Stories by English Authors, المجلد 4

الغلاف الأمامي
C. Scribner's sons, 1896

من داخل الكتاب

الصفحات المحددة

طبعات أخرى - عرض جميع المقتطفات

عبارات ومصطلحات مألوفة

مقاطع مشهورة

الصفحة 120 - Time had some score of small voices in that shop, some stately and slow as was becoming to their great age; others garrulous and hurried. All these told out the seconds in an intricate chorus of tickings. Then the passage of a lad's feet, heavily running on the pavement, broke in upon these smaller voices and startled Markheim into the consciousness of his surroundings. He looked about him awfully. The candle stood on the counter, its flame solemnly wagging in a draught; and by that inconsiderable...
الصفحة 124 - ... behold the image of the dead dealer, reinspired with cunning and hatred. At times, with a strong effort, he would glance at the open door which still seemed to repel his eyes. The house was tall, the skylight small and dirty, the day blind with fog; and the light that filtered down to the ground story was exceedingly faint, and showed dimly on the threshold of the shop. And yet, in that strip of doubtful brightness, did there not hang wavering a shadow ? Suddenly, from the street outside, a very...
الصفحة 137 - Evil and good run strong in me, hailing me both ways. I do not love the one thing, I love all. I can conceive great deeds, renunciations, martyrdoms ; and though I be fallen to such a crime as murder, pity is no stranger to my thoughts. I pity the poor ; who knows their trials better than myself ? I pity and help them ; I prize love, I love honest laughter ; there is no good thing nor true thing on earth but I love it from my heart. And are my vices only to direct my life, and my virtues to lie without...
الصفحة 137 - but this time I have a sure thing." " This time, again, you will lose," replied the visitor quietly. "Ah, but I keep back the half! " cried Markheim. " That also you will lose," said the other. The sweat started upon Markheim's brow. " Well, then, what matter ? " he exclaimed. " Say it be lost, say I am plunged again in poverty, shall one part of me, and that the worse, continue until the end to override the better?
الصفحة 136 - I will lay my heart open to you," answered Markheim. "This crime on which you find me is my last. On my way to it I have learned many lessons; itself is a lesson, a momentous lesson. Hitherto I have been driven with revolt to what I would not; I was a bond-slave to poverty, driven and scourged. There are robust virtues that can stand in these temptations; mine was not so: I had a thirst of pleasure.
الصفحة 121 - The thought was yet in his mind, when, first one and then another, with every variety of pace and voice one deep as the bell from a cathedral turret, another ringing on its treble notes the prelude of a waltz, - the clocks began to strike the hour of three in the afternoon.
الصفحة 122 - Meanwhile, and behind all this activity, brute terrors, like the scurrying of rats in a deserted attic, filled the more remote chambers of his brain with riot ; the hand of the constable would fall heavy on his shoulder, and his nerves would jerk like a hooked fish ; or he beheld, in galloping defile, the dock, the prison, the gallows, and the black coffin.
الصفحة 130 - ... search among the keys. It was a long business, for there were many; and it was irksome, besides; for, after all, there might be nothing in the cabinet, and time was on the wing. But the closeness of the occupation sobered him. With the tail of his eye he saw the door — even glanced at it from time to time directly, like a besieged commander pleased to verify the good estate of his defences. But in truth he was at peace. The rain falling in the street sounded natural and pleasant. Presently,...
الصفحة 115 - our windfalls are of various kinds. Some customers are ignorant, and then I touch a dividend on my superior knowledge. Some are dishonest,' and here he held up the candle, so that the light fell strongly on his visitor, 'and in that case,' he continued, 'I profit by my virtue.
الصفحة 128 - Markheim's ears, it began to be distinguished into many different sounds. Footsteps and sighs, the tread of regiments marching in the distance, the chink of money in the counting, and the creaking of doors held stealthily ajar, appeared to mingle with the patter of the drops upon the cupola and the gushing of the water in the pipes. The sense that he was not alone grew upon him to the verge of madness. On every side he was haunted and begirt by presences. He heard them moving in the upper chambers...

معلومات المراجع