FullReads

“You say that she had a squint?” presently I heard Vasili continue in an undertone, and the ex-soldier slowly reply:

“Yes, she had one from childhood upwards–she had one from the day when a fall from a cart caused her to injure her eyes. Yet, if she had not always gone about with one of her eyes shaded, you would never have guessed the fact. Also, she was so neat and practical! And her kindness–well, it was kindness as inexhaustible as the water of that rivulet there; it was kindness of the sort that wished well to all the world, and to all animals, and to every beggar, and even to myself! So at last there gripped my heart the thought, ‘Why should I not try a soldier’s luck? She is the master’s favourite–true; yet none the less the attempt shall be made by me.’ However, this way or that, always the reply was ‘No’; always she put out at me an elbow, and cut me short.”

Vasili, lying prone upon his back, twitched his moustache, and chewed a stalk of grass. His eyes were fully open, and for the second time I perceived that one of them was larger than the other. The ex-soldier, seated near Vasili’s shoulder, stirred the fire with a bit of charred stick, and sent sparks of gold flying to join the midges which were gliding to and fro over the blaze. Ever and anon night-moths subsided into the flames with a plop, crackled, and became changed into lumps of black. For my own part, I constructed a couch on a pile of pine boughs, and there lay down. And as I listened to the ex-soldier’s familiar story, I recalled persons whom I had on one and another occasion remembered, and speeches which on one and another occasion had made an impression upon me.

“But at last,” the ex-soldier continued, “I took heart of grace, and caught her in a barn. Pressing her into a corner, I said: ‘Now let it be yes or no. Of, course it shall be as you wish, but remember that I am a soldier with a small stock of patience.’ Upon that she began to struggle and exclaim: ‘What do you want? What do you want?’ until, bursting into tears like a girl, she said through her sobs: ‘Do not touch me. I am not the sort of woman for you. Besides, I love another–not our master, but another, a workman, a former lodger of ours. Before he departed he said to me: “Wait for me until I have found you a nice home, and returned to fetch you”; and though it is seventeen years since I heard speech or whisper of him, and maybe he has since forgotten me, or fallen in love with someone else, or come to grief, or been murdered, you, who are a map, will understand that I must bide a little while longer.’ True, this offended me (for in what respect was I any worse than the other man?); yet also I felt sorry for her, and grieved that I should have wronged her by thinking her frivolous, when all the time there had been THIS at her heart. I drew back, therefore–I could not lay a finger upon her, though she was in my power. And at last I said: ‘Good-bye! I am going away.’ ‘Go,’ she replied. ‘Yes, go for the love of Christ!’ . . . Wherefore, on the following evening I settled accounts with our master, and at dawn of a Sunday morning packed my wallet, took with me this pipe, and departed. ‘Yes, take the pipe, Paul Ivanovitch,’ she said before my departure. ‘Perhaps it will serve to keep you in remembrance of me–you whom henceforth I shall regard as a brother, and whom I thank.’ . . . As I walked away I was very nigh to tears, so keen was the pain in my heart. Aye, keen it was indeed! “