Translated From The RussianBy Isabel Hapgood (1881) MDXLIIDEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Wage du zu irren und zu traeumen!SCHILLER. The following is what I read in an Italian manuscript: I About the middle of the sixteenth century there dwelt in Ferrara–(it was then flourishing under the sceptre of its magnificent dukes, the patrons […]

Translated From The RussianBy Isabel Hapgood (1877) Twenty years ago I was obliged–in my capacity of private inspector–to make the circuit of all my aunt’s rather numerous estates. The parish priests, with whom I regarded it as my duty to make acquaintance, proved to be individuals of pretty much one pattern, and made after one […]

Translated From The RussianBy Isabel Hapgood (1881) I There were eight of us in the room, and we were discussing contemporary matters and persons, “I do not understand these gentlemen!” remarked A.–“They are fellows of a reckless sort…. Really, desperate…. There has never been anything of the kind before.” “Yes, there has,” put in P., […]

Translated From The RussianBy Isabel Hapgood I I was living with my mother at the time, in a small seaport town. I was just turned seventeen, and my mother was only thirty-five; she had married very young. When my father died I was only seven years old; but I remembered him well. My mother was […]

Translated From The RussianBy Isabel Hapgood Have you seen an old, old stone on the seashore, when the brisk waves are beating upon it from all sides, at high tide, on a sunny spring day–beating and sparkling and caressing it, and drenching its mossy head with crumbling pearls of glittering foam? The stone remains the […]

Translated From The Russian By Isabel Hapgood I was standing on the crest of a sloping hill; in front of me lay outspread, and motley of hue, the ripe rye, now like a golden, again like a silvery sea. But no surge was coursing across this sea; no sultry breeze was blowing; a great thunder-storm […]

Translated From The RussianBy Isabel Hapgood I sailed from Hamburg to London on a small steamer. There were two of us passengers: I and a tiny monkey, a female of the ouistiti breed, which a Hamburg merchant was sending as a gift to his English partner. She was attached by a slender chain to one […]

Translated From The Russian By Isabel Hapgood I was standing in front of a chain of beautiful mountains spread out in a semi-circle; the young, verdant forest clothed them from summit to base. The southern sky hung transparently blue above us; on high the sun beamed radiantly; below, half hidden in the grass, nimble brooks […]

Translated From The RussianBy Isabel Hapgood I saw myself as a youth, almost a little boy, in a low-ceiled country church.–Slender wax tapers burned like red spots in front of the ancient holy pictures. An aureole of rainbow hues encircled each tiny flame.–It was dark and dim in the church…. But a mass of people […]

Translated From The Russian By Isabel Hapgood A captive condemned to perpetual incarceration broke out of prison and started to run at a headlong pace…. After him, on his very heels, darted the pursuit. He ran with all his might…. His pursuers began to fall behind. But lo! in front of him was a river […]

Translated From The Russian By Isabel Hapgood Two friends are sitting at a table and drinking tea. A sudden noise has arisen in the street. Plaintive moans, violent oaths, outbursts of malicious laughter have become audible. “Some one is being beaten,” remarked one of the friends, after having cast a glance out of the window. […]

Translated From The Russian By Isabel Hapgood He possessed everything which was requisite to make him the scourge of his family. He had been born healthy, he had been born rich–and during the whole course of his long life he had remained rich and healthy; he had never committed a single crime; he had never […]

Translated From The RussianBy Isabel Hapgood It was a vision…. Two angels presented themselves before me … two spirits. I say angels … spirits, because neither of them had any garments on their naked bodies, and from the shoulders of both sprang long, powerful wings. Both are youths. One is rather plump, smooth of skin, […]

Translated From The Russian By Isabel Hapgood One day the Supreme Being took it into his head to give a great feast in his azure palace. He invited all the virtues as guests. Only the virtues … he invited no men … only ladies. Very many of them assembled, great and small. The petty virtues […]

Translated From The RussianBy Isabel Hapgood I dreamed that a score of us were sitting in a large room with open windows. Among us were women, children, old men…. We were all talking about some very unfamiliar subject–talking noisily and unintelligibly. Suddenly, with a harsh clatter, a huge insect, about three inches and a half […]

Translated From The RussianBy Isabel Hapgood The son of a widowed peasant-woman died–a young fellow aged twenty, the best labourer in the village. The lady-proprietor of that village, on learning of the peasant-woman’s affliction, went to call upon her on the very day of the funeral. She found her at home. Standing in the middle […]

Translated From The RussianBy Isabel Hapgood O azure realm! O realm of azure, light, youth, and happiness! I have beheld thee … in my dreams. There were several of us in a beautiful, decorated boat. Like the breast of a swan the white sail towered aloft beneath fluttering pennants. I did not know who my […]

Translated From The RussianBy Isabel Hapgood When men in my presence extol Rothschild, who out of his vast revenues allots whole thousands for the education of children, the cure of the sick, the care of the aged, I laud and melt in admiration. But while I laud and melt I cannot refrain from recalling a […]

Translated From The RussianBy Isabel Hapgood A CONVERSATION THE TOILER Why dost thou bother us? What dost thou want? Thou art not one of us…. Go away! THE LAZY MAN[71] FOOTNOTE: [71] “The white-handed man” would be the literal translation.–TRANSLATOR. I am one of you, brethren! THE TOILER Nothing of the sort; thou art not […]

Translated From The RussianBy Isabel Hapgood In the mire, on damp, stinking straw, under the pent-house of an old carriage-house which had been hastily converted into a field military hospital in a ruined Bulgarian hamlet, she had been for more than a fortnight dying of typhus fever. She was unconscious–and not a single physician had […]