Short Fiction quotes

She is quick-tempered, scolds and talks bawdy. Sometimes she fights with her porters and the lodgers who have been on the spree; she drinks as well as any man, and has a mad passion for dancing.

She changes from abuse to laughing in a second.

She has but small respect for the law, receives lodgers without passports, and with her own hands, as she says, “chucks into the street” those who don’t pay up—that is, she unlocks his door while he is out, and puts all his things in the …

“Couldn’t you give me one small smoke? I’m dying to smoke. And I haven’t a cent to buy them. ‘Blessed are the poor. …

Poverty’s no crime,’ as they say⁠—but sheer indecency.

”

The piece of white paper, carefully fastened with drawing-pins, aroused his curiosity. He could not resist the temptation; he turned back stealthily and after lifting a corner of the paper quickly read the words written in a thin, distinct and extraordinary elegant hand:

“Though you are Ivanov the seventh, you’re a fool all the same.”

Long after midnight they were coming out of a suburban café chantant accompanied by the well-known musical comedy actor Zhenin-Lirsky, the young assistant Crown-Prosecutor Sashka Strahlmann, who was famous all over Petersburg for his incomparable skill in telling amusing stories about the topic of the …

“Yes, to death. … A soldier’s always ready for it. There’s nothing to be done.

Death is the trifling inconvenience attached to our profession.

”

You are armed with the protection of the law, by locks, revolvers, telephones, police and soldiery; but we only by our own dexterity, cunning and fearlessness.

We are the foxes, and society⁠—is a chicken-run guarded by dogs.

Are you aware that the most artistic and gifted natures in our villages become horse-thieves and poachers? What would you have? Life has been so meagre, so insipid, so intolerably dull to eager and high-spirited souls!

Among the trees on the other side of the swamp, the white walls of a hut could be seen. “It’s the Irenov gamekeeper lives there, probably,” I thought. “I must go in and ask the way.”

But it was not so easy to reach the hut. Every minute I sank in the bog.

My high boots filled with water and made a loud sucking noise at every step, so that I could hardly drag them along.

“Thank God for that!” she waved her hand scornfully. “If granny and I were left alone entirely, it would be much better, but—”

“You will get old, if you want to know so much,” she cut me short.

“And who are you?” she asked anxiously.

“No, no, it’s wrong, wrong,” she began to whisper with superstitious dread. “

It’s forbidden to ask twice of Fate.

It’s not right. Fate will discover, overhear. … She does not like to be asked. That’s why all fortune-tellers are unhappy.”

“For hu‑man‑i‑ty’s sake?” He hammered out each syllable. “

I’m full up to here with your humanity!

” He tapped vigorously on the bronzed nape of his mighty neck which hung down over his collar in a fat, hairless fold.

“Then don’t be afraid. Don’t think of anything besides. …

Today is ours; no one can take it from us.

”

“It’s true, Olyessia. That’s how it was with me, too,” I said, touching her forehead with my lips. “I never knew that I loved you until I parted from you.

It seems that man was right who said that parting to love is like wind to a fire: it blows out a small one, and makes a large one blaze.

”

Perhaps I should have begun with this question. Almost every day I used to quarrel with Olyessia over it, trying to shake her belief in the imaginary curse that hung over her family for the possession of magic powers.

There is something of the preacher essential in every Russian intellectual.

It is in our blood; it has been instilled by the whole of Russian literature in the last generations.

And though to us children, to my mother, and to all our family and friends, his manner was respectful, it was mingled with a certain pity and slighting condescension. It was always an enigma to me—whence came this immeasurable pride of his.

Servants have often a well-known form of insolence; they take upon themselves some of that attractive authority which they have noticed in their masters.

But my father, a poor doctor in a little Jewish village, lived so modestly and quietly that Yasha could never have learnt from him to look down upon his neighbours.

And the delights of a family hearth seemed to have little attraction for him.

“When a woman establishes herself in a cottage,” he used to say intolerantly, “the air becomes bad at once.”

However, he did once make a move in that direction, and then he surprised us more than ever before. We were seated at tea one evening when Yasha came into the dining-room.

We lived at that time in the Government of Riazan, some 120 versts from the nearest railway station and even 25 versts from the large trading village of Tuma. “

Tuma is iron and its people are of stone,

” as the local inhabitants say of themselves. We lived on an old untenanted estate, where in 1812 an immense house of wood had been constructed to accommodate the French prisoners.

Our complex work would seem laughable or pitiful to them, the austere and patient labourers of the fields. Yes. On the dreadful day of reckoning what answer shall we give to this child, wild beast, wise man, and animal, to this many-million-headed giant?”

We shall only be able to say sorrowfully, “We sang all the time. We sang our song.”

And he will reply with an artful peasant smile, “Then go and dance the dance.”

Yes. On the dreadful day of reckoning what answer shall we give to this child, wild beast, wise man, and animal, to this many-million-headed giant?” We shall only be able to say sorrowfully, “We sang all the time. We sang our song.”

And he will reply with an artful peasant smile, “Then go and dance the dance.”

And I know that my companions felt as I did. We went out of the entertainment-room silent, not exchanging opinions.

And when I returned from the post of Ivan Karaulof to Goreli, and from Goreli to Koslof, and from Koslof to Zintabrof, and then further by railroad there followed me all the time that ironical, seemingly malicious phrase, “Then dance the dance.”

God alone knows the destiny of the Russian people.⁠ ⁠… Well, I suppose, if it should be necessary, we’ll dance it!

I travelled a whole night to the railway station.

All is connected, all linked together. I shall depart and yet I shall also remain. But one must love Life and follow her guidance.

We are all alive together⁠—the living and the dead.

”

As he explained, with a gentle smile, ‘

“Loan oft loses both itself and friend,” as Shakespeare says in one of his immortal works.

’

Both the coachmen and the horses were as if mad; the snow rose up above them in clouds as they raced along. At first the blacks seemed to be gaining, but they couldn’t last out for a long time, they got tired.

The prince’s horses went ahead.

Near the railway station, Prince Andrey jumped out of his carriage, and the personage threatened him angrily with her finger.

The manager shrugged his shoulders and went out. In a few moments the curtain was raised, and the public, having been informed of Kostromsky’s sudden illness, began to disperse slowly and silently as if they were going away from a funeral.

They had indeed been present at the funeral of a great and original talent

, and Kostromsky was right when he said that he had “finished.” He had locked the door, and sat by himself in front of the mirror in his dressing-room between two gas burners, the flames of which flared with a slight noise.

But”—Kostromsky’s voice trembled nervously—“but do not outlive your fame. Leave the stage directly you feel that the sacred flame in you is burning low.

Do not wait, my child, for the public to drive you away.

”

Yes, gentlemen, I killed him!

In vain do you try to obtain for me a medical certificate of temporary aberration. I shall not take advantage of it.

In vain do you try to obtain for me a medical certificate of temporary aberration. I shall not take advantage of it.

I killed him soberly, conscientiously, coldly, without the least regret, fear or hesitation.

Were it in your power to resurrect him, I would repeat my crime.

In early youth I had the stupidity to think that these were all separate people. But they were all one and the same.

Bitter experience has at last discovered to me his name. It is⁠—the Russian intelligent.

If he has at any time missed me personally, he has left everywhere his traces, his visiting cards. On the heights of Barchau and Machuka I have found his orange peelings, sardine tins, and chocolate wrappings.

I have finished, gentlemen. I repeat: I do not repent. There is no sorrow for him in my soul. One desolating doubt remains, however, and it will haunt me to the end of my days, should I finish them in prison or in an asylum.

He has a son left! What if he takes on his father’s nature?

‘But, best of all, if you’ll take our advice, sell the rusty thing to a museum … as a sort of curio. …’ Well, well, that’s enough! She’s fed us till now, Sergey and me, and if God grant, she will go on feeding us.”

Grandfather Martin Lodishkin loved his organ as it is only possible to love something living, near, something actually akin, if it may be so expressed.

Having lived with his organ for many years of a trying vagabond life, he had at last come to see in it something inspired, come to feel as if it were almost a conscious being.

“

Dogs, my lady, I do not sell,

” said he coldly and with dignity. “And, what is more, madam, that dog, it ought to be understood, has been for us two”—he pointed with his middle finger over his shoulder at Sergey—“has been for us two, feeder and clother.

“Well, try and tempt her with something. … No matter what it is. … I give you my word that if you can only make her laugh and enjoy herself, it would be better than any medicine.

You must understand that your daughter’s illness is indifference to life, and nothing more.

… Good morning, madam!”

“

How stupid you are, papa! As if I didn’t know it’s impossible to get the sun, it’s all on fire.

And the moon, too, you can’t get. No, if only I had a little elephant … a real one.”

The mouse-coloured dog was looking very melancholy and snapping at the flies. He drawled out in a whining tone:

“Eh, it’s a dog’s life!”

“And where is the justice of it all?”—the greyhound, who had been silent up to this point, began to agitate herself—“You, Mr. Poodle, pardon me, I haven’t the honour of knowing your name.”

“Yes, put some there.

If you didn’t speak the truth, then you must make it true.

Come along, get ready. Give me my hat … and coat. No, not there; in the cupboard. … Umbrella!”

They went home together as if there had been no one in the street except themselves, holding each other by the hand and laughing at nothing. The passersby stopped to look at them; they seemed such a strange couple.

Never before had Nikolai Yevgrafovitch enjoyed his dinner so much as on that day.

After dinner, when Vera brought a glass of tea to him in the study, husband and wife suddenly looked at one another, and both laughed.

“

Yes, I saw his eyes grow wide with the terror of death, and his clenched fingers clutch convulsively at the sand, wet with his blood.

And when after his last shudder his pale cold body lay still upon the ground, then the murderer was overwhelmed by an unbearable terror.

And yet her face was fascinating with some incomprehensible and elusive charm, which lay perhaps in her smile, perhaps in the deep feminacy of all her features, perhaps in her piquant and coquettish mimicry.

Her graceful lack of beauty excited and attracted the attention of men much oftener than her sister’s aristocratic beauty.

She had married a very wealthy and very stupid man, who had absolutely nothing to do, but was nominally connected with some charitable institution and had the title of a gentleman of the Emperor’s bedchamber.

Starting with the Polish campaign, Anosov took part in every war except the one against the Japanese. He would have gone to that war, too, but he was not summoned, and he had a rule, really great in its modesty, which was as follows: “

Do not tempt death until you are called upon to do so.

” During his whole military career, he not only never had a soldier flogged, but never even struck one. During the Polish uprising he refused to shoot some prisoners, although he was ordered to do so by the commander of the regiment.

Yes, I like him. He is a good fellow. And, perhaps, in the future, his love will appear in the light of great beauty. But, think of the kind of love I mean.

Love must be a tragedy, the greatest mystery in the world! No life comforts, calculations, or compromises must ever affect it.

”

For the first time his wife became timidly silent. She turned away from her husband, covered her face with a handkerchief, and burst into tears.

And he walked on, immense, dark, and majestic, like a monument.

The conversation in every corner of the room is concerned with the one subject of shares, fishing-nets, hooks, the possible catch, the mackerel, the flounder, the sturgeon, and other fish caught here. And at nine o’clock the whole town is plunged into profound slumber.

Nowhere in the whole of Russia, and I have travelled much through its width and length⁠—nowhere have I experienced the sensation of such deep, complete, and perfect silence as in Balaklava.

Sometimes I would go out on the balcony and feel immediately swallowed up by the darkness and the silence. The sky is black, the water in the bay is black, the mountains are black.

Sometimes I would go out on the balcony and feel immediately swallowed up by the darkness and the silence.

The sky is black, the water in the bay is black, the mountains are black.

The water is so thick, so heavy, and so calm that the stars reflected in it do not twinkle or break. Not a single human sound interrupts this silence.

But this lonely, melodious sound only deepens, only accentuates the silence. You can hear the blood coursing through the veins in your ears. A rope holding a boat squeaks somewhere. And again everything is silent.

You feel that the night and the silence are plunged in one black embrace.

I gaze to the left, where the narrow neck of the bay hemmed in by two mountains, disappears. A long, low mountain lies there, crowned by some ancient ruins.

When Yura would be told that the storm had torn to pieces the rigging of his boat, or that one of his boats filled to the top with precious fish had sunk in the storm,

Yura would only say lightly, “Oh, let it go to the devil!” And immediately he would seem to have forgotten all about it.

The other fishermen say about Yura: “The mackerel have only begun coming here from Kerch, but Yura already knows where to put his nets.”

“Why, the devil take them, don’t they answer? Haven’t I said in plain Russian: ‘Good morning, men!’ ”

“There are no men here,” answered the officer meekly. “They are all captains.”

Then Nicholas, so the story goes, laughed—what else could he do?—and shouted again:

“If you should consent, your Majesty, to do what the girl suggests, we should all be infinitely happy, your Majesty.”

“Let my Majesty alone⁠ ⁠…” said the old man, rising from the bench and shaking hands with the citizen. “From now on my Majesty exists no more.”

And they all three walked out forever from the Park of Kings.

… the third place, this man, who recognizes not the soul, but merely the filament that envelops it, will never understand that the most important phenomena of life—birth, love, and death—evidently for the purpose of striking us with terror, are subjected to the uncertitude of chance.

Who of us knows the meaning and the cause of our appearance in the world? Surely, our parents know least about it.

In the conception and the birth of a child, in the formation of its soul and its body, and therefore in the determination of its whole future life, thousands of causes play an equally important part.

His name was Demir-Kayá. In your language, it means “Iron Rock.”

He was given this name because he knew neither pity, nor shame, nor fear.

His band of robbers was active in the vicinity of Stamboul, in blessed Thessaly, in mountainous Macedonia, and in the fertile pastures of Bulgaria. He himself had killed ninety-nine human beings, and among them were women, old men, and children.

Bielotchka raised her delicate little muzzle, blinked with her moist black eyes, and, in the tone of the buffet woman, began quietly to whine out: “Ah, ou-ou-ou. Aou—A-ou-ou-ou.”

But time smooths and washes up everything.

The mandolinists were replaced by balalaika players, and they, in their turn, by a choir of Ukrainians with girls.

“I am a stinking sheeny; all right; and you?”

“Orthodox? And for how much?”

The whole of Gambrinous’ burst out laughing, and Gundoss turned to his comrades, white with rage.

For it seemed that from the hands of the crippled, hooked Sasha the pitiable pipe-shell sang in a language, unfortunately not yet comprehensible to Gambrinous’ friends, or to Sasha himself.

Well, there it is! You may maim a man, but art will endure all and conquer all.

… lights of hanging electric lanterns, the playful, exhilarating sounds of the military orchestra, the long rows of little marble tables, occupied by men and women, the indistinct and monotonous talk of the crowd, the hastily darting waiters, the never-changing, stimulating environment of an expensive restaurant.

Heavens, how quickly, how ceaselessly the human being changes, and how permanent and immovable are the places and things that surround him.

In this contrast, there is always something infinitely sad and mysterious.

“It would be nice to get into a little boat like that and go far out to sea, out of sight of land. … Do you remember how we used to do it in the old days?”

“Yes, our old days are dead.⁠ ⁠…”

It slipped from me unintentionally, in answer to my thoughts, and immediately I was frightened by the unexpected effect that the words produced on you. You grew suddenly so white and threw yourself back in your chair so quickly that I thought you were fainting.

All the same, our brief meeting is beginning, in my imagination, to clothe itself in a little cloud of smoke, a kind of tender, quiet, poetic, submissive sadness. Do you remember that beautiful verse of Pouchkine: “

Autumn flowers are dearer than the beautiful newborn ones of the fields.

… So, sometimes the hour of parting is more vivid than the meeting itself …”?

“Happiness is wealth,” said the next, hesitatingly.

“I am rich and yet it is I who ask the question. Will a wedge of gold the weight of thy head content thee?”

“Thou shalt have it. Fasten on his neck a wedge of gold the weight of his head and cast this beggar into the sea.”

“A mere mortal,” exclaimed proudly the seventh, decorated with narcissus flowers: “Happiness lies in nonexistence.”

“Cut off his head,” the sovereign pronounced lazily.

“Tzar, tzar, be merciful!” lisped the condemned man, and he became paler than the petals of the narcissus. “I did not mean that.”

“

Happiness lies in the charm of human thought.

”

The wise man answered quietly, for he was a real wise man:

“Fool, thought is immortal.”

It was not without point that Chekhov said once: “

There is only one person more hysterical than the actor⁠—it is the constable.

See how they both stand in front of a buffet on a bank holiday, make speeches and weep.”

“

Whistle? On the stage? Ha-ha-ha!

” (He laughed the actor’s bitter laugh.) “And it’s you who tell me to do this? But don’t you know that the stage is a temple, an altar on which we lay all our best thoughts and hopes? And then suddenly to whistle! Ha-ha-ha.”

And there, in the midst of this mixture of triviality, stupidity, swindling, mannerisms, bragging, ignorance, and depravity, Androssova alone truthfully served art. Androssova—clean, charming, beautiful, and talented.

Now that I am older, I understand that she was no more conscious of this filth than the white, beautiful corolla of a flower is conscious that its roots are being fed by the slime of a marsh.

The plays were produced at express speed. Short dramas and comedies would be given one rehearsal. The Death of Ivan the Terrible and The New World would be given two. Ismael, the composition of M.

“Do you understand what this is? Do you understand?

It is the town that is breathing; this is not fog, it is the breath from these stones with holes.

There is here the reeking dampness from the laundries, the smoke from the coal; there is here the sin of the people, their anger, their hatred, the emanations from their mattresses, the reek of their sweat and their putrescent mouths. … My curse upon you!

But bodily he grew weaker every day.

The black fog had killed in him something vital, something that gave life and the desire to live.

A fortnight after his arrival, he was confined to his bed.

Because over there the black fog is in the streets, in the hearts and in the heads of the people, and we come from the exulting South with joyous songs, with the dear bright sun in our souls.

My friend, people cannot live without the sun.

”

“That’s it, old man.

Our whole life from birth to death consists only of meeting and seeing one another off.

You can write this down as a souvenir in your notebook: ‘Evening aphorisms and maxims of Dr. von Ruhl.’ ”

How do they prepare it? The cautious thought flashed through his brain, and then and there he laughed aloud as he recalled one of Dr. von Ruhl’s familiar evening aphorisms: “

One must never think about what one eats or whom one loves.

”

“

Attar of roses hath so goodly a smell!

”

“

Nay, Sulamith, only love can help in love.

Tell me, hast thou a father or a mother?”

“

Cease quarreling; a stone is heavy, and the sand weighty, but a fool’s wrath is heavier than them both.

Your father was, it is plain to see, a wise man and a just, and he has expressed his wishes in his testament just as clearly as though it had been consummated before an hundred witnesses.

“Therefore, let the estate of his father belong to him,” decided the king. “He has proven the worthier son. As for the elder, if he desire, he may join the number of my bodyguards.

I have need of such strong and rapacious men, sure of hand and true of eye, and with a heart grown over with wool.

”

“O, yea—gaze, gaze upon me, beloved. Thy eyes arouse me! O, what joy!—for thy desire is unto me—me! Thy locks are scented. As a bundle of myrrh thou dost lie betwixt my breasts!”

Time ceases its current and closes over them in a solar cycle.

Their bed is the green; their roof is of cedars; and their walls are of cypresses. And the banner over their tent is love.

Thus did his first—and last—love come to Solomon, the greatest of kings and wisest of sages.

Many ages have passed since then. There have been kingdoms and kings, and of them no trace has been left, as of a wind that has sped over a desert.

There have been prolonged, merciless wars, after which the names of the commanders shone through the ages, like ensanguined stars; but time has effaced even the very memory of them.

There have been prolonged, merciless wars, after which the names of the commanders shone through the ages, like ensanguined stars; but time has effaced even the very memory of them.

But the love of the lowly maiden of the vineyard and the great king shall never pass away nor be forgotten⁠—for love is strong as death; for every woman who loves is a queen; for love is beautiful.

Seven days had sped since Solomon—poet, sage, and king—had brought into his palace the lowly maiden he had met in the vineyard at dawn. For seven days did the king take joyance in her love, nor could be sated therewith.

I have found thee like as a diver in the Gulf of Persia, that filleth a great number of baskets with barren shells and pearls of little price, ere he get from the bed of the sea a pearl worthy a king’s crown.

My child, a man may love thousands of times, yet he loveth but once.

People without number think they love, yet only to two of them doth God send love.

“

Brief is the life of man, but time is without end, and matter hath no death.

Man dieth and maketh the earth fertile with the corruption of his body; the earth nourisheth the blade; the blade bringeth forth grain; man consumeth bread, and feedeth his body therewith. Multitudes, and multitudes upon multitudes, of ages shall pass;

“

Fear not death, Sulamith! For love is strong as death.⁠ ⁠… Drive sad thoughts from thee.

… Wouldst have me tell thee of the wars of David, of the feasts and hunts of the Pharaoh Shishak? Wouldst hear one of those fairy tales that come from the land of Ophir? … Wouldst have me tell thee of the wonders of Bakramaditiah?”

“

As long as men and women shall love one another; as long as beauty of soul and body shall be the best and sweetest dream in the universe⁠—so long, I swear to thee, Sulamith, shall thy name be uttered through many ages with emotion and gratefulness.

”

“Leave him.

A living dog is better than a dead lion.

”

denounce an unjust judge; admonish an over-greedy dealer; release an innocent captive from prison; intercede for one condemned to an unmerited death; stretch a helping hand to a drowning man; encourage those in despair; comfort the widow; find a home for the orphan.

Our people are weak and ignorant, and live in darkness; they are covered and overgrown with sin as an old wayside stone is coated with dirt and overgrown with moss.

To whom can we turn, in deep trouble, in sickness, at the hour of death? God is too distant and awe-inspiring, and how dare one trouble the Heavenly Mother with the loathsome ills of mankind?

The noise they made could be heard for five versts round; everybody could tell that the travellers were honest folks who had nothing to hide.

Looking at the horses you wouldn’t have thought much of them; yet, in the long run, the most celebrated trotters couldn’t have kept up with them.

The little white horse ran with its head held low, watching the snow; where the road took a turn it did not need the rein to know which way to go.

Then any transfer from the bourgeois to the proletarian status was strictly prohibited. The bourgeois, it was proposed, should be regarded as the property of the nation, entrusted to the general care and guardianship, like public parks.

But the bourgeois obstinately continued their black sabotage, because in those days to expire was far easier than to smoke a cigarette.

Soon they were reckoned at ten, then five—three—two; and finally in all Soviet Russia there remained just one bourgeois. He was a childless widower, Stepan Nilitch Rybkin, a resident of Malaya Zagvozdka, near Gatchino, formerly proprietor of a grocery and poultry store.