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

He strolled round the young man with the shinily arranged hair. He coughed and clattered with his heels. He was very annoyed that the representative of the firm of Strigal and Co. paid not the slightest attention to him.

At last he darted up to the young man and squeaked loudly:

“I suppose they didn’t tell you I was at home?”

The representative of the illustrious firm stood up. He gave a gallant curtsey. He sat down again, and, turning to Aglaya, said:

“Only one trifling condition.”

Saranin snorted contemptuously. Aglaya burst out laughing. Her eyes sparkled inquisitively, and she said:

“Well, tell me, what is the condition?”

“Our condition is that the gentleman would consent to sit in the window of our store in the capacity of a living advertisement.”

Aglaya gave a malicious laugh.

“Splendid! At any rate, he’ll be out of my sight.”

“I won’t consent,” squeaked Saranin, in a piercing voice. “I cannot agree to such a thing. I⁠—a court councillor and a knight, sitting in a shopwindow as an advertisement⁠—why, I think it’s absolutely ridiculous.”

“Be quiet,” shouted Aglaya, “it’s not you they’re asking.”

“What, not asking me?” wailed Saranin. “How much longer am I to put up with strangers?”

“Oh no, sir, you’re making a mistake!” chimed in the young man amiably. “Our firm has no connection with aliens. Our employees are all either orthodox or Lutherans from Riga. And we have no Jews.”

“I don’t want to sit in the window” screamed Saranin.

He stamped his feet. Aglaya seized him by the arm. She pulled him towards the bedroom.

“Where are you dragging me?” screamed Saranin. “I don’t want to, leave go.”

“I’ll quieten you,” shouted Aglaya.

She locked the door.

“I’ll give you a sound beating,” she said through her teeth.

She started striking him. He wriggled powerlessly in her mighty arms.

“I’ve got you in my power, you pigmy. What I want I’ll do. I can shove you into my pocket⁠—how dare you oppose me! I don’t care for your rank, I’ll thrash you within an inch of your life.”

“I’ll complain about it,” squeaked Saranin.

But he soon realised the uselessness of resistance. He was so very small, and Aglaya had clearly resolved to put her whole strength into it.

“All right then, all right,” he wailed, “I’ll go into Strigal’s window⁠—I’ll sit there⁠—and bring disgrace on you. I’ll put on all my decorations.”

Aglaya laughed.

“You’ll put on what Strigal gives you,” she shouted.

She lugged her husband into the drawing-room. She threw him before the young man and shouted:

“Take him! Carry him off this very moment. And the money in advance. Every month!”

Her words were hysterical outcries.

The young man produced a pocketbook. He counted out two hundred roubles.

“Not enough!” shouted Aglaya.

The young man smiled. He took out a hundred rouble note in addition.

“More than this I am not authorised to give,” he remarked, amiably. “At the end of a month, pray receive the next instalment.”

Saranin ran about the room.

“In the window! In the window!” he kept screaming. “Cursed Armenian, what did you do to me?”

And suddenly at that very moment he shrank by about three inches.

X

Useless were Saranin’s tears and his lamentations?⁠—what did Strigal and his associates care about them?

They paid. They effectuated their rights. The ruthless rights of capital.

The power of capital provides even the court councillor and knight with a position completely in accordance with his precise dimensions, but not in the least harmonising with his pride. Dressed up in the latest fashion, the pigmy runs to and fro in the window of the fashion emporium⁠—now feasting his gaze on the fair ladies of such colossal size!⁠—now spitefully threatening the gleeful children with his fists.

There was a mob round the windows of Strigal and Co.

The assistants in Strigal and Co.’s store trod on each other’s toes.

Strigal and Co.’s workshop was flooded with orders.

Strigal and Co. attain renown.

Strigal and Co. extend their workshops.

Strigal and Co. are rich.

Strigal and Co. buy up houses.

Strigal and Co. are magnanimous; they feed Saranin right royally, they do not stint his wife for money.

Aglaya is already receiving a thousand a month.

More income still has fallen to Aglaya’s share.

And acquaintances.

And lovers.

And brilliants.

And carriages.

And a mansion.

Aglaya is merry and contented. She has grown still larger. She wears high-heeled shoes. She selects hats of gigantic proportions.

When she visits her husband, she fondles him and feeds him from her hand like a bird. Saranin in a stumpy-tailed dress-suit trots about with tiny steps on the table in front of her and squeaks something. His voice is as penetrating as the squeak of a gnat. But the words are not audible.

Tiny little folk can speak, but their squeaking is not audible to people of large proportions⁠—neither to Aglaya, nor to Strigal, nor to any of the company. Aglaya, surrounded by shop-assistants, hears the mannikin’s whining and squeaking. She laughs and goes away.

They carry Saranin into the window, where, in a nest of soft materials, a whole lodging is arranged for him, with the open side turned towards the public.

The street urchins see the mannikin sitting down at the table and preparing to write his petitions. His tiny little petitions for his rights, which have been violated by Aglaya, Strigal and Co.

He writes. He knocks against the envelope. The urchins laugh.

In the meanwhile, Aglaya is sitting in her splendid carriage. She is going for a jaunt before lunch.

XI

Neither Aglaya, nor Strigal and Co. thought how it would all end. They were satisfied with the present. It seemed as if there would be no end to the golden shower which flowed down upon them. But the end came. Of the most ordinary kind. Such as might have been expected.

Saranin diminished continually. Every day they dressed him in new suits⁠—always smaller.

And suddenly, in the eyes of the marvelling shop-assistants, just as he was putting on some new trousers, he became excessively minute. He tumbled out of the trousers. And he had already become like a pin’s head.

A slight draught was blowing. Saranin, minute as a grain of dust, was lifted up in the air. He was twirled