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

I you are awake! It is two o’clock⁠—time for the fifth lecture. Will you come?”

“All right!”

I got up languidly. I did not want either to go or to stay.

“What is going on there today?” I asked.

“Bratoshka lectures.”

“Ah!”

“What do you think, Gavrik; will they hiss him or not?”

I looked at Titus in surprise. His question reminded me of something that seemed to have happened long before the storm, or in a dream. Yes, of course, yesterday someone had got excited and said objectionable things to Professor Byelichka, and, if I remembered rightly, I also got excited yesterday about the same matter, and shouted like the others. But now I yawned carelessly.

“How the deuce should I know?”

Titus accounted for my indifference in his own way. He looked mournfully at me and sighed.

“Are you all right again? Are you well?”

“What should be wrong with me?”

“Well, I was quite frightened about you; you were awful to look at; perfectly livid and your eyes quite strange. Ah Gavrik! Gavrik! you were too sure of your nerve.”

It occurred to me that in truth I was not quite well. I felt a kind of nausea in my soul, as though I wanted to get rid of something to throw off something. For the first time I understood what it was that I wanted to throw off. It was the phantasm which had taken possession of me on the platform. But I no longer tried to get rid of it; I had either got used to it, or felt instinctively that it was useless to struggle.

“Yes⁠ ⁠… poor Urmánov!” said Titus with another sigh.

I looked at him with inexplicable annoyance.

“For pity’s sake, Titus, don’t let us have any nonsense.”

“I⁠ ⁠… why, what did I say?” asked my friend with amazement. “It was Urmánov there⁠ ⁠… Why, don’t you know?”

I looked at him again, trying the while to discern why his pity and his sighs should irritate me so.

“Yes, very well; I know. Urmánov⁠ ⁠… But you see, there isn’t any Urmánov. Well. Is there?”

“No-n-no⁠ ⁠… Of course, now⁠ ⁠… when⁠ ⁠… like that⁠ ⁠… ,” he stammered.

“Well; there you are; like⁠ ⁠… That is to say, you are pitying a person who⁠ ⁠… a thing which⁠ ⁠… do you understand me properly⁠ ⁠… doesn’t exist at all⁠ ⁠…”

Titus raised his eyebrows, looked at me timidly, as though trying to understand; he then gently submitted a fresh argument:

“But listen, Gavrik. All the same, you know⁠ ⁠… he⁠ ⁠… however that may be⁠ ⁠… he used to exist.”

“Well?”

“Well, then, that’s it. I am sorry for the man that was.”

I shrugged my shoulders. Titus had never before seemed so stupid and pitiable; and I wanted to tell him so point-blank.

“Look here, Titus! Wasn’t it I who painted Urmánov in such grand colors to you? Just try and remember.”

“That’s just it: there you see⁠ ⁠…”

“No, no; wait a bit! It is I who am talking to you now; and you may take my word for it,⁠ ⁠… there isn’t anything there at all;⁠ ⁠… do you understand? There is nothing whatsoever; and⁠ ⁠… there never was anything. Now let us go to lecture.”

I did not want to hear what Titus would say, or to talk any more myself. Did it ever happen to you to write verses or to prove a difficult syllogism in your sleep? It all goes so beautifully, so clearly. You wake up and eagerly recall what you have thought out, in the hope that you have hit upon something grand only to discover that there is no rhythm in the verses and that the syllogism is a glaring absurdity. Something of this kind befell me at that moment. I thought myself extremely keen-witted; everything I said sounded even cruelly brilliant; and only long afterwards did I understand that the stupider of the two was myself and not Titus.

XVIII

A policeman in a sheepskin coat and huge goloshes⁠—the exact counterpart of the one who had been there in the morning⁠—stood stolidly near the church; a dog, the precise image of the cur I had seen at the same time, was running along the same road, only in the opposite direction. Everything⁠—the square and the building and the sky, were just the same as they had been early in the day. But everything appeared profoundly uninteresting and simply annoyed me unspeakably. All that I saw seemed to be there purposely to remind me that an entire day had not yet passed since the events of the morning. Nonetheless, I knew in my own mind that a whole eternity had passed.

“A letter for you, sir.”

The Academy porter handed me a letter, which I stuffed into my pocket without opening. The handwriting seemed familiar to me; it was no doubt an answer from the friend to whom I had written in my time of enthusiasm. What was it I had written?⁠ ⁠… Ah! yes⁠ ⁠…

“How stupid!” I said aloud and angrily.

The porter, who had been looking at me expectantly, turned away grumbling, with an offended air.

“Sh⁠—sh⁠—sh⁠—sh!” hissed the sub-inspector, leaning over the top landing of the staircase.

The fat little old man, with his comic shaven face, did not look happy. The calm voice of a professor could be heard from the lecture-room close by; and from the other end of the corridor resounded a mingled hum of discordant voices. The sub-inspector strained anxiously his accustomed ear, listening to these sounds, in which an experienced man could catch a peculiar tone, for when a hundred young voices are raised a third above their ordinary pitch, the din resembles the angry buzzing of a disturbed hive.

The old man came up to me and took my arm; still straining his ears and looking anxiously towards the lecture-room. He had known my father, and as we were natives of the same province, he was rather partial to me. We often chatted together; and he had told me expansively of his youthful days, and how he had once “been in trouble.” This ruined his career; and now he was thankful for his present situation, which he had obtained with great difficulty. He valued the post highly, and