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

was easy to see.⁠ ⁠… It was merely absolute imperturbability.

“ ‘What do you want, Gavrilo?’ he said. ‘What are you kicking for? Don’t you know how to ring?⁠ ⁠… You see, here’s the bell.⁠ ⁠…’

“He pointed to the bell handle. Gavrilo looked at it and became confused. Yes, there was a knob and there was really no reason to kick.⁠ ⁠… M. Budnikov continued from the top step:

“ ‘Anyway, what are you thinking about and what do you want of me, you r-rascal? Have I insulted you, dealt unjustly with you, held up your pay for even one day? Yet you kicked.⁠ ⁠… All right, here I am.⁠ ⁠… What do you want?’

“Gavrilo didn’t say a word.⁠ ⁠…

“ ‘Well, then, I’ll tell you a thing or two myself: the shovel’s broken again, the walk isn’t swept, the horse hasn’t been watered.⁠ ⁠… The horse is a dumb animal and can’t talk⁠ ⁠… but just the same it’s alive and feels.⁠ ⁠… Hear it whinney?⁠ ⁠…’

“This argument so overwhelmed Gavrilo that he turned, thoroughly and definitely crushed, and went straight to the stable. In a minute, just as if he were sober, he took the horse to the trough.⁠ ⁠… M. Budnikov quietly locked his door and came out. As he came past my wall he guessed that I had seen the whole affair, stopped, and with a sad shake of his head, remarked:

“ ‘Yes, everyone’s talking of the people, the people.⁠ ⁠… How do they fall in love with them?⁠ ⁠…’ ”

VIII

“The scandal began to attract attention. It was talked about in the city. Various opinions were held. Some defended Budnikov. Was it worth while to believe mere rumors? Really no one knew anything. Some were stupid stories; others, evident scandals and an unseemly breaking of the general quiet.⁠ ⁠… But there was another side. People of the lower classes sympathized with Gavrilo. They thought that the wise and strong M. Budnikov must have filched from Gavrilo some sort of a talisman and was now committing sorcery so that the talisman would lose its power.⁠ ⁠… So dozens of eyes were turned to the windows of M. Budnikov and looked at him as he passed, stubbornly and calmly, apparently unaware of the cloud of misunderstanding, suspicion, condemnation, question,⁠ ⁠… yes, sin, which trailed after him. Every look expressed an evil thought and every heart was heating with an evil feeling.⁠ ⁠… It was a peculiar sort of dark cloud.⁠ ⁠… Hundreds of individual spiritual movements, confused, unclear, but evil.⁠ ⁠… And all aimed at one centre.⁠ ⁠…

“I must say Budnikov had been rather popular and enjoyed the respect of all.⁠ ⁠… Even Rogov, when he happened to pass our yard and saw M. Budnikov with a shovel or rake, always stopped and said:

“ ‘M. Budnikov, Semen Nikolayevich, is working.⁠ ⁠… He who works shall eat.’

“Or:

“ ‘M. Budnikov is helping his neighbor, the porter, with the work of his hands. Most laudable!’

“Then he passed on as by an object to which he was indifferent or at which he was pleasantly amused.

“Now, that was all changed.⁠ ⁠… It gave me a physical sensation⁠ ⁠… like a nightmare. As if those two lines⁠ ⁠… or something in the character of M. Budnikov had polluted the atmosphere.⁠ ⁠… It was almost an hallucination.⁠ ⁠… You’re going to or from the gymnasium⁠ ⁠… thinking out your remarks.⁠ ⁠… You suddenly feel that M. Budnikov is following you with his measured tread and his self-satisfaction that comes from a consciousness of duty performed.⁠ ⁠… Or you’re giving a lesson or reading necessary notices and you absolutely hear Budnikov’s accents in your own voice⁠ ⁠… when he lays down to a beggar rules for work or preaches a moral to Gavrilo over the broken shovel or advises me: ‘Lay aside pride and be humble.’⁠ ⁠…

“In this ordinary thing, this humble and apparently quiet life of peaceful corners, there’s something terrible,⁠ ⁠… specific, so to speak, not easily noticeable, gray.⁠ ⁠… Really where are the rascals, sacrifices, the right, the wrong?⁠ ⁠… You so want the fog to be pierced by even one ray of living, absolute truth, which will not be founded on pencil lines, but will be actually able to solve the riddle absolutely and completely⁠ ⁠… the real truth, which even Rogov will acknowledge.⁠ ⁠… Do you understand?

“ ‘I think I do,’ said the gentleman in the glasses seriously.

“Apparently M. Budnikov began to feel that something was wrong. He cleaned up but, as often happens, he didn’t find the real question.⁠ ⁠… He came to me once on the usual day, the twentieth. You understand I gave him tea as usual.⁠ ⁠… He drank it as usual, but his expression was different. Sad and solemn. He finished his business, carefully put away the money in his pocketbook, marked it down, but didn’t leave.⁠ ⁠… He began to talk round the bush⁠ ⁠… about the abnormality of his life,⁠ ⁠… in particular about his loneliness, some mistake caused by prejudice and pride.⁠ ⁠… Then he got talking of Yelena and Gavrilo. Gavrilo had turned out to be utterly worthless and Yelena had made a mistake and was very unhappy.⁠ ⁠… He felt responsible for letting her marry, but it was hard to correct it.⁠ ⁠… It was harder still to fix it up with money.⁠ ⁠… What good is money in the hands of a drunkard? And so on. All these subterfuges showed me that M. Budnikov wanted to solve the whole riddle by recreating the original situation, so to speak⁠—that is, to divorce Yelena from Gavrilo and marry her himself.⁠ ⁠… That meant those two lines would be wiped out and disappear.⁠ ⁠… Apparently⁠ ⁠… he had already talked of this with several people, among them Father Nikolay.⁠ ⁠… Now he wanted my advice.⁠ ⁠…

“ ‘Have you spoken to Yelena about this?’ I asked.

“ ‘No, not yet.⁠ ⁠… I, perhaps, you may notice, don’t even go to see her, so as not to make trouble.⁠ ⁠… But I know what she needs.⁠ ⁠… I have no reason to doubt.⁠ ⁠…’

“I tried to advance certain points, but M. Budnikov wouldn’t listen.⁠ ⁠… He soon said goodbye and left.⁠ ⁠… As if he feared for the integrity of his whole plan of action.⁠ ⁠…

“A little while after, when Gavrilo was away, some women of the parish began to bob up at Yelena’s