Short Fiction, Ivan Bunin [reading women .TXT] 📗

father imitated, the way of the merchants; and was it not a matter for the highest pride to feel one’s self a merchant’s son? At times his father would even boast about him, self-complacently saying to the guest: “Wait, I’ll show youse my son!”⁠—and would shout all over the house: “Shash, c’mon over here⁠—Mikolai Mikhalich wants to have a look at ye!” But, oh, the way Shasha would enter the room where his father and the guest were sitting! He would enter with his face crimsoning, glowering from underneath his beetling and knit eyebrows, holding his arms stiffly akimbo, like a pretzel, and stepping still more stiffly, toeing in, and as elegantly as if he were dancing the fifth figure of the quadrille⁠—and, having made a scraping bow to the guest, he would instantly rush backward to the window, toward the lintel of the door; blowing out his nostrils, he would tear his hangnails with his teeth, and, in the expectation of an affront from the visitor, answered all questions with the most ludicrous brevity and abruptness.⁠ ⁠… How, then, could one refrain from beating him? The guest would depart; Roman, having seen him off, would walk up to Shasha without a word, and, swinging back his arm, would grab Shasha fast by his hair. Without a word, Shasha would extricate his head out of his father’s fingers, and, having run out into the anteroom, would smite his bosom with his fist:

“All r-r-right, father! I say nothing! I always say nothing!” he would hiss ominously.

“Why, she-animal that you are!” Roman would bawl at him. “Why, it’s for this same silence and hoiti-toitiness that I’m a-beating you of! So, then, you’re striving for the beating yourself? Why? Wherefore?”

“My ashes when I’m laid in my grave shall know it all!” Shasha would answer ferociously and enigmatically.

One could have wagered his head that he must have been in an excellent state of feelings. Had he not been born with a golden spoon in his mouth? He would order new boots two or three times in a year; he never ran short of money or of polly-seeds; he would promenade the main street with the teacher, and he played on the harmonica better and more spiritedly than everybody else; the wenches used to sing their “heartbreaking” songs without taking their languishing eyes off him. While in the fall, in the winter, he would pay court at evening parties to the coquettish daughters of the priest, to the daughters of the police inspector, dancing with them to the sounds of a talking machine; he was usher at weddings, donning a frock-coat, starched shirt, and new, tight shoes. But then, even his courting was somehow caustic, offhand. But what’s the use! Even when all by himself, looking in the mirror as he whipped up his browny fleece with a metallic comb, he would squint at himself like some monster. His nose was squashed, his voice hoarse, his appearance that of a convict⁠—the muzhiks used to call him a hangman.⁠ ⁠… No great honour, that, you would think. But no⁠—he took a delight even in that. “The low-down devil!” the muzhiks would say. “Nothing ever pleases him; everything ain’t his way, everything ain’t right!” And he, with all his might, tried to justify these bynames. “Who? Is it Shasha you mean by low-down?” Roman would ask with indignation. “Why, you can pave a pavement with blocks the likes of him! He’s a fool, a play-actor, a born loafer⁠—and that’s all there is to it! What’s he putting on airs for? What the devil is he after?” But Shasha just looked on with a venomous smile, and never let a word out. “Well, now, just take a look at him⁠—do!” Roman was saying. “Just look what he’s trying to make out of himself!” But Shasha only knit his eyebrows, making them turn up higher and higher; more and more rapidly did he bite his nails, and by now was convinced even himself that something dreadful, was coming to a head within him. “Oh, father!” he would say, as though unable to hold out. “Oh, but I would like to tell you a certain thing!” Roman, despondent, with sagging pouches under his eyes, would smile like a martyr: “Well, what sort of a thing is it? Eh? Well, now, say it?” “Who, me?” Shasha would ask, throwing a glance at him from underneath his eyebrows. “Yes, you!” “My ashes when I’m laid in my grave shall know it all!” “But what is it that they’ll know? Are you drunk, you good-for-nought?” “Drunk!” Shasha would answer. “Drunk? I say nothing. I always say nothing!” And, almost weeping, Roman would again advance upon him, like a bear; would again catch him by the head, and, bending it down, would drag him by the hair in an excruciating transport.

From his twentieth year to his twenty-fifth, Shasha was almost never beaten⁠—unless it were sort of casually, of course. But he made up for this with something else. He sought other occasions for self-torture⁠—and of occasions there were as many as he wanted. He married⁠—and it was a splendid match⁠—the daughter of the manager of a great estate which belonged to a nobleman; his bride was a laughing, freckled girl, rather pretty. His marriage was celebrated magnificently. The owners of the estate resided abroad; therefore Shasha was able to go to the wedding ceremony in their carriage, and the priest, out of respect to this carriage, felicitated him upon his lawful marriage with especial eloquence and servility, although it did seem to Shasha that he was being made fun of. The wedding feast, too, was held in the owners’ house. Wine flowed like a river. Roman, amid the general clamour of delight, started in to dance, shaking the parquetry, the mirrors and the chandeliers. The owners’ flunky gave an excellent imitation of a railroad train: he began with a rumbling whistle through his fingers, then started in beating out, with his feet, the slow and heavy