Short Fiction, Vladimir Korolenko [finding audrey TXT] 📗

sense of heaviness that oppressed him, he suffered none the less because this feeling was dim and confused. A sense of burning pain and bitter resentment swelled the boy’s throat; he threw himself down on the grass and wept. As the weeping increased, convulsive sobs shook his little frame⁠—the more violently, because his innate pride made him struggle to repress this outburst.

The girl, who had scarcely reached the foot of the hill, hearing those stifled sobs turned in amazement. When she saw that odd new acquaintance of hers lying face downward on the ground, crying so bitterly, she felt a sympathy for him, and climbing the hill again she stood over the weeping boy.

“What is it?” she said. “Why are you crying? Perhaps you think that I shall complain? Don’t cry! I shall not say a word to anyone.”

These words of sympathy and the caressing voice excited a still more violent fit of sobbing. Then the girl sitting down beside the boy, devoted herself to the task of comforting him.

Passing her hand gently over his hair, with an instinct purely feminine, and a gentle persistency, she raised his head and wiped the tears from his eyes, like a mother who tries to comfort her grieving child.

“There, there, I am no longer vexed,” she said in the soothing tone of a grown-up woman. “I see you are sorry to have frightened me.”

“I did not mean to frighten you,” he replied, drawing a long breath in his efforts to repress his nervous sobs.

“Well, it is all right now. I am no longer angry. You will never do it again,” she added, raising him from the ground and trying to make him sit down beside her.

Petrùsya yielded. Again he sat facing the sunset, and when the girl saw his face lighted by the crimson rays, she was impressed by its unusual expression. The tears were still standing in the boy’s eyes, which were as before immovable, while his features were twitching convulsively with childlike sobs⁠—all the signs of a deep sorrow, such as a mature nature might feel, were evident.

“How queer you are⁠—really!” she said with thoughtful sympathy.

“I am not queer,” replied the boy with a pitiful look. “No, I am not queer! I am⁠—blind!”

“Bli⁠—nd?” she repeated, prolonging the word in her surprise, while her voice trembled, as though that sad word, softly uttered by the boy, had given a heavy blow to her womanly little heart. “Blind?” she repeated again; her voice trembled still more, and then as though seeking a refuge from the uncontrollable sense of misery that had come over her, she suddenly threw her arms around the boy’s neck and hid her face on his breast.

This sad discovery taking her entirely by surprise, had instantly changed the self-composed little woman to a grieved and helpless child, who in her turn wept bitterly and inconsolably.

V

Meanwhile the sun, revolving as it were in the glowing atmosphere, vanished below the dark line of the horizon. For a moment the golden rim of the fiery ball had lingered on the edge, leaving two or three burning sparks behind, and then the dark outlines of the distant forest became at once defined by an uninterrupted blue line. The wind blew fresh from the river.

The girl had ceased crying; only now and then a sob would break forth in spite of her. Petrùsya sat with bowed head as if hardly able to comprehend so lively an expression of sympathy.

“I am⁠—sorry,” she said at last, by way of explaining her weakness, but her voice was still broken by sobs. Then after a short silence, having partially regained her self-control, she made an attempt to change the conversation to some topic of which they could both speak with composure. “The sun has set,” she said thoughtfully.

“I don’t know how it looks,” was the mournful reply. “I only⁠—feel it.”

“You don’t know the sun?”

“No.”

“And you don’t know your mamma, either?”

“Yes, I know mamma. I can tell her step from a distance.”

“Yes, of course you can. I can tell my mother when my eyes are shut.”

The conversation had assumed a less agitating tone.

“I can feel the sun,” said the blind boy, growing more animated, “and I can tell when it has set.”

“How can you tell?”

“Because⁠—don’t you see?⁠—I can’t tell why myself.”

“Yes,” said the girl, and she seemed quite satisfied with this reply, and both were silent.

“I can read,” Petrùsya was the first to break the silence, “and I shall soon begin to learn to write with a pen.”

“How do you manage?” she inquired, and suddenly paused abashed, reluctant to pursue the delicate subject.

But he understood her. “I read from my own book, with my fingers,” he explained.

“With your fingers? I could never learn to read with my fingers. I read poorly enough with my eyes. My father says that it is difficult for women to learn.”

“And I can even read French.”

“How clever you are!” she exclaimed admiringly. “But I am afraid that you will take cold,” she added; “see how the fog is rising over the river.”

“And you yourself?”

“I am not afraid. What harm can it do me?”

“Neither am I afraid. Could a man possibly take cold more easily than a woman? Uncle Maxim says a man must never fear anything, neither cold nor hunger, nor the thunderbolt, nor the hurricane.”

“Maxim⁠—the one on crutches? I have seen him. He is terrible.”

“No, indeed. He is very kind.”

“No, he is terrible,” she persisted. “You cannot know, because you never saw him.”

“I do know him. He teaches me everything.”

“Does he beat you?”

“Never. He never beats me or screams at me⁠—never.”

“Well, I am glad of that. How could anybody strike a blind boy? It would be a sin.”

“He never strikes anyone,” said Petrùsya, in an abstracted tone of voice, for his sensitive ear had caught the sound of Joachim’s steps.

In fact the tall figure of the Hohòl appeared a moment later on the summit of the rising ground that separated the estate from the shore, and his voice resounded through