Short Stories
houses were closed up with shutters, there was no one to be seen in the
street after dusk, all the people shut themselves up in their houses, and
there was nothing but the howling of packs of dogs, hundreds and thousands
of them barking and howling all night. But there it was so warm and he was
given food, while here--oh, dear, if he only had something to eat! And what
a noise and rattle here, what light and what people, horses and carriages,
and what a frost! The frozen steam hung in clouds over the horses, over
their warmly breathing mouths; their hoofs clanged against the stones
through the powdery snow, and every one pushed so, and--oh, dear, how he
longed for some morsel to eat, and how wretched he suddenly felt. A
policeman walked by and turned away to avoid seeing the boy.
Here was another street--oh, what a wide one, here he would be run over for
certain; how everyone was shouting, racing and driving along, and the
light, the light! And what was this? A huge glass window, and through the
window a tree reaching up to the ceiling; it was a fir tree, and on it were
ever so many lights, gold papers and apples and little dolls and horses;
and there were children clean and dressed in their best running about the
room, laughing and playing and eating and drinking something. And then a
little girl began dancing with one of the boys, what a pretty little girl!
And he could hear the music through the window. The boy looked and wondered
and laughed, though his toes were aching with the cold and his fingers were
red and stiff so that it hurt him to move them. And all at once the boy
remembered how his toes and fingers hurt him, and began crying, and ran on;
and again through another window-pane he saw another Christmas tree, and on
a table cakes of all sorts--almond cakes, red cakes and yellow cakes, and
three grand young ladies were sitting there, and they gave the cakes to any
one who went up to them, and the door kept opening, lots of gentlemen and
ladies went in from the street. The boy crept up, suddenly opened the door
and went in. Oh, how they shouted at him and waved him back! One lady went
up to him hurriedly and slipped a kopeck into his hand, and with her own
hands opened the door into the street for him! How frightened he was. And
the kopeck rolled away and clinked upon the steps; he could not bend his
red fingers to hold it tight. The boy ran away and went on, where he did
not know. He was ready to cry again but he was afraid, and ran on and on
and blew his fingers. And he was miserable because he felt suddenly so
lonely and terrified, and all at once, mercy on us! What was this again?
People were standing in a crowd admiring. Behind a glass window there were
three little dolls, dressed in red and green dresses, and exactly, exactly
as though they were alive. One was a little old man sitting and playing a
big violin, the two others were standing close by and playing little
violins and nodding in time, and looking at one another, and their lips
moved, they were speaking, actually speaking, only one couldn't hear
through the glass. And at first the boy thought they were alive, and when
he grasped that they were dolls he laughed. He had never seen such dolls
before, and had no idea there were such dolls! And he wanted to cry, but
he felt amused, amused by the dolls. All at once he fancied that some one
caught at his smock behind: a wicked big boy was standing beside him and
suddenly hit him on the head, snatched off his cap and tripped him up. The
boy fell down on the ground, at once there was a shout, he was numb with
fright, he jumped up and ran away. He ran, and not knowing where he was
going, ran in at the gate of some one's courtyard, and sat down behind a
stack of wood: "They won't find me here, besides it's dark!"
He sat huddled up and was breathless from fright, and all at once, quite
suddenly, he felt so happy: his hands and feet suddenly left off aching and
grew so warm, as warm as though he were on a stove; then he shivered all
over, then he gave a start, why, he must have been asleep. How nice to have
a sleep here! "I'll sit here a little and go and look at the dolls again,"
said the boy, and smiled thinking of them. "Just as though they were
alive!..." And suddenly he heard his mother singing over him. "Mammy, I am
asleep; how nice it is to sleep here!"
"Come to my Christmas tree, little one," a soft voice suddenly whispered
over his head.
He thought that this was still his mother, but no, it was not she. Who it
was calling him, he could not see, but some one bent over and embraced him
in the darkness; and he stretched out his hands to him, and ... and all at
once--oh, what a bright light! Oh, what a Christmas tree! And yet it was
not a fir tree, he had never seen a tree like that! Where was he now?
Everything was bright and shining, and all round him were dolls; but no,
they were not dolls, they were little boys and girls, only so bright and
shining. They all came flying round him, they all kissed him, took him and
carried him along with them, and he was flying himself, and he saw that his
mother was looking at him and laughing joyfully. "Mammy, Mammy; oh, how
nice it is here, Mammy!" And again he kissed the children and wanted to
tell them at once of those dolls in the shop window. "Who are you, boys?
Who are you, girls?" he asked, laughing and admiring them.
"This is Christ's Christmas tree," they answered. "Christ always has a
Christmas tree on this day, for the little children who have no tree of
their own...." And he found out that all these little boys and girls were
children just like himself; that some had been frozen in the baskets in
which they had as babies been laid on the doorsteps of well-to-do
Petersburg people, others had been boarded out with Finnish women by the
Foundling and had been suffocated, others had died at their starved
mother's breasts (in the Samara famine), others had died in the third-class
railway carriages from the foul air; and yet they were all here, they were
all like angels about Christ, and He was in the midst of them and held out
His hands to them and blessed them and their sinful mothers.... And the
mothers of these children stood on one side weeping; each one knew her boy
or girl, and the children flew up to them and kissed them and wiped away
their tears with their little hands, and begged them not to weep because
they were so happy.
And down below in the morning the porter found the little dead body of the
frozen child on the woodstack; they sought out his mother too.... She had
died before him. They met before the Lord God in heaven.
Why have I made up such a story, so out of keeping with an ordinary diary,
and a writer's above all? And I promised two stories dealing with real
events! But that is just it, I keep fancying that all this may have
happened really--that is, what took place in the cellar and on the
woodstack; but as for Christ's Christmas tree, I cannot tell you whether
that could have happened or not.
THE PEASANT MAREY
It was the second day in Easter week. The air was warm, the sky was blue,
the sun was high, warm, bright, but my soul was very gloomy. I sauntered
behind the prison barracks. I stared at the palings of the stout prison
fence, counting the movers; but I had no inclination to count them, though
it was my habit to do so. This was the second day of the "holidays" in the
prison; the convicts were not taken out to work, there were numbers of men
drunk, loud abuse and quarrelling was springing up continually in every
corner. There were hideous, disgusting songs and card-parties installed
beside the platform-beds. Several of the convicts who had been sentenced by
their comrades, for special violence, to be beaten till they were half
dead, were lying on the platform-bed, covered with sheepskins till they
should recover and come to themselves again; knives had already been drawn
several times. For these two days of holiday all this had been torturing me
till it made me ill. And indeed I could never endure without repulsion the
noise and disorder of drunken people, and especially in this place. On
these days even the prison officials did not look into the prison, made no
searches, did not look for vodka, understanding that they must allow even
these outcasts to enjoy themselves once a year, and that things would be
even worse if they did not. At last a sudden fury flamed up in my heart. A
political prisoner called M. met me; he looked at me gloomily, his eyes
flashed and his lips quivered. "_Je haïs ces brigands!_" he hissed to me
through his teeth, and walked on. I returned to the prison ward, though
only a quarter of an hour before I had rushed out of it, as though I were
crazy, when six stalwart fellows had all together flung themselves upon
the drunken Tatar Gazin to suppress him and had begun beating him; they
beat him stupidly, a camel might have been killed by such blows, but they
knew that this Hercules was not easy to kill, and so they beat him without
uneasiness. Now on returning I noticed on the bed in the furthest corner of
the room Gazin lying unconscious, almost without sign of life. He lay
covered with a sheepskin, and every one walked round him, without speaking;
though they confidently hoped that he would come to himself next morning,
yet if luck was against him, maybe from a beating like that, the man would
die. I made my way to my own place opposite the window with the iron
grating, and lay on my back with my hands behind my head and my eyes shut.
I liked to lie like that; a sleeping man is not molested, and meanwhile one
can dream and think. But I could not dream, my heart was beating uneasily,
and M.'s words, "_Je haïs ces brigands!_" were echoing in my ears. But why
describe my impressions; I sometimes dream even now of those times at
night, and I have no dreams more agonising. Perhaps it will be noticed that
even to this day I have scarcely once spoken in print of my life in prison.
_The House of the Dead_ I wrote fifteen years ago in the character of an
imaginary person, a criminal who had killed his wife. I may add by the way
that since then, very many persons have supposed, and even now maintain,
that I was sent to penal servitude for the murder of my wife.
Gradually I sank into forgetfulness and by degrees was lost in memories.
During the whole course of my four years in prison I was continually
recalling all my past, and seemed to live over again the whole of my life
in recollection. These memories rose up of themselves, it was not often
that of my own will I summoned them. It would begin from some point, some
little thing, at times unnoticed, and then by degrees there would rise up a
complete picture, some vivid and complete impression. I used to analyse
these impressions, give new features to what had happened long ago, and
best of all, I used to correct it, correct it continually, that was my
great amusement. On this occasion, I suddenly for some reason remembered an
unnoticed moment in my early childhood when I was only nine years old--a
moment which I should have thought I had utterly forgotten; but at that
time I was particularly fond of memories of my early childhood. I
remembered the month of August in our country house: a dry bright day but
rather cold and windy; summer was waning and soon we should have to go to
Moscow to be bored all the winter over French lessons, and I was so sorry
to leave the country. I walked past the threshing-floor and, going down the
ravine, I went up to the dense thicket of bushes that covered the further
side of the ravine as far as the copse. And I plunged right into the midst
of the bushes, and heard a peasant ploughing alone on the clearing about
thirty paces away. I knew that he was ploughing up the steep hill and the