Поиск по творчеству и критике
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1. The Tale of the Toad and the Rose

Входимость: 1. Размер: 17кб.

Часть текста: The wooden fence with railings fashioned in the shape of spikelets, which had once 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...

2. Nadezhda Nikolayevna

Входимость: 6. Размер: 162кб.

Часть текста: 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, reads newspapers and books to me. It grieves her to see me so indifferent to the choice of reading matter, which I leave to her. "Here is a new novel in the Vestnik Yevropy, Andrei." "Very well, dear, let's have it. . . ." "It's by...

3. Four Days

Входимость: 1. Размер: 30кб.

Часть текста: 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 been the sky. Then that went too. I have never been in such a queer position before. I am lying, I believe, on my stomach, and see nothing in front of me but a small patch of earth. A few blades of grass, an ant, its head lowered, crawling along with one of them, bits of rubbish from last year's grass--that is my whole world. And I see it with only one eye, as the other one is pressed hard up against something--no doubt the branch on which my head is resting. I am terribly uncomfortable, and want to shift my position, and simply can't understand why I am not able to do so. Time passes. I hear the chirr of grasshoppers, the hum of bees. Not a sound more. At last, with an effort, I disengage my right arm from under my body, and pushing away from the ground with both hands, I make an effort to get up on my knees. A pain, intense and swift as lightning, shoots through my whole body from knees to chest and head, and I fall back. Again darkness, a void. I wake up. Why do I see the stars shining ...

4. The Coward

Входимость: 4. Размер: 54кб.

Часть текста: 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...

5. The Reminiscences of Private Ivanov

Входимость: 7. Размер: 120кб.

Часть текста: 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 ox-waggons were already beginning to arrive; the street climbed uphill and ran into the town cemetery. The morning was cold, bleak, and drizzly, the trees in the cemetery loomed through a mist; the tops of the gravestones could be seen peeping from behind the gates and the wall. We skirted the cemetery, which we left on our right. It seemed to me to be looking at us perplexedly through the mist. "Why must you thousands go thousands of miles to die in foreign fields when you can die here, die peacefully and repose your bodies under my wooden crosses and stone slabs? Stay!" But we did not stay. Some unknown secret force drew us on, a force than which there is no stronger in human life. Each one separately would have gone home, but the entire mass went forward, actuated not by a sense of discipline, not by the realization of a just cause, not by a feeling of hatred towards an unknown...