The Precipice

In the evening the house was aglow with light. Tatiana Markovna could not do enough in honour of her guest and future connexion. She had a great bed put up in the guest-chamber,...

“I was afraid to ask,” interposed Tiet Nikonich politely. “I could not help noticing, Vera Vassilievna, that you have been altered for some time; you seem to have grown thinner...

The days passed quietly by. Every morning the sun climbed up through the blue air, and lighted up the Volga and its banks. At midday the snowy clouds crept up, often piled one o...

In a _kibitka_ covered with bast, drawn by three lean and sleepy nags, Raisky drove slowly to his estate. It was not without agitation that he saw the smoke curling up from the...

For three days the impression of this Sunday morning breakfast remained with Raisky. He had been surprised by this sudden transformation of Tatiana Markovna from grandmother and...

Raisky laughed as he went out into the garden. He looked sadly at the closed shutters of the old house, and stood for a long time on the edge of the precipice, looking down thou...

Early in the morning a slight noise wakened Raisky, and he sat up to see Mark disappear through the window. He does not like the straight way, he thought, and stepped to the win...

Raisky’s patience had to suffer a hard trial in Vera’s indifference. His courage failed him, and he fell into a dull, fruitless boredom. In this idle mood he drew village scenes...

Boris Pavlovich Raisky had a vivacious, unusually mobile face. At first sight he appeared younger than his years. The high, white forehead gave an impression of freshness and vi...

On a misty autumn day, as Vera sat at work in her room, Yakob brought her a letter written on blue paper, which had been brought by a lad who had instructions to wait for an ans...

When Tatiana Markovna returned from the ferry she sat down to work at her accounts, but soon laid them aside, and dismissed the servants. She asked for Raisky, who had gone over...

After leaving Raisky, Vera listened for a while to make sure he was not following her, and then, pushing the branches of the undergrowth aside with her parasol, made her way by...

Raisky went nearly all round the town, and when he climbed the cliffs once more, he was on the extreme boundary of his estate. A steep path led down to the suburbs, and the town...

On Sunday Tatiana Markovna had guests for the second breakfast. The covers had been removed from the purple damask-covered chairs in the reception room. Yakob had rubbed the eye...

One evening a thunderstorm was brewing. The black clouds lay entrenched beyond the Volga, and the air was as hot and moist as in a bath-house. Here and there over the fields and...

Not only Raisky, but Tatiana Markovna gave up her attitude of acquiescence, and secretly began to watch Vera narrowly. Tatiana Markovna became thoughtful, she even neglected the...

When Raisky returned to his room at daybreak and looked in the mirror, he hardly recognised himself. He felt chilly, and sent Marina for a glass of wine which he drank before he...

Raisky found himself between two fires. On the one hand, Tatiana Markovna looked at him as much as to say that he probably knew what was the matter with Vera, while Vera’s despa...

Raisky and Tushin had been talking all the evening, and for the first time in their lives observed one another closely, with the result that both felt a desire for a closer acqu...

Vikentev kept his word, and on the very next day brought his mother to Tatiana Markovna, he himself taking refuge in his office, where he sat on pins and needles.

Vera rose the next morning pale and exhausted, but without any fever. She had wept out her malady on her grandmother’s breast. The doctor professed himself satisfied, and said s...

His aunt lived in a family estate which Boris had inherited from his mother--a piece of land on the Volga, close by a little town, with fifty souls and two residences, one built...

Against universal expectation, Marfinka’s wedding was a quiet one, no one being invited except a few neighbouring landowners and the important personages in the town, about fift...

Raisky lay on the grass at the top of the cliff for a long time in gloomy meditation, groaning over the penalty he must pay for his generosity, suffering alike for himself and V...

A little later Tatiana Markovna and Raisky returned to the house. Raisky and Tushin were embarrassed in one another’s presence, and found it difficult to talk naturally about th...

Boris came in on his aunt during the children’s breakfast. Tatiana Markovna clapped her hands and all but jumped from her chair; the plates were nearly shaken off the table.

The weather was gloomy. Rain fell unintermittently, the sky was enshrouded in a thick cloud of fog, and on the ground lay banks of mist. No one had ventured out all day, and the...

As the days went by Malinovka assumed its wonted calm. The quiet life which had been brought to a pause by the catastrophe, flowed evenly on. The peaceful atmosphere was not und...

In Tatiana Markovna’s house, servants, cooks and coachmen were all astir, and at a very early hour in the morning were already drunk. The mistress of the house herself was unusu...

“I thought so, and told Grandmother so, but she won’t listen and will hardly speak even to Tiet Nikonich. He is with her now and Paulina Karpovna too. Go to Grandmother, and it...

“Listen, these are all your affairs; I am only your Starost,” she said. But he could not suppress a yawn, watched the birds, the dragon-flies, picked the cornflowers, looked cur...

At ten o’clock the big bell in the village church began to sound for Mass. Tatiana Markovna’s household was full of stir and bustle. The horses were being harnessed to the calèc...

He found her in her boudoir in a stifling atmosphere of burning incense, with curtains drawn to produce a mysterious twilight. She wore a white muslin frock with wide lace sleev...

In Moscow Raisky spent his time partly in the University, partly in the Kremlin gardens. In the evening he sat in the club with his friends, hot-headed, good-hearted individuals...

Two days had passed, and Raisky had had small opportunity of seeing Vera alone, though she came to dinner and to tea, and spoke of ordinary things. Raisky turned once more to hi...

Since Vera’s departure Raisky had experienced the meaning of unmitigated solitude. He felt as if he were surrounded by a desert, now that he was deprived of the sight of her, al...

As soon as Raisky reached St. Petersburg he hurried off to find Kirilov. He felt an impulse to touch his friend to assure himself that Kirilov really stood before him, and that...