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

twenty men and women peasants were pressed close round a blind harpist, whose tremulous, snuffling tenor, accompanied by the monotonous, jingling drone of his instrument, rose sharp above the dull murmur of the crowd. At a distance I could hear the familiar words of the Little Russian song:

“Oh, there rose the star, the evening star,
And stood over Pochah monastery.
Oh, there came out the Turkish troops
Like unto a black cloud.”

This song goes on to tell how the Turks, failing in their attack upon the Pochayev monastery, resolved to take it by cunning. With this end they sent, as it were a gift to the monastery, a huge candle filled with gunpowder. The candle was dragged by twelve yoke of oxen, and the delighted monks were eager to light it before the icon of the Virgin; but God did not allow the wicked design to be accomplished.

“And the elder dreamt a dream
That he should not take the candle,
But bear it away to the open field,
And hew it down with an axe.”

And the monks:

“Took it into the open field,
And began to chop it,
Oh, then bullets and balls began
To scatter on every side.”

It seemed that the insufferably hot air was wholly saturated with a disgusting smell, compounded of vodka dregs, onions, sheepskins, strong shag, and the vapours of dirty human bodies. As I made my way through the people, hardly holding in Taranchik who tossed his head continually, I could not help noticing that unceremonious, curious, and hostile looks were bent on me from every side. Not a single man doffed his cap, which was quite unusual, but the noise grew still at my approach. Suddenly from the very middle of the crowd came a hoarse, drunken shout which I could not clearly distinguish; but it was answered by a restrained giggle. A frightened woman’s voice began to rebuke the brawler.

“Hush, you fool.⁠ ⁠… What are you shouting for? He’ll hear you⁠—”

“What if he does hear?” the peasant replied tauntingly. “What the hell’s he got to do with me? Is he an official? He’s only in the forest with his⁠—”

A long, filthy, horrible phrase hung in the air, with a burst of frantic, roaring laughter. I quickly turned my horse round, and seized the handle of my whip convulsively, overwhelmed by the mad fury which sees nothing, thinks of nothing, and is afraid of nothing. In a flash, a strange, anxious, painful thought went through my mind: “All this has happened once before in my life, many years ago.⁠ ⁠… The sun blazed just as it does now.⁠ ⁠… The whole of the big square was overflowing with a noisy, excited crowd just as it is now.⁠ ⁠… I turned back in a paroxysm of wild anger just in the same way.⁠ ⁠… But where was it? When? When?” I lowered my whip and madly galloped home.

Yarmola came out of the kitchen at his leisure, and said rudely, as he took my horse: “The bailiff of the Marenov farm is sitting in your room.”

I had the fancy that he wanted to add something more that was important to me and painful too; I even imagined that a fleeting expression of evil derision sped over his face. Intentionally I stopped dead in the doorway and gave Yarmola a look of challenge, but without looking at me he was already dragging the horse away by the rein. The horse’s head was stretched forward, and it stepped delicately.

In my room I found the agent of the neighbouring estate, Nikita Nazarich Mishtchenko. He was dressed in a grey jacket with large ginger checks, in narrow cornflower blue trousers, and a fiery red necktie. There was a deep parting down the middle of his hair, which shone with pomade, and from the whole of him exuded the scent of Persian lilac. When he saw me he jumped up from his chair and began to curtsy, not bowing, but somehow breaking at the waist, and at the same time unsheathing the pale gums of both his jaws.

“Extremely delighted to have the honour,” Nikita Nazarich jabbered courteously. “Very glad indeed to see you. I’ve been waiting for you here ever since the service. I hadn’t seen you for so long that I was bored, and missed you very much. Why is it you never look us up? The girls in Stiepany laugh at you nowadays.”

Suddenly he was seized by an instantaneous recollection, and broke out into an irresistible giggle.

“What fun it was today!” he cried out, choking and chuckling. “Ha, ha, ha, ha.⁠ ⁠… I fairly split my sides with laughing.”

“What do you mean? What fun?” I asked without troubling to conceal my annoyance.

“There was a row after service,” Nikita Nazarich continued, punctuating his words with volleys of laughter. “The Perebrod girls.⁠ ⁠… No, by God, I really can’t.⁠ ⁠… The Perebrod girls caught a witch in the marketplace here. Of course, it’s only their peasant ignorance that makes them think she’s a witch.⁠ ⁠… But they did give her a thrashing! They were going to tar her all over, but somehow she slipped from them and got away⁠—”

A ghastly surmise entered my head. I rushed towards the bailiff, and forgetting myself completely in my agitation, gripped him violently by the shoulders.

“What’s that you say?” I cried in a furious voice. “Stop your giggling, damn you? Who’s this witch you’re talking about?”

Instantly his laughing ceased, and he stared with his round, frightened eyes.⁠ ⁠…

“I⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… really don’t know,” he began to stammer in confusion. “I believe it was someone called Samoilikha⁠ ⁠… Manuilikha, was it?⁠ ⁠… Yes, that’s it, the daughter of someone called Manuilikha.⁠ ⁠… The peasants were shouting something or other, but honestly I don’t remember what it was.”

I made him tell me everything he had seen and heard in order. He told his tale absurdly, incoherently, confusing details, and every moment I interrupted him with impatient questions and exclamations, almost with abuse. I could understand very little from his story, and it was only two months later that I could piece together the real order of the vile