Short Fiction, Vladimir Korolenko [finding audrey TXT] 📗

pipe out of his mouth, spat, and said:

“That’s bad! Anyone but me would never have thought of a way out of it, but I’m going to give you some advice that you’ll not be sorry if you take. Will you give me the pair of new boots that Opanas left in pawn if I tell you what to do?”

“I wouldn’t begrudge you a pair of boots for your advice, but have you thought of something that really will help me?”

Well, it turned out that that wicked soldier had thought of a plan which, if it had gone through a little bit sooner, would certainly have sent the miller straight to the devil in hell and I should never have been telling you this story.

“Very well, then, listen carefully to me,” Kharko said. “Plainly, there are three of you, one man and two girls. And plainly one man can’t possibly marry them both unless he’s a Turk.”

“How right the wretch is!” thought the miller. “What’s coming next?”

“Good! Now as you are a rich man and Motria is a rich girl, and baby can see who ought to marry who. Send the matchmakers to old Makogon.”

“That’s all very well! I knew that without being told. But what about Galya?”

“Do you want to hear to the end? Or do you yourself know what I’m going to say?”

“Come, come, don’t get cross!”

“You make everyone cross. I’m not the man to begin saying something and then stop before I’ve finished. Now, to come to Galya. Used she to love you?”

“I should say she did!”

“And what were you when she loved you?”

“A workman in the mill.”

“Then a baby could understand that too. If the girl loved a workman once, let her marry a workman now.”

The miller’s eyes grew as round as saucers and his head began to go round like a mill-wheel.

“But I’m not a workman any longer!”

“How dreadful! And isn’t there a workman at the mill?”

“You mean Gavrilo? So that’s your idea, is it? Very well, let him give you a pair of boots for it! Neither he nor his uncle nor his aunts will ever see me stand that arrangement, I can tell you! I’d sooner go and break every bone in his body.”

“Gracious, what a hot-tempered fellow you are; hot enough to boil an egg! I was going to tell you something entirely different when you boiled over like this.”

“What can you tell me now seeing that that little joke didn’t please me?”

“Just listen.”

Kharko took his pipe out of his mouth, winked, and clicked his tongue so sympathetically the miller felt better at once.

“And you⁠—did you love her though she was poor?”

“Yes, indeed I did!”

“Well, then, go on loving her to your heart’s content after she has married the workman. And this is the end of my speech. You three will live at the mill together and the fourth fool won’t count. Aha! Now you know whether I have brought you honey or gall, don’t you? Yes indeed! Kharko’s head is all right because he was always licked on the back. That’s why he’s such a clever fellow and knows who will get the kernel of the nut, who will get the shell, and who will get the pair of boots.”

“But what if your plan shouldn’t work?”

“Why shouldn’t it work?”

“For lots of reasons. Perhaps old Makogon won’t consent.”

“Bah! Let me talk to him.”

“Well, what would you say?”

“I’ll tell you. I’d be on my way from the city with a load of vodka. He’d be coming toward me. We’d talk a while and then I’d say: I’ve found a husband for your daughter; it’s our miller.”

“And what would he say?”

“He’d say: ‘Well I never! Your grandmother never expected that! How much is he worth?’ ”

“And what would you answer?”

“I’d answer: Of course my grandmother never expected it because she died long ago, God rest her soul! So you don’t know, I see, that the devil has carried away our Jew?”

“ ‘Then that’s altogether different,’ he’d say. ‘If there’s no Jew in the village the miller will be a substantial man.’ ”

“All right, supposing Makogon gives his consent, will Galya marry the workman?”

“If you drive the girl and her mother out of their khata she will be glad to live at the mill.”

“I see⁠—well, well⁠—”

VIII

The miller scratched his head in perplexity, and things went on like that, you must know, not only for a day but for almost a year. The miller had hardly had time to look about him before St. Philip’s day had come and gone, and Easter, and Spring, and Summer. Then once again he found himself standing at the door of the tavern, with Kharko leaning against the door post beside him. The moon was shining exactly as it had shone one year before, the river was sparkling as it had sparkled then, the street was just as white, and the same black shadow was lying on the silver ground beside the miller. And something flashed across his memory.

“Listen to me, Kharko!”

“What do you want?”

“What day of the week is it?”

“Monday.”

“It was Saturday last year, do you remember?”

“Saturdays are as thick as flies.”

“I mean the Day of Atonement one year ago.”

“Oh, that’s what you’re thinking of! Yes, it was Saturday last year.”

“When will the Day of Atonement be this year?”

“I can’t say when it will be. There’s no Jew near here now, so I don’t know.”

“Look at the sky. It’s clear and bright, just as it was that night.”

And the miller glanced in terror at the window of the Jewish hut, afraid of seeing again those Hebrew children nodding their heads and humming their prayers for their daddy whom Khapun was carrying away over the hills and dales.

But no! All that was over. Probably not a bone was left of Yankel by now; his orphans had wandered away into the wide world, and their hut was as dark as a tomb. The miller’s heart was as full of darkness as the deserted Jewish khata.

“I didn’t save the