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Best Russian Short Stories written by Various

V >> Various >> Best Russian Short Stories




"Dear Grandfather Konstantin Makarych," he wrote, "I am writing you a
letter. I wish you a Happy Christmas and all God's holy best. I have
no mamma or papa, you are all I have."

Vanka gave a look towards the window in which shone the reflection of
his candle, and vividly pictured to himself his grandfather,
Konstantin Makarych, who was night-watchman at Messrs. Zhivarev. He
was a small, lean, unusually lively and active old man of sixty-five,
always smiling and blear-eyed. All day he slept in the servants'
kitchen or trifled with the cooks. At night, enveloped in an ample
sheep-skin coat, he strayed round the domain tapping with his cudgel.
Behind him, each hanging its head, walked the old bitch Kashtanka, and
the dog Viun, so named because of his black coat and long body and his
resemblance to a loach. Viun was an unusually civil and friendly dog,
looking as kindly at a stranger as at his masters, but he was not to
be trusted. Beneath his deference and humbleness was hid the most
inquisitorial maliciousness. No one knew better than he how to sneak
up and take a bite at a leg, or slip into the larder or steal a
muzhik's chicken. More than once they had nearly broken his hind-legs,
twice he had been hung up, every week he was nearly flogged to death,
but he always recovered.

At this moment, for certain, Vanka's grandfather must be standing at
the gate, blinking his eyes at the bright red windows of the village
church, stamping his feet in their high-felt boots, and jesting with
the people in the yard; his cudgel will be hanging from his belt, he
will be hugging himself with cold, giving a little dry, old man's
cough, and at times pinching a servant-girl or a cook.

"Won't we take some snuff?" he asks, holding out his snuff-box to the
women. The women take a pinch of snuff, and sneeze.

The old man goes into indescribable ecstasies, breaks into loud
laughter, and cries:

"Off with it, it will freeze to your nose!"

He gives his snuff to the dogs, too. Kashtanka sneezes, twitches her
nose, and walks away offended. Viun deferentially refuses to sniff and
wags his tail. It is glorious weather, not a breath of wind, clear,
and frosty; it is a dark eight, but the whole village, its white roofs
and streaks of smoke from the chimneys, the trees silvered with
hoar-frost, and the snowdrifts, you can see it all. The sky
scintillates with bright twinkling stars, and the Milky Way stands out
so clearly that it looks as if it had been polished and rubbed over
with snow for the holidays...

Vanka sighs, dips his pen in the ink, and continues to write:

"Last night I got a thrashing, my master dragged me by my hair into
the yard, and belaboured me with a shoe-maker's stirrup, because,
while I was rocking his brat in its cradle, I unfortunately fell
asleep. And during the week, my mistress told me to clean a herring,
and I began by its tail, so she took the herring and stuck its snout
into my face. The assistants tease me, send me to the tavern for
vodka, make me steal the master's cucumbers, and the master beats me
with whatever is handy. Food there is none; in the morning it's bread,
at dinner gruel, and in the evening bread again. As for tea or
sour-cabbage soup, the master and the mistress themselves guzzle that.
They make me sleep in the vestibule, and when their brat cries, I
don't sleep at all, but have to rock the cradle. Dear Grandpapa, for
Heaven's sake, take me away from here, home to our village, I can't
bear this any more... I bow to the ground to you, and will pray to God
for ever and ever, take me from here or I shall die..."

The corners of Vanka's mouth went down, he rubbed his eyes with his
dirty fist, and sobbed.

"I'll grate your tobacco for you," he continued, "I'll pray to God for
you, and if there is anything wrong, then flog me like the grey goat.
And if you really think I shan't find work, then I'll ask the manager,
for Christ's sake, to let me clean the boots, or I'll go instead of
Fedya as underherdsman. Dear Grandpapa, I can't bear this any more,
it'll kill me... I wanted to run away to our village, but I have no
boots, and I was afraid of the frost, and when I grow up I'll look
after you, no one shall harm you, and when you die I'll pray for the
repose of your soul, just like I do for mamma Pelagueya.

"As for Moscow, it is a large town, there are all gentlemen's houses,
lots of horses, no sheep, and the dogs are not vicious. The children
don't come round at Christmas with a star, no one is allowed to sing
in the choir, and once I saw in a shop window hooks on a line and
fishing rods, all for sale, and for every kind of fish, awfully
convenient. And there was one hook which would catch a sheat-fish
weighing a pound. And there are shops with guns, like the master's,
and I am sure they must cost 100 rubles each. And in the meat-shops
there are woodcocks, partridges, and hares, but who shot them or where
they come from, the shopman won't say.

"Dear Grandpapa, and when the masters give a Christmas tree, take a
golden walnut and hide it in my green box. Ask the young lady, Olga
Ignatyevna, for it, say it's for Vanka."

Vanka sighed convulsively, and again stared at the window. He
remembered that his grandfather always went to the forest for the
Christmas tree, and took his grandson with him. What happy times! The
frost crackled, his grandfather crackled, and as they both did, Vanka
did the same. Then before cutting down the Christmas tree his
grandfather smoked his pipe, took a long pinch of snuff, and made fun
of poor frozen little Vanka... The young fir trees, wrapt in
hoar-frost, stood motionless, waiting for which of them would die.
Suddenly a hare springing from somewhere would dart over the
snowdrift... His grandfather could not help shouting:

"Catch it, catch it, catch it! Ah, short-tailed devil!"

When the tree was down, his grandfather dragged it to the master's
house, and there they set about decorating it. The young lady, Olga
Ignatyevna, Vanka's great friend, busied herself most about it. When
little Vanka's mother, Pelagueya, was still alive, and was
servant-woman in the house, Olga Ignatyevna used to stuff him with
sugar-candy, and, having nothing to do, taught him to read, write,
count up to one hundred, and even to dance the quadrille. When
Pelagueya died, they placed the orphan Vanka in the kitchen with his
grandfather, and from the kitchen he was sent to Moscow to Aliakhin,
the shoemaker.

"Come quick, dear Grandpapa," continued Vanka, "I beseech you for
Christ's sake take me from here. Have pity on a poor orphan, for here
they beat me, and I am frightfully hungry, and so sad that I can't
tell you, I cry all the time. The other day the master hit me on the
head with a last; I fell to the ground, and only just returned to
life. My life is a misfortune, worse than any dog's... I send
greetings to Aliona, to one-eyed Tegor, and the coachman, and don't
let any one have my mouth-organ. I remain, your grandson, Ivan Zhukov,
dear Grandpapa, do come."

Vanka folded his sheet of paper in four, and put it into an envelope
purchased the night before for a kopek. He thought a little, dipped
the pen into the ink, and wrote the address:

"The village, to my grandfather." He then scratched his head, thought
again, and added: "Konstantin Makarych." Pleased at not having been
interfered with in his writing, he put on his cap, and, without
putting on his sheep-skin coat, ran out in his shirt-sleeves into the
street.

The shopman at the poulterer's, from whom he had inquired the night
before, had told him that letters were to be put into post-boxes, and
from there they were conveyed over the whole earth in mail troikas by
drunken post-boys and to the sound of bells. Vanka ran to the first
post-box and slipped his precious letter into the slit.

An hour afterwards, lulled by hope, he was sleeping soundly. In his
dreams he saw a stove, by the stove his grandfather sitting with his
legs dangling down, barefooted, and reading a letter to the cooks, and
Viun walking round the stove wagging his tail.




HIDE AND SEEK



BY FIODOR SOLOGUB


Everything in Lelechka's nursery was bright, pretty, and cheerful.
Lelechka's sweet voice charmed her mother. Lelechka was a delightful
child. There was no other such child, there never had been, and there
never would be. Lelechka's mother, Serafima Aleksandrovna, was sure of
that. Lelechka's eyes were dark and large, her cheeks were rosy, her
lips were made for kisses and for laughter. But it was not these
charms in Lelechka that gave her mother the keenest joy. Lelechka was
her mother's only child. That was why every movement of Lelechka's
bewitched her mother. It was great bliss to hold Lelechka on her knees
and to fondle her; to feel the little girl in her arms--a thing as
lively and as bright as a little bird.

To tell the truth, Serafima Aleksandrovna felt happy only in the
nursery. She felt cold with her husband.

Perhaps it was because he himself loved the cold--he loved to drink
cold water, and to breathe cold air. He was always fresh and cool,
with a frigid smile, and wherever he passed cold currents seemed to
move in the air.

The Nesletyevs, Sergey Modestovich and Serafima Aleksandrovna, had
married without love or calculation, because it was the accepted
thing. He was a young man of thirty-five, she a young woman of
twenty-five; both were of the same circle and well brought up; he was
expected to take a wife, and the time had come for her to take a
husband.

It even seemed to Serafima Aleksandrovna that she was in love with her
future husband, and this made her happy. He looked handsome and
well-bred; his intelligent grey eyes always preserved a dignified
expression; and he fulfilled his obligations of a fiance with
irreproachable gentleness.

The bride was also good-looking; she was a tall, dark-eyed,
dark-haired girl, somewhat timid but very tactful. He was not after
her dowry, though it pleased him to know that she had something. He
had connexions, and his wife came of good, influential people. This
might, at the proper opportunity, prove useful. Always irreproachable
and tactful, Nesletyev got on in his position not so fast that any one
should envy him, nor yet so slow that he should envy any one
else--everything came in the proper measure and at the proper time.

After their marriage there was nothing in the manner of Sergey
Modestovich to suggest anything wrong to his wife. Later, however,
when his wife was about to have a child, Sergey Modestovich
established connexions elsewhere of a light and temporary nature.
Serafima Aleksandrovna found this out, and, to her own astonishment,
was not particularly hurt; she awaited her infant with a restless
anticipation that swallowed every other feeling.

A little girl was born; Serafima Aleksandrovna gave herself up to her.
At the beginning she used to tell her husband, with rapture, of all
the joyous details of Lekchka's existence. But she soon found that he
listened to her without the slightest interest, and only from the
habit of politeness. Serafima Aleksandrovna drifted farther and
farther away from him. She loved her little girl with the ungratified
passion that other women, deceived in their husbands, show their
chance young lovers.

"_Mamochka_, let's play _priatki_" (hide and seek), cried Lelechka,
pronouncing the _r_ like the _l_, so that the word sounded "pliatki."

This charming inability to speak always made, Serafima Aleksandrovna
smile with tender rapture. Lelechka then ran away, stamping with her
plump little legs over the carpets, and hid herself behind the
curtains near her bed.

"_Tiu-tiu, mamochka!_" she cried out in her sweet, laughing voice, as
she looked out with a single roguish eye.

"Where is my baby girl?" the mother asked, as she looked for Lelechka
and made believe that she did not see her.

And Lelechka poured out her rippling laughter in her hiding place.
Then she came out a little farther, and her mother, as though she had
only just caught sight of her, seized her by her little shoulders and
exclaimed joyously: "Here she is, my Lelechka!"

Lelechka laughed long and merrily, her head close to her mother's
knees, and all of her cuddled up between her mother's white hands. Her
mother's eyes glowed with passionate emotion.

"Now, _mamochka_, you hide," said Lelechka, as she ceased laughing.

Her mother went to hide. Lelechka turned away as though not to see,
but watched her _mamochka_ stealthily all the time. Mamma hid behind
the cupboard, and exclaimed: "_Tiu-tiu_, baby girl!"

Lelechka ran round the room and looked into all the corners, making
believe, as her mother had done before, that she was seeking--though
she really knew all the time where her _mamochka_ was standing.

"Where's my _mamochka_?" asked Lelechka. "She's not here, and she's
not here," she kept on repeating, as she ran from corner to corner.

Her mother stood, with suppressed breathing, her head pressed against
the wall, her hair somewhat disarranged. A smile of absolute bliss
played on her red lips.

The nurse, Fedosya, a good-natured and fine-looking, if somewhat
stupid woman, smiled as she looked at her mistress with her
characteristic expression, which seemed to say that it was not for her
to object to gentlewomen's caprices. She thought to herself: "The
mother is like a little child herself--look how excited she is."

Lelechka was getting nearer her mother's corner. Her mother was
growing more absorbed every moment by her interest in the game; her
heart beat with short quick strokes, and she pressed even closer to
the wall, disarranging her hair still more. Lelechka suddenly glanced
toward her mother's corner and screamed with joy.

"I've found 'oo," she cried out loudly and joyously, mispronouncing
her words in a way that again made her mother happy.

She pulled her mother by her hands to the middle of the room, they
were merry and they laughed; and Lelechka again hid her head against
her mother's knees, and went on lisping and lisping, without end, her
sweet little words, so fascinating yet so awkward.

Sergey Modestovich was coming at this moment toward the nursery.
Through the half-closed doors he heard the laughter, the joyous
outcries, the sound of romping. He entered the nursery, smiling his
genial cold smile; he was irreproachably dressed, and he looked fresh
and erect, and he spread round him an atmosphere of cleanliness,
freshness and coldness. He entered in the midst of the lively game,
and he confused them all by his radiant coldness. Even Fedosya felt
abashed, now for her mistress, now for herself. Serafima Aleksandrovna
at once became calm and apparently cold--and this mood communicated
itself to the little girl, who ceased to laugh, but looked instead,
silently and intently, at her father.

Sergey Modestovich gave a swift glance round the room. He liked coming
here, where everything was beautifully arranged; this was done by
Serafima Aleksandrovna, who wished to surround her little girl, from
her very infancy, only with the loveliest things. Serafima
Aleksandrovna dressed herself tastefully; this, too, she did for
Lelechka, with the same end in view. One thing Sergey Modestovich had
not become reconciled to, and this was his wife's almost continuous
presence in the nursery.

"It's just as I thought... I knew that I'd find you here," he said
with a derisive and condescending smile.

They left the nursery together. As he followed his wife through the
door Sergey Modestovich said rather indifferently, in an incidental
way, laying no stress on his words: "Don't you think that it would be
well for the little girl if she were sometimes without your company?
Merely, you see, that the child should feel its own individuality," he
explained in answer to Serafima Aleksandrovna's puzzled glance.

"She's still so little," said Serafima Aleksandrovna.

"In any case, this is but my humble opinion. I don't insist. It's your
kingdom there."

"I'll think it over," his wife answered, smiling, as he did, coldly
but genially.

Then they began to talk of something else.



II


Nurse Fedosya, sitting in the kitchen that evening, was telling the
silent housemaid Darya and the talkative old cook Agathya about the
young lady of the house, and how the child loved to play _priatki_
with her mother--"She hides her little face, and cries '_tiutiu_'!"

"And the mistress herself is like a little one," added Fedosya,
smiling.

Agathya listened and shook her head ominously; while her face became
grave and reproachful.

"That the mistress does it, well, that's one thing; but that the young
lady does it, that's bad."

"Why?" asked Fedosya with curiosity.

This expression of curiosity gave her face the look of a wooden,
roughly-painted doll.

"Yes, that's bad," repeated Agathya with conviction. "Terribly bad!"

"Well?" said Fedosya, the ludicrous expression of curiosity on her
face becoming more emphatic.

"She'll hide, and hide, and hide away," said Agathya, in a mysterious
whisper, as she looked cautiously toward the door.

"What are you saying?" exclaimed Fedosya, frightened.

"It's the truth I'm saying, remember my words," Agathya went on with
the same assurance and secrecy. "It's the surest sign."

The old woman had invented this sign, quite suddenly, herself; and she
was evidently very proud of it.



III


Lelechka was asleep, and Serafima Aleksandrovna was sitting in her own
room, thinking with joy and tenderness of Lelechka. Lelechka was in
her thoughts, first a sweet, tiny girl, then a sweet, big girl, then
again a delightful little girl; and so until the end she remained
mamma's little Lelechka.

Serafima Aleksandrovna did not even notice that Fedosya came up to her
and paused before her. Fedosya had a worried, frightened look.

"Madam, madam," she said quietly, in a trembling voice.

Serafima Aleksandrovna gave a start. Fedosya's face made her anxious.

"What is it, Fedosya?" she asked with great concern. "Is there
anything wrong with Lelechka?"

"No, madam," said Fedosya, as she gesticulated with her hands to
reassure her mistress and to make her sit down. "Lelechka is asleep,
may God be with her! Only I'd like to say something--you see--Lelechka
is always hiding herself--that's not good."

Fedosya looked at her mistress with fixed eyes, which had grown round
from fright.

"Why not good?" asked Serafima Aleksandrovna, with vexation,
succumbing involuntarily to vague fears.

"I can't tell you how bad it is," said Fedosya, and her face expressed
the most decided confidence.

"Please speak in a sensible way," observed Serafima Aleksandrovna
dryly. "I understand nothing of what you are saying."

"You see, madam, it's a kind of omen," explained Fedosya abruptly, in
a shamefaced way.

"Nonsense!" said Serafima Aleksandrovna.

She did not wish to hear any further as to the sort of omen it was,
and what it foreboded. But, somehow, a sense of fear and of sadness
crept into her mood, and it was humiliating to feel that an absurd
tale should disturb her beloved fancies, and should agitate her so
deeply.

"Of course I know that gentlefolk don't believe in omens, but it's a
bad omen, madam," Fedosya went on in a doleful voice, "the young lady
will hide, and hide..."

Suddenly she burst into tears, sobbing out loudly: "She'll hide, and
hide, and hide away, angelic little soul, in a damp grave," she
continued, as she wiped her tears with her apron and blew her nose.

"Who told you all this?" asked Serafima Aleksandrovna in an austere
low voice.

"Agathya says so, madam," answered Fedosya; "it's she that knows."

"Knows!" exclaimed Serafima Aleksandrovna in irritation, as though she
wished to protect herself somehow from this sudden anxiety. "What
nonsense! Please don't come to me with any such notions in the future.
Now you may go."

Fedosya, dejected, her feelings hurt, left her mistress.

"What nonsense! As though Lelechka could die!" thought Serafima
Aleksandrovna to herself, trying to conquer the feeling of coldness
and fear which took possession, of her at the thought of the possible
death of Lelechka. Serafima Aleksandrovna, upon reflection, attributed
these women's beliefs in omens to ignorance. She saw clearly that
there could be no possible connexion between a child's quite ordinary
diversion and the continuation of the child's life. She made a special
effort that evening to occupy her mind with other matters, but her
thoughts returned involuntarily to the fact that Lelechka loved to
hide herself.

When Lelechka was still quite small, and had learned to distinguish
between her mother and her nurse, she sometimes, sitting in her
nurse's arms, made a sudden roguish grimace, and hid her laughing face
in the nurse's shoulder. Then she would look out with a sly glance.

Of late, in those rare moments of the mistress' absence from the
nursery, Fedosya had again taught Lelechka to hide; and when
Lelechka's mother, on coming in, saw how lovely the child looked when
she was hiding, she herself began to play hide and seek with her tiny
daughter.



IV


The next day Serafima Aleksandrovna, absorbed in her joyous cares for
Lelechka, had forgotten Fedosya's words of the day before.

But when she returned to the nursery, after having ordered the dinner,
and she heard Lelechka suddenly cry _"Tiu-tiu!"_ from under the table,
a feeling of fear suddenly took hold of her. Though she reproached
herself at once for this unfounded, superstitious dread, nevertheless
she could not enter wholeheartedly into the spirit of Lelechka's
favourite game, and she tried to divert Lelechka's attention to
something else.

Lelechka was a lovely and obedient child. She eagerly complied with
her mother's new wishes. But as she had got into the habit of hiding
from her mother in some corner, and of crying out _"Tiu-tiu!"_ so even
that day she returned more than once to the game.

Serafima Aleksandrovna tried desperately to amuse Lelechka. This was
not so easy because restless, threatening thoughts obtruded themselves
constantly.

"Why does Lelechka keep on recalling the _tiu-tiu_? Why does she not
get tired of the same thing--of eternally closing her eyes, and of
hiding her face? Perhaps," thought Serafima Aleksandrovna, "she is not
as strongly drawn to the world as other children, who are attracted by
many things. If this is so, is it not a sign of organic weakness? Is
it not a germ of the unconscious non-desire to live?"

Serafima Aleksandrovna was tormented by presentiments. She felt
ashamed of herself for ceasing to play hide and seek with Lelechka
before Fedosya. But this game had become agonising to her, all the
more agonising because she had a real desire to play it, and because
something drew her very strongly to hide herself from Lelechka and to
seek out the hiding child. Serafima Aleksandrovna herself began the
game once or twice, though she played it with a heavy heart. She
suffered as though committing an evil deed with full consciousness.

It was a sad day for Serafima Aleksandrovna.




V


Lelechka was about to fall asleep. No sooner had she climbed into her
little bed, protected by a network on all sides, than her eyes began
to close from fatigue. Her mother covered her with a blue blanket.
Lelechka drew her sweet little hands from under the blanket and
stretched them out to embrace her mother. Her mother bent down.
Lelechka, with a tender expression on her sleepy face, kissed her
mother and let her head fall on the pillow. As her hands hid
themselves under the blanket Lelechka whispered: "The hands
_tiu-tiu!_"

The mother's heart seemed to stop--Lelechka lay there so small, so
frail, so quiet. Lelechka smiled gently, closed her eyes and said
quietly: "The eyes _tiu-tiu!_"

Then even more quietly: "Lelechka _tiu-tiu!_"

With these words she fell asleep, her face pressing the pillow. She
seemed so small and so frail under the blanket that covered her. Her
mother looked at her with sad eyes.

Serafima Aleksandrovna remained standing over Lelechka's bed a long
while, and she kept looking at Lelechka with tenderness and fear.

"I'm a mother: is it possible that I shouldn't be able to protect
her?" she thought, as she imagined the various ills that might befall
Lelechka.

She prayed long that night, but the prayer did not relieve her
sadness.



VI


Several days passed. Lelechka caught cold. The fever came upon her at
night. When Serafima Aleksandrovna, awakened by Fedosya, came to
Lelechka and saw her looking so hot, so restless, and so tormented,
she instantly recalled the evil omen, and a hopeless despair took
possession of her from the first moments.

A doctor was called, and everything was done that is usual on such
occasions--but the inevitable happened. Serafima Aleksandrovna tried
to console herself with the hope that Lelechka would get well, and
would again laugh and play--yet this seemed to her an unthinkable
happiness! And Lelechka grew feebler from hour to hour.

All simulated tranquillity, so as not to frighten Serafima
Aleksandrovna, but their masked faces only made her sad.