AS MOSCAS DE DEUS
UM BLOGUE PARA TODAS AS MOSCAS E PARA AS (E OS) MERDAS QUE AS ALIMENTAM
utorak, 1. travnja 2025.
nine years ago Pyotr Sergeyitch, the deputy prosecutor, and I were riding towards evening in hay-making time to fetch the letters from the station. The weather was magnificent, but on our way back we heard a peal of thunder, and saw an angry black storm-cloud which was coming straight towards us. The storm-cloud was approaching us and we were approaching it. Against the background of it our house and church looked white and the tall poplars shone like silver. There was a scent of rain and mown hay. My companion was in high spirits. He kept laughing and talking all sorts of nonsense. He said it would be nice if we could suddenly come upon a medieval castle with turreted towers, with moss on it and owls, in which we could take shelter from the rain and in the end be killed by a thunderbolt.... Then the first wave raced through the rye and a field of oats, there was a gust of wind, and the dust flew round and round in the air. Pyotr Sergeyitch laughed and spurred on his horse. “It’s fine!” he cried, “it’s splendid!” Infected by his gaiety, I too began laughing at the thought that in a minute I should be drenched to the skin and might be struck by lightning. Riding swiftly in a hurricane when one is breathless with the wind, and feels like a bird, thrills one and puts one’s heart in a flutter. By the time we rode into our courtyard the wind had gone down, and big drops of rain were pattering on the grass and on the roofs. There was not a soul near the stable. Pyotr Sergeyitch himself took the bridles off, and led the horses to their stalls. I stood in the doorway waiting for him to finish, and watching the slanting streaks of rain; the sweetish, exciting scent of hay was even stronger here than in the fields; the storm-clouds and the rain made it almost twilight. “What a crash!” said Pyotr Sergeyitch, coming up to me after a very loud rolling peal of thunder when it seemed as though the sky were split in two. “What do you say to that?” He stood beside me in the doorway and, still breathless from his rapid ride, looked at me. I could see that he was admiring me. “Natalya Vladimirovna,” he said, “I would give anything only to stay here a little longer and look at you. You are lovely to-day.” His eyes looked at me with delight and supplication, his face was pale. On his beard and mustache were glittering raindrops, and they, too, seemed to be looking at me with love. “I love you,” he said. “I love you, and I am happy at seeing you. I know you cannot be my wife, but I want nothing, I ask nothing; only know that I love you. Be silent, do not answer me, take no notice of it, but only know that you are dear to me and let me look at you.” His rapture affected me too; I looked at his enthusiastic face, listened to his voice which mingled with the patter of the rain, and stood as though spellbound, unable to stir. I longed to go on endlessly looking at his shining eyes and listening. “You say nothing, and that is splendid,” said Pyotr Sergeyitch. “Go on being silent.” I felt happy. I laughed with delight and ran through the drenching rain to the house; he laughed too, and, leaping as he went, ran after me. Both drenched, panting, noisily clattering up the stairs like children, we dashed into the room. My father and brother, who were not used to seeing me laughing and light-hearted, looked at me in surprise and began laughing too. The storm-clouds had passed over and the thunder had ceased, but the raindrops still glittered on Pyotr Sergeyitch’s beard. The whole evening till supper-time he was singing, whistling, playing noisily with the dog and racing about the room after it, so that he nearly upset the servant with the samovar. And at supper he ate a great deal, talked nonsense, and maintained that when one eats fresh cucumbers in winter there is the fragrance of spring in one’s mouth. When I went to bed I lighted a candle and threw my window wide open, and an undefined feeling took possession of my soul. I remembered that I was free and healthy, that I had rank and wealth, that I was beloved; above all, that I had rank and wealth, rank and wealth, my God! how nice that was!... Then, huddling up in bed at a touch of cold which reached me from the garden with the dew, I tried to discover whether I loved Pyotr Sergeyitch or not,... and fell asleep unable to reach any conclusion. And when in the morning I saw quivering patches of sunlight and the shadows of the lime trees on my bed, what had happened yesterday rose vividly in my memory. Life seemed to me rich, varied, full of charm. Humming, I dressed quickly and went out into the garden.... And what happened afterwards? Why—nothing. In the winter when we lived in town Pyotr Sergeyitch came to see us from time to time. Country acquaintances are charming only in the country and in summer; in the town and in winter they lose their charm. When you pour out tea for them in the town it seems as though they are wearing other people’s coats, and as though they stirred their tea too long. In the town, too, Pyotr Sergeyitch spoke sometimes of love, but the effect was not at all the same as in the country. In the town we were more vividly conscious of the wall that stood between us. I had rank and wealth, while he was poor, and he was not even a nobleman, but only the son of a deacon and a deputy public prosecutor; we both of us—I through my youth and he for some unknown reason—thought of that wall as very high and thick, and when he was with us in the town he would criticize aristocratic society with a forced smile, and maintain a sullen silence when there was anyone else in the drawing-room. There is no wall that cannot be broken through, but the heroes of the modern romance, so far as I know them, are too timid, spiritless, lazy, and oversensitive, and are too ready to resign themselves to the thought that they are doomed to failure, that personal life has disappointed them; instead of struggling they merely criticize, calling the world vulgar and forgetting that their criticism passes little by little into vulgarity. I was loved, happiness was not far away, and seemed to be almost touching me; I went on living in careless ease without trying to understand myself, not knowing what I expected or what I wanted from life, and time went on and on.... People passed by me with their love, bright days and warm nights flashed by, the nightingales sang, the hay smelt fragrant, and all this, sweet and overwhelming in remembrance, passed with me as with everyone rapidly, leaving no trace, was not prized, and vanished like mist.... Where is it all? My father is dead, I have grown older; everything that delighted me, caressed me, gave me hope—the patter of the rain, the rolling of the thunder, thoughts of happiness, talk of love—all that has become nothing but a memory, and I see before me a flat desert distance; on the plain not one living soul, and out there on the horizon it is dark and terrible.... A ring at the bell.... It is Pyotr Sergeyitch. When in the winter I see the trees and remember how green they were for me in the summer I whisper: “Oh, my darlings!” And when I see people with whom I spent my spring-time, I feel sorrowful and warm and whisper the same thing. He has long ago by my father’s good offices been transferred to town. He looks a little older, a little fallen away. He has long given up declaring his love, has left off talking nonsense, dislikes his official work, is ill in some way and disillusioned; he has given up trying to get anything out of life, and takes no interest in living. Now he has sat down by the hearth and looks in silence at the fire.... Not knowing what to say I ask him: “Well, what have you to tell me?” “Nothing,” he answers. And silence again. The red glow of the fire plays about his melancholy face. I thought of the past, and all at once my shoulders began quivering, my head dropped, and I began weeping bitterly. I felt unbearably sorry for myself and for this man, and passionately longed for what had passed away and what life refused us now. And now I did not think about rank and wealth. I broke into loud sobs, pressing my temples, and muttered: “My God! my God! my life is wasted!” And he sat and was silent, and did not say to me: “Don’t weep.” He understood that I must weep, and that the time for this had come. I saw from his eyes that he was sorry for me; and I was sorry for him, too, and vexed with this timid, unsuccessful man who could not make a life for me, nor for himself. When I saw him to the door, he was, I fancied, purposely a long while putting on his coat. Twice he kissed my hand without a word, and looked a long while into my tear-stained face. I believe at that moment he recalled the storm, the streaks of rain, our laughter, my face that day; he longed to say something to me, and he would have been glad to say it; but he said nothing, he merely shook his head and pressed my hand. God help him! After seeing him out, I went back to my study and again sat on the carpet before the fireplace; the red embers were covered with ash and began to grow dim. The frost tapped still more angrily at the windows, and the wind droned in the chimney. The maid came in and, thinking I was asleep, called my name.
ponedjeljak, 31. ožujka 2025.
Attitude by Hal Clement - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/61564/pg61564-images.html
Their captors had a very curious system, a very
curious motivation. The captives were allowed
to—even encouraged to—build devices to bring
about their escape. Only at the last moment,
mysteriously, the captors always stopped them—
nadya zelenin had just come back with her mamma from the theatre where she had seen a performance of “Yevgeny Onyegin.” As soon as she reached her own room she threw off her dress, let down her hair, and in her petticoat and white dressing-jacket hastily sat down to the table to write a letter like Tatyana’s. “I love you,” she wrote, “but you do not love me, do not love me!” She wrote it and laughed. She was only sixteen and did not yet love anyone. She knew that an officer called Gorny and a student called Gruzdev loved her, but now after the opera she wanted to be doubtful of their love. To be unloved and unhappy—how interesting that was. There is something beautiful, touching, and poetical about it when one loves and the other is indifferent. Onyegin was interesting because he was not in love at all, and Tatyana was fascinating because she was so much in love; but if they had been equally in love with each other and had been happy, they would perhaps have seemed dull. “Leave off declaring that you love me,” Nadya went on writing, thinking of Gorny. “I cannot believe it. You are very clever, cultivated, serious, you have immense talent, and perhaps a brilliant future awaits you, while I am an uninteresting girl of no importance, and you know very well that I should be only a hindrance in your life. It is true that you were attracted by me and thought you had found your ideal in me, but that was a mistake, and now you are asking yourself in despair: ‘Why did I meet that girl?’ And only your goodness of heart prevents you from owning it to yourself....” Nadya felt sorry for herself, she began to cry, and went on: “It is hard for me to leave my mother and my brother, or I should take a nun’s veil and go whither chance may lead me. And you would be left free and would love another. Oh, if I were dead!” She could not make out what she had written through her tears; little rainbows were quivering on the table, on the floor, on the ceiling, as though she were looking through a prism. She could not write, she sank back in her easy-chair and fell to thinking of Gorny. My God! how interesting, how fascinating men were! Nadya recalled the fine expression, ingratiating, guilty, and soft, which came into the officer’s face when one argued about music with him, and the effort he made to prevent his voice from betraying his passion. In a society where cold haughtiness and indifference are regarded as signs of good breeding and gentlemanly bearing, one must conceal one’s passions. And he did try to conceal them, but he did not succeed, and everyone knew very well that he had a passionate love of music. The endless discussions about music and the bold criticisms of people who knew nothing about it kept him always on the strain; he was frightened, timid, and silent. He played the piano magnificently, like a professional pianist, and if he had not been in the army he would certainly have been a famous musician. The tears on her eyes dried. Nadya remembered that Gorny had declared his love at a Symphony concert, and again downstairs by the hatstand where there was a tremendous draught blowing in all directions. “I am very glad that you have at last made the acquaintance of Gruzdev, our student friend,” she went on writing. “He is a very clever man, and you will be sure to like him. He came to see us yesterday and stayed till two o’clock. We were all delighted with him, and I regretted that you had not come. He said a great deal that was remarkable.” Nadya laid her arms on the table and leaned her head on them, and her hair covered the letter. She recalled that the student, too, loved her, and that he had as much right to a letter from her as Gorny. Wouldn’t it be better after all to write to Gruzdev? There was a stir of joy in her bosom for no reason whatever; at first the joy was small, and rolled in her bosom like an india-rubber ball; then it became more massive, bigger, and rushed like a wave. Nadya forgot Gorny and Gruzdev; her thoughts were in a tangle and her joy grew and grew; from her bosom it passed into her arms and legs, and it seemed as though a light, cool breeze were breathing on her head and ruffling her hair. Her shoulders quivered with subdued laughter, the table and the lamp chimney shook, too, and tears from her eyes splashed on the letter. She could not stop laughing, and to prove to herself that she was not laughing about nothing she made haste to think of something funny. “What a funny poodle,” she said, feeling as though she would choke with laughter. “What a funny poodle!” She thought how, after tea the evening before, Gruzdev had played with Maxim the poodle, and afterwards had told them about a very intelligent poodle who had run after a crow in the yard, and the crow had looked round at him and said: “Oh, you scamp!” The poodle, not knowing he had to do with a learned crow, was fearfully confused and retreated in perplexity, then began barking.... “No, I had better love Gruzdev,” Nadya decided, and she tore up the letter to Gorny. She fell to thinking of the student, of his love, of her love; but the thoughts in her head insisted on flowing in all directions, and she thought about everything—about her mother, about the street, about the pencil, about the piano.... She thought of them joyfully, and felt that everything was good, splendid, and her joy told her that this was not all, that in a little while it would be better still. Soon it would be spring, summer, going with her mother to Gorbiki. Gorny would come for his furlough, would walk about the garden with her and make love to her. Gruzdev would come too. He would play croquet and skittles with her, and would tell her wonderful things. She had a passionate longing for the garden, the darkness, the pure sky, the stars. Again her shoulders shook with laughter, and it seemed to her that there was a scent of wormwood in the room and that a twig was tapping at the window. She went to her bed, sat down, and not knowing what to do with the immense joy which filled her with yearning, she looked at the holy image hanging at the back of her bed, and said: “Oh, Lord God! Oh, Lord God!”
nedjelja, 30. ožujka 2025.
TRANSIENT By WARD MOORE - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/72706/pg72706-images.html
"For what purpose does the honorable delegate arise?" mocked the teacher.
Lampley felt himself blushing. "I—I thought it was customary."
"All is custom as Herodotus said," remarked the teacher. "Herodotus was a barbarian," he explained genially to the class. "Sit down.
And the sign just outside, Pop. 1,983. Pathetic lack of 17 more pop. With 2,000 they could have boasted: We're on our way, on our third thousand, the biggest little town between here and there. Watch us grow. If you lived here, you'd be home now. Get in on the ground floor and expand with us, Tomorrow's metropolis. Under two thousand was stagnation, decay, surrender. 1,983:
But there had been the railroad then, and young Almon Lampley swinging down from the daycoach before the wheels stopped turning, bursting with enthusiasm, eager, cocky, invincible. The railroad gone, its tracks melted into scrap, its ties piled up and burned, its place taken by trucking lines, buses, cars. You had to have progress. So what if the town got lost in the process, fell behind? There were other towns, equally deserving, equally promising, equally anxious to get ahead. The state was full of them: chicory capital of the world, hub of mink breeding, where the juiciest pickles are made, home-owners' heaven, the friendliest city, Santa Claus' summer residence, host to the annual girly festival, gateway to the alkali flats. Thousands of them. And he was governor of the whole state. It would be non-feasance if not mis-feasance in him to regret this one bypassed settlement.
The elevator dived in darkness, far further than any conceivable excavation beneath the hotel. It fell through night, blacker and more terrifying than any moonless, starless reality. It plunged into total, unrelieved absence of light, a devastation to the senses, a mockery to the eyes.
How do all these people live?" asked the Governor. "The soldiers, the women, the schoolmaster, the juggler?"
The clerk shrugged. "No differently than anyone else. Osmosis. Symbiosis. Ventriloquism. Saprophytism. Necrophilism. The usual ways."
"Imagination? Illusion? Hallucination? Mirage?"
"We are what we are," said the clerk. "Can you say as much? Going down."
"I want to know," persisted Lampley.
"Don't we all? What's the use?