Поиск по творчеству и критике
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1. The Scarlet Flower

Входимость: 1. Размер: 40кб.

Часть текста: and Sovereign Monarch King Peter the First I do declare this madhouse open for inspection!" This speech was uttered in a loud raucous voice. The hospital clerk, who was registering the patient in a big dog-eared book that lay on an ink-stained desk, could not help smiling. But the two young attendants did not laugh: after two days and sleepless 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...

2. Nadezhda Nikolayevna

Входимость: 3. Размер: 162кб.

Часть текста: 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, 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 a Mrs. Gay." "All right___" And she starts on a rambling tale about a Mr. Scripple and a Miss Gordon, and after the first two pages turns her big kind eyes upon me and says. "It isn't long; this magazine always condenses its novels." "All right. I'm...

3. The Meeting

Входимость: 1. Размер: 50кб.

Часть текста: 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 secondly, because he had a predilection for figurative thinking even when he did not give it utterance. "Yes, I shall have to labour in that humble field,"...

4. The Coward

Входимость: 2. Размер: 54кб.

Часть текста: 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 ...

5. The Reminiscences of Private Ivanov

Входимость: 1. Размер: 120кб.

Часть текста: 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 enemy, not by fear of punishment, but by that mysterious and unconscious force which, for a long time to come yet, will lead humanity on to bloody slaughter--the cardinal cause of all human ills and suffering....