Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 2, 2025
"Life," Nikitin once said to me, "I sometimes think is like a dark room, the door closed, the windows bolted and your enemy shut in with you. Whether your enemy or yourself is the stronger who knows?... Nor does it matter, as the issue is always decided outside.... Knowing that you can at least afford to despise him." I felt something of that impotence now.
I walked on, my boots knocking against one another, thinking to myself: "If I'm not given something to do very soon I shall be just as I was the other night at Nijnieff and then I shall suddenly take to my heels down this road as hard as I can go!" It was then that I tumbled straight into the arms of Nikitin, who was standing at the edge of the forest, watching for me.
"Sure you can manage?" I asked. "Quite," said Nikitin. "Here, hold his back!... No, durak, his back. Bojé moi, can't you get your arm under? There like that. Horosho, golubchik, horosho ... only a minute! There! There!" I washed my hands and went out. The air caressed my forehead like cold water; from the little garden at the back there came scents of flowers; the moonlight was blue on the common.
I cannot, I am incapable. . . . Understand, Godefroi, I can't that's all . . . ." The blue material slipped on to the floor, and Nikitin took Masha by the other hand. She turned pale, moved her lips, then stepped back from Nikitin and found herself in the corner between the wall and the cupboard. "On my honour, I assure you . . ." he said softly. "Masha, on my honour. . . ."
In the first place little Andrey Vassilievitch was quarrelling loudly with Nikitin. He was speaking Russian very fast and I did not discover his complaint. There was something comic in the sight of his small body towering to a perfect tempest of rage, his plump hands gesticulating and always his eyes, anxious and self-important, doing their best to look after his dignity.
In the first place he had been dismayed and silenced by the garrulity of his new companions. It had seemed to him that he had understood nothing of their conversation, that he was in the way, that finally he was more lonely than he had ever been in his life before. Then, however strongly he might to himself deny it, he had arrived in Russia with what Nikitin called "his romantic notions."
Of course this is the merest illusion, but I have hours now when I am not quite sure of things. Andrey Vassilievitch told me something of the same to-day that he thought that he saw his wife and that Nikitin told him the same yesterday. The flies also are confusing and there's a hot dry smell that's disagreeable and prevents one from eating. I know that I must keep a clear head on these things.
Masha vanished, the window was slammed, and some one immediately began playing the piano in the house. "Well, it is a house!" thought Nikitin while he crossed the street. "A house in which there is no moaning except from Egyptian pigeons, and they only do it because they have no other means of expressing their joy!" But the Shelestovs were not the only festive household.
She pulled out a pencil and a little pad from her handbag, and began: "If you really believe in a bold stroke for the workers' rights, meet me " And then she stopped. "Where?" "In the studios," put in Peter. And Nell wrote, "In the studios. Is that enough?" "Room 17." Peter knew that this was the room of Nikitin, a Russian painter who called himself an Anarchist.
"Varya looked in this evening," said Masha, sitting up. "She did not say anything, but one could see from her face how wretched she is, poor darling! I can't bear Polyansky. He is fat and bloated, and when he walks or dances his cheeks shake. . . . He is not a man I would choose. But, still, I did think he was a decent person." "I think he is a decent person now," said Nikitin.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking