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

She had such a lot to tell me; she had seen so much. And what was going on in Moscow⁠—in the Academy? She asked after our acquaintances. But, first of all, how were the Sokolovs?

The Sokolovs were a couple united in civil marriage. He was a good-natured student, no longer young; she, an almost uneducated woman, also past her youth, with a freckled face and thin, close-cropped hair that suited her face very badly. Tonia (as the girl-cashier was still so called in our circle) was a great friend of theirs, and usually lodged with them.

I grew confused at her question, and was hesitating what to answer, when she stopped short and tried to look at me closely in the darkness.

“Do you know, there’s something strange about you?⁠ ⁠…” she said half-interrogatively.

I smiled, and felt glad that she could not see how unnatural was my smile.

“Strange, quite strange,” she repeated. “You turn up from one doesn’t know where,⁠ ⁠… you don’t speak,⁠ ⁠… you don’t answer one’s questions.”

“Well, but you don’t give me time to answer.”

“No, no! Somehow⁠—it isn’t that,” said the girl sadly, and then brightened up again. “Oh, well. I’ll find out all about that tomorrow. I shall stay here a fortnight.”

“And then?”

“Then? Perhaps.⁠ ⁠… Why, you know, I wrote to you.⁠ ⁠…”

She glanced at me again and walked faster.

“No, we’ll talk about that tomorrow.”

“Why? Because I am strange?” I asked involuntarily smiling again, but this time with deeply felt bitterness.

“Y⁠ ⁠… yes.”

“Well, perhaps that’s better, after all.”

“There you see!” said the girl mournfully. “Do tell me what is the matter?”

“It’s all the same. We won’t talk about that. But I am very glad to be walking with you now.”

“What did you say?”

“I say that I am very glad.⁠ ⁠… I really mean it⁠ ⁠…”

“Is⁠—is there any need to say that?”

She relapsed into an embarrassed silence, and walked on for some time thinking. I, too, was silent and oppressed with gloomy forebodings. I had fancied, at first that just this once, in the darkness, I might, for a passing moment, enjoy at least the illusion of a happy meeting, although on the morrow my new mood might again assert the mastery. But I felt that even the darkness could not for long hide my secret. She could not see my unnatural smile; and yet she knew intuitively that there was something strange about me. And, indeed, should we have met like this, should I have spoken as I did, if nothing had befallen me?

“All right; we needn’t talk at all,” I said again, although well aware that I had done better not to say it.

After passing the Academy and crossing the bridge, we arrived at a small villa, standing alone in a clump of young pine-trees. A stove was alight, and a lamp burning in the front room; and through the window, we could see three figures.

“Now, goodbye,” said I, stopping and handing her the portmanteau.

“Why? Aren’t you coming in?”

“No; you had better go alone.”

“Is anything⁠ ⁠… wrong between you and the Sokolovs?”

“Nothing particular.”

“But you know they are dear, good people.”

“I don’t dispute that.”

She stopped, made as if she would say something, but changing her mind, took the portmanteau from me, and held out her hand in silence.

I held it for a moment, and fancied that it trembled slightly, as though ready to respond warmly and strongly to the pressure of mine. But the moment passed; her hand slipped away from mine; and she said softly:⁠—

“Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Antonina Dimitrievna.”

A moment later, I saw through the window how warmly she was welcomed by her friends. Sokolov, a dark, stooping, broad-shouldered man, swung himself out of his chair and embraced her. His wife ran in from the next room, and, tossing back her thin hair, flung herself on the girl’s neck. Syergakóv, a young student of the group to which I had formerly belonged, at first hesitatingly shook hands with her; then his face brightened into a smile, and he too kissed the newcomer.

I went up to the hedge without the slightest hesitation, fully determined to hide there and watch what happened next. I knew that I should probably be the subject of their conversation; and I was not mistaken.

For some time past I had observed that the people I met eyed me with peculiar attention, yet furtively, I knew that many considered me “cracked”; and this irritated me. At times, therefore, I would purposely say brusque and disagreeable things, carefully cultivating the art of finding out the weak points of these “sensible” folk. I had not been at the Sokolovs for a long time.

After the first greetings, Tonia, as she took off her cloak, asked a question which, as I could see from her contracted brows and the expression of her face, referred to me.

Sokolov turned away and began gloomily poking the fire. He was one of those very good-natured men who always find it difficult to speak ill of anyone, or to tell unpleasant news. Syergakóv sat down at the table and took up a pencil.

Tonia doffed her gray cloak and, flinging it on a chest, turned round, so that I could see her agitated face, and I inferred from her manner that she was repeating her question and telling them of her meeting with me. Then Madame Sokolov, sitting down on the chest, began to relate something. And her face gradually assumed an excited and indignant expression. I knew what she was saying. She was complaining that for some time past I had behaved very queerly, keeping aloof from my comrades and when I met her looking at her in the strangest way possible; moreover, when she remonstrated with me, I had answered sneeringly that I hoped she did not suspect me of any Don Juan-like intentions.

Sokolov rose impatiently and made an observation, whereupon his wife broke off and looked at Tonia conscience-stricken. The girl’s face was pale and sad. For some time nothing more was said; then Tonia turned her face away from them and stood looking at the fire. I could see her