FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85  
86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   >>   >|  
eady half an hour, an hour, and he was miserably sick of it: was it really possible to live here a day, a week, and even years like these people? Why, he had been sitting here, had walked about and sat down again; he could get up and look out of window and walk from corner to corner again, and then what? Sit so all the time, like a post, and think? No, that was scarcely possible. Andrey Yefimitch lay down, but at once got up, wiped the cold sweat from his brow with his sleeve and felt that his whole face smelt of smoked fish. He walked about again. "It's some misunderstanding . . ." he said, turning out the palms of his hands in perplexity. "It must be cleared up. There is a misunderstanding." Meanwhile Ivan Dmitritch woke up; he sat up and propped his cheeks on his fists. He spat. Then he glanced lazily at the doctor, and apparently for the first minute did not understand; but soon his sleepy face grew malicious and mocking. "Aha! so they have put you in here, too, old fellow?" he said in a voice husky from sleepiness, screwing up one eye. "Very glad to see you. You sucked the blood of others, and now they will suck yours. Excellent!" "It's a misunderstanding . . ." Andrey Yefimitch brought out, frightened by Ivan Dmitritch's words; he shrugged his shoulders and repeated: "It's some misunderstanding." Ivan Dmitritch spat again and lay down. "Cursed life," he grumbled, "and what's bitter and insulting, this life will not end in compensation for our sufferings, it will not end with apotheosis as it would in an opera, but with death; peasants will come and drag one's dead body by the arms and the legs to the cellar. Ugh! Well, it does not matter. . . . We shall have our good time in the other world. . . . I shall come here as a ghost from the other world and frighten these reptiles. I'll turn their hair grey." Moiseika returned, and, seeing the doctor, held out his hand. "Give me one little kopeck," he said. XVIII Andrey Yefimitch walked away to the window and looked out into the open country. It was getting dark, and on the horizon to the right a cold crimson moon was mounting upwards. Not far from the hospital fence, not much more than two hundred yards away, stood a tall white house shut in by a stone wall. This was the prison. "So this is real life," thought Andrey Yefimitch, and he felt frightened. The moon and the prison, and the nails on the fence, and the far-away flames at the bon
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85  
86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Andrey

 
misunderstanding
 

Yefimitch

 

Dmitritch

 

walked

 

prison

 
frightened
 
doctor
 

window

 
corner

frighten

 

reptiles

 

returned

 

Moiseika

 

matter

 

peasants

 

sufferings

 

apotheosis

 
cellar
 

hundred


flames

 

thought

 

country

 

looked

 
kopeck
 

horizon

 
hospital
 

upwards

 

mounting

 
crimson

miserably

 

people

 

propped

 

cheeks

 

cleared

 

Meanwhile

 
glanced
 

minute

 

lazily

 

apparently


scarcely

 

smoked

 

sleeve

 

perplexity

 
turning
 
understand
 

Excellent

 

brought

 
sucked
 

grumbled