Short Fiction by Vsevolod Garshin (always you kirsty moseley TXT) 📕

my attention. I looked at him and took in every detail of his head, and noted the smallest features which had hitherto escaped my notice. His head was indisputably the head of a strong man⁠—perhaps not very talented, but strong.

The quadrangular-shaped skull, almost without a break passing into a wide and powerful nape; the abrupt and prominent forehead; the brows drooping in the centre and contracting the skin into a vertical fold; the strong jaw and thin lips⁠—all appeared to me as something new today.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he suddenly asked, having laid down his pen, and turning his face to me.

“How did you know?”

“I felt it. It is not fancy. I have several times experienced a similar feeling.”

“I was looking at your face as a model. You have a very original-shaped head, Serge Vassilivich.”

“Really!” said he, with a short smile. “Well! and let it be original.”

“No; but, seriously, you are like someone⁠ ⁠… some famous⁠ ⁠…”

“Rogue or murderer?” he asked, not allowing me to finish. “I do not believe in Lavater.⁠ ⁠… Well⁠—and you? By your face I see that things are not going well. Won’t it work out?”

“No; things are not altogether right. I have given it up⁠—chucked it,” I replied in a despairing voice.

“Ah! as I thought. What is it? I suppose no model.”

“No, no, no. You know. Serge Vassilivich, how I have searched. But it is all so unlike what I want that I am simply in despair⁠—especially this Anna Ivanovna. She has absolutely worn me out. She has wiped out everything with her flat face. It even seems to me that the image itself is not as clear in my head as it used to be.”

“Then, it was clear?”

“Oh yes, absolutely. If it had been possible to paint it with my eyes blindfolded, really, I think nothing better would have been wanted. With my eyes shut, I can see her now, there”⁠—and I must have screwed up my eyes in a most ridiculous manner, because Bezsonow laughed loudly.

“Don’t laugh. Seriously, I am in despair,” I said.

He suddenly stopped laughing.

“If so, I’ll stop. But, really and honestly, I am sorry for you, although I cannot help laughing. But didn’t I tell you to have nothing to do with this subject?”

“And I have cast it aside.”

“And how much labour, loss of nervous energy, how much vain lamenting now! I knew that it would not work out; and not because I foresaw that you would not find a model, but because the subject is unsuitable. One must have it in one’s blood. One must be a descendant of those people who lived with Marat and Charlotte Corday, and those times. But what are you?⁠—the mildest of well-educated Russians, lethargic and weak. One must be capable of doing such a deed oneself. But you! Could you, if necessary, throw away your brushes and⁠—speaking figuratively⁠—take up a dagger? For you this would be about as possible as a trip to the moon.⁠ ⁠…”

“I have often argued with you about this, Serge Vassilivich, and apparently you will never convince me, nor I you. An artist is an artist precisely because he can place himself in another’s place. Was it necessary for Raphael to become the Blessed Virgin in order to paint the Madonna? It is absurd. Serge Vassilivich. However, I am beginning an argument, although I have said I don’t wish to argue with you.”

Bezsonow was going to say something, when he checked himself, and, with a gesture of the hand, said:

“Well, do as you like;” and, getting up from his chair at the table, began to pace from corner to corner of the room, making but little noise as he did so in his felt slippers.

“We will not quarrel about it. We will not irritate the sores of a secret heart, as somebody said somewhere.”

“I do not think that anybody ever said that.”

“Well, perhaps not; I usually misquote poetry.⁠ ⁠… What if we have the samovar in for consolation? It must be time.”

He went to the door and shouted out, as if drilling a company of soldiers: “Tea!”

I disliked this manner of his with servants. For some time neither of us said a word. I sat buried in the cushions of the sofa, and he continued to pace from corner to corner. He was apparently thinking over something⁠ ⁠… and, finally stopping before me, he said, in a businesslike tone:

“And if you had a model, would you try again?”

“Oh, of course,” I replied dismally; “but where will you find her?”

He again paced the room for a little while.

“Look here, Andrei Nicolaievich.⁠ ⁠… There is one person.”

“If she is somebody important, she will not pose.”

“No, she is not at all important⁠—not at all. But⁠ ⁠… and I have a very big ‘but’ in connection with this matter.”

“What kind of ‘but,’ Serge Vassilivich? If you are not joking⁠ ⁠…”

“Yes, yes; I am joking. It is impossible⁠ ⁠…”

“Serge Vassilivich⁠ ⁠…” I said, in an imploring tone.

“Listen to what I am going to say. You know that I have a high opinion of you,” he began, standing still in front of me. “We are almost of an age. I am two years older, but I have lived and gone through as much as it will take you ten years and more, probably, to learn. I am not a nice man. I am bad and⁠ ⁠… immoral, depraved” (he rapped out each word). “There are many who are more so than I, but I consider myself more guilty. I hate myself for it and for not being able to be the clean-minded man I should like to be⁠ ⁠… like you, for instance.”

“Of what sort of depravity and cleanness are you talking?” I asked.

“I call things by their proper names. I often envy you your peace and clear conscience. I envy you for being what you are.⁠ ⁠… But it is all the same⁠—impossible, impossible,” he said to himself angrily. “We will not talk about it.”

“If impossible, at least explain what or who I am,” I replied.

“Nothing⁠ ⁠… no one.⁠ ⁠… But, yes, I will tell you.