Short Fiction by Vladimir Korolenko (ready player one ebook TXT) 📕

Titus which in my egoistic reserve 1 had failed to notice. Since the day when I so harshly insulted him, he had flung himself into the very whirlwind of “philosophy” till then strange to him; and his poor head was completely turned thereby. He had thrown aside his notes for books on social questions, which he studied incessantly, neglecting lectures, and never missing a single meeting. Jumping on the benches in the lecture-halls, he would strike into the middle of any discussion whatever, listening to nobody and continually interrupting other speakers rudely and vociferously. At first his fellow-students could not make it out; then they took to laughing and finally, on the day in question there had been hot work; for Titus was becoming a regular obstructionist. The others attacked him, demanding a plain exposition of his views and trying to refute his arguments. This made Titus half frantic; in his excitement he stamped on the floor, repeating over and over again the same words:⁠—

“You are talking nonsense, all of you, sheer nonsense.”

I heard of all this afterwards. But now Titus stood before me with his cap shoved on to the back of his head, incoherently recounting his exploits.

“There; you hear what he said; and I said to him:⁠—‘No but wait a bit!’⁠ ⁠… Why! whatever is the matter with you, Gavrik? Good God!”

His face suddenly changed and became for a moment the face of the old Titus, anxious and startled.

“Leave me alone, for goodness sake,” I said hoarsely, pushing him aside. “I want to sleep,” and throwing myself down on my bed I hid my face in the pillow.

Titus came up to me on tiptoe, and after a short silence said softly, in the tone of a man thunderstruck and almost in despair:⁠—

“Oh! dear, oh dear! See what all this philosophy comes to. I wish it was all at the devil⁠ ⁠… by Jove!⁠ ⁠…”

XXIV

Now began the darkest days of my life. I was growing afraid of myself; afraid of yielding to that dissecting, analyzing impulse which I had hitherto blindly obeyed. I tried to restrain it by violent exercise and physical stupefaction, an expedient, however, that only answered so long as I was actually at work. I tramped about for days together and wandered over all the suburbs of Moscow, never getting home till late at night. My feet ached with weariness; there were times when I felt utterly worn out; nevertheless my eyes were burning and the fatigue soon passed away.

One day, as I crossed the bridge, I heard hurried footsteps behind me, and looking back saw Madame Sokolov. She was running quickly, with her hair in disorder, and her shawl awry. Observing that there was no one but myself on the bridge, I stopped, in some perplexity.

“Wait,” she said, panting for breath; “here is a letter for you.”

I took the little note out of her hand. It was from Tonia, and consisted of a few words written in pencil:⁠—

“Come tomorrow to the villa on the highroad. I ask you as a favor. It is very important for me.

Tonia.”

“All right!” I said.

Madame Sokolov, who by this time had regained her breath and straightened her shawl, made me a curtsey which at any other time would have set me off into a fit of laughing.

“All right,” she repeated, imitating me; “have you no further commands?”

I looked at her with hatred.

“I have nothing more to say.”

“Good gracious!” said Madame Sokolov, “how important!⁠ ⁠… I daresay you imagine that I came tearing along here like a wild thing for your sake. Please don’t get that into your head. I didn’t.”

“I have never dared to hope⁠ ⁠…”

“The reason I did it was because otherwise Tonia would have come to you herself; and I wanted to spare her that unpleasantness⁠ ⁠… because⁠ ⁠…”

“Thank you, Katerina Filippovna,” I replied simply and with sudden sincerity.

This unexpected answer and the tone of it seemed to surprise Madame Sokolov. She looked at me for a few seconds with her small and ugly yet honest eyes, and turned sharply away.

“Bah! there is no making you out. But it strikes me, young man, that you are giving yourself airs⁠ ⁠…”

“I do not take upon myself to contradict you,” said I, resuming the tones of delicate irony which vexed Madame Sokolov more than actual impertinence would have done.

“There! why the deuce should I stand arguing with you! If it was not that I am sorry for Tonia, I’d⁠ ⁠… Bah! what fools we women are!”

I remained for a few minutes watching her ungainly figure as she went away, and repeating to myself her last words.

For some time past I had attended our students’ meetings so seldom that I was hardly aware of the great change which had taken place in their tone. The purely student interest seemed to have receded into the background; the discussions were less noisy and more logical; the tone more serious. The juvenile excitement, vivacity, and enthusiasm of former days appeared to be taking a broader and better defined course.

All this reached me as a muffled sound from afar, falling on my ear despite the other matters which occupied my mind. I had, however, been in some measure prepared for the new departure by the incoherent accounts of my friend Titus; but the free discussion which I had heard affected me only as his own talk had affected me. I listened to them with a languid feeling of contemptuous indifference.

The villa to which Tonia invited me was some way off, on a road where there was little traffic. It was entirely covered with snow, and the footpaths were buried under the drifts. Most of the villas were boarded up, and only here and there a frozen window looked out into the desolation. Once in a way a side-path turned to some garden gate and a light gleamed across the heaps of snow.

When I came to the villa formerly occupied by the General I stopped. On the balcony, between the pillars, where the old gentleman used to play