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

which she reminded me I could not. Something shut them out of me.

“I don’t remember anything,” I said, setting my teeth. “However, as you like⁠ ⁠… I’ll answer your question as well as 1 can. Look at that tree.”

By the road stood an aspen. The dead leaves that remained on it stirred and rustled softly in the darkness.

“Tell those leaves not to shake with the wind.”

The girl, looking up at the treetop, listened to me with painful attention.

“I don’t understand,” she said again.

“Men, as well as those dead leaves are ruled by the same laws.”

“I know that.”

“Oh! no; you don’t know! Otherwise, you wouldn’t dilute your knowledge with the water of idealistic impulses. Now, what is there that you can do, you, any more than that little worthless leaf?⁠ ⁠… You still believe in something.”

“In something? Yes, I do.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“To what end? What can it do for you?”

“Wait a minute,” she returned earnestly. “I am not in the habit of arguing; above all, with you. But wait a bit. You speak of law. Law consists in this: that there are strong people and weak, full and hungry⁠ ⁠… Yes?”

“I hope so.”

“Don’t be satirical. But if⁠ ⁠… if the full go, really go to the hungry and feed them, is not that law too? It is a law; and, moreover, a higher law.”

“There, leave off,” I interrupted with growing annoyance. “Who makes such laws as that for you?”

“Who? I don’t know that, Gavrik.”

“And I don’t know. No one makes any laws whatever. There are neither higher nor lower laws; there is only one law; and even that is unconscious of its existence, because it is merely a soulless mathematical formula.⁠ ⁠… Do you understand?⁠ ⁠…”

“No. Even yet I don’t understand. Wait a minute, Gavrik⁠ ⁠…”

“Ah. And you needn’t understand⁠ ⁠… Heaven only knows why we should stand still in the middle of the road. There, you see; that’s what all these speculations come to. Really you know we ought to go home; it is where we sleep. And here we stand, without any reason, staring up into a tree. Well, of course, we shall stand until we are tired of it; and after all we shall end in going home to bed. Because bed, dinner, and⁠ ⁠… well, something else too⁠—all that is law; and abstract speculations and sky-gazing are simply whims and violations of law.”

“Oh! you don’t know how it hurts me to hear you talk in this way.”

On this I laughed maliciously. I wanted to say, that, perhaps, it hurt me still more; but a harsh little observation came out instead:⁠—

“I have nothing more agreeable to tell you.”

At that very moment I was longing to take her by the hand and say something quite different. I was in the same mental condition as when I insulted Titus. Through my harsh words, through my cruel thoughts, I felt her dear presence and felt it approaching me in a halo of tenderness and love. And still I went on, expounding my sardonic theories, wondering, in fearful suspense, whether my love would come fully out of the mist or⁠ ⁠… disappear forever⁠ ⁠…

“Listen,” I said to her, softly and tenderly, and took her hand in mine.

She let it rest there, and stood waiting for me to speak.

I thought I was going to say that she must not believe me, that I had to ask her forgiveness, that I was ill.⁠ ⁠… That she as well as others might be mistaken; that even in errors there is life, yet in me there was no life and that I was too faulty myself to correct the faults of my fellow-creatures⁠ ⁠… that I adored her for still remembering the old Gavrik whom everyone else had forgotten, and that she alone could restore him to life.⁠ ⁠…

My hand shook and I felt the agitated quivering of hers.

Suddenly, there rose before my eyes Madame Sokolov’s ugly silhouette, and the question flashed through my mind:⁠—Suppose Madame Sokolov was questioning you, instead of a girl with a fair tress, would your hand shake so and would you say to her what is now on your lips?

And with a trembling and sinking heart, I said, instead of what I wanted to say:

“Why don’t you cut off your hair?”

Her hand quivered violently.

“What⁠ ⁠… what did you say?” she asked terrified, and as if not believing her ears.

“Why don’t you cut off your hair, like hers there?” and I nodded contemptuously in the direction of Madame Sokolov.

Tonia wrenched her hand from mine, and running up to Madame Sokolov took her by the arm, as though to embrace her friend and protect her from my insults at the same time.

“Come here!” she commanded me suddenly, “come here, I tell you!”

I went up to her. For a few seconds we all three stood silent in the dark road.

“No, nothing!” broke from her at last with a sigh, “I have nothing more to say to you.⁠ ⁠… But⁠ ⁠… how dare you insult Katia?⁠ ⁠…”

“There, there!” interrupted Madame Sokolov indifferently; “as if it was worth while to speak of that! Leave off, Tonia.⁠ ⁠… As for you, sir, I tell you plainly you had better say goodbye to your queen forever.⁠ ⁠… And I am very glad of it⁠—anyhow she will do good work and not be wasting her time on you.⁠ ⁠…”

She would have walked on; but Tonia did not move.

“Don’t you dare⁠—do you hear?⁠—don’t you ever dare again,⁠ ⁠…” she began without listening to her friend; “she is better, a thousand times better than you.⁠ ⁠… And yet I trusted you so, till now⁠ ⁠… still⁠ ⁠…”

There were tears in her voice, but repressing her emotion with an effort she drew herself up to her full height, and added:

“And⁠ ⁠… and I⁠ ⁠… loved you so.⁠ ⁠…”

I bent my head. Again I was overwhelmed with pity for myself, as on the evening when I watched under her window, only this time the feeling was far more intense. I understood that if she now spoke of her love in my presence it was because, as regarded her, I had become as one dead, that she no longer saw in me