Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume X).djvu/303

Rh ! (Though the face of the first, the beautiful youth, sweet and lovely as it was, showed no trace of pity either.) About the head of the second youth were twisted a few broken and empty ears of corn, entwined with faded grass-stalks. A coarse grey cloth girt his loins; the wings behind, a dull dark grey colour, moved slowly and menacingly.

The two youths seemed inseparable companions. Each of them leaned upon the other's shoulder. The soft hand of the first lay like a cluster of grapes upon the bony neck of the second; the slender wrist of the second, with its long delicate fingers, coiled like a snake about the girlish bosom of the first.

And I heard a voice. This is what it said: ' Love and Hunger stand before thee—twin brothers, the two foundation-stones of all things living.

'All that lives moves to get food, and feeds to bring forth young.

'Love and Hunger—their aim is one; that life should cease not, the life of the individual and the life of others—the same universal life.'

August 1878.