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

darkened sky, raised their knotty, dried-up arms toward heaven with an expression of silent grief. IV

Suddenly, heavy, rapid footsteps were heard in the rushes in the direction from which Buzyga and Akim had come a short while before. Somebody was evidently running in haste without picking his way, splashing the water and breaking dry branches. The horse-thieves pricked up their ears. Akim Shpak stood on his knees. Buzyga, his hands on the ground, crouched down, ready to jump up and rush off in an instant.

“Who is that?” asked Vasil in a whisper.

No one answered him. The heavy steps were nearer and nearer. Someone’s powerful, hoarse, and whistling breathing could already be heard amidst the splashing of the water and the crackling of the branches. Buzyga quickly shoved his hand into his boot, and before Vasil’s eyes glittered a shining knife.

But the noise suddenly stopped. For a moment a remarkably deep silence reigned around. Even the disturbed frogs were silent. Something gigantic and heavy tramped about in the bushes, snorting fiercely, and began to sniff.

“Oh, that must be a boar,” said Buzyga, and the other three shivered at the sound of his loud voice. “Must have come to get a drink.”

“Yes, that’s true,” said Shpak, again lying down.

The boar snorted again angrily and then began to run away. For a long time the branches cracked in the direction in which he took flight. Then everything became quiet. The frogs, as though angered by the momentary interruption, began to croak with redoubled force.

“When are you going, Buzyga?” asked the old man.

Buzyga raised his head and looked at the sky attentively.

“It’s too early yet,” said he, yawning. “I will go before morning. Right before dawn the peasants sleep like chickens.⁠ ⁠…”

Sleep was gradually overcoming Vasil. The earth began to quake under him, rising up and falling down, and then slowly floated away to one side. For an instant, when, with some difficulty, he opened his eyes, the boy saw the dark figures of three men, sitting silently side by side, but he no longer knew who they were and why they were sitting so close to him. Out of the bushes, where wild boars were crowding together, snorting and sniffing angrily, suddenly stepped into the clearing the son of the church elder, Zinka, and said, laughing: “Here are the horses, Vasil. Let’s go out for a ride.” Then they sat down together in a little sleigh and rushed off into the darkness at a very pleasant, rapid pace, following a narrow, white, silent road that wound among tall pine-trees. His grandfather ran after them waving his mutilated hands in the air, but could not catch up with them, and all this was extraordinarily joyful and funny. Little bells were tied to the horses’ manes and tails, and also to the branches of the dark pine-trees, and a monotonous, hasty, and merry ringing sounded on all sides.⁠ ⁠… Then Vasil suddenly struck a dark, soft wall⁠—and everything disappeared.⁠ ⁠…

The cold dampness which made his whole body shiver, woke him. It had become darker and the wind was blowing. Everything seemed to have changed suddenly. Large, black, fluffy clouds with dishevelled and chipped white edges were rushing past overhead, very low to the ground. The tops of the rushes, intertwined by the wind, were hastily bending down and trembling all over.⁠ ⁠… And the old willows, with their thin arms raised upward, were shaking in agitation from one side to the other as if they were trying to tell each other some terrible tidings, but could not do it.

The horse-thieves lay motionless and their bodies appeared black in the darkness. One of them was smoking, and his pipe flashed every little while. The red, momentary flashes ran over the bronzed faces, alternating with long, slanting shadows. The cold and the interrupted sleep gave the boy the sensation of being tired, indifferent, and upset. He listened without any interest to the low conversation of the horse-thieves and, with a dull feeling of outrage, felt that they were not in the least concerned with him, just as they were not concerned with the gigantic, rapidly fleeing clouds and the agitated willows. And that for which he had been preparing that night, and which had formerly filled his soul with excitement and pride, suddenly began to seem to him unnecessary, and small, and tiresome.

“You’re still at it, like a big jackass,” Buzyga was saying in a vexed tone. “What the deuce do I want your bay colt for? Why, they know him in every village around here. A year ago I stole a riding-horse from the bookkeeper of the sugar-refinery. It was all one color, only the left front leg happened to be white; the devil take it! I tried to sell it everywhere, and they all made fun of me, as though I were a fool. ‘We’re not crazy yet,’ they’d say to me. ‘You can’t sell this horse anywhere. Everybody in the province knows him.’ And do you know, Kozel, what I sold it for? For a mug of sour milk. What are you whistling about? I’m telling you the truth. Volka Fishkin got it. He saw that my tongue was almost sticking out on account of the heat, and so he said to me: ‘Look here, Buzyga, come inside and have a glass of milk.’ I went in, and later on he says to me: ‘Now listen, Buzyga, I always liked to deal with you, but it will take a fool to buy this horse from you. You’ll have to leave it somewhere, in the evening, anyhow. Better give it to me. I’ll take it over to the refinery and maybe I’ll get a few pennies for it.’ Well, I gave him the horse and he sold it later in the Podol Province, over at the Yarinolinetzk fair, for one hundred and thirty roubles. That’s what you get out of stealing horses like that, Kozel.”

“Ye‑es.⁠ ⁠… That’s so,” said the old man slowly and thoughtfully, and chewed