Short Fiction Aleksandr Kuprin (free novel reading sites TXT) đ
- Author: Aleksandr Kuprin
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âWhatâs that, dovie, whatâs that? Thatâs not a nice way to joke, daddy. Iâm a nervous woman. No, sweetie, no; you wonât cause any unpleasantness like that, I hope.â
âAll the same, I may up and do it! What kind of life is mine? The most insignificant! Iâm like a decoy rabbit, I might say. There was lots of hunting near us here, around Gatchino, in the old days. Gentlemen from Petersburg used to come down, and in the course of time killed off all the game. Finally there was just one rabbit left. Old and experienced. Probably about five pounds of No. 3 rabbit shot had lodged in him, and he was still hopping around. He was a kind of lucky rabbit. So the hunters at last made an agreement: They would not kill this rabbit, but shoot past him. To keep their aim good, you see, and for excitement.
âThey used to come down on Sundays, wander around in the bushes and pepper away all day long at this rabbit. And he, you know, would hop around among them, all over the field. He got so bold, the rascal, and was so clever, that sometimes he would sit up on his hind legs, in front of a marksman, and rub his mug with his forepaws. And the hunter at ten paces, blazing away at him, shell after shell.â
âWhatâs the ideaâ âtelling us this yarn?â
âThe point is that my life, in a way, is like that rabbitâs. I canât complain. I live well enough; nobody picks on me. All the same itâs hard. Every time thereâs some revolutionary holidayâ âin July or in October, for instance, or the birthday of Karl Radek or Steklovâs saintâs dayâ âdown here to Zagvozdka is sure to come a swarm of people. Not only from Petersburgâ âthey come all the way from Moscow. They overrun all the streets. You canât get through in a cart or on foot. All day and all night they mill around under my windows and howl: âDeath to the bourgeoisie! Long live the dictatorship of the proletariat!â They make speeches from my front steps. Always the same thing.â ââ ⊠It gets dull! Or they start shooting revolvers. Fire away all night. So that your head swells with the racket. Of course I know theyâre firing in the air. But all the same, the day the writer Yasinsky was married, they drilled a hole in a pane in the attic.â
âShow us the son-of-a-gun! Weâll drill holes in him!â
âOh, never mind himâ âthe blockhead! Heâs not worth bothering about. But, take it all in all, Iâm fed up, comrades, with this business of being a bourgeois. I donât want any more of it. I canât stand it and donât want to. Take me into some Soviet post. I beg you respectfullyâ âmost respectfully I beseech you. Even in a Terrorist Tribunalâ âanythingâ ââ âŠâ
âWhy, what do you mean, buddyâ âTerrorist Tribunal? Thereâs no work in them, old pal, at all. They play marbles all day and read Nat Pinkerton, and only practice on wooden mannikins just to keep their hand in the game, so to speak. No, you stick it out, angel-face; you stay, as you always have, in the bourgeoisie. Donât we take good care of you? Donât we cherish you? Would you like to have us look you up a house that would be more cozy? In Petersburg, in Strielnaâ âyou can even live in red Piter! If you like, old cherub, you can even have a maidservantâ ââ âŠâ
âNo, no; whatâs the use?â muttered Rybkin morosely.
âAn autoâmoâmoâbiâiâile?â
âDonât want one.â
âPerhaps, handsome, youâre not satisfied with your food ration?â
âIâve got no kick. The grubâs all right. A couple of days ago they sent a turkey, a pound of caviar, a ham, three bottles of red wineâ ââ ⊠Thatâs not the point. Iâm not happy insideâ ââ ⊠Iâve got the blues.â
âWell now, comrade, how about marrying? Offspring, you know? Eh?â
âRight you are, boy! Thatâs the idea! Would you like to have us fix you up a wedding? Donât worryâ âno Soviet stuff. Old styleâ âa church wedding! Weâll write for a priest from abroadâ âa regular one. Weâll give him safe conduct here and back. How about it, life of my heart? Hey? One wink and weâll put it through. You wonât have time to look around. Well, of course, not without a little hostile demonstration. Weâll have to kick up a little roughhouse, hold a couple of rallies. But arenât you used to that sort of thing, sweetie?â
Rybkin turned away to the window and wearily waved his hand.
âDrop it! Chuck it! It bores me to tears. Iâm fed up, I tell you. Let me alone. What do you want me for, anyway?â
The commissars, probably for the hundredth time, began to explain to him the importance of his services in the perpetual revolution. First, it was essential to the proletarian masses to have a living object against which to vent periodically the holy wrath of the people. Second, there was the class war, in which the people win their rightsâ ââ ⊠Where were they to find a hostile class if the last bourgeois ran away or surrendered, and there was no one to fight? Finally, what would the comrades in other countries say of Russia? What would the foreign correspondents think? No, Comrade Rybkin must stay at his glorious postâ ânot destroy the work of the revolutionâ ââ ⊠The actor talked so persuasively that a tear even ran down his fat shaven cheek.
Stepan Nilitch apathetically rubbed his forehead with his palm, nodded his head and said:
âAll right. Donât cry! You make me feel sorry. Iâll serve a year more, and then see. It was just thatâ ââ ⊠well, I was a little off color today. I was sitting here alone and thinkingâ ââ ⊠here, I thought, people used to have Christmas treesâ ââ ⊠there were the childrenâ ââ ⊠lots of candlesâ ââ ⊠gold tinsel glitteringâ ââ ⊠strings of glistening Christmas balls swingingâ ââ ⊠the smell of evergreenâ ââ ⊠and I got to feeling so down in the mouth. Well, never mind; Iâll get over
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