Selected short stories -1896-1904- translated by Constance Garnett

' 'An island is a piece of land which is entirely surrounded by water,' ' he read aloud.

'An island is a piece of land,' she repeated, and this was the first opinion to which she gave utterance with positive conviction after so many years of silence and dearth of ideas.

Now she had opinions of her own, and at supper she talked to Sasha's parents, saying how difficult the lessons were at the high schools, but that yet the high school was better than a commercial one, since with a high-school education all careers were open to one, such as being a doctor or an engineer.

Sasha began going to the high school. His mother departed to Harkov to her sister's and did not return; his father used to go off every day to inspect cattle, and would often be away from home for three days together, and it seemed to Olenka as though Sasha was entirely abandoned, that he was not wanted at home, that he was being starved, and she carried him off to her lodge and gave him a little room there.

And for six months Sasha had lived in the lodge with her. Every morning Olenka came into his bedroom and found him fast asleep, sleeping noiselessly with his hand under his cheek. She was sorry to wake him.

'Sashenka,' she would say mournfully, 'get up, darling. It's time for school.'

He would get up, dress and say his prayers, and then sit down to breakfast, drink three glasses of tea, and eat two large cracknels and a half a buttered roll. All this time he was hardly awake and a little ill-humoured in consequence.

'You don't quite know your fable, Sashenka,' Olenka would say, looking at him as though he were about to set off on a long journey. 'What a lot of trouble I have with you! You must work and do your best, darling, and obey your teachers.'

'Oh, do leave me alone!' Sasha would say.

Then he would go down the street to school, a little figure, wearing a big cap and carrying a satchel on his shoulder. Olenka would follow him noiselessly.

'Sashenka!' she would call after him, and she would pop into his hand a date or a caramel. When he reached the street where the school was, he would feel ashamed of being followed by a tall, stout woman, he would turn round and say:

'You'd better go home, auntie. I can go the rest of the way alone.'

She would stand still and look after him fixedly till he had disappeared at the school-gate.

Ah, how she loved him! Of her former attachments not one had been so deep; never had her soul surrendered to any feeling so spontaneously, so disinterestedly, and so joyously as now that her maternal instincts were aroused. For this little boy with the dimple in his cheek and the big school cap, she would have given her whole life, she would have given it with joy and tears of tenderness. Why? Who can tell why?

When she had seen the last of Sasha, she returned home, contented and serene, brimming over with love; her face, which had grown younger during the last six months, smiled and beamed; people meeting her looked at her with pleasure.

'Good-morning, Olga Semyonovna, darling. How are you, darling?'

'The lessons at the high school are very difficult now,' she would relate at the market. 'It's too much; in the first class yesterday they gave him a fable to learn by heart, and a Latin translation and a problem. You know it's too much for a little chap.'

And she would begin talking about the teachers, the lessons, and the school books, saying just what Sasha said.

At three o'clock they had dinner together: in the evening they learned their lessons together and cried. When she put him to bed, she would stay a long time making the Cross over him and murmuring a prayer; then she would go to bed and dream of that far-away misty future when Sasha would finish his studies and become a doctor or an engineer, would have a big house of his own with horses and a carriage, would get married and have children. . . . She would fall asleep still thinking of the same thing, and tears would run down her cheeks from her closed eyes, while the black cat lay purring beside her: 'Mrr, mrr, mrr.'

Suddenly there would come a loud knock at the gate.

Olenka would wake up breathless with alarm, her heart throbbing. Half a minute later would come another knock.

'It must be a telegram from Harkov,' she would think, beginning to tremble from head to foot. 'Sasha's mother is sending for him from Harkov. . . . Oh, mercy on us!'

She was in despair. Her head, her hands, and her feet would turn chill, and she would feel that she was the most unhappy woman in the world. But another minute would pass, voices would be heard: it would turn out to be the veterinary surgeon coming home from the club.

'Well, thank God!' she would think.

And gradually the load in her heart would pass off, and she would feel at ease. She would go back to bed thinking of Sasha, who lay sound asleep in the next room, sometimes crying out in his sleep:

'I'll give it you! Get away! Shut up!'

NOTES

Tivoli: a pleasure resort near Rome and also an amusement park in Copenhagen

darling: the Russian word is Dushechka, a diminutive made from Dusha, which means 'darling' or 'dear'; Poggioli notes that the -echka ending implies 'an insinuation of pettiness and a nuance of indulgent scorn'

Faust Inside Out: a Russian translation of a French parody of the 1859 opera Faust by Charles Gounod (1818-1893)

Orpheus in Hell: operetta by Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880)

fufuneral: the Russian word for 'funeral' in the telegram is misprinted to look like the Russian word for 'to laugh'