Explore "Le Coq D'Or" by Aleksandr Kuprin on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
That morning -- I no longer remember the day, but it was the summer solstice -- I awoke at the very point of dawn, awoke sharply, suddenly, without any slow transition between the states of sleep and waking. I awoke fresh and cheerful, knowing that down there beneath my windows, in the clear light of the newborn day, some simple yet exquisite marvel was waiting. Already, even before the dawn, the joyous song of the starling had reached me, and the pert, melodious whistle of the blackbird.
I threw open a window and sat down upon the sill. The air, still cool, was impregnated with the fine, spicy odor of herbs, of flowers, of leaves. In the thick foliage of the chestnut trees, like diaphanous wisps of muslin, traces of the night mists still lingered; but the trees were already stretching out their branches, grown heavy in sleep, and opening gladly yet lazily their millions of eyes. Who, then, has ventured to pretend that trees can neither see nor hear?