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Read Ebook: Λόγοι Φιλιππικοί Θεοδώρου : Δεληγιάννη Απαγγελθέντες εντός και εκτός του Συνδερίου Εμμέτρως δε Διασκευασθέντες by Souris Georgios
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Ebook has 80 lines and 2436 words, and 2 pages
"There's a pig of a woman The fool found it dull sitting at home, so she must come and turn our shop upside down! If you were my wife, I'd give you something!"
His wife, a dried-up woman with black eyes and a large nose, simply made a door-mat of him. She used to scold him as if he were a servant.
Often, after he had shown out a frequent customer with polite bows and pleasant words, they would all begin to talk about her in a vile and shameless manner, arousing in me a desire to run into the street after her and tell her what they said. I knew, of course, that people generally speak evil of one another behind one another's backs, but these spoke of every one in a particularly revolting manner, as if they were in the front rank of good people and had been appointed to judge the rest of the world. Envious of many of them, they were never known to praise any one, and knew something bad about everybody.
One day there came to the shop a young woman with bright, rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes, attired in a velvet cloak with a collar of black fur. Her face rose out of the fur like a wonderful flower. When she had thrown the cloak off her shoulders and handed it to Sascha, she looked still more beautiful. Her fine figure was fitted tightly with a blue-gray silk robe; diamonds sparkled in her ears. She reminded me of "Vassilissa the Beautiful," and I could have believed that she was in truth the governor's wife. They received her with particular respect, bending before her as if she were a bright light, and almost choking themselves in their hurry to get out polite words. All three rushed about the shop like wild things: their reflections bobbed up and down in the glass of the cupboard. But when she left, after having bought some expensive boots in a great hurry, the master, smacking his lips, whistled and said:
"Hussy!"
"An actress--that sums her up," said the assistant, contemptuously. They began to talk of the lovers of the lady and the luxury in which she lived.
After dinner the master went to sleep in the room behind the shop, and I, opening his gold watch, poured vinegar into the works. It was a moment of supreme joy to me when he awoke and came into the shop, with his watch in his hand, muttering wildly:
"What can have happened? My watch is all wet. I never remember such a thing happening before. It is all wet; it will be ruined."
In addition to the burden of my duties in the shop and the housework, I was weighed down by depression. I often thought it would be a good idea to behave so badly that I should get my dismissal. Snow-covered people passed the door of the shop without making a sound. They looked as if on their way to somebody's funeral. Having meant to accompany the body to the grave, they had been delayed, and, being late for the funeral procession, were hurrying to the grave-side. The horses quivered with the effort of making their way through the snow-drifts. From the belfry of the church behind the shop the bells rang out with a melancholy sound every day. It was Lent, and every stroke of the bell fell upon my brain as if it had been a pillow, not hurting, but stupefying and deafening, me. One day when I was in the yard unpacking a case of new goods just received, at the door of the shop, the watchman of the church, a crooked old man, as soft as if he were made of rags and as ragged as if he had been torn to pieces by dogs, approached me.
"Are you going to be kind and steal some goloshes for me?" he asked.
I was silent. He sat down on an empty case, yawned, made the sign of the cross over his mouth, and repeated:
"Will you steal them for me?"
"It is wrong to steal," I informed him.
"But people steal all the same. Old age must have its compensations."
He was pleasantly different from the people among whom I lived. I felt that he had a firm belief in my readiness to steal, and I agreed to hand him the goloshes through the window.
"That's right," he said calmly, without enthusiasm. "You are not deceiving me? No, I see that you are not."
He was silent for a moment, trampling the dirty, wet snow with the soles of his boots. Then he lit a long pipe, and suddenly startled me.
"But suppose it is I who deceive you? Suppose I take the goloshes to your master, and tell him that you have sold them to me for half a ruble? What then? Their price is two rubles, and you have sold them for half a ruble. As a present, eh?"
I gazed at him dumbly, as if he had already done what he said he would do; but he went on talking gently through his nose, looking at his boots, and blowing out blue smoke.
"Suppose, for example, that your master has said to me, 'Go and try that youngster, and see if he is a thief? What then?"
"I shall not give you the goloshes," I said, angry and frightened.
"You must give them now that you have promised."
He took me by the arm and drew me to him, and, tapping my forehead with his cold fingers, drawled:
"What are you thinking of, with your 'take this' and 'take that'?"
"You asked me for them yourself."
"I might ask you to do lots of things. I might ask you to come and rob the church. Would you do it? Do you think you can trust everybody? Ah, you young fool!" He pushed me away from him and stood up.
"I don't want stolen goloshes. I am not a gentleman, and I don't wear goloshes. I was only making fun of you. For your simplicity, when Easter comes, I will let you come up into the belfry and ring the bells and look at the town."
"I know the town."
"It looks better from the belfry."
Dragging his broken boots in the snow, he went slowly round the corner of the church, and I looked after him, wondering dejectedly and fearfully whether the old man had really been making fun of me, or had been sent by my master to try me. I did not want to go back to the
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