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

She’s your mistress, perhaps, but to me further off than a third cousin, and I can spit at her if I want to. And now, please, for the love of God⁠ ⁠… I pray you⁠ ⁠… be so good as to go away⁠ ⁠… and leave us alone.”

But the porter paid no attention. He sat down on the pebbles beside the old man, and, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck with his fingers, addressed him thus:

“Now, don’t you grasp, fool?⁠ ⁠…”

“I hear it from a fool,” interrupted the old man.

“Now, come⁠ ⁠… that’s not the point.⁠ ⁠… Just put it to yourself. What’s the dog to you? Choose another puppy; all your expense is a stick, and there you have your dog again. Isn’t that sense? Don’t I speak the truth? Eh?”

Grandfather meditatively fastened the strap which served him as a belt. To the obstinate questions of the porter he replied with studied indifference.

“Talk on, say all you’ve got to say, and then I’ll answer you at once.”

“Then, brother, think of the number,” cried the porter hotly. “Two hundred, perhaps three hundred roubles in a lump! Well, they generally give me something for my work⁠ ⁠… but just you think of it. Three whole hundred! Why, you know, you could open a grocer’s shop with that.⁠ ⁠…”

Whilst saying this the porter plucked from his pocket a piece of sausage, and threw it to the poodle. Arto caught it in the air, swallowed it at a gulp, and ingratiatingly wagged his tail.

“Finished?” asked Lodishkin sweetly.

“Doesn’t take long to say what I had to say. Give the dog, and the money will be in your hands.”

“So‑o,” drawled grandfather mockingly. “That means the sale of the dog, I suppose?”

“What else? Just an ordinary sale. You see, our little master is so crazy. That’s what’s the matter. Whatever he wants, he turns the whole house upside down. ‘Give,’ says he, and it has to be given. That’s how it is without his father. When his father’s here⁠ ⁠… holy Saints!⁠ ⁠… we all walk on our heads. The father is an engineer; perhaps you’ve heard of Mr. Obolyaninof? He builds railway lines all over Russia. A millionaire! They’ve only one boy, and they spoil him. ‘I want a live pony,’ says he⁠—here’s a pony for you. ‘I want a boat,’ says he⁠—here’s a real boat. There is nothing that they refuse him.⁠ ⁠…”

“And the moon?”

“That is, in what sense?” asked the porter.

“I say, has he never asked for the moon from the sky?”

“The moon. What nonsense is that?” said the porter, turning red. “But come now, we’re agreed, aren’t we, dear man?”

By this time grandfather had succeeded in putting on his old green-seamed jacket, and he drew himself up as straight as his bent back would permit.

“I’ll ask you one thing, young man,” said he, not without dignity. “If you had a brother, or, let us say, a friend, that had grown up with you from childhood⁠—Now stop, friend, don’t throw sausage to the dog⁠ ⁠… better eat it yourself.⁠ ⁠… You can’t bribe the dog with that, brother⁠—I say, if you had a friend, the best and truest friend that it’s possible to have⁠ ⁠… one who from childhood⁠ ⁠… well, then, for example, for how much would you sell him?”

“I’d find a price even for him!⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh, you’d find a price. Then go and tell your master who builds the railroads,” cried grandfather in a loud voice⁠—“Go and tell him that not everything that ordinarily is for sale is also to be bought. Yes! And you’d better not stroke the dog. That’s to no purpose. Here, Arto, dog, I’ll give it you. Come on, Sergey.”

“Oh, you old fool!” cried the porter at last.

“Fool; yes, I was one from birth, but you, bit of rabble, Judas, soul-seller!” shouted Lodishkin. “When you see your lady-general, give her our kind respects, our deepest respects. Sergey, roll up the mattress. Ai, ai, my back, how it aches! Come on.”

“So‑o, that’s what it means,” drawled the porter significantly.

“Yes. That’s what it is. Take it!” answered the old man exasperatingly. The troupe then wandered off along the shore, following on the same road. Once, looking back accidentally, Sergey noticed that the porter was following them; his face seemed cogitative and gloomy, his cap was over his eyes, and he scratched with five fingers his shaggy carrotty-haired neck.

V

A certain spot between Miskhor and Aloopka had long since been put down by Lodishkin as a splendid place for having lunch, and it was to this that they journeyed now. Not far from a bridge over a rushing mountain torrent there wandered from the cliff side a cold chattering stream of limpid water. This was in the shade of crooked oak trees and thick hazel bushes. The stream had made itself a shallow basin in the earth, and from this overflowed, in tiny snakelike streamlets, glittering in the grass like living silver. Every morning and evening one might see here pious Turks making their ablutions and saying their prayers.

“Our sins are heavy and our provisions are meagre,” said grandfather, sitting in the shade of a hazel bush. “Now, Serozha, come along. Lord, give Thy blessing!”

He pulled out from a sack some bread, some tomatoes, a lump of Bessarabian cheese, and a bottle of olive oil. He brought out a little bag of salt, an old rag tied round with string. Before eating, the old man crossed himself many times and whispered something. Then he broke the crust of bread into three unequal parts: the largest he gave to Sergey (he is growing⁠—he must eat), the next largest he gave to the poodle, and the smallest he took for himself.

“In the name of the Father and the Son. The eyes of all wait upon Thee, O Lord,” whispered he, making a salad of the tomatoes. “Eat, Serozha!”

They ate slowly, not hurrying, in silence, as people eat who work. All that was audible was the working of three pairs of jaws. Arto, stretched on his stomach, ate his little bit at one side, gnawing the