Short Fiction by Ivan Bunin (chrysanthemum read aloud txt) 📕

chair. Her heart was flying to where you were, but to please your mother and me, she stayed in her place, looking out of the window and drumming on the table with her spoon.

You must have realized that we had decided not to give in, that nobody will come to allay your pain with kisses and to comfort you with love, to beg your forgiveness. Your tears, too, were all wept away already. You were exhausted by your cries, by your childish sorrow with which no human sorrow can perhaps compare, but you were not going to quiet down. It was plain that you derived no more pleasure out of your sobs, that your voice was hoarse, that you had no more tears. Yet you continued to sob and cry.

I could scarcely endure it myself. I wanted so much to get up from my chair, open the door, and, with one kind word, put an end to your suffering. But such an action would not have been consistent with the established rules of rational education, and with the dignity of a stern and just uncle! Finally you became quiet⁠ ⁠…

V

“And we made our peace immediately?” you ask.

Oh, no. I was firm to the end. It was at least a half-hour after you became quiet that I came to the nursery. But how? I opened the door with a serious face, as if I was looking for something in the room. You were gradually returning to your old life. Sitting on the floor, your whole body still occasionally shaken by deep sighs that usually follow a period of long weeping, your face dark with the tears smeared all over it, you were occupied with your modest toys, several match boxes, which you were arranging in the space between your outstretched legs into patterns known to no one but yourself. How my heart ached at the sight of those boxes!

But, making it quite evident that our relations were broken, that I felt insulted, I scarcely looked at you. I examined the table and the window sills attentively⁠ ⁠… Where was my cigarette-case, anyway?⁠ ⁠… I was just going out, when you raised your head and, looking at me with your eyes full of contempt and hatred, you said hoarsely:

“Now I’ll never, never love you any more.”

Then, after a little thought, you tried to say something else, but could not find what to say and said the first thing that came to your head:

“And I’ll never buy you anything.”

“Don’t have to,” said I indifferently, shrugging my shoulders, “I wouldn’t have accepted anything from a bad boy like you, anyway.”

“And I’ll take away that Japanese penny I gave you,” said you in a high, broken voice, making your last attempt to sting me.

“Now that would be very bad, indeed. To give and then take away again. Still, it’s your business.”

After that your mother and grandma came into the room, pretending to look for something. Then they would shake their heads and begin to talk of the bad boys who grow up without minding their elders, and whom nobody loves because of that. They always ended by advising you to go to me and ask my forgiveness.

“Otherwise uncle will be angry and will go away to Moscow,” grandma was saying sadly. “And will never come to see us.”

“Let him stay away,” you answered in a very low voice, lowering your head.

“And I’ll die,” said grandma still more sadly, never realizing what a cruel means she was employing to force you to break your pride.

“All right,” answered you in a whisper.

“Fine, splendid,” said I, feeling another attack of anger. “A fine fellow for you,” repeated I, looking out into the dark street.

And, having waited until the elderly maid, who was always silent and sad because of a realization that she was the widow of a machinist, had lit the lamp, I added:

“A fine child!”

“Don’t pay any attention to him,” said your mother, regulating the lamp-flame. “I wouldn’t speak with him at all.”

And we pretended to have forgotten all about you.

VI

The lamp in the nursery was not lit, and the windows were dark blue. Outside, a winter evening was coming on fast, and it was dreary in the room. You were still sitting on the floor, moving your matchboxes about. Those boxes of yours haunted me. I arose and decided to go out for a walk. But before I was gone, I heard grandma whisper to you:

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Uncle loves you so much and brings you presents and toys.”

“It isn’t that at all,” said I in a loud voice. “The presents have nothing to do with it.”

But grandma knew what she was doing.

“What do you mean they have nothing to do with it? It’s not the presents that count, it’s the spirit.”

And then, after a moment’s silence, she plucked the most sensitive chord of your heart.

“And who is going to buy him pencils now, and a pen-case, and books with pictures? But then, what’s a pen-case? But the figures? You can’t buy them for money. However, you can do as you like.” And she left the nursery.

Your pride was broken. You were conquered. The more inaccessible is a dream, the more fascinating it is⁠—and the more fascinating it is, the more inaccessible it seems. This I know well. The dream holds me in thrall from my early childhood. And I know that the more precious my thought is to me, the less hope there is of its becoming realized. And I am waging a constant struggle with it. I play the hypocrite; I pretend that I am indifferent. But what could you do?

Happiness, happiness!

You were full of longing for happiness when you opened your eyes in the morning. Confiding, like every child, your heart frank and open, you came to Life and said, “Hurry! Hurry!”

“Be patient,” answered Life.

“Please! Please!” you exclaimed passionately.

“Be quiet, or you won’t get anything!”

“Just wait, then,” you cried in fury.

For a time you