Short Fiction by Aleksandr Kuprin (nonfiction book recommendations .txt) 📕

work, yet, do you know, it was impossible to refuse them, though one felt embarrassed and awkward in receiving such valuable gifts⁠—he begged us to accept them with such earnestness and insistence, just as one cannot continue to refuse a child who continues to ask one to take a sweet.

He had with him in his boxes and in his hand luggage a whole store of things, all gifts for Sannochka and Yurochka. Wonderful things they were⁠—priceless Chinese dresses, ivory, gold, miniatures in sardonyx, furs, painted fans, lacquered boxes, albums⁠—and you ought to have seen and heard the tenderness and the rapture with which he spoke of his new ones, when he showed us these gifts. His love may have been somewhat blind, too noisy, and egotistical, perhaps even a little hysterical, but I swear that through these formal and trivial veilings I could see a great and genuine love⁠—love at a sharp and painful tension.

I remember, too, how at one of the stations when another wagon was being attached to the train, a pointsman had his foot cut off. There was great excitement, all the passengers went to look at the injured man⁠—and people travelling by train are the most empty-headed, the wildest, the most cruel in the world. The engineer did not stay in the crowd, he went quietly up to the stationmaster, talked with him for a few moments, and then handed him a note for a sum of money⁠—not a small amount, I expect, for the official cap was lifted in acknowledgment with the greatest respect. He did this very quickly; no one but myself saw his action, but I have eyes that notice such things. And I saw also that he took advantage of the longer stoppage of the train and succeeded in sending off a telegram.

I can see him now as he walked across the platform⁠—his white engineer’s cap pushed to the back of his head; his long blouse of fine tussore, with collar fastening at the side; over one shoulder the strap of his field-glasses, and crossing it, over the other shoulder, the strap of his dispatch-case⁠—coming out of the telegraph office and looking so fresh and plump and strong with such a clear complexion, and the look of a well-fed, simple, country lad.

And at almost every big station he received a telegram. He quite spoilt the conductors⁠—running himself to the office to inquire if there was no message for him. Poor boy! He could not keep his joy to himself, but read his telegrams aloud to us, as if we had nothing else to think about except his family happiness⁠—“Hope you are well. We send kisses and await your arrival impatiently.⁠—Sannochka, Yurochka.” Or: “With watch in hand we follow on the timetable the course of your train from station to station. Our spirits and thoughts are with you.” All the telegrams were of this kind. There was even one like this: “Put your watch to Petersburg time, and exactly at eleven o’clock look at the star Alpha in the Great Bear. I will do the same.”

There was one passenger on the train who was owner or bookkeeper, or manager of a gold mine, a Siberian, with a face like that of Moses the Moor,13 dry and elongated, thick, black, stern brows, and a long, full, greyish beard⁠—a man who looked as if he were exceptionally experienced in all the trials of life. He made a warning remark to the engineer:

“You know, young man, it’s no use you abusing the telegraph service in such a way.”

“What do you mean? How is it no use?”

“Well, it’s impossible for a woman to keep herself all the time in such an exalted and wound-up state of mind. You ought to have mercy on other peoples’ nerves.”

But the engineer only laughed and clapped the wiseacre on the knee.

“Ah, little father, I know you, you people of the Old Testament. You’re always stealing back home unexpectedly and on the quiet. ‘Is everything as it should be on the domestic hearth?’ Eh?”

But the man with the icon face only raised his eyebrows and smiled.

“Well, what of it? Sometimes there’s no harm in that.”

At Nizhni we had new fellow-travellers, and at Moscow new ones again. The agitation of my engineer was still increasing. What could be done with him? He made acquaintance with everybody; talked to married folks of the sacredness of home, reproached bachelors for the slovenliness and disorder of bachelor life, talked to young ladies about a single and eternal love, conversed with mothers about their children, and always led the conversation to talk about his Sannochka and Yurochka. Even now I remember that his daughter used to lisp: “I have thome yellow thlipperth,” and the like. And once, when she was pulling the cat’s tail, and the cat mewed, her mother said, “Don’t do that, Yurochka, you’re hurting the cat,” and the child answered, “No, mother, it liketh it.”

It was all very tender, very touching, but, I’m bound to confess, a little tiresome.

Next morning we were nearing Petersburg. It was a dull, wet, unpleasant day. There was not exactly a fog, but a kind of dirty cloudiness enveloped the rusty, thin-looking pines, and the wet hills looked like hairy warts extending on both sides of the line. I got up early and went along to the lavatory to wash; on the way I ran into the engineer, he was standing by the window and looking alternately at his watch and then out of the window.

“Good morning,” said I. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, good morning,” said he. “I’m just testing the speed of the train; it’s going about sixty versts an hour.”

“You test it by your watch?”

“Yes, it’s very simple. You see, there are twenty-five sazhens between the posts⁠—a twentieth part of a verst. Therefore, if we travel these twenty-five sazhens in four seconds, it means we are going forty-five versts an hour; if in three seconds, we’re