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

been the same, perhaps in the subconscious realm.⁠ ⁠… Because⁠ ⁠… knowledge and all restraining influences are a sort of bark, a thin cover under which purely egoistic, primal and animal desires live and move.⁠ ⁠… If they find a weak spot.⁠ ⁠…”

“Fine, fine,” laughed Petr Petrovich condescendingly, and I thought that he winked at me from his dark corner. “Let’s get back to Budnikov.⁠ ⁠… What did he do? Pay it⁠ ⁠… and that’s all.”

“Apparently, yes; because he wanted to settle the question and was a little afraid, he called Yelena and congratulated her on winning. Then, apparently wishing to make use of a favorable opportunity, he hinted: ‘When we separate, you’ll be all right.’ Then he got angry.⁠ ⁠…”

“What for?”

“I think, because she was such a fool. If she’d chosen then, she probably wouldn’t have taken that number. But now it happened because of her folly. An orderly and wise man lost that money. That’s what I imagine from Yelena’s story.⁠ ⁠… ‘He ran from one corner to another and found fault with me.’⁠ ⁠…”

“What of her? Glad, of course?”

“N-no.⁠ ⁠… She was frightened and began to weep. He got angry and she cried and he became still more angry.”

“Really? What a fool!”

“Y-yes.⁠ ⁠… I’ve already explained: I don’t call her wise, but weeping.⁠ ⁠… No, it wasn’t foolishness.⁠ ⁠… When she told it to me afterwards⁠ ⁠… she got to this point, looked at me with her clear, birdlike eyes, and burst into tears. Even now I can’t forget those eyes.⁠ ⁠… Foolishness, perhaps, but there’s foolishness and foolishness. It wasn’t clear knowledge and calculation about the situation. But in those blue eyes there was something very deep⁠—just as if a true instinct shone in them.⁠ ⁠… Those foolish tears, perhaps, were the only correct thing at that time.⁠ ⁠… I dare to say⁠—the wisest thing in the whole confused story.⁠ ⁠… Somewhere, not far off, was hidden the solution, like a secret door.⁠ ⁠…”

“Fine, fine.⁠ ⁠… Go on!”

“Next,⁠ ⁠… M. Budnikov looked a long time intently at the foolish woman. Then he sat down beside her, put his arms around her, and, for the first time after the perceptible cooling of their relations, he asked her not to go to her rooms, but to spend the night with him.⁠ ⁠…

“So things went on for some time. Yelena bloomed.⁠ ⁠… Her love was ‘foolish’; it was very direct. At first⁠—she told me herself⁠—M. Budnikov was repugnant to her. Later, after he had taken her, he dried her up, as she said. Such direct feminine natures do not separate feelings and facts, so to speak. Wherever you touch it, the whole complex reacts together.⁠ ⁠… He came back to her; therefore, he loved her.⁠ ⁠… For two weeks she was so joyful and beautiful that everyone looked at her⁠—glad of her limitless joy.⁠ ⁠… But in two weeks M. Budnikov again cooled off.⁠ ⁠… A cold storm was raging in our yard.⁠ ⁠… Yelena’s eyes showed that she had been weeping.⁠ ⁠… The neighbors grumbled and pitied. M. Budnikov was sullen.⁠ ⁠… Those two lines had sunk deep into the hearts of both and a third felt them.⁠ ⁠… The porter Gavrilo.⁠ ⁠…”

“H-m! The whole story!” said Petr Petrovich, again getting up and sitting down beside Pavel Semenovich. “Was he there? Did he learn she’d won?”

“He knew nothing about it. I’ve spoken of him. A less clever person you could hardly imagine⁠—absolutely heavenly directness.⁠ ⁠… Sometimes he didn’t seem to be a man, but⁠ ⁠… what shall I say?⁠ ⁠… a simple collection of muscles, partially conscious of their existence. He was constructed properly, harmoniously, rightly, and always in motion. And, in addition, two good human eyes looked at the whole world from the point of view of physical and moral indifference, so to speak.⁠ ⁠… Sometimes these eyes really gleamed with curiosity and such unconscious excellence that you actually felt jealous. Sometimes it seemed to me that if it wasn’t Gavrilo himself, there was something in him which understood M. Budinov, Yelena, and me.⁠ ⁠… He understood and smiled at us, just because he did understand.⁠ ⁠… Suddenly the man became confused.⁠ ⁠… It began when Budnikov made up with Yelena and dropped her again.⁠ ⁠… To him she was an abandoned ‘master’s lady,’ a creature which inspired in him no special respect, and very probably his first advances seemed rather simple and rustic. She met these advances with deep hostility and anger. Then Gavrilo ‘began to think,’ that is, began to eat little, become slack in his work, grow thin, and generally to dry up.

“This lasted during the fall and winter. Budnikov finally grew cold to Yelena; she felt insulted and believed that he was ‘laughing’ at her.⁠ ⁠… Gavrilo’s character was rather spoiled and the old harmony between him and Budnikov disappeared.⁠ ⁠… And the ticket with the two lines on it lay in the table drawer and seemed forgotten by everyone.⁠ ⁠…

“Spring came with everything in this condition.⁠ ⁠… For a while I lost sight of the little drama which was being enacted before my eyes.⁠ ⁠… My examinations were coming on; I was very tired and could not sleep. If you do fall asleep, you awake with a start and can’t get to sleep again. You light a candle⁠—your books are on the table⁠—you begin to study.⁠ ⁠… And it’s sunrise.⁠ ⁠… You go out on the steps, look at the sleeping street, the trees in the garden.⁠ ⁠… A sleepy coachman is going along the street; the trees are rustling faintly, as if they were shivering in the morning chill.⁠ ⁠… You envy the coachman, and even the trees.⁠ ⁠… You want rest and this concentrated unconscious life.⁠ ⁠… Then you go out in the garden.⁠ ⁠… Sit down on a bench and just get to sleep, when the sun shines in your eyes. There was just such a bench in a quiet corner by the stable wall. When the sunlight fell on it at seven o’clock you’d wake up, drink your tea, and go to your classes.

“I went out one day at dawn and fell asleep on this bench. Suddenly I woke up as if someone had called me. The sun had scarcely risen very high and the bench was still in the