#wither art thou soaring to then russia?

[queenlucythevaliant]

Any memorable (as in you still remember them 😅) quotes from books you've read this past year?

I'm just gonna share THE QUOTE from Dead Souls. I encountered this passage while reading criticism several years ago and it actually put me off reading the book because I was certain that my expectations were too high and it could never live up to them. I was so very wrong! Here's the troika passage, and it's even better in context 😁

And what Russian is there who doesn’t love fast driving? How should his soul, which yearns to go off into a whirl, to go off on a fling, to say on occasion: “Devil take it all!”—how should his soul fail to love it? Is it not a thing to be loved, when one can sense in it something exaltedly wondrous? Some unseen power, it seems, has caught you up on its wing, and you’re flying yourself, and all things else are flying: the milestones are flying, some merchants are flying toward you, perched on the front seats of their covered carts; the forest flies on both sides of the road with its dark rows of firs and pines, echoing with the ring of axes and the cawing of crows; the whole road is flying none knows whither into the disappearing distance; and there is something fearsome hidden in the very flashing by of objects, so rapid that there’s no time for each one to become defined before it disappears; only the sky in the infinity above and the light clouds and the moon breaking through these clouds seem motionless.

Eh, thou troika, thou that art a bird! Who conceived thee? Methinks’tis only among a spirited folk that thou couldst have come into being, in that land that is not fond of doing things by halves, but that has evenly, smoothly spread itself out over half the world; therefore, try and count its milestones until they turn to spots before the eyes! And far from cunningly contrived is the vehicle the troika draws; held together with no screws of iron art thou, but hastily, with a slam and a bang, wert thou put together and fitted out by some handy muzhik of Iaroslavl, with nothing but an ax and a chisel. No fancy Hessian jackboots does thy driver wear, he sports a beard and great gauntlets and sits on the Devil knows what for a cushion, but let him rise in his seat, and swing his whip back, and strike up a long-drawn song—and his steeds are off like a whirlwind, the spokes of each wheel have blended into one unbroken disk; the road merely quivers, and a passerby on foot, stopping short, cries out in fright, and the troika is soaring, soaring, soaring away! . .. And now all one can see, already far in the distance, is something raising the dust and swirling through the air.

And art not thou, my Russia, soaring along even like a spirited, never-to-be-outdistanced troika? The road actually smokes under thee, the bridges thunder, everything falls back and is left behind thee! The witness of thy passing comes to a dead stop, dumfounded by this Gods wonder! Is it not a streak of lightning cast down from heaven? What signifies this onrush that inspires terror? And what unknown power is contained in these steeds, whose like is not known in this world? Ah, these steeds, these steeds, what steeds they are! Are there whirlwinds perched upon your manes? Is there a sensitive ear, alert as a flame, in your every fiber? Ye have caught the familiar song coming down to you from above, and all as one, and all at the same instant, ye have strained your brazen chests and, almost without touching earth with your hoofs, ye have become all transformed into straight lines cleaving the air, and the troika tears along, all-inspired by God! . . . Whither art thou soaring away to, then, Russia? Give me thy answer! But Russia gives none. With a wondrous ring does the jingle bell trill; the air, rent to shreds, thunders and turns to wind; all things on earth fly past, and eyeing it askance, all the other peoples and nations stand aside and give it the right of way.