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

calling to Rogov and stopping him, for I was sure he was up to some mischief. But it was after the Alcibiades episode⁠ ⁠… and I had no hope in my influence. I stayed at the window. I saw Gavrilo leave his shovel, go up and listen. At first his face showed that he did not comprehend and almost did not care. Then, with the same air of uncertainty, he took off his apron, went into the house, put on his cap and rejoined Rogov. Both walked down the street and turned down the hill toward the river. A moment later Yelena came out to the gate, stood and looked after the two men.⁠ ⁠… Her eyes looked sad and frightened.⁠ ⁠…

“From that day on Gavrilo’s character changed sharply. He came back apparently rather drunk.⁠ ⁠… Perhaps from vodka, perhaps from the weight of an unbearable burden which Rogov had suddenly put on his shoulders.⁠ ⁠… In the first place, the amount was absolutely staggering: a mountain of money more than he could count. Then the source of the wealth reminded him of Yelena’s past. Finally he couldn’t understand why she had never mentioned it and this may have given rise to evil suspicions.⁠ ⁠… You see it was like an explosion in his mind.⁠ ⁠… Those two lines which M. Budnikov had made on the ticket kept sinking deeper and deeper into Gavrilo’s soul.⁠ ⁠… The simple-hearted man was absolutely upset. The whole symphony of directness and labor was suddenly interrupted.⁠ ⁠… Gavrilo wandered around in confusion, as if he had been poisoned.⁠ ⁠…

“It began to break him down.⁠ ⁠… At first he walked about grimly with his face clouded. His work began to fall from his hands: he threw down his axe and broke his spade.⁠ ⁠… Just like a well-built machine into which someone has hurled a bolt.⁠ ⁠… When Budnikov in surprise began to administer mild rebukes, that shovels cost money and he would have to take it out of Gavrilo’s wages, that easygoing man answered with unintelligible and unreasonable rudeness.⁠ ⁠… And Yelena wept more and more.⁠ ⁠…

“Then Gavrilo began to drink and carouse and his usual abode became the dirty den, the ‘Crags’ on the bank, on the sand near the wharf.⁠ ⁠… This was a small wooden house with a second floor, dark, tilting to one side and propped up with beams. You could see it from the bank; evenings there were usually two lighted windows and the open door, cymbals clashed, and there was a lot of fiddling to amuse the guests.⁠ ⁠… From time to time, you could hear confused shouts⁠—both songs and quarrels and calls for the police. It was an eternally restless place and rather threatening. The very antithesis of the drowsy country life.⁠ ⁠… Bargemen from our modest and usually idle wharf, workmen from the brickyards like moles which had burrowed in the damp clay, professional beggars⁠ ⁠… in a word, the homeless, unfortunate, dissipated, and evil. Even the decent members of the proletariat shunned this place. And that’s where Rogov took Gavrilo. And Yelena was the next to learn the road to the ‘Crags’ so as to bring her husband home.⁠ ⁠…

“She did this surprisingly modestly, quietly, yes, even beautifully. Once I was coming home from my lessons and as I entered the gate I saw Yelena running toward me and fastening a kerchief on her head.

“ ‘Where are you going, Yelena?’

“A moment’s hesitation.

“ ‘You haven’t seen Gavrilo Stepanich go this way, have you?’ she asked.

“ ‘He must have.⁠ ⁠… But you shouldn’t go there, Yelena.’

“I wanted to stop her.⁠ ⁠… But she swept past me angrily and with some apparent pride went to look for Gavrilo Stepanich, her husband, and she was his lawful wife.⁠ ⁠… In a half-hour I saw her bringing Gavrilo Stepanich by the arm. He was leaning on her but walking and looking straight ahead with dull, faded and perplexed eyes. But he was walking. By the gate he suddenly straightened up, pushed away her hand and stared at her.⁠ ⁠… His face was dark, but his faded eye had a decided look.⁠ ⁠…

“ ‘Who are you? Tell me who you are?⁠ ⁠… Oh?’

“She stopped and dropped her hand in despair. I thought of that spring morning and their mutual oaths: ‘Remember God, Gavrilo Stepanich!’ I was terrified: he’ll forget right now, this very minute, I thought.⁠ ⁠… Suddenly a spark of knowledge flickered up in his foolish face and he swallowed hard. He didn’t say a word but went to his rooms silently.⁠ ⁠… She followed him in terror, respectfully and humbly.⁠ ⁠…

“So it went on: Rogov would beckon to Gavrilo, and he’d go off and begin to carouse. This man got enormous power over Gavrilo, and Yelena objected, humbly, respectfully, timidly, but constantly. She probably looked upon all this as a punishment sent to her as an atonement for her ‘sin.’ She grew thin, her nice plumpness disappeared, her eyes sank deeper in her head.⁠ ⁠… But when I looked at them I never could decide to call them stupid. Her suffering was always wonderfully intelligent like that of a bird.⁠ ⁠… She’d go to the saloons after her drunken husband, everyone would laugh at her on the street, and make rough jokes about her.⁠ ⁠… She felt no shame for herself.⁠ ⁠… Only once she whispered: ‘That’s not right, Gavrilo Stepanich, people are looking at you.⁠ ⁠…’

“One time when she was taking him back from the ‘Crags,’ he broke away from her, ran up to Budnikov’s door and began to kick it wildly. Yelena almost dropped, and, as if she did not have the strength to go after him, she watched him like a man with the nightmare, who sees coming at him something terrible which he has been expecting but he can’t struggle against it.⁠ ⁠… The door suddenly opened and M. Budnikov appeared.⁠ ⁠… Calm and haughty with an air of absolute superiority. To tell you the truth, I was somewhat surprised.⁠ ⁠… Anyway, it was a delicate situation. I didn’t know the details at the time, but I felt there was something wrong and mistaken.⁠ ⁠… Suddenly clearness of vision, quiet, calm. And it wasn’t put on. No⁠—that