United States or Mali ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


My eyes had begun to get used to the darkness and I could make out Semyon Matveitch's face. It was smiling, that old face, and he was walking to and fro with little steps, fidgeting restlessly before me.... 'Well, what do you say, he asked at last, 'does my offer please you? 'Offer?... I repeated unconsciously,... I simply did not understand a word.

I felt neither fear nor despair, but a sort of senseless amazement... A captured bird, I suppose, is numb like that in the claws of the kite... and Semyon Matveitch's hand, which still held me as fast, crushed me like some wild, ferocious claw.... 'Aha! he repeated; 'aha! So this is how it is... so it's come to this... Ah, wait a bit!

Leur fondateur, l'instigateur de cette secte, ce La Reveillere Lepeaux etait un bonnet rouge! 'Non, non, said Ivan Matveitch, smiling and rolling together a pinch of snuff: 'des fleurs, des jeunes vierges, le culte de la Nature... ils out eu du bon, ils out eu du bon!...I was always surprised at the extent of Ivan Matveitch's knowledge, and at the uselessness of his knowledge to himself.

Ratsch who waked me, and ran with me to the big house, to Ivan Matveitch's bedroom.... But I found not even the last dying gestures, which had left such a vivid impression on my memory at my mother's bedside.

Rapid, too, was the change in my position, that is to say in the position in which I had been placed for a few days against my own will.... No sort of will was found among Ivan Matveitch's papers, not a line written for my benefit. At once every one seemed in haste to avoid me.... I am not speaking of Mr.

I bade him announce me; the footman hurried away and returned at once. 'Walk in, he said; 'you are begged to go in. I went into Kirilla Matveitch's study.... The rest to-morrow. March 30. Frost. And so I went into Kirilla Matveitch's study.

The very first day of his arrival he ordered a service with holy water, and sprinkled everything with water, all the rooms in the house, even the lofts and the cellars, in order, as he put it, 'radically to expel the Voltairean and Jacobin spirit. In the first week several of Ivan Matveitch's favourites were sent to the right-about, one was even banished to a settlement, corporal punishment was inflicted on others; the old valet he was a Turk, knew French, and had been given to Ivan Matveitch by the late field-marshal Kamensky received his freedom, indeed, but with it a command to be gone within twenty-four hours, 'as an example to others. Semyon Matveitch turned out to be a harsh master; many probably regretted the late owner.

Ratsch had carefully studied Semyon Matveitch's character; his calculations did not lead him astray. 'This man's devotion to me admits of no doubt, for the very reason that after I am gone he will be ruined; my heir cannot endure him.... This idea grew and strengthened in the old man's head.

In face Semyon Matveitch was like his brother, only he was shorter and stouter, and had a round bald head, bright black eyes, like Ivan Matveitch's, only more prominent, and full red lips.

Ivan Matveitch usually sat in a large low chair; on the wall behind his head hung a picture, representing a young woman, with a bright and bold expression of face, dressed in a sumptuous Hebrew costume, and simply covered with precious stones, with diamonds.... I often stole a glance at this picture, but only later on I learned that it was the portrait of my mother, painted by her father at Ivan Matveitch's request.