by Ruskin Bond
But Papa entered my room one night and saw The Mouse. 'Hein?' he said as a gray streak flashed across the room. 'What was that?'
'Qu'est-ce que c'est?' I asked naïvely.
'What was that which just now appeared and disappeared?'
'Me, I saw nothing. You promised to fix my skates.'
My father frowned and sat down slowly on the bed. But in a moment he suddenly arose with a bad light in his eyes. He was, I could see, no longer a good, kind man with music in his heart; he was now a fierce hunter. He had discovered the doorway to The Mouse's home. It was a very small hole near a corner.
'Oho!' he shouted like a savage.
'Is something the matter?' I inquired.
'Aha!' Papa exclaimed. He kneeled down and peeked into The Mouse's home.
'Don't let him kill The Mouse,' I demanded silently of the Lord. 'Fair is fair. I have learned already twice the number of Bible verse I am supposed to learn and You have hardly noticed me at all. Papa is Papa and I love and respect him, but You know and I know The Mouse is my friend.' This was the first time I had ever given the Lord orders, and I was not so sure I had used the most politic method.
I tried to engage my father in conversation. 'What do you think I learned in school today?' I asked eagerly. My father replied without looking up, 'Very little, no doubt. And that little of more harm than good.'
I tried hard to think of something else to talk about when suddenly Papa jumped up, holding his nose, and cried 'Nom d'un nom!' The Mouse apparently had scratched Papa's long nose. I could not help but laugh. 'You, too, would be angry if someone stuck his nose in your house,' I said.
Papa rubbed his nose and came back to the bed, a little confused. He began to repair my skating boot, and I sighed happily, thinking that he had abandoned his wild-game hunt.
Perhaps he had, but The Mouse had not given up Papa. Foolish Mouse! As soon as my father became comfortably seated on the bed, The Mouse walked right out. Not only did he walk out; he stood up on two legs and looked my father calmly in the eye. It was as if he wished to say, 'Look here, I did not mean to hurt your nose. It was an accident. The Boy and I are friends. It is not easy to find a true friend in this world. For a small boy it is difficult; for a mouse it is almost impossible. Can we not talk this over, man to man?'
Alas, my poor father, who understood so many lovely things so well, did not understand The Mouse. He saw only a wild animal and lunged for it. The Mouse, who apparently knew something of human nature, was intelligent enough to disappear.
The next day there was a trap with some cheese. I stole the cheese in the name of my friendship with The Mouse. I could not do otherwise.
The following day, Papa, seeing neither cheese nor mouse, remarked pointedly, 'Aha! What a remarkable mouse it is we have here, eh? He eats the cheese and yet he does not spring the trap!'
I rolled my eyes and tried to look as much as possible like a cherub in the Sunday-school pictures. 'Such a thing is possible—for a very smart mouse.'
Papa looked me in the eye. 'It is not possible,' he said firmly. 'But what is most possible is that a small boy with a vacant head is removing the cheese from the trap.'
'What small boy would do such a thing?' I inquired.
'You will find him in the mirror,' said Papa.
He then forbade me to touch the cheese. It was a direct command of the first degree and had to be obeyed.
Once more I prayed for The Mouse. 'Dear Lord, I saved The Mouse once. What I can do, certainly You can do. If the worst comes to the worst, remove The Mouse from the temptation of the cheese. Lead him not into temptation, but deliver him from the evil trap.'
Nevertheless, I awaited, with terror in my heart, the end of mon ami, my proven friend. I opened the subject with Maman. 'If you have a friend whose loyalty is proven, you stand by this friend when others wish him harm. N'est-ce pas?'
My mother was working a large gourd into one of Papa's socks. 'Mais oui,' she replied.
'Aha!' I shouted triumphantly. 'Then why do we have to catch The Mouse?'
My mother opened her eyes wide and stood up quickly. 'Mouse?' she repeated nervously. 'What mouse? Where is The Mouse?'
Papa sipped his wine and put down his newspaper. He looked at me across the room with a wise smile. I could see I had made a fatal strategic error. Maman was afraid of mice.
'The Boy,' my father said quietly, 'has in his room a mouse. They are friends, these two. So the Boy claims. The Mouse has said nothing.'
'Set the trap!' cried Maman. 'Set the trap!'
'The trap was set,' my father explained patiently, 'but The Mouse removed the cheese without springing the trap.'
'C'est impossible!' my mother said. She turned to me. 'I forbid you to remove the cheese. You understand?'
'I will not remove the cheese,' I promised sadly. 'But it is only a coward who stands still while his best friend is killed with low tricks.'
'Listen to him sing!' Papa exclaimed, a little upset.
'Maman herself has said this is one of the things one does not do,' I argued.
'But a mouse,' my mother countered, 'is different.'
'A friend is a friend,' I said. 'At least, if you wish to fight my friend you could fight fair—not with traps.'
'Ho! Name of a thousand and one names!' Papa cried. 'Shall I make a tail for myself and get down on my hands and knees and bite The Mouse with my teeth?'
Papa went upstairs and set the trap with an unfairly large and unusually attractive piece of cheese.
I sighed. I could see it was no use. The Mouse could be saved now only by the good Lord.
When I awakened in the morning the cheese was still there. I jumped out of bed, kneeled down and told the Lord: 'Merci bien Monsieur!' Then I dressed and bounded joyfully down to breakfast, humming gaily. I ate my oatmeal in bliss. Just as I had finished, there was a scampering above us.
'Is that,' Papa asked, 'perhaps The Mouse?'
I held my breath and prayed one more time. Maman was busy making toast and said nothing. In a few moments there was the sound of scampering again. This time it seemed very close.
'Does The Mouse know even the way downstairs?' Papa asked in surprise.
I did not answer him. I busied myself putting jam on my toast. Halfway through the toast I felt as if something soft had touched my feet. I looked down. There was The Mouse, reeling, wobbling, struggling toward my feet.
When he saw my friend, my father stood up hastily. I do not know what he intended to do—perhaps protect Maman. It does not matter. In a few seconds The Mouse rolled over at my feet, dead. He did not die, however, before he had said something to me with his eyes.
My father rushed upstairs and came back exclaiming, 'Astonishing! The cheese was removed from the trap. One imagines the trap then sprang and struck The Mouse in the jaw. Imagine it, this is a mouse who has died from a punch in the jaw!'
The wonder of it did not impress me. I knew The Mouse was a brave one. But I did not know about myself, for, with his eyes, The Mouse seemed to have said to me, 'Look, I was your friend and you have killed me. But here is the wonder—I am still your friend. See, I come to die at your feet and to forgive you. It is easy to love those who are kind to you; it is a terrible but necessary thing to love those who have betrayed you.'
Ah, perhaps The Mouse did not mean anything of the sort. Maybe it was my own heart speaking, learning, growing up.
'Papa,' I asked quietly, 'is there a heaven for The Mouse?'
'Yes, yes,' Papa said unhappily, 'there is for everyone a heaven.'
Maman, who had been white and silent through the tragedy, now spoke meekly, 'After this, let us get a large cat, so that such matters will be out of our hands.'
PRIMULA
GEOFFREY MOSS
This plant is the gem of my collection, Primula Caspiensis Davidii. I discovered it through a chance meeting with a Russian, a botanist who, having fled from Bolshevism, was earning his living as best he could in Jugoslavia. Here is the story:
I thought over what he had told me and decided to approach the Soviet Government for permission to undertake the expedition I had in mind. But before leaving London I found out all I could about the country he had described. The latest information about the district, I learned, had come from members of a British Military Mission which had been there just after the war. The general in charge had lost his life at the hands of the Bolshevist irregular forces, but one of his officers advised to me to visit his widow, so I went.
Her flat was out of the lower end of Sloane Street. The drawing-room, despite a big bow window, contrived to be dark. Along the window seat were Japanese dwarf trees—abortions which annoy me. She was a tall, hard, rather graceful woman, nearing fifty.
I wanted to know about the country where her husband had lost his life. She would tell me all she knew. He had written home most enthusiastically about it, for he had been an ardent fisherman.
She showed me his portrait, the usual middle-aged soldier. The eyes were all I remember, strangely humorous.
There were, too, some clever sepia drawings of calm water, a stretch of low shore, and some rough huts. Her husband had done them…. Did I see that cape? It had been on the other side of it that he had been lost, when out fishing.
'Curious,' she said. 'I always had a presentiment against his fishing.'
Surreptitiously I turned over the pages of the sketch book. Meanwhile my hostess talked on, very pleasantly, in a voice pitched just a little too high.
Yes, he had wanted to spend their honeymoon on some stream in Bohemia, while she had wanted to take him to 'beloved' Florence. The watercolours on the walls were 'mementoes of happy days.' She was no doubt a pleasant enough woman, but those Siamese cats wandered about and made that disgusting noise of their species—I don't like cats.
The general had been a good Russian scholar and on that account had been given charge of that military mission, thrust out into the wilds of Central Asia.
For months nothing happened. The mission employed agents to supply information as to what was happening still further in the heart of the Continent. Meanwhile the members of it shot, fished and amused themselves as best they could. For the general the place must have been a paradise.
Fishing! Naturally, she had never actually tried to stop it, but, when it had clashed with some social event, she had done her best to persuade him which to choose. In soldiering the social side was so important—especially in India!
Well, after some months things began to take an unpleasant turn. Disquieting rumours came from the North. Food supplies became scarcer. Once or twice the Mission's sketchy communications with its base were interrupted. Once an officer out duck-shooting heard a bullet whistle past him. For a week or so all was quiet, then a boat belonging to the Mission was burnt one night, and one morning a sentry was found dead with a knife between his shoulders.
The officers began to grow uncomfortable. They were there to observe: they had no earthly chance of putting up a fight, and the countryside, which had welcomed their arrival, was obviously turning against them.
Sometimes at night they would be conscious of people prowling around their camp. Then for days the silence of those wild lands would descend about them.
Then one evening at dusk they saw a fire somewhere northwards along the coast. The general called a conference. His instructions had been beautifully vague, freeing the higher authority from responsibility—'to observe and report upon enemy activity, political or military, in or about, etc, etc; to remain, etc, etc, but not to endanger unduly the safety of the Mission.' After a long discussion it was arranged that all should be kept in readiness for departure at an hour's notice; but that, as food was so scarce, fishing and shooting should be continued by officers—to their general relief, no doubt!
Then one day, when the general had gone up the coast, an agent from whom nothing had been heard for weeks dashed into the camp with the news that large Bolshevist forces were approaching. Preparations for retreat were made and the recall signal was given. But there was no sign of the head of the Mission. The afternoon wore on. It was time to go. They dared not risk being attacked at night. One officer undertook to stay behind till dusk, and the forlorn little band marched away.
Next morning the young fellow rejoined. He had waited till after dark, had sent up rockets, but had seen no answering ones from the general. Eventually the party reached its base. Of course, they heard rumours of how the general had come by his end, yet nothing certain was ever discovered.
Well, I took a last look at the watercolours and those cats, and I departed. And I sent flowers—from a florist; showy stuff, of no conceivable interest.
Getting to the Caspian was no joke. Difficulties of every sort—dirt, delay, vile food. At length I arrived. I found a boat and a boatman. We started off.
The coast was flat; peaty wastes, forests, a desolate shore-line with an occasional wretched hut.
It was late one afternoon that a found my primula, that strangest of the whole family. The weather was threatening… intermittent rumbling of thunder. My boatman was all for getting away, but nothing could get me away. I had found this unique species, a regular meadow of these little chaps; orange against the sombre background of the forest and the grey of the sky. Extraordinary!
It's odd, but that afternoon the greyness seemed to get on my nerves. There were no birds singing. The forest grew darker and darker. My boatman, too, kept crossing himself and muttering. Eventually, an hour before dark, we launched the boat.
We hadn't gone more than a mile when the thing started—a solid wall of rain; and after it came the wind.
In a matter of minutes there was an ugly sea running. I headed in towards the shore and kept just outside the rushes. To add to our pleasure, night was descending. I held our course on the chance, and presently saw the perches of a stake-net, upright in that slantwise, windswept world. On the shore was a hut. I rounded in and beached our boat.
We scrambled to the door and hammered on it. A gaunt fisherman appeared, and eventually we persuaded him to let us in. The hut was like others: a trodden earth floor, home-made furniture and a fire; at the back a door leading to another room.
Our host was vigorous, his Russian—as far as I could judge—was pure, and it struck me that he might have once been of bourgeoisie. I tried to be pleasant to him, but he kept aloof. Outside the wind howled—the very dickens of a night!
Once I spoke of the Military Mission, for their camp must have been within a few miles of where we were sitting. On this subject our host was even less communicative. All that had been before his time, he told me. After all, I was a foreigner. Most likely he and his neighbours had helped themselves to the abandoned British stores. And that had been long ago! I turned in and slept well.
When I awoke the sun was high, the sea smooth, and my boatman was busy preparing breakfast. As for the owner of the hut, he was in the other room, for I could hear him humming some tune which seemed somehow familiar.
Presently he came in, but now that it was day he was even less communicative. He helped us to launch our boat and I persuaded him to accept some provisions in return for the night's lodging. But even before we had pushed off, he had turned back to his hut. I don't remember seeing anyone so obviously relieved to get rid of his guests.
Thus it was all the more annoying when I found I had left my camera behind and had to go back for it. I landed and walked up to the hut. Through the open door I could hear the fisherman whistling in the further room. Suddenly I knew that the tune was—'Tipperary.' I stood stock still. He must have learnt that tune from the Military Mission.
I crossed the floor and looked into the inner room. There he sat, on his bed. I got a look round before he knew that I was there. On the rough walls was evidence enough that I was right; some obviously English fishing-rods and, what was more curious still, several sketches like those I had seen in that flat in London. Then the man realised I was there and jumped up. I don't know which of us was the
more surprised, for, just as he did so, two objects hanging in the corner caught my eye—a much-worn khaki greatcoat and the gold-braided cap of a British General.
He knew what I had seen and he stood there challengingly, his legs apart and his thumbs slipped through the rope which served him as a belt. Slowly his weather-beaten lips twisted into a smile and there came into his grey eyes an ironic expression which seemed to make them familiar to me.
There I stood, gaping like a duffer, while gradually in my brain a jig-saw puzzle of ideas fitted into each other. I remembered that dark drawing-room; those Japanese dwarf trees; those raucous Siamese cats; that steely woman who had tried to make her husband realise that the social side of soldiering was more important than his fishing. And, as I remembered these things, I realised all at once who the man before me was: and also the reason why he had chosen to lose himself rather than return home.
There was nothing to say. For a moment we stood so. Then without a word I went down to the boat.
Again I pushed off. The boat gathered way. Then I looked towards the shore. There at the water's edge, his hand lifted in gay and courtly farewell stood that lean, still athletic figure, once more alone, lost now for ever in the exile he had chosen.
THE BEGGAR
ANTON CHEKHOV
'Kind sir, have pity; turn your attention to a poor, hungry man! For three days I have had nothing to eat; I haven't five copecks for a lodging, I swear it before God. For eight years I was a village schoolteacher and then I lost my place through intrigues. I fell a victim to calumny. It is a year now since I have had anything to do—'
The advocate Skvortsoff looked at the ragged, fawn-coloured overcoat of the suppliant, at his dull, drunken eyes, at the red spot on either cheek, and it seemed to him as if he had seen this man somewhere before.