Spring Floods Author:Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: term he applied to almost every German. But his pronunciation of Italian was perfect—he having been born in Sinigaglia, where you hear the " lingua toscana in bo... more »cca romana ! " Emilio was apparently luxuriating on the sofa and abandoning himself to the pleasant sensations of one escaped from danger or recovering from an illness; besides, it was not difficult to perceive that all the household petted him. He thanked Sanin in a very shy way, and seemed more especially to be absorbed in the consumption of sirup and sweetmeats. Sanin was forced to drink two large cups of excellent chocolate, and to eat a considerable number of biscuits; he had barely time to swallow one, when Gemma would offer him another—and to refuse her was an utter impossibility! He soon felt himself at home, and the time flew with incredible quickness He had to relate a great deal to them—about Russia in particular, about the Russian climate, Russian society, the Russian peasant, and more especially about the Cossacks; also about the war of 1812, about Peter the Great, about the Kremlin, the Russian songs, and bells in Russia. Both the ladies had a very faint notion of our vast and distant country. Madam Roselli, or, as she was more frequently called, Frau Lenore, threw Sanin into great consternation by asking him whether that celebrated house of ice still existed which was erected in St. Petersburg during the last century, and concerning which she had read, not long since, such an interesting article in one of her husband's books : Bellezze delle arti. In answer to his exclamation: " Do you really suppose we never have summer in Russia ?" Frau Lenore replied, that she had hitherto imagined Russia thus: eternal snow, every one walking about in fur cloaks, and all military men—but that hospitality in Russia was ext...« less