Page:Tales from Gorky (1902).djvu/29

 "Evidently those are the Crimean mountains," said "the student" with a dry voice. "Mountains?" cried the soldier, "it's jolly early yet to see mountains. They are clouds simply clouds. Don't you see just like cranberry vinegar with milk."

I observed that it would be in the highest degree acceptable if they were clouds and did indeed consist of cranberry vinegar. This suddenly awakened our hunger the evil of our days.

"Deuce take it!" growled the soldier, spitting a bit; "if only we could fall in with a single living soul! There's nobody at all! We shall have to do as the bears do in winter-time and suck our own paws." "I said we ought to have gone towards inhabited places," observed "the student" didactically. "You said, did you!" the soldier fired up at once. "Talk—that's about all you students are up to! What sort of inhabited places are there here? The Devil knows where they are."

"The student" was silent, he only pressed his lips tightly together. The sun was setting, and the clouds on the horizon exhibited a play of colour of every shade that language fails to grasp. There was a smell of earth and of salt in the air, and this dry and tasty smell piqued our appetites still more.

There was a sucking sensation in our stomachs, a strange and unpleasant feeling. It seemed as if the juice was gradually trickling out of every muscle in