Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume V).djvu/315

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SMOKE

low degree, advanced and reactionist, old and young . . . 'Smoke,' he repeated, 'smoke and steam' ; he remembered, too, the fashionable picnic, and he remembered various opinions and speeches of other political personages—even all Potugin's sermonising . . . 'Smoke, smoke, nothing but smoke.' And what of his own struggles and passions and agonies and dreams? He could only reply with a gesture of despair.

And meanwhile the train dashed on and on; by now Rastadt, Carlsruhe, and Bruchsal had long been left far behind; the mountains on the right side of the line swerved aside, retreated into the distance, then moved up again, but not so high, and more thinly covered with trees. . . . The train made a sharp turn . . . and there was Heidelberg. The carriage rolled in under the cover of the station; there was the shouting of newspaper-boys, selling papers of all sorts, even Russian; passengers began bustling to their seats, getting out on to the platform, but Litvinov did not leave his corner, and still sat on with downcast head. Suddenly some one called him by name; he raised his eyes; Bindasov's ugly phiz was thrust in at the window; and behind him—or was he dreaming, no, it was really so—all the familiar Baden faces;

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