Short Fiction Vsevolod Garshin (best e reader for epub .txt) 📖

“Power? What power have you got?”

“There is power in money, and I have money. I do what I like.⁠ ⁠… If I wish to buy you⁠—I shall buy you.”

“Kudriasheff!⁠ ⁠…”

“Don’t get on the high horse about nothing. Surely old friends may joke with each other? Of course, I shall not try to buy you. Live your own way as you like. All the same, I do what I wish. Oh, what a fool, an idiot, I am!” suddenly exclaimed Kudriasheff, hitting his forehead. “Here we are, and have been sitting for I don’t know how long, and I haven’t shown you the sight. You talk about eating, drinking, and sleeping. I will show you something in a minute which will make you take back your words. Come along. Bring a candle.”

“Where?” asked Vassili Petrovich.

“Follow me. You will see where.” Vassili Petrovich, as he rose from the table, felt that all was not as it should be. His legs were not altogether obedient, and he could not hold the candlestick without dropping candle-grease on the carpet. However, obtaining some sort of control over his recalcitrant limbs, he followed behind Kudriasheff. They passed through several rooms along a narrow passage, and appeared in a damp and dark compartment. Their footsteps resounded dully on the stone floor. The noise of falling water somewhere sounded in never-ceasing accord. Stalactites of dark blue glass hung from the ceiling. Artificial rocks rose here and there half covered by masses of tropical foliage and panes of glass glistened darkly in certain places.

“What is this?” asked Vassili Petrovich.

“An aquarium to which I have devoted two years of time and much money. Wait a moment, and I will light it up.”

Kudriasheff disappeared behind some foliage, and Vassili Petrovich went up to one of the panes of glass and commenced to examine what was behind it. The feeble light of the candle could not penetrate far into the water, but the fish, large and small, attracted by the bright light, collected in the part which was lighted up, and gazed stupidly at Vassili Petrovich with their round eyes, opening and shutting their mouths, and moving their gills and fins.

Farther off there loomed up the dark outlines of seaweed, amongst which some kind of reptile was moving, although Vassili Petrovich could not discern its precise form.

Suddenly a flood of blinding light compelled him momentarily to close his eyes, and when he again opened them, he did not recognize the aquarium. Kudriasheff had turned on electric light in two places. The light from the lamps penetrated the mass of blue water, swarming with fish and other live creatures, and filled with growth which showed up boldly against the undefined background in silhouettes of blood-red, brown, and dark green. The rocks and tropical growth, made still darker by contrast, prettily framed the thick glass through which a view of the inside of the aquarium was opened up. In the aquarium all was a seething, hurrying mass, alarmed by the dazzling light. A whole shoal of small but big-headed chub rushed hither and thither, turning as if by word of command, sterlets wriggled about with their noses stuck to the glass, now rising to the surface, now sinking to the bottom of the water just as if they wished to break through the transparent but hard obstacle. A smooth black eel buried himself in the sand at the bottom of the aquarium, raising a whole cloud of mud. A ridiculous stumpy cuttlefish detached himself from the rock on which he was resting, and swam jerkily backwards across the aquarium, dragging his long feelers behind him. Altogether it was so pretty and so new to Vassili Petrovich, that he was entranced.

“Well, Vassili Petrovich, what do you think of it?” asked Kudriasheff, coming out to him.

“Marvellous! Extraordinary! How did you arrange all this? What taste and effect!”

“Add also knowledge. I went to Berlin expressly to examine the aquarium there, and, without boasting, I will say that mine, although, of course, it is not so big, is not in any way inferior in point of beauty and interest.⁠ ⁠… This aquarium is my pride and consolation. However bored, it is only necessary to come here, and I can sit and gaze by the hour. I like all these fish, etc., because they are frank, and not like our friend man. They go for each other without the least shame. Look, look! Do you see? A chase!”

A small fish was impetuously rushing now to the surface, then to the bottom, and in every direction trying to escape from some long marauder. In its mortal terror it kept jumping out of the water into the air, or trying to conceal itself in the recesses of the rocks, but keen teeth were chasing it from all sides. The pirate was just on the point of seizing his quarry, when suddenly another robber darted in from the side, made a grab, and the little fish disappeared in its jaws. The pursuer stopped perplexed, and the robber hid itself in a dark corner.

“Snatched away,” said Kudriasheff. “Idiot! got nothing. Was it worth chasing simply for the booty to be taken from under your very nose?⁠ ⁠… If only you knew how they feed on these little fish: today a whole shoal is put in, and by tomorrow it has disappeared, gone⁠—eaten up. They eat each other and never dream about immorality; but we? I have only just got rid of this fiddle-faddle, Vassili Petrovich. Don’t you really in the end agree that it is all fiddle-faddle?”

“What is?” inquired Vassili Petrovich, not taking his eyes off the water.

“Why, these gnawings. What are they for? Your conscience may prick you, but still⁠ ⁠… Well, I have got rid of them now, and I try to imitate these creatures.”

He pointed with his finger to the aquarium.

“Do as you like,” said Vassili Petrovich with a sigh. “Listen, Kudriasheff. Surely all this growth, all these fish⁠—it