Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

to her head to fasten the knot of the kerchief, which covered her greasy hair, and took up an attitude, leaning against the oven-fork and waiting for the salute of the trim old woman. Tíkhonovna made her last low obeisance to God, and turned around and saluted in three directions.

“God aid you, good day!” she said.

“You are welcome, aunty!” said the tailor.

“Thank you, granny, take off your wallet! Sit down here,” said the cook, pointing to a bench where sat the shaggy-haired man. “Move a little, can’t you? Are you stuck fast?”

The shaggy man, scowling more angrily still, rose, moved away, and, continuing to chew, riveted his eyes on the old woman. The young coachman made a bow and, stopping his playing, began to tighten the strings of his balalaika, looking now at the old woman, and now at the tailor, not knowing how to treat the old woman⁠—whether respectfully, as he thought she ought to be treated, because the old woman wore the same kind of attire that his grandmother and mother wore at home (he had been taken from the village to be an outrider), or making fun of her, as he wished to do and as seemed to him to accord with his present condition, his blue coat and his boots. The tailor winked with one eye and seemed to smile, drawing the silk to one side of his mouth, and looked on. Marína started to put in another pot, but, even though she was busy working, she kept looking at the old woman, while she briskly and nimbly took off her wallet and, trying not to disturb anyone, put it under the bench. Nástka ran up to her and helped her, by taking away the boots, which were lying in her way under the bench.

“Uncle Pankrát,” she turned to the gloomy man, “I will put the boots here. Is it all right?”

“The devil take them! Throw them into the oven, if you wish,” said the gloomy man, throwing them into another corner.

“Nástka, you are a clever girl,” said the tailor. “A pilgrim has to be made comfortable.”

“Christ save you, girl! That is nice,” said Tíkhonovna. “I am afraid I have put you out, dear man,” she said, turning to Pankrát.

“All right,” said Pankrát.

Tíkhonovna sat down on the bench, having taken off her coat and carefully folded it, and began to take off her footgear. At first she untied the laces, which she had taken special care in twisting smooth for her pilgrimage; then she carefully unwrapped the white lambskin leg-rags and, carefully rubbing them soft, placed them on her wallet. Just as she was working on her other foot, another of awkward Marína’s pots got caught and spilled over, and she again started to scold somebody, catching the pot with the fork.

“The hearth is evidently burned out, grandfather. It ought to be plastered,” said Tíkhonovna.

“When are you going to plaster it? The chimney never cools off: twice a day you have to bake bread; one set is taken out, and the other is started.”

In response to Marína’s complaint about the bread-baking and the burnt-out hearth, the tailor defended the ways of the Chernýshev house and said that they had suddenly arrived in Moscow, that the hut was built and the oven put up in three weeks, and that there were nearly one hundred servants who had to be fed.

“Of course, lots of cares. A large establishment,” Tíkhonovna confirmed him.

“Whence does God bring you?” the tailor turned to her.

And Tíkhonovna, continuing to take off her footgear, at once told him where she came from, whither she had gone, and how she was going home. She did not say anything about the petition. The conversation never broke off. The tailor found out everything about the old woman, and the old woman heard all about awkward, pretty Marína. She learned that Marína’s husband was a soldier, and she was made a cook; that the tailor was making caftans for the driving coachmen; that the stewardess’s errand girl was an orphan, and that shaggy-haired, gloomy Pankrát was a servant of the clerk, Iván Vasílevich.

Pankrát left the room, slamming the door. The tailor told her that he was a gruff peasant, but that on that day he was particularly rude because the day before he had smashed the clerk’s knickknacks on the window, and that he was going to be flogged today in the stable. As soon as Iván Vasílevich should come, he would be flogged. The little coachman was a peasant lad, who had been made an outrider, and now that he was grown he had nothing to do but attend to the horses, and strum the balalaika. But he was not much of a hand at it.

Adaptations and Imitations of Hindu Fables The Snake’s Head and Tail

The Snake’s Tail had a quarrel with the Snake’s Head about who was to walk in front. The Head said:

“You cannot walk in front, because you have no eyes and no ears.”

The Tail said:

“Yes, but I have strength, I move you; if I want to, I can wind myself around a tree, and you cannot get off the spot.”

The Head said:

“Let us separate!”

And the Tail tore himself loose from the Head, and crept on; but the moment he got away from the Head, he fell into a hole and was lost.

Fine Thread

A Man ordered some fine thread from a Spinner. The Spinner spun it for him, but the Man said that the thread was not good, and that he wanted the finest thread he could get. The Spinner said:

“If this is not fine enough, take this!” and she pointed to an empty space.

He said that he did not see any. The Spinner said:

“You do not see it, because it is so fine. I do not see it myself.”

The Fool was glad, and ordered some more thread of this kind, and paid her for what he got.

The Partition of the Inheritance

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