Classics Books

INTRODUCTORY TO "THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES" The snow-storm lasted another day; but what became of it afterwards, I cannot possibly imagine. At any rate, it entirely cleared away, during the night; and when the sun arose, the next morning, it shone brightly down on as bleak a tract of hill-country, here in Berkshire, as could be seen anywhere in the world. The frost-work had so covered the... more...

ACT I. The coast of Samland. The background slopes upward at right and left to wooded hills. Between them is a gorge, behind which the sea glitters. In the right foreground are graves with wooden head-boards and crosses, overgrown with shrubbery. At the left is a stout watch-tower with a door in it. Common household furniture stands about the threshold. Scene 1. Hans Lorbass seated on a grave with... more...

Part I The tradesmen of Bridgepoint learned to dread the sound of "MissMathilda", for with that name the good Anna always conquered. The strictest of the one price stores found that they could givethings for a little less, when the good Anna had fully said that "MissMathilda" could not pay so much and that she could buy it cheaper "byLindheims." Lindheims was Anna's... more...

CHAPTER I THE QUARREL WITH THE ENGLISH Writing in 1725, the French naval commander, the Chevalier d'Albert, tells us that the three most handsome towns on the Ganges were Calcutta, Chandernagore, and Chinsurah, the chief Factories of the English, French, and Dutch. These towns were all situated within thirty miles of each other. Calcutta, the latest founded, was the greatest and the richest, owing... more...

CHAPTER IBERGERONNETTE For me the strange story dates back to that autumn day when my uncle Dorgeroux appeared, staggering and unhinged, in the doorway of the room which I occupied in his house, Haut-Meudon Lodge. None of us had set eyes on him for a week. A prey to that nervous exasperation into which the final test of any of his inventions invariably threw him, he was living among his furnaces and... more...

CHAPTER ONE In the whole wide world there were no comrades who loved each other better than Petrik,[1] Ondrejko,[2] and Fido. All three were orphans and had had a hard time in the world thus far. Both parents of Petrik had died of a malignant fever. He became a public charge and was sent from place to place, till finally he was placed in charge of "Bacha"[3] Filina, who was his father's... more...

VII On the following day as Pierre, after a long ramble, once more found himself in front of the Vatican, whither a harassing attraction ever led him, he again encountered Monsignor Nani. It was a Wednesday evening, and the Assessor of the Holy Office had just come from his weekly audience with the Pope, whom he had acquainted with the proceedings of the Congregation at its meeting that morning.... more...

PART II ON the afternoon of that same day Pierre, having leisure before him, at once thought of beginning his peregrinations through Rome by a visit on which he had set his heart. Almost immediately after the publication of "New Rome" he had been deeply moved and interested by a letter addressed to him from the Eternal City by old Count Orlando Prada, the hero of Italian independence and... more...

PART I THE train had been greatly delayed during the night between Pisa and Civita Vecchia, and it was close upon nine o'clock in the morning when, after a fatiguing journey of twenty-five hours' duration, Abbe Pierre Froment at last reached Rome. He had brought only a valise with him, and, springing hastily out of the railway carriage amidst the scramble of the arrival, he brushed the eager... more...

XIV THAT evening, when Pierre emerged from the Borgo in front of the Vatican, a sonorous stroke rang out from the clock amidst the deep silence of the dark and sleepy district. It was only half-past eight, and being in advance the young priest resolved to wait some twenty minutes in order to reach the doors of the papal apartments precisely at nine, the hour fixed for his audience. This respite brought... more...