Vsevolod Michailovich Garshin (1855⁠–⁠1888), the “melancholiac,” as he is sometimes called, was of good family. He was born in February, 1855. In appearance of a Southern type, he was nice-looking, an...

It has been said that to know the literature of a country is to know its people, and to know a people is to appreciate them. The wealth of the Russian language, its nuance of expression, its bewilderi...

The war is decidedly giving me no rest. I see clearly that it is dragging, and when it will end is very difficult to foretell. Our soldiers are as splendid as ever, but the enemy has proved far from b...

I remember how we rushed through the wood; how the leaves and twigs came fluttering and twisting down on us as the humming bullets cut their way through the thick foliage. I remember how, as we pushed...

How it has come about that I, who for almost two years have never thought seriously about anything, have suddenly commenced to reflect⁠—I cannot understand. It cannot be that man who has set me thinki...

How it has come about that I, who for almost two years have never thought seriously about anything, have suddenly commenced to reflect⁠—I cannot understand. It cannot be that man who has set me thinki...

Today Evsei Evsevich spoke to me: “You will listen to me, Ivan Ivanovich⁠—what I, an old man, am going to say to you. You, my dear boy, have begun to behave stupidly. Take care that it does not reach ...

I have again forgotten and again I am awake. Three weeks of incessant debauchery! How do I stand it? Today my head, bones, every part of my body is aching. Remorse, boredom, fruitless and tormenting a...

All is the same as before. It is not possible to be one minute alone without being seized with melancholy. What shall I do so as to forget? Annushka has brought me a letter. From whom? It is so long s...

Frost and cold. January is approaching, and is making its coming known to every unfortunate being⁠—dvorniks and gorodovois⁠—unable to hide their noses in some warm place. It is also letting me know. N...

A broad, trembling silvery band of moonlight stretched away for tens of versts. The remaining expanse of the sea was black, and the regular dull noise of the waves as they broke and rolled along the s...

“Undress!” said the doctor to Nikita, who was standing motionless, his eyes fixed on space. Nikita gave a start, and hurriedly commenced to unfasten his clothes. “A bit faster, friend!” cried the doct...

A watch lying on the writing-table was hurriedly, and with wearying repetition, singing two notes. It was difficult even for a quick ear to distinguish between the two sounds, but to the owner of the ...

A watch lying on the writing-table was hurriedly, and with wearying repetition, singing two notes. It was difficult even for a quick ear to distinguish between the two sounds, but to the owner of the ...

He had, indeed, sat in one place from eight in the evening until 3 a.m. At seven o’clock of this last evening of his life he had left his flat, hired an izvoschik, and had driven, sitting huddled up i...

The revolver refused to come out of the narrow pocket; then, when it lay on the table, he discovered that all the cartridges except one had fallen through a small hole in the pocket into the lining of...

“A bell!” he repeated. Why a bell?⁠ ⁠… Was it a service? Prayers⁠ ⁠… church⁠ ⁠… suffocating heat. Wax candles. The decrepit priest, Father Michael, performing the service in a plaintive, cracked voice...

Do you remember yourself as a little child when you lived with your father in a faraway forgotten village? He was an unhappy man, your father, but he loved you more than all else in the world. Do you ...

The frosty air was all this time entering the window. A cloud of steam was literally pouring into the already cold room. The big squat lamp, with its opaque shade, standing on the writing-table, burne...

In a certain large town there was a botanical garden, and in this garden an enormous greenhouse of glass and iron. It was a very handsome building. Graceful spiral columns supported the whole structur...

On the 4th of May, 1877, I arrived at Kishineff, and half an hour later had learnt that the 56th Division of Infantry was passing through the town. As I had come with the view of enlisting in some reg...

On the 4th of May, 1877, I arrived at Kishineff, and half an hour later had learnt that the 56th Division of Infantry was passing through the town. As I had come with the view of enlisting in some reg...

We had only two officers in our company⁠—the company commander, Captain Zaikin, and a subaltern officer, a lieutenant of the reserve named Stebelkoff. The company commander was a man of middle age, ra...

The rain was followed by heat. About this time we left the little village where our feet used to stick in the slippery mud, and came on to the main road leading from Yass to Bukarest. Our first march ...

Late that evening we reached Fokshan, passed through the unlighted, silent, and dusty little town, and came out somewhere into a field. It was as dark as pitch; the battalions were camped anyhow, and ...

We continued to march parallel with the railway. Trains filled with men, horses, and supplies were continually passing us. The men looked enviously at the goods wagons being whirled past us, through t...

Difficult marches, dust, heat, fatigue, bleeding feet, brief halts by day, deathlike slumber by night, the hated bugle waking us at scarce dawn, and all the time fields⁠—fields. Not like those in our ...

On the night of the 14th to 15th of June Feodoroff woke me. “Mikhailich, do you hear?” “What is it?” “Firing. They are crossing the Danube.” I began to listen. A strong wind was blowing, driving befor...

It was already dark when, having come down from the bank, we crossed a tributary of the Danube by a small bridge, and marched over a low sandy island still wet from the water which had but just recede...

They took us across the Danube. For some days we halted near Sistovo awaiting the Turks. Then the troops started off into the heart of the country. We, too, started off. For a long time they sent us f...

One beautiful June day⁠—and it was beautiful because there were twenty-eight degrees Réamur10⁠—one beautiful June day it was hot everywhere, but on a little plot in the garden, where there stood a mou...

In the Steppe the town of Bielsk nestles on the River Rokhla at a point where it makes several sharp curves linked up by branch streams, the whole forming a network which, if looked at on a clear summ...

“In the name of His Imperial Majesty the Lord Emperor Peter the First, I order a revision of this Asylum!” These words were uttered in a loud, strident, resounding voice. The clerk who had registered ...

“In the name of His Imperial Majesty the Lord Emperor Peter the First, I order a revision of this Asylum!” These words were uttered in a loud, strident, resounding voice. The clerk who had registered ...

It was night when he awoke. All was quiet. The heavy breathing of patients sleeping in the large room near was audible. A patient, placed for the night in the dark room, was talking to himself in a st...

“How do you feel?” asked the doctor of him the following morning. The patient, having only just awakened, was still lying in bed. “Splendid!” he replied, jumping out of bed, putting on his slippers, a...

He understood that he was in a madhouse. He knew even that he was ill. Sometimes, as during the first night, he would awake in the quietness after a whole day of violent exercise, feeling exhaustion i...

He did not sleep all night. He had plucked the flower because he saw in this action a deed he was in duty bound to perform. At the very first glance through the glass door the bloodred petals had attr...

The patient suddenly stopped talking. He had decided on stratagem. He decided to deceive his warder. They kept him bound all day, and left him so during the night. Having given him his supper, the old...

Once upon a time in this world there lived a rose and a toad. The bush on which the rose bloomed grew in a not very big crescent-shaped flowerbed in front of a country house in a village. The flowerbe...

I have long wanted to commence my memoirs. A strange reason is compelling me to take up a pen. Some write their memoirs because there is much in them historically interesting, others because they wish...

I have long wanted to commence my memoirs. A strange reason is compelling me to take up a pen. Some write their memoirs because there is much in them historically interesting, others because they wish...

I do not remember my mother, and my father died when I was fourteen years old. My guardian, a distant relation, packed me off to one of the Petersburg gymnasia, where, after four years, I completed my...

In the evening I went round to Bezsonow. I went into the room where he was sitting bent over his writing-table, which was littered with books, manuscripts, and cuttings from papers. His hand was trave...

For a whole fortnight I did nothing. I went to the Academy merely to paint the programme picture, a terrible Biblical study⁠—the turning of Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt. Everything was ready⁠—Lot ...

Bezsonow, holding a glass of wine in his hand, raising a pair of excited and very red eyes, saw me, and his face clearly expressed his dissatisfaction. He got up from his place and came to us. “You he...

When I awoke the next day the grey morning was already looking in through the window. Having glanced at the dimly lighted, pale, kind-looking face of Helfreich asleep on the couch, and having recalled...

Sonia does not know I am writing these bitter pages. She sits every day, as of old, near my bed or armchair. My other friend also often comes⁠—my poor old hunchback. He has grown very thin, and has wa...

The same day in the evening I moved Simon Ivanovich to my room. He lived in the Sadovaia Street, in a huge house filled from top to bottom with people, and occupying almost an entire block between thr...

Another three or four sittings passed by. Nadejda Nicolaievna used to come to me at ten or eleven o’clock, and remain until it was dark. Time and again I begged her to stay and have dinner with us, bu...

He entered with a free and jaunty air. He seemed at first to have grown thinner the few days we had not seen each other, but after a few minutes I changed my opinion. He greeted me merrily, bowed to N...

From the Diary of Bezsonow.⁠—Yesterday Lopatin and Helfreich met with me Nadia. Against my wish they became acquainted. This morning I went to Lopatin, and tried to stop their coming together, but cou...

Diary of Lopatin.⁠—Six days have passed since the meeting between Bezsonow and Nadejda Nicolaievna, and she has not been. She merely wrote a few lines in which she begged me to excuse her, and mention...

After dinner they brought me a letter from Sonia. I have never hid anything from her. When I die⁠—which will be soon; even now death is not creeping stealthily towards me, but is advancing with a firm...

We three long sat together on that, for me, memorable evening. We talked, joked, laughed; Nadejda Nicolaievna was calm, and even merry. I did not ask Helfreich where and how he found her, and he himse...

From the Diary of Bezsonow.⁠—I am waiting to see what will happen. I was there the other day, and saw them together. All the strength of will I possess was insufficient to enable me to continue wearin...

Diary of Lopatin.⁠—Helfreich ran for the doctor who lived on the same landing as ourselves. I brought water, and she quickly got over her hysterics. Nadejda Nicolaievna sat in a corner of the sofa to ...

The winter passed. The sun rose higher and higher in the heavens, and with ever-increasing strength warmed the streets and roofs of St. Petersburg. Everywhere water was pouring down all the spouts; bi...

From Bezsonow’s Diary.⁠—Heartsick and longing! This sickness of heart is persecuting me, no matter where I am or what I may do in order to forget, to appease it by some means or other. My eyes have at...

Lopatin’s Notes.⁠—Why drag it out any longer? Is it not better to end my reminiscences in these hnes? No, I will write them to the end. It is all the same; if I throw down my pen and this diary, that ...

We halted two weeks at Kovachitsa. Camp-life is wearisome and monotonous when there is nothing to do, especially in such an out-of-the-way spot; at the same time it would not be just to call Kovachits...

We halted two weeks at Kovachitsa. Camp-life is wearisome and monotonous when there is nothing to do, especially in such an out-of-the-way spot; at the same time it would not be just to call Kovachits...

The men were so worn out that even the insufferable heat could not make them go for water. Only after half an hour’s rest did the orderlies assemble with their canteens and set off for the village. On...

We skirted round the village, descended, and passed over a small bridge thrown across the stream. The road led lightly to the mountain through a small thicket. Little medlar-trees, all red from the qu...

I awoke when it was still almost dark. My sides ached unendurably. The bullets were flying as before, but now very high in the air above us. There were no flashes to be seen on the mountain, but a fre...

Once upon a time there lived in this world a frog. She used to sit in a swamp and catch mosquitoes and midges, and in the spring used to croak loudly in company with her friends. And but for an event ...

Simon Ivanoff was a linesman on the railway. From his hut it was twenty versts to the nearest station on one side, and ten versts on the other. Last year, about four versts away, a spinning-mill had o...

A yard porter. Each house has one or more dvorniks, whose duties are to cut and carry firewood, etc. They are also responsible for the cleanliness of the street and pavement immediately adjoining the ...