Spring Freshets and Other Stories Author:Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: XXII The little wood in which the conflict was to take place was situated a quarter of a mile from Hanau. Sanin and Pantaleone were the first to arrive, as th... more »e latter had predicted; they ordered the carriage to wait at the edge of the forest, and plunged into the shadow of the tolerably thick and dense trees. They were obliged to wait about an hour. But the waiting did not seem particularly oppressive to Sanin; he walked to and fro along the path, lent an ear to the singing of the birds, watched the dragon-flies flitting past, and, like the majority of Russians under such circumstances, tried not to think. Once, only, did pen- siveness descend upon him. He chanced upon a young linden-tree, broken off, in all probability, by the squall of the preceding day. It was completely dead .... all the leaves on it were dead. "What is this? An omen?" flashed through his mind. But he immediately began to whistle, jumped over that linden-tree, and strode along the path. Pantaleone growled, cursed the Germans, grunted, scratched now his back, now his knees. He even yawned with emotion, which imparted a very droll expression to his tiny, puckered face. Sanin almost roared with laughter as he looked at him. At last the rumble of wheels on the smooth road became audible.-i-"'T is they! "—said Pan- taleone, growing alert, and drew himself up, ndt' without' ' , momentary, nervous shudder, which, however he hastened to mask with the exclamation: "br-r-r-r!" and the remark that the morning was decidedly chilly. An abundance of dew flooded the grass and the foliage, but the sultry heat had already made its way even into the forest. ' Both officers speedily made their appearance beneath its arches; they were accompanied by a short, plump man with a phlegmatic, almost sleepy face—the militar...« less