Short Fiction - Vsevolod Garshin (my miracle luna book free read .TXT) 📗
- Author: Vsevolod Garshin
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He gave me a sidelong glance and winked, whilst his shrivelled-up little eyes became somewhat oily.
“Captain,” I began, “I—I am very glad that you know Bezsonow. … I, you understand, did not know this.”
“He only lived with me for a very short time.”
“Was he acquainted …”
I suddenly became ashamed of myself. Something held my tongue, ready to utter the name of Nadejda Nicolaievna. I looked at the Captain. His eyes, which had suddenly changed their expression, were fixed intently on me. At this moment he resembled a vulture.
“But you probably do not know. Forgive me,” I finished confusedly.
He looked at me, assumed a most unconcerned air, and flourished his stick.
“Yes, an old soldier has something to remember …” he continued, as if I had asked him nothing. “I am in my sixtieth,” he added, mournfully shaking his head. “I must confess that I envy you, Monsieur Lopatin, but only your youth.”
“Where did you serve. Captain?” I inquired, remembering Helfreich’s words.
The Captain once more became quite changed. His face became preternaturally serious. He glanced to the right and left, looked behind him, and, bending down so close that his moustache even brushed against my ear, whispered:
“Between ourselves, as gentlemen! You see before you, Monsieur Lopatin, a warrior of Miekoff and Opatoff.” And he stepped back a pace and looked at me in a manner which seemed to demand astonishment on my part. I made an effort to assume an expression suitable to the occasion.
“This is the secret which I confide only to my most intimate friends …” added the Captain, as again he bent down and again jumped back from me, regarding me with a triumphant look.
There was nothing left but to thank him for his confidence, and part as we had reached the “Police” bridge.
I was angry with myself. I had almost mentioned Nadejda Nicolaievna’s name to this man, whom I did not trust in the least.
When I arrived home, Alexeievna informed me that “our cat man” had not yet returned. She served dinner and stood at the door, her face expressing keenest sympathy at my lack of appetite.
“What has happened, Andrei Nicolaievich, that she does not come?” she asked.
“She must be ill, Alexeievna.”
She shook her head, and, sighing deeply, went off to the kitchen to bring me my tea. It was long since I had dined without Helfreich, and I was very lonely.
XIIIAfter dinner they brought me a letter from Sonia.
I have never hid anything from her. When I die—which will be soon; even now death is not creeping stealthily towards me, but is advancing with a firm tread, the sound of which I hear clearly on sleepless nights when I am feeling worse, when I am racked with pain, and the past comes up before me—when I die and she reads this diary, she will know that I have never, never lied to her. I have written to her all I have thought and felt, and only that which I have not myself suspected as being in my soul, or have not acknowledged even to myself, but perhaps vaguely felt, has not found a place in my long letters to her.
But she understood me. Although but nineteen, her sensitive, loving soul understood what I did not dare to confess to myself, what I have never once said to myself in actual words.
“You love her, Andrei. God grant you happiness. …”
I could not read further. A gigantic wave surged over me, overwhelmed me, and almost deprived me of consciousness. I leant back in the chair, and, holding the letter in my hand long, sat there motionless and with closed eyes, conscious only of this wave which was roaring and surging in my soul.
It was true. I loved her. I had not experienced this feeling up till now. I had described my attachment to my cousin as love. I was prepared in the course of a few years to become her husband, and perhaps should have been happy with her; I should not have believed it had anyone told me that I could love another woman. It seemed to me that my fate had been settled. “Here is thy wife,” had said the Lord to me, “and thou shalt have none other.” And in this I concurred, undisturbed for the future, and assured in my choice. To love another woman seemed to me an unnecessary and unworthy caprice.
And then came this strange, unhappy being, with her broken life and all her suffering in her eyes. Pity first possessed me; indignation against the man who had expressed his contempt for her made me still more inclined to take her part, and then … Then, I do not know how it happened … but Sonia was right. I loved her with the distraction and passion of the first love of a man who has reached twenty-five years of age without knowing love. I longed to snatch her from the horrors which were tormenting her, to take her in my arms somewhere far, far away, to fondle and press her to my heart, so that she might forget, so as to bring a smile on her suffering face. … And Sonia had said all this in one line of her letter. …
“Do not think of me. I do not want to say, forget me entirely, but only that you should not think of my suffering. I will not commence to complain of a broken heart—and do you know why? Because it is not at all broken. I have been accustomed to look upon you as a brother and future husband. The first was real; the second, I think, people thought of and arranged for us. I love you above all others in this world. I need not have written this, because you yourself know it, but when I read your last
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