Orlóff and His Wife: Tales of the Barefoot Brigade

Almost every Saturday, just before the All-Night Vigil Service,[1] from two windows in the cellar of merchant Petúnnikoff's old and filthy house, opening on the narrow court-yar...

"And you come out with those nonsensical words of yours, you devil's doll! Use your brains--can I help drinking, if that is my only joy? Others! How many such successful folks d...

Grigóry uttered a violent oath, thrust his legs into his trousers, and dishevelled as he was, with shirt-collar unbuttoned, went toward the door. His wife clutched him by the sh...

Another doctor, an old man, with a pointed gray beard, and large, brilliant eyes, gave the Orlóffs instructions, when they reached the barracks, how to treat the patients, what...

One evening, when he and his wife were relieved from duty, they went out into the fields, after they had drunk tea. The barracks stood far away from the town, in the middle of a...

"And so I will! I wouldn't have spoken, only that reproach from you I cannot endure! I don't bear you children, don't I? And I won't! I can't any more.... I can't have any child...

When the barracks were closed the woman doctor suggested to Matréna Ivánovna that she should get a place at the school, and defend her against her husband. Both undertakings wer...

"Well, you see, sadness descends upon me. Such sadness, I must tell you, brother, that at those times I simply can't live. It's as though I were the only man on all the earth, a...

"Well, I'm a special article.... Who's to blame if I drink? Pávelka, my brother, doesn't drink,--he has a bakery of his own in Perm. But here am I--I'm as good a workman as he i...

And in this exclamation there was always more meaning and feeling than in the rhetorical figures of many poets, who go into raptures more for the sake of maintaining their reput...

"My drunken spree is coming on," he explained simply.--"I shall soon let myself loose ... that is, I shall begin to gulp down vódka.... I'm all on fire inside, already ... like...

"Maxím! Akh--curse you! My friend ... hey? And so you have broken loose from your career? You have enlisted in the barefoot brigade? Well, that's good! Now, it's truly fine! A v...

"'Day by day my life is dying out, and my old heart beats more and more feebly, and less and still ever less is there of fire in my breast. The fervent caresses of the kazák wom...

The situation of affairs was defined with entire clearness, a couple of days later, when the captain had not a kopék left out of the three-ruble or five-ruble bank-note which he...

"Speak according to the Bible--there are no such folks there. Who are we--Babylonians? Or from Edom?" The teacher launched out upon a criticism of the Bible. The old man listene...

In this statement the refusal of the street to comply with the city council's ordinance was so solidly founded that the council granted it. The street was permitted to use the r...

Mischief, in the eyes of these people, had much that was attractive about it. It was the sole weapon which fitted their hand and their strength. Each one of them had long ago re...

After that, he removed his glasses, and began slowly to wipe them, with a handkerchief which he took from his pocket. Vavíloff gazed at him with grief in his heart, and, at the...

Martyánoff fidgeted heavily about on the ground, rose, looked at the strip of light which proceeded from the door and windows of the lodging-house, waggled his head, and sat dow...

The irritated, angry editor was running to and fro in the large, light editorial office of the "N---- Gazette," crumpling in his hand a copy of the publication, spasmodically sh...

On this day, he was on the verge of being tipsy, and his resolute, pock-marked face had a good-natured, sociable expression. From his left temple his chestnut forelocks curled u...

The telegram evoked in him the memory of his sister's husband. The latter was a stout, good-natured man, fond of eating and drinking. His face was round, covered with a network...

But later on, as he explained to her the difference between botany and floriculture, he softened his verdict, and pronounced her merely ignorant. As she listened to his intellig...

He looked into her face, and nervously twisting his head, he sought for a retort which should, at one stroke, tear from her mind that coarse veil of dust which enveloped it. But...

"I think I have mentioned him to you ... Benkóvsky ... the future procurator ... and, in the meantime, a poet and dreamer.... Perhaps you have come across his verses? He prints...

But his sister rescued him from his trying situation. She had already eaten her fill, and sat there, leaning against the back of her chair. Her dark hair was arranged in antique...

They were accompanied by a loud laugh--only Várenka could laugh like that. Ippolít Sergyéevitch, sitting up in bed, threw off the sheet, and listened, smiling the while. That wh...

At the sound of his harsh voice, she glanced at his face with amazement, and began, silently and attentively, to listen to his stem, almost castigating words. And he demonstrate...

"No, evidently, one must use different words with her. These unadulterated natures are more inclined to yield their directness to metaphysics ... defending themselves against lo...

"What do I mean? Why ... it is difficult to say I think that all people would be interesting, if they were more ... lively ... yes, more lively! If they laughed, sang, played mo...

He had read, somewhere, of its having happened once: she had entered during the night, and had surrendered herself, asking nothing, demanding nothing, simply for the sake of the...

"Yes, exactly so! You're for all the world like a runaway monk, or a disfrocked priest.... But your face doesn't suit, in the face you look more like a soldier.... God knows wha...