Short Fiction Aleksandr Kuprin (free novel reading sites TXT) 📖

The inspector was representative, as provincial ladies say⁠—a tall, handsome man, with smart whiskers, growing sideways à la Skobeleff, and a high, white, tranquil forehead. His eyes were of a beautiful blue, with a constant expression of languor, a sort of immodest, unmanly, capricious fatigue; his whole face had a delicate, even porcelain pink hue, and his raspberry-coloured, supple lips kept moving coquettishly and stretching themselves like two red, mobile worms. One could see by every indication that Inspector Irissov was the local beau, dandy, and lady-killer, an ex-cavalry man, probably a gambler and a hard liver, who could go three days running without sleep and who never got drunk. He spoke quickly and distinctly, had the air of paying an exaggerated attention to the words of his interlocutor, but apparently listened only to himself.

“I’m a father to them all, but a strict father,” the inspector went on, raising his linger impressively. “Put the case here on the table, Khatzkel. I’m strict, that’s true. I won’t allow myself to be sat on, as the others do, but then I know everyone of my⁠ ⁠… he-he-he!⁠ ⁠… subjects, so to speak, by heart. You saw that little peasant just now? He’s Trokhim, a peasant from Oriekh, and his nickname is Khvost. Do you think that I don’t know that he’s a horse-stealer? I know perfectly well. But until the right time I keep silent and one fine May morning⁠—Trokhim Khvost will have disappeared from circulation. Then just look at this very Khatzkel. Isn’t he a scabby little Jew? And, believe me, I know how the rascal lives. What? Am I not telling the truth, Khatzkel?”

“Oh, my God, can his honour the inspector say what is untrue?” Khatzkel exclaimed in servile reproach. “Every one of us, poor unhappy little Jews, prays constantly to God for his honour the inspector. We always say among ourselves: ‘What do we want with a real father when our good, beloved inspector is better to us than our own father?’ ”

“You see?” the inspector said carelessly, with a significant twinkle in his eyes, as he pointed at Khatzkel over his shoulder. “That’s the voice of the people. Don’t worry, that’s how I hold them. What? Wasn’t I telling the truth?”

“What can I say to that?” Khatzkel had shrivelled, he was squatting almost on his heels, stretching out his hands as though pushing away from him a sort of monstrous, unjust accusation. “We haven’t time to think of anything that his honour the inspector doesn’t know already beforehand.”

“You hear him?” the inspector said curtly. “ ‘Help yourself,’ said Sobakievitch, to quote Gogol.” He pointed to the open case. “Won’t you have some roast duck? Ripping duck. Here is vodka. These are patties with fish and onions. Here’s some rum. No, don’t be suspicious; it’s real Jamaica rum and even has the real smell of bugs about it. And this⁠—please don’t laugh at me⁠—this is chocolate, a dainty for the ladies, so to speak. I recommend it to you; it’s the most nourishing thing when one’s travelling. I’ve learned that from sad experience on my ungrateful service. Please help yourself.⁠ ⁠…”

Kashintzev politely declined the invitation, but the inspector would take no refusal. There was nothing for it but to drink a glass of rum, which smelled of anything but rum. Kashintzev felt ill at ease, awkward and melancholy. He glanced stealthily from time to time at Etlia, who was talking in an animated whisper with her husband behind the counter. Her fantastic charm seemed to have left her. Something pitiful, humiliated, terrible in its very ordinariness, was now stamped on her face, but, all the same, it was poignantly beautiful as before.

“Ha, ha, that’s your game, is it?” the inspector exclaimed suddenly, munching some chicken and noisily moving his moist, supple lips. “A pretty little Jewess, what?”

“Extraordinarily beautiful. Charming,” came involuntarily from Kashintzev.

“Ye‑es.⁠ ⁠… Fine game. But⁠ ⁠…” The inspector waved his hands, sighed artificially, and closed his eyes for a second. “But there’s nothing doing there. It’s been tried. It simply isn’t possible. It’s impossible, I tell you. Though the eyes see⁠ ⁠… But there, if you don’t believe me, I’ll ask him at once. Eh, Khatzkel?”

“For God’s sake, I entreat you,” Kashintzev stretched his hand out imploringly and rose from the bench, “I implore you not to do this.”

“Oh, rubbish!⁠ ⁠… Khatzkel.”

At this minute the door opened and the new driver, with his whip in his hand, and his cap, like the national Polish headgear, on his head, came into the room.

“For which of you two gentlemen are the horses for Goussiatine?” he asked. But recognising the inspector he hastily pulled off his cap and shouted in a military way: “We wish you health, your very high honour.”

“Good day, Iourko,” the inspector answered condescendingly. “But you ought to stay a little longer,” he said regretfully to the doctor. “When shall I get another chance of a chat with an intellectual man like you?”

“I’m sorry, but there isn’t time,” Kashintzev said as he hurriedly buttoned his coat. “You know what it is yourself, the service! How much do I owe?”

He paid, and shivering in advance at the thought of the cold, the night and the fatiguing journey, he went to the door. From a naive habit, that he had kept since childhood, of guessing the future by trifles, he thought as he grasped the handle of the door: “If she looks at me it will come to pass.” What was to come to pass he did not know himself, any more than he knew the name of this dullness, this fatigue, this sense of undefined disillusion which oppressed him. But the Jewess did not look round. She was standing with her miraculous, ancient profile, illumined by the lamplight, turned towards him, and was busy with lowered eyes over something on the counter.

“Goodbye,” said Kashintzev, as he opened the door.

Elastic clouds of vapour rushed in from the street, veiling the beautiful face and inundating the doctor with a dry cold. In front