Evgeny Khvalkov’s short story with its poignant narrative captivates the reader in an emotional tale that tugs the heart.
“I forgot to take my laudanum again,” thought Edward Reuters as he walked out of the manor gate onto the country road on a chilly autumn day. He stopped for a moment, looked around, wrapped himself in a cloak with a wolf-skin collar that old woman Maudlin had given him, and went towards the forest.
He was left indifferent by the latest news about the debates in Parliament, and an enthusiastic letter from Aunt Agatha, who reported on the successful marriage of his cousin Elizabeth with the third son of the Earl of Harrington. Neither Napoleon, nor his impending expulsion from Balliol College, nor the invectives of obscurants against Professor N-son’s recent article in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society interested him. Not even the merry, freckled face of quick-eyed Kitty, the blacksmith’s daughter, who smiled at him from behind the misted window of a cottage on the outskirts of the village, did not distract him from his painful thoughts. The black cat on the windowsill of a dilapidated gloomy building in the outskirts, the house of old Maudlin, remained unnoticed, too, bulging its eyes burning like oil lanterns at him; and the old woman herself, who leaned out, leaning on the edge of the window with a hand with long yellowed nails in cracks, only squeaked something incomprehensible after him.