Short Fiction - Fyodor Sologub (best romance ebooks .txt) 📗

magnificent open spaces. Everything seemed strange and hostile to the hungry, helpless man. The beautiful, rich-coloured fruits behind the shop windows could not have been more inaccessible if they were under the watch of a strong guard.

Children were playing merrily in the green square. Igumnov looked at them and smiled. Unpleasant memories of his own childhood tormented him with an intense pity for himself. He reflected that it was only left to him to die. The thought frightened him. And again he reflected: “Why shouldn’t I die? Wasn’t there a time when I did not exist? I shall have rest, eternal oblivion.”

Fragments of wise strange thoughts came to him and soothed him.

Igumnov was now on the embankment. He leant against the granite parapet and watched the restless waters of the river. A single move, he thought, and everything would be ended. But it was terrible to think of drowning, of struggling with one’s mouth full of water, of being strangled by these heavy, cold sweeps of water, of battling helplessly, and of at last sinking from sheer exhaustion to the bottom, there to be carried by the undercurrents, and at last to be cast out, a shapeless corpse, upon some coast of the sea.

Igumnov shivered and moved away from the river. He suddenly espied not far away his former colleague Kurkov. Smartly dressed, cheerful and self-satisfied, Kurkov was walking slowly and swinging a thin cane with a fancy handle.

“Ah, Grigory Petrovich!” he exclaimed, as though he were glad of the meeting. “Are you strolling, or are you on business?”

“Yes, I’m strolling, that is on business,” said Igumnov.

“I think we are going the same way?”

They walked on together. Kurkov’s cheerful chatter only intensified Igumnov’s mood. Moving his shoulders nervously he addressed Kurkov with sudden resolution: “Nikolai Sergeyevich, do you happen to have a rouble on you?”

“A rouble?” said Kurkov in astonishment. “Why do you want it?”

Igumnov flushed, and began to explain in stammers. “You see, I⁠ ⁠… just one rouble is lacking.⁠ ⁠… I have to get something⁠ ⁠… something, you see.⁠ ⁠…”

He breathed heavily in his agitation. He grew silent, and smiled a pitiful, fixed smile.

“That means I shan’t get it back,” thought Kurkov.

And now he spoke no longer in the same careless tone as before.

“I’d like to, but I haven’t any spare cash, not a copeck. I had to borrow some yesterday myself.”

“Well, if you haven’t it, you can’t help it,” mumbled Igumnov, and continued to smile. “I’ll simply have to get along without it.”

His smile irritated Kurkov, perhaps because it was such a pitiful, helpless affair.

“Why does he smile?” thought Kurkov in vexation. “Doesn’t he believe me? Well, I don’t care if he doesn’t⁠—I don’t own the Government exchequer.”

“Why don’t you come in sometimes and see us?” he asked Igumnov in a careless, dry manner, as he looked elsewhere.

“I am always meaning to. Of course I’ll come in,” answered Igumnov in a trembling voice. “What about today?”

There rose before him a picture of the cosy dining-room of the Kurkovs, the hospitable hostess, the samovar on the table and the various tasty titbits.

“Today?” asked Kurkov in the same careless, dry voice. “No, we shan’t be home today. But do step in some day before long. Well, I must turn up this lane. Goodbye!”

And he made haste to cross the wooden walk of the embankment. Igumnov looked after him, and smiled. Slow, incoherent thoughts crept through his brain.

As Kurkov disappeared up the lane Igumnov again approached the granite parapet, and, trembling in cold terror, began slowly and awkwardly to climb over it.

There was no one near.

The Hoop I

A woman was taking her morning stroll in a lonely suburban street; a boy of four was with her. She was young and smart and she was smiling brightly; she was casting affectionate glances at her son, whose red cheeks beamed with happiness. The boy was bowling a hoop; a large, new, bright yellow hoop. He ran after his hoop awkwardly, laughed uproariously with joy, thrust forward his plump little legs, bare at the knee, and flourished his stick. He needn’t have raised his stick so high above his head⁠—but what of that?

What happiness! He had never had a hoop before; how briskly it made him run!

And nothing of this had existed for him before; everything was new to him⁠—the streets in early morning, the merry sun, and the distant din of the city. Everything was new to the boy⁠—and joyous and pure.

II

A shabbily dressed old man, with coarse hands stood at the street crossing. He pressed close to the wall to let the woman and the boy pass. The old man looked at the boy with dull eyes and smiled stupidly. Confused, sluggish thoughts struggled within his almost bald head.

“A little gentleman!” said he to himself. “Quite a small fellow. And simply bursting with joy. Just look at him cutting his paces!”

He could not quite understand it. Somehow it seemed strange to him.

Here was a child⁠—a thing to be pulled about by the hair! Play is mischief. Children, as everyone knows, are mischief-makers.

And there was the mother⁠—she uttered no reproach, she made no fuss, she did not scold. She was smart and bright. It was quite easy to see that they were used to warmth and comfort.

On the other hand, when he, the old man, was a boy he lived a dog’s life! There was nothing particularly rosy in his life even now; though, to be sure, he was no longer thrashed and he had plenty to eat. He recalled his younger days⁠—their hunger, their cold, their drubbings. He had never had fun with a hoop, or other playthings of well-to-do folks. Thus passed all his life⁠—in poverty, in care, in misery. And he could recall nothing⁠—not a single joy.

He smiled with his toothless mouth at the boy, and he envied him. He reflected:

“What a silly sport!”

But envy tormented him.

He went to work⁠—to the factory where he had worked from childhood, where he had