Short Fiction, Vladimir Korolenko [finding audrey TXT] 📗

fame. The poem closed with the following picture: “The aurora borealis gleams faintly across the interminable plain, the snow glitters with reflected fire, the sledge-board creaks, the reindeers dash over the frozen waste; a Samoyéd courier, with full comprehension of his mission, is bringing Urmánov’s exhortation to ‘the great Samoyéd nation.’ ”

There⁠—don’t laugh! Youth always dreams; perhaps later on those dreams may become wiser, more practical; but whether they will become better, honester⁠—that I doubt.

IV

Urmánov had a slightly turned-up nose and prominent cheekbones. These features seemed to point to a strain of foreign blood. Otherwise, his face was rather handsome and interesting. He had fiery black eyes, glittering with animation, and long dark curls falling on his neck from under the broad-brimmed, high-crowned hat which he always wore, after the student fashion of the day. His figure was much too lithe for a Samoyéd’s; his movements were rapid, and I do not remember anyone whose personal appearance presented so perfect an example of that peculiar grace, and even in its way elegance, peculiar to students. His dress was far from being fashionable⁠—indeed it was rather shabby⁠—his coat was very threadbare, and showed plentiful traces of laboratory work in the form of acid-made stains. Nevertheless, whatever sort of garments Urmánov might wear, they always suited his slender figure to perfection, and everyone could recognize him as a student at the first glance.

His face, as also his figure, reflected faithfully and with extraordinary mobility the shifting moods of his expansive and impressionable nature. At our students’ meetings he would argue hotly, gesticulating frantically, sometimes raising his voice to a savage roar. It was, indeed, almost impossible to argue with Urmánov, and his antagonists generally found it expedient to leave him in possession of the battlefield, good-humoredly retreating before his attacks. For the rest, Urmánov always cooled down as quickly as he flared up, and in half-an-hour’s time would be ready to take up arms in defence of the very comrade whom he had just accused of being false to his principles and a traitor to his cause. Latterly, however, he had grown more self-restrained, and was less ready to express his extreme opinions at our meetings: he became sadder and more thoughtful. Somebody or other remarked that Urmánov was lowering his tone because he had reached his last term, and scented afar off the final examination and the coming degree. As a rule, we did not find it particularly difficult to justify these accusations; in fact, to speak the truth, they very often were justified. The jump from the unconditional rejection of all compromises to the acceptance of the most complex, was generally made but too often at the first step from the academy into the world. I did not know whether, or how, Urmánov would make that step; but I passionately denied so insulting a suggestion, feeling much more inclined to suppose that the consciousness of his approaching great mission to the Samoyédes had cast over Urmánov that shade of gravity and melancholy in which I contrived to see something grand and noble. What were our mutual help funds, our “students’ protests,” to him, when the “sorrow and anguish of centuries” were wafted to him from his “native tundra?”

It turned out, however, that both Urmánov’s antagonists and myself were equally at fault. The cause of his melancholy and his seriousness, as also of a certain indifference to our affairs and our differences, was both simpler and more emotional.

It was embodied in the small, slender and characteristic figure of a young woman, whom, though she was Russian born and bred, we had named “the American.” None of the students knew her personally; we were even ignorant of her name.

V

Besides attempting the poem which I have already mentioned, I, like many other young men at my age, dreamt of writing a gigantic novel. All the persons in it were to be heroes and heroines of a type altogether exceptional, “new people,” extraordinary characters. Several of these heroes floated vaguely in my imagination, and among them was always an American. The Yankees are a very clever race, and have a wonderful Constitution; nevertheless, a thoroughgoing Yankee who estimates everything by a monetary standard, and even says of himself, “I am worth so many dollars,” most certainly would not do for one of the heroes of my novel. My American must be a Russian, aspiring to become an American.

At that time America attracted many people, and I knew of several cases of emigration. Of course, to become simply an American with dollars did not amount to much. But the mere fact of the venture⁠—the fresh energy with which these young men flung themselves into an unknown land, intoxicated by its freedom and the novelty of its social relations⁠—this in itself was enough to attract and impress me.

I had not yet fully examined the results of even one of these ventures, and therefore, had no idea how my hero would act when he was settled in his adopted country. So far, I pictured him as a tall man, with a little beard cut in American fashion, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, and with a cold, restrained smile, beneath which I could vaguely discern something very grave and significant.

Now, you can easily understand the interest that a live Russian American woman, both young and pretty, kindled in me and my fellow-students.

She appeared on our horizon while she was spending the summer at a villa in the neighborhood. The first time I saw her was in the park; she was walking arm-in-arm with her father, an old retired general. He was gray, bent, and rather deaf, and wore a huge green shade to protect his eyes from the sun. It seemed to cost him a great effort to lift up his big, drooping head. Yet, none the less, when I happened to pass before the old man as he sat resting on a seat, he always raised his head and stared at me