Short Fiction, Aleksandr Kuprin [the speed reading book txt] 📗

a hundred miles before us. It seemed to me as though I were hanging in the air, ready to fly. You get a feeling of such beauty, such lightness! I turned back to our guide and said to him in rapture, ‘Isn’t it wonderful, Seid-Ogly?’ and he just smacked his tongue and said: ‘If you only knew, lady, how tired I am of all this. I see it every day.’ ”

“Thanks for the comparison,” said Vera, laughing. “No, but I guess that we northerners can never appreciate the beauties of the sea. I like the woods. Remember the woods in our Yegorovsk? You can never get tired of them. The pines! And the mosses! And the fly-agarics! They look as though they were made of crimson satin and embroidered with tiny white beads. And it is so quiet and cool.”

“I don’t care; I like everything,” answered Anna. “But most of all, I like my dear little sister, my sensible little Vera. We two are alone in the world, aren’t we?”

She embraced her sister and pressed her cheek against Vera’s. Suddenly she jumped up.

“My, how stupid I am! Here we are, sitting together, as they do in stories, talking about nature, while I’ve forgotten all about the present I brought you. Here it is⁠—look! I wonder if you’ll like it?”

She took out of her bag a little notebook with a wonderful cover. On old blue velvet, already worn off and grown gray with age, was embroidered in dull gold a filigreed design of rare complexity, delicacy, and beauty⁠—evidently a work of love, executed by the skilful hands of a patient artist. The notebook was attached to a gold chain, as thin as a thread, and thin ivory tablets were substituted for the leaves inside.

“Isn’t it charming!” exclaimed Vera, kissing her sister. “Thank you ever so much. Where did you get such a treasure?”

“Oh, in an antique shop. You know my weakness for rummaging among all kinds of antiques. And once I came across this prayerbook. See, here is where the design is made in the shape of a cross. Of course, I found only the cover, all the rest, the leaves, the clasps, the pencil, I had to think out myself. But Molliner simply refused to understand what I was trying to tell him. The clasps had to be made the same way as the whole design, of dull, old gold, delicately engraved, and he made this thing of it. But the chain is very ancient, really Venetian.”

Vera stroked the beautiful cover affectionately.

“What deep antiquity! How old do you think this book is?” asked she.

“It would be pretty hard to say. Perhaps the end of the seventeenth century, or the middle of the eighteenth.”

“How strange it is,” said Vera with a thoughtful smile, “that I am holding in my hands an object which may have been touched by the hands of the Marquise de Pompadour, or even Queen Antoinette herself.⁠ ⁠… Do you know, Anna, you must be the only person in the world who could conceive of the mad idea of making a lady’s notebook out of a prayerbook. However, let’s go in and see how things are getting on.”

They went into the house through the large brick piazza, covered on all sides by thickly interlaced vines of grapes. The abundant bunches of black grapes, that had a faint odor of strawberries, hung down heavily amidst dark-green leaves, goldened in spots by the sun. The whole piazza was filled with greenish twilight, which made the faces of the two women appear pale.

“Will you have the dinner served here?” asked Anna.

“I thought of doing that at first. But it is rather cool in the evening now. I guess we shall use the dining-room, and the men can come out here to smoke.”

“Will there be any interesting people?”

“I don’t know yet. But I do know that grandpa is coming.”

“Grandpa! Isn’t that fine!” exclaimed Anna. “It seems to me that I haven’t seen him in ages.”

“Vasily’s sister is coming, and I think Professor Speshnikov. Why, I simply lost my head yesterday, Anna. You know that they both like a good dinner, grandpa and the professor, and you cannot get anything, either here or in the city. Luka has gotten some quails and is trying to do something with them now. The roast beef we got isn’t bad. Alas! the inevitable roast beef. The lobsters, too, are pretty good.”

“Well, that isn’t bad at all. Don’t trouble yourself about that. Still, between us two, you must admit that you like a good dinner yourself.”

“And then we’ll have something rare. The fisherman brought us a sea-cock this morning. It’s a monster.”

Anna, interested in everything that concerned her and did not concern her, immediately expressed a desire to see the sea-cock.

The tall, yellow-faced cook, Luka, brought in a large, oval basin of water, holding it carefully so as not to spill the water on the parquet floor.

“Twelve and a half pounds, your Highness,” said he with that pride which is so characteristic of cooks. “We weighed him a few minutes ago.”

The fish was too large for the basin, and was lying on the bottom, with its tail curled up. Its scales had a golden tint, the fins were of bright-scarlet color, while on either side of the ravenous head was a long, fan-shaped wing of light-blue color. The fish was still alive and was breathing heavily.

Anna touched the head of the fish with her little finger. The animal swept up its tail, and Anna drew her hand away in fright.

“Don’t trouble yourself, your Highness,” said Luka, evidently understanding Vera’s worry. “Everything will be first class. The Bulgarian has just brought two fine cantaloupes. And then, may I ask of your Highness, what kind of sauce to serve with the fish, Tartar or Polish, or just toast in butter?”

“Do as you like,” said the princess.

IV

The guests began to arrive after five o’clock. Prince Vasily Lvovich brought his sister, Ludmila Lvovna Durasova, a stout, kindly,