Short Fiction, Vladimir Korolenko [finding audrey TXT] 📗

commenced to go. I was really interested and the evening led me to be frank.⁠ ⁠… Why not say, I thought, that there’s a cloud on my soul.⁠ ⁠…

“Yes, Semen Nikolayevich,⁠ ⁠…” I said⁠ ⁠… “I look at the sky and think.⁠ ⁠…

“He nodded and commenced:

“ ‘That tortured me, too⁠ ⁠… and I suffered.⁠ ⁠… And like you, I saw no solution. But the solution is so plain.⁠ ⁠…’

“He pointed toward the church, a white spot showing through the trees.

“ ‘We, intelligent people,’ ” he said, “ ‘are frightened, so to speak, by the beaten path, banality. But⁠—we must drop our pride and fuse⁠ ⁠… or as Tolstoy once said⁠—partake of the common cup, search with the humble faith of humanity⁠ ⁠… cease examining the foundations of life.⁠ ⁠… Like Antaeus, so to speak, we must touch our common mother.⁠ ⁠…’

“He spoke rather nicely. His voice was so sleepy and murmured like the bass in the episcopal choir. I’ll tell you the truth: I felt envious.⁠ ⁠… Really you could feel the quiet and blessing.⁠ ⁠… As M. Budnikov said, it was worth while to fuse, and all these searchings of the heart are healed as by the holy oil. Suddenly I found the lost meaning. I asked myself: what’s the use of these books? Why all these notes, all this quiet life?⁠ ⁠… Why is this bootmaker solemn and satisfied? Mikhailo looks for no special meaning, but he floats along with the general current of life, that is, he agrees with its general significance and meaning. People go maybe once a week into this little white building which looks out so attractive through the trees; they spend a little time in communion with some mystery⁠—and see, for a week they are supplied with the idea of meaning.⁠ ⁠… And many live a harder life than I do.⁠ ⁠…

“There’s M. Budnikov.⁠ ⁠… Had he really found this for himself and solved his troubles? I almost asked, but our priest went by just then. M. Budnikov bowed and he returned it pleasantly. And he looked at me with questioning kindness.⁠ ⁠… Budnikov has been converted and may bring back another wanderer. I answered the bow rather warmly and gratefully, and again felt like asking M. Budnikov, but another person of an entirely different character put in an appearance.⁠ ⁠…”

VI

Pavel Semenovich thought for a moment and then asked Petr Petrovich:

“Did Rogov ever study with you?”

“Rogov⁠ ⁠… I don’t remember⁠ ⁠… I’ve had so many.⁠ ⁠…”

“He was remarkable and our council often discussed him.⁠ ⁠… His fate was peculiar.⁠ ⁠… You see, the boy’s father was a rascal of the old school, a slanderer, drunkard and a quarrelsome fellow, and as much bothered by modern times as a wolf is by hunters. He came too late. Rough manners unfitted for the present times. He spent his last days in trouble, poverty, and drunkenness. He always thought that fate did not treat him fairly; people got along well, but he, as he thought⁠—a model of activity⁠—was dirty, hungry and oppressed.⁠ ⁠… And imagine⁠—this man had a family⁠ ⁠… a wife and son.⁠ ⁠…

“The wife was irresponsible; her whole being had been crushed in the full sense of the word, except one corner of her soul. When anything concerned her son, a door seemed to open into her completely stupefied soul, which was like a citadel uncaptured in the midst of a fallen city, and so much wifely heroism came out through this gate that at times the old ruffian and drunkard put his tail between his legs. God knows what this cost her, but she succeeded just the same in giving her son an education. When I went to teach in Tikhodol, I found this fellow in the last class. He was a bashful, apparently modest boy and behaved quietly; but his eyes had such an expression, strange, restrained; I confess it made you uneasy: a curious fire, like the flame of a restless, internal conflagration. His thin, drawn face was always pale and a crop of brown hair fell over his rough forehead. He learned easily, made few friends among his schoolmates, seemed to hate his father and loved his mother almost abnormally.

“Now⁠ ⁠… excuse me.⁠ ⁠… I must say a few words about myself. Otherwise you won’t understand a lot of what’s coming.⁠ ⁠… I’d only been teaching a very few years and had the usual idea.⁠ ⁠… I looked at my calling as noble, so to speak, from the ideal point of view. My companions seemed a holy regiment, yes⁠ ⁠… the gymnasium almost a temple.⁠ ⁠… You know, young people feel that way and value it highly.⁠ ⁠… You run to this light with every trouble and every question.⁠ ⁠… It’s the living soul of our business.⁠ ⁠… What shall I say, when he comes to you, a fellow with his young soul under his uniform with all its buttons sewed on.⁠ ⁠… I, the teacher, need him with his questions and errors.⁠ ⁠… And he needs me to search and study.⁠ ⁠… Honestly you want to guide them.⁠ ⁠…”

The narrator paused and continued in a low voice:

“That’s the way it was with me.⁠ ⁠… I got intimate with several boys from my classes, among them Rogov.⁠ ⁠… Gave them books, and they visited me. You understand, over a samovar, simply, heart to heart. I remember this as the finest time of my life.⁠ ⁠… Every time you open a new journal, you find conversation, discussion, argument. I listened, without interfering at first, to the way they wandered and argued, and then I explained⁠—carefully but pleasantly. You see, you get one thought and then another, and again it comes so sharp that it scratches you.⁠ ⁠… And you feel how you need to restrain yourself and think and study. And you grow with them.⁠ ⁠… And live.⁠ ⁠…

“It didn’t last long. One day my director called me in for a confidential conversation.⁠ ⁠… Well, you know the rest.⁠ ⁠… This ‘extracurricular’ influence of the leaders of youth does not enjoy protection. Journals already!⁠ ⁠… The director, you know him⁠—Nikolay Platonovich Popov⁠—is a fastidious man.⁠ ⁠… He merely hinted and afterwards acted as if he really knew nothing.⁠ ⁠… I almost got angry; at first I even refused to obey, and appealed to