Βιβλία σαν το «Οι αναμνήσεις μου»

Nothing that passed during that charming epocha, nothing that I did, said, or thought, has escaped my memory. The time that preceded or followed it, I only recollect by intervals, unequally and confused; but here I remember all as distinctly as if it existed at this moment. Imagination, which in my youth was perpetually anticipating the future, but now takes a retrograde course, makes some amends by these charming recollections for the deprivation of hope, which I have lost forever. I no longer see anything in the future that can tempt my wishes, it is a recollection of the past alone that can flatter me, and the remembrance of the period I am now describing is so true and lively, that it sometimes makes me happy, even in spite of my misfortunes.

Τόσα χρόνια πανδρεμμένος, ἐγὼ ἔκαμνα ταὶς ἑτοιμασίαις κ’ ἐκείνη πήγαινε στὸ ταξείδι! Ἔτσι στὸ Ραιδεστό· ἔτσι στὴν Συληβριά· ἔτσι στὴν Μήδεια· ἔτσι παντοῦ. Ἕνα ταξείδι, ψυχή μου, αὐτὸ τὸ μελετοῦσα στὰ κρυφά, τo φύλαγα γιὰ λόγου μου. Καιροὺς καὶ χρόνους ἑμάζευα τὰ «μαδιὰ» καὶ τὰ ἔκρυβα ὅπου κι’ ὅπως εἰμποροῦσα. Σὰν ἑμάζωξα πενήντα χιλιάδες γρόσια, τὸ βάλλω μία μέρα στὸ «κέφι», καὶ φωνάζω τὴν γιαγιά σου — Ὅταν τὸ εἶχα στὸ κέφι δὲν τὴν ἐγιώρταζα πολὺ πολύ·— Τῆς λέγω λοιπόν, ψυχή μου, ἔτσι δὰ μ’ ἀπόφασι: -Χρουσῆ! Ἐβάλθηκα νὰ πάγω σὲ ταξείδι, κύτταξε μὴν εἶναι κανένα πράμμα ἑτοιμόγεννο, ἢ ἄρρωστο, ἢ χρειαζούμενο, καὶ κύτταξε μὴν ἔμβῃ κανένας «μουσαφίρης» στὸ σπίτι γιατί, διές, τοῦ σπάζω τὰ πόδια του! Καὶ ὁ παπποὺς ἔκαμεν ὡς ἐὰν ἐθαύμαζε τὸν ἑαυτόν του πῶς τὰ ἐκατάφερεν. Σὲ ἤθελα, εἶπεν εἶτα πρὸς ἐμέ, νὰ τὴν διης πῶς τὰ ἐχρειάσθηκε! Τσιμουδιὰ δὲν ἔβγαλε! Κ’ ἐγὼ αὐτὸ ἤθελα.

I am a person who feels guilty for crimes I have not committed, or have not committed in years. The police search the train station for a serial rapist and I cover my face with a newspaper, wondering if maybe I did it in my sleep. The last thing I stole was an eight-track tape, but to this day I’m unable to enter a store without feeling like a shoplifter. It’s all the anxiety with none of the free stuff.

Anne was curled up Turk-fashion on the hearthrug, gazing into that joyous glow where the sunshine of a hundred summers was being distilled from the maple cordwood. She had been reading, but her book had slipped to the floor, and now she was dreaming, with a smile on her parted lips. Glittering castles in Spain were shaping themselves out of the mists and rainbows of her lively fancy; adventures wonderful and enthralling were happening to her in cloudland—adventures that always turned out triumphantly and never involved her in scrapes like those of actual life.

THE moon had not yet risen; but the vast of the night was all seething with stars, and bridged by a Milky Way of extraordinary brightness. There was no wind; but the sea, far as sight could reach, was running in ripples of fire,—a vision of infernal beauty. Only the ripplings were radiant (between them was blackness absolute);—and the luminosity was amazing. Most of the undulations were yellow like candle-flame; but there were crimson lampings also,—and azure, and orange, and emerald. And the sinuous flickering of all seemed, not a pulsing of many waters, but a laboring of many wills,—a fleeting conscious and monstrous,—a writhing and a swarming incalculable, as of dragon-life in some depth of Erebus.

We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time—of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances—of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remembered it! I never had this mysterious impression more strongly in my life, than before he uttered those words.