Zesary Pronin s dream

It was a very snowy winter in 1891 in Saint Petersburgh. One evening mad snowstorm raged over the city and uplighted windows of the Zolotov theatre were like the last fires in this rushing darkness. Last few spectators went away laughing into the falling night and many long corridors of the deserted theatre plunged into dozing silence at last. Famous actor called Zesary Pronin went out from the theatre towards the playful whiteness of giant snowflakes and his rich fur overcoat was embraced by it at once as if some magic dazzling milk was poured out from the skies on him.

«Vanka! » - cried Pronin looking for his old coachman which was left by the exit and had to wait for his master after premiere the latter had in the evening. Nobody answered. Only the snow-storm sang its eternal song of eternal sadness.
«Vanka! Where are you d..n you?!!» - cried again Zesary Pronin more impatiently and with growing wrath in his heart and voice. None answer. Looking intently through a whirlwool of flying snow he observed something dark and motionless at last by a massive steel fence which surrounded the building. He rushed there and saw the horse standing with mare and back covered with fluffy snow and old Vanka sleeping peacefully on his coach sit as if  a snow sorcerer gave him a right to rest undisturbedly in his boundless realm of winter.

«What are you doing, you old...!!! » Pronin took hold of a poor coachman by his worn sheepskin coat's sleeve and threw him down from the coachman sit on the snowy earth.
«How you dare to sleep when your famous master trembles with this d..n cold like a last dog!»

«I am sorry, master. I have...»

«Silence! I am a giant and you are a naught. »

«Yes, master» - said the coachman sitting down on his place again and stroking the hurted hand.

Zesary Pronin got into the carriage himself and ordered to drive home...It was very late. Having had his supper  Pronin was going to go in bed when suddenly the entrance door became to be bombed by some strong hand and the sound of this dreadful knock penetrated into all rooms of the house at once. The actor was growing white don't knowing himself why.

«Dunka!!» - called he his maid - servant. Go and ask who is that!! »
He waited for three minutes but Dunka was sleeping already in kitchen by an oven perhaps because she didn't come. The knock was repeated more impatiently.
«D..n you!!» He put on the fur overcoat over his night shirt and came up to the door himself holding a half burnt candle in his hand.

«Who is that?»

Dead silence again. Zesary Pronin unlocked the door furiously and opened it wide into the storming night. The mad whirlwool of  dazzling snowflakes covered his wrathful red face instantly and a man in a black suit came out suddenly from the darkness towards him.
«You must follow me, sir» - said he severely taking Pronin by the hand with mighty power. The candle was dropped on the threshold and the actor swooned...

...He recovered himself in some dark strange room. Many other people crowded there too with terrified faces whispering with each other. There were two exits in that room. Through the first one might be seen a huge space pierced with the brightest beams of some giant eternal sun. Divine music sounded from there and hundred of the most melodious voices sang some loveliest hymn which has ever been heard by a human being.
Through the second exit nothing could be noticed but the black darkness. Dead silence reigned there only.

In the centre of the room a big table was and two men in black suits were seated at it with gloomy gravity in their poses and looks. In one of these men Zesary Pronin recognized the stranger having knocked at his door.

«What happens here may I know?!! » he cried furiously pushing forward to the table through the crowd which suddenly became silent and recoiled from him in terror. Sitting at the table the stranger in black suit got up slowly and looked at the actor with icy indifferent grey eyes of eternity itself and said with icy voice too:

« You will be sent off there or there (he pointed slowly with his finger the light and black exit by turns) after your presenting us your merits...»

« What?!!!! » - cried Zesary Pronin in great astonishment and black rage shone in his offended eyes. My merits?!! You are saying about my merits?!! Don't you know I am a famous Russian actor and my name is known in London and Paris?!!! »

The stranger bent his head to other man in black suit sitting at the table and spoke him something with low voice. The latter went attentively through pages of some great book lain on the table and shook his head.  The stranger looked again at Zesary Pronin with the same icy eyes and said with lofty importance of the impartial judge:

« You have not any merits are to be registered here, sir. Have you ever done some good deed in your life? »

« What?!!! Are you mocking at me, sir?!! »

« Look at the clock, sir » said the icy stranger in black suit pointing at the massive round clock in a black shining rim hanging on the wall. The hands on the dial showed five minutes to twelve.

« If you don't recollect one good action you have done in your life during five minutes now you will be sent there » - the icy man pointed the black silent exit... « Time is going. »

Zesary Pronin surveyed the room slowly and saw all people looked at him with horror and hope at the same time. He began to try to recollect fervently some only small good deed he had done during his lifetime but he couldn't do it. All his past life had been plunged into abyss of luxury, vanity, haughtiness and greedy thirst of fame. On his high cliff of general delight and admiration he never observed poor common people which passed him like some slight waves being unnoticeable by him always. He recollected a pale face of his loving mother which he had left indifferently on her sickbed one day for the sake of his next premiere... All he could remember it had been he only with all his wishes and pleasures in his memory and nobody else...and nothing else...

Suddenly the clock began to strike twelve times.
« Time is out! » - said firmly the man in black suit. Have you anything to say? »
«Oh, please, sir, listen to me!» - said trembling the actor kneeling before the table. Maybe I have not done a good deed yet in my life but I want...»
« You have not any merits to deserve to live in the white world sir » - he pointed again the light exit with sunny space behind it. «Therefore you will be sent there where you deserve to be » - he pointed gravely the exit with silent darkness looking terribly out from it.

«Oh no, please, no! » - cried terrified Zesary Pronin taking hold of the leg of the table and squeezing it with weakening hands.
«Take him away! » - sounded loudly the icy voice of the icy judge in black suit and two giants came out from the darkness of the black exit. They were bound for the actor under the clock striking twelve with deafening power.

« No!!! » - cried Zesary Pronin in great terror covering his head with hands and....he woke up...

...He opened his eyes and looked around. It was his bedroom in his own house and a clock on the wall were striking twelve.

Zesary Pronin touched himself and a cushion and blanket. « My God ! It has been a dream only! Dream! » - thought he being delighted but suddenly something hard burdened his heart. «No, it hasn't been a dream. » - said he aloudly getting up from the bed and coming up to a window. «It has been my fate».

He looked out from the window and saw the snowstorm had subsided. And along the storming road where his carriage had driven yesterday an even virgin veil of snow lay now. None footsteps or hoofsteps were seen anywhere. «Thus my fame goes away too» - thought he unexpectedly and some thought crossed his mind instantly.

He caught his fur overcoat and rushed from the bedroom like a lightning. In this evening old coachman Vanka put on the fur overcoat instead of his worn sheepskin coat first time in his life  and thanked his master from all his heart and his master...all day spent on a graveyard by a tomb of his mother praying to forgive ...


2008 г.