White nights, and other storiesDostoyevsky, Fyodor
General
White nights, and other stories
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821-1881 -- Translations into English; Russian fiction -- Translations into English
Oh, Heavens! but where could you find a lovelier cap? It was quite
first-rate. Where could you get a better one? I mean it seriously. This
ingratitude on the part of lovers moves me, in fact, to indignation and
even wounds me a little. Why, look at it for yourself, reader, look,
what could be more beautiful than this little love of a cap? Come, look
at it.... But, no, no, my strictures are uncalled for; they had by now
all agreed with me; it had been a momentary aberration; the blindness,
the delirium of feeling; I am ready to forgive them.... But then you
must look.... You must excuse me, kind reader, I am still talking about
the cap: made of tulle, light as a feather, a broad cherry-coloured
ribbon covered with lace passing between the tulle and the ruche, and at
the back two wide long ribbons--they would fall down a little below the
nape of the neck.... All that the cap needed was to be tilted a little
to the back of the head; come, look at it; I ask you, after that ... but
I see you are not looking ... you think it does not matter. You are
looking in a different direction.... You are looking at two big tears,
big as pearls, that rose in two jet black eyes, quivered for one instant
on the eyelashes, and then dropped on the ethereal tulle of which Madame
Leroux's artistic masterpiece was composed.... And again I feel vexed,
those two tears were scarcely a tribute to the cap.... No, to my mind,
such a gift should be given in cool blood, as only then can its full
worth be appreciated. I am, I confess, dear reader, entirely on the side
of the cap.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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