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

back on the grass and we lay for a minute in silence.

“It’s wicked to steal!” I burst out, full of the saddest perplexity.

“Our people were all away. Marusia was crying because she was hungry.”

“Yes, I was hungry,” repeated the child with pitiful simplicity.

I had not yet discovered what hunger was, but at the little one’s last words my breast heaved and I stared at my friends as if I were seeing them for the first time. Valek was lying on the grass as before, pensively watching a soaring sparrow-hawk, but he now no longer looked impressive. At the sight of Marusia holding her piece of bread in both hands my heart absolutely stopped beating.

“Why”⁠—I asked with an effort⁠—“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I wanted to tell you, and then I changed my mind. You have no money of your own.”

“Well, what difference does that make? I should have brought a loaf from home.”

“What, on the sly?”

“Yes-es⁠—”

“Then you would have stolen it too.”

“I⁠—it would have been from my father.”

“That’s worse!” said Valek decidedly. “I never rob my father.”

“Well, then, I should have asked for it. He would have given it to me.”

“Oh, he might have given it to you once⁠—but how could he provide for all the beggars in town?”

“Are you⁠—beggars?” I asked in a low voice.

“Yes, we are beggars,” answered Valek bluntly and gruffly.

I said nothing, and in a few minutes I rose to go.

“Are you going away already?” asked Valek.

“Yes.”

I was going because I could not, that day, play tranquilly with my friends as before. The pure, childish affection I had felt for them was sullied. Although the love I bore Valek and Marusia was not diminished, there was now mingled with it a sharp current of pity that turned it to a burning heartache. On reaching home I went to bed early because I did not know where to lay this new feeling of pain with which my whole, soul was burning. I buried my head under my pillow and wept bitterly until kindly sleep at last came with her soft breath to blow away my grief.

VII Tiburtsi Appears on the Scene

“Good morning! I thought you weren’t coming back any more!” this was Valek’s greeting to me when I appeared on the hill next day.

I understood why he had said this.

“No, I⁠—I shall always come here,” I answered firmly, to put an end to that question forever.

Valek’s spirits rose perceptibly at this answer and we both felt more at ease.

“Well, and where are your people?” I asked. “Haven’t they come back yet?”

“Not yet. The Lord knows what has become of them.”

We went gaily to work to manufacture a cunning sparrow trap for which I had brought the string. This string we put into Marusia’s hand, and whenever a thoughtless sparrow came hopping carelessly into the snare, Marusia would pull the string, and the cover would slam down over the bird, which we would afterwards release.

Meanwhile, at noon, the sky had grown overcast. Dark clouds soon came rolling up, and we could hear the storm roaring between merry claps of thunder. I was very unwilling, at first, to go down into the crypt, but remembering that Valek and Marusia lived there always I overcame the unpleasant sensation, and went with them. All was dark and quiet there, but we could hear the muffled din of the thunder overhead rumbling exactly as if someone were driving an enormous wagon over a monstrous bridge. I soon grew more accustomed to the crypt, and we stood listening happily to the broad sheets of rain descending upon the earth, while the roar and crash of the incessant thunderclaps keyed up our nerves and woke in us an animation that demanded an outlet.

“Come, let’s play blind-man’s buff!” I suggested.

They tied a bandage over my eyes. Marusia’s pitiful little laughter rang out as her languid feet stumbled across the stone floor, while I ran in pursuit, until I suddenly found myself bending over a wet form, and at the same moment felt someone seize my leg. A powerful arm raised me off the floor and held me upside down in the air. The bandage fell from my eyes.

Tiburtsi, angry and wet and more terrible than ever from being seen upside down, was holding me by the leg and wildly rolling his eyes.

“What is this, hey?” he asked sternly, glaring at Valek. “So you are passing the time gaily here! You have pleasant company, I see.”

“Let me go!” I cried, surprised that I was able to speak at all in such an unusual position, but Tiburtsi only held my leg the tighter.

“Responde! Answer!” he sternly commanded Valek, who was standing under these difficult circumstances with two fingers thrust into his mouth, as if to proclaim that he had absolutely nothing to say.

I could see, though, that he was watching my unhappy person swinging in space like a pendulum with sympathetic eyes and a great deal of compassion.

Tiburtsi raised me and looked into my face.

“Aha, this is little master Judge unless my eyes deceive me! Why does his honour favour us with a visit?”

“Let me go!” I cried stubbornly. “Let me go at once!”

And at this I instinctively made a movement as if I were stamping my foot on the ground, but the only result was the quivering of my body, in midair.

Tiburtsi roared with laughter.

“Ha, ha, ha! My Lord the Judge is pleased to be annoyed! But come, you don’t know me yet. Ego Tiburtsi sum. And I am going to hold you over a fire, like this, and roast you like a little pig.”

I began to think that this would inevitably be my fate, especially as Valek’s despairing face seemed to foretell the possibility of such a sad ending, but fortunately Marusia came to my rescue.

“Don’t be frightened, Vasia! Don’t be frightened!” she admonished me, going right up to Tiburtsi’s legs. “He never roasts little boys over a fire. That isn’t true!”

Tiburtsi turned me right side