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

as plain as day. It was necessary to make them sit apart, and for that very reason⁠—” here the student resorted to patter, “I had recourse, cher maître, to your enlightened cooperation. And I must say that you carried out my idea with full correctness. Allow me to present you with your share.”

“Oh, but why so much?”

“A mere nothing. You shall do still another good turn for me.”

“I am listening.”

“Do you remember perfectly the face of the justice’s wife?”

“Yes.”

“Then you will go to her and say: ‘Your money was won purely through chance.’ You may even tell her that I am a sharper. Yes⁠—but that it is in such a lofty, Byronian manner, you know. She will bite. She will get her money in Saratov, at the Hotel Moscow, tonight, at six, from Drzhevetzky, the student. Room number one.”

“So I am to be a go-between⁠—is that it?” asked Balunsky.

“Why put it so unpleasantly? Isn’t ‘One good turn deserves another’ better?”

Balunsky got up, stood shifting on the same spot from one foot to the other, and took off his hat. Finally he said, hesitatingly:

“I’ll do it. After all, it’s a trifle. But, perhaps you will need me as an operative?”

“No,” answered the student. “To act collectively is the old style. I work alone.”

“Alone? Always alone?”

“Of course. Whom could I trust?” retorted the student with a calm bitterness. “If I am sure of your comradely rectitude⁠—an honor among thieves, you understand⁠—I am not at all sure of the steadiness of your nerves. Another may be brave, and without covetousness, and be a faithful friend, but⁠ ⁠… only until the first silken petticoat happens to make a swine, a dog, and a traitor of him. And what of blackmailings? What of extortions? What of importunities in old age, in incapacitation?⁠ ⁠… Eh, what’s the use!”

“I am amazed at you,” said Balunsky quietly. “You are the new generation. You have neither timidity, nor pity, nor imagination⁠ ⁠… You have a certain contempt for everything. Is it possible that all your secret consists of just that and nothing more?”

“Just that. But in a great concentration of the will as well. You may believe me or not⁠—it is all one to me⁠—but ten times today, by an effort of my will, have I compelled the colonel to stake small sums, when it was to his interests to have staked large ones. It doesn’t come easy to me.⁠ ⁠… I have a monstrous headache right now. And besides⁠ ⁠… besides, I don’t know, I can’t imagine, what it means to get a beating or to go to pieces from confusion. Organically, I am devoid of shame or fear, and that isn’t at all as joyous a thing as it may seem at first glance. True, I constantly carry a revolver about me⁠—but then, you must believe me when I tell you that at a critical moment I shall not forget about it. However⁠ ⁠…” the student simulated a yawn and extended his hand to Balunsky with a weary gesture. “However, au revoir, general. I can see your eyes closing.⁠ ⁠…”

“My best wishes,” said the old sharper respectfully, bowing his gray head.

Balunsky went off to bed. The student, hunched up, with weary, sad eyes for a long while regarded the waves that reflected the light like fish-scales. Late at night Kostretzova came out on deck. But he did not as much as turn in her direction.

The Old City of Marseilles I

At the time that the new city, together with its splendid street of Cannobierre, is, about eleven o’clock at night, plunging into deep, bourgeois slumber⁠—at that time the old city comes to life.

The old city is a capricious, odd network of crooked, narrow little streets, through which it would be impossible even for a one horse cab to drive. What inconceivable stench, filth and darkness reign in this involved cloaka! All sorts of domestic refuse, swill, greens, oyster-shells⁠—everything is dumped on the street, or simply thrown out of the window. And it is not at all a rare sight to see in the street some swarthy lad or girl of six or seven paying the debt to nature in one of those poses that Teniers, Van Braouveur, and Teniers the Younger (Teneers) used to depict with such naive art on their canvases. There are in the old city such bylanes, narrow, dark even in the daytime, that one has to run through them, stopping one’s nose with the fingers and holding the breath.

And so, when night comes on, the old city comes to life. Nearer the central streets it is still somewhat respectable; but, as the port draws nearer, as the streets sink down⁠—the old city becomes gayer and more unrestrained. To the right and left there is nothing but little taverns, gayly illuminated from within. There are sounds of music from everywhere. Sailors and cabin-boys, in fives and sixes, walk along the streets, holding one another around waists and necks⁠—French, Italian, Greek, English, Russian.⁠ ⁠… The bars are crowded to overflowing.⁠ ⁠… Tobacco smoke; absinthe; and cursing in all the tongues of the terrestrial globe.⁠ ⁠…

Of course, both Baedekers and people in the know will warn you that it is dangerous to go into the port even in the daytime. For that reason, quite naturally, we set out for it at night; and once more, for the hundreth time, I reiterate that all Baedekers lie; and that the most charming, peaceful and simple of folks are sailors, a trifle under the weather. We enter a low-ceiled, stuffy tavern and modestly ask for some lemonade and ice⁠—the nights are sultry now, and we are afflicted by thirst, and there is no better remedy in the world for quenching it. Immediately two crudely daubed young damsels sit down near me and my comrade, and, under the table, each lays her leg upon that of her neighbor. This is a special coquetry of the sea. They demand various drinks from us. We willingly submit⁠—for, surely, the bon ton