“Easter Eve”
by
Anton Chekhov
I was standing on the bank of the River Goltva, waiting for the ferry-boat from the other side. At ordinary times the Goltva is a humble stream of moderate size, silent and pensive, gently glimmering from behind thick reeds; but now a regular lake lay stretched out before me. The waters of spring, running riot, had overflowed both banks and flooded both sides of the river for a long distance, submerging vegetable gardens, hayfields and marshes, so that it was no unusual thing to meet poplars and bushes sticking out above the surface of the water and looking in the darkness like grim solitary crags.
The weather seemed to me magnificent. It was dark, yet I could see the trees, the water and the people. . . . The world was lighted by the stars, which were scattered thickly all over the sky. I don’t remember ever seeing so many stars. Literally one could not have put a finger in between them. There were some as big as a goose’s egg, others tiny as hempseed. . . . They had come out for the festival procession, every one of them, little and big, washed, renewed and joyful, and everyone of them was softly twinkling its beams. The sky was reflected in the water; the stars were bathing in its dark depths and trembling with the quivering eddies. The air was warm and still. . . . Here and there, far away on the further bank in the impenetrable darkness, several bright red lights were gleaming. . . .
A couple of paces from me I saw the dark silhouette of a peasant in a high hat, with a thick knotted stick in his hand.
“How long the ferry-boat is in coming!” I said.
“It is time it was here,” the silhouette answered.
“You are waiting for the ferry-boat, too?”
“No I am not,” yawned the peasant—”I am waiting for the illumination. I should have gone, but to tell you the truth, I haven’t the five kopecks for the ferry.”
“I’ll give you the five kopecks.”
“No; I humbly thank you. . . . With that five kopecks put up a candle for me over there in the monastery. . . . That will be more interesting, and I will stand here. What can it mean, no ferry-boat, as though it had sunk in the water!”
The peasant went up to the water’s edge, took the rope in his hands, and shouted; “Ieronim! Ieron—im!” Continue reading ““Easter Eve” — Anton Chekhov”
Dave Cooper’s Mudbite is new in glorious full-color hardback from Fantagraphics. Here is the front cover:
And here is the other front cover (Mudbite is a tête-bêche):
I hope to post a review of Mudbite at The Comics Journal soon, but for now, here’s Fantagraphics’ blurb:
Eddy Table, the star of Mudbite, first appeared the early ’90s in Cooper’s award-winning underground comics series, Weasel. His stories were based on baffling dreams and reveled in a unique sort of logical nonsense. Mudbitecompiles two all-new Eddy Table stories, “Mud River” and “Bug Bite,” in which Eddy returns to his roots, acting as Dave’s alter ego in these dreamlike narratives.
In “Mud River,” Eddy makes a foolish mistake, causing a sweet, innocent Amazon to bonk her head, turning her into a very impressionable automaton. Of course, Eddy can’t resist taking advantage of this unexpected development, even as a river of mud approaches. In “Bug Bite,” Eddy has brought his family on a vacation to Europe, but he’s soon distracted by a series of manifestations of his own obsessions — voluptuous women, mysterious and collectible “microdevices,” and a strange, impromptu jam session. When he loses his family entirely, he’s led into a dark, slimy corridor inhabited by shiny black eels. What is their connection to the microdevices? And how will all this impact his family?
Mudbite marks the first new graphic novel by fan favorite Dave Cooper in more than 15 years, marking a welcome return to the medium that he made his name in before focusing on fine art and television, where he has focused most of his creative energy since.
Biblioklept 