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Show " DID NOT MEAN TO DO IT" By Lyof N. Tolstoy. Translated from the Russian by Sasha Kropotkin. He returned home at about 6 o'clock that morning and went, as he always did, into h's dressing-room. But instead of undressing he dropped into an armchair, and letting his hands fall on to his knees, sat motionless for five or ten minutes, perhaps even for as much as an hour he did not remember. "I take the seven of hearts" and he saw the awful relentless face before him with the faint gleam of satisfaction in the cold eyes. "Damn!" said he aloud. Somebody moved in the adjoining room, and his wife entered. "What is the matter?" she asked simply. And glancing at his face, she cried again. "What is the matter, Mischa what has happened?" "What is the matter? I'm done for !" "You have been playing cards?" "Well?" "Well!" repeated he with a sort of fierce elation. ela-tion. "I'm done for that's all." And he choked, keeping back the tears. "How often have I begged, implored you " She felt sorry for him, but she was even more sorry for herself, because they would now be poor, and because she had lain awake the whole night worrying and waiting for him. "It is past five," thought she. looking at the watch lying on a small table. "Oh, my God! How much is it?" He threw up his hands past his ears. "All wo have no, not all more than all! All ours and all that Government money, too. Kill me do T ' ' " " '' I what you will with me this is the end!" He covered his face with his hands. "That's all." "Mischa, Mdscha, listen to me. Have pity on me! You might think of me too. I've been awake the whole night, waiting and frightened and this is what I waited for! Tell me at least how much you have lost." "So much that I can't no one can pay it back. The entire sixteen thousand! I am ruined .1 might disappear but where am I to go? ' He looked up at her, and quite unexpectedly for him she drew him towards her. "How beautiful she is!" thought he, and took her by the arm. She freed herself. "For heaven's sake, be sensible, Mischa! How could you lose all that money?" "I hoped to win it back." He took out his cigarette case and began to smoke feverishly. "Yes, of course I am a scoundrel. I'm not worthy of you; leave me if you will only forgive mo this last time I'll go I'll disappear, Katia; I couldn't help this. It was like being in a dream I did not mean to do it!" She frowned. "What can I do? It's all up with me now that is certain but you might at least forgive me." He wanted to kiss her again, but she drew away angrily. "Oh these miserable men! You are all so brave while all goes well and the moment things go wrong you begin to despair, and can't do anything." any-thing." She sat down on the other side of the dressing-table. "Tell me everything from the beginning." be-ginning." And he told her. He told how he was on his way to the bank with the money, when he met Nekrasoff. Nekrasoff invited him to his house to play. There they had played, and he had lost. Now he meant to kill himself. So he said at least; but she saw that he had decided nothing and that ho was in despair and ready to catch at any straw. She listened till he had finished, and then- said, "All this is absurd and disgusting. It is impossible to lose so much money accidentally. It is too idiotic." "Reproach me if you like do what you will with me." "I am not goingj to reproach you or to make a scene. Can't you understand that I want to save you as I have always done, no matter how pitiful or despicable you have seemed to me?" "Go on oh, go on! It isn't for long now." "Listen this is what I think you had better do oh how mean, how cruel to torture me so! I'm ill, and you know it. I have been dosing myself with . . . and now this surprise and your silly lessness! You want to know what to do well, it is very simple. Go now, immediately it's six o'clock already to Freem and tell him." 'Just as though Freem is likely to spare me! "How stupid you are! Am I likely to advise you to tell the director of the bank that you have lost the money entrusted to you at cards? Tell him you were driving to the Nicolaeffky station . . . No better; go at once to the police . . . no, not now, go about ten o'clock. Say you were Avalking along the Nechaevsky Lane, when three men sprang out, one with a beard, another quite young, with a revolver and they got away with the money. Then go on at once to Freem and tell the same story." "Yes, but " he lighted another cigarette. "They might find out -from Nekrasoff. Oh I'll go to Nekrasoff and tell him first I'll manage all right." Mischam grew calm, and by eight o'clock was sleeping like a log. At ten she awoke him. II. All this happened early one morning in an upper up-per flat. In a lower flat of the same block of buildings, build-ings, in the family of the Ostrovskis the following happened in the evening at six o'clock. Dinner was just over, and young Princess Ostrovski beckoned beck-oned to the butler who had just served everyone with the sweet an orange jelly. She took a clean plate, and turned to her children. They were two, the elder, a six-year-old boy Boka, and the younger, young-er, a girl of four and a half Taniachka both charming children. Boka, a serious, healthy, solemn sol-emn little man, with a delightful smile which showed his uneven teeth, and Tania, a dark, lively, and energetic child. "Now. children, who wants to take nurse some jelly?" "To nurse?" asked Boka "I do." "No, me! me!" shouted Taniachka, and jumped off her chair. "Who spoke first you, Boka?" said the father, who invariably spoilt Tania, and therefore always welcomed an opportunity to prove how fair he could be. "Come, Tania, you must give in to your brother," broth-er," he said to his favorite. "All right, Boka, go I'm glad to let him. Come on, Boka, you take it. I never mind giving Boka anything." "Tania run to the nursery and see why Boka is so slow." Tania jumped off her chair, knocked a spoon off the table, picked it up, and pushed it on to the edge of the table. The spoon fell down again. Tania began to laugh, and picking it up once more flew off on her fat-stockinged little legs down the corridor to the nursery, beyond which was their nurse's room. She was running through the night nursery when she heard a sob behind her. She looked round. Boka was standing by his cot, looking look-ing at a toy horse. In his hand he held a plate, and he was crying bitterly. The plate was empty. "Boka! What's the matter, Boka? And where is the jelly?" "I I I ate it accidentally on the way. I won't go I won't go back there! I Tania yes, I did no I didn't mean to, really I didn't only I ate it all up! First just a little bit, and then all of it. What shall I do? I didn't mean to!" Tania looked thoughtful. And Boka was sobbing sob-bing his heart out. Suddenly Tania brightened. "Look here, Boka don't cry you go and tell nursie. Tell her you did it accidentally, and ask her to forgive you. And tomorrow let's give her our pudding she's so kind." Boka stopped crying. He rubbed his eyes first with the palms and then with the backs of his hands. "How shall I tell her?" he whispered in a trembling voice. "Let's go together." They ran off together, and returned presently, quite happy and, merry. And their nurse and their parents were also happy and very amused when nurse, laughing, and yet with tender pride, told them the whole story. London Nation. |
