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

countrymen sat down on the end of the bench and at once assumed a leading role in the conversation which they had already commenced.

“I’ll tell you,” he said in a wholly confident tone, “if I cross myself with my fist, it works. This way: in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen. It really works just the same. What do you think?”

He looked at the others with the air of a man who had just propounded a very clever riddle.

“The fist, you say?” asked one of the peasants from Unzha in surprise.

“Yes, the fist.”

The listeners shook their heads as a mark of doubt and reproof. The farmer turned sternly to the young fellow:

“N-now, stop that! You claim to be above God.⁠ ⁠…”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, you are a foo-fool to make the sign of the cross with your fist. Impossible. It never works.”

“It does!”

The young fellow looked round upon his auditors with a joyously radiant face and was about to give the answer to the riddle when he heard at one of the tables the impatient tapping of a spoon on a glass.

The fellow jumped up as if he had been shot. In an instant he was at the other end of the deck, grabbed the teapots, ran to the machinery and back, set the table, shook himself, ran below again, put up the orders and passed them around the tables, and all the while the conversation continued before an enchanted audience.

“He’s beside himself!” said the farmer.

“Due to a stupid mind,” added the old woman pityingly.

“The little fellow was a liar, that’s all!”

“How can you do it with your fist?⁠ ⁠… That never works.⁠ ⁠…”

The general opinion was evidently very definite.

“Impossible,” said several voices suddenly. “It’s impudence and nothing else.⁠ ⁠…”

“What⁠—?”

“Where did you get that notion?”

“It’s impudence.⁠ ⁠…”

“Just you listen,” interrupted the young waiter, suddenly coming up the hatch, “and you may not think it impudent.⁠ ⁠… In the linen factory in the place where I lived there was a fellow and a machine caught all his fingers and slash bang! That’s all! He didn’t have a finger left! And his right hand too.⁠ ⁠… Just imagine: being a man with nothing but his palm left.⁠ ⁠…”

The audience was charmed.

“What are you driving at?”

“You see the question.⁠ ⁠… What would you do, brothers?⁠ ⁠… Could he cross himself with his left hand?⁠ ⁠…”

“What, what?” The farmer waved his hand. “You can’t use the left hand.⁠ ⁠… That’s for Satan.⁠ ⁠…”

“But he’d lost the fingers on the right, so he couldn’t join them.⁠ ⁠… Had only the palm left!⁠ ⁠…”

“That’s so.⁠ ⁠…”

The riddle became more popular. The passengers nearby listened; those further off got up and walked nearer to the speaker. Even the young merchant who was talking very authoritatively about politics at the tea table with a fat gentleman, deigned to turn his benevolent attention to the all-ingrossing riddle. He tapped with his spoon and beckoned to the waiter.

“Waiter, how much?⁠ ⁠… O-oh! What did you say: with the fist?”

“Yes, your excellency, among ourselves.⁠ ⁠… It doesn’t interest you.⁠ ⁠…”

“No, but it’s really clever, isn’t it?” remarked the merchant to his fat friend.

The latter’s answer was unintelligible, for the man was struggling with a slice of bread and butter.

But the Tatars sat in the stern without taking any part in the general conversation. They were silent, but once in a while they made brief remarks to one another in their own language.

III

Dmitry Parfentyevich started like a war horse at the sound of a trumpet. Grunya did not take her eyes from the distant mountains and the river, but it was easy to see that she was not looking at them. Without turning her head she was listening intently to the conversation of her neighbors.

Dmitry Parfentyevich looked at her askance. Hitherto she would have turned to him immediately with a trusting question: “Papa, how’s that?” Now she seemed to pay no attention to her father’s opinion.

He waited for her to ask but her large eyes fell with evident sympathy upon that knot of dark, ignorant people, who were shocked by such a meaningless change in their faith.⁠ ⁠…

He rose and walked up to the disputants. His thickset, dry figure, savagely pure, in an old-fashioned costume, won for him the immediate attention of all.

“What’s the trouble?” he asked.

“It’s this way, you see, merchant.⁠ ⁠… This little fellow says you can cross yourself with your fist.”

“I heard him but don’t repeat it! That man’s a fool!”

“Yes, yes,” whispered one timidly, “we’re all dark people.⁠ ⁠…”

“That’s true,⁠ ⁠… you are. If you follow the teachings of your true masters, you’ll find nothing surprising here.”

The audience grew rapidly larger. All were now interested in the tall old man with quiet and majestically austere manners. Dmitry Parfentyevich was not embarrassed by the attention he was receiving. It was not the first time. There was only one person in that crowd that interested him and that was his scholar, his disobedient and devout Grunya. In his own way he loved his daughter and his rough heart was torn by her unwearied doubts and her sad look. He passionately wished her to feel that peace from heaven which his own heart had so fully obtained. But her disobedience always aroused in his stern soul a storm of suppressed rage and this struggled with his love and usually conquered it.

Grunya still kept her seat. She did not stir but she listened intently.

“Now listen,” came to her ears the confident and harsh voice of her father. “This is the true cross and it is to this cross that we hold in order to be saved.”

He raised his hand with two fingers raised, so that all could see.

“A dissenter,” was the murmur in the crowd. Two or three merchants who were apparently fond of religious discussions, pressed nearer, when they heard this unexpected confession.

“We are not dissenters,” continued Dmitry Parfentyevich. “We confess the true faith. This was the form of the cross which the holy fathers and the patriarchs believed in. This was taught by St. Theodoret.”

He raised his hand with the two