**quotes**
from Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh:
“Conversation, as I know it, is like juggling; up go the balls and the balloons and the plates, up and over, in and out, spinning and leaping, good solid objects that glitter in the footlights and fall with a bang if you miss them.” (Anthony Blanche)
“Isn’t this a delicious concoction? You don’t like it? Then I will drink it for you.” (Anthony Blanche)
“Of course those that have charm don’t really need brains.” (Anthony Blanche)
“Why drink? If you want to be intoxicated there are so many much more delicious things.” (Anthony Blanche)
“Oh, la fatigue du Nord!” (Anthony Blanche)
Good wine needs no ivy bush.

**the longest novels ever written**
The 19th century German short-story writer E.T.A. Hoffmann wrote the first German-language detective story Das Fräulein von Scuderi (Mademoiselle Scudéry), featuring the French writer Madeleine de Scudéry (1607-1701), often known as Mademoiselle de Scudéry, as the central figure of his story. By the by, one of her novels Artamène, which contains about 2.1 million words, ranks as one of the longest novels ever written. Could anybody tell whether the novel may be reckoned the first of the sort?

**My e-Library**
On the Net, I saw some of my favorite stories by A. Chekhov, translated, but I don’t know safe links to them, so, the link is to the collected stories by other Russian writer. A. Kuprin (1870-1938) and his story Captain Rybnikov (1906). Author reckoned the story his best. PDF file: search the word “Ribnikov” and there will be the title–

http://www.archive.org/stream/riveroflifeother00kupr#page/n5/mode/2up

**poem**
Impromptu
by Lesya Ukrainka (Larysa Kosach-Kvitka, 1871-1913), translated by Lara Biyuts

At the hour when nicotianas blooming,
shining in the night mist like a falling star,
pale with a secret passion,
then everything around submits to an obscure power.
And if you are with someone at the moments,
and the eyes are shining
with mysterious fire like a reflection of the starry night,
and the beloved voice sounds like rippling of a magic fount,
run away
away from the casting a spell.
For it’ll make fire in your heart, at the hour
when nicotianas blooming.
At the hour when nicotianas blooming,
everything around is delusive.
The silence of the night is dangerous like silence of a fatal roller,
which keeps a silence of a tomb.
And often, it goes like this:
a swarm of sounds comes, and like a bird you feeling startles,
and recollection gives a glint in darkness–
it’s like an unknown friend opens a book of a forgotten novel–
oh! if your repose is dear for you, don’t touch the pages of the novel,
at the hour,
when nicotianas blooming.

more about the translator:

http://revueblanche.blogspot.com/

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3207603.Lara_Biuts

http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=935938

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/lasept