Leo Tolstoy

“ I remember how bright and sultry the sun was; how it burnt up the dry, crumbling earth beneath our feet; how it played on the surface of the pond; how gigantic carp were hurrying and scurrying near the banks; how the smoothness of the centre of the pond was disturbed by shoals of fishes; how high in the sky a vulture was wheeling right above some ducks, who, quacking and splashing, were making for the middle of the pond through the reeds; how threatening, white, curly clouds were collecting on the horizon; how the mud, dragged ashore by the net, was gradually being trampled into the ground ”

“ The voice of Ignat answered close beside me:
"Why should I be responsible for a passenger? You've got half a stoop yet, haven't you?"
"Half a stoop, indeed ! There's a quarter of a stoop, already!"
"A quarter of a stoop! What an idea!" screeched the other voice. "Fancy plaguing a horse for the sake of a quarter of a stoop!"
I opened my eyes. Always the same unendurable, quivering snow blizzard in one's eyes, and the selfsame drivers and horses, but close beside me I saw a sledge. My driver had caught up Ignat, and we had been going on side by side for some timie. ”

“ The sledge, especially on that side on which the armyak was hung up over the heads of the two drivers, was a quarter covered with snow, but behind the armyak it was quiet and comfortable. The little old man was lying there with his legs stretched wide apart, and the tale-teller was going on with his tale: "At the very time when the general, in the King's name, you know, came, you know, to Mary in the dungeon, at that very time Mary said to him: General, I have no need of you and I cannot love you and, you know, you cannot be my lover, but my lover is the Prince himself. ”