Explore "A Slav Soul" by Aleksandr Kuprin on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The farther I go back in my memory of the past, and the nearer I get to remembering incidents connected with my childhood, the more confused and doubtful do my recollections become. Much, no doubt, was told me afterwards, in a more conscious stage of my existence, by those who, with loving care, noticed my early doings. Perhaps many of the things that I recall never happened to me; I heard or read them some time or other and their remembrance grew to be part of myself. Who can guarantee which of these recollections are of real facts and which of tales told so long ago that they have all the appearance of truth -- who can know where one ends and the other begins?
My imagination recalls with special vividness the eccentric figure of Yasha and the two companions -- I might almost call them friends -- who accompanied him along the path of life: Matsko, an old rejected cavalry horse, and the yard-dog Bouton.