United States or Burkina Faso ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"She isn't asleep! I bet she wants me to make an outcry and wake up the whole neighbourhood. I'm beginning to get cross, Vera! Ach, damn it all! Give me a leg up, Alyosha; I'll get in. You are a naughty girl, nothing but a regular schoolgirl. . . Give me a hoist." Puffing and panting, Laev gives him a leg up, and Kozyavkin climbs in at the window and vanishes into the darkness within. "Vera!"
What's the use of your giving me your card, sir?" "How dare you interfere with me! No! I won't have it!" "I am thirsty," thinks Laev, trying to open his eyes, and he feels somebody climb down from the window over his head. "My name is Kozyavkin! I have a cottage here. Everyone knows me." "We don't know anyone called Kozyavkin." "What are you saying? Call the elder. He knows me."
A COUNTRY village wrapped in the darkness of night. One o'clock strikes from the belfry. Two lawyers, called Kozyavkin and Laev, both in the best of spirits and a little unsteady on their legs, come out of the wood and turn towards the cottages. "Well, thank God, we've arrived," says Kozyavkin, drawing a deep breath. "Tramping four miles from the station in our condition is a feat.
Laev heaves a deep sigh, and with a hopeless gesture sits down on a stone. He is beset with a burning thirst, his eyes are closing, his head drops forward. . . . Five minutes pass, ten, twenty, and Kozyavkin is still busy among the hens. "Petya, will you be long?" "A minute. I found the portfolio, but I have lost it again." Laev lays his head on his fists, and closes his eyes.
The cries of men and fowls mingle with the barking of dogs, and the voice of Kozyavkin rises above the chaos of confused sounds: "You shut up! I'll pay. I'll show you whom you have to deal with!" Little by little the voices die down. Laev feels himself being shaken by the shoulder. . . .
"Yes I say, I feel as though my legs were dropping off, I can scarcely get along. . . . I am frightfully thirsty. . . ." "Well, here we are at home." The friends go up to one of the cottages, and stand still under the nearest window. "It's a jolly cottage," said Kozyavkin. "You will see to-morrow what views we have! There's no light in the windows.
"You've no right to say so," he hears Kozyavkin's voice. "I am a lawyer, a bachelor of laws Kozyavkin here's my visiting card." "What do I want with your card?" says someone in a husky bass. "You've disturbed all my fowls, you've smashed the eggs! Look what you've done. The turkey poults were to have come out to-day or to-morrow, and you've smashed them.
Two hens fly out of the window, and cackling at the top of their voices, flutter down the village street. "Alyosha, we've made a mistake!" says Kozyavkin in a lachrymose voice. "There are a lot of hens here. . . . I must have mistaken the house. Confound you, you are all over the place, you cursed brutes!" "Well, then, make haste and come down. Do you hear? I am dying of thirst!"
In the midst of his indignation his chin sinks into his collar, he lays his head on his portfolio, and gradually subsides. Weariness gets the upper hand and he begins to doze. "I've found the portfolio!" he hears Kozyavkin cry triumphantly. "I shall find the cape in a minute and then off we go!" Then through his sleep he hears the barking of dogs.
Word Of The Day