FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38  
39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   >>   >|  
t to pass through experiences which I would not wish a wicked Tatar to endure." "For instance?" I asked. "For instance?" repeated the engineer. He thought a minute, smiled and said: "For instance, take this example. More correctly, it is not an example, but a regular drama, with a plot and a denouement. An excellent lesson! Ah, what a lesson!" He poured out wine for himself and us, emptied his glass, stroked his broad chest with his open hands, and went on, addressing himself more to me than to the student. "It was in the year 187--, soon after the war, and when I had just left the University. I was going to the Caucasus, and on the way stopped for five days in the seaside town of N. I must tell you that I was born and grew up in that town, and so there is nothing odd in my thinking N. extraordinarily snug, cosy, and beautiful, though for a man from Petersburg or Moscow, life in it would be as dreary and comfortless as in any Tchuhloma or Kashira. With melancholy I passed by the high school where I had been a pupil; with melancholy I walked about the very familiar park, I made a melancholy attempt to get a nearer look at people I had not seen for a long time-- all with the same melancholy. "Among other things, I drove out one evening to the so-called Quarantine. It was a small mangy copse in which, at some forgotten time of plague, there really had been a quarantine station, and which was now the resort of summer visitors. It was a drive of three miles from the town along a good soft road. As one drove along one saw on the left the blue sea, on the right the unending gloomy steppe; there was plenty of air to breathe, and wide views for the eyes to rest on. The copse itself lay on the seashore. Dismissing my cabman, I went in at the familiar gates and first turned along an avenue leading to a little stone summer-house which I had been fond of in my childhood. In my opinion that round, heavy summer-house on its clumsy columns, which combined the romantic charm of an old tomb with the ungainliness of a Sobakevitch,* was the most poetical nook in the whole town. It stood at the edge above the cliff, and from it there was a splendid view of the sea. *A character in Gogol's _Dead Souls.--Translator's Note._ "I sat down on the seat, and, bending over the parapet, looked down. A path ran from the summer-house along the steep, almost overhanging cliff, between the lumps of clay and tussocks of burdock. Wher
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38  
39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

summer

 
melancholy
 

instance

 
familiar
 

lesson

 

breathe

 
evening
 

Dismissing

 

plenty

 

called


seashore

 
Quarantine
 

resort

 

visitors

 

station

 

plague

 

quarantine

 
forgotten
 

unending

 

gloomy


steppe

 

Translator

 

bending

 

splendid

 

character

 
parapet
 
tussocks
 

burdock

 
overhanging
 

looked


childhood
 

opinion

 

turned

 

avenue

 
leading
 

clumsy

 

Sobakevitch

 

poetical

 
ungainliness
 

combined


columns

 
romantic
 

cabman

 

addressing

 

stroked

 
poured
 

emptied

 
University
 

student

 

excellent