Leo Tolstoy · 108 pages
Rating: (2.9K votes)
“Although Vasili Andreevich felt quite warm in his two fur coats, especially after struggling in the snow drift, a cold shiver ran down his back on realizing that he must really spend the night where they were.”
“In the depths of his heart Vasili Andreevich knew that it could not yet be near morning, but he was growing more and more afraid, and wished both to get to know and yet to deceive himself.”
“The thought that he might, and very probably would die that night occurred to him, but did not seem particularly unpleasant or dreadful.
It did not seem particularly unpleasant, because his whole life had been not a continual holiday, but on the contrary an unceasing round of toil of which he was beginning to feel weary. And it did not seem particularly dreadful, because besides the masters he had served here, like Vasili Andreevich, he always felt himself dependent on the Chief Master, who had sent him into this life, and he knew that when dying he would still be in that Master's power and would not be ill-used by Him.”
“Он, как и все люди, живущие с природой и знающие нужду, был терпелив и мог спокойно ждать часы, дни даже, не испытывая ни беспокойства, ни раздражения.
(He, like all people who live with nature and know want, was patient and could wait calmly for hours, even days, without feeling either alarm or vexation)”
“We shall have to stay the night here,' he said, as if preparing to spend the night at an inn, and he proceeded to unfasten the collar-straps. The buckles came undone.
'But shan't we be frozen?' remarked Vasili Andreevich.
'Well, if we are we can't help it.' said Nikita.”
“Loose an hour and you cannot catch up in a year.”
“Whether he is better or worse off there where he awoke after his death, disappointed, or found there what he expected we shall all soon learn.”
“I'm coming!' he cried joyfully, and that cry awoke him, but woke him up not at all the same person he had been when he fell asleep. He tried to get up but could not, tried to move his arm and could not, to move his leg and also could not, to turn his head and could not. He was surprised but not at all disturbed by this. He understood that this was death, and was not at all disturbed by that either.”
“Blizzard or no blizzard I start out. So business gets done. They think money making is a joke. No, take pains and rack your brains.”
“Like all those who live in touch with nature and have known want, he was patient and could wait for hours, even days without growing restless or irritable”
“Things always go quicker with two working at it.”
“Violence was like that, Elliot had noticed. One move toward it and all at once everything was allowed: anyone could be hurt, out of a mix of pride and anger and stupid disregard for the fact that you could be hurt as easily as someone else.”
“Good riddance. After all, it’s not as if the jerk had done me any favors recently. Well, he’d washed my clothes and bought me two breakfasts (like a Hobbit). There was that. But he’d also dragged me into a Battle of the Sexes that should have been over and done with a good thirty years ago, all because he needed a warm body to fill a slot.”
“Tommy Stratford and Michael . . . something or other,” she says. “Are you worried I’ll like them better than I like you?”
“That’s just not possible.”
“Why? Because you’re so irresistible?”
“No. Because you don’t like anyone.”
Arsinoe snorts.
“I do like you, Junior.”
“Oh?”
“But I have more important things to think about right now.”
“FOX said the Dragon had been set loose by ISIS, using spores that had been invented by the Russians in the 1980s. MSNBC said sources indicated the ’scale might’ve been created by engineers at Halliburton and stolen by culty Christian types fixated on the Book of Revelation. CNN reported both sides.”
“Yesterday seemed like a lifetime ago. The helplessness I felt, the anger…it had all gone now. Maybe all you needed in life was the belief you could change things. Somehow. Some way.”
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