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

fair example of the landowners in the southwestern district. He was good-natured, even kindly, probably an excellent overseer of the workmen, fond of building and making alterations in his mills. These occupations consumed all his time; hence his voice was seldom heard in the house except at the regular hours for dinner, lunch, or other events of a similar character. At such times he never failed to ask his customary question of his wife, “Are you feeling well, my dove?” After which he would seat himself at the table, and make no further remarks save perhaps an occasional observation on the subject of cylinders or pinions. It might be expected that his quiet and simple existence would find a pale reflection in the nature of his son.

Uncle Maxim was of quite a different temperament. Ten years previous to the events we are about to describe, he had been famed for his quarrelsome temper, not only in the vicinity of his own estate, but even in Kiev and at the Contracts.36 No one could understand the existence of such a brother in a family so respectable as that of Pani37 Popèlska, née Yatzènko. Amicable relations with such a man were out of the question, for it was impossible to please him. He insolently repelled the advances of the Pans,38 and overlooked an amount of wilfulness and impertinence on the part of the peasants, which would have been punished with blows by even the mildest among the nobility. Finally, to the great joy of all respectable persons, Uncle Maxim for reasons best known to himself became very much displeased with the Austrians, and departed for Italy. There he joined Garibaldi, a heathen soldier, who like himself delighted in fighting⁠—and who, as it was rumored among the Pan-landlords, was in league with the devil, and showed no reverence for the Pope. By such actions Maxim of course imperilled forever his restless, heretical soul; but on the occasion of the Contracts fewer scandals took place, and many an excellent mother felt more at ease concerning the welfare of her sons.

The Austrians, on their part, were doubtless angry with Uncle Maxim. Now and then his name appeared in the Courier⁠—a favorite old paper of the Pan-landlords⁠—united with those of Garibaldi’s most daring comrades; and one day the Pans read in the same Courier that Uncle Maxim had fallen with his horse on the battlefield. The enraged Austrians, who had long been waiting for a chance to attack this desperate Volynian,39 who in the opinion of his countrymen was Garibaldi’s mainstay and support, chopped him in pieces like cabbage. “Maxim’s was a sad end,” said the Pans, and ascribed it to the immediate interposition of Saint Peter in behalf of his representative on earth. Maxim was reckoned among the dead. Subsequently, however, it became known that the Austrian sabres had no power to expel Maxim’s obstinate spirit, and that it still dwelt in his considerably damaged body. The Garibaldians, rescuing their worthy comrade from the fray, had carried him to some hospital, and, lo! after a few years Maxim unexpectedly appeared in his sister’s house, where he ever after remained.

But Maxim could fight no more duels. He had lost his right foot, and was obliged to use a crutch, while his left leg was so injured as to require him to use also a cane. On the whole he had lost much of his former excitability, and it was only occasionally that his sharp tongue did duty for his sword. He ceased to visit the Contracts, seldom appeared in society, and spent most of his time in the library reading; but in regard to the contents of the books, save for the a priori supposition that they must be atheistic, no one had the faintest idea. He also wrote from time to time; but as his compositions never appeared in the Courier, they were supposed to be quite insignificant.

About the time when the little new being entered upon its career in the country house, one might have noticed streaks of silver gray in Uncle Maxim’s closely cropped hair. From the constant use of crutch and cane he had grown high shouldered, which gave to his figure a certain square effect. His peculiar aspect, his knitted brows, the clatter of his crutch and cane, and the clouds of tobacco smoke in which he was constantly enveloped, since he never took the pipe from his mouth⁠—all these things intimidated strangers, and only those who lived with him knew that his crippled body held a warm and kind heart, and that his large square head covered with thick bristling hair was the seat of constant mental activity.

But those who were nearer to him had but a vague notion of the problems that perplexed and absorbed Uncle Maxim’s mind at this time. They only knew that he would sit motionless for hours at a time, enveloped in a cloud of blue smoke, with knitted eyebrows and a faraway look in his eyes. Meanwhile this crippled warrior was pondering upon the battle of life, and feeling that there was no room in it for invalids. He pictured himself as having left the ranks forever, and he felt like a man encumbering the hospital ambulance. He was like a knight, unseated and overthrown in the conflict of life. Did it not show a lack of courage to crawl in the dust like a crushed worm? Would it not be a coward’s part to grasp the stirrup of the conqueror, and beg for the sorry remnant of his own life?

While Uncle Maxim was calmly considering this vital question with all its pros and cons, a new being appeared before his eyes, whose fate it was to enter life an invalid from his very birth. At first Maxim paid but little heed to the blind