Russian fiction -- Translations into English; Short stories, Russian -- Translations into English
"I said it would be worse," he remarked, getting his breath after the
struggle, and adjusting his shirt-band. "Why should he sin? We must
all die. Let him have a cloak for a pillow," he added, turning to the
dvornik; "the blood will run to his head" and, after girding himself
with a rope, he took his lantern, and went out to his horses.
Ilya with dishevelled locks, pale face, and disordered linen, glared
about the room as though he were trying to remember where he was. The
porter picked up the broken glass, and put a jacket in the window so
as to keep out the cold. The elder again sat down with his cup of kvas.
"Ay, Ilyúkha, Ilyúkha, I'm sorry for you, indeed I am. What's to be
done? Here's Khoriushkin, he's married too. No way of avoiding it."
"My uncle is my enemy, and he wants to kill me," reiterated Ilya with
tearless wrath. "Much he pities his own!... Mátushka said the overseer
told him to hire a substitute. He wouldn't do it. He says he wouldn't
borrow. Did I and my brother bring nothing into the house?... He is our
enemy."
Dutlof came into the house, said a prayer before the holy images, took
off his coat and hat, and sat down by the elder. The maid brought him
also a cup of kvas and a spoon. Ilya said nothing, shut his eyes, and
lay still on the cloak. The stárosta silently pointed to him, and shook
his head. Dutlof waved his hand.
"Am I not sorry to have him go? He's my own brother's son. And though
I pity him so, they make it out that I'm his enemy. His wife[14] put
it into his head; a crafty woman, but quite too young. The idea of her
thinking that we had money enough to hire a substitute! And so she
blamed me. And yet I'm sorry for him."
"Akh, he's a fine young fellow," said the stárosta.
"With my little means I couldn't do any thing for him. To-morrow I am
going to send Ignat in, and his wife will want to go."
"Send her along, first-rate," said the stárosta, and he got up and
mounted the stove. "What's money? Money's dust."
"Who would begrudge money if he had it?" asked one of the merchant's
people, lifting his head.
"Ekh! money, money! it causes many a sin," replied Dutlof. "Nothing
in the world causes so much sin as money, and it says so in the
Scriptures."
"It says every thing," said the porter. "A man told me the other day:
there was a merchant, he had made a lot of money, and he did not want
any of it to remain behind him. He loved his money so that he took it
with him into his tomb. He came to die, and ordered every penny that
he had to be put into a pillow in the grave with him. And so they did.
By and by his sons began to seek for his money. None anywhere. One of
them suspected that it was in the cushion. They go to the Tsar, and get
permission to dig it up. And what do you think? They discovered that
there was nothing there, but the grave was full of mould and worms; and
then they dig again, and there they find the money."
"Truly, much sin!" said Dutlof, and, standing up, he began to say his
prayers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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