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

an alcove, sat two young girls (I took them for girls at once and later on I found that I was right). I could not see their faces very well, but I noticed that the eldest, a brune, had the provoking, luxuriant appearance of a Ukrainian, and that the younger, who looked like a “flapper,” was wearing a white silk handkerchief negligently thrown on her head with one corner pulled down on her forehead, thus concealing the upper part of the face. All the same, I succeeded in catching a glimpse of laughing pink lips and the gay shining of her white teeth as, without noticing my presence, she went on telling something, probably very amusing, in English to her companion.

For some time I hesitated. Shall I go on, or shall I go back? If I go on, shall I salute them or not? Once more I was overwhelmed by yesterday’s doubts of my plebeian soul. On the one hand I was thinking, if they are not the hosts of this place, these girls are probably guests, and in a way, I, too, am a guest, and therefore on an equal footing. But on the other hand, does Hermann Hoppe permit bowing to unknown ladies in his rules of etiquette? Won’t my bowing seem odd to these girls, or, what will be still worse, won’t they regard it as the respectfulness of an employee, of “a hired man.” Each point of view seemed to me equally dreadful.

However, after thinking it over like this, I walked on. The dark one was the first to catch the rustle of leaves under my feet and she quickly whispered something to the girl in the silk dress, indicating me with her eyes. As I came up to them, I raised my hand to the peak of my cap without looking at them, I felt, rather than saw, that they both slowly and almost imperceptibly bent their heads. They watched me as I moved away. I knew this by the sense of awkwardness and discomfort which attentive eyes fixed on my back always give me. At the very end of the alley I turned round. At the same second, as it often happens, the girl with the white handkerchief glanced in my direction. I heard some kind of exclamation in English and then a burst of sonorous laughter. I blushed. Both the exclamation and the laughter were certainly intended for me.

In the evening Falstaff came to us again, this time with some wonderful cognac, and once more he told us something incredible about his ancestors who had taken part in the Crusades. I asked him quite carelessly:

“Do you know who those two young girls are, whom I met in the garden today? One is a fresh-looking brune, and the other is almost a little girl in a light grey dress.”

He gave a broad grin, wrinkling up the whole of his face and causing his eyes to completely disappear. Then he shook his finger at me slyly:

“Ah, my son of Mars, so you’re on the fishhook! Well, well, well!⁠ ⁠… Don’t get angry. I’ll stop, I will really. But all the same, it’s interesting.⁠ ⁠… Well, I suppose I must satisfy your curiosity. The younger one is our young lady, Katerina Andreevna, the one I told you about, the heiress. You can’t call her a little girl. It’s only to look at she’s so thin, but she’s a good twenty years old.”

“Really?”

“Yes, if not more. Oh, she’s such an imp. But the little brunette, that’s the one to my taste, all eggs and cream and butter.” Falstaff smacked his lips carnivorously. “That’s the kind of little pie I love. Her name is Lydia Ivanovna⁠—such a kind, simple girl and dying to get married. She’s a distant relation of the Obolianinovs, but she’s poor, so she’s just staying here as a friend.⁠ ⁠… Oh, well, damn them all!” he wound up suddenly, waving his hand, “let’s get on with the cognac.”

Inwardly I had to agree with this last opinion. What do I care about those girls, whom I saw today, when tomorrow we may be off in different directions and may never hear of each other again?

Late in the night, after Falstaff had left us (the boy again balancing him respectfully, this time by the waist), when I was already in bed, Vassili Akinfievitch came to me, half undressed, with slippers on his bare feet and a candle in his hand.

“Well, young man,” he said, yawning and rubbing his hairy chest, “will you explain one thing to me? Here we are, fed on all sorts of delicatessen and given their best old wine to drink and a boy at our disposal, and cigars and all that sort of thing, but they won’t invite us to their own table, will they? Now why is this? Kindly solve that problem.”

Without waiting for my answer, he went on in a sarcastic tone:

“Because, my dear old chap, all these ‘Nobility’ people and all that sort of thing are most refined diplomats. Ye‑e‑es. What is their way of doing it? I made a good study of their sort on different voluntary work. I know the type. He will be amiable to you and will serve you up dinners” (justice compels me to add that the captain mispronounced the word “serve”) “and cigars, and all that sort of thing, but all the same you feel that he looks on you as on a low worm; and notice, Lieutenant, it’s only the real great ‘alistocrats’ ” (here, as if out of irony, he purposely mutilated the word) “who have this attitude towards our fellow men. The simpler sort, the more doubtful ones, swagger and put on more airs. Immediately that type will sport an eyeglass, round his lips, and imagine that he’s a bird. But as for the real sort, the first thing with them is simplicity⁠—because there’s no reason for them to put on airs when right in their own blood they feel scorn for our fellow