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Входимость: 8. Размер: 120кб.

Часть текста: THE REMINISCENCES OF PRIVATE IVANOV I I arrived in Kishinev on the fourth of May eighteen hundred and seventy-seven, and within half an hour learned that the 56th Infantry Division was passing through the town. As I had come with the intention of joining some regiment and going to the war, the seventh of May already found me standing in the street at four o'clock in the morning among the grey ranks lined up outside the billet of the colonel of the 222nd Starobelsky Infantry Regiment. I had on a greatcoat with red shoulder-straps and blue tabs, and a cap with a blue band; across my back was a pack, at my belt a cartridge pouch, in my hand a heavy rifle. The band struck up, and the colours were carried out of the colonel's lodgings. A command rang out; the regiment noiselessly presented arms. Then a terrific uproar arose: the colonel shouted a command, and this was taken up by the battalion and company commanders and the platoon NCO's. The result was a confused and to me quite unintelligible movement of greatcoats, which ended in the regiment stretching out in a long column and swinging off to the sounds of the regimental band, which blared out a gay march. I marched along, too, trying to keep in step with my neighbour. The pack pulled backwards, the heavy pouches forwards, the rifle kept slipping off my shoulder, and the collar of the greatcoat chafed my neck; but despite all these little discomforts, the music, the orderly heavy movement of the column, the fresh early morning air, and the sight of the bristling bayonets and grim suntanned faces attuned one's soul to a calm and steadfast mood. Despite the early hour people stood about in crowds outside the houses, and half-dressed figures looked out of the windows. We marched down a long straight street, past the market-place, where the Moldavians on their...

Входимость: 3. Размер: 162кб.

Часть текста: 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 form in which my writings are set forth. True, I should like these lines to be read by one person, but that person will not blame me. Everything that has to do with me is dear to her. That person is my cousin. What is keeping her so long today? It is three months now since I came to myself after that day. The first face that I saw was Sonya's. Ever since then she has been spending every evening with me. It has become with her a kind of service. She sits at my bedside or near the great easy chair when I feel strong enough to sit in it, and talks to me,...

Входимость: 3. Размер: 17кб.

Часть текста: been painted green, had cracked and crumbled, and the paint had all peeled off; the railings had been pulled out by the village boys to play soldiers with, and by peasants coming to the house, who used them to fight off the angry mongrel and the other dogs who kept him company. But the flower-garden was none the worse for this damage. The remains of the fence were entwined with hops, large white-flowered 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 was her speech, her tears, and her prayer. Meanwhile, between the roots of the bush on the damp ground below-as if clinging to it on his flat stomach-sat a fairly fat old toad, who, after having hunted worms and midges all night, had sat...

Входимость: 3. Размер: 54кб.

Часть текста: Our soldiers are still the same splendid soldiers they always have been, but the enemy, it seems, is by no means as weak as we had thought him to be. It is now four months since war was declared, and still we have not gained any decisive victory. Yet every day carries off hundreds of lives. I do not know whether it is because my nerves are like that, but the casualty lists affect me much more strongly than they do those around me. A man calmly reads: "Casualties on our side insignificant, such and such officers wounded, among the lower ranks 50 men killed, 100 wounded," and is glad that they are so few, but when I read such a report it immediately 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...

Входимость: 2. Размер: 24кб.

Часть текста: on the other, and there had been a steady cross-fire from morning till evening. Semyon's officer was there too; three times a day Semyon brought him his meals and a boiling samovar from the regimental kitchen in the ravine. He carried the samovar through a clearing, and the bullets whizzed around him and smacked against the rocks. Semyon was terrified, and sometimes he cried, but he kept straight on. The officers were pleased with him, because they always had hot tea. He came home from the war unharmed, but his legs and arms began to ache. He fell on evil days. Coming home, he found that his old father had died; his four-year-old son had died, too, from some throat trouble. Semyon was left all alone in the world with his wife. They could not work the farm; ploughing the land with rheumatic arms and legs was no easy task. Life in their home village became unbearable, and so they set out to seek their fortune in other places. They tried their luck on the border, in Kherson, and in the Don, but without success. Then the wife went into domestic service, while Semyon continued to wander about. Once he happened to ride on an engine, and at one of the stations the face of the station-master seemed familiar to him. Semyon looked at the station-master, and the station-master looked at Semyon, and they recognized each other. He had been an officer in their regiment. "You are Ivanov?" he said. ; "Yessir."...

Входимость: 2. Размер: 40кб.

Часть текста: nights spent alone with the madman, whom they had just brought down by railway, they could barely stand on their feet. At the last station but one he had become so violent that he had had to be put in a strait jacket, for which purpose the assistance of the guards and a policeman had had to be resorted to. Thus bound he was brought to town and delivered at the hospital. He looked ghastly. Over his grey garment, which 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...

Входимость: 2. Размер: 30кб.

Часть текста: first saw him. . . . He was a huge fat Turk, but I went straight for him, weak and thin though I was. There was a report, and something flew past me, something enormous, it seemed to me; there was a ringing in my ears. "He is shooting at me," came the thought. With a scream of terror he recoiled against a thick hawthorn bush. He could have gone round it, but in his fear he did not know what he was doing and flung himself upon the prickly branches. I struck out, and knocked the rifle out of his hands, then struck again and felt my bayonet sinking into something soft. There was a queer sound, something between a snarl and a groan. Then I ran on. Our men were shouting "hurrah!", dropping, shooting. I remember firing several shots after I had come out of the woods into a clearing. Suddenly the cheers sounded louder and we all moved forward again. I should have said "our men" instead of "we," because I was left behind. I thought it rather odd. Still more odd was it when all of a sudden everything disappeared, and all the shouting and the shooting were silenced. I heard nothing, and saw only a patch of blue; it must have ...

Входимость: 1. Размер: 19кб.

Часть текста: thick transparent glass one could see the imprisoned plants. Vast though the greenhouse was, they were cramped in it. The tangled roots fought one another for moisture and nutrition. The branches of the trees were entwined with the huge leaves of the palms, which they bent and broke, themselves 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 ...

Входимость: 1. Размер: 12кб.

Часть текста: rain. All of a sudden a shrill, intermittent whirring noise came from overhead. There is a breed of ducks whose wings, when they fly, cleave the air with a sound as if they were singing, or rather whistling. Whew-whew-whew-whew-goes the air when a flock of such ducks flies high above you, so high that you cannot even see them. On this occasion the ducks described an immense semicircle and alighted on the very bog in which our frog lived. "Kra, kra!" one of them said. "We have a long way to fly yet, and must have something to eat." The frog hid himself at once. Although he knew that the ducks would not eat such a big fat frog as he was, he dived under the snag just in case. On second thoughts, he decided to poke his head out of the water-so curious was he to know where the ducks were flying to. "Kra, kra!" said another duck. "It's getting cold! We must hurry south, and be quick about it!" And all the other ducks began quacking their approval. "I beg your pardon, ladies and gentlemen," the frog said, plucking up courage, "but can you tell me-what is this south you are flying to?" All the ducks crowded round the frog. At first they wanted to eat him, but then every duck thought to itself that the frog was too big and would not go down its throat Then they all began gabbling together and flapping their wings. "Oh, it's good down south! It's warm there now! There are such warm lovely swamps there! And the worms! It's wonderful down south!" They gabbled so loud that they almost deafened the frog. It was all he could do to silence them. Then he asked one of them, who looked fatter and cleverer...

Поиск по творчеству и критикеCлово "KEPT"

Поиск по творчеству и критике
Cлово "KEPT"