Short Fiction, Vsevolod Garshin [howl and other poems .txt] 📗

not understand, because you do not believe that virtue and justice exist nowadays. You would prefer the unhappiness of three persons to the misery of one. You do not believe me, intelligent reader? Then don’t!

The wedding took place two days ago, and I was best man. I performed my duties at the ceremony with dignity, and gave to another what I most prize in this world. Masha from time to time glanced timidly at me, and her husband regarded me with a perplexed air of bewilderment. The wedding was a merry one. Champagne flowed, her German relatives cried “Hoch!” and called me “der Russische Held.” Masha and her husband were Lutherans.

“Aha!” exclaims the intelligent reader; “see how you have betrayed yourself, sir hero! Why must you make use of the Lutheran religion? Simply because there are no orthodox marriages in December! That is the whole reason and explanation, and the whole narrative is pure invention.”

Think what you like, dear reader. It is a matter of absolute indifference to me. But were you to come with me on these December nights along the Palace Quay, and listen to the storm and chimes, and the tap of my wooden leg on the pavement; if you could feel what effect these winter nights have on me; if you could believe⁠—

“Dingdong, dingdong!” The chimes are sounding four o’clock. It is time to go home, and throw myself on to my lonely bed and sleep.

“Au revoir,” reader!

The Meeting

A broad, trembling silvery band of moonlight stretched away for tens of versts. The remaining expanse of the sea was black, and the regular dull noise of the waves as they broke and rolled along the sandy shore reached the person standing on the cliff high above. Even more black than the sea itself were the gently rocking silhouettes of the vessels in the roadstead. One huge steamer (“Probably English,” reflected Vassili Petrovich), within this bright strip of moonlight, was noisily blowing off steam in a series of small clouds, which dissolved as they lightly rose into the air. A moist, brine-laden breeze was coming from the sea. Vassili Petrovich, who had seen nothing of this kind previously, gazed rapturously at the sea, the moonlit strip, the steamers and sailing vessels, and, for the first time in his life, with a feeling of pleasure inhaled the sea air. He long gave himself up to the delights of this new sensation, turning his back on the town to which he had only this day come, and in which he was to spend many, many years. Behind him a heterogeneous crowd were promenading along the boulevard, whence could be heard scraps of Russian and other languages, the decorous, subdued conversation of local dignitaries mingling with the chatter of young girls, and the loud, merry voices of grownup schoolboys, as they strolled past together in knots of twos and threes. A burst of laughter from one of these groups made Vassili Petrovich turn round. As it passed him, one of the youths was saying something to a young girl, whilst his comrades noisily interrupted his passionate and apparently apologetic speech.

“Don’t believe him, Nina Petrovna! It is all lies! He is making it up!”

“But truly, Nina Petrovna, I am not in the least to blame.”

“If you, Shevyreft, ever again dream of deceiving me⁠ ⁠…” said the girl stiffly, in a quiet young voice.

Vassili Petrovich lost the rest of the sentence as the speakers passed out of hearing. But a second later a further burst of laughter resounded in the darkness.

“This is the field of my future labours, in which, as the ‘modest ploughman, I shall work,’ ” mused Vassili Petrovich, first because he had been appointed teacher in the local gymnasium, and secondly, because he was fond of figurative forms of thought, even when not expressed aloud.

“Yes, I must perforce toil in this modest field,” he reflected, sitting down on a bench with his face to the sea. “Where are the dreams of a professorship, of being a publicist, of a great name? You haven’t it in you, friend Vassili Petrovich, to carry out all these fine plans. We’ll try work here.”

And beautiful and pleasant thoughts passed through the brain of the new schoolteacher. He thought of how he would discover the “spark divine” in the boys. How he would help those natures “striving to divest themselves of the chains of darkness.” How, finally, his pupils in due course would become men of note.⁠ ⁠… In his imagination he even pictured himself, Vassili Petrovich, sitting, an old, grey-haired teacher, in his modest lodging, and being visited by his former scholars⁠—one a professor of such and such a University, a man of renown in Russia and in Europe; another, an author, a well-known novelist; a third, a statesman also famous⁠—all of them treating him with respect. “It is the good seed sown by you, dear sir, when I was a boy, that has made me the man I am,” the statesman would say to Vassili Petrovich, warmly pressing the hand of his old tutor.

However, Vassili Petrovich did not long occupy himself with such exalted reflections. His thoughts soon turned to matters directly concerning his present situation. He drew a new pocketbook from his pocket, and counting over his money, commenced to calculate as to how much would remain after payment of all necessary expenses. “What a pity I was so extravagant en route!” thought he. “Lodgings⁠ ⁠… we’ll say twenty roubles a month, board, washing, tea, tobacco.⁠ ⁠… I shall save a thousand roubles in six months, anyhow. I am sure to be able to get lessons here at four, or even five, roubles each.⁠ ⁠…” A feeling of satisfaction took him, and he became possessed of a desire to feel in his pocket where two letters of recommendation to local “bigwigs” lay, and for the twentieth time to read their addresses. He pulled out the letters, carefully unfolded the paper in which they were wrapped, but was unable to