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

The Commissars hastily glanced around at each other and rose to take their leave. It was as if the same idea had struck the minds of both at once. In the hall they warmly pressed the hand of their host. Outside, in the street, in the light blue snowy twilight, stood the dark purple spruce trees.

Having escorted his guests to the door, Stepan Nilitch went out, as was his custom, to the spot where the church used to be. He stood there some twenty minutes. He tried to recall the Christmas hymns, but could not. Memory was rusted. Then he went to see his friend, the communal shoemaker, and spent an hour and a half with him. He glanced at several pamphlets scattered on the windowsill, but found the familiar, repulsive phrases about the destruction of the bourgeois order, and threw them aside. Both men wanted to talk of old times; but on the other side of the wall lived a member of the Terrorist Tribunal who, unfortunately, was at home.

As Rybkin approached his own house, he was surprised by an unwonted bright light pouring out of the windows onto the snow in the garden and the bare black trees. Full of amazement, he entered the parlor. In the middle of the room stood a little Christmas tree, all sparkling with bright lights. Gold and silver ornaments glistened merrily on it. Swaying gently from the branches hung miniature guillotines, exquisite tiny models of gallows, axes and blocks, scythes and hammers, and other toys and emblems of the revolution. One candle had slightly singed a spruce twig, and a sweet aroma of balsam smoke filled the room.

“In the class war shall you win your rights!” lisped Rybkin and burst into tears.

I must again repeat, kind and respected readers: believe not the Baedekers, nor even the writers. They will tell you that “Monte Carlo is an earthly paradise; there, in luxuriant gardens, the feathery fronds of the palms rustle softly, and lemon and orange trees are in bloom, while exotic fishes plash in magnificent pools.” They will tell you of the glorious castle, builded with kingly extravagance by the best architects in the world; adorned by the most talented sculptors, and decorated by the foremost masters of the brush.

In reality, there is nothing of all this. A small, squat building; in color, something like pistachio, or thin café au lait, or else couleur de caca Dauphin; fat-buttocked Venuses, with lubriciously smiling eyes, and bloated cupidons, have been scattered over ceiling and walls by house-painters; the bronzes are imitations; there are busts of great writers, who had never in their lives seen Monte Carlo⁠—or have never had anything to do with it, it seems.⁠ ⁠…

For Monte Carlo is, after all, nothing but a dive, erected by the enterprising, talented Blan, upon a bare and barren rock.

This doubtlessly clever man, whose will, it is to be regretted, was of an evil bent⁠—a man who, with his never-betraying luck, might have been a train sneak thief, or a blackmailer, or a minister of state, or a restaurateur, or an insurance agent, or editor of a gigantic newspaper, or keeper of a house of ill fame, and so on, and so on⁠—once decided to exploit human folly and greed. Nor did he err. This beggar, this tatterdemallion⁠—a man of a dark past, a knight of the dark star⁠—died lamented of all the inhabitants of the principality of Monaco, and had succeeded not only in marrying his daughters to princes of the blood royal, but even in providing for all time for his benefactor, Grimaldi; setting him up with an artillery of two cannons, an infantry amounting to twenty officers and five men, and a cavalry, in the shape of a blockhead, who, embroidered all over with gold, sits on his horse and yawns from ennui, not knowing how to kill the useless time.

However, Blan had foresight enough to forbid entry to his gambling hall to all Monegascs (the inhabitants of Monaco), including even Grimaldi in that category.

The following anecdote (I apologize if it has seen print before) bears witness to the will and training of the man: Some Spanish grandee or other arrived at Monte Carlo, and was favored by a madman’s luck. In two or three days he had won some two or three million francs, and bore them home with him, to his Seville, to his bullocks and oranges. But after two years he again felt the urge of gambling, and he returned to Blan in Monte Carlo. Blan met him very amiably and courteously, and even seemed glad to see him.

“How happy I am to see you, Count! Only⁠—I warn you: do not play. Luck does not come to a man twice. And⁠—believe me sincere⁠—I would advise you against even entering the gambling hall.”

“Why? Do you really think my self-possession would not suffice? Or that the game will carry me away?”

“Oh, of course not, Count. I do not doubt you. All my banks are open to you. Still, I entreat you earnestly⁠—do not play. Again and again I reiterate to you, that luck is treacherous. At least, promise me that you will not lose over twenty francs?”

“Drop the subject. Please do not hinder me. I will show you right now that the gambling fever hasn’t the least power over me!!”

It ended inevitably in the Spanish count’s losing the three million he had previously won; mortgaging at his bank, by telegraph, his lands and orange groves; but he no longer could get away from Monte Carlo. He fell down on his knees before Blan, and kissed his hands, imploring him with tears for a few hundred francs to enable him to return to his family, to the glorious climate of Spain, to his black bullocks with tiny white stars on their foreheads, to his orange groves and his toreadors. But the calm Blan answered him dryly and coldly:

“No, Count. Two years ago you ruined me. It was