Short Fiction - Vladimir Korolenko (easy books to read in english txt) 📗

very truth I made out Andrey Ivanovich by the entrance. Avtonomov, with his wallet and staff, came out on the porch, holding the soldier’s wife by the hand. Both figures could be seen in the lighted doorway. The soldier’s wife did not withdraw her hand.

“Are you going to leave us?” she said in despair. “We thought⁠—you’d carouse around here.”

“Wait, I’ll be back⁠—I’ll get rich.”

She looked at him and shook her head.

“Where? You’ll never get rich. You’ll get along, empty.⁠ ⁠…”

“Don’t caw, you crow.⁠ ⁠… Tell me this: does Irina’s clerk still live by the cemetery?”

“Stchurovskaya? Yes. He just went to the bazaar. What do you want?”

“This. Let’s see.⁠ ⁠… He had a daughter, Grunyushka.”

“She’s married.”

“Nearby?”

“To a deacon in the village of Voskresenskoye. The old woman’s there alone.”

“You say Irina’s husband hasn’t come back?”

“He hasn’t been seen.”

“Is he rich?”

“No, he lives like everyone else.”

“Goodbye!⁠ ⁠… Glasha-a!”

“Now, now! Don’t call.⁠ ⁠… You know Glasha is good and not yours. Go along. There’s nothing to hang around for.”

Kindly pity could be heard in the voice of the village beauty.

Outside the dark figure of Andrey Ivanovich left the gate and hurried towards us, while at the same time Avtonomov overtook us and silently went ahead of us.

“You should have stayed till morning,” remarked Andrey Ivanovich grimly. “I could have waited here!”

“That’s foolish,” I answered coldly.

“How so? Why?”

“Why?⁠—you could have gone on if you didn’t like it.”

“No, thanks for your kindness, I’m not willing to leave a companion.⁠ ⁠… I’d rather suffer myself than leave him.⁠ ⁠… We’ve been together three years, Ivan Anisimovich. Trifles don’t count, I’ve drunk so often in good company.⁠ ⁠…”

“Yes?”

“They took off my vest; three rubles twenty.⁠ ⁠… A new pocket book.⁠ ⁠…”

“If you’re blaming Gennady and me for this,” began Ivan Ivanovich, hurriedly and excitedly, “that’s so mean. Why?⁠ ⁠… If you have any doubts, we can go ahead or stay behind.⁠ ⁠…”

“Please don’t pay any attention,” I said, wishing to quiet the poor fellow.

“What’s the matter?” asked Avtonomov, stopping. “What are you talking about?”

“They’re so suspicious. Lord, have mercy upon us! Are we really robbers, the Lord forgive the word?”

Gennady gazed in the darkness into the face of Andrey Ivanovich.

“Oh, the lanky gentleman!⁠ ⁠… I see!” he said drily. “ ‘The man who never trusts has pleasure, if all he judges by his measure.’⁠ ⁠… The road is broad.⁠ ⁠…”

He again walked forward quickly and his timid little companion ran after him. Andrey Ivanovich waited for several seconds. He was surprised that the stranger had answered in rhythm. He almost started after him, but I caught his hand.

“What’s the matter with you?” I said angrily.

“You’re sorry for your good companions?” he said spitefully. “Please, don’t be uneasy. They won’t go far.⁠ ⁠…”

In very truth we caught sight of a black figure near the last houses. It was Ivan Ivanovich, alone.

He was standing in the road, panting and coughing and holding on to his breast.

“What’s the matter?” I asked sympathetically.

“Oh, oh! My death!⁠ ⁠… He went off.⁠ ⁠… Gennady.⁠ ⁠… He ordered me not to go with him.⁠ ⁠… To go with you. I can’t catch him.”

“That’s all right. Do you know the road?”

“It’s the broad road. He hurried on some place or other.”

“Fine.”

We walked along in the darkness.⁠ ⁠… A dog barked behind us; I looked around and saw in the darkness two or three lights in the village, but they soon disappeared.

IV

It was a quiet, starless night. The horizon could still be traced as an indistinct line beneath the clouds, but still lower hung a thick mist, endless, shapeless, without form or details.

We walked on quite a while in silence. The wanderer panted timidly and tried to smother his cough.

“I don’t see Avtonomov,” he kept saying, and he gazed helplessly in the blackness of the night.

“We can’t see him.⁠ ⁠… But he sees us, by heavens,” said Andrey Ivanovich, spitefully and ominously.

The road seemed to be a confused streak, like a bridge across an abyss.⁠ ⁠… Everything around was black and indistinct. Was there or was there not a light streak on the horizon? There was not a trace of it now. Was it so short a time, since we were in that noisy hut with the laughter and conversation?⁠ ⁠… Will there be any end to this night, to this field? Were we moving ahead or was the road like an endless ribbon slipping by under our feet while we remained treading in the same spot, in the same enchanted patch of darkness? An involuntary, timid joy sprang up in my soul when an unseen brook began to babble ahead of us, when this murmur increased and then died away behind us, or when a sudden breath of wind stirred the scarcely visible clumps of willows beside the road and then died away, a sign that we had passed them.⁠ ⁠…

“It’s night now all right,” said Andrey Ivanovich quietly, and this was very unusual for him. “A man’s a fool to walk the roads a night like this. And what are we after, I’d like to know. We worked during the day, rested, drank our tea, prayed⁠—for sleep. No, I don’t like it⁠—and then we started along the roads. It’s better for us. Here it’s midnight and we haven’t crossed ourselves yet. We certainly pray!⁠ ⁠…”

I made no answer. Thoughts of repentance seemed still to be running through the head of Andrey Ivanovich.

“Women can teach us a little,” he said sternly. “We don’t stay at home. What do we want?⁠ ⁠…”

“Why, I can’t see Avtonomov,” interrupted the plaintive voice of the young wanderer.

“Neither can I,” grunted Andrey Ivanovich.

“What a misfortune!” said the young wanderer sorrowfully. “I’ve been abandoned by my protector.⁠ ⁠…”

His voice was so filled with despair that we both looked ahead involuntarily in search of the lost Avtonomov. Suddenly, rather to one side, we heard a dull sound as if someone had stepped upon an old bridge.

“There he is!” said Andrey Ivanovich. “He went to the left.”

“The road must have turned.”

In truth the road soon forked. We also turned to the left. Ivan Ivanovich sighed from relief.

“What are you grieving so over?” asked Andrey Ivanovich. “Is he your brother