Short Fiction, Vladimir Korolenko [finding audrey TXT] 📗

“That is the smoke and fog of Moscow. You seem to be expecting someone.⁠ ⁠…”

“No, I just⁠ ⁠… that is⁠ ⁠…”

He broke off in confusion, and instantly began talking of something else.

The conversation flagged, and I buried myself in my book. Urmánov looked continually along the line. At last, the train appeared, first as a dark speck in the quivering mist; soon, the speck vanished, reappeared, and began to grow. When the train drew quite near, the guard’s hand came out at the side, waving a flag to the engine-driver. The locomotive drew up, rattling, screaming and roaring; the tank passed us, then the luggage-van, then two or three carriages. Finally, the entire monster, filling up the space a minute before so quiet, quivered, stopped, jerked a little backwards⁠—and out of it sprang the American lady.

She stopped short, and looked at us both in perplexity. I thought, at first, that she was going to come up to me, but Urmánov, with a movement of nervous haste, went suddenly up to her.

“Mr. Urmánov?” she asked. “Ah, it is you!⁠—and I thought⁠ ⁠…”

Then, lightly taking his arm, she led him into the sidewalk.

“There then! I am very glad.⁠ ⁠… You do not look such a hobble-de-hoy as you used to do⁠ ⁠…” I heard her say laughing, as they continued their walk down the avenue.

The huge train, which had only stopped to cast out of its breast of wood and iron this daring little figure, moved on again heavily, groaning and shrieking. The last carriages passed me at full speed, the rails creaked and groaned, the platform quivered and shook.

When I, in my turn, reached the mound where the highroad began, Urmánov and the American were some way off. They were walking arm-in-arm and she was leaning towards him with singular gracefulness, yet somehow it seemed, not that he was leading her, but that this nervous little woman was carrying off the fiery young patriot. Sometimes she stopped short, speaking excitedly and raising her head to him. Then, he would stand still in confusion and ill at ease, and when she dashed abruptly on again he tried in vain to keep time with her quick short steps.

I somehow understood what it was all about. A fictitious marriage, no doubt. Probably she had raised the question in Moscow and been told of Urmánov, who, very likely had already declared himself willing to take a leading part in the proposed comedy. It was all so natural. This way out of the difficulty had come spontaneously into my head and into the heads of many of my fellow-students with whom I had discussed the subject. I was even a little envious of Urmánov. I remembered her momentary hesitation when she stood wondering to which of us to turn, and her evident joy when she saw that Urmánov was the one she sought That was doubtless due to my being so young and looking so boyish. Old Ferapontyev would perhaps have laughed at so juvenile a bridegroom.

But it was a real pleasure to me to look at those two from the distance. Assuredly Urmánov was just the right person to walk arm-in-arm with my heroine. It was beautiful, it was excellent, and it delighted me greatly.

From that day forward Urmánov accompanied the American lady on her evening walks, and when he met her by day walking in the avenues with the General, he raised his hat respectfully. The General at first regarded his daughter dubiously, but after a time he began to return the young man’s greetings. At length, as I sat one day on a bench in the main avenue, I saw her formally introducing Urmánov to her father. They were near the lake; the water was as smooth as a mirror, and reflected the figure of the General with his eyeshade like an absurd silhouette⁠—a caricature in black paper. Urmánov raised his hat and respectfully pressed the two extended fingers of the Generals right hand, the lady meanwhile watching them both like a careful theatre-manager. As moreover the trees bent over on both sides, forming an exquisite frame, the picture seemed to me exceedingly charming and poetic. As yet, I knew life only from books; I merely read and dreamt. Now something was taking place before my eyes.

The further progress of the affair was rapid. Urmánov’s tact and respectful manner evidently pleased the General. Soon they could be seen constantly together, playing at chess on the balcony of the villa or walking in the park. The General livened up, talked loudly in the avenues, laughed with an old man’s abrupt laughter, and often clapped Urmánov on the shoulder.

“You are the sort I like,” he would exclaim. “You ought to have been a soldier!”

The lady used occasionally to frown and pout. Urmánov played his part as gravely as if it had not been all make-believe.

The wedding took place in our church, in the presence of a few spectators. Several peasant women, some students in blouses and high boots, a few old fogies⁠—acquaintances and cronies of the General⁠—and a little group of groomsmen and witnesses, also a sprinkling of outsiders. We felt the kind of stillness peculiar to empty churches where every sound rings out distinctly, echoes in the corners, and clings somewhere high up among the arches. We could hear the whispering of the old women and, occasionally, a sigh or a murmured remark.

The bride was too gorgeously dressed for so quiet a wedding; her face was paler than usual, and rather too plainly expressed contemptuous impatience. Urmánov, who was dressed in black, was unnecessarily grave. On the other hand, the General was in the best of humors. He looked triumphantly at his old cronies, raised his head high and struck his stick heavily on the stone floor, fussing about and giving directions to everybody.

I stood leaning against the wall, careless and indifferent. The whole affair seemed to me commonplace and hardly worthy of notice. The priest went through the service gracefully, and with the customary unction. The