Short Fiction, Leonid Andreyev [good e books to read .TXT] 📗

to get away, but he did not know how to do it without giving offense to the boy. He would blow his nose every little while, slide off the chair, and then sit straight and firmly again, as though resolved to remain there for all time. He would have stayed longer if there were anything to talk about. But there was no subject he could converse upon and the thoughts that came to his head were so foolish, that he felt ashamed of himself. He wanted all the time to call Senista by his full name, Semyon Erofeyevich, which, of course, would have been preposterous. Senista was only a boy, a mere apprentice, while he was a full master in his trade and a drunkard into the bargain. Everybody called him Sazonka merely through force of habit. Only two weeks ago, he had given Senista his last box on the ear, which, of course, was very bad of him; but he could not talk about that in the hospital.

Sazonka began to slide off his chair determinedly, but before getting off halfway he suddenly slid back again, and said half-reproachfully, half-sympathetically:

“So that’s the way it goes. Hurts, don’t it?”

Senista nodded and answered quietly:

“Well, I guess it’s time for you to go. You’ll get it, if you don’t.”

“That’s so, too,” answered Sazonka cheerfully, glad to have found a good excuse. “As it is, he told me to get back as soon as I could. ‘Take it over,’ said he, ‘and get back the same moment. And see that you don’t touch whiskey on the way.’ The devil!”

But, together with the realization that he could leave any moment, Sazonka began to feel a great pity for the large-headed Senista. The whole environment predisposed him to pity. The room was filled with beds placed close to each other, on which lay pale, gloomy men. The air was spoiled to the last ounce with the nauseating odors of medicines and human perspiration. Everything reminded him of his own health and strength. No longer trying to avoid Senista’s questioning glance, Sazonka bent over him and said:

“Don’t be afraid Semyon⁠ ⁠… Senia, I mean. I’ll come, all right. Soon as I have time, I’ll come right over. Ain’t I human? My Lord, I can understand something, too. D’you believe me?”

And Senista answered with a smile on his black, parched lips:

“Yes, I believe you.”

“Now you see!” Now Sazonka felt light and comfortable. He could even talk of the box on the ear he had given Senista two weeks ago. He mentioned it casually, touching Senista’s head.

“And if people hit you on the head, it wasn’t because they meant you harm. Lord, no! Only because your head is so handy. It’s so big, and the hair is all cut so low.”

Senista smiled again and Sazonka got up from his chair. He was very tall, and his curly hair, combed with a fine comb, rose like a soft cap. His shining eyes with their swollen eyelids, smiled at the boy.

“Well, good-a-bye,” said he, without moving away from his place, however. He purposely said “good-a-bye,” instead of “goodbye,” because he thought it would sound more sincere and heartfelt. But it did not seem enough. He felt that he ought to do something even more sincere, something good and big, after which Senista would not mind remaining at the hospital, and he, himself, could go away with a light heart. And he stood there in childish embarrassment, when Senista again helped him out:

“Goodbye,” said he in a thin childish voice, for which he was nicknamed “flute,” and freed his hand from under the blanket and quite simply, as though he were Sazonka’s equal, extended it to the man. And Sazonka, feeling that this was precisely what he was looking for, gently clasped the thin fingers with his large hand, held them for a while, and then let them go. There was something sad and mysterious in the slight pressure of those fingers, as though Senista were not only an equal of all men on earth, but above them all, freer than all. And it seemed so because he now belonged to an unknown, though terrible and powerful master. Sazonka felt that he could call him Semyon Erofeyevich.

“So you’ll come, won’t you?” For the fourth time Senista begged of him, and this plaintive appeal drove away that something awful and magnificent, which but a moment ago had enveloped the boy in its noiseless wings. Senista again became for Sazonka a poor, sick boy, and he was again full of pity for him.

When Sazonka walked away from the hospital, he thought that he was followed for some time by the odor of medicines and the piteous appeal:

“So you’ll come, won’t you?”

And Sazonka answered his absent implorer,

“Sure, I’ll come. Ain’t I human?”

II

Easter was coming on, and there was so much work in the tailor’s shop that Sazonka got a chance to get drunk only once, on a Sunday. He had to sit all day long near his window. He had a sort of platform, on which he sat Turkish fashion. The spring days were very light and very long, and Sazonka sat there sewing, gloomily whistling a melancholy tune. In the morning there was no sun in Sazonka’s window, and streams of cool air forced their way through the loose woodwork. But towards midday a sharp yellow band appeared in the window, and in it particles of dust were dancing merrily. And half an hour later, the whole windowsill, with the scissors and the scraps of cloth scattered over it, was already burning with a blinding light, and it became so hot that the window had to be opened. And together with a stream of fresh air, mixed with the odors of manure, drying mud, and opening buds, a weak, early fly flew into the room, followed by the confused noises of the street. Chickens were pecking the ground near the house wall, or cackling contentedly, lying in the round holes they