Short Fiction, Vladimir Korolenko [finding audrey TXT] 📗

where Peter had been sitting. But he was no longer there.

Then quietly folding her work Evelyn rose also. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” she said, addressing the guests, “if I leave you to yourselves for a while.” And she started along the garden-path.

Evelyn was not the only person who had felt disturbed this evening. At the turn of the path, where the settle had been placed, the young girl heard the agitated voices of Maxim and his sister.

“Yes, I thought of her in this connection no less than I did of him,” the old man was saying; and his tone was harsh. “I cannot believe that you wish to take advantage of the ignorance of a mere child.”

Tears were in the voice of Anna Michàilovna as she replied, “But Max, what if⁠—if she⁠—What will become of my boy?”

Maxim had no time to reply. The young girl who had paused instinctively at the turning, now quickly advanced, and with proudly erect head walked past the speakers. Maxim involuntarily drew up his crutch that it might not be in her way, and Anna Michàilovna looked at her with an expression of love, mingled with adoration almost amounting to awe. The mother seemed conscious that this fair proud girl, who had just passed by with a look so angry and defiant, held in her hands the happiness or unhappiness of her son.

VI

A ruined and abandoned mill stood in the garden. The wheels had ceased to turn, the cylinders were overgrown with moss, and the water trickled through the old locks in slender, never-ceasing streams. This was the blind youth’s favorite resort. Here he would spend hours on the parapet of the dam, listening to the sound of the trickling water, which he later reproduced to perfection on the piano. But now he was thinking of other things. Rapidly he trod the path, his heart filled with bitterness, and his face distorted by suffering. He paused when he heard the young girl’s light step; accustomed as he was to confide all his feelings to her, he felt no embarrassment in her presence.

Evelyn rested her hand on his shoulder as she asked⁠—“What is it? Why are you so sad?”

He did not reply at first, but turning, began once more to pace up and down the path. The young girl walked beside him.

Thus a few minutes went by in silence. It seemed as if the presence of Evelyn had a tranquillizing influence upon Peter’s mood; the keen pain diminished, his face grew more peaceful; the flood of sadness that had overwhelmed his soul began to subside, and a new sense of mingled pleasure and expectancy had taken possession of him. This feeling, to whose healing influence he had often yielded, he had never yet made an attempt to analyze. And now again his mood grew tender, although a shade of sadness still remained.

“Of course it made me feel sad,” he said, after a moment’s silence; “because I understood their words, although they were not directed toward me. I am useless, quite useless in the world. And why was I born into it?”

The girl glanced up at him with a look of alarm, and then as if with settled purpose she bent her head and resumed her walk by his side.

The blind youth stopped short. “Why, I ask, was I born into the world? And another thing⁠—It may perhaps be true, as old people say, that affairs have changed for the worse; yet in old times the blind fared better than they do now. There was work for them, and they had a place in life. Why was I not born in times when blind minstrels used to wander from place to place? I would then take my lyre, or bandura,52 and go from city to city and through the villages and distant steppes, and wherever I appeared the people would gather around me, while I sang to them of the deeds of their fathers, glorious and heroic, stirring their holiest feelings, and inspiring them with energy and courage. Thus I too could play a part in life. But now, even that cadet with his shrill voice⁠—you heard what he said about marrying and being a commander. They laughed at him; but for me even that is unattainable.”

Tears came into the young girl’s eyes, widening with alarm. “You are excited by the student’s talk.” She tried to speak lightly, but her agitation betrayed itself in her voice.

“Yes,” replied Peter, thoughtfully; “and what an agreeable fellow he is! He has a very pleasing voice.”

“Yes, he is agreeable,” said Evelyn, abstractedly; and her tone evinced a certain tenderness. Then as if vexed with herself she suddenly exclaimed in a passionate voice: “No, I don’t like him at all! He has too much self-assurance; and I think his voice is harsh and disagreeable.”

Peter listened in surprise to this angry sally. The girl stamped her foot as she went on:

“And it is all the most perfect folly! I know it has been a plan of Maxim’s contriving. Oh, how it makes me hate him!”

“Why, Vèlya,” expostulated the blind youth, “how can you blame Uncle Maxim for what has happened?”

“Oh, he thinks himself extremely clever; and he has destroyed every vestige of humanity within his breast by all these plans and schemes. Don’t speak to me of those people! I should like to know how they gained the right to arrange other people’s lives?” She stopped abruptly, clenched her slender hands and burst into a flood of childlike tears.

Peter took her hand and pressed it sympathetically. He was taken by surprise. This outburst from the usually calm and self-controlled girl was both unexpected and mysterious. As he listened to her weeping he was conscious of a new and peculiar emotion stirring within his breast.

Suddenly she gave him a fresh surprise by withdrawing her hand and bursting into a fit of laughter. “How silly I am! What in the world am I crying about?” She wiped her eyes