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

“I have said I will gobble you up, and I will!” he repeated.

The evening came. It was necessary to think of supper, and the wounded toad, dragging himself along, seized incautious insects coming within his reach. Hatred did not prevent him from filling his inside as usual. Furthermore, his scratches were not very dangerous, and he decided, when he had had a rest, to try once again for the blossom which he hated but which so attracted him.

He rested for quite a long time. The morning came, midday passed, and the rose had almost forgotten about her enemy. She was now in full blossom, and was the most beautiful creation in the flowerbed. But there was no one to come to admire her. The little owner of the plot lay motionless in his bed. His sister never left him, and did not appear at the window. Only the birds and butterflies hovered round the rose, and the bees, buzzing, came and sometimes sat down inside the bloom, flying away quite covered with the yellow dust. A nightingale flew down, perched on the rosebush, and sang his song. How different from the wheezing of the toad! The rose heard this song and was happy. It seemed to her that the nightingale was singing to her, and perhaps she was right. She did not see how her enemy was clambering up the branches. This time the toad was not sparing either his paws or belly. He was covered with blood, but bravely clambered up higher; and in the middle of the resonant tender trills of the nightingale, the rose suddenly heard the familiar wheeze:

“I said I would gobble you up⁠—and I will gobble you up!”

His toad’s eyes gazed at the rose from a neighbouring branch. The evil-looking thing had only one more move to make to seize the blossom. The rose understood that the end was at hand.⁠ ⁠…

The little master had long lain motionless on his bed. His sister, sitting in the depths of an armchair, thought he was asleep. On her lap lay an open book, but she was not reading it. Gradually her tired head drooped; the poor girl had not slept for several nights, had not left her sick brother, and now she was lightly dozing.

“Masha!” he suddenly whispered.

Her sister gave a slight jump. She had been dreaming that she was sitting at the window, that her little brother was playing as last year in his flowerbed, and had called her. Opening her eyes, and seeing him in bed, wasted and weak, she gave a deep sigh.

“What, dearest?”

“Masha, you told me that the roses are out. Can you get me⁠ ⁠… just one?”

“Of course I can, darling.”

She went to the window, and looked at the rosebush. There was one blossom, and it was a magnificent rose.

“There is a rose which seems to have come out purposely for you, and what a beauty! Shall I get it, and put it here in a glass for you on the table? Yes?”

“Yes, on the table. I want it.”

The girl took a pair of scissors, and went out into the garden. She had not been out of the house for a long time. The sun blinded her, and she felt dizzy from the fresh air. She got to the bush at the very instant the toad had meant to seize the flower.

“Oh, how disgusting!” she cried, and seizing the branch shook it violently. The toad fell flat on its belly to the ground. In fury it sprang at the girl, but could not jump higher than the edge of her dress, and was immediately sent flying by the toe of her slipper. He did not dare to try a second time, only from afar saw how the girl carefully cut off the rose and took it into her brother’s room.

When the boy saw his sister with the rose in her hand, he smiled weakly for the first time for many a day, and with difficulty made a movement with his thin hand.

“Give it to me,” he whispered; “I want to smell it.”

His sister put the rose into his hand, and helped him to raise it to his face. He drew in the tender perfume, and, smiling happily, murmured:

“Ah, how good!”

Then his little face became serious and motionless, and he became silent forever.

The rose, although she had been cut before she had begun to shed her petals, felt that it had not been for nothing. They placed her in a separate glass on the little coffin, on which were heaped whole wreaths and other flowers, but to tell the truth no one paid any attention to them. But the young girl, when she placed the rose on the table, raised it to her lips and kissed it. A tear fell from her cheek on to the flower, and this was the best incident in the whole life of the rose. When it began to fade they put the flower into an old thick book, and pressed it, and many years after gave it to me. That is why I know the whole history of it.