Extrait:Près du réverbère le plus voisin de la porte de notre maison, elle s'arrêta de nouveau et, s'appuyant contre une barrière, se mit à fouiller dans sa jupe avec des mains maladives, gelées et ivres. De nouveau ils crièrent après elle, mais elle grommela quelques mots en faisant je ne sais quoi. Elle tenait dans une main une cigarette roulée dans l'autre une allumette.

Ce qu'il faut faire

Après 1905, le refus de Tolstoï de la violence motive son rejet de la révolution qu’il conçoit comme un déferlement de violences barbares tel que la Russie en a connu avec Pougatchev à la fin du xviiie siècle. Ce point de vue sur ces révoltesconçues non comme un mouvement rationnel et organisé, mais comme un chaos, une vague de fond ravageuse hors de tout contrôle, ainsi qu’il l’exprime dans ce texte, fut celle de tout un courant de la pensée russe, notamment d’écrivainscomme Pilniak ou Boulgakov. Tolstoï a perçu cette résurgence d’un soulèvement primitif, cette menace d’un retour des âmes mortes ; il a de la compassion pour le peuple, mais il ne l’idéalise pas.

Les Chemins de la misère

Dans ce roman, publié pour la première fois en France en 1888,Tolstoï, qui parle au nom de Katia, raconte une simple histoire d’amour entre une jeune femme de dix-sept ans et son mari de vingt ans son aîné. Le déroulement en est prévisible. L’admiration de la jeune femme cède à l’ennui dans cette campagne russe à l’ordre sans faille.Vient ensuite le désir de la ville, la fascination pour Saint-Pétersbourg, la vie mondaine, le délitement de la relation amoureuse et aussi la confirmation que depuis le début le mari a tout prévu. Ce roman simple et linéaire est magnifique dans sa sensibilité et la subtilité des sentiments évoqués.

Katia

It happened in the 'seventies in winter, on the day after St. Nicholas's Day. There was a fete in the parish and the innkeeper, Vasili Andreevich Brekhunov, a Second Guild merchant, being a church elder had to go to church, and had also to entertain his relatives and friends at home.

But when the last of them had gone he at once began to prepare to drive over to see a neighbouring proprietor about a grove which he had been bargaining over for a long time. He was now in a hurry to start, lest buyers from the town might forestall him in making a profitable purchase.

The youthful landowner was asking ten thousand rubles for the grove simply because Vasili Andreevich was offering seven thousand. Seven thousand was, however, only a third of its real value. Vasili Andreevich might perhaps have got it down to his own price, for the woods were in his district and he had a long-standing agreement with the other village dealers that no one should run up the price in another's district, but he had now learnt that some timber-dealers from town meant to bid for the Goryachkin grove, and he resolved to go at once and get the matter settled. So as soon as the feast was over, he took seven hundred rubles from his strong box, added to them two thousand three hundred rubles of church money he had in his keeping, so as to make up the sum to three thousand; carefully counted the notes, and having put them into his pocket-book made haste to start.

Master and Man

Acclaimed by many as the world's greatest novel, Anna Karenina provides a vast panorama of contemporary life in Russia and of humanity in general. In it Tolstoy uses his intense imaginative insight to create some of the most memorable characters in literature. Anna is a sophisticated woman who abandons her empty existence as the wife of Karenin and turns to Count Vronsky to fulfil her passionate nature - with tragic consequences. Levin is a reflection of Tolstoy himself, often expressing the author's own views and convictions.Throughout, Tolstoy points no moral, merely inviting us not to judge but to watch. As Rosemary Edmonds comments, 'He leaves the shifting patterns of the kaleidoscope to bring home the meaning of the brooding words following the title, 'Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.

Anna Karénine

Excerpt from Resurrection: RomanLe gardien et la Maslova entrerent dans le bureau ou se tenaient deja deux soldats, le fusil au bras. Le greffier remit a l'un d'eux un papier et montrant la detenue.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Résurrection: Roman (Classic Reprint)

Hailed as one of the world's supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his dying so much as a passing thought. But one day, death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise, he is brought face to face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth?This short novel was an artistic culmination of a profound spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life, a nine-year period following the publication of Anna Karenina during which he wrote not a word of fiction.A thoroughly absorbing and, at times, terrifying glimpse into the abyss of death, it is also a strong testament to the possibility of finding spiritual salvation.

Ce qu'il faut faire

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