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

not a bit of tobacco; the monks were all peasants.⁠ ⁠… A hard rule and a lot of work.⁠ ⁠…”

“I bet you didn’t like that after your easy life,” said Andrey Ivanovich.

“To tell the truth, I wasn’t strong enough,” sighed Ivan Ivanovich humbly. “The burden was too great.⁠ ⁠… And sanctity looked unpleasant in that garb. There was no splendor.⁠ ⁠… A lot of people and no choir.⁠ ⁠… They did make an awful noise.⁠ ⁠…”

“That’s sanctity!” said Andrey Ivanovich with conviction.

“No, let me tell you,” answered Ivan Ivanovich no less emphatically.⁠ ⁠… “You’re wrong.⁠ ⁠… That doesn’t determine the kind of monastery. A monk must be trained and have a head like a blade of grass⁠ ⁠… and hold himself up.⁠ ⁠… That makes a fine monk and there’s mighty few of them. And the simple monk is smooth and clean with a velvety voice. Benefactors and women go wild over them. But a peasant, let me tell you, is no account even there.⁠ ⁠…”

“All right.⁠ ⁠… What next?” said Andrey Ivanovich, a little surprised at the decided opinion of the expert.

“What next?” answered the wanderer sadly. “I wandered for a year. I fasted and wandered.⁠ ⁠… The worst was that my conscience bothered me; I didn’t know how to beg. I waited and waited for that year to end⁠—to go home, home, to my poor cell. I thought of the father superior as if he were my own father; I loved him so. Finally August twenty-ninth came. I went into the courtyard, you know, and somehow I felt badly. Our attendants came to the gate.⁠ ⁠… They knew me. ‘Wanderer Ivan, have you returned?’ ‘I have,’ was my reply. ‘Is my benefactor alive?’ ‘Too late,’ was the answer. ‘He was buried some time ago. He was deemed worthy; he went away with the collect of the Resurrection. He remembered you⁠ ⁠… and wept.⁠ ⁠… He wanted to reward you.⁠ ⁠… We’ve got a new superior,⁠ ⁠… a barbarian. Don’t let him see you?’ But,” he added, plaintively, “I can’t see Avtonomov.”

His voice betrayed his terror and sorrow.

V

Andrey Ivanovich stared into the darkness and suddenly he caught hold of my hand, exclaiming:

“Stop! We shouldn’t have come.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I told the truth. Don’t chase on after them! Wait for me.⁠ ⁠… I’ll run and see.⁠ ⁠…”

He quickly disappeared in the darkness. I stayed with Ivan Ivanovich in the road. When the steps of the bootmaker died away, we heard merely the quiet noises of the night. The grass rustled gently; at times a rail whistled as it ran nervously from place to place. In the vague distance the frogs were croaking dreamily and playing in the swamp. Hardly visible clouds were rising.

“That’s just like him.⁠ ⁠… My comrade loves to walk at night,” complained Ivan Ivanovich. “What’s the use of it? Why not by day?”

“Was he in a monastery too?”

“Yes,” answered Ivan Ivanovich. Then, with a sigh, “He’s from a good family. His father was a deacon in the city of N⁠⸺. You may have heard of him.⁠ ⁠… His brother is a secretary in a police office. He was betrothed.⁠ ⁠…”

“Why didn’t he marry?”

“Don’t you see, he’d already gone wrong.⁠ ⁠… He ran away⁠ ⁠… but he wasn’t a wanderer yet. He had the outfit but he didn’t wander.⁠ ⁠… He passed as a suitor. He was accepted. The girl loved him, and her father didn’t object.⁠ ⁠… Oh!⁠ ⁠… Oh!⁠ ⁠… Of course, it was sinful,⁠ ⁠… he deceived them. Sometimes, when he tells about it, you’ll cry, and then again it’s really funny.”

Ivan Ivanovich acted strangely. He laughed and then began to choke and put his hand over his mouth. At first you could hardly tell he was laughing. But he really was⁠—an hysterical, bashful, rather explosive laugh, which ended like a cough. When he quieted down, Ivan Ivanovich said, half-pityingly:

“Only he tells it different every time.⁠ ⁠… You can’t tell whether it’s the truth or not.”

“He wouldn’t lie?”

“Not exactly,⁠ ⁠… but he’s not always accurate. You see, the truth⁠—”

“Just what does he say?”

“You know, the clerk, he says, was clever. He saw the young man wasting his time, really doing nothing. He pretended to go to a bazaar⁠—so he went to the city, left the old woman in the house, and gave her strict orders to keep an eye on him. Avtonomov, you see, didn’t live with them, but in the village with the woman who baked the bread for the church.⁠ ⁠… He kept visiting them.⁠ ⁠… Every day.⁠ ⁠… They’d sit by the river bank.⁠ ⁠… And the old woman was there, too. And, of course, she watched them.⁠ ⁠… One time, my dear little Avtonomov saw two men coming from the city in a cart⁠—and both drunk. They came up and turned out to be the clerk and his older brother, the secretary. He hadn’t even looked around⁠—when they landed on him and licked him. The reason why: his brother, because he ran away from the seminary; the clerk, for deceiving and disgracing him.⁠ ⁠…”

Ivan Ivanovich sighed.

“He hardly got off alive, he says.⁠ ⁠… They were both angry and drunk.⁠ ⁠… He ran to the house where he was living, grabbed his wallet, and off into the woods.⁠ ⁠… Since then, he says, he’s been wandering.⁠ ⁠… But, another time, he really⁠ ⁠… tells something else.”

He came nearer to me and wanted to tell me something very confidentially. But suddenly out of the darkness near us came the figure of Andrey Ivanovich. He walked rapidly with a deliberately menacing scowl.

“Come here, if you please.” He took me aside and whispered:

“You and I are in a nice mess!”

“How?”

“This Avtonomov, the monk, seems to have gone off to steal.⁠ ⁠… We’ll get into trouble over him yet.⁠ ⁠…”

“That’s enough, Andrey Ivanovich.”

“Yes, for you. Did you hear what he asked in the village? Of the soldier’s wife? About a certain clerk? Is the clerk actually at home or not?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Do you remember where that clerk lived?”

“Yes, by a cemetery.”

“There it is!” said Andrey Ivanovich maliciously, pointing ahead in the darkness.

“What of it?”

“Just this.⁠ ⁠… The old woman, you heard, is alone.⁠ ⁠… And he went right there.⁠ ⁠… He walked around the yard and looked. You’ll see for yourself.⁠ ⁠…