Short Fiction, Fyodor Sologub [most popular novels of all time .txt] 📗

her always in a white dress. The impression of white had become inseparable from his thought of her. Her very name, Tamar, suggested to him something as white as the snow on the mountain tops.

He began to visit her at the house of her parents. More than once he had resolved to say to her those words which bind human fates together. But she never let him go on; she would always grow frightened and shy, and she would rise and leave him. What frightened her? Saksaoolov read signs of virgin love in her face; her eyes grew brighter when he entered, and a light flush suffused her cheeks.

But one never-to-be-forgotten day she listened to him. It was in the early spring. The ice on the river was gone, and the trees were covered with a soft green veil. Tamar and Saksaoolov were sitting before the window in the city house, and looking out on the Niva. He spoke, scarcely knowing what he said, but his words were both gentle and terrible to her. She grew pale, smiled vaguely, and rose. Her slender hand trembled on the carved top of the chair.

“Tomorrow,” Tamar said quietly, and went out.

Saksaoolov gazed with intense feeling toward the door behind which Tamar had disappeared. His head was in a whirl. His eye fell upon a sprig of white lilac; he picked it up almost absently, and left without bidding his hosts goodbye.

He could not sleep that night. He stood at the window and looked out into the far-stretching streets, at first dark, then lighter at dawn; he smiled and pressed the sprig of lilac between his fingers. When it grew light he noticed that the floor of the room was strewn with white petals of lilac. This seemed both curious and of happy omen to Saksaoolov. He felt the cool of the breeze on his heated face. He took a bath and he felt refreshed. Then he went to Tamar.

They told him that she was ill, that she had caught a cold somewhere. And Saksaoolov never saw her again; she died within two weeks. He did not go to her funeral. Her death left him quite calm, and he no longer knew whether he had loved her or whether it was a short, passing fascination.

He mused about her sometimes in the evening; but he gradually learned to forget her; and Saksaoolov had no portrait of her. But after a few years⁠—more precisely, only a year ago⁠—in the spring, upon seeing a sprig of lilac sadly out of place among rich eatables in a restaurant window, he remembered Tamar. And from that time on he loved to think of Tamar again during the evenings.

Sometimes, as he fell into a light sleep, he dreamt that Tamar came to him, sat opposite him, and looked at him with unaverted, fond eyes; and that she had something to tell him. And it was painful to feel Tamar’s expectant glance upon him, and not know what she wanted of him.

Now, leaving the Gorodischevs, he thought timidly: “She will come to give me the kiss of Easter.”

A feeling of fear and loneliness took hold of him with such intensity that the idea came to him: “Perhaps it would be well to marry so as not to be alone on holy, mysterious nights.”

He thought of Valeria Mikhailovna, the Gorodischev girl. She was by no means a beauty, but she was always dressed becomingly to set off her looks. She apparently liked him, and was not likely to reject him if he asked her.

The throng and din in the street distracted him and his usual somewhat ironic mood swayed his thoughts of the Gorodischev girl. Could he prove false to Tamar’s memory for anyone else? Everything in the world seemed so paltry to him that he wished no one but Tamar to give him the kiss of Easter.

“But,” thought he, “she will again look at me with expectancy. White, gentle Tamar, what does she want? Will her gentle lips kiss me?”

III

Saksaoolov thought sadly of Tamar as he wandered in the streets, and looking into the faces of the passersby he thought many of the older people unpleasantly coarse. He recalled that there was no one with whom he would exchange the kiss of Easter with real desire and joy. There would be many coarse lips and prickly beards, smelling of wine, to kiss the first day.

It was much pleasanter to kiss the children. Children’s faces grew lovely in Saksaoolov’s eyes.

He walked a long time, and when he was tired he entered a church enclosure just off the noisy street. A pale lad sat on a form and looked up frightened at Saksaoolov; then he once more began to gaze absently before him. His blue eyes were gentle and sad, like Tamar’s. He was so small that his feet projected from the seat.

Saksaoolov, who sat near him, began to eye him, half with pity, half with curiosity. There was something in this youngster that stirred his memory with joy, and at the same time excited him. In appearance he was a most ordinary urchin; he had on ragged clothes, a white fur cap on his bright hair, and a pair of dirty boots, worse for wear.

He sat long on the form, then he rose suddenly and gave a cry. He ran out of the gate into the street, then stopped, turned quickly in another direction, and again stopped. It was clear that he did not know which way to turn. He began to weep quietly, making no ado, and large tears ran down his cheeks. A crowd gathered. A policeman came. They began to ask him where he lived.

“At the Gliukhov house,” he lisped in a childlike but indistinct tone.

“In what street,” the policeman asked.

The boy did not know, and only kept on repeating: “At the Gliukhov house.”

The young and good-natured policeman thought awhile, and decided that there was no such house near.

“With whom do you live?” asked a