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

said.⁠ ⁠… It was both a distant tremor of alarm and also quiet and neighborly sympathy.

“I really wasn’t surprised when Rogov came up quietly and timidly sat down beside me on the steps. He sat a long time without saying a word.⁠ ⁠… I don’t remember whether he did say anything, but I knew the whole story.⁠ ⁠… He had no thoughts of murder. He wanted ‘to win Yelena’s case with M. Budnikov’ for himself. He had to get hold of the ticket, on which, as he supposed, was an endorsement.⁠ ⁠… This clever scheme pleased him: to get hold by illegal means of the proof of a legal right. He saw something humorous in it. The illegal procuring of legal proof in the form of a hypothetical endorsement.⁠ ⁠… That’s why he worked his way into Budnikov’s confidence through the business of the divorce.⁠ ⁠… He found out everything about the place and sent one of his obedient clients from the ‘Crags’ to take the proper box. Gavrilo was to open the door of M. Budnikov’s apartment with a second key, which Budnikov, through strange oversight, had failed to take back from him. Instead of waiting at the door, Gavrilo had gone upstairs. I could have sworn I had seen him walk along with his heavy tread, his dark head, and the deep hatred in his soul.⁠ ⁠… And how he reached the door and how M. Budnikov awoke and apparently was not even frightened but suddenly understood the whole situation.

“I still saw that moment in the past, when two students ran into my rooms on just such a bright night, and I faced them in my shame and weakness.⁠ ⁠… What a fire⁠ ⁠… evil and sarcastic⁠ ⁠… was blazing in the eyes of one.⁠ ⁠…

“It seemed to me that I had discovered that which was the bond of union among all things: these lofty, flashing stars, the living murmur of the wind among the branches, my memories, and this deed.⁠ ⁠… When I was young I had often had this sensation.⁠ ⁠… When my fresh mind was trying to solve all questions and gain a larger truth. Another time you will seem to be right at the threshold and everything is about to be cleared up, when it all vanishes.

“We sat a long time. Finally Rogov got up.

“ ‘Where are you going now?’ I asked.

“ ‘I don’t know,’ was the answer, ‘what I must do.⁠ ⁠… I think I’ll have to join Gavrilo and Yelena.⁠ ⁠…’

“There he stood. I understood so much more clearly than usual, and I suddenly realized that he was waiting for me to shake hands. I held out my hand and he suddenly seized it, and it was a long time before he let it go.⁠ ⁠…

“He broke away and left⁠ ⁠… straight down the street. I looked after him, as long as I could make out the slender figure of my former pupil.⁠ ⁠…”

For some time the silence in the compartment was interrupted only by the rattling of the train and a long whistle. The door slammed, and a conductor walked along the corridor and called out:

“Station of N⁠⸺⁠sk. Ten minutes’ wait.”

Pavel Semenovich hurriedly got up, picked up a small valise, and, with a sad smile at his audience, he got out of the train. I began to make preparations to leave and so did the gentleman in the gold glasses. Petr Petrovich remained alone. He looked after Pavel Semenovich and, when the door was shut behind him, he smiled at the gentleman in the gold glasses, shook his head, and, running his finger around his forehead, he said:

“He always was a crank.⁠ ⁠… Now I think he’s not all there. I’ve heard that he threw up his position and now goes around and gives private lessons.”

The gentleman in the gold glasses looked steadily at him but said nothing.

We got out of the train.

From the point of view of a reporter the case was uninteresting. The jurors acquitted Gavrilo (Yelena was not tried); Rogov was convicted of being the instigator, but mercy was recommended. The judge several times had to stop the witness Pavel Semenovich Padorin, former teacher, who constantly wandered away from facts, in order to express opinions which were irrelevant and had nothing to do with the case.⁠ ⁠…

“Necessity” An Eastern Tale I

One day, when the three good sages⁠—Ulaya, Darnu, and Purana⁠—were sitting at the door of their common home, young Kassapa, the son of the Rajah Lichava, came up to them and sat down on the earth which was piled around the house but he did not speak. The young man’s cheeks were pale and his eyes, which had lost the glow of youth, seemed weary.

The old men looked one at another, and good Ulaya said:

“Listen, Kassapa, tell to us, the three sages, who wish you nothing but good, what is oppressing your soul. Ever since you lay in the cradle, fate has showered its gifts upon you and you look as downcast as the meanest slave of your father, poor Jebaka, who yesterday felt the heavy hand of your steward.⁠ ⁠…”

“Yes, poor Jebaka showed us the welts on his back,” said stern Darnu and kindly Purana added:

“We wished to call them to your attention, good Kassapa.”

The young man did not allow him to finish. He jumped up from his seat and exclaimed with an impatience which he had never before displayed:

“Stop, kindly sages, with your sly reproaches! You seem to think that I must give you account for every welt inflicted by the steward on the back of the slave Jebaka. I greatly doubt whether I am bound to give account even of my own acts.”

The sages glanced again one at another and Ulaya said:

“Continue, my son, if you so desire.”

“Desire?” interrupted the young man with a bitter laugh. “The fact is, I don’t know whether I desire anything or not. And whether I like what I wish or what another wishes for me.”

He stopped. It was almost perfectly quiet but a breeze stirred the tops of the trees, and a leaf fell