Short Fiction, Vladimir Korolenko [finding audrey TXT] 📗

cool, fresh breath were returning to her part of the lifeblood stolen by the grey stones of the crypt. But alas! this did not last long.

And in the meanwhile clouds were beginning to gather over my head as well.

One morning as I was running down the garden path as usual I caught sight of my father and old Yanush of the castle. The old man was cringing and bowing and saying something to my father, and the latter was standing before him, gloomy and stern, with a frown of impatient anger between his eyes. At last my father stretched out his hand as if to push Yanush aside, and said:

“Go away! You are nothing but an old gossip!”

The old man blinked and, holding his hat in his hand, ran forward again and stood in my father’s path. My father’s eyes flashed with anger. Yanush was speaking in a low voice, and I could not hear what he was saying, but my father’s broken sentences fell upon my ears with the utmost distinctness, like the blows of a whip.

“I don’t believe a word of it⁠—What do you want to persecute those people for?⁠—I won’t listen to verbal accusations, and a written one you would be obliged to prove⁠—Silence! that is my business⁠—I won’t listen to you, I tell you.”

He finally pushed Yanush away so firmly that the latter did not dare to intrude upon him any longer. My father turned aside into another path, and I ran out through the gate.

I very much disliked this old owl of the castle, and I trembled now with a premonition of evil. I realised that the conversation I had overheard related to my friends and perhaps, also, to me.

When I told Tiburtsi what had happened he made a dreadful face.

“Whew, young one, what bad news that is! Oh, that accursed old fox!”

“My father drove him away,” I answered to console him.

“Your father, young man, is the best judge there has been since the days of Solomon, but do you know what curriculum vitae means? Of course you don’t. But you know what the Record of Service is, don’t you? Well, curriculum vitae is the Record of Service of a man who is not employed in the County Court, and if that old screech-owl has been able to ferret out anything and can show your father my record why⁠—well, I swear to the Queen of Heaven I wouldn’t care to fall into the Judge’s clutches!”

“He’s not a cruel man, is he?” I asked, remembering what Valek had told me.

“No, no, my boy, God forbid that you should think that of your father! Your father has a good heart. Perhaps he already knows everything that Yanush has been able to tell him, and still holds his tongue. He doesn’t think it is necessary to pursue a toothless old lion into his last lair. But how can I explain it to you, my boy? Your father works for a gentleman whose name is Law. He has eyes and a heart only as long as Law is nicely tucked up in bed, but when that gentleman gets up and comes to your father and says: ‘Come on, Judge, shan’t we get on the trail of Tiburtsi Drab or whatever his name is?’ from that moment the Judge must lock up his heart, and his claws will become so sharp that the earth will turn upside down before Tiburtsi will escape out of his clutches. Do you understand, my boy? And that’s why I, why we all, respect your father as we do, because he is a faithful servant of his master, and such men are rare. If all Law’s servants were like him, Law could sleep quietly in his bed and never wake up at all. My whole trouble is that I had a quarrel with Law a long time ago⁠—ah yes, my boy, a very violent quarrel!”

As he said this Tiburtsi got up, took Marusia’s hand, and, leading her into a distant corner, began kissing her and pressing his rough head to her tiny breast. I stood motionless where I was under the spell of the impression created by the strange words of this strange man. In spite of the fantastic and unintelligible twists and turns of his speech I understood perfectly the substance of what Tiburtsi had said, and my father’s image loomed more imposing than ever in my imagination, invested with a halo of stern but lovable strength amounting almost to grandeur. But at the same time another and a bitterer feeling which I bore in my breast had increased in intensity. “That’s what he’s like!” I thought. “And he doesn’t love me!”

IX The Doll

The bright days soon passed, and Marusia began to grow worse again. She now gazed indifferently with her large, fixed, darkening eyes at all our cunning devices for her amusement, and it was long since we had heard her laughter. I began to bring my playthings to the crypt, but they only diverted her for a short time. I then decided to turn for help to my sister Sonia.

Sonia had a large doll with magnificent long hair and cheeks painted a brilliant red, a present from our mother. I had the greatest faith in the powers of this doll, and therefore, calling my sister into a distant part of the garden one day, I asked her to lend it to me. I begged so earnestly and described the little suffering girl who had no toys of her own so vividly that Sonia, who at first had only clasped the doll more tightly to her breast, handed it to me and promised to play with her other toys for two or three days and to forget the doll entirely.

The effect produced on Marusia by this gaily dressed young lady with the china face exceeded all my wildest hopes. The child, who had been fading like a flower in Autumn, suddenly seemed to revive again. How tightly she hugged