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Love by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
page 44 of 253 (17%)
dusty road. It was dark. As my eyes grew gradually accustomed to
the darkness, I began to distinguish the silhouettes of the old
gaunt oaks and lime trees which bordered the road. The jagged,
precipitous cliffs, intersected here and there by deep, narrow
ravines and creeks, soon showed indistinctly, a black streak on the
right. Low bushes nestled by the hollows, looking like sitting
figures. It was uncanny. I looked sideways suspiciously at the
cliffs, and the murmur of the sea and the stillness of the country
alarmed my imagination. Kisotchka did not speak. She was still
trembling, and before she had gone half a mile she was exhausted
with walking and was out of breath. I too was silent.

"Three-quarters of a mile from the Quarantine Station there was a
deserted building of four storeys, with a very high chimney in which
there had once been a steam flour mill. It stood solitary on the
cliff, and by day it could be seen for a long distance, both by sea
and by land. Because it was deserted and no one lived in it, and
because there was an echo in it which distinctly repeated the steps
and voices of passers-by, it seemed mysterious. Picture me in the
dark night arm-in-arm with a woman who was running away from her
husband near this tall long monster which repeated the sound of
every step I took and stared at me fixedly with its hundred black
windows. A normal young man would have been moved to romantic
feelings in such surroundings, but I looked at the dark windows and
thought: 'All this is very impressive, but time will come when of
that building and of Kisntchka and her troubles and of me with my
thoughts, not one grain of dust will remain. . . . All is nonsense
and vanity. . . .'

"When we reached the flour mill Kisotchka suddenly stopped, took
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