The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories (Penguin Classics)
Leo Tolstoy
Language: English
Pages: 352
ISBN: 0140449612
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Here are some of Tolstoy's extraordinary short stories, from "The Death of Ivan Ilyich." in a masterly new translation, to "The Raid," "The Wood-felling," "Three Deaths," "Polikushka," "After the Ball," and "The Forged Coupon," all gripping and eloquent lessons on two of Tolstoy's most persistent themes: life and death. More experimental than his novels, Tolstoy's stories are essential reading for anyone interested in his development as one of the major writers and thinkers of his time.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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carrying was thrown to one side. His forehead was covered with blood and over his right eye and his nose flowed a thick, red stream. He had been wounded in the stomach, but there was hardly any blood there - he had smashed his forehead against a tree stump in falling. I only discovered all this much later and at first I could only make out some vague heap and what appeared to be a dreadful amount of blood. None of the soldiers who had loaded the gun said a word, except for the young recruit,
campaign of 1852, a young soldier happened to comment, during some action, that the platoon didn’t have a hope in hell of getting out alive, whereupon the entire platoon furiously attacked him for such a cowardly remark, which they could not even bring themselves to repeat. And now, when everyone’s thoughts must have been of Velenchuk, when Tartars might creep up on us and fire a volley any moment, everyone listened to Chikin’s lively tale and no one mentioned either the day’s action, or the
Ilya caught sight of his uncle he stopped speaking, gloomily looked down again vaguely in the direction of the bench, and then said to the village elder, ‘Yermila. Get me some vodka. I want a nice drink.’ His gloomy voice had a sharp edge to it. ‘What do you want a drink for at this time of night?’ said the elder, slurping from his cup. ‘Look, everybody’s had a bite and gone to sleep. Why are you making all this row?’ The word ‘row’ seemed to put him in mind of really making a row. ‘Elder,
this fear gradually fading. Drum slowed to a walking pace, and the road ahead became clearer. Polikey took off his cap and felt the money. He wondered whether he ought to put it inside, under his coat. No, that would mean undoing his belt. At the bottom of the next hill he would get down and sort himself out. But his cap was well sewn up at the top and nothing could fall down through the lining; no, he wouldn’t take his cap off until he got home. And at the bottom of the slope Drum took it upon
bad, but Ivan Vasilyevich had a peculiar way of answering questions of his own that had occurred to him in the course of the discussion, and of making these the pretext for tales concerning episodes in his own life. Quite often he would completely forget the point from which he had started, and would get carried away by his stories, all the more so since he told them with a high degree of sincerity and truthfulness. It was no different on this occasion. ‘I’ll tell you what happened to me. The