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TALES BY POLISH AUTHORS. Translated by ELSE BENECKE. Crown 8vo., cloth, 3s. 6d. net.
"This is a book to be bought and read; it cannot fail to be remembered.... The whole book is full of passionate genius.... It is delightfully translated."--_The Contemporary Review._
TRANSLATED BY ELSE C. M. BENECKE AND MARIE BUSCH
OXFORD B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET 1916
The translators' thanks are due to MM. Szymański and Żeromski for allowing their stories to appear in English; and to Mr. Nevill Forbes, Reader in Russian in the University of Oxford, Mr. Retinger, and Mr. Stefan Wolff, for granting permission on behalf of the three other authors (or their representatives) whose works are included in this volume; also to Miss Repszówa for much valuable help.
PAGE MACIEJ THE MAZUR. By Adam Szymański 1 TWO PRAYERS. By Adam Szymański 52 THE TRIAL. By W. St. Reymont 86 THE STRONGER SEX. By Stefan Żeromski 112 THE CHUKCHEE. By W. Sieroszewski 146 THE RETURNING WAVE. By Bolesław Prus 186
cz = English _ch_. sz = English _sh_. ł = English _w_. ó = English _o_ in "who." ą = French "on." ę = French _in_ as in "vin." rz and ż = French _j_ in "jour." (rz and ż after _k_, _p_, _t_, _ch_ = English _sh_.) ch = Scotch _ch_ in "loch." c = _ts_.
After leaving Yakutsk I settled in X----, a miserable little town farther up the Lena. The river is neither so cold nor so broad here, but wilder and gloomier. Although the district is some thousands of versts nearer the civilized world, it contains few colonies. The country is rocky and mountainous, and the taiga[1] spreads over it in all directions for hundreds and thousands of versts. It would certainly be difficult to find a wilder or gloomier landscape in any part of the world than the vast tract watered by the Lena in its upper course, almost as far as Yakutsk itself. Taiga, gloomy, wild, and inaccessible, taiga as dense as a wall, covers everything here--mountains, ravines, plains, and caverns. Only here and there a grey, rocky cliff, resembling the ruin of a huge monument, rises against this dark background; now and then a vulture circles majestically over the limitless wilderness, or its sole inhabitant, an angry bear, is heard growling.