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

a store cupboard for you. If you’re tired, sit down a while. Nobody will turn you out. You know what the proverb says: ‘You can come and sit by our gate, and listen to the noise of a feasting; but we are clever enough to come to you for a dinner.’ That’s how it is.”

These turns of speech immediately convinced me that the old woman really was a stranger in those parts. The people there have no love for the expressive speech, adorned with curious words, which a Russian of the north so readily displays. Meanwhile the old woman continued her work mechanically, mumbling under her nose, quicker and more indistinctly all the while. I could catch only separate disconnected words. “There now, Granny Manuilikha.⁠ ⁠… And who he is nobody knows.⁠ ⁠… My years are not a few.⁠ ⁠… He fidgets his feet, chatters and gossips⁠—just like a magpie.⁠ ⁠…”

I listened for some time, and the sudden thought that I was with a mad woman aroused in me a feeling of revolting fear.

However, I had time to catch a glimpse of everything round me. A huge blistered stove occupied the greater part of the hut. There was no icon in the place of honour. On the walls, instead of the customary huntsmen with green moustaches and violet-coloured dogs, and unknown generals, hung bunches of dried herbs, bundles of withered stalks and kitchen utensils. I saw neither owl nor black cat; instead, two speckled fat starlings glanced at me from the stove with a surprised, suspicious air.

“Can’t I even have something to drink, granny?” I asked, raising my voice.

“It’s there, in the tub,” the old woman nodded.

The water tasted brackish, of the marsh. Thanking the old woman, though she paid me not the least attention, I asked her how I could get back to the road.

She suddenly lifted up her head, stared at me with her cold birdlike eyes, and murmured hurriedly:

“Go, go⁠ ⁠… young man, go away. You have nothing to do here. There’s a time for guests and a time for none.⁠ ⁠… Go, my dear sir, go.”

So nothing was left to me but to go. But there flashed into my mind a last resource to soften the sternness of the old woman, if only a little. I took out of my pocket a new silver sixpence and held it out to Manuilikha. I was not mistaken; at the sight of the money the old woman began to stir, her eyes widened, and she stretched out her crooked, knotted, trembling fingers for the coin.

“Oh no, Granny Manuilikha, I shan’t give it to you for nothing,” I teased, hiding the coin. “Tell me my fortune.”

The brown wrinkled face of the witch changed to a discontented grimace. She hesitated and looked irresolutely at my hand that closed over the coin. Her greed prevailed.

“Very well then, come on,” she mumbled, getting up from the floor with difficulty. “I don’t tell anybody’s fortune nowadays, my dear.⁠ ⁠… I have forgotten.⁠ ⁠… I am old, my eyes don’t see. But I’ll do it for you.”

Holding on to the wall, her bent body shaking at every step, she got to the table, took a pack of dirty cards, thick with age, and pushed them over to me.

“Take the cards, cut with your left hand.⁠ ⁠… Nearest the heart.”

Spitting on her fingers she began to spread the surround. As they fell on the table the cards made a noise like lumps of dough and arranged themselves in a correct eight-pointed star.⁠ ⁠… When the last card fell on its back and covered the king, Manuilikha stretched out her hand to me.

“Cross it with gold, my dear, and you will be happy, you will be rich,” she began to whine in a gipsy beggar’s voice.

I pushed the coin I had ready into her hand. Quick as a monkey, the old woman stowed it away in her jaw.

“Something very important is coming to you from afar off,” she began in the usual voluble way. “A meeting with the queen of diamonds, and some pleasant conversation in an important house. Very soon you will receive unexpected news from the king of clubs. Certain troubles are coming, and then a small legacy. You will be with a number of people; you will get drunk.⁠ ⁠… Not very drunk, but I can see a spree is there. Your life will be a long one. If you don’t die when you are sixty-seven, then.⁠ ⁠…”

Suddenly she stopped, and lifted up her head as though listening. I listened too. A woman’s voice sounded fresh, clear, and strong, approaching the hut singing. And I recognised the words of the charming Little Russian song:

“Ah, is it the blossom or not the bloom
That bends the little white hazel-tree?
Ah, is it a dream or not a dream
That bows my little head.⁠ ⁠…”

“Well, now, be off, my dear.” The old woman began to bustle about anxiously, pushing me away from the table. “You must not be knocking about in other people’s huts. Go your way.⁠ ⁠…”

She even seized me by the sleeve of my jacket and pulled me to the door. Her face showed an animal anxiety.

The singing came to an end abruptly, quite close to the hut. The iron latch rattled loudly, and in the open door a tall laughing girl appeared. With both hands she carefully held up her striped apron, out of which there peeped three tiny birds’ heads with red necks and black shiny eyes.

“Look, granny, the finches hopped after me again,” she cried, laughing. “Look, how funny they are. And, just as if on purpose, I had no bread with me.”

But seeing me she became silent and blushed crimson. Her thick black eyebrows frowned, and her eyes turned questioningly to the old woman.

“The gentleman came in here to ask the way,” the old woman explained. “Now, dear sir,” she turned to me, with a resolute look, “you have rested long enough. You have drunk some water, had a chat, and it’s time to go. We are not the folk for you.⁠ ⁠…”

“Look here, my