Roumanian Stories, Translated from the Original Roumanian. Anonymous

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ were warming themselves round the fire. It was the light from the latter that had been visible so far away. An ostler took my horse in charge to give him some oats in the stable. I entered the tap-room where a good many men were drinking, while two sleepy gipsies, one with a lute and one with a zither, were playing monotonously in a corner. I was hungry and cold. The damp had pierced through me.

      “Where’s your mistress?” I asked the boy behind the bar.

      “By the kitchen fire.”

      “It ought to be warmer there,” I said, and passed through the vestibule, out of the tap-room into the kitchen.

      It was very clean in the kitchen, and the smell was not like that in the tap-room, of fur and boots and damp shoes; there was a smell of new-made bread. Madame Manjoala was looking after the oven.

      “Well met, Mistress Marghioala.”

      “Welcome, Mr. Fanica.”

      “Is there a chance of getting anything to eat?”

      “Up to midnight even, for respectable people like yourself.”

      Mistress Marghioala quickly gave orders to one of the servants to lay a table in the next room, and then, going up to the hearth, said:

      “Look, choose for yourself.”

      Mistress Marghioala was beautiful, well-built and fascinating, that I knew; but never since I had known her—and I had known her for a long time, for I had passed Manjoala’s Inn many a time when my dead father was alive, as the road to the town led by it—had she appeared to me more attractive. I was young, smart and daring, much more daring than smart. I came up on her left side as she was bending over the hearth, and took her by the waist! with my hand I took hold of her right arm, which was as hard as iron, and the devil tempted me to give it a pinch.

      “Have you got nothing to do?” said the woman, looking at me askance.

      But I, to cover my blunder, said:

      “What marvellous eyes you have, Mistress Marghioala!”

      “Don’t try and flatter me; you had better tell me what to give you.”

      “Give me—give me—give me yourself.”

      “Really——”

      “Indeed, you have marvellous eyes, Mistress Marghioala!” sighing.

      “Supposing your father-in-law heard you?”

      “What father-in-law? What do you mean by that?”

      “You think because you hide yourself under your cap that nobody sees what you do. Aren’t you going to Pocovnicu Iordache to engage yourself to his eldest daughter? Come, don’t look at me like that, go into the next room to dinner.”

      I had seen many clean and quiet rooms in the course of my life, but a room like that one! What a bed! What curtains! What walls! What a ceiling! All white as milk. And the lamp-shade, and all those crochet things of every kind and shape! And the warmth, like being under a hen’s wing, and a smell of apples and quinces!

      I was about to seat myself at the table, when, according to a habit I had acquired in my childhood, I turned to bow towards the east. I looked carefully round all along the walls—not an Icon to be seen.

      “What are you looking for?” said Mistress Marghioala.

      “Your Icons. Where do you keep them?”

      “Dash the Icons! They only breed worms and wood-lice.”

      What a cleanly woman! I seated myself at the table, and crossed myself as was my custom, when suddenly there was a yell. It appeared that with the heel of my boot I had trodden upon an old Tom cat which was under the table.

      Mistress Marghioala jumped up quickly and undid the outside door. The injured cat made a bound outside while the cold air rushed in and extinguished the lamp. She groped about for the matches. I searched here, she searched there. We met face to face in the dark. I, very bold, took her in my arms and began to kiss her. The lady now resisted, now yielded; her cheeks were burning, her mouth was cold, soft down fluttered about her ears. At last the servant arrived with a tray with viands on it, and a light. We must have hunted some time for the matches, for the chimney of the lamp was quite cold. I lit it again.

      What excellent food! Hot bread, roast duck with cabbage, boiled veal sausages, and wine! And Turkish coffee! And laughter and conversation! Good luck to Mistress Marghioala!

      After coffee she said to the old maidservant: “Tell them to bring out a half-bottle of muscadine.”

      That wonderful old wine! A sort of languor seized my every limb. I sat on one side of the bed, draining the last amber drops from my glass, and smoking a cigarette, while through the cloud of tobacco smoke I watched Mistress Marghioala who sat on a chair opposite rolling cigarettes for me. I said:

      “Indeed, Mistress Marghioala, you have marvellous eyes! Do you know what?”

      “What?”

      “Would it trouble you to make me another cup of coffee, not quite so sweet as this?”

      How she laughed! When the maid brought the coffee-pot, she said:

      “Madam, you sit talking here—you don’t know what it is like outside.”

      “What is it?”

      “A high wind has got up, and there is a storm coming.”

      I jumped to my feet and looked at the time; it was nearly a quarter to eleven. Instead of half an hour, I had been at the inn for two hours and a half! That’s what comes when one begins to talk.

      “Let some one get my horse!”

      “Who? The ostlers have gone to bed.”

      “I will go to the stables myself.”

      “They have bewitched you at Pocovnicu!” said the lady with a ripple of laughter, as she barred my passage through the door.

      I put her gently on one side and went out on to the veranda. It was indeed a dreadful night. The drivers’ fires had died down, men and animals were sleeping on the straw, lying one against the other on the ground, while above them the wind howled wildly.

      “There is a great storm,” said Mistress Marghioala, shuddering as she seized me firmly by the hand. “You are mad to start in such weather. Stay the night here: start at daybreak to-morrow.”

      “That’s impossible.”

      I forcibly withdrew my hand. I proceeded to the stables. With great difficulty I roused an ostler and found my horse. I tightened the girths, fastened the horse to the steps, and then went to the room to bid my hostess good night. The woman, immersed in thought, was sitting on the bed with my cap in her hand. She was turning and twisting it about.

      “How much have I to pay?” I asked.

      “You СКАЧАТЬ