I used to know a monk, a hermit, a saint. He lived only for the sweetness of prayer; and steeping himself in it, he would stand so long on the cold floor of the church that his legs below the knees grew numb and senseless as blocks of wood. He did not feel them; he […]

What an insignificant trifle may sometimes transform the whole man! Full of melancholy thought, I walked one day along the highroad. My heart was oppressed by a weight of gloomy apprehension; I was overwhelmed by dejection. I raised my head…. Before me, between two rows of tall poplars, the road darted like an arrow into […]

How empty, dull, and useless is almost every day when it is spent! How few the traces it leaves behind it! How meaningless, how foolish those hours as they coursed by one after another! And yet it is man’s wish to exist; he prizes life, he rests hopes on it, on himself, on the future…. […]

‘It happened in 1803,’ began my old acquaintance, ‘not long before Austerlitz. The regiment in which I was an officer was quartered in Moravia. ‘We had strict orders not to molest or annoy the inhabitants; as it was, they regarded us very dubiously, though we were supposed to be allies. ‘I had a servant, formerly […]

What shall I think when I come to die, if only I am in a condition to think anything then? Shall I think how little use I have made of my life, how I have slumbered, dozed through it, how little I have known how to enjoy its gifts? ‘What? is this death? So soon? […]

Somewhere, sometime, long, long ago, I read a poem. It was soon forgotten … but the first line has stuck in my memory– ‘How fair, how fresh were the roses …‘ Now is winter; the frost has iced over the window-panes; in the dark room burns a solitary candle. I sit huddled up in a […]

Translated by Constance Garnett ONE EVENING I went with the huntsman Yermolai "stand-shooting. " … But perhaps all my readers may not know what "stand-shooting" is. I will tell you. A quarter of an hour before sunset in springtime you go out into the woods with your gun, but without your dog. You seek out […]