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

in love with: his running, or those circles of silver which he gathered for it. One Russian seaman had had a photograph taken of himself and the rickshaw-man, and had presented him with one of these pictures. For a long time after that the young rickshaw-man joyously marvelled at his image: he was standing between his shafts, his face turned toward the imaginary spectators, and everyone could recognize him immediately⁠—even the badge on his arm had come out. With all good fortune, apparently even with happiness, he had laboured thus for about half a year.

And one morning he was sitting with other rickshaw-men underneath a many-trunked banyan tree that stood upon that lengthy street which extends from Slave Island to Victoria Park. The hot sun had just appeared from behind the trees, from the direction of Maradana. But the banyan tree had grown high, and there was no longer any shade about its roots, strewn over with parched leaves. The little carriages grew hot from the heat, their thin shafts lay upon the dark-red, heated earth, that smelt both of naphtha and of freshly-ground coffee. With this odour were blended the pungent sweet odours of the surrounding, ever-blossoming gardens, the odours of camphor, of musk, and of that which the rickshaw-men were eating⁠—and they were eating bananas⁠—small, warm, tenderly roseate, in aureate skins; they were eating those orange fruits, with a tang of turpentine, the meat of which has the appearance of the flesh of children. They were chattering as they sat on the ground, their knees raised in sharp angles up to their chins, with their arms on top of the knees, and with their feminine heads on top of their arms. Suddenly, in the distance, near the white enclosing walls of a bungalow, dappled by the light and shade, appeared a man clad in white. He was walking in the middle of the street with that determined and firm step with which only Europeans walk. And, jumping up as quick as lightning from the ground, the entire flock of these naked, long-legged men dashed toward him, racing to get ahead of one another. They darted upon him from all sides, and he yelled threateningly, swinging out with his cane. Timid and sensitive, they checked themselves at full speed, gathering around him. He glanced at them⁠—and number seven, with his pitch-black, horse-like hair, appeared to him stronger than the others. And so his choice fell upon number seven.

He was short and strong, in gold spectacles, with black eyebrows grown together over the bridge of his nose, with a short black moustache, with an olive complexion; the sun of the tropics and liver trouble had already left their sallow trace upon his face. His helmet was gray; his eyes, in some strange way, as though they beheld nothing, looked out of the coal-black darkness of his eyebrows and lashes, from behind the shining lenses. He sat down like one accustomed to rickshaws⁠—immediately finding in the little carriage that spot which makes it the easiest for the rickshaw-men to run, and glancing at the little watch in a leathern socket strapped around his wrist⁠—it was tattooed, and the hand was powerful and stubby⁠—called out “York Street!” His expressionless voice was firm and calm, but his eyes had a strange look. And the rickshaw-man snatched up the shafts and flew off at a considerably greater speed than was called for, every moment clicking the bell that was fastened at the end of the shaft, and shuffling in and out among pedestrians, tilted arba carts, and other rickshaws that were running back and forth.

It was the end of March⁠—the most sultry period. Not even three hours had passed since the rising of the sun⁠—yet it already seemed as if noon were near, so hot and bright was it everywhere, and so thronged in the neighbourhood of the stores at the farther end of the street. The earth, the gardens, all that tall, spreading vegetation which was growing green and blossoming over the bungalows, over their chalky roofs, and over the old black stores⁠—all these had cloyed the air with warmth and fragrance, whereas the rain-trees had curled up tightly their little cup-like leaves. The rows of shops⁠—or, rather, of sheds⁠—roofed with black tiles, their walls hung about with enormous bunches of bananas, with dried fish, with sun-cured shark-meat, were filled with buyers and sellers⁠—both alike resembling dark-skinned bath-attendants. The rickshaw-man, bending forward, his long legs twinkling, was running rapidly, and as yet there was not a single drop of sweat upon his back, glistening with coconut oil, nor upon his rounded shoulders, between which the slender trunk of his girlish neck gracefully supported his pitch-black head, upon which the blazing sun beat down. At the very end of the street, he came to a sudden stop. Turning his head just the least trifle, he rapidly said something in his own tongue. The Englishman, his passenger, caught sight of the tips of his curved eyelashes, caught the word “betel,” and raised his eyebrows. How? Such a young, strong fellow was already wanting betel, after having run only some two hundred steps? Without answering, he struck the rickshaw-man over his shoulder blades with his cane. But the latter, timorous like all Senegalese but at times also insistent, only shrugged his shoulders and flew like an arrow diagonally across the street, toward the shops.

“Betel,” repeated he, turning wrathful eyes upon the Englishman, and baring his teeth in a doglike snarl. But the Englishman had already forgotten about him. And a minute later the rickshaw-man jumped out of a shop, holding upon his narrow palm a leaf of the pepper tree, smearing it over with lime and wrapping within it a bit of the areca fruit, resembling a bit of flint. Kill not, steal not, commit no fornication, lie not, nor become intoxicated with aught, the Exalted One hath commanded. Yes⁠—but what did the rickshaw-man know of Him? Vaguely echoed within him that which had been vaguely