Short Fiction, Vladimir Korolenko [finding audrey TXT] 📗

a great huff, clapped his straw hat on his head, and walked away down the street as if nothing had happened and he was simply taking an evening stroll.

Need I tell you more? You must surely have guessed already that the miller had made up his mind to be the keeper of the Jewish tavern. And having made up his mind he talked very agreeably to the mayor, entertained whichever members of the County Court he thought advisable, and reasoned very cleverly with the captain of police and with the head of the District, as well as with the judge, the treasurer, and finally with the commissioner of rural police and the customs inspector.

On his way back from the village after all these exertions the miller passed the inn. There was Kharko, sitting on the hill smoking his pipe. The miller only nodded to him, but Kharko⁠—although he was a proud fellow⁠—jumped up at once and ran toward him.

“Well, what have you got to say?” asked the miller.

“What should I have to say? I am waiting for you to tell me something.”

“Well, well.”

Kharko didn’t want to nail the miller down with words yet, so he listened to what the miller said, pulled off his cap with both hands, and wisely answered:

“I shall be very glad to do all I can for my kind master.”

So the miller took possession of the inn and lorded it in Novokamensk better than Yankel had done. He put his roubles out to pasture among the people, and when the time came he drove them and their increase back into his chest. And no one there was to get in his way.

And if it was true that more than one person wept bitter tears because of him⁠—why there is no room for truth in this world. And many did weep; whether more than had wept when Yankel kept the inn or fewer, I cannot attempt to say. Who can take the measure of human grief and who can count human tears?

Ah, no one has ever measured the grief and no one has ever counted the tears of the world, but the old folks say, “walking or riding, trouble’s always in hiding”; and that “the back doesn’t laugh at a stick or a staff.” I don’t know how true that is, but it seems true to me.

VII

I must admit I didn’t mean to tell you all this about my friend, but it’s too late to take it back now. I’ve begun the story and I shall go on to the end. A song’s not a song, they say, if a word is missing. And after all, if the miller doesn’t hide anything, why should I?

You see, the state of affairs was this. All old Yankel had ever wanted had been human money. If he heard with one corner of his ear that someone had a rouble or two loose in his pocket his heart would give him a little prod and he would immediately think of some way in which he could pull up that rouble and put it to work for him, as one might pull a fish out of somebody else’s pond. If he succeeded, he and his Sarah would rejoice over their good fortune.

But that wasn’t enough for the miller. Yankel had always grovelled before everyone, but the miller held his head as high as a turkey cock. Yankel had always slipped up to the back door of the District policeman’s house and stood timidly on the threshold, but the miller swaggered all over the front steps as if he were at home there. Yankel never took it hard if he got his ears boxed by some drunken fellow. He howled a bit and then stopped, perhaps squeezing a few extra copecks out of his tormentor one day or another to make up for it. But if the miller ever got hold of a peasant’s topknot it would probably stay in his hands, and his eyes would flash like the sparks from a blacksmith’s hammer. With the miller it was: pay up both money and respect! And he got them both, there’s no use denying it. The people bowed low before their icons, but they bowed lower before my friend.

And yet he never could get enough. He went about as surly and angry as if a puppy were worrying his heart, thinking to himself all the time:

“Everything is wrong in this world, everything is wrong! Somehow money doesn’t make a man as happy as it ought to.”

Kharko once asked him:

“Why do you go about looking as cross as if someone had thrown a bucket of slops over you, master? What does my master want?”

“Perhaps if I got married I should be happier.”

“Then go ahead and get married.”

“That’s just the trouble. How can I get married when the thing’s impossible no matter how I tackle it? I’ll tell you the truth: I fell in love with Galya, the widow’s daughter, before I ever came to be a miller and while I was still a workman at the mill. If my uncle hadn’t got drowned I should be married to her today. But now you see yourself that she is below me.”

“Of course, she is below you! All you can do now is to marry rich old Makogon’s daughter Motria.”

“There you are! I can see for myself and everyone says that my money and old Makogon’s would just match, but there you are again⁠—the girl is so ugly. She sits all day like a great bale of hay everlastingly hulling seeds. Every time I look at her I feel as if someone had got me by the nose and were pulling me away from her. How different Galya is! That’s why I say everything is wrong in this world. If a man loves one girl the other one’s sure to have the money. I shall certainly shrivel up some day like a blade of grass. I loathe the world.”

The soldier took his