Short Fiction, Aleksandr Kuprin [the speed reading book txt] 📗

their common life and the little daily interests of the troupe. II

The path went along a high cliff over the sea, and wandered through the shade of ancient olive trees, The sea gleamed between the trunks now and then, and seemed at times to stand like a calm and mighty wall on the horizon; its colour was the more blue, the more intense, because of the contrast seen through the trellis-work of silver verdant leaves. In the grass, amongst the kizil shrubs, wild roses and vines, and even on the branches of the trees, swarmed the grasshoppers, and the air itself trembled from the monotonously sounding and unceasing murmur of their legs and wing-cases. The day turned out to be a sultry one; there was no wind, and the hot earth burnt the soles of the feet.

Sergey, going as usual ahead of grandfather, stopped, and waited for the old man to catch up to him.

“What is it, Serozha?” asked the organ-grinder.

“The heat, grandfather Lodishkin⁠ ⁠… there’s no bearing it! To bathe would be good.⁠ ⁠…”

The old man wiped his perspiring face with his sleeve, and hitched the organ to a more comfortable position on his back.

“What would be better?” he sighed, looking eagerly downward to the cool blueness of the sea. “Only, after bathing, one gets more hungry, you know. A village doctor once said to me: ‘Salt has more effect on man than anything else⁠ ⁠… that means, it weakens him⁠ ⁠… sea-salt.⁠ ⁠…’ ”

“He lied, perhaps,” remarked Sergey, doubtfully.

“Lied! What next? Why should he lie? A solid man, nondrinker⁠ ⁠… having a little house in Sevastopol. What’s more, there’s no getting down to the sea here. Wait a bit, we’ll get to Miskhor, and there rinse our sinful bodies. It’s fine to bathe before dinner⁠ ⁠… and afterwards to sleep, we three⁠ ⁠… and a splendid bit of work.⁠ ⁠…”

Arto, hearing conversation behind him, turned and ran back, his soft blue eyes, half shut from the heat, looked up appealingly, and his hanging tongue trembled from quick breathing.

“What is it, brother doggie? Warm, eh?” asked grandfather.

The dog yawned, straining his jaws and curling his tongue into a little tube, shook all his body, and whimpered.

“Yes, yes, little brother, but it can’t be helped,” continued Lodishkin. “It is written, ‘In the sweat of thy face,’ though, as a matter of fact, it can hardly be said that you have a face, or anything more than a muzzle.⁠ ⁠… Be off! Go off with you.⁠ ⁠… As for me, Serozha, I must confess I just like this heat. Only the organ’s a bit of a nuisance, and if there were no work to do I’d just lie down somewhere in the grass in the shade, and have a good morning of it. For old bones this sunshine is the finest thing in the world.”

The footpath turned downward to a great highway, broad and hard and blindingly white. At the point where the troupe stepped on to it commenced an ancient baronial estate, in the abundant verdure of which were beautiful villas, flowerbeds, orangeries and fountains. Lodishkin knew the district well, and called at each of the villas every year, one after another, during the vine-harvesting season, when the whole Crimea is filled with rich, fashionable, and pleasure-loving visitors. The bright magnificence of southern Nature did not touch the old man, but it enraptured Sergey, who was there for the first time. The magnolias, with their hard and shiny leaves, shiny as if lacquered or varnished, with their large white blossoms, each almost as big as a dinner-plate; the summerhouses of interwoven vines hanging with heavy clusters of fruit; the enormous century-old plane trees, with their bright trunks and mighty crowns; tobacco plantations, rivulets, waterfalls, and everywhere, in flowerbeds, gardens, on the walls of the villas, bright sweet-scented roses⁠—all these things impressed unceasingly the naive soul of the boy. He expressed his admiration of the scene, pulling the old man’s sleeve and crying out every minute:

“Grandfather Lodishkin, but, grandfather, just look, goldfish in the fountain!⁠ ⁠… I swear, grandfather, goldfish, if I die for it!” cried the boy, pressing his face to a railing and staring at a large tank in the middle of a garden. “I say, grandfather, look at the peaches! Good gracious, what a lot there are. Look, how many! And all on one tree.”

“Leave go, leave go, little stupid. What are you stretching your mouth about?” joked the old man. “Just wait till we get to the town of Novorossisk, and give ourselves to the South. Now, that’s a place indeed; there you’ll see something. Sotchi, Adler, Tuapse, and then, little brother, Sukhum, Batum.⁠ ⁠… Your eyes’ll drop out of your head.⁠ ⁠… Palms, for instance. Absolutely astonishing; the trunks all shaggy like felt, and each leaf so large that we could hide ourselves in one.”

“You don’t mean it!” cried Sergey, joyfully.

“Wait a bit and you’ll see for yourself. Is there little of anything there? Now, oranges for instance, or, let us say, lemons.⁠ ⁠… You’ve seen them, no doubt, in the shops?”

“Well?”

“Well, you see them simply as if they were growing in the air. Without anything, just on the tree, as up here you see an apple or a pear.⁠ ⁠… And the people down there, little brother, are altogether out of the way: Turks, Persians, different sorts of Cherkesses, and all in gowns and with daggers, a desperate sort of people! And, little brother, there are even Ethiopians. I’ve seen them many times in Batum!”

“Ethiopians, I know. Those with horns,” cried Sergey, confidently.

“Well, horns I suppose they have not,” said grandfather; “that’s nonsense. But they’re black as a pair of boots, and shine even. Thick, red, ugly lips, great white eyes, and hair as curly as the back of a black sheep.”

“Oi, oi, how terrible!⁠ ⁠… Are Ethiopians like that?”

“Well, well, don’t be frightened. Of course, at first, before you’re accustomed, it’s alarming. But when you see that other people aren’t afraid, you pick up courage.⁠ ⁠… There’s all sorts there, little brother. When we get there you’ll see. Only one