Short Fiction by Nikolai Gogol (primary phonics .TXT) 📕

than alive; he had leant his back against the wall, and stood motionless, regarding them without any expression in his eyes. They were obliged almost to carry him to the house; he then shook himself, asked for and drank a quart of brandy. He passed his hand through his hair and said, “There are all sorts of horrors in the world, and such dreadful things happen that⁠—” Here he made a gesture as though to ward off something. All who heard him bent their heads forward in curiosity. Even a small boy, who ran on everyone’s errands, stood by with his mouth wide open.

Just then a young woman in a close-fitting dress passed by. She was the old cook’s assistant, and very coquettish; she always stuck something in her bodice by way of ornament, a ribbon or a flower, or even a piece of paper if she could find nothing else.

“Good day, Thomas,” she said, as she saw the philosopher. “Dear me! what has happened to you?” she exclaimed, striking her hands together.

“Well, what is it, you silly creature?”

“Good heavens! You have grown quite grey!”

“Yes, so he has!” said Spirid, regarding him more closely. “You have grown as grey as our old Javtuk.”

When the philosopher heard that, he hastened into the kitchen, where he had noticed on the wall a dirty, three-cornered piece of looking-glass. In front of it hung some forget-me-nots, evergreens, and a small garland⁠—a proof that it was the toilette-glass of the young coquette. With alarm he saw that it actually was as they had said⁠—his hair was quite grizzled.

He sank into a reverie; at last he said to himself, “I will go to the colonel, tell him all, and declare that I will read no more prayers. He must send me back at once to Kiev.” With this intention he turned towards the doorsteps of the colonel’s house.

The colonel was sitting motionless in his room; his face displayed the same hopeless grief which Thomas had observed on it on his first arrival, only the hollows in his cheeks had deepened. It was obvious that he took very little or no food. A strange paleness made him look almost as though made of marble.

“Good day,” he said as he observed Thomas standing, cap in hand, at the door. “Well, how are you getting on? All right?”

“Yes, sir, all right! Such hellish things are going on, that one would like to rush away as far as one’s feet can carry one.”

“How so?”

“Your daughter, sir.⁠ ⁠… When one considers the matter, she is, of course, of noble descent⁠—no one can dispute that; but don’t be angry, and may God grant her eternal rest!”

“Very well! What about her?”

“She is in league with the devil. She inspires one with such dread that all prayers are useless.”

“Pray! Pray! It was not for nothing that she sent for you. My dove was troubled about her salvation, and wished to expel all evil influences by means of prayer.”

“I swear, gracious sir, it is beyond my power.”

“Pray! Pray!” continued the colonel in the same persuasive tone. “There is only one night more; you are doing a Christian work, and I will reward you richly.”

“However great your rewards may be, I will not read the prayers any more, sir,” said Thomas in a tone of decision.

“Listen, philosopher!” said the colonel with a menacing air. “I will not allow any objections. In your seminary you may act as you like, but here it won’t do. If I have you knouted, it will be somewhat different to the rector’s canings. Do you know what a strong kantchuk41 is?”

“Of course I do,” said the philosopher in a low voice; “a number of them together are insupportable.”

“Yes, I think so too. But you don’t know yet how hot my fellows can make it,” replied the colonel threateningly. He sprang up, and his face assumed a fierce, despotic expression, betraying the savagery of his nature, which had been only temporarily modified by grief. “After the first flogging they pour on brandy and then repeat it. Go away and finish your work. If you don’t obey, you won’t be able to stand again, and if you do, you will get a thousand ducats.”

“That is a devil of a fellow,” thought the philosopher to himself, and went out. “One can’t trifle with him. But wait a little, my friend; I will escape you so cleverly, that even your hounds can’t find me!”

He determined, under any circumstances, to run away, and only waited till the hour after dinner arrived, when all the servants were accustomed to take a nap on the hay in the barn, and to snore and puff so loudly that it sounded as if machinery had been set up there. At last the time came. Even Javtuch stretched himself out in the sun and closed his eyes. Tremblingly, and on tiptoe, the philosopher stole softly into the garden, whence he thought he could escape more easily into the open country. This garden was generally so choked up with weeds that it seemed admirably adapted for such an attempt. With the exception of a single path used by the people of the house, the whole of it was covered with cherry-trees, elder-bushes, and tall heath-thistles with fibrous red buds. All these trees and bushes had been thickly overgrown with ivy, which formed a kind of roof. Its tendrils reached to the hedge and fell down on the other side in snakelike curves among the small, wild field-flowers. Behind the hedge which bordered the garden was a dense mass of wild heather, in which it did not seem probable that anyone would care to venture himself, and the strong, stubborn stems of which seemed likely to baffle any attempt to cut them.

As the philosopher was about to climb over the hedge, his teeth chattered, and his heart beat so violently that he felt frightened at it. The skirts of his long cloak seemed to cling to the ground as