My ÁntoniaIf there was a road, I could not make it out in the faint starlight. There was nothing but land ... I had never before looked up at the sky when there was not a familiar mountain ridge against it. But this ws the complete dome of heaven. |
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Aeneid afternoon ain't Ambrosch Anna Ántonia asked baby barn began Black Hawk Bohemian boys brought cornfields country girls cut bands Cutter Cuzak d'Arnault dance dark door dress Euchre eyes face farm father feel felt Firemen's Hall Frances Fuchs garden girls grandfather grandmother hair hands hard Harling head hear heard horses Jake and Otto Jelinek kitchen knew kolaches Krajiek laughed Lena Lingard Lena's lived looked loved married Marshall Field's morning mother Nebraska neighbours never night Nina Norwegian Ordinsky papa parlour Pavel Peter play prairie remember road seemed Shimerda shoulder snow Squaw Creek stood stove summer supper talk tell things thought Tiny Soderball told tonia Tony took town trees turned wagon walked warm watched whispered wild thing wind windmill window winter woman yellow young Yulka
Popular passages
Page 321 - I'd have liked to have you for a sweetheart, or a wife, or my mother or my sister — anything that a woman can be to a man. The idea of you is a part of my mind; you influence my likes and dislikes, all my tastes, hundreds of times when I don't realize it. You really are a part of me.
Page 264 - Primus ego in patriam mecum . . . deducam Musas" ; "for I shall be the first, if I live, to bring the Muse into my country.
Page 7 - There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a road, I could not make it out in the faint starlight. There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.
Page 173 - The pale, cold light of the winter sunset did not beautify — it was like the light of truth itself. When the smoky clouds hung low in the west and the red sun went down behind them, leaving a pink flush on the snowy roofs and the blue drifts, then the wind sprang up afresh, with a kind of bitter song, as if it said: 'This is reality, whether you like it or not. All those frivolities of summer, the light and shadow, the living mask of green that trembled over everything, they were lies, and this...
Page 18 - I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like die pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness ; to be dissolved into something complete and great.
Page 263 - My window was open, and the earthy wind blowing through made me indolent. On the edge of the prairie, where the sun had gone down, the sky was turquoise blue, like a lake, with gold light throbbing in it. Higher up, in the utter clarity of the western slope, the evening star hung like a lamp suspended by silver chains — like the lamp engraved upon the title-page of old Latin texts, which is always appearing in new heavens, and waking new desires in men.
Page 201 - The Black Hawk boys looked forward to marrying Black Hawk girls, and living in a brand-new little house with best chairs that must not be sat upon, and hand-painted china that must not be used. But sometimes a young fellow would look up from his ledger, or out through the grating of his father's bank, and let his eyes follow Lena Lingard, as she passed the window with her slow, undulating walk, or Tiny Soderball, tripping by in her short skirt and striped stockings. The country girls were considered...
Page 25 - We sat down and made a nest in the long red grass. Yulka curled up like a baby rabbit and played with a grasshopper. Antonia pointed up to the sky and questioned me with her glance. I gave her the word, but she was not satisfied and pointed to my eyes. I told her, and she repeated the word, making it sound like 'ice.
Page 40 - All those fall afternoons were the same, but I never got used to them. As far as we could see, the miles of copper-red grass were drenched in sunlight that was stronger and fiercer than at any other time of the day. The blond cornfields were red gold, the haystacks turned rosy and threw long shadows.
Page 353 - She lent herself to immemorial human attitudes which we recognize by instinct as universal and true. I had not been mistaken. She was a battered woman now, not a lovely girl ; but she had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one's breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things. She...