Поиск по творчеству и критике
Cлово "RESTED"
Входимость: 3. Размер: 120кб.
Входимость: 2. Размер: 162кб.
Входимость: 1. Размер: 19кб.
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Входимость: 3. Размер: 120кб.
Часть текста: 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...
Входимость: 2. Размер: 162кб.
Часть текста: 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 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...
Входимость: 1. Размер: 19кб.
Часть текста: 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 any of the others. The director who sat in his cabin called it by the Latin name Attalea. But that was not its real name: the botanists had made it up. The botanists did not know its native name, and it was not written in lampblack on the white little board that was nailed to the trunk of the palm-tree. One day a traveller from the warm land which the palm-tree had grown up in visited the botanical garden, and when he saw the tree he smiled, because it reminded him of home. "Ah," he said, "I know that tree." And he called it by its native name. "Excuse ...