Five Great Short Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

convinced that such an apparition only visited the chosen, the eminent people, who had devoted themselves to the service of the idea.
    One day the monk appeared during dinner and sat down in the dining-room near the window. Kovrin was delighted, and he very adroitly turned the conversation with Egor Semenych and Tania upon subjects that might interest the monk. The black guest listened and nodded his head affably; Egor Semenych and Tania also listened and smiled gaily, never suspecting that Kovrin was not talking to them, but to his vision.
    Unperceived the fast of the Assumption was there, and soon after it the wedding-day arrived. The marriage was celebrated according to Egor Semenych’s persistent desire “with racket,” that is, with senseless festivities that lasted two days. They ate and drank far more than three thousand roubles, but owing to the bad hired band, the shrill toasts, the hurrying to and fro of the lackeys, the noise and the overcrowding, nobody could appreciate the bouquet of the expensive wines nor the taste of the wonderful delicacies that had been ordered from Moscow.

CHAPTER VII
Don’t Be Afraid!
    IT HAPPENED on one of the long winter nights that Kovrin was lying in bed reading a French novel. Poor little Tania, who was not yet accustomed to live in a town, had a bad headache, as she often had by the evening, and was long since asleep, but from time to time she was uttering disconnected phrases in her sleep.
    It had struck three. Kovrin blew out his candle and lay down. He lay long with closed eyes, but could not get to sleep, because (so it seemed to him) it was very hot in the bedroom and Tania was talking in her sleep. At half-past four he again lit the candle, and at that moment he saw the black monk sitting on the arm-chair that stood near the bed.
    â€œHow do you do?” the monk said, and after a short pause he asked: “Of what are you thinking now?”
    â€œOf fame,” Kovrin answered. “In the French novel I have just been reading there is a man, a young scientist, who did stupid things, and who pined away from longing for fame. These longings are incomprehensible to me.”
    â€œBecause you are wise. You look upon fame with indifference, like a plaything that does not interest you.”
    â€œYes, that is true.”
    â€œFame has no attraction for you. What is there flattering, interesting or instructive in the fact that your name will be carved on your gravestone, and then time will efface this inscription together with its gilding? Besides, happily you are too many for man’s weak memory to be able to remember all your names.”
    â€œNaturally,” Kovrin agreed. “Why should they be remembered? But let us speak of something else. For example, of happiness. What is happiness?”
    When the clock struck five he was sitting on his bed with his feet resting on the rug and turning to the monk he was saying:
    â€œIn ancient times one happy man was at last frightened at his own happiness—it was so great! And in order to propitiate the gods he sacrificed to them his most precious ring. You know that story? Like Polycrates, I am beginning to be alarmed at my own happiness. It appears to me strange that from morning to night I only experience joy; I am filled with joy and it smothers all other feelings. I do not know what sadness, grief or dullness is. Here am I not asleep. I suffer from sleeplessness, but I am not dull. Quite seriously, I’m beginning to be perplexed.”
    â€œWhy?” the monk asked in astonishment. “Is joy a superhuman feeling? Ought it not to be the normal condition of man? The higher a man is in his intellectual and moral development, the more free he is, the greater are the pleasures that life offers him. Socrates, Diogenes and Marcus Aurelius knew joy, and not grief. The apostle says: ‘Rejoice always.’ Therefore rejoice and be happy.”
    â€œWhat if suddenly the gods were