess Zasekina Wanda Łuczycka and her daughter Zinaida Magdalena Zawadzka move in next door to Alexander, a 16-year-old boy whose world begins to tilt with their arrival. Alexander falls deeply in love with Zinaida, a feeling that grows even as she attracts the gaze of several men, among them Count Malewski Andrzej Hrydzewicz, Doctor Luzhin Edward Linde-Lubaszenko, and the poet Maidanov. The initial warmth from Zinaida mingles with an air of mystery, and the family dynamics around Alexander become tangled as his affections deepen.

Zinaida’s aloofness initially masks a more complex response to the young suitor. Her behavior shifts—at times she seems to reciprocate, at others she withholds—leaving Alexander caught between longing and doubt. Meanwhile, his mother disapproves of the match, concerned by the daughter of a financially troubled family, even as his father remains outwardly indifferent or perhaps supportive of the attachment. The tension between admiration and reproach shapes Alexander’s days, and the study of his infatuation begins to consume his nights as he quietly watches and hopes.

As years pass, the emotional grip intensifies. Alexander’s fixation leads him to spy on Zinaida at night, a perilous curiosity that yields a painful revelation: his father has been secretly involved with Zinaida. The discovery wounds him deeply, wounding his trust and complicating the fragile web of loyalties that has formed around him. Zinaida, in turn, toys with his feelings, manipulating them and treating him alternately as a child and as a lover, a pattern that deepens his uncertainty and heartache.

Despite the looming consequences and his mother’s suspicions, Alexander’s fixation endures. He learns that Zinaida ultimately marries Doctor Luzhin after bearing a child from the affair, a turn that reshapes the fate of everyone involved. His father’s warnings about women echo in his ears, yet they fail to dull the intensity of his longing. In the end, the hope he once held for a shared future with Zinaida is crushed when he discovers that she dies in childbirth, leaving behind a sorrowful legacy of what might have been.