Βιβλία σαν το «Η μονομαχία»

Phileas Fogg, with body erect and legs wide apart, standing like a sailor, gazed without staggering at the swelling waters. The young woman, who was seated aft, was profoundly affected as she looked out upon the ocean, darkening now with the twilight, on which she had ventured in so frail a vessel. Above her head rustled the white sails, which seemed like great white wings. The boat, carried forward by the wind, seemed to be flying in the air.

Her monotonous milking at the dairy was resumed, and followed for many long years, till her form became bent, and her once abundant dark hair white and worn away at the forehead—perhaps by long pressure against the cows. Here, sometimes, those who knew her experiences would stand and observe her, and wonder what sombre thoughts were beating inside that impassive, wrinkled brow, to the rhythm of the alternating milk-streams.

We men hat go down for a livin’ in ships to the sea—We love it a different way from you poets that ’bide on the land.We are fond of it, sure! But, you take it as comin’ from me,There’s a fear and a hate in our love that a landsman can’t understand.Oh, who could help likin’ the salty smell, and the blueOf the waves that are lazily breathin’ as if they dreamed in the sun?She’s a Sleepin’ Beauty, the sea—but you can’t tell what she’ll do;And the seamen never trust her—they know too well what she’s done!

If ever I saw anything like actual migration, it was last Michaelmas-day. I was travelling, and out early in the morning: at first there was a vast fog; but, by the time that I was got seven or eight miles from home towards the coast, the sun broke out into a delicate warm day. We were then on a large heath or common, and I could discern, as the mist began to break away, great numbers of swallows (hirundines rusticae) clustering on the stinted shrubs and bushes, as if they had roosted there all night. As soon as the air became clear and pleasant they all were on the wing at once; and, by a placid and easy flight, proceeded on southward towards the sea: after this I did not see any more flocks, only now and then a straggler.

Ἤμεθα τότε μιὰ εὔθυμη συντροφιὰ νέων εἰς τὰ Χανιά, ποῦ εἴχαμε κοινὴν τὴν ἀγάπην πρὸς τὴν ἱππασίαν. Εἰς τὴν εἴσοδον τῆς πόλεως ἕνας Τοῦρκος, ὁ Τζανερῖκος, ἔδιδεν ἄλογα μὲ νοῖκι. Ἐπαίρναμε ἀπὸ ἕνα κ’ ἐτραβούσαμε στὰ περίχωρα. Τί ὑπέφεραν ἐκεῖνα τὰ ἄλογα ἀπὸ τὴ νεανική μας τρέλα δὲν περιγράφεται. Ἐτρέχαμε σὰ δαιμονισμένοι καὶ τ’ ἀναγκάζαμε νὰ ὑπερπηδοῦν κάθε ἐμπόδιο ποῦ συναντούσαμε, εἴτε τοῖχος ἦτο, εἴτε χαντάκι. Μάλιστα ἅμα μεθούσαμε, δὲν εἴχαμε πειὰ κανένα οἶκτον δι’ αὐτὰ τὰ ζῶα. Τὰ σπιρούνια ἐχώνοντο βαθειὰ στὰ πλευρά των καὶ ἡ βίτσες αὐλάκωναν τὸ δέρμα των. Καὶ ἐμεθούσαμε τακτικὰ εἰς τὶς ἐκδρομὲς ἐκεῖνες. Σὲ κάθε χωριὸ ποῦ περνούσαμε βρίσκαμε ταβέρνες ἢ φίλους ποὺ μᾶς ἔπαιρναν στὰ σπίτια των· καὶ τὸ βράδυ ὅταν ἐφθάναμε στὴ Σούδα, εἴμεθα Ροῦσσοι μεθυσμένοι. Καὶ καμμιὰ φορά, ὅπως ἦσαν ἀφρισμένα τἄλογα, τ’ ἀναγκάζαμε νὰ προχωρήσουν στὴ θάλασσα κ’ ἐκάναμε τὰ λουτρὰ τῶν Κενταύρων, ὅπως ἐλέγαμε τὸ ἔφιππον ἐκεῖνο κολύμπημα.

Whether he kissed her once or several times he could not afterward remember, though it must have been an hour that they sat there close together and he held her hand. What surprised him most about making love was that it seemed to have no element of wild passion—regret, desire, despair—but a delirious promise of such happiness in the world, in living, as he had never known. First love—this was only first love! What must love itself in its fullness, its perfection be. He did not know that what he was experiencing then, that unreal, undesirous medley of ecstasy and peace, would be unrecapturable forever.