Поиск по творчеству и критике
Cлово "BREATH"
Входимость: 2. Размер: 162кб.
Входимость: 2. Размер: 50кб.
Входимость: 1. Размер: 19кб.
Входимость: 1. Размер: 17кб.
Входимость: 1. Размер: 40кб.
Входимость: 1. Размер: 12кб.
Входимость: 1. Размер: 54кб.
Примерный текст на первых найденных страницах
Входимость: 2. Размер: 162кб.
Часть текста: I have a special reason for taking up my pen. Some write their memoirs because they are of considerable historical interest; some because they wish to recapture the happy days of their youth; others for the sake of gossiping and blackening people long since dead and defending themselves against accusations long since forgotten. I have none of these reasons. I am still a young man, who has not made history nor seen it made; I have no reason to blacken people, and no reason whatever to defend myself. To recapture past happiness? It was so short-lived and the end so frightful, that the memory of it is anything but pleasant. Why then does a secret voice whisper it into my ear, why, when I wake up in the night, do familiar scenes and visions pass before me in the darkness, and why, when one pale image rises before me, do my face flame and my hands clench, and terror and rage clutch at my throat, as they did that day when I stood face to face with my mortal enemy? I cannot rid myself of these haunting memories, and an odd thought has occurred to me. Perhaps, if I put them down on paper, I shall be finished with them; perhaps they will haunt me no longer, and will let me die in peace. That is the special reason that makes me take up my pen. Perhaps someone will read this diary, perhaps not. It is immaterial to me. Therefore, I need not apologize to my future readers either for my choice of subject, which cannot have the slightest interest for people accustomed to dealing with social, if not world, problems, or for the...
Входимость: 2. Размер: 50кб.
Часть текста: steamer ("probably an Englishman," thought Vasily Petrovich) lay in the lane of moonlight hissing steam, which escaped in curling wreaths; the air wafted up from the sea had a salty tang; Vasily Petrovich, who had never seen anything like this before, feasted his eyes on the sea, the moonlight, the sailing vessels and steamers, and drew the sea air into his lungs with a zest he had never felt in his life before. He stood for a long time, revelling in these new sensations, his back turned to the city in which he had arrived only that day, and where he was to live for many a year. Behind him a motley crowd was strolling along the boulevard; he caught snatches of Russian and foreign conversation, the quiet dignified voices of the local worthies, the pretty babble of the young ladies, and the boisterous voices of the senior schoolboys clustering around two or three of them. A burst of laughter from one such group made Vasily Petrovich turn round. The gay crowd passed him; one of the youths was saying something to a young schoolgirl; his chums were noisily interrupting what was apparently a vehement apologetic speech. "Don't you believe him, Nina! He's a liar! He's making it all up!" "No, really, Nina, it isn't my fault in the least!" "Look here, Shevyrev, if you ever try to deceive me again..." the girl began with affected hauteur in a pretty young voice. Vasily Petrovich did not catch the rest of the sentence, as the crowd passed out of earshot. Half a minute later another burst of laughter came out of the darkness. "There is my future field of activity upon which I shall toil like the humble ploughman," thought Vasily Petrovich, first, because he had been appointed to the post of teacher in the local Gymnasium, and ...
Входимость: 1. Размер: 19кб.
Часть текста: pressing up against the iron frames and bending and breaking in turn. The gardeners were constantly lopping the branches and tying the leaves up with wire to curb their wild growth, but it did not help much. What the plants needed was the wide free spaces of their native habitats. They were natives of hot climes, tender, luxurious creations, who remembered their native countries and yearned for them. However transparent the glass roof might be, it was not the bright sky. Sometimes, in the winter, the panes froze over, and then it would grow quite dark in the greenhouse. The wind would howl and beat against the frames, and rattle them. Snow-drifts covered the roof. Listening to the howling of the wind, the plants would remember another wind, a warm humid wind that gave to them life and health. And they longed to feel its breath upon them again, to have it sway their branches and wanton with their leaves. But the air in the greenhouse was without a stir, except perhaps sometimes in the winter when the storm would smash a pane of glass and a cold sharp flurry, laden with hoarfrost, would find its way under the dome. In the wake of that flurry the leaves turned white, shrank, and wilted. But new panes were put in very quickly. The botanical garden was in charge of an excellent scientific director, who kept things in perfect order, although he spent most of his time with a microscope in a special glass cabin set up in the main building. Among the plants was a palm-tree, taller and more beautiful than...
Входимость: 1. Размер: 17кб.
Часть текста: bindweed and mouse-ear chickweed, which hung upon them in pale-green clusters of pale-lilac flowers scattered here and there. The prickly thistles grew to such a size on the rich moist soil (all around the flower-garden was a large shady orchard) that they looked almost like trees. The yellow moth mulleins reared their flowery spikes still higher. The nettles occupied a pretty large corner of the flower-garden; they stung, of course, but then one could admire their dark foliage from a distance, especially when it made a background for the pale beauty of the delicate rose petals. The rose blossomed one fine May morning; when it opened out its petals the fleeing morning dew left several bright teardrops upon them. It seemed as if the rose was weeping. But the world around her was so beautiful, so clear and sunny on that lovely morning when first she saw the blue sky, and felt the fresh morning breeze, and the beams of the radiant sun shone through her delicate petals with a rosy light; and it was so quiet and peaceful in the flower-garden, that if she could have wept, she would have done so, not through sadness but through the sheer joy of living. She could not speak; all she could do was to nod her dainty head and spread around her a delicate fragrance, and in that fragrance...
Входимость: 1. Размер: 40кб.
Часть текста: had been torn to shreds during his outburst of violence, was a tightly laced jacket of coarse canvas cut low at the neck; the long sleeves pinioned his crossed arms over his chest and were tied behind his back. His bloodshot dilated eyes (he had not slept for ten days) glittered with a feverish blazing light; his lower lip twitched with a nervous spasm; his curly matted hair hung over his forehead like a mane; he paced from corner to corner of the office with swift heavy strides, staring fixedly at the old file cabinets and the oilcloth-covered chairs, and throwing an occasional glance at his companions. "Take him in. The building on the right." "I know. I was here last year. We were inspecting the hospital. I know all about it, it will be difficult to deceive me," said the patient. He turned towards the door. The door-keeper opened it to let him pass through; he walked out of the office with the same swift, heavy, resolute stride, his demented head held high, and made for the mental department on the right almost at a run. His attendants were barely able to keep up with him. "Ring the bell. I can't do it, you have tied my hands." The door-keeper opened the door, and the patient and his attendants entered the hospital. It was a large stone building of old-fashioned construction. Two large halls-one a dining-room, the other a common room for the quiet inmates-a wide passage with a glass door leading into the garden, and about twenty separate rooms where the inmates lived, occupied the ground floor; on the same floor were two dark rooms, one padded, the other boarded, where the violent patients were kept, and a great gloomy room with a vaulted ceiling which was the bath-room. The upper floor was occupied by the women. A confused hum, punctuated by howls and screeches, came from there. The hospital had been built for eighty patients, but as it was the only one serving several adjacent gubernias, it accommodated up ...
Входимость: 1. Размер: 12кб.
Часть текста: Frog THE TRAVELLING FROG Once upon a time there was a frog in the bog. He sat in his mud home catching gnats and midges, and every spring he and his frog friends set up a loud croaking all together. And there he would have lived for the rest of his life-provided the stork had not eaten him, of course-but for a certain adventure that befell him. One day he was sitting on the bough of a snag that stuck out of the water, enjoying a warm drizzle. "Ah, what lovely wet weather we are having!" thought he. "Now this is life!" The rain pattered on his speckled shiny little back; the drops trickled under his belly and behind his legs, and it felt so nice, so delightful, that he all but let out a croak, but fortunately remembered that it was autumn already, and that frogs do not croak in the autumn-they had the spring to do that in-and that no self-respecting frog would be caught croaking in the autumn. And so he kept silent and basked in the rain. All of a sudden a shrill, intermittent whirring noise came from overhead. There is a...
Входимость: 1. Размер: 54кб.
Часть текста: brings a whole bloody picture to my mind. Fifty killed and a hundred maimed-and that is called insignificant! Why are we shocked when the papers report a murder involving the lives of only a few people? Why does the sight of bullet-riddled corpses strewing the battle-field horrify us less than the spectacle of a home despoiled by a murderer? Why is it that the Tiligulskaya embankment disaster, which took toll of a score or so of lives, caused a sensation throughout Russia, whereas outpost skirmishes involving "insignificant" losses of the same number of lives barely attract attention? Lvov, a medical student of my acquaintance, with whom I often have arguments about the war, told me the other day, "Well, Mr. Pacifist, we shall see how those humane convictions of yours will look in practice when you are taken into the army and made to shoot at other men." "They won't take me into the army, Vasily, because I'm enrolled in the militia." "But if the war drags on they will start drawing on the militia. Don't you worry, your turn will come, too." My heart sank. How is it that that thought had never occurred to me before? They certainly would start on the militia, for that matter. "If the war drags on" . .. yes, it probably would. In any case, if this war does not last long, another one will be started. Why not wage war? Why not perform great deeds? I believe that this war is but the prelude to future wars, from which there is no escape either for myself, my little brother or my sister's baby. My turn will come very soon. Where will your "I" be then? You protest against war with all your being, but war nevertheless will make you shoulder a rifle and go out to kill and be killed. It's impossible! I, a mild, good-natured young man, who up till now had known only his books, the lecture room, his family and a few close friends, who...