Short Fiction - Vsevolod Garshin (my miracle luna book free read .TXT) 📗
- Author: Vsevolod Garshin
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Why, then, does an unknown voice keep whispering of that happiness in my ear? Why, when I awake at night, do familiar scenes and forms pass before me in the darkness? And why, when one pale form appears, does his face blaze, his hands clench, and terror and fury arrest his breathing as on that day when I stood face to face with my mortal enemy?
I cannot rid myself of these recollections, and a strange thought has come into my head. Perhaps if I commit these recollections to paper I shall in this way settle accounts and finish with them. … Perhaps they will leave me, and allow me to die in peace. This is the strange reason which is compelling me to take up a pen. Perhaps somebody will read this diary, perhaps not; I care little. Therefore I do not apologize to any future readers either as regards style or the choice of subject upon which I am writing, a subject not in the least interesting to people accustomed to busy themselves in questions, if not of worldwide, at least of public interest. It is true, however, that I want one person to read these lines, but she will not condemn me. All that concerns me is precious to her. This person is my cousin.
Why today is she so long in coming? It is already three months since I came to myself after that day. The first face I saw was Sonia’s. And from that time she has spent every evening with me. It has become a kind of duty with her. She sits by my bed or beside a big armchair when I am strong enough to sit up, talks with me, and reads aloud from the newspapers or from books. She is much distressed because I leave it to her, and am indifferent as to what she reads.
“Look here, Andrei, there is a new story in the Viestnik Europa called ‘She thought it was otherwise.’ ”
“Very good, dear, we will have ‘She thought it was otherwise.’ ”
“It is a story by Mrs. Hay.”
And she commenced to read a long history of a Mr. Skripple and a Miss Gordon. After the first two pages she turned her big kind eyes on me, and said: “It is not a long one; the Viestnik always cuts the stories short.”
“All right, I will listen.”
And as she resumes her reading of the narrative concocted by Mrs. Hay, I look at her face bent over the book, and forget to listen to the edifying story. Sometimes in those places where, according to Mrs. Hay, I should laugh bitter tears choke me. Then she drops the book, and, looking at me in a searching, but timid, manner, places her hand on my forehead, and says:
“Andrei darling, again! Now, my dear boy, that will do. Don’t cry. It will all pass by and be forgotten …” just as a mother comforts a little child who has bumped and hurt his forehead. But my hurt will only pass away with my life, which, I feel, is little by little ebbing from my body; nevertheless, I calm down.
Oh, my darling cousin! How I appreciate your womanly caresses! May God bless you, and allow the black pages in the beginning of your life—pages on which my name is written—to be replaced by a radiant narrative of happiness! Only grant that this narrative will not resemble Mrs. Hay’s tiresome story.
A ring! At last! She has come, and will bring an atmosphere of freshness into my dark and stifling room, will break its silence with her quiet tender talk, and will lighten it with her beauty.
III do not remember my mother, and my father died when I was fourteen years old. My guardian, a distant relation, packed me off to one of the Petersburg gymnasia, where, after four years, I completed my studies and was absolutely free. My guardian, a man immersed in his own numerous affairs, confined his solicitude for me to an allowance sufficient, in his opinion, to keep me from want. It was not a very handsome income, but it entirely freed me from care as to earning my crust of bread, and allowed me to choose my path of life.
The choice had long been made. For four years I had loved before all else in the world to play with paints and pencils, and at the end of my term at the gymnasium I already drew quite well, so I had no difficulty in entering the Academy of Arts.
Had I talent? Now, when I shall never again stretch a canvas, I may without bias look upon myself as an artist. Yes, I had talent. And I say this not because of the criticisms of comrades and experts, not because I passed so quickly through the Academy, but because of the feeling which was in me, which made itself felt every time I commenced to work. No one who is not an artist can experience the painful but delicious excitement every time one approaches a new canvas for the first time. No one but an artist can experience the oblivion to all around when the soul is engrossed in. … Yes, I had talent, and I should have become no ordinary artist.
There they are, hanging on the walls—my canvases, studies, and exercises, and unfinished pictures. And there she is. … I must ask my cousin to take her away into another room. Or, no—I must have it hung exactly at the foot of my bed, so that she may all the time look at me with her sad glance, as if foreseeing execution. In a dark blue dress, with a dainty white cap, and a large tricoloured cockade on one side of it, and with her dark chestnut locks escaping from under its white frill in thick waves, she gazes at me as if alive. Oh, Charlotte, Charlotte! Ought I to bless or curse the hour when the thought first entered my head to
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