Short Fiction, Ivan Bunin [reading women .TXT] 📗

dreadful face with the faded violet whiskers, hurriedly, and with confusion, gave him something.

And then, rushing out of the station on to the platform, he got mixed in the crowd and disappeared into it, while in the “Versailles,” in the room which for two days had as it were belonged to him, they carried out the slop-pail, opened the windows to the April sun and to the fresh air, noisily moved the furniture, swept up and threw out the dust⁠—and with the dust there fell under the table, under the table cloth which slid on to the floor, his torn note, which he had forgotten with the cucumbers:

“I beg that no one be accused of my death. I was at the wedding of my only daughter who.⁠ ⁠…”

Gautami

His is a tale thrice beautiful in its brevity and unpretentiousness, its meaning and the manner of its telling; a tale of the love of Gautami, the saintly and the beatified, who, without knowing it herself, did come under the sheltering shadow of the Blessed One.

Thus have we heard it told:

In a populous hamlet, in a felicitous region, at the foot of the great Himalayas, in a family poor but worthy, was Gautami born.

She was tall of stature and rather lean at first sight; swarthy and pleasant of face was she, and simple and unpretentious of soul⁠—therefore did the neighbours bestow an unkind by-name upon her. “Gautami the Lean” did they nickname her, but she took no offense thereat. And every order did she obey, and to every order she made such answer as:

“ ’Tis well, dear master; I shall do so. ’Tis well, dear mistress, I shall do so.”

For may plain speech be forgiven us⁠—not of the wisest among men and women was Gautami. But neither did she utter anything foolish⁠—perhaps because she did not say much, and laboured at something from morning till night. And the raiment upon her was always poor, and always, always the same, but always neat. And so one day a youth, truly rich and handsome, the son of the great king of that region, did behold her upon a river bank, when she was washing the linen of her sisters and brothers, and he comprehended that she was sensible and submissive, and that there was none to take her part⁠—not even her parents.

Thus did he think:

“ ‘There is no help for it,’ her parents will say; ‘Gautami is not of the wisest, Gautami is not pretty to look upon; she does not resemble a daughter of ours, but rather a servant⁠—who shall take her to wife? Sooner or later, she shall submit to some man who may desire her⁠—for Gautami is incapable of refusing. Ah, if only this man prove not without pity, and will give away, to be rightly brought up, the child that will be born of her!’ ”

Thus did the king’s son think.

As for Gautami, having washed and rinsed the linen, she squatted down upon her heels over the water glistening in the sun; having taken off all her raiment, she did swathe all her body from the armpits to the knees in an old piece of cloth, and, having spread her long black hair, began to clean her white teeth with a wetted, splintered little stick, began to wash her swarthy limbs, not knowing that the king’s son was watching her from behind the clumps of bamboo. And thereupon he did call out to her, and, walking up to her, told her with a smile, yet not unkindly:

“Thou art endearing, Gautami, and not at all as lean as they say you are⁠—a maid clad in simple raiment, and of tall stature, is often misjudged. I have heard, Gautami, that thou art submissive. Do not resist me, therefore; none shall see our caresses at this sultry hour, near the deserted river.”

And Gautami was abashed before him, before his assurances that his wishes were righteous, and she did whisper in answer:

“ ’Tis well, dear master; let it be as thou dost will.”

And the king’s son, having had his joyance of her, saw that she was better than she had seemed, and that her dark eyes, although they were not expressive of thought, and somehow seemed always the same, were nevertheless full of enchantment. And after that their meetings upon the bank of the river, within the grove of bamboos, became frequent, and so it was that, whenever the king’s son would order Gautami to come to him, she always would come, never disobeying; nor did her submissiveness and charm change with the intimacy of their bodies; nor her agreeable manner when their conversation was brief. And when the ordained time had run, she felt herself heavy with child.

Thereupon did the king’s son take her as one of his concubines, transferring her with her poor little kit, wherein she kept her modest belongings, the sorry savings of a maiden who works, into his opulent palace, and she lived in the palace until her time was come.

And when her day had approached, one of the king’s stewardesses did say to her:

“Gautami! A wife who is about to become a mother goeth to the house of her father to give birth, in fulfillment of the custom. But thou art no wife, but a concubine. Go not therefore to the house of thy parents; but also do not thou transgress against that which is seemly.”

And Gautami, having salaamed before her, got up, and went out of the gate of the clay walls that enclosed the palace.

And, having passed over the wooden bridge that spanned a muddy canal, which was near by, she saw one who sat under a tree, with a bowl in his hand⁠—a blind and an ancient beggar, girt only about his middle with a dirty rag, whereas his arms, his legs, his bosom and his withered, glistening back he had exposed to the blazing sun and the flies.

And the beggar raised his sightless face, hearkening to her steps, and he smiled with the tender and