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

same white dresses as in the morning; their eyes were as blue, their hair as golden, their figures as beautiful⁠—but now they wore no flower crowns, but instead white summer hats. They were just ordinary young girls⁠—summer visitors.

They were hidden for a moment behind the bushes, but soon they appeared again, climbing up the cliff and coming along the narrow path which passed the summerhouse. Paul bowed to them and smiled, and they recognised Elèna.

“Greeting to you, dear queen.”

“Dear sisters,” said Elèna happily.

And ever since that time Elèna had known joy. Under the guise of the ordinary she had known the joy of her crowned life. All poverty and wretchedness had been transformed by her queenly pride, her exalted dignity.

And now after many years, as she stood by the window waiting for her little son, though her dress was poor and shabby, she was whispering to herself as she remembered the crowning day of her life:

“Man can overcome the world.”

The Delicate Child

There once lived a delicate child.

When he was born they put him in a glass bell-jar, so that flies should not torment him.

So he lived in the bell-jar.

The boy looked out through the glass and saw the birch tree shaking in the wind. But he did not know that it was from the wind, the delicate boy did not know.

And he cried out to the birch tree:

“Don’t shake, stupid birch, you’ll break yourself.”

The wind ceased to blow and the birch became still. And the delicate boy was very pleased, and so cried out:

“That’s a sensible tree, I’m glad you listened to me.”

The Bit of Candy

A little girl had some candy in a piece of paper.

At first there was much candy, but she ate it till there was only one lump left.

And she asked herself should she eat this lump also or should she give it to the poor.

“I’ll give it to a poor girl,” said she.

But after a while she thought: “Perhaps it would be better to divide the candy in half and share it.” So she ate up half the lump.

Then she thought about the bit that was left, and she said to herself: “I’ll break that in two again and give half of it to the little girl.”

At last so little remained of the lump of candy that it wasn’t worth while giving it to the poor girl⁠—so she ate up what was left.

The Lump of Sugar

There was once a landlady. She had a little key to unlock a little cupboard. In the little cupboard was a little box, and in the little box was a wee wee lump of sugar.

And the landlady had a little doggie, and the doggie was very capricious and liked to catch hold of the end of the landlady’s skirt and tug at it.

The landlady took her little key and opened the little cupboard, found the little box and took out the wee wee lump of sugar. The little doggie looked up at her and wagged his tail.

But the landlady said:

“You tugged at my skirt, Capriza Petrovna, so see this little lump of sugar, well, you shan’t have it.”

And she put the sugar back where it was before. The little doggie repented, yes, but it was too late.

The Bull

A little boy had a mama who wore light blue spectacles and a papa who wore dark blue ones.

They weighed in a pair of scales all that the little boy ate, meat, bread, milk, weighed it all.

At last, one day, papa said to mama: “Our boy has today finished his first bull, tomorrow he starts on his second.”

When the little boy heard this he began to cry, and he said:

“I don’t want to eat a bull⁠—a bull has got horns.”

The Golden Post

Bobby was angry with his papa and said to his nurse:

“As soon as I grow up I’ll get to be a general, and I’ll come to papa’s house with a cannon and take him prisoner and tie him up to a post.”

Papa, overhearing, cried out:

“Ah, you bad boy! Tie papa to a post, would you? That would hurt papa badly.”

Bobby took fright, and said hesitatingly:

“But, papa, you know it would be a golden post, with a bit of writing on it⁠—‘For Bravery.’ ”

So Arose a Misunderstanding

A boy once asked:

“What is coming?”

“I don’t know,” said his mother.

“But I know,” said the boy.

“What?” asked the mother.

The boy laughed and answered:

“I shan’t say.”

Mother got angry, complained to papa. Papa cried out:

“What are you laughing about?”

“What?” said the little boy.

“Insulting your mother! What do you know?”

The boy went pale and answered:

“I don’t know anything. I was joking.”

Papa got more and more angry. He thought the boy knew something, so he bellowed at him in a dreadful voice:

“Say out what you know! Say what is coming!”

The boy began to cry and could not say what was coming.

In that way arose a misunderstanding.

Frogs

Two frogs met, one a little older, the other a little younger. Said the older: “Can you croak in other ways?”

“Rather,” said the younger, “I should think I could.”

“Then go ahead,” said the elder.

The younger frog then began to croak in this way:

“Kva⁠ ⁠… kva-kva⁠ ⁠…” and tried various tones, but the elder cried out:

“Oh, ho, you’re only croaking Russian just the same.”

“How else should I croak?” asked the younger.

“Well in French for instance,” replied the elder.

“No one croaks in French,” said the younger.

“Yes they do,” said the elder.

“Then you do it,” said the younger.

“Kvew, kvew, kvew,” said the elder.

“I can do that,” said the younger.

“Go ahead, then,” said the elder.

“Kvee, kvee, kvee,” said the younger one, trying.

But the elder one laughed and cried out: “That sounds more like German than French, you with your kvee.”

The younger one tried hard but couldn’t make kvew. Cried a little and then said:

“Russian frogs croak better than French ones⁠—more clearly.”

The Lady in Fetters

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