nook in the whole town. It stood at the edge above the cliff, and
from it there was a splendid view of the sea.

*A character in Gogol's _Dead Souls.--Translator's Note._

"I sat down on the seat, and, bending over the parapet, looked down.
A path ran from the summer-house along the steep, almost overhanging
cliff, between the lumps of clay and tussocks of burdock. Where it
ended, far below on the sandy shore, low waves were languidly foaming
and softly purring. The sea was as majestic, as infinite, and as
forbidding as seven years before when I left the high school and
went from my native town to the capital; in the distance there was
a dark streak of smoke--a steamer was passing--and except for
this hardly visible and motionless streak and the sea-swallows that
flitted over the water, there was nothing to give life to the
monotonous view of sea and sky. To right and left of the summer-house
stretched uneven clay cliffs.

"You know that when a man in a melancholy mood is left _tête-à-tête_
with the sea, or any landscape which seems to him grandiose, there
is always, for some reason, mixed with melancholy, a conviction
that he will live and die in obscurity, and he reflectively snatches
up a pencil and hastens to write his name on the first thing that
comes handy. And that, I suppose, is why all convenient solitary
nooks like my summer-house are always scrawled over in pencil or
carved with penknives. I remember as though it were to-day; looking
at the parapet I read: 'Ivan Korolkov, May 16, 1876.' Beside Korolkov
some local dreamer had scribbled freely, adding:

"'He stood on the desolate ocean's strand,