When the mowers reached the quail’s nest, one peas-ant swung his scythe and cut off the mother-bird’s head; but he put the eggs in his pocket, and gave them to his children to play with.
XXXI
COW AND THE GOAT
AN old woman had a Cow and a Goat. The Cow and the Goat went to pasture together. The Cow always turned around when they came after her. The old woman brought bread and salt, gave it to the Cow, and said :
“ Now stand still, little mother, 1 na, na, I will bring you some more; only stand still.”
On the next evening the Goat returned from the pasture before the Cow, spread his legs, and stood before the old woman. The old woman waved her handkerchief at him, but the Goat stood without moving.
He thought that the old woman gave bread to the Cow because she stood still.
The old woman perceived that the Goat did not move away; she took her stick and beat him.
When the Goat went away, the old woman began to feed the Cow again with grain, and to coax her.
“There is no justice in men,” thought the Goat; “I stood stiller than the Cow does, but she beat me.”
He ran to one side, hurried back, kicked over the milk-pail, spilled the milk, and knocked over the old woman.
1 Matushka.
XXXII
FOX’S BRUSH
A MAN met a Fox, and asked her :
“ Who taught you Foxes to deceive dogs with your tails?”
The Fox asked :
“ How do you mean deceive ? We do not deceive the dogs, but merely run from them with all our might.”
The man said :
“ No; you deceive them with your brushes. When the dogs chase you, and are about to seize you, you throw your brushes to one side; the dog makes a sharp turn after it, and then you dash off in another direction.”
The Fox laughed, and said :
“ We do this, not to deceive the dogs, but we only do it so as to dodge; when the dogs chase us, and we see that we cannot run straight, we dodge to one side; and in order that we may dodge to that side, we have to fling our brushes to the other, just as you do the same thing with your hands when you try to turn round when you are running. This is not reason on our Part. God Him-self thought it out when He made us for this reason, that the dogs might not catch all the foxes.”
My Dream
Translated by C. Hagberg Wright 1912
I
“AS A DAUGHTER she no longer exists for me. Can’t you understand? She simply doesn’t exist. Still, I cannot possibly leave her to the charity of strangers. I will arrange things so that she can live as she pleases, but I do not wish to hear of her. Who would ever have thought . . . the horror of it, the horror of it.”
He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, and raised his eyes. These words were spoken by Prince Michael Ivanovich to his brother Peter, who was governor of a province in Central Russia. Prince Peter was a man of fifty, Michael’s junior by ten years.
On discovering that his daughter, who had left his house a year before, had settled here with her child, the elder brother had come from St. Petersburg to the provincial town, where the above conversation took place.
Prince Michael Ivanovich was a tall, handsome, white-haired, fresh coloured man, proud and attractive in appearance and bearing. His family consisted of a vulgar, irritable wife, who wrangled with him continually over every petty detail, a son, a ne’er-do-well, spendthrift and roue — yet a “gentleman,” according to his father’s code, two daughters, of whom the elder had married well, and was living in St. Petersburg; and the younger, Lisa — his favourite, who had disappeared from home a year before. Only a short while ago he had found her with her child in this provincial town.
Prince Peter wanted to ask his brother how, and under what circumstances, Lisa had left home, and who could possibly be the father of her child. But he could not make up his mind to inquire.
That very morning, when his wife had attempted to condole with her brother-in-law, Prince Peter had observed a look of pain on his brother’s face. The look had at once been masked by an expression of unapproachable pride, and he had begun to question her about their flat, and the price she paid. At luncheon, before the family and guests, he had been witty and sarcastic as usual. Towards every one, excepting the children, whom he treated with almost reverent tenderness, he adopted an attitude of distant hauteur. And yet it was so natural to him that every one somehow acknowledged his right to be haughty.
In the evening his brother arranged a game of whist. When he retired to the room which had been made ready for him, and was just beginning to take out his artificial teeth, some one tapped lightly on the door with two fingers.
“Who is that?”
“C’est moi, Michael.”
Prince Michael Ivanovich recognised the voice of his sister-in-law, frowned, replaced his teeth, and said to himself, “What does she want?” Aloud he said, “Entrez.”
His sister-in-law was a quiet, gentle creature, who bowed in submission to her husband’s will. But to many she seemed a crank, and some did not hesitate to call her a fool. She was pretty, but her hair was always carelessly dressed, and she herself was untidy and absent-minded. She had, also, the strangest, most unaristocratic ideas, by no means fitting in the wife of a high official. These ideas she would express most unexpectedly, to everybody’s astonishment, her husband’s no less than her friends’.
“Fous pouvez me renvoyer, mais je ne m’en irai pas, je vous le dis d’avance,” she began, in her characteristic, indifferent way.
“Dieu preserve,” answered her brother-in-law, with his usual somewhat exaggerated politeness, and brought forward a chair for her.
“Ca ne vous derange pas?” she asked, taking out a cigarette. “I’m not going to say anything unpleasant, Michael. I only wanted to say something about Lisochka.”
Michael Ivanovich sighed — the word pained him; but mastering himself at once, he answered with a tired smile. “Our conversation can only be on one subject, and that is the subject you wish to discuss.” He spoke without looking at her, and avoided even naming the subject. But his plump, pretty little sister-in-law was unabashed. She continued to regard him with the same gentle, imploring look in her blue eyes, sighing even more deeply.
“Michael, mon bon ami, have pity on her. She is only human.”
“I never doubted that,” said Michael Ivanovich with a bitter smile.
“She is your daughter.”
“She was — but my dear Aline, why talk about this?”
“Michael, dear, won’t you see her? I only wanted to say, that the one who is to blame— “
Prince Michael Ivanovich flushed; his face became cruel.
“For heaven’s sake, let us stop. I have suffered enough. I have now but one desire, and that is to put her in such a position that she will be independent of others, and that she shall have no further need of communicating with me. Then she can live her own life, and my family and I need know nothing more about her. That is all I can do.”
“Michael, you say nothing but ‘I’! She, too, is ‘I.’”
“No doubt; but, dear Aline, please let us drop the matter. I feel it too deeply.”
Alexandra Dmitrievna remained silent for a few moments, shaking her head. “And Masha, your wife, thinks as you do?”
“Yes, quite.”
Alexandra Dmitrievna made an inarticulate sound.
“Brisons la dessus et bonne nuit,” said he. But she did not go. She stood silent a moment. Then,— “Peter tells me you intend to leave the money with the woman where she lives. Have you the address?”
“I have.”
“Don’t leave it with the woman, Michael! Go yourself. Just see how she lives. If you don’t want to see her, you need not. HE isn’t there; there is no one there.”
Michael Ivanovich shuddered violently.
“Why do you torture me so? It’s a sin against hospitality!”
Alexandra Dmitrievna rose, and almost in tears, being touched by her own pleading, said, “She is so miserable, but she is such a dear.”
He got up, and stood waiting for her to finish. She held out her hand.
“Michael, you do wrong,” said she, and left him.
For a long while after she had gone Michael Ivanovich walked to and fro on the square of carpet. He frowned and shivered, and exclaimed, “Oh, oh!” And then the sound of his own voice frightened him, and he was silent.
His wounded pride tortured him. His daughter — his — brought up in the house of her mother, the famous Avdotia Borisovna, whom the Empress honoured with her visits, and acquaintance with whom was an honour for all the world! His daughter — ; and he had lived his life as a knight of old, knowing neither fear nor blame. The fact that he had a natural son born of a Frenchwoman, whom he had settled abroad, did not lower his own self-esteem.
And now this daughter, for whom he had not only done everything that a father could and should do; this daughter to whom he had given a splendid education and every opportunity to make a match in the best Russian society — this daughter to whom he had not only given all that a girl could desire, but whom he had really LOVED; whom he had admired, been proud of — this daughter had repaid him with such disgrace, that he was
