Short Fiction by Vladimir Korolenko

Author:Vladimir Korolenko
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Russia -- Social life and customs -- Fiction, Blind musicians -- Fiction, Russia -- Fiction, Short stories, Russian -- Translations into English, Musical fiction
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2020-07-16T19:50:13+00:00

* * *

In deep si­lence the pupils of the philoso­pher lis­tened to the mar­vel­lous recital of Cte­sip­pus. Pla­to broke the si­lence.

“Let us in­ves­ti­gate the dream and its sig­nif­i­cance,” he said.

“Let us in­ves­ti­gate it,” re­spond­ed the oth­ers.

Lights

A long time ago, on a dark au­tumn evening, I hap­pened to be go­ing in a boat up a gloomy Siberi­an riv­er. Sud­den­ly, be­yond a bend of the riv­er, a tiny speck of light flashed ahead, at the foot of some dark moun­tains.

It flashed bright­ly, clear­ly, as though it were very near …

“Thank God!” said I joy­ful­ly. “Now we are near a place to spend the night.”

The man at the oars glanced at the light over his shoul­der, and then re­sumed his ap­a­thet­ic strokes.

“It’s far away.”

I did not be­lieve him. The light seemed to be so close by, stand­ing out against the vague dark­ness. But the oars­man was right; the light was re­al­ly far away.

What a pe­cu­liar prop­er­ty do these night lights pos­sess! They ap­proach you ev­er so close­ly, con­quer­ing the dark­ness and burn­ing in its midst, beck­on­ing to you and al­lur­ing you with their near­ness. It seems that two or three strokes more, and you will be at the end of your jour­ney … And yet, that end is far, far away.

And on that au­tumn night, too, it was for a long time af­ter we no­ticed the light that we were go­ing up the riv­er, black as ink. Rocks and gorges sprang up be­fore us, seemed to be mov­ing to­wards us, and then float­ed away, lag­ging be­hind and dis­ap­pear­ing in the dark­ness, while the tiny speck of light was still stand­ing be­fore us, there, ahead, twin­kling and beck­on­ing, ev­er near, yet ev­er far away …

And even now, I of­ten re­call this dark riv­er, with the rocky cliff’s crowd­ing up­on its banks, and the tiny speck of light burn­ing far ahead. Many a light has thus al­lured me and oth­ers with its ap­par­ent near­ness. But life flows, on, be­tween its gloomy banks, and the lights are far away. And again we must ply our oars …

And yet … and yet, there are lights ahead! …

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