Fifty-Two Stories

A LITTLE JOKE

A BRIGHT WINTER NOON…The air is bitter cold, and Nadenka, who holds on to my arm, has silvery frost all over the curls at her temples and the down on her upper lip. We are standing on a high hill. From our feet to the very bottom stretches a slope, in which the sun looks as if into a mirror. Beside us stands a small sled upholstered in bright red flannel.

“Let’s slide down, Nadezhda Petrovna!” I beg her. “Just once! I promise you we’ll make it in one piece.”

But Nadenka is afraid. The space from her small galoshes to the foot of the icy hill seems to her like a terrible, bottomless abyss. Her heart sinks and her breath stops when she looks down, when I merely suggest getting into the sled; what will happen if she risks plunging into the abyss! She’ll die, she’ll go out of her mind.

“I beg you!” I say. “You shouldn’t be afraid! You know that’s just cowardice, faintheartedness!”

Nadenka finally gives in, but I can see by her face that she gives in with fear for her life. I seat her, pale and trembling, in the sled, put my arms around her, and together with her fling myself into the abyss.

The sled flies like a bullet. As we cut through the air it hits our faces, roars, whistles in our ears, rips, pinches painfully in anger, wants to tear our heads from our shoulders. It pushes so that it’s hard to breathe. It seems like the devil himself is grabbing us with his paws, roaring and dragging us into hell. The separate things around us merge into one long, swiftly running strip…Another moment and it seems we’ll perish!

“I love you, Nadya!” I say in a low voice.

The sled gradually slows down, the roaring of the wind and the swishing of the runners are not as frightening now, the heart stops sinking, and we are finally at the bottom. Nadenka is more dead than alive. She’s pale, barely able to breathe. I help her to stand up.

“I wouldn’t do that again for anything,” she says, looking at me, her wide-open eyes filled with terror. “Not for anything in the world! I nearly died!”

A little later she recovers and is now peeking questioningly into my eyes: did I say those four words, or had she just imagined hearing them in the noise of the wind? I stand beside her, smoking and attentively studying my glove.

She leans on my arm, and we walk for a long time around the foot of the hill. The riddle obviously troubles her. Were those words spoken or not? Yes or no? Yes or no? It’s a question of pride, honor, life, happiness, a very important question, the most important in the world. Nadenka looks into my face impatiently, sadly, with searching eyes, answers me at random, waits for me to speak. Oh, what play on that sweet face, what play! I see she’s struggling with herself, she needs to say something, to ask something, but she can’t find the words, she feels awkward, frightened, hindered by joy…

“You know what?” she says, not looking at me.

“What?” I ask.

“Let’s slide down…again.”

We climb the steps up the hill. Again I seat the pale, trembling Nadenka in the sled, again we go flying into the terrible abyss, again the wind roars and the runners swish, and again at the swiftest and noisiest moment I say in a low voice:

“I love you, Nadenka!”

When the sled stops, Nadenka looks back at the hill we only just slid down, then peers into my face for a long time, listens to my voice, indifferent and passionless, and her whole little figure, all of it, even her muff and bashlyk, expresses extreme perplexity. And written on her face is:

“What’s happening? Who said those words? Was it him, or did it only seem so?”

This uncertainty troubles her; she’s losing patience. The poor girl doesn’t answer my questions, frowns, and is about to burst into tears.

“Shouldn’t I take you home?” I ask.

“I…I like this sledding,” she says, blushing. “Can we do it one more time?”

She “likes” it, and yet, as she gets into the sled, as on the previous occasions, she is pale, trembling, barely able to breathe from fear.

We go down a third time, and I see how she looks me in the face, watches my lips. But I hold a handkerchief to my lips, cough, and when we’re halfway down the hill, I manage to bring out:

“I love you, Nadya!”

And the riddle remains a riddle! Nadenka is silent, she’s thinking about something…I take her home from the sliding hill. She tries to walk slowly and keeps waiting for me to say those words. And I see how her soul suffers, how she tries to keep herself from saying:

“It can’t be that the wind said it! And I don’t want it to be the wind that said it!”

The next morning I receive a note: “If you go to the sliding hill today, come by for me. N.” From that day on, Nadenka and I go to the sliding hill every day, and each time, flying down on the sled, I say the same words in a low voice:

“I love you, Nadya!”

Soon Nadenka gets used to this phrase, as to wine or morphine. She can’t live without it. True, to go flying down the hill is as frightening as before, but now fear and danger lend a special allure to the words of love, words that constitute as much of a riddle as before and torment her soul. The suspects are the same two: myself and the wind…Which of the two has declared his love for her she doesn’t know, but apparently it makes no difference to her; whichever vessel she drinks from makes no difference to her, so long as she gets drunk.

Once at noon I went to the sliding hill alone; mixing with the crowd, I saw Nadenka going to the hill, saw her searching for me with her eyes…Then she timidly goes up the steps…It’s scary to go alone, oh, how scary! She’s pale as the snow, trembling, as if she were going to her execution, but she’s going, going resolutely, without looking back. She has obviously decided, finally, to try it: will she hear those amazing, sweet words when I’m not there? I see how, pale, mouth open in terror, she climbs into the sled, closes her eyes, and, bidding farewell to this world forever, sets off…“Swish-sh-sh…” swish the runners. Whether Nadenka hears those words, I don’t know…I only see how she gets out of the sled, exhausted, weak. And it’s clear from her face that she herself doesn’t know whether she heard anything or not. Fear, as she was sliding down, robbed her of the ability to hear, to distinguish sounds, to understand…

But now comes the spring month of March…The sun turns gentler. Our ice hill grows darker, loses its sheen, and finally melts. We stop sledding. Poor Nadenka can’t hear those words anywhere now, nor is there anyone to speak them, for there’s no wind to be heard, and I am preparing to go to Petersburg—for a long time, probably forever.

Once, a day or two before my departure, in the evening, I’m sitting in the garden, which is separated from the yard where Nadenka lives by a high, nail-studded fence…It is still rather cold, there is still snow under the dung heap, the trees are dead, but there is already the smell of spring, and the rooks make a big racket settling for the night. I go up to the fence and look through a crack for a long time. I see Nadenka come out to the porch and fix a sad, anguished gaze on the sky…The spring wind blows directly into her pale, mournful face…It reminds her of the wind that roared for us then on the hill, when she heard those four words, and her face turns sad, sad, a tear trickles down her cheek…And the poor girl raises her hands up to that wind, as if asking it to bring her those words one more time. And I, having waited for the wind, say in a low voice:

“I love you, Nadya!”

My God, what happens to Nadenka! She cries out, her whole face bursts into a smile, and she reaches her hands up to meet the wind, joyful, happy, so beautiful.

And I go to pack…

That was already long ago. Now Nadenka is married; she married, or was married to—it makes no difference—the secretary of the nobility trusteeship,¹ and now has three children. She has not forgotten how we went to the sliding hill and how the wind brought her the words “I love you, Nadenka.” For her it is now the happiest, the most touching and beautiful memory of her life…

As for me, now that I’m older, I no longer understand why I said those words, why I was joking…

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