Chapter 3 - Page 2

the mountains of which he had so often read and
heard. The mountains and the clouds appeared to him quite alike,
and he thought the special beauty of the snow peaks, of which he
had so often been told, was as much an invention as Bach's music
and the love of women, in which he did not believe. So he gave up
looking forward to seeing the mountains. But early next morning,
being awakened in his cart by the freshness of the air, he glanced
carelessly to the right. The morning was perfectly clear. Suddenly
he saw, about twenty paces away as it seemed to him at first
glance, pure white gigantic masses with delicate contours, the
distinct fantastic outlines of their summits showing sharply
against the far-off sky. When he had realized the distance between
himself and them and the sky and the whole immensity of the
mountains, and felt the infinitude of all that beauty, he became
afraid that it was but a phantasm or a dream. He gave himself a
shake to rouse himself, but the mountains were still the same.

"What's that! What is it?" he said to the driver.

"Why, the mountains," answered the Nogay driver with indifference.

"And I too have been looking at them for a long while," said
Vanyusha. "Aren't they fine? They won't believe it at home."

The quick progress of the three-horsed cart along the smooth road
caused the mountains to appear to be running along the horizon,
while their rosy crests glittered in the light of the rising sun.
At first Olenin was only astonished at the sight, then gladdened
by it; but later on, gazing more and more intently at that snow-
peaked chain that seemed to rise not from among other black
mountains, but straight out of the plain, and to glide away into
the distance, he began by slow degrees to be penetrated by their
beauty and at length to FEEL the mountains. From that moment all
he saw, all he thought, and all he felt, acquired for him a new
character, sternly majestic like the mountains! All his Moscow
reminiscences, shame, and repentance, and his trivial dreams about
the Caucasus, vanished and did not return. 'Now it has begun,' a
solemn voice seemed to say to him. The road and the Terek, just
becoming visible in the distance, and the Cossack villages and the
people, all no longer appeared to him as a joke. He looked at
himself or Vanyusha, and again thought of the mountains. ... Two
Cossacks ride by, their guns in their cases swinging rhythmically
behind their backs, the white and bay legs of their horses
mingling confusedly ... and the mountains! Beyond the Terek rises
the smoke from a Tartar village... and the mountains! The sun has
risen and glitters on the Terek, now visible beyond the reeds ...
and the