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

Jedda to Smyrna, was famous. The beggar went away from that house with rupees in his bag, the hungry went away after a rich repast, the tired went away rested, and the wounded went away cured.

For twenty years, for twenty long years, Demir-Kayá turned his gaze every evening to the marvellous stump of wood dug into the ground of his courtyard, but the wood remained black and dead. And the eagle eyes of Demir-Kayá grew dull, and the hair on his head became as white as the angel’s wings.

But one morning, early, he heard hurried hoof-beats on the road and saw a horseman galloping toward him. Demir-Kayá ran to him, seized the horse by the reins, and began to beg the horseman:

“Brother mine, won’t you enter my home? Step in and refresh your face with water, strengthen yourself with food and drink, and sweeten your breath with the pleasant odor of smoke.”

But the traveller exclaimed in wrath:

“Let me go, old man, let me go.”

And he spat into Demir-Kayá’s face, and he struck him on the head with the handle of his whip, and galloped on.

Then the proud blood of the robber flamed up in Demir-Kayá. He lifted a heavy stone from the ground, cast it after his offender, and broke his head. And the horseman fell to the ground on the dusty road.

With terror in his heart, Demir-Kayá ran to him and said sadly:

“Brother mine, I have killed you.”

But the dying man answered:

“It was not you that killed me, it was Allah’s hand. Listen to me. The Pasha of our district is a cruel, greedy, and unjust man. My friends have conspired to assassinate him. But I was won over by a rich reward. I wanted to betray them, and it was when I was hurrying with this information that the rock cast by you stopped me in my haste. The Lord wills it. Farewell.”

With grief in his heart, Demir-Kayá returned to his home. The ladder of virtue and repentance that he had been ascending patiently for over twenty years had suddenly broken down under him and fallen to the ground on that summer morning.

In despair he turned his gaze once more to the spot where it was wont to pause, upon a black-burnt piece of wood. But, lo! A miracle! Before his very eyes the dead tree was springing to life, was becoming covered with green buds. A moment, and it was in full bloom, with gentle yellow flowers interspersed in fragrant foliage.

Then Demir-Kayá fell on his knees and wept for joy. For he realized that the great and merciful Allah in his inexpressible wisdom had forgiven him the murder of ninety-nine innocent beings for the death of one traitor.

The Garden of the Holy Virgin

Far beyond the bounds of the Milky Way, upon a planet which will never be disclosed to the eye of the most diligent astronomer, blooms the wonderful, mysterious garden of the Holy Virgin Mary. All the flowers that exist upon our poor and sinful earth, bloom there for many long years, never fading, ever cared for by the patient hands of invisible gardeners. And each flower contains a particle of the soul of a man living on the earth, that particle which sleeps not during our nightly slumber, that leads us through marvellous lands, that shows us the centuries gone by, that conjures up before us the faces of our departed friends, that spins in our imagination the variegated tissues of our slumber-being, now sweet, now ludicrous, now terrible, now blissful, that makes us awaken in unreasonable joy, or in bitter tears, that often opens before us the impenetrable curtains, beyond which stretch out the dark paths of the future, discernible only to children, wise men, and blessed clairvoyants. These flowers are the souls of human dreams.

Every time that the moon is full, in those hours of the night that immediately precede the dawn, when our nightly visions are especially bright, lively, and restless, when the pale lunatics, with their eyes closed and their faces turned toward the sky, return to their cold beds along the dangerous edges of the housetops, when the night-flowers open their chalices⁠—then the Holy Virgin walks through her garden with light and quiet steps. To her right, glides the round moon, while behind it, never tarrying, always keeping the same distance, flows a little star, like a small boat tied with invisible threads to the stern of a large ship. Soon both the ship and the boat disappear, buried in the vapor-like, orange-colored clouds, and, suddenly, they appear in the dark-blue space. Then their light lends a silvery hue to the Holy Virgin’s blue chiton and to her beautiful face, whose charm and blessedness no man can describe with word, brush, or music.

And, fluttering in joyous impatience, the flowers sway on their thin stems and, like children, stretch out to touch the blue chiton with their petals. And Holy Mary gently smiles upon their pure joy, for she is the mother of Jesus, who loved flowers so dearly during his life on earth. With her thin, white, kind fingers she gently caresses the souls of children, the modest daisies, gold-cups, snowdrops, veronicas, and the fairy spheres of dandelions. Boundless is her bounty, for it extends over them all: the daffodils, those beautiful love-flowers, the proud and passionate roses, the conceited peonies, the orchids, so terrible in their strange beauty, the bitter, fiery poppies, the tuberoses and hyacinths, that spread their heavy odors around the deathbed. She sends bright maidenly dreams to lilies-of-the-valley, violets, and mignonettes. And to the plain wild flowers, the souls of ordinary toilers, wearied with the day’s labor, she sends profound, restful sleep.

And she visits also the faraway corners of the garden, wildly overgrown with thorny, monstrous cactuses, greenish ferns, intoxicating hops, and the creeping, graveyard ivy, and to them all, despairing of joy on earth, disappointed in life, sorrowful, and grieving, gloomily hastening to meet death, she grants moments of complete