Short Fiction, Vladimir Korolenko [finding audrey TXT] 📗

than I had before. My courage increased when there appeared from under the altar, or rather from a trap-door in the floor which was concealed by the altar, another grimy little face framed in golden curls, and a pair of bright blue eyes fixed on me full of childish curiosity.

I moved slightly away from the wall and also put my hands into my pockets according to the rules of our bazaars. This was a sign that I was not afraid of my adversary and even partly wished to hint at my contempt for him.

We stood face to face, measuring each other with our eyes. Having stared at me from head to foot, the boy asked:

“What are you doing here?”

“Nothing,” I answered. “What business is it of yours?”

My adversary jerked his shoulder as if he intended to take his hand out of his pocket and strike me. I did not blink.

“I’ll show you!” he threatened.

I stuck out my chest.

“Hit me! Try!”

The moment was crucial. On it depended the character of our future relationship. I waited, but my opponent continued to fix me with the same scrutinising gaze and did not move.

“I’ll hit⁠—too⁠—” I said, but more peaceably this time.

Meanwhile the little girl, with her tiny hands resting on the floor of the chapel, was trying to scramble up out of the trap-door. She fell down, got up again, and at last came tottering with uncertain steps toward the boy. Having reached him, she seized him and nestled closely to him, at the same time fixing eyes of wonder and fear upon my face.

This decided the affair. It was obvious that the boy could not fight under conditions such as these. Of course I was too generous to take advantage of the awkward situation he was in.

“What’s your name?” asked the boy, stroking the little girl’s fair curls.

“Vasia. What’s yours?”

“Mine’s Valek. I know you. You live in the garden near the pond. You have big apples.”

“Yes, our apples are fine. Don’t you want some?”

Taking out of my pocket two apples that had been intended as payment for my shamefully fugitive band, I gave one to Valek and held out the other to the little girl. But she only hid her face and pressed closer to Valek.

“She’s frightened,” he said, and handed the apple to the child himself.

“What did you come down here for?” he asked next. “Did I ever come into your garden?”

“You can come if you want to. I wish you would!” I answered joyfully.

Valek was taken back.

“I can’t play with you,” he answered sadly.

“Why not?” I asked, deeply grieved by the sorrowful voice in which he had spoken these words.

“Your father is a judge.”

“Well, what if he is?” I asked with candid amazement. “You’d play with me, not with my father!”

Valek shook his head.

“Tiburtsi wouldn’t let me.” And as if the name had reminded him of something, he suddenly recollected himself and went on: “Look here, you’re a fine boy, but you’d better go. If Tiburtsi should find you here it would be awful.”

I agreed that it was time for me to go. The last rays of the setting sun were already fading behind the windows of the chapel, and the town was some distance away.

“How can I get out of here?”

“I’ll show you. We’ll go out together.”

“And what about her?” I asked, pointing to the little girl.

“What, Marusia? She’ll come with us.”

“How? Through the window?”

Valek reflected a moment.

“I’ll tell you what; I’ll help you to climb through the window and we’ll go out another way.”

With the help of my new friend I climbed up to the windowsill. Untying the belt, I slipped it around the sill, seized both ends, and swung myself into the air. Then, releasing one end, I dropped to the ground and jerked down the belt. Valek and Marusia were already waiting for me outside, at the foot of the wall.

The sun had just set behind the hill. The town was sunk in purple mist, only the tall poplars on the island, stained by the last glow of the sunset, stood out sharply defined in pure gold. I felt as if I had been in the old cemetery for a day and a night; it was as if I had come there the day before.

“It’s lovely here!” I exclaimed, struck by the freshness of the evening and filling my lungs with the cool, damp air.

“It’s lonely here,” said Valek sadly.

“Do you live here?” I asked, as the three of us began to descend the hill.

“Yes.”

“Where’s your house?”

I couldn’t imagine that children like myself could live without a house.

Valek smiled in his habitual sad way and did not answer.

We avoided the steep landslides, for Valek knew a better path. Pushing through the reeds of a dry marsh and crossing a couple of little streams on narrow planks, we found ourselves on a flat at the foot of the hill.

Here we were forced to take leave of one another. I pressed my new friend’s hand and then held out mine to the little girl. She gave me her tiny paw affectionately and, looking up at me with her blue eyes, asked:

“Will you come again?”

“Oh, yes,” I answered. “I’ll surely come!”

“All right,” said Valek thoughtfully. “You might as well come, but only when our people are in town.”

“Who are your people?”

“Why our people: all of them, Tiburtsi and Lavrovski and Turkevich and the Professor⁠—but perhaps he wouldn’t matter.”

“All right, I’ll watch for them, and when they’re in town, I’ll come. Goodbye!”

“Hi! Listen!” Valek called after me when I had gone a few steps. “You won’t tell anyone you’ve been here with us, will you?”

“No, not a soul!” I answered firmly.

“That’s good. And when those idiots of yours ask you what you saw say the Devil.”

“All right. I’ll say that.”

“Goodbye, then!”

“Goodbye!”

The thick shades of night were descending on Kniazh Gorodok as I approached our garden wall. A slender crescent moon was hanging over the castle and the sky was bright with stars. I was about to climb the wall when