CHAPTER XIII 18th June. A Hero of Our Time | ||
13. CHAPTER XIII
18th June.
I HAVE been in Kislovodsk three days now. Every day I see Vera at the well and out walking. In the morning, when I awake, I sit by my window and direct my lorgnette at her balcony. She has already been dressed long ago, and is waiting for the signal agreed upon. We meet, as though unexpectedly, in the garden which slopes down from our houses to the well. The life-giving mountain air has brought back her colour and her strength. Not for nothing is Narzan called the "Spring of Heroes." The inhabitants aver that the air of Kislovodsk predisposes the heart to love and that all the romances which have had their beginning at the foot of Mount Mashuk find their consummation here. And, in very fact, everything here breathes of solitude; everything has an air of secrecy — the thick shadows of the linden avenues, bending over the torrent which falls, noisy and foaming, from flag to flag and cleaves itself a way between the mountains now becoming clad with verdure —
In no place are such quantities of Kakhetian wine and mineral waters drunk as here.
But that is a thing I never do."
Every day Grushnitski and his gang are to be
He only arrived yesterday, and has already succeeded in quarrelling with three old men who were going to take their places in the baths before him.
Decidedly, his misfortunes are developing a warlike spirit within him.
CHAPTER XIII 18th June. A Hero of Our Time | ||