Vasilii Vasil Evich Vereshchagin
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 38
Get eBook
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 edition. Excerpt: ... works. The elder Skobeleff observed to the engineer officer that he was making the boarding of the platform much too thin. The rather dandified young officer who was doing the honours replied; 'It is thick enough for the Turks, your Excellency.' A little further from the town, at the first village, Slobodsei, another battery was being erected, of siege-guns, apparently, which were to carry nine versts. There the energetic Colonel Pliutchinski was at work, # The little town of Giurgevo had undergone no change, except that here and there greater activity than usual prevailed. Many of the inhabitants certainly had been frightened away by the bombardment; the houses on the shore in particular stood empty; but within the town, in the squares and streets, there were great throngs of people, and trade was brisk. The hotels and inns were filled with officers carousing--some alone and some in groups, some with women and some without them; and their merriment was not always restrained within the limits of propriety. One evening, when I entered an inn with S. and other officers to have supper, we found a drunken company there, who had taken off sabres and caps, some even their tunics, and had put them on the girls who were drinking with them. And all this took place in the public room! The younger officers of our detachment--the above-mentioned S., L., and others--frequented a certain garden, to which they were attracted by the charms of the damsels who sang and played the harp there, and made Skobeleff so eager by their account of the pleasures of the entertainment, that the old man, who feared to compromise himself by visiting the garden, decided to take a peep secretly. He was once seen to steal along by the garden and look through a hole in the...