Nikolai Lobachevsky

“ And for long years to come I am destined by some strange fate to walk hand in hand with my odd heroes, to gaze at life in its vast movement, to gaze upon it through laughter seen by the world and tears unseen and unknown by it! ”

“ I'll ask whether my brother could not get you a place through some one in the town.'
'No, Platon Mihailovitch,' said Hlobuev, sighing and pressing his hand warmly, 'I am no use for anything now. I have grown decrepit before I am old, and I am paying for my weakness in the past by a pain in my back and rheumatism in my shoulders. What could I do? Why should I plunder the government? Without me there are plenty of men in the government service who are there simply to make money. ”

“ He says that the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia exists, it is true in different forms than it would in Western Europe, but it is necessary and it exists. In Western Europe it would take the form of democracy, while in Russia it has acquired an altogether different form, the form of "proletarian despotism." Ours is a "Despotism" but it is proletarian for all that. But it cannot last long. Its historical task is by every possible means to rouse to cultural life the majority of the population in our country: and the majority of the represented by the moujik (peasant) . ”

“ II. THE VILLAGE HEADMAN Do you know a Ukraine night? No, you do not know a night in the Ukraine. Gaze your full on it. The moon shines in the midst of the sky; the immeasurable vault of heaven seems to have expanded to infinity; the earth is bathed in silver light; the air is warm, voluptuous, and redolent of innumerable sweet scents. ”

“ How many crooked, narrow, impassable blind alleys, leading far off the track, has mankind chosen in the effort to reach the eternal verity, while before him the straight road lay open like the road that leads to a magnificent mansion destined to be a royal palace! ”

“ Happy, therefore, the man who may choose from among the gamut of human passions one which is noble! Hour by hour will that instinct grow and multiply in its measureless beneficence; hour by hour will it sink deeper and deeper into the infinite paradise of his soul. ”

“ Thus speaking, the artist suddenly shuddered, and turned pale. A convulsively distorted face gazed at him, peeping forth from the surrounding canvas; two terrible eyes were fixed straight upon him; on the mouth was written a menacing command of silence. Alarmed, he tried to scream and summon Nikita, who already was snoring in the ante-room; but he suddenly paused and laughed. The sensation of fear died away in a moment; it was the portrait he had bought, and which he had quite forgotten. The light of the moon illuminating the chamber had fallen upon it, and lent it a strange likeness to life. ”

“ The hills run zig-zagging for over eight hundred miles. Like the gigantic rampart of some unending fortress they rise above the plain, here a yellowish cliff like a wall with ravines and hollows, here a green, round cushion covered, as with lambswool, with young foliage springing from the stumps of cut-down trees, and here dark forests untouched by the axe. ”

“ No, Pavel Ivanovitch, it's from some other cause that we don't know how to live, but what it is, upon my word I don't know.'
'There must be a cause,' said Tchitchikov.
Poor Hlobuev heaved a deep sigh and said: 'It sometimes seems to me that the Russian is a lost man. He has no strength of will, no courage to persevere. One wants to do everything and one can do nothing, one is always thinking that from to-morrow one will begin a new life, that from to-morrow one will set to work as one ought, that from to-morrow one will put oneself on a diet ”

“ It is a marvel, in truth. It moves, and grows larger and larger, and flushes like a burning coal. The tiny star flashes up, something bursts softly, and the flower opens before his eyes like a flame, lighting the others about it. "Now is the time," thought Petro, and extended his hand. He sees hundreds of shaggy hands reach from behind him, also for the flower; and there is a running about from place to place, in the rear. He half shut his eyes, plucked sharply at the stalk, and the flower remained in his hand. All became still. Upon a stump sat Basavriuk, all blue like a corpse. ”

“ But the exceptional opportunities he had had of studying Russian life at first hand convinced him that what matters most are not good laws or institutions in themselves, but the people who carry them out—and the people whom he met in Petersburg in the 'sixties' and who were going to make the 'new' Russia, disappointed him by their lack of practical sense and of knowledge of the real conditions of life. ”

“ Imagine, if you can, a mountain range like a gigantic fortress, with embrasures and bastions which appear to soar a thousand versts towards the heights of heaven, and, towering grandly over a boundless expanse of plain, are broken up into precipitous, overhanging limestone cliffs. ”

“ Everywhere in the ascendant is the desolation of space. But suddenly the ciphers on a verst stone leap to the eye! Morning is rising, and on the chill, gradually paling line of the horizon you can see gleaming a faint gold streak. The wind freshens and grows keener, and you snuggle closer in your cloak ”

“ The moon had risen and had begun to light up the darkness; and at last everything was bathed in light—the lake and the huts; the light of the fires was paler; the smoke from the chimneys could be seen silvery in the moonlight. Alexasha and Nikolasha flew by them, racing after each other on spirited horses; they raised as much dust as a flock of sheep.
'Oh, I really will have an estate of my own one day!' thought Tchitchikov. ”

“ Is not the road smoking beneath your wheels, and the bridges thundering as you cross them, and everything being left in the rear, and the spectators, struck with the portent, halting to wonder whether you be not a thunderbolt launched from heaven? ”

“ Nor are you driven by a coachman clothed in German livery, but by a man bearded and mittened. See him as he mounts, and flourishes his whip, and breaks into a long-drawn song! Away like the wind go the horses, and the wheels, with their spokes, become transparent circles, and the road seems to quiver beneath them, and a pedestrian, with a cry of astonishment, halts to watch the vehicle as it flies, flies, flies on its way until it becomes lost on the ultimate horizon--a speck amid a cloud of dust!
And you, Russia of mine--are not you also speeding like a troika which nought can overtake? ”

“ And their glory shall resound through all the world, and all who shall be born thereafter shall speak of them; for the word of power is borne afar, reverberating like a booming, brazen bell, in which the maker has mingled much pure silver, that its beautiful sound may be wafted far and wide through cities, huts, palaces and villages, summoning all men, without exception, to hold orisons. ”

“ And as the moonlight glints hither and thither, almost you will believe that the walls and the streets and the pavements of the place are spread with sheets--sheets shot with coal-black shadows which make the wooden roofs look all the brighter under the slanting beams of the pale luminary. Nowhere is a soul to be seen, for every one is plunged in slumber. ”

“ Surely the winds themselves must abide in their manes, and every vein in their bodies be an ear stretched to catch the celestial message which bids them, with iron-girded breasts, and hooves which barely touch the earth as they gallop, fly forward on a mission of God? ”

“ In thee all is open, desolate, flat; thy lowly towns lie scattered like dots, like specks unseen among thy plains; there is nothing to allure or captivate the eye. But what mysterious inexplicable force draws one to thee? ”

“ Selifan brandished the whip and kept shouting, 'Ech! ech! ech!' smoothly rising up and down on the box, as the three horses darted up or flew like the wind down the little hills which dotted the high-road that sloped scarcely perceptibly down hill. Tchitchikov merely smiled as he lightly swayed on his leather cushion, for he loved rapid driving. And what Russian does not love rapid driving? How should his soul that craves to be lost in a whirl, to carouse without stint, to say at times, 'Damnation take it all!'—how should his soul not love it? ”

“ Perhaps one may even begin thinking: 'But, after all, is Madame Korobotchka so low down on the endless ladder of human perfectibility?' Is there really such a vast chasm separating her from her sister, who, inaccessibly immured within the walls of her aristocratic house with its perfumed cast-iron staircases, its shining copper fittings, its mahogany and carpets, yawns over her unfinished book while she waits to pay her visits in witty fashionable society. ”

“ Heavenly powers! What a night is being enacted on high! And the air, and the sky, lofty, far away yonder, in its fathomless depths, stretching in all directions, so infinitely, so harmoniously, so radiantly! ”

“ Petersburg, and opened a connection on a system of general credit, saved the situation by placing Khlobuev under the obligation of patronising him.
The company drank three glassfuls apiece, and so grew more cheerful. In particular did Khlobuev expand, and wax full of civility and friendliness, and scatter witticisms and anecdotes to right and left. What knowledge of men and the world did his utterances display! How well and accurately could he divine things! With what appositeness did he sketch the neighbouring landowners! ”

“ Motionless, but inspired with divine breath, the forests stand, casting enormous shadows and wrapped in complete darkness. Calmly and placidly sleep the lakes surrounded by dark green thickets. The virginal groves of the hawthorns and cherry-trees stretch their roots timidly into the cool water; only now and then their leaves rustle unwillingly when that freebooter, the night-wind, steals up to kiss them. The whole landscape is hushed in slumber ”

“ When a rich man dashed by him in a light elegant droshky drawn by richly-harnessed trotting horses, he would stand still as though rooted to the spot, and then as though waking from a long sleep, would say: 'Why, he was a counting-house clerk and wore his hair cut like a peasant's!' And everything suggestive of wealth and prosperity made an impression upon him that he could not himself explain. ”

“ But he had become markedly sad and morose. Three deep wrinkles had engraved themselves upon his brow, and never more departed thence. Then he looked about him: all was new in the Syech; all his old comrades were dead. ”

“ Still more surprised was he to find the portrait uncovered, and with actually no sheet over it. Motionless with terror, he gazed at it, and perceived that the living, human eyes were fastened upon him. A cold perspiration broke out upon his forehead. He wanted to move away, but felt that his feet had in some way become rooted to the earth. And he felt that this was not a dream. The old man's features moved, and his lips began to project towards him, as though he wanted to suck him in. ”

“ Go. We have already diverted ourselves sufficiently here. The Lyakhs know what the kazáks are like. We have avenged our Faith to the extent of our powers; there's not much to satisfy greed in this famished city. And so my advice is: Go."
"Go!" rang heavily through the Zaporozhian kuréns. But such words did not suit Taras Bulba's mood at all; and he brought his frowning, iron-grey brows still lower down over his eyes, like bushes growing on a dark, lofty mountain, whose crests are suddenly covered with prickly northern frost.
"No, Koshevói, your counsel is not good," said he. ”

“ One fancies an unseen force has caught one up on its wing and one flies oneself, and everything flies too: milestones fly by, merchants on the front seats of their tilt-carts fly to meet one, the forest flies by on both sides with dark rows of firs and pines, with the ring of the axe and caw of the crows; the whole road flies into the unknown retreating distance ”

“ It is poor, neglected and comfortless in thee, no insolent marvels of nature crowned by insolent marvels of art, no towns with many-windowed lofty palaces piled on precipitous heights, no picturesque trees, no ivy-clad houses in the roar and ever-lasting spray of waterfalls rejoice the eye or strike awe into the heart; the head is not turned to gaze at the rocks piled up on the heights above it ”

“ I do not know if it can be even more terrible in hell: all around there was profound impenetrable darkness—and it seemed alive, it trembled and cracked like a monster whose body was a compact mass of frozen dust and whose breath was life-destroying cold. ”

“ If I should succeed beyond my expectation, Pavel Ivanovitch, I beg of you a favour in return for my trouble; abandon all these crooked means of making gain. I tell you on my honour that if I were deprived of all my property—and I have more than you—I should not weep. Aie, aie, it is not those possessions which can be confiscated that matter, but those which no one can steal or take away from us! You have lived in the world long enough. You yourself call your life a ship tossing in the waves. You have already enough to last you for the rest of your days. ”

“ The river, faithful to its high banks, makes with them many a crook and turn across the whole expanse, but sometimes it escapes from them altogether into the meadows, then after taking several twists it flashes like fire in the sun, hides in a copse of birch-trees, aspens and alders, and races out of it in triumph accompanied by bridges, water-mills and dams which seem to be pursuing it at every turn. ”

“ In a solitary window a light is flickering where some good burgher is mending his boots, or a baker drawing a batch of dough. O night and powers of heaven, how perfect is the blackness of your infinite vault--how lofty, how remote its inaccessible depths where it lies spread in an intangible, yet audible, silence! ”

“ At first they shouted about the inevitable failure and doom of the Bolsheviks; later, to the extent that the Bolsheviks consolidated their power, more and more loudly was heard another note: the Bolsheviks are holding on, but they are not the same Bolsheviks; the Bolsheviks are strengthening their position, but they are degenerating under the influence of the seething peasant tide. ”