[5] Podlípovtzui"--a well-known heart-rending story, by
Ryeshétnikoff.--Translator.
"Read it aloud, won't you?" he entreated.
So I began to read, as I sat on the window-sill, and he sat up on the
bin, and leaning his head against my knees, he listened.--From time
to time I glanced across the book at his face, and met his eyes--they
cling to my memory yet--widely opened, intent, full of profound
attention ...
And his mouth, also, was half open, revealing two rows of white, even
teeth. His uplifted brows, the curving wrinkles on his lofty forehead,
his arms, with which he clasped his knees, his whole motionless,
attentive attitude warmed me up, and I endeavored, as intelligibly
and as picturesquely as possible, to narrate to him the sad story of
Sysóika and Pilá.
At last I got tired, and closed the book.
"Is that all?" Konováloff asked me, in a whisper.
"Less than half."
"Will you read it all aloud?"
"If you like."
"Ekh!"--He clasped his head in his hands, and began to rock back and
forth, as he sat on the board. He wanted to say something, he opened
and shut his mouth, sighing like a pair of bellows, and, for some
reason or other, puckering up his eyes. I had not expected this result,
and did not understand its meaning.
"How you read that!"--he began in a whisper.--"In different voices ...
How alive they all are. Apróska! She fairly squeals! Pilá ... what
fools! It made me feel ridiculous to hear that ... but I restrained
myself. What comes next? Where are they going? Lord God! How true
to nature it is! Why, they are just like real people ... the most
genuine sort of peasants.... And exactly as though they were alive,
and their voices, and their faces.... Listen, Maxím! Let's put the
bread in the oven, and then you go on reading!" We put the bread in the
oven, prepared another batch of loaves, and for another hour and forty
minutes I continued to read the book. Then there was another pause--the
bread was done, we took out the loaves, put in others, mixed some more
dough, set some more to rise ... and all this was done with feverish
haste, and almost in silence.
Konováloff, with brows knitted in a frown, flung rare and monosyllabic
orders at me, and hurried, hurried ...
Toward morning, we had finished the book, and I felt as though my
tongue had turned to wood.
Seated astride of a sack of flour, Konováloff stared me straight in the
face with strange eyes, and maintained silence, with his arms propped
on his knees.
"Is it good?" I asked.
He shook his head, puckered up his eyes, and again--for some reason in
a whisper--began:
"Who wrote that?"--In his eyes gleamed amazement not to be expressed in
words, and his face suddenly flushed with ardent feeling.