The Complete Short Novels by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Classics, Short Stories, Single Author, World Literature, Contemporary Fiction, Single Authors, Translations, Fiction
ISBN: 140003292X
Amazon: B000XUDG58
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2007-12-18T05:00:00+00:00

VI

ZINAIDA FYODOROVNA’S GOLDEN watch, once given to her by her father, disappeared. This disappearance astonished and frightened her. For half a day she walked through all the rooms, looking in perplexity at the tables and windowsills, but the watch had vanished into thin air.

Soon after that, about three days later, Zinaida Fyodorovna, having come back from somewhere, forgot her purse in the front hall. Fortunately for me, it was not I who helped her out of her things but Polya. When the purse was found missing, it was no longer in the front hall.

“Strange!” Zinaida Fyodorovna was puzzled. “I remember perfectly well taking it out of my pocket to pay the cabby...and then putting it here by the mirror. Wonders!”

I hadn’t stolen it, but a feeling came over me as if I had stolen it and had been caught. Tears even came to my eyes. When they sat down to dinner, Zinaida Fyodorovna said to Orlov in French:

“We have ghosts here. Today I lost my purse in the front hall, but I looked just now, and it was lying on my desk. But it was not an unmercenary trick the ghosts played. They took a gold piece and twenty roubles for their work.”

“First your watch disappeared, and now it’s money . . .” said Orlov. “Why does nothing like that ever happen with me?”

A minute later, Zinaida Fyodorovna no longer remembered the trick the ghosts had played, and was laughingly telling how she had ordered some stationery a week ago but had forgotten to leave her new address in the shop, and the stationery had been sent to her husband at the old apartment, and her husband had had to pay the bill of twelve roubles. And she suddenly rested her gaze on Polya and looked at her intently. With that, she blushed and became confused to such a degree that she started talking about something else.

When I brought coffee to the study, Orlov was standing by the fireplace with his back to the fire, and she was sitting in an armchair facing him.

“I’m not at all in a bad mood,” she was saying in French. “But I’ve started to figure it out now, and it’s all clear to me.

I can name you the day and even the hour when she stole my watch. And the purse? There can be no doubts here. Oh!” she laughed, taking the coffee from me. “Now I understand why I lose my handkerchiefs and gloves so often. As you like, but tomorrow I’ll let the magpie go and send Stepan for my Sofya. She’s not a thief, and she doesn’t have such a...repugnant look.”

“You’re out of sorts. Tomorrow you’ll be in a different mood, and you’ll understand that it’s impossible to dismiss a person only because you suspect her of something.”

“I don’t suspect, I’m certain,” said Zinaida Fyodorovna. “All the while I suspected that proletarian with the wretched face, your servant, I never said a word. It’s too bad you don’t believe me, Georges.”

“If you and I think differently about something, it doesn’t mean I don’t believe you.

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