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

the landing stood dumb and rigid. Long, long she wept.⁠ ⁠… Then suddenly she heard a light, familiar step, and as she waited in expectation she felt her child come nearer and put his arms about her neck. His cheek pressed close to hers, and his warm little fingers tried to push away the hands which were screening and hiding her face. He put his lips to her cheek and whispered gently:

“Why do you weep? How can you have done wrong?”

Silently she sat and listened; she dare not move or open her eyes lest the child should disappear. She let her right hand drop on to her knee, but still kept her eyes covered with the left. Gradually her weeping became less; she must not frighten the child with her woman’s tears, the tears of a sinful woman.

And the child went on, kissing her cheek as he spoke, “You haven’t done wrong at all.”

Then he spoke again, and now his words were those of Serezha:

“I don’t want to live in this world. I’m very thankful to you, mother dear.”

And again:

“Indeed, dear mother, I don’t want to be alive.”

These words had sounded terrible in her ears when Serezha had spoken them⁠—terrible because spoken by one who, having received from unseen Powers the living form of mankind, ought to have held as a precious treasure the life committed to his care, and not have wished to destroy it. But these same words, spoken by the child who had never been born into this world, rejoiced his mother’s heart. Gently and timidly, as if afraid of frightening him by the sound of an earthly voice, she asked:

“And my dear one forgives me?”

And heard the answer:

“You haven’t done wrong at all; yet if you want to hear me say so, ‘I forgive you.’ ”

And suddenly her heart overflowed with a foretaste of an unlooked-for happiness. Hardly daring to hope, hardly knowing what to expect, she slowly and fearfully stretched out her hands⁠—and felt her child on her knees, with his little hands on her shoulders, his lips pressed close to hers in a long, long kiss.

Her eyes were fast closed still, for she feared to look on that which it is not given to mankind to see, yet it seemed to her that the child’s eyes looked into hers⁠—and that he breathed a blessing upon her⁠—and shone upon her like a Sun.

Then she felt the arms unclose, and on the staircase she heard the light patter of feet, and knew that the child was gone.

She got up, dried her tears, and rang the bell. When she went in to her sister she was full of calm and happiness, she had power to strengthen and console.

The Little Stick

There is upon the earth a very wonderful little stick which will cause all things to disappear and turn your life into a dream if you touch your head with it.

If you don’t like your life just take the little stick and put it to one of your temples⁠—and suddenly all you didn’t like will become a dream and you will start something quite new.

Of that sort is the wonderful little stick.

Equality

A big fish overtook a little one and wanted to swallow him.

The little fish squeaked out:

“It is unjust. I also want to live. All fishes are equal before the law.”

The big fish answered:

“What’s the matter? I won’t discuss whether we are equal, but if you don’t want me to eat you, then do you please swallow me if you can⁠—swallow me, don’t be afraid, I shan’t set on you.”

The little fish opened his mouth and poked about trying to get the big fish in, sighed at last and said:

“You have it. Swallow me.”

Adventures of a Cobblestone

There was in the town a cobbled roadway. A wheel of a passing cart loosened one of the stones. The stone said to himself, “Why should I lie here close packed with others of my kind? I will live separately.”

A boy came along and picked up the cobblestone.

Thought the stone to himself: “I wanted to travel and I travel. I only had to wish sufficiently strongly.”

The boy threw the stone at a house. Thought the stone: “I wish to fly and I fly. It’s quite simple⁠—I just willed it.”

Bang went the stone against the window-glass. The glass broke and in doing so cried out:

“Oh, you scoundrel! What are you doing?”

But the stone replied:

“You’d have done better to get out of the way. I don’t like people getting in my way. Everything arranged for my benefit⁠—that’s my motto.”

The stone fell on a soft bed and thought: “I’ve flown a bit, and now I’ll lie down for a while and rest.”

A servant came and took the stone off the bed and threw it out at the window again so that it fell back on the cobbled roadway.

Then the stone cried out to his fellow-cobbles: “Brothers, good health, I’ve just been paying a call at one of the mansions, but I did not at all care for the aristocracy, my heart yearned for the common people, so I returned.”

The Future

No one knows what the future will bring. But there is a place where the future gleams through an azure veil of desire. This is the place where those who are as yet unborn rest in peace. There everything is joyful, peaceful, freshly cool. No grief is there, and instead of air there is diffused an atmosphere of pure joy, in which the unborn have their being.

And no one ever leaves that land unless he desires to leave it.

Once there were four souls who all wished at the same moment to be born into this world. And in the azure mist of desire our four elements were revealed to them.

And one said:

“I love the earth⁠—it is soft and warm and firm.”

And another said:

“I love water⁠—eternally falling, cool, and translucent.”

The third said:

“I love fire⁠—gay and bright it is, and