Ossip Schubin

“ Nowhere in all the country around are the effects of the drought more apparent than at Dobrotschau, where the soil is very poor. Not even in the park is there any freshness of verdure. The fountains refuse to play; the sward looks like a shabby, worn carpet; the leaves are withering on the trees.
Everything is longing for a storm, and yet all feel that relief, when it comes, will bring uproar with it; something must go to ruin and be shattered in the change. The great life of nature, spellbound and withheld in this sultry languor, will awake with some convulsion, angrily demanding a victim. ”

“ The longest night has an end, and the nights in early June are not long. Morning dawns. In ruthlessly plain outlines, all the objects in Mascha's room meet Lensky's eyes. All looks soiled, everywhere the dark spots of mud; there the shawl in which the men had wrapped the suicide after they drew her from the water, there a heap of soiled, wet clothes. It goes to his heart. On that morning when he took leave of his darling, on the same spot lay a dress also, but as white, as pure, as fresh as spring blossoms. ”

“ It is evening in the drawing-room at Tornow, and the air breathes soft and fragrance-laden through the open window; the monotonous chirp of the crickets sounds loud and shrill as if to drown the sweet plaint of the nightingale. Beyond the circle of light cast by the lamps more than half of the spacious room is quite dark.
The Countess Lodrin is bending over an embroidery frame, busied in working the Zinsenburg crest upon a hassock; Oswald, Georges, and Pistasch, who, when the races were over had accepted an invitation to come to Tornow with Georges, are eagerly discussing a false start. ”

“ The little garden is basking in the sunshine; the heavens are cloudless; the lagoon looks as if it were sprinkled with diamonds, as the black gondolas glide past, the sinewy brown throats of the gondoliers shining like bronze. In the fragrant garden can be heard, now loud, now faint, the sound of gay voices on the water mingled with the constant lapping of the waves and the jangle of church-bells.
"From whom does this letter come?" her grandmother asks Erika, with a smile.
"I--I cannot imagine," the girl murmurs. Her pale cheeks grow paler, and a fixed look comes into her shining eyes. ”

“ A memory glided into his soul, a long forgotten memory,--not of his dead bride, his faithless friend,--no, a painless memory of his first return to the Rue Ravestein.
A dreamy, narcotic odor hovered around him, and he saw a bunch of brilliant-hued poppies. He heard the light rustle of the dying leaves as they fell on the marble gueridon.--He sprang up. His heart beat as if it would burst his breast.--A nameless terror seized him, as of one who finds himself sinking contentedly into a bog.
He collected himself--he would flee--he would seek death. ”

“ It is a day in which death and misfortune seem like ghost stories, invented by old women--no one believes them. The birds twitter joyously, and without all is fragrance, sunshine and flowers. Fragrance and sunshine fill the room where Elsa sits, her youngest child in her lap.
Elsa looks youthful and girlish, quite as much so as at the time when we first made her acquaintance. The same heavy brown hair, as if sprinkled with gold, clusters at her temples, and her eyes still shine with the old dreamy light of happiness, but her cheeks are thinner, her figure frail and thin. ”

“ Passion-week in Rome, and in all the glory and glow of an Italian spring. The glinting radiance brightens even the mystical gloom of St. Peter's, sparkles for an instant on the holy-water in the basins, wanders from the heads of the gigantic cherubs and the colossal statues down to the inlaid pavement, with the cold sheen of sunlight on polished marble. The hours glide on--the long solemn hours of Holy-Thursday in Rome; the last gleam of daylight has faded away, the vast cathedral is filled with almost palpable twilight and its magnificence seems shrouded in a transparent veil of crape. ”

“ A year had glided by since the death of the duke. Blanche enjoyed the happiness of youth, free from care, and Gottfried the peace of honest, high-souled self-denial. A guardian angel, he limped about modestly at the side of his niece, rejoicing to be able to remove every stone which threatened to mar the smoothness of her path, or to scare away the hawks lurking in ambush to surprise her innocence. ”

“ A boundless shame torments him; it is all over--all.
The whole night long, restless, without peace, he seeks only a hand-breadth of blue sky for his child, seeks no great, brilliant happiness such as he has dreamed of for Mascha; no, the most moderate, only a tolerable life--seeks a salvation--in vain--nothing--nothing! His mind is like a captive bird which wounds itself at every beat of its wings against the bars of a too small cage. ”

“ The sun has set; the rosy reflection on the grass and at the foot of the old trees has faded; there is only a pale, gray gleam on the castle windows. All nature seems to sigh relieved. A cool mist rises from the basins of the fountains, like the caress of a water-nymph; the roses, petunias, and mignonette exhale delicious fragrance, which rises as incense to heaven; the lisp of the leaves and the plash of the fountain interpose a dreamy veil of sound, as it were, between us and some aggressive military music in the distance. ”

“ Indignation had no chance to be heard, so mighty is the bliss of hearing his own work. It is as if some one had given him back his lost soul. The applause grows louder and louder. As if in a dream he plays on, sometimes he shrinks when some blatant interlude of de Sterny's disfigures his own composition.
"Now comes the most beautiful of all," they whisper in the audience, "the duet of the Outcasts."
In mournful lament are heard the exile's voices, softly, lightly floating, the violin's Angel song mingles with theirs, above, around them, whispering memories of joys forever lost. ”

“ Erika's gaze was instantly attracted by a remarkable and horrible picture.
A single figure in a close, clinging garment of undecided hue, the head thrust forward, the arms stretched out, the whole form expressing yearning, torturing desire, was groping its way towards a swamp above which hovered a will-o'-the-wisp. Above in the dark heavens gleamed the pure light of the stars. It was all a marvel of tone and expression,--the sad harmony of colour, the star-lit sky, the dreary swamp, and above all the figure, its every feature, every fingertip, every fold even of its garment, expressing desire. ”

“ Georges went close up to his cousin, and looked into his eyes as if to read his very soul; then he drew a long breath and said, "You are not alone in the world, Ossi,--you have a mother and a betrothed who idolize you! and yet you would hazard your life for the sake of a single angry outburst, for a mere whim; you would accept the challenge of a man who, spurred on by envy and wounded vanity, is capable of anything, and to die by whose hand could only disgrace you? And all because--because you are possessed for the moment by some fixed delusion which makes life intolerable to you!" ”

“ Natalie scarcely breathed, her hot blood crept slowly through her veins like chilling metal, her ears no longer buzzed, on the contrary her hearing was uncommonly sharp; only she could not take in the music, but listened to all kinds of other things. The rustling of a dress, the rattling of a fan, the whispering of a voice caused her such excitement that it seemed to her, each time, as if she had been shot through the heart by a pistol. The unexpected result of the overture had increased her nervous tension still further. ”