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

contrary it’s very healthy. You’re too kind, Mademoiselle.”

And we both start laughing in the most simple, sincere way. Honestly, what was there so terrible and shameful in my involuntary fall? Decidedly I don’t understand it.⁠ ⁠…

“No, we can’t leave it like this,” she says still laughing. “You must have your revenge. Can you row?”

“I can. Mademoiselle.”

“Well, come along. Don’t keep calling me ‘mademoiselle.’ But you don’t know my name?”

“I know it⁠—Katerina Andreevna.”

“Ah, that’s too fearfully long: ‘Ka‑te‑ri‑na’⁠—and on the top of it Andreevna. At home, everyone calls me ‘Kate.’ Call me simply ‘Kate.’ ”

I click my heels together in silent assent.

I pull the boat to the shore. Kate, leaning heavily on my outstretched arm, moves easily over the little seats to the stern. We glide slowly over the lake. The surface is so polished and motionless that it has the appearance of density. Stirred by the faint motion of the boat, little wrinkles behind the stern swim lazily away to left and right, pink under the last rays of the sun; the shore is reflected in the water upside down, but it looks prettier than in reality, with its shaggy white willows, the green of which has not yet been touched by autumn. At a little distance behind us swim a couple of swans, light as fluffs of snow, their whiteness intensified by the dark water.

“You always spend the summer in the country, Mademoiselle Kate?” I ask.

“No, last year we went to Nice, and before that to Baden-Baden. I don’t like Nice; it’s the town of the dying, a sort of cemetery. But I gambled at Monte Carlo, gambled like anything. And you? Have you been abroad?”

“Rather! I have even had adventures.”

“Really? That must be very interesting. Please tell me about them.”

“It was about two years ago in the spring. Our battalion was quartered at a tiny frontier place⁠—Goussiatine. It is generally called the Russian Goussiatine, because at the other side of a narrow little river, not more than fifty yards in breadth, there is an Austrian Goussiatine, and when I’m talking, by no means without pride, about my trip abroad, it is this very Austrian Goussiatine that I mean.

“Once, having secured the favour of the Inspector of rural police, we made up a rather large party to go over there, a party exclusively composed of officers and regimental ladies. Our guide was a local civilian doctor and he acted as our interpreter. Scarcely had we entered⁠—to express myself in the grand style⁠—alien territory, than we were surrounded by a crowd of Ruthenian ragamuffins. Apropos of this, it was a chance of testing the deep sympathy which our brother Slavs are supposed to feel for us Russians. The urchins followed us to the very doors of the restaurant without ceasing for a second to spatter us with the most choice Russian insults. Austrian Jews were standing in the street in little groups with tasselled fur caps, curls falling over their shoulders, and gaberdines beneath which one could see white stockings and slippers. As soon as we approached them they began to point at us, and in their quick guttural language, with a typical snarl at the end of each sentence, there was something menacing.

“However, we reached the restaurant at last and ordered guliash and massliash; the first is some national meat dish deluged with red pepper and the second a luscious Hungarian wine. While we were eating, a dense crowd of the inhabitants of Goussiatine trooped into the small room and stared, with genuine curiosity, at the foreign visitors. Then three people emerged from the crowd and greeted the doctor, who immediately introduced them to our ladies. After these, four more came and then about six others. Who these citizens were I have never found out but they probably occupied administrative posts. Among them there was a certain Pan Komissarj and Pan Sub-Komissarj and other Pans as well. They were all good enough to eat guliash and drink massliash with us, and they kept repeating to the ladies: ‘At your service, Pane,’ and ‘We fall at the Pane’s feet.’

“At the end Pan Komissarj invited us to stay until the evening, as a subscription ball was to take place that day. We accepted the invitation.

“All went swingingly, and our ladies were enthusiastically whirling in waltzes with their new acquaintances. It is true we were a little surprised at foreign usage: each dancer called a dance for himself and paid the musicians twenty kopecks. We got used to this custom, but we were soon bewildered by a quite unexpected incident.

“One of our party wanted some beer and he mentioned this to one of our new acquaintances⁠—a portly gentleman with a black moustache and magnificent manners; our ladies had decided about him that he must be one of the local magnates. The magnate happened to be an extremely affable man. He shouted: ‘At once, gentlemen,’ disappeared for a minute, and returned with two bottles of beer, a corkscrew, and a serviette under his arm. The two bottles were opened with such extraordinary skill that our colonel’s wife expressed her admiration. To her compliment the magnate replied with modest dignity: ‘Oh, that’s nothing for me, Madame⁠ ⁠… I have a post as waiter at this establishment.’ Naturally, after this unexpected confession, our party left the Austrian ball hurriedly, a little informally even.”

While I am telling this anecdote Kate laughs sonorously. Our boat doubles round the little island and comes out into a narrow canal over which trees, bending low on each side, form a cool, shadowy arch. Here one catches the sharp smell of marsh; the water looks black as ink and seems to boil under the oars.

“Oh, how nice!” Kate exclaims with a little shiver.

As our conversation is threatening to dry up, I enquire:

“You find it rather dull in the country, don’t you?”

“Very dull,” Kate answers, and after a short silence, she adds negligently, with a quick, coquettish glance: “Up to now, at all events. In the summer my friend was staying here⁠—I think you saw