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

apartment of the Princess Turandina faded from his sight. The blue smoke of something burning on the kitchen stove floated out to him. He was again conscious that his head ached and swam; he at once felt tired and languid.

His mother called out to him:

“Now look lively; run along quickly to Milligan’s and buy half a pound of lemon biscuits and a shillingsworth of cakes. Hurry up, I’ve just got to take in tea; the mistress has some visitors⁠—some devil has brought them here at this outlandish hour.”

Grishka ran off into the corridor to find his shoes and stockings, but Anushka cried after him angrily:

“What are you doing there? There’s no time to get your shoes⁠—go as you are. You must run there and back in no time.”

Grishka took the money, a silver rouble, and held it tight in his burning palm. Then he put on his hat and ran off down the staircase. And as he ran he thought:

“Who am I? How can I have forgotten my real name?”

He had a long way to go, several streets away, because the cakes his mother wanted couldn’t be got in the shop opposite but only in this distant one. The mistress thought that the cakes in the shop near by were always flyblown and not well made, but those in the other shop, where she herself made purchases, were good and clean and specially nice.

“Who am I?” thought Grishka persistently.

All his dreams about the beautiful Princess Turandina were interrupted by this tiresome question. He ran along quickly in his bare feet on the hard pavements of the noisy streets, meeting many strangers, getting in front of strangers, among this multitude of rough, unpleasant people, all hurrying somewhere, pushing their way along and looking contemptuously at little Grishka in his blue print shirt and short little dark-blue knickers. Grishka was again conscious of the strangeness and incongruity of the fact that he, who knew so many delightful stories, and who loved to dream about fair ladies, should be living in this dull and cruel town, should have grown up in just this place, in a wretched stuffy kitchen, where everything was so strange and foreign to him. He remembered how, a few days ago, the captain’s son, Volodya, who lived in No. 24 flat, had called across from the second-floor window of the opposite block and asked him to come and have a talk. Volodya was the same age as Grishka, a lively, affectionate boy, and the two children sat down on the window-seat and chatted gaily together. Suddenly the door opened, and Volodya’s mother, a sour-faced woman, appeared on the threshold. Screwing up her eyes, she scrutinised Grishka from head to foot, making him feel suddenly frightened, and then she drawled, in a contemptuous tone of voice:

“What’s this, Volodya? Why have you got this wretched little barefooted boy here? Go off indoors, and in future don’t dare to try and make his acquaintance.”

Volodya got red and muttered something or other, but Grishka had already run off home to the kitchen.

Now, in the street, he thought to himself:

“It’s impossible that it’s all like that. I can’t be really only Grishka, the cook’s little boy, whom nice children like Volodya and the general’s son aren’t allowed to know.”

And in the baker’s shop, when he was buying the cakes he had been sent for⁠—none of which would fall to his own share⁠—and all along his homeward way, Grishka was thinking sometimes about the beautiful Turandina, the proud and wise princess, sometimes of the strange actuality of the life around him, and he thought again:

“Who am I? And what is my own real name?”

He imagined that he was the son of an emperor, and that the proud palace of his forefathers stood in a beautiful far-off land. He had long been suffering from a grievous complaint, and lay in his quiet sleeping-chamber. He was lying on a soft down bed under a golden canopy, covered by a light satin counterpane, and in his delirium he imagined himself to be Grishka, the cook’s little son. Through the wide open window was wafted in to the sick child the sweet scent of flowering roses, the voices of his beloved nightingales, and the splash of a pearly fountain. His mother, the Empress, sat at the head of his bed, and wept as she caressed her child. Her eyes were gentle and full of sorrow, her hands were soft, for she never washed the clothes or prepared the dinner or did sewing. When this dear mother of his worked with her fingers she only embroidered in coloured silks on golden canvas for satin cushions, and from under her delicate fingers there grew crimson roses, white lilies, and peacocks with long eye-laden tails. She was weeping now because her son lay ill, and because when at times he opened his fever-dimmed eyes he spoke strange words in an unintelligible language.

But the day would come when the little prince would recover his health and would rise from his royal bed and would remember who he was and what was his real name, and then he would laugh at his delirious fancies.

IV

Grishka felt more joyful when this thought came into his mind. He ran along more quickly, noticing nothing around him. But suddenly an unexpected shock brought him to his senses. He felt frightened, even before he understood what had taken place.

The bag containing the cakes and biscuits fell from his hand, the thin paper burst, and the yellow lemon biscuits were scattered over the worn and dirty grey pavement.

“You horrid little boy, how dare you knock into me!” cried the shrill voice of a tall stout lady against whom Grishka had run.

She smelt unpleasantly of scent, and she held up to her small angry eyes a horrible tortoiseshell lorgnette. Her whole face looked rude and angry and repulsive, and Grishka was filled with terror and distress. He looked up at her in fright, and did not know what