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Updated: May 3, 2025
I looked at the dim lamp, at the square patch beyond the windows, at Nikitin's long body, which seemed nevertheless so perfectly comfortable, and at Andrey Vassilievitch's short fat one, which was so obviously miserably uncomfortable; I smelt the cabbage, the dust, the sunflower seeds; first one bone then another ached, in the centre of my back there was an intolerable irritation; above all, there was in my brain some strange insistent compulsion, as though some one were forcing me to remember something that I had forgotten, or as though again some one were fore-warning me of some peril or complication.
I am aware that in the things I have said of Nikitin, in speaking both of his relation to Andrey Vassilievitch's wife and to Trenchard himself, I have shown him as something of a sentimental figure. And yet sentimental was the very last thing that he really was. He had not the "open-heartedness" that is commonly asserted to be the chief glory and the chief defect of the Russian soul.
Semyonov's big body occupied half the wagon, Andrey Vassilievitch's boots touched my head and at intervals his whole body gave nervous jerks. It was also quite bitterly cold, which was curious enough after the warmth of the earlier nights. And always, at what seemed to be regular intervals, there came, from the forest, the banging of the iron door.
"Not interesting," I would have judged her, but I had during my stay no personal talk with her. It was only after my visit that I was told that this quiet woman was the passion of Andrey Vassilievitch's life. He had been over thirty when he had married her; she had been married before, had been treated, I was informed, with great brutality by her husband who had left her.
"Come along," said Trenchard, putting his arm on Andrey Vassilievitch's sleeve. "We'll find somewhere to sleep. Of course we're not in despair. Why should we be? You'll feel better to-morrow." They departed, and as they went I wondered at this new side in Trenchard's character. He seemed strong, practical, and almost cheerful. I, knowing his disaster, was puzzled.
If you'll remove Andrey Vassilievitch's boots for me I'll lie flat on this wagon and you can let loose every shrapnel in the world over my head and I'll never stir. I thought I was interested in your war, and I'm not.... I thought no discomfort mattered to me, but I find that I dislike so much being cold and hungry that it outweighs all heroism, all sense of danger ... let me alone!"
I should speak too strongly if I were to say that he took pleasure in the man's company, but he did, I believe, almost in spite of himself, secretly encourage it. And there was, in spite of the comedy that persistently hovered about his figure and habits, some fine spirit in Andrey Vassilievitch's championship of his hero. How he hated Semyonov!
It seemed to us a very one-sided business, depending partly upon Andrey Vassilievitch's continual assertions that Nikitin was "his oldest friend and the closest friend of his wife," that "Nikitin was one of the most remarkable men in the world," that "only his intimate friends could know how remarkable he was"; partly too upon the dog-like capacity of Andrey Vassilievitch to fetch and carry for his friend, to put himself indeed to the greatest inconvenience.
I loved her at that moment; I felt bitterly, I remember, that I, because I was plain and a cripple, silent and uninteresting, would never win the love of such women. I remembered little Andrey Vassilievitch's words about his wife: "For me she cared as good women care for the poor." In that way for me too women would care when they cared at all. And always, all my life, it would be like that.
Andrey Vassilievitch boasted a whole house to himself, a rare pride in our city, as you know. When I was inside the doors I knew at once that it was not Andrey Vassilievitch's house at all. Some stronger spirit than his was there.
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