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

Whether or not the event happened as related, or whether it took place at all, is hard to say in default of conclusive historical evidence. But up to this day a goodly portion of the brave Balaklavians bear the family name of Capitanaki, and if you ever run across a Greek with the name of Capitanaki, you may be sure that either he or his near ancestors come from Balaklava.

But the brightest and most dazzling flowers of imagination decorate the tale of the English squadron which sank off the coast of Balaklava. On a dark winter night several English ships were making for Balaklava Bay, seeking refuge from a storm. Among them was a magnificent three-mast frigate, The Black Prince, laden with money wherewith to pay the allied armies. Sixty million roubles in English gold were on board. Old men even know the precise amount.

The same old men say that nowadays there blow no longer such hurricanes as the one that raged on that terrible night. Monstrous waves, breaking upon the vertical cliffs, tossed up to the very foot of the Genoese tower⁠—fifty yards up!⁠—and washed its old gray walls. The fleet could not locate the narrow mouth of the bay, or probably, having found it, the men-of-war were not able to enter the inlet. All the ships were smashed on the cliffs, and together with the magnificent Black Prince and the English gold went down by the White Stones, which up to this very day emerge threateningly from the sea where the narrow mouth of the bay broadens out seaward, toward the right, as you leave Balaklava.

Nowadays steamers pass far away from the bay, fifteen to twenty versts off. From the Genoese fortress it is almost impossible to descry the dark, seemingly stationary body of the steamer, its long, trailing tail of gray, melting smoke, and its two masts gracefully bent backward. But the sharp eye of a fisherman almost unfailingly distinguishes these vessels by signs which are incomprehensible to both our sight and experience: Here is a freighter from Eupatoria.⁠ ⁠… And here a “Russian Company” steamer.⁠ ⁠… This is a “Russian” one⁠ ⁠… and there is one of Koshkin’s boats.⁠ ⁠… And here is the Pushkin, tossing on the ripples⁠—this one rocks even on a quiet sea.

One day, quite unexpectedly, a huge, old-fashioned, unusually dirty Italian steamer, the Genova, entered the bay. It happened late in the evening, during that part of autumn when all the summer visitors have left for the north, but the sea is still so warm that real fishing has not yet begun, and the fishermen mend their nets in leisurely fashion and prepare hooks, play dominos in the coffeehouses, drink wine, and, in general, enjoy their temporary leisure.

The evening was quiet and dark, with big calm stars twinkling both in the sky and in the slumbering water of the bay. Along the embankment the lanterns began to gleam, forming a chain of yellow dots. The bright rectangles of the stores were disappearing. Light, black silhouettes were slowly moving along the streets and sidewalks.⁠ ⁠… And then, I do not know who, perhaps the boys who were playing at the Genoese tower, brought the news that a steamer had turned in from the sea and was heading for the bay.

In a few minutes the entire native male population was on the quay. It is well known that a Greek is always a Greek, and, therefore, is curious first of all. It is true that in the Balaklava Greeks one senses, in addition to later admixtures of Genoese blood, some mysterious, immemorial, probably Scythian strain⁠—the blood of the aboriginal inhabitants of this nest of freebooters and fishermen. You will notice many tall, robust, and dignified figures; at times you run across regular, noble features; there are many fair-headed and even blue-eyed specimens among them. The Balaklava Greeks are neither greedy nor obsequious; they carry themselves with dignity; at sea they are daring, but without silly bravado; they are good comrades and keep their word. Really, they are a separate, exclusive branch of the Hellenic race, which has preserved itself mainly because of the fact that for many generations their ancestors came to life, lived, and died in their tiny town, marriages taking place among neighbors only. But the Greek colonizers had left in the psychic organization of the present-day inhabitants of Balaklava their own most typical trait which distinguished them even in the time of Pericles⁠—curiosity and eagerness for news.

Slowly, at first showing its tiny front light, the steamer turned the sharp bend and headed for the bay. In the thick, warm darkness of the night its outlines were invisible from a distance, but the lights high on the masts, the signal-lamps on the bridge, and a row of round lighted bull’s-eyes along the rail allowed one to guess at its size and shape. In the sight of hundreds of boats and smacks, which stood along the quay, the steamer was moving toward the beach almost imperceptibly, with that careful and awkward cautiousness with which a huge and powerful man passes through a nursery room with frail toys scattered all around it.

The fishermen were making guesses. Many of them had sailed on traders and, more frequently, on men-of-war.

“What are you talking about? Don’t I see? Of course, it is a freighter of the Russian Company.”

“No, it isn’t a Russian steamer.”

“Something must have gone wrong with the engine, and she is turning in for repairs.”

“Maybe it’s a battleship?”

“Bosh!”

Only Kolya Konstandi, who had sailed a long time on a gunboat on the Black Sea and on the Mediterranean, guessed correctly, declaring it an Italian vessel. And he did so only when the steamer had come very near the beach, and it was possible to make out her faded, peeled-off boards, the dirty streams running from the hatches, and the motley crew on the deck.

The end of a rope shot from the steamer in a spiral, and, uncoiling like a snake in the air,