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

second commissar, a former actor, waved his hands in alarm.

“What’s that, dovie, what’s that? That’s not a nice way to joke, daddy. I’m a nervous woman. No, sweetie, no; you won’t cause any unpleasantness like that, I hope.”

“All the same, I may up and do it! What kind of life is mine? The most insignificant! I’m like a decoy rabbit, I might say. There was lots of hunting near us here, around Gatchino, in the old days. Gentlemen from Petersburg used to come down, and in the course of time killed off all the game. Finally there was just one rabbit left. Old and experienced. Probably about five pounds of No. 3 rabbit shot had lodged in him, and he was still hopping around. He was a kind of lucky rabbit. So the hunters at last made an agreement: They would not kill this rabbit, but shoot past him. To keep their aim good, you see, and for excitement.

“They used to come down on Sundays, wander around in the bushes and pepper away all day long at this rabbit. And he, you know, would hop around among them, all over the field. He got so bold, the rascal, and was so clever, that sometimes he would sit up on his hind legs, in front of a marksman, and rub his mug with his forepaws. And the hunter at ten paces, blazing away at him, shell after shell.”

“What’s the idea⁠—telling us this yarn?”

“The point is that my life, in a way, is like that rabbit’s. I can’t complain. I live well enough; nobody picks on me. All the same it’s hard. Every time there’s some revolutionary holiday⁠—in July or in October, for instance, or the birthday of Karl Radek or Steklov’s saint’s day⁠—down here to Zagvozdka is sure to come a swarm of people. Not only from Petersburg⁠—they come all the way from Moscow. They overrun all the streets. You can’t get through in a cart or on foot. All day and all night they mill around under my windows and howl: ‘Death to the bourgeoisie! Long live the dictatorship of the proletariat!’ They make speeches from my front steps. Always the same thing.⁠ ⁠… It gets dull! Or they start shooting revolvers. Fire away all night. So that your head swells with the racket. Of course I know they’re firing in the air. But all the same, the day the writer Yasinsky was married, they drilled a hole in a pane in the attic.”

“Show us the son-of-a-gun! We’ll drill holes in him!”

“Oh, never mind him⁠—the blockhead! He’s not worth bothering about. But, take it all in all, I’m fed up, comrades, with this business of being a bourgeois. I don’t want any more of it. I can’t stand it and don’t want to. Take me into some Soviet post. I beg you respectfully⁠—most respectfully I beseech you. Even in a Terrorist Tribunal⁠—anything⁠ ⁠…”

“Why, what do you mean, buddy⁠—Terrorist Tribunal? There’s no work in them, old pal, at all. They play marbles all day and read Nat Pinkerton, and only practice on wooden mannikins just to keep their hand in the game, so to speak. No, you stick it out, angel-face; you stay, as you always have, in the bourgeoisie. Don’t we take good care of you? Don’t we cherish you? Would you like to have us look you up a house that would be more cozy? In Petersburg, in Strielna⁠—you can even live in red Piter! If you like, old cherub, you can even have a maidservant⁠ ⁠…”

“No, no; what’s the use?” muttered Rybkin morosely.

“An auto‑mo‑mo‑bi‑i‑ile?”

“Don’t want one.”

“Perhaps, handsome, you’re not satisfied with your food ration?”

“I’ve got no kick. The grub’s all right. A couple of days ago they sent a turkey, a pound of caviar, a ham, three bottles of red wine⁠ ⁠… That’s not the point. I’m not happy inside⁠ ⁠… I’ve got the blues.”

“Well now, comrade, how about marrying? Offspring, you know? Eh?”

“Right you are, boy! That’s the idea! Would you like to have us fix you up a wedding? Don’t worry⁠—no Soviet stuff. Old style⁠—a church wedding! We’ll write for a priest from abroad⁠—a regular one. We’ll give him safe conduct here and back. How about it, life of my heart? Hey? One wink and we’ll put it through. You won’t have time to look around. Well, of course, not without a little hostile demonstration. We’ll have to kick up a little roughhouse, hold a couple of rallies. But aren’t you used to that sort of thing, sweetie?”

Rybkin turned away to the window and wearily waved his hand.

“Drop it! Chuck it! It bores me to tears. I’m fed up, I tell you. Let me alone. What do you want me for, anyway?”

The commissars, probably for the hundredth time, began to explain to him the importance of his services in the perpetual revolution. First, it was essential to the proletarian masses to have a living object against which to vent periodically the holy wrath of the people. Second, there was the class war, in which the people win their rights⁠ ⁠… Where were they to find a hostile class if the last bourgeois ran away or surrendered, and there was no one to fight? Finally, what would the comrades in other countries say of Russia? What would the foreign correspondents think? No, Comrade Rybkin must stay at his glorious post⁠—not destroy the work of the revolution⁠ ⁠… The actor talked so persuasively that a tear even ran down his fat shaven cheek.

Stepan Nilitch apathetically rubbed his forehead with his palm, nodded his head and said:

“All right. Don’t cry! You make me feel sorry. I’ll serve a year more, and then see. It was just that⁠ ⁠… well, I was a little off color today. I was sitting here alone and thinking⁠ ⁠… here, I thought, people used to have Christmas trees⁠ ⁠… there were the children⁠ ⁠… lots of candles⁠ ⁠… gold tinsel glittering⁠ ⁠… strings of glistening Christmas balls swinging⁠ ⁠… the smell of evergreen⁠ ⁠… and I got to feeling so down in the mouth. Well, never mind; I’ll get over