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50 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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What were Utkin, Andrei Makine, & Samurai fond of? |
Utkin, Andrei Makine, & Samurai were a few shadowy figures who were often dear to them, they were fond of them. |
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How did femininity had long been eroded? |
Femininity had long been eroded in the harsh business of daily resisting the cold, the solitude, the absence of any foreseeable change. |
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How did Utkin think that attractive women had no value? |
Cold, darkness, the eternity known as "winter" . . . And the pendulum had gone to sleep. enmeshed in the ice-covered barbed wire. |
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What became blurred beneath this grimace of terror? |
At the school of Andrei Makine, Samurai & Utkin, a young woman teacher's beauty, her fascinating strangeness, became blurred beneath this grimace of terror. |
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What were the men in thrall to those three elements - taiga, gold, and the shadow of the watchtowers- doing their counting in? |
Cubic meters of cedar wood or kilograms of gold-bearing sand |
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What were a life ten thousand leagues distant from this country - beyond the Urals, at the other end of the empire? |
Ukraine, the Caucasus, the Crimea. |
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Which objects shrieked and echoed "Cri-i-mea"? |
Saws bit into the aromatic flesh of the cedar trees and the dredging machines of the gold prospectors. |
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As for love, what did Andrei Makine, Utkin & Samurai hear? |
The only word we ever heard them use was "have." Not "have an affair"; that might even have suggested a process of seduction; but simply "have a woman." |
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What did not they even bother trying to do? |
They did not even bother trying to characterise their exploites by using one of the obscene verbs that regularly reverberated in their throats, burned with vodka and the wind. |
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How must Maria's body have seemed particularly warm and smooth? |
Beneath Maria's fur coat hardened by the fierce hoarfrosts, her body must have seemed particularly warm and smooth. |
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Why were men attracted to Maria's muscular thighs? |
Maria's muscular thighs doubtless made her groin a veritable trap that in on her lover's body. . . |
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What were Utkin, Samurai & Andrei Makine doing next to other group of men? |
Utkin, Samurai & Andrei Makine swallowed the soft fruits in their stew noisily, they cracked the apricot stones with the heavy handles of our knives. |
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How did Andrei Makine, Samurai & Utkin think of love? |
Love seemed to them to be something carved from the fray dusk of a dreary district centre, where all the streets led out into wastelands covered by wet sawdust. |
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While Samurai, Andrei Makine & Utkin were in the heart of the taiga, what was Andrei Makine's feelings? |
Andrei Makine was just fourteen, and he still did not know whether he was ugly or handsome, or whether there was any more to love than "I've had her." |
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While the teeth of Samurai and Andrei Makine were chattering, what were they doing? |
While the teeth of Samurai and Andrei Makine were chattering, they rushed back toward the fire, jostling each other but never forgetting to bring a little water in the hollow of our palms. |
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While Utkin's leg was dragged, what happened to him? |
While Utkin's leg was dragged, he would try clumsily to dodge these cascades that flashed in the air like fleeting rainbows. |
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What happened to Samurai, Andrei Makine & Utkin while their frozen bodies were gradually impregnated with the heat? |
They stood stock-still, in the contented torpor of basking lizards with the transparent dance of the flames. |
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What shattered the blissful trance of Andrei Makine, Utkin & Samurai? |
The throbbing of the engine. |
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What happened when the vehicle was parked? |
Apart from the driver, there were two passengers, two young women. One of them in the parked vehicle held out a large plastic bottle to the driver. |
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What was the occupation of two young women? |
Fledgling geologists. |
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Describe the young women. |
They had curiosity for wild animals at the zoo. They were blond. Unaccustomed to differentiating women's faces with precision, took them for twin sisters. . . . |
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How did one woman not get interested in Andrei Makine? |
The other one stared at Andrei Makine, but without smiling. I noticed a subtle fluttering of her long eyelashes. "Yes, an angel, but with little horns," she replied with slight irritation, and without paying us any further attention, she slid down onto her seat. |
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Describe the difference between two twin women. |
One of them, reserved and sensitive, who seemed as if she had a tense string within her, was a fragile blonde, reminiscent of the splinters of crystal we found in the rocks. The other was amber, warm, enveloping, sensual. |
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What were the strange words on Samurai's lips? |
They were doubtless all part of the Olga mystery. |
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What was the sorrowful, questioning glint? |
Effort to fathom the sense of the mosaic of the beauty. |
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What did Samurai comment on the two strangers? |
They must be on the faculty at Novosibirsk. |
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How was Andrei Makine defensive about the two strangers? |
"Sure, he has them," I said, eager to echo his opinion, as well as his man-of-the-world tone of voice. |
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How did Andrei Makine's reply could have been? |
Should Andrei Makine speak of the tense string, the crystal, the amber? |
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How did Andrei Makine and Samurai tease Utkin? |
"Hey, Utkin! The wolves haven't eaten you up, have they? Ow-ooo!" |
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Describe the right bank. |
The right bank was Nerlug, with its brick houses and the Red October cinema. |
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Describe the equipment of the passengers on the ferry. |
Their shopping bags were crammed with paper-wrapped packages of provisions that could not be found in the village. |
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While passing through iron rings on the handrail of the ferry, what happened? |
Passing through iron rings on the handrail of the ferry, the cable guided Andrei Makine, Utkin & Samurai toward the opposite bank. |
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What did Andrei Makine listen to? |
Andrei Makine listened to the soft lapping of the water and absentmindedly watched the village drawing nearer, with its low izbas surrounded by gardens, the maze of paths and fences, the blue smoke rising from a chimney. |
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What was the woman doing when Andrei Makine recognized her? |
She was standing at the water's edge, shading her eyes with her hand and watching the ferry as it slipped slowly across the orange flood of the setting sun. |
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For years and years, what had she been doing? |
For years and years she had been making her way down to the riverbank, waiting for someone who could come only in summer, in the evening, with the dreamlike slowness of this old ferry, blackened by time. |
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What did Andrei Makine, Samurai & Utkin see in Vera? |
Andrei Makine, Samurai & Utkin saw the death of hope in Vera's somber eyes. |
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What did Andrei Makine do when he reached the izba? |
When Andrei Makine reached the izba, he took a mirror with an oval frame out of my aunt's chest of drawers and studied himself in it, taking advantage of the pale luminosity of the summer twilight. |
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How did the dull oval become? |
The dull oval, which was slowly growing dim, was crammed with many secrets. |
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Describe Andrei Makine's aunt and three of her best friends. |
Andrei Makine's aunt had invited three of her best friends, two of whom, like her, worked on the railroad as switch operators; the third worked as a sales clerk in a food store in Kazhdai. They were all single women. |
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Give two foods served on a great china dish. |
Cold sauerkraut, seasoned with oil and garnished with cranberries; gherkins, of course; stroganina, the fish gelatinised and cut into transparent slices that you eat raw. |
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Why did women not think hard about the rivers of blood? |
It won't bring back their dear faces; or that handful of happy days; or those kisses redolent of the first snows - or was it the last? |
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What was the reaction of women when they set off pursuit of the clouds? |
They stopped them with their wide-open eyes, staring at them forever as they floated lightly westward. Lying in a frozen rut, their faces buried in the black sky . . . |
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While the women were having the conversation, what was Andrei Makine doing? |
Perched on the broad, warm surface of the great stone stove, on top of which were piled old felt boots, warm surface of the great stone stove, on top of which were piled old felt boots, a woollen blanket, and two limp pillows, I was drowsing. |
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While the women sang, what could Andrei Makine picture? |
While the women sang, and in the haze of my sleep Andrei Makine could picture the horseman battling through a snowstorm and his fair one waiting for him at the dark window. |
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What was the other lovesick damsel doing? |
The other lovesick damsel, begging the wild geese to carry her words to her true love, who has gone "beyond the steppes, beyond the blue sea." |
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What was Andrei Makine determined to do? |
Andrei Makine was absolutely determined not to miss the recital of the latest adventures of the only woman deemed to be capable of having any. |
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When women were talking about a guy, what was the reaction of Andrei Makine? |
Andrei Makine raised himself on one elbow, listening avidly. Spoil me! I was desperate for a set of instructions for this appalling activity, which I sensed must be intensely voluptuous. |
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What would have been the consistency of flesh and the taste of desire? |
The promise of some fabulous night when the hours, the darkness . . . and even the air would have been the consistency of flesh and the taste of desire. |
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What happened when Andrei Makine's body pierced through with the icy cold of the water? |
One of the blond strangers - crystal or amber: I no longer knew which - was standing on the other side of the flames, naked as well. |
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What happened when Andrei Makine stretched out his hand across to touch that of the stranger? |
The bank suddenly became white, the silence of the taiga wintry. And the slow eddying of the snowflakes enveloped our bodies in muted sunlight. |
