Showing results by narrator "Max Bollinger" in All Categories

A piano tuner called Murkin, a close-shaven man with a yellow face, with a nose stained with snuff and cotton wool in his ears, came out of his hotel room into the passage. And looking at his frightened face one might have supposed that the ceiling had fallen in on him. 'Upon my word, Semyon!' he cried, seeing the attendant running towards him. 'What is the meaning of it? I am a rheumatic, delicate man and you make me go barefoot! Why is it you don't give me my boots all this time? Where are they?'

Natalya just returned from Yalta, Crimea, and is telling her husband over dinner of all the charms of Crimea. Her husband, delighted, gazes tenderly at her enthusiastic face, listens, and from time to time puts in a question. Natalya's never-ceasing babble gets her into serious trouble, however. She is eager to expose her friend Yulia for some indiscretion with a local guide, and this leads to revelations of Natalya's own 'gay' times with one of the Tatar guides.

In the cheapest room of a big block of furnished apartments Stepan Klotchkov, a medical student in his third year, was walking to and fro, zealously conning his anatomy. In the window, covered by patterns of frost, sat Anyuta, a thin little brunette of five-and-twenty, very pale with mild grey eyes. Sitting with bent back she was busy embroidering with red thread the collar of a man's shirt. She was working against time....

Polinka, a thin fair little person whose mother is the head of a dressmaking establishment, is standing in the middle of the shop looking about for some one. Nikolay Timofeitch, a graceful dark young man, fashionably dressed, with frizzled hair and a big pin in his cravat, has already cleared a place on the counter and is craning forward, looking at Polinka with a smile.

This volume offers a contrasting selection of stories and tales from the master of psychology Fyodor Dostoyevsky and heartwarming storyteller Beatrix Potter. The collection includes 'An Honest Thief' and 'The Peasant Marey' by Fyodor Dostoyevsky; and 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit', 'The Tale of Benjamin Bunny' and 'The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies' by Beatrix Potter. Read in English, unabridged.

'If anything happens it's all known at once, nothing is hidden! It's incredible! You can't imagine! Look! My name has been published! Now all Russia knows of me!' A cautionary tale about people wanting and getting fame at any cost.

'Once, as I was wandering about the fields after partridges with Yermolai, I saw some way off a deserted garden, and turned into it. I had hardly crossed its borders when a snipe rose up out of a bush with a clatter. I fired my gun, and at the same instant, a few paces from me, I heard a shriek; the frightened face of a young girl peeped out for a second from behind the trees, and instantly disappeared. Yermolai ran up to me: "Why are you shooting here? There is a landowner living here."'

Obviously he was born a mouse catcher, a worthy son of his bloodthirsty ancestors. Fate had destined him to be the terror of cellars, storerooms and corn bins, and had it not been for education....

Yegor could not imagine his future works, but he could see distinctly how the papers would talk of him, how the shops would sell his photographs, with what envy his friends would look after him.

A collection of short stories from one of the most famous writers of very long novels, Leo Tolstoy, including: 'Ilyas', 'Little Girls Wiser Than Men' and 'The Coffee-House of Surat'.

'For man to be able to live, he must either not see the infinite, or have such an explanation of the meaning of life as will connect the finite with the infinite.' Read in English, unabridged.

It was past midnight. Nikolay Yevgrafitch knew his wife would not be home very soon, not till five o'clock at least. He did not trust her, and when she was long away he could not sleep, was worried, and at the same time he despised his wife, and her bed, and her looking-glass, and her boxes of sweets, and the hyacinths, and the lilies of the valley which were sent her every day by someone or other, and which diffused the sickly fragrance of a florist's shop all over the house.

A journey into the depth of the Russian countryside, where an intimate connection with nature comes as a natural way of life. Meet Kassyan, who can communicate directly with birds and other forest creatures. Discover the mysterious sweet-voiced oracle bird, the Gamayune, living among trees with leaves that fall not, neither in autumn nor in winter, and apples grow of gold on silver branches, and every man lives in uprightness and content. Read in English, unabridged.

'Ovsyanikov reminded me of the Russian boyars of the times before Peter the Great...The national holiday dress would have suited him well. He was one of the last men left of the old time. All his neighbours had a great respect for him, and considered it an honour to be acquainted with him. His fellow peasant-proprietors almost worshipped him, and took off their hats to him from a distance: they were proud of him.'

Between five and six in the evening. A fairly well-known man of learning is sitting in his study nervously biting his nails. ''It's positively revolting,'' he says, continually looking at his watch. ''It shows the utmost disrespect for another man's time and work. In England such a person would not earn a farthing, he would die of hunger. You wait a minute, when you do come....'' The short story is read in English, and unabridged.

Surely that needs no explanation.... If the teacher rides a bicycle, what can you expect the pupils to do? You will have them walking on their heads next! Read in English, unabridged.

Nellie, a young and pretty girl, dreaming day and night of being married, gazes into a looking glass. In the mirror her future husband emerges, and they live together through days and months in fast-forward, yet she sees her future distinctly in all its details.

Two little girls from different houses happened to meet in a lane between two homesteads, where the dirty water, after running through the farmyards, had formed a large puddle. One girl was very small, the other a little bigger. Their mothers had dressed them both in new frocks. The little one wore a blue frock, the other a yellow print, and both had red kerchiefs on their heads. They had just come from church when they met, and first they showed each other their finery, and then they began to play....

I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all.

Smirnov is scared of being robbed. To compensate and deter the cabman from attacking him, he blusters on in a comical way about his fighting abilities, the three revolvers he doesn't have, and how a party of armed friends will join him soon.

A native Frenchman no longer tutors the wealthy landlord's children, as they've grown up and left the house. The Frenchman is now paid simply to be around, to be properly dressed, to smell of scent, and to listen to Kamyshev's babble, to eat and drink and sleep. It may sound like a dream job, but there's always a catch. Read in English, unabridged.