He tottered as he went; his old wasted legs, halting, dragging, stumbling, moved painfully and feebly, as though they did not belong to him; his clothes hung in rags about him; his uncovered head drooped on his breast…. He was utterly worn-out.
He sat down on a stone by the wayside, bent forward, leant his elbows on his knees, hid his face in his hands; and through the knotted fingers the tears dropped down on to the grey, dry dust.
He remembered….
Remembered how he too had been strong and rich, and how he had wasted his health, and had lavished his riches upon others, friends and enemies…. And here, he had not now a crust of bread; and all had forsaken him, friends even before foes…. Must he sink to begging alms? There was bitterness in his heart, and shame.
The tears still dropped and dropped, spotting the grey dust.
Suddenly he heard some one call him by his name; he lifted his weary head, and saw standing before him a stranger.
A face calm and grave, but not stern; eyes not beaming, but clear; a look penetrating, but not unkind.
'Thou hast given away all thy riches,' said a tranquil voice…. 'But thou dost not regret having done good, surely?'
'I regret it not,' answered the old man with a sigh; 'but here I am dying now.'
'And had there been no beggars who held out their hands to thee,' the stranger went on, 'thou wouldst have had none on whom to prove thy goodness; thou couldst not have done thy good works.'
The old man answered nothing, and pondered.
'So be thou also now not proud, poor man,' the stranger began again. 'Go thou, hold out thy hand; do thou too give to other good men a chance to prove in deeds that they are good.'
The old man started, raised his eyes … but already the stranger had vanished, and in the distance a man came into sight walking along the road.
The old man went up to him, and held out his hand. This man turned away with a surly face, and gave him nothing.
But after him another passed, and he gave the old man some trifling alms.
And the old man bought himself bread with the coppers given him, and sweet to him seemed the morsel gained by begging, and there was no shame in his heart, but the contrary: peace and joy came as a blessing upon him.
THE INSECT
I dreamed that we were sitting, a party of twenty, in a big room with open windows.
Among us were women, children, old men…. We were all talking of some very well-known subject, talking noisily and indistinctly.
Suddenly, with a sharp, whirring sound, there flew into the room a big insect, two inches long … it flew in, circled round, and settled on the wall.
It was like a fly or a wasp. Its body dirt-coloured; of the same colour too its flat, stiff wings; outspread feathered claws, and a head thick and angular, like a dragon-fly's; both head and claws were bright red, as though steeped in blood.
This strange insect incessantly turned its head up and down, to right and to left, moved its claws … then suddenly darted from the wall, flew with a whirring sound about the room, and again settled, again hatefully and loathsomely wriggling all over, without stirring from the spot.
In all of us it excited a sensation of loathing, dread, even terror…. No one of us had ever seen anything like it. We all cried: 'Drive that monstrous thing away!' and waved our handkerchiefs at it from a distance … but no one ventured to go up to it … and when the insect began flying, every one instinctively moved away.
Only one of our party, a pale-faced young man, stared at us all in amazement He shrugged his shoulders; he smiled, and positively could not conceive what had happened to us, and why we were in such a state of excitement. He himself did not see an insect at all, did not hear the ill-omened whirr of its wings.
All at once the insect seemed to stare at him, darted off, and dropping on his head, stung him on the forehead, above the eyes…. The young man feebly groaned, and fell dead.
The fearful fly flew out at once…. Only then we guessed what it was had visited us.
CABBAGE SOUP
A peasant woman, a widow, had an only son, a young man of twenty, the best workman in the village, and he died.
The lady who was the owner of the village, hearing of the woman's trouble, went to visit her on the very day of the burial.
She found her at home.
Standing in the middle of her hut, before the table, she was, without haste, with a regular movement of the right arm (the left hung listless at her side), scooping up weak cabbage soup from the bottom of a blackened pot, and swallowing it spoonful by spoonful.
The woman's face was sunken and dark; her eyes were red and swollen … but she held herself as rigid and upright as in church.
'Heavens!' thought the lady, 'she can eat at such a moment … what coarse feelings they have really, all of them!'
And at that point the lady recollected that when, a few years before, she had lost her little daughter, nine months old, she had refused, in her grief, a lovely country villa near Petersburg, and had spent the whole summer in town! Meanwhile the woman went on swallowing cabbage soup.
The lady could not contain herself, at last. 'Tatiana!' she said … 'Really! I'm surprised! Is it possible you didn't care for your son? How is it you've not lost your appetite? How can you eat that soup!'
'My Vasia's dead,' said the woman quietly, and tears of anguish ran once more down her hollow cheeks. 'It's the end of me too, of course; it's tearing the heart out of me alive. But the soup's not to be wasted; there's salt in it.'
The lady only shrugged her shoulders and went away. Salt did not cost her much.
THE REALM OF AZURE
O realm of azure! O realm of light and colour, of youth and happiness! I have beheld thee in dream. We were together, a few, in a beautiful little boat, gaily decked out. Like a swan's breast the white sail swelled below the streamers frolicking in the wind.
I knew not who were with me; but in all my soul I felt that they were young, light-hearted, happy as I!
But I looked not indeed on them. I beheld all round the boundless blue of the sea, dimpled with scales of gold, and overhead the same boundless sea of blue, and in it, triumphant and mirthful, it seemed, moved the sun.
And among us, ever and anon, rose laughter, ringing and gleeful as the laughter of the gods!
And on a sudden, from one man's lips or another's, would flow words, songs of divine beauty and inspiration, and power … it seemed the sky itself echoed back a greeting to them, and the sea quivered in unison…. Then followed again the blissful stillness.
