Short Fiction quotes

One learns what to expect of a man.

A murderer is not always employed in murdering.

He lives and feels like other men, and like them he is grateful to those who shelter him from frost and storm.

“Keep still!” angrily growled Burán. “What need is there for an escort! There is no danger that you will run away, even if you are not guarded.

The island is large, and surrounded by water. You might die of hunger anywhere.

Don’t you hear the moaning of the sea?”

“ ‘No, we do not. He was always called Burán.

Most likely, he had forgotten it himself; of what use is a name to a vagrant?

’

“

What is more painful for the vagrant than to dream of his father and mother?

In my dream, it was as if nothing had ever happened to me, as though neither prison nor Saghálin had ever existed; it seemed as if I were lying in my parents’ house, and my mother, softly humming, were combing and smoothing my hair.

“What is more painful for the vagrant than to dream of his father and mother?

In my dream, it was as if nothing had ever happened to me, as though neither prison nor Saghálin had ever existed; it seemed as if I were lying in my parents’ house, and my mother, softly humming, were combing and smoothing my hair.

A candle stood on the table, and my father, with spectacles on his nose, was reading an ancient book … he was a bookkeeper. …

“Meanwhile we sat by the fire, waiting for the chowder to be ready, for it was a long time since we had tasted any hot food. It was a dark night. Clouds rose seaward. It rained, and the forest moaned; but we were happy. …

The dark night is a kind mother to the like of us vagrants.

The cloudier the sky, the easier we feel.

What an impression this vagrant epic must make when told in the stifling atmosphere that fills the four walls of convict prison barracks. And what was there in this story, I asked myself, that made such an impression upon my whole being?

It was not the difficulties overcome on the way, nor the sufferings endured, nor that “vagrant homesickness”; but it was the incomparable poetry of liberty.

And why was it that I heard only the voice of freedom as expressed in the measureless expanse, in the woods, in the steppes, and in the ocean?

“ ‘Disgusted, and yet you know not why. This is not true repentance.

True repentance is sweet.

Listen, and remember what I tell you: God alone is without sin; man is a sinner by his very nature, and is saved by repentance alone. He must repent of his sins. How is he to repent who has committed no sin?

‘Put the baby on the box, …’ I said. She placed the child beside me, holding him from behind. I gave the horses a blow with the reins, and they started on the run … just as you saw them a short time ago.

They ran to escape the scent of blood.

“In the morning I brought the lady to the local police-quarters in the village, and there I told my story. ‘Arrest me, for I have killed a man.’ The lady told them just how it all happened. ‘This man saved my life,’ she said.

I am much obliged to you, but it goes against me. … I could not do it! What should I do there?

Everything would be strange to me. Bless you! I should have no one to abuse!

”

He insolently repelled the advances of the Pans, and overlooked an amount of wilfulness and impertinence on the part of the peasants, which would have been punished with blows by even the mildest among the nobility.

Finally, to the great joy of all respectable persons, Uncle Maxim for reasons best known to himself became very much displeased with the Austrians, and departed for Italy.

There he joined Garibaldi, a heathen soldier, who like himself delighted in fighting—and who, as it was rumored among the Pan-landlords, was in league with the devil, and showed no reverence for the Pope.

“Maxim’s was a sad end,” said the Pans, and ascribed it to the immediate interposition of Saint Peter in behalf of his representative on earth. Maxim was reckoned among the dead.

Subsequently, however, it became known that the Austrian sabres had no power to expel Maxim’s obstinate spirit, and that it still dwelt in his considerably damaged body.

The Garibaldians, rescuing their worthy comrade from the fray, had carried him to some hospital, and, lo! after a few years Maxim unexpectedly appeared in his sister’s house, where he ever after remained.

“I am simply telling you the truth,” replied Maxim. “

I have lost a hand and a foot, but I have eyes. This youngster has no eyes, and in time will have neither hands nor feet nor will.

”

But if it happened to be a stranger, then the movements of the tiny hands were more deliberate; the boy passed them carefully and attentively over the unfamiliar face, his features betraying his intense interest.

He seemed to be looking at the strange face with his fingertips.

By nature the blind boy was a very lively and active child; but as month succeeded month, blindness set its impress on the boy’s temperament, which began to manifest its true character. He gradually lost his rapidity of motion.

he cut them, soaked them in water, dried them in the sun, hung them up under the roof to dry in the wind—but all to no avail. The mountain pipe did not commend itself to the Hohòl’s heart.

It whistled where it should have sung, wailed when he wanted a sentimental tremolo, and never in fact responded to his mood.

At last Joachim grew disgusted with all the wandering mountaineers, having made up his mind that not one of them understood the art of producing a good pipe, and decided to manufacture one with his own hands.

Now the young woman played it with the view of winning a second victory: she wished to bind still more closely to herself her son’s young heart, enticed away from her by the pipe of the Hohòl.

But the fond mother’s hope was doomed to disappointment; the Vienna instrument proved no match for the willow twig of Ukraine.

True, the piano from Vienna was rich in resources—expensive wood, fine strings, the skilled workmanship of a Vienna artisan, and all the wealth of its wide musical range;

This was indeed true. The secret of this poetry might be found in the intimate relation between Nature and those memories of the past of which it was ever whispering to the human heart.

Joachim, the rude peasant, with his greasy boots and calloused hands, possessed that harmonious, that keen feeling for Nature.

Then the mother became aware that her haughty spirit had succumbed before the stable-boy. She no longer remembered his coarse garments, redolent of tar;

“Well, I am glad of that.

How could anybody strike a blind boy? It would be a sin.

”

Meanwhile the little woman, perfectly at home, approached Maxim, who was advancing toward her with his crutch and cane, and extending her hand, remarked with the most gracious condescension, “

It is very good of you not to strike a blind boy. He has told me of it.

”

and for that reason also you must believe me. But in regard to all subjects relating to orbis terrarum you are to respect what Pan Maxim Yatzènko tells you, and study faithfully.”

“Do not fear, Pan Valentine,” retorted Maxim, smiling, “we do not draft little Panis into Garibaldi’s regiment.”

Both children profited by this companionship in study. Although Petrùsya was farther advanced, there was still an opportunity for competition.

With all his precautions he could but avert a premature awakening of these unsatisfied yearnings, and thereby diminish the boy’s chances of suffering. In every other respect the child’s unhappy fate, with all its cruel consequences, must take its course.

And like a dark shadow this fate advanced to meet him.

From year to year the boy’s natural vivacity subsided, like a receding wave, while the melancholy that was echoing within his soul grew persistently, and left its impress on his temperament.

It was for his sake that the family had thus isolated itself within its own narrow circle, contented with its tranquil existence, whose current had now united with the equally placid life of the Possessor’s “cabin.”

Thus Peter, who had now become a youth, had grown up like a hothouse plant, guarded from the rude winds of the outer world.

He was still as of old in the centre of a vast, dark world. Darkness enveloped him in every direction—above, around, on all sides; illimitable, eternal. His delicate and sensitive organism vibrated in response to every impression, like a finely strung instrument.

But Stavruchènko lacked the romantic characteristics of Gògol’s hero. He was on the contrary an excellent and practical landlord, who had always got on well with the serfs; and now that serfdom was abolished he was clever enough to adapt himself to the new conditions.

He knew the people after the landlord fashion; that is, he knew every peasant in his village, and every peasant’s cow, and almost every extra coin in each peasant’s purse.

But if Stavruchènko did not have hand-to-hand encounters with his sons, like Bulbà, they were forever at odds, regardless of time or place. Everywhere, whether at home or abroad, endless disputes arose between the old man and the young people;

“They did not go to school for nothing,” he often remarked, “but I can tell you that my Hvèydka will lead you like calves by a rope. That’s the way it is!

But he cannot deceive me, for I can stuff him into my tobacco-pouch and put him in my pocket. You are nothing but youngsters and fools!

”

“Oh, he thinks himself extremely clever; and he has destroyed every vestige of humanity within his breast by all these plans and schemes. Don’t speak to me of those people!

I should like to know how they gained the right to arrange other people’s lives?

” She stopped abruptly, clenched her slender hands and burst into a flood of childlike tears.

The girl smiled, but continued in the same tone: “

What if you are blind? I love you even so; hence it follows that I must marry you. That is the way things happen; what can we do about it?

”

The next moment, however, the wonder was wholly merged in delight; and the elder Stavruchènko’s son, a professional musician, as he listened, strove for a long time to follow the familiar piece, and at the same time to analyze the peculiar “style” of the pianist.

Music recognizes no party; it stands aloof from the clashing of opinions.

If the eyes of the young people sparkled and their faces flushed, and daring conceptions of future life and happiness sprang up in their minds, so also the eyes of the old sceptic sparkled with animation.

It was true, Peter had never thought of it. Evelyn’s presence had always been a joy to him, but until yesterday he had never realized the fact, any more than one realizes the air he breathes.

Those simple words had fallen into his soul like a pebble upon the glassy surface of a stream

: one moment it was placid, serenely reflecting the sunlight and the blue sky—a toss of the pebble, and it is shaken to its very depths. Now he awoke like one newly born, and Evelyn—his old companion—appeared to him in an altered light.

“No, no! it is not so!” interrupted the blind man, angrily, in his former tone of passionate excitement. “

I would change places with the lowest beggar; gladly would I wear his rags! He sees!

”

Maxim feared lest this might prove but a phase, occasioned by the depression of the nervous system. But months went by, and still the blind man’s mood showed no sign of change.

The realization of one’s own misfortunes sometimes paralyzes the energy, and plunges the soul into a state of passive endurance; while the knowledge of the sorrows of others will, on the contrary, often rouse one to energetic action, and uplifting the whole nature stimulate mental activity, and lead one to seek opportunities for showing sympathy.

A longing to relieve human misery had now risen in Peter’s heart, supplanting his former vain endeavor to escape from personal grief. He had as yet no clear idea as to the ways and means, and had but slender confidence in his own power;

A few years pass: once more the present becomes the past, and we see again that it too, in its turn, had its own beauty, its own peculiar flavor. But when, on looking backward, we feel nothing save weariness or disgust—that is sad indeed.

It means that life has lost its savor.

However, all this is off the point. As I was saying—at that period of my life, everything I went through, everything I felt, everything my intellect or imagination grasped, received a particular hue.

Thus, in Bokel I noticed especially, among others, that passage where he suggests a reason for the slavery of Ireland.

The Irish, he says, are not free because they live on potato broth, while their conquerors eat flesh meat.

That is quite true. In any case, it is as true as the other proposition, that if the Irish were to become free and shake off the yoke of the English lords, they would probably choose nourishing beefsteaks in preference to potato broth.

But in those days it did not occur to me to look at the other side of the medal and seek for deeper reasons.

I accepted Bokel’s theory about meat and potatoes with all the warmth of a proselyte.

His deductions were so simple, so clear; his lines seemed to be drawn so straight; first of all—yes just that, first of all—a “fowl in the pot,” and meat instead of potato broth, and meat for everybody.

The accuracy and solidity of scientific thought affected me in the same way that beauty affects its adorers. I simply worshipped this destroyer of metaphysical prejudices, and in my eyes his device placed him on the pedestal of a Titan or demigod.

The gods fought against stupidity in vain, but the great man fights not in vain.

Poor great man! I did not know that already he had been given the lie in the very metaphysics he so hated, and that stupidity had shown its power by creeping even into his own works.

I saw in it the passionless proclamation of truth, and in my jealous proselytism was ready to follow it out to its logical conclusion. Yes, like bile—like all other secretions—and nevertheless, there was hardly a thing that I worshipped as I worshipped thought.

In those days we lived on arguments, fell in love over arguments, suffered and rejoiced in a cloud of arguments: our tragedies, the raptures and sorrows of rejected love, all these had their origin in “warring opinions.”

Evidently, history, for some abstruse reason, needed a contentious generation.

To some critical remark of mine on the question of dress, she replied, with the unconscious logic of a young girl of the period, “Why, how can you say that?

Forward girls used to be the fashion, but now retiring ones are coming into vogue.

” On this I burst out laughing; but I see now that it was a piece of fine observation.

I now looked with hatred upon “that Ferapontyev” returning from his walk. So that was what he was—a conventional old parasite, eating away two young lives, demanding of his own daughter at once infidelity and a false oath!

To me she seemed an enchanted princess in the power of an old ogre.

She was walking beside her father, with her usual calm look of dignity, as if conscious of her own integrity and obviously without any idea of trying to act oppressed innocence.

At the same time I loved Urmánov, who had cursed her, and yet his curses made her still dearer to me.

I was in love, too, with the girl on the Volga; and with the evening; and with the man who was singing on the lake; and with the woman for whom he sang.

When the moon rose quite high and lighted up the shore, I saw from the distance the fishing benches; and my ear caught the chirruping of the same bird which had asked questions while I was walking with the American.

The park grew empty, bare and light. All its summer decorations lay like a russet carpet on the earth: and a warm, blue mist floated between the tree trunks, filled with the spicy scent of fallen leaves and damp earth.

The dew dripped from the branches like quiet tears of farewell.

The General had long disappeared from our horizon, with his green shade, angry looks, mumbling speech and taciturn manservant. Latterly he had seldom been seen in the avenues of the park; and, when he did come out, moved feebly, his head shaking more than ever.

Then I put out the light and fell sound asleep, never thinking how long it would be before I should know such sweet, untroubled sleep again, nor that the last of my childish dreams hovered round my pillow on that last night of my youth.

Yes, if since then I have known joy, emotion, hope, they have certainly not been the same joys and hopes, and I have dreamt other dreams.

I was wakened next morning by a knock at my chamber door. Though the gray winter dawn looked in at the window and the flame of a candle shone through our ground glass door, it was still dark in our room.

Fragments of my life, dreams and some bits of old memories followed one after the other like formless clouds in the sky.

I had never yet known real, gnawing grief, and slight melancholy is really a pleasant feeling. It forms a shadow in which the soul can grow, as flowers grow during a warm summer night.

The bare branches rustled in the avenue. I recalled that avenue with summer foliage, and saw again Urmánov walking arm-in-arm with the American. Then, no doubt, he was happy, and his heart as sunny as the avenue;

Again a slight inward shiver; and, through all my strange calm, I realize that I am not happy.

It is as if there had dripped into me something gray, a spot of foggy mire, which I instinctively fear to disturb.

I remember that with this fear was mingled a sense of squeamishness; as if I wanted to get rid of something almost physically repulsive. It was the recollection of the white substance lying there. The shattered fragments of skull.

Whither, I asked, myself, is gone all that which appeared to me as love, suffering, exalted aspirations and high thought?

It all lies there in the shattered skull, together with the sand and the gravel.

The gray, miry stain changes from a foggy spot into a cloud, hiding the light of life in my mind. As I thought of all these things the cloud continued to grow, and I shivered as with inward cold. …

“Yes; it is true.

Have you ever been to a slaughterhouse? Have you heard when the butcher kills an ox what a row the other beasts kick up?

”

I could not get rid of my feeling of amazement. Was it possible that only yesterday, I, too, should have clapped? Yes, I should, and I reflected with a glow of self-satisfaction, that I was now above suchlike frivolities.

In there they shift about between enthusiasm and indignation, not knowing that to be impervious alike to enthusiasm and indignation is to understand Truth.

At the door was a two-seated droshky, waiting for a return fare to Moscow. The miserable jades in the shafts stood, with their heads bent and their legs wide apart, as if meditating on their dismal fate.

And now? For that matter, the real reason is that my sight is grown so much keener that I have gained the power of seeing things in their true light.

And if my nerves are a little upset, it merely shows that no man can digest the truth about himself.

… There they are, quite cock-a-hoop, and for no other reason than that they cannot understand the meaning of the simplest phenomena. Schmidt, the fat machine, when he oils himself merely opens his mouth from ear to ear. That is it;

Though I had then no desire to resume my normal condition, I cannot look back to that time without an involuntary shudder.

It was as if I walked, moved, and lived in a gray cloud, cold and formless, darkening the dawning light of my young life.

I remember how a cloud on the horizon once suggested to me thoughts of this kind. It was a somewhat frosty evening, the sinking sun had tipped the edges of the cloud with purple and gold.

a man of this type is bitter against both life and death. But still more so when, as happened to me at that time, a man becomes sick of life without struggle, or pain, or joy; then death also appears sickening and hideous.

For life and death are bound together by a living thread.

I do not remember who it was that said, “Death is the child of life.” It is true in this sense:

A sense of overwhelming misery swept over my soul as if I were assisting at the burial of something unspeakbly dear to me—my own youth, and with it …

Strange! From that time I have understood the legends of demons entering into men’s bodies and speaking through their mouths.

At that very moment when I suffered this unbearable misery, and felt so much tenderness towards this girl who felt so much for me, the dirty spot in my soul asserted its influence;

A month and two days had elapsed since the judges, amid the loud acclaim of the Athenian people, had pronounced the death sentence against the philosopher Socrates because he had sought to destroy faith in the gods.

What the gadfly is to the horse Socrates was to Athens.

The gadfly stings the horse in order to prevent it from dozing off and to keep it moving briskly on its course. The philosopher said to the people of Athens:

“

I am your gadfly. My sting pricks your conscience and arouses you when you are caught napping.

Sleep not, sleep not, people of Athens; awake and seek the truth!”

“I am your gadfly. My sting pricks your conscience and arouses you when you are caught napping.

Sleep not, sleep not, people of Athens; awake and seek the truth!

”

“

I know not which of us chooses the better lot!

”

Plato was burning his lamp and bending over a parchment; the best disciple of the philosopher was busy inscribing the deeds, words, and teachings that marked the end of the sage’s life.

A thought is never lost, and the truth discovered by a great intellect illumines the way for future generations like a torch in the dark.

There was one other disciple of Socrates. Not long before, the impetuous Ctesippus had been one of the most frivolous and pleasure-seeking of the Athenian youths. He had set up beauty as his sole god, and had bowed before Clinias as its highest exemplar.

“Say them, Elpidias, without fear.

Words can scarcely be more destructive to me than the hemlock.

”

“

Yes, friend, if Hermes had had to live by my gifts, I am afraid he would have grown very thin.

”

“

Why. Because everybody does it.

”

There even came moments when he grew weary and embraced his own handiwork and prayed to it and wet it with his tears.

But the stone remained cold stone.

And as he waxed in years the youth destroyed his creations, which already seemed to him a vile defamation of his ever-present dreams. At last fate brought him to a good barbarian, who asked him for the cause of his constant mourning.

Searcher for truth, set upon my altar the little gift of your doubt, because in me is its solution.’ If you are that god, harken to my questions.

No one kills his own child, and my doubts are a branch of the eternal spirit whose name is truth.

”

Who are you that would command me to stifle the flame that has illuminated my whole life, ever since it was penetrated by the first ray of sacred thought?

The sun says not to the stars: ‘Be extinguished that I may rise.’

The sun rises and the weak glimmer of the stars is quenched by its far, far stronger light. The day says not to the torch: ‘Be extinguished; you interfere with me.’ The day breaks, and the torch smokes, but no longer shines.

A mountain-peak now stood out clearly above the mysterious mist, gleaming like a torch over dark blue valleys. The son of Cronos, the thunderer, was no longer enthroned upon it, and the other Olympians too were gone.

Socrates stood alone in the light of the sun under the high heavens.

Ctesippus was distinctly conscious of the pulse-beat of a mysterious life quivering throughout nature, stirring even the tiniest blade of grass.

I did not believe him. The light seemed to be so close by, standing out against the vague darkness. But the oarsman was right; the light was really far away.

What a peculiar property do these night lights possess!

They approach you ever so closely, conquering the darkness and burning in its midst, beckoning to you and alluring you with their nearness.

What a peculiar property do these night lights possess!

They approach you ever so closely, conquering the darkness and burning in its midst, beckoning to you and alluring you with their nearness.

It seems that two or three strokes more, and you will be at the end of your journey … And yet, that end is far, far away.

And even now, I often recall this dark river, with the rocky cliff’s crowding upon its banks, and the tiny speck of light burning far ahead.

Many a light has thus allured me and others with its apparent nearness. But life flows, on, between its gloomy banks, and the lights are far away.

And again we must ply our oars …

At first it moves from peak to peak, then goes lower and lower, and finally its golden rays appear but for a few minutes at the bottom of the valley. This was what happened that morning.

The Nuysk hamlet was bidding the sun farewell for the whole winter.

The teamsters, of course, would see it again in their travels, but the old men and the children would not see it again until spring, or, rather, until summer …

… Mikheich that the wax candles are burning brighter, that the banners are fluttering feverishly, that the wind has suddenly awakened, caught up the waves of sound, and borne them aloft on its broad wings, mingling them on high with the majestic ringing of the bells.

Never did Mikheich ring as he did that night.

It seemed that his overflowing heart transfused itself into the dead brass, and the peals of the bells sang and trembled and laughed and cried, as they rose upward to the very sky.

He gave her a sly wink and clapped her on the shoulder with such force that she staggered.

A woman’s heart is like that; though she knew that Makar was deceiving her, she surrendered to the charms of that conjugal caress.

He went out of the house, caught his old piebald pony in the courtyard, led him by the mane to the sleigh, and put him in harness.

The Northern Lights flared up and went out. The bells ceased ringing.

He did not notice how this came to pass. He knew that something should come out of him, and waited, thinking every moment it would come, but nothing appeared.

Nevertheless, he realised that he was now dead, and he therefore lay very still; he lay so long that he grew tired.

The good priest always grew as drunk as a lord, but he fought neither fiercely nor often. Makar would see him home, and hand him over, helpless and defenseless, to the care of the Mother Priestess, his wife.

Yes, he had been a good priest, but his end had been bad.

One day, when there was no one else at home, the fuddled Father, who was lying alone on the bed, had taken it into his head to smoke.

So the young servants of God flew up to it on their pinions and hundreds of them pulled it to the floor with ropes.

Heavy is the labour of a native of Chalgan!

Then Father Ivan began adding up the number of frauds that Makar had committed, and there proved to be twenty-one thousand, three hundred and three. Then he added up the number of bottles of vodka he had drunk, and there proved to be four hundred.

Had he known why his eldest son had been taken away as a soldier and whither he had gone? Had he known where he had died and where his poor bones had been laid?

He had drunk, it was charged, too much vodka; so he had, for his heart had craved it.

“How many bottles did you say that he drank?” the Toyon asked.

So he had remained to grow old with his second wife, and had felt his strength failing and had seen that a pitiless, homeless old age was creeping upon him.

They two had stood solitary as two lorn fir-trees on the steppe, buffeted on every hand by the merciless winds.

“Is that true?” asked the Toyon again, and the priest hastened to answer:

That he had been born with a pure heart, ready to expand to all the beauty of the world?

Whose fault was it if he now longed to hide his besmirched and dishonoured head under the ground?

He could not say. But this he did know, that the patience of his soul was exhausted!

“Eh, hey; now I know, now I know,” said the old man, resuming his work on the shoe. “

My old head is like a sieve; nothing stays in it now.

I remember people who died a long time ago, oh, I remember them well! But I forget new people. I have lived in this world a long time.”

And now I must go to my grave, and sometimes I can’t tell, myself, whether I have lived in this world or not. Eh, hey; yes, yes.

Perhaps, after all, I have not lived at all.

”

Both are hatched out of an egg, but the falcon longs to soar as soon as his wings are strong. Then, when he screams in the sky, how not only the little chickens but the old cocks run!

The noble is a falcon, the peasant is a hen.

I remember when I was a little boy seeing thirty peasants hauling heavy logs out of the forest and the Count riding along alone on his horse, twirling his whiskers. The horse under him was prancing, but he kept looking from side to side.

to this day when the sun goes down and the stars shine out over the forest a little bird comes flying to that tree and cries. It pipes so sadly, poor little bird, that one’s heart aches to hear it.

It is the little unchristened soul crying for a cross.

A learned man, they say, who knows things out of books, could give it a cross and then it would not fly about any more. But we live here in the forest and don’t know anything.

Aksana was standing in a corner by the stove with her eyes on the floor, as crimson as that poppy there in the barley. Okh, it was plain the witch felt that something wicked was about to happen because of her.

Let me tell you something, lad: if three men stand looking at one woman nothing good ever comes of it.

Hair is sure to fly, if nothing worse. I know that, because I have seen it happen myself.

Eh, lad, you never chanced to hear Opanas play, and now you will never hear it!

The bandura is a simple trick, but oh, how well a man who knows it can make it talk!

When Opanas ran his hand across the strings it told him everything: how the dark pine forest sings in a storm; how the wind hums through the sedge on the desert steppe; how the dry grass whispers on a high Cossack grave.

“Okh, Count, Count,” says Opanas. “In my country the old men say that legends and songs contain the truth.

But in legends the truth is like iron that has passed through the world from hand to hand for many years and has grown rusty. But the truth in songs is like gold that rust will never corrode.

That’s what the old men say!”

“You drove your faithful servant away like a dog.

You have loved me as a stick loves the back which it beats, and now you love me as the back loves the stick which beats it!

I begged and implored you to listen to me. You wouldn’t!”

… historic gulf that had, in former times, divided the proud, lordly castle from the bourgeois dissenting chapel, continued even after their death, kept open by the worms that had burrowed into the crumbling corpses and had occupied the safest corners of their vaults and cellars.

The coffin-worms infesting these lifeless buildings were men.

There had been a time when the ancient castle had served as a free refuge without restrictions of any kind for every poor wretch that needed it.

But chiefly I could not forget the cold ruthlessness with which the triumphant inhabitants of the castle had driven away their unfortunate fellow-inmates, and my heart contracted at the remembrance of the poor creatures left without a roof over their heads.

However this may be, the old castle taught me for the first time the great fact that, from the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.

That which was sublime in the castle was all overgrown with convolvulus and ivy, and that which was ridiculous was revolting to me, and wounded my childish susceptibility too keenly for me to feel the irony of the contrast; this was still inaccessible to me.

“Knives, scissors, needles, pins!” Then the poor old man, interrupted in the midst of his reverie, would throw up his arms with the gesture of a wounded bird, and stare about him in terror with his hands clutching at his breast.

Ah, how many sufferings are incomprehensible to lanky commissionaires because the sufferers cannot express their pain by means of a lusty blow!

But the poor Professor would only look about him in deep distress, and his inexpressible suffering could be divined from his voice as he turned his clouded eyes upon his tormentor and cried, convulsively tearing at his breast:

And he would turn away from me with anger and pain. He felt that he had not the slightest influence over me, that an insurmountable barrier stood between us.

He had loved her too much while she was alive to notice me in his happiness, and now his deep sorrow hid me from him.

So little by little the gulf dividing us grew ever wider and deeper. He became more and more convinced that I was a wicked, worthless boy, with a hard, selfish heart, and the feeling that he should but could not teach me;

I turned quickly away, ashamed of my outburst, afraid lest my father should read it in my blushing face. I ran into the grove in the garden and falling on my face in the grass wept bitterly from vexation and pain.

At six years I had already experienced all the horrors of loneliness.

My sister Sonia was four. I loved her passionately and she returned my love, but the general, fixed opinion that I was an out-and-out little rascal at last succeeded in raising a high barrier between us.

The child’s pale cheeks would glow with rosy colour and she would laugh, and this laugh of our little friend’s always went straight to our hearts and rewarded us for the sweets we had sacrificed for her sake.

This pale, diminutive little creature reminded one of a flower that had blossomed without seeing the life-giving rays of the sun.

Although she was four years old, she still walked weakly on her crooked little legs, swaying like a grass-blade as she moved.

I involuntarily remembered Valek’s saying about the “grey stone” that was draining Marusia’s merriment away, and a feeling of superstitious fear came stealing into my heart.

I seemed to be aware of an invisible but terrible stony stare directed at her, rapacious and intent; I felt that the crypt was keenly eyeing its prey.

“Valek!” lisped Marusia gaily, as she caught sight of her brother. When she saw me with him a faint light shone in her eyes.

“Ah, what does it matter? She is not here!”

I had lied almost for the first time in my life.

I had always been afraid of my father, and I now feared him more than ever. I was harbouring in my breast a whole world of vague questions and sensations. Could he understand me? Could I confess anything to him without betraying my friends?

… that there must have been a certain amount of depravity, petty vice, and rottenness among them, but today, when those people and scenes rise in my memory wrapped in the mists of the past, I see before me only tragedy, poverty, and the profoundest sadness.

Oh, Childhood and Youth, what great fountainheads of idealism you are!

And now Autumn began to come into its own. The sky was more frequently overcast, the surrounding country sank into a misty crepuscule, torrents of rain swept noisily across the earth, and their thunder resounded monotonously and mournfully in the crypt.

Perhaps he already knows everything that Yanush has been able to tell him, and still holds his tongue. He doesn’t think it is necessary to pursue a toothless old lion into his last lair. But how can I explain it to you, my boy?

Your father works for a gentleman whose name is Law.

He has eyes and a heart only as long as Law is nicely tucked up in bed, but when that gentleman gets up and comes to your father and says:

“No, I won’t tell; I’ll never, never tell.”

It was my father’s son speaking in me.

He could never have succeeded in extorting an answer from me, no, not by the fiercest tortures.

… out under the hedges where the heavy shade of the cherry trees hid them from view, and only their low voices could be heard in various places, with an occasional peal of suppressed laughter, and now and then the incautious kiss of a young couple.

Yes, many things can happen in the dense shade of a cherry tree on such a clear, warm night!

But though the miller could not see the villagers, they could see him very well because he was walking down the middle of the street in the full light of the moon. And so they occasionally called out to him as he passed:

“Very well. And if you looked into the synagogue now you would see Jews aplenty in there. They are jostling one another, and weeping and screaming so that the whole city from one end to another can hear their lamentations.

Where the gnats are there the birds go.

Khapun would be a fool if he trotted about hunting and rummaging through all the woods and villages. He has only one day in the year, and do you think he would waste it like that? Some villages have Jews in them, and some haven’t.”

“It began because it happens every year.

Whatever happens people will talk about; what doesn’t happen isn’t worth talking about.

”

He had not long to wait before two plump girlish arms were wound tightly around his neck, and something glowed among his whiskers that felt very much like two lips pressed to his mouth. Hey ho, what more is there to tell!

If you have ever been kissed like that you know yourself how it feels. If you haven’t, it’s no use trying to tell you.

“Oh, Philipko, my darling for whom I have longed!” crooned the girl. “You have come, you have come! And I have been waiting so wearily for you. I thought I should parch up with longing, like grass without water.”

“Oi, honey, honey, do be quiet, my poor dear little orphan!” begged the old woman with another grievous sigh. “And you, Mr. Miller, don’t think ill of the poor silly girl.

Young hearts and young wisdom are mates; they are like new beer in a ferment.

They boil and foam, but if you will let them stand awhile they will grow sweet to a man’s taste.”

And the fact is no one gave up so much as one crooked penny.

The miller did not pay anything either, but then he thought he was different.

The widow Yankel begged and implored the townsfolk to help her, and even made her children throw themselves at their feet, beseeching them to let her have fifty, or even twenty, copecks on every rouble so that she shouldn’t starve, and might somehow manage to …

And many did weep; whether more than had wept when Yankel kept the inn or fewer, I cannot attempt to say.

Who can take the measure of human grief and who can count human tears?

Ah, no one has ever measured the grief and no one has ever counted the tears of the world, but the old folks say, “walking or riding, trouble’s always in hiding”; and that “the back doesn’t laugh at a stick or a staff.”

I must admit I didn’t mean to tell you all this about my friend, but it’s too late to take it back now. I’ve begun the story and I shall go on to the end.

A song’s not a song, they say, if a word is missing.

And after all, if the miller doesn’t hide anything, why should I?

“Everything is wrong in this world, everything is wrong!

Somehow money doesn’t make a man as happy as it ought to.

”

“What do you mean by knocking again?”

Alas, it is bitter for a man to hear such cold words from the girl who has been his darling love!

The miller longed to embrace her girlish form and show her why he had knocked. To tell you the truth, he was already beginning to sidle toward her when he remembered what Kharko had told him, and answered instead:

And Opanas would have another drink there. First thing you knew he would turn home without having been anywhere else at all.

Yes, he was a good peasant, but fate had ordained him always to fall between the two taverns.

And yet he was a merry fellow and was always singing songs. That is man’s nature.

Yes, he was a good peasant, but fate had ordained him always to fall between the two taverns. And yet he was a merry fellow and was always singing songs. That is man’s nature.

When he has drunk up everything he possesses and knows that an angry wife is waiting for him at home, he will make up a song and think he has got rid of his troubles.

And so it was with Opanas. He was lying in his wagon singing so loudly that even the frogs jumped into the water as he drove up, and this was his song:

Each trying to push the other ahead, the women and girls stepped on to the dam, and soon surrounded the devil.

Ah, there is nothing pleasanter than to be surrounded by a dozen or so frolicsome lasses bombarding you with swift glances, nudging one another with their elbows, and giggling.

The devil’s heart was beginning to leap and sparkle a little, like birch bark in a fire; he hardly knew what to do or where to turn. And the girls kept laughing at him louder and louder.

“What a hasty fellow you are!

You like to eat, but you won’t chew.

”

“From where, eh?

Our business is like a well with two buckets. One bucket fills and the other grows empty.

One goes up and the other goes down. I used to wear bast shoes; now I wear boots. Opanas used to wear boots; now he goes barefoot because he’s a fool. The bucket comes to the wise man full and goes away empty.

“Don’t cry, Galya; don’t cry, little sweetheart! I’ll forgive you all your debts and the interest, too! Oh, I’m in trouble, in worse trouble than you are. The Evil One is carrying me away as a spider carries a little fly.”

Tender and sensitive is the heart of a girl!

It did not seem possible that Galya could have heard the miller’s cry from such a great distance, but she shuddered nevertheless, and raised her dark, weeping eyes to heaven.

“

A wasted life, signor! A ruined existence, which deserved a better lot.

”

“O God!” he said finally, when the bird flew away at the end of its song. “

A creature of God. It sang as much as it needed to, it praised Him, and flew off on its own business.

O darling! … Yes, by heaven, that’s right.”

“

Judge not, signor, that ye be not judged.⁠ ⁠… Another’s soul, signor, is dark.

… Some time,” he added resolutely, “believe me, I’ll come here, … and I’ll be entertained. … And then. …”

“Get up, comrade, it’s time to be going. …

A wanderer’s fate is to wander always.

”

“Listen, Vanya,” he said, “your father superior is calling you. … Your benefactor. … Now he’ll receive you, I know. …”

Peal after peal, rapid and repeated, ringing and quavering, fell down upon the river solemnly and quietly.

…

… Here’s my money to carry them out.’ But there wasn’t a soul to offer it to; there were other people in the corner, and they talked differently. The others had perished under the wheel of history, or had given up. …

Life is like a train.⁠ ⁠… If you leave the station for a time, when you come back the train’s gone.

Sometimes you can’t even find the station. You understand this tragedy, my friend?”

… No, it wasn’t foolishness. … When she told it to me afterwards … she got to this point, looked at me with her clear, birdlike eyes, and burst into tears. Even now I can’t forget those eyes. …

Foolishness, perhaps, but there’s foolishness and foolishness.

It wasn’t clear knowledge and calculation about the situation. But in those blue eyes there was something very deep—just as if a true instinct shone in them. … Those foolish tears, perhaps, were the only correct thing at that time.

“So things went on for some time. Yelena bloomed. … Her love was ‘foolish’; it was very direct. At first—she told me herself—M. Budnikov was repugnant to her. Later, after he had taken her, he dried her up, as she said.

Such direct feminine natures do not separate feelings and facts, so to speak. Wherever you touch it, the whole complex reacts together.

… He came back to her; therefore, he loved her. … For two weeks she was so joyful and beautiful that everyone looked at her—glad of her limitless joy. … But in two weeks M. Budnikov again cooled off.

… In a word, it was so soothing a sight that I went to my room and fell fast asleep after so many sleepless nights.

There’s something healing and calming in honest human happiness.

You know it sometimes occurs to me that we are all bound to be well and happy, because … you see … happiness is the highest possible condition of spiritual health. And health is contagious like disease.

One year of this life—and he’d become a drunken, impudent bum, the enfant terrible of our peaceful city, a menace to the citizens. The devil knows how, but the bashful boy became insolent and diabolically clever: everyone in the city was afraid of him. …

It’s strange, but there isn’t a city in Russia without its Rogov.

A sort of a state character. It was quiet everywhere, peaceful slumber, idyllic calm, M. Budnikov walking along the streets, obstinate, conceited, counting his steps.

“ ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I’ve changed one quarrelsome goal for another not less quarrelsome. That was wrong and now it’s disgraceful. My theory works out all right for me,’ he said. ‘

Honor and everything like that is nothing but dessert. You know it comes after dinner. If there’s no dinner, what’s the use of dessert?

…’

“ ‘Not of blame, what then? I think he’s to blame who started me off with that shot. … That means to condemn no one.

I’m a case of downward stroke in life.⁠ ⁠… I do the will of Him that sent me.

… So there you are, my dear Pavel Semenovich. … Have you got two grivens of silver? I want to drown my sorrow. …’

“There! You understand it? … Yes, general. … Not before Ivan or Petr. … Everything is connected, so to speak. …

One man carelessly throws away a brandy cork and another slips on it and breaks his leg.

”

… Again I began to walk around the garden. Once I found Yelena in it. … She was lying on that same bench where I sat that spring morning. … It was fall now. … Everything was dying and growing bare. …

Autumn, you know, is a terrible cynic. The wind breaks off the leaves and laughs.

They were lying on the muddy, damp earth. And a woman was lying on the damp bench with her face down and crying. Yes, she was crying bitterly. … Later I found out why: the arrangement of M. Budnikov was absolutely impersonal.

Darnu entered the sanctuary.

The old walls spread abroad the peace of destruction and death.

But this destruction apparently had grown weary and left undisturbed the ruins of walls which had witnessed the march of centuries. In one wall there was a broad recess;