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THE COURIER
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SHORT STORIES.
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BY I. S. TURGENIEFF.
- (Translated from tho Russian by E. R.) . , ,.- .
I.
"ORIENTAL LEGEND."
Who in Bagdad does ot know the great Djiaffar, tho sun'of the
universe?
Once several years ago ho was yet a youth.
Djiaffar walked without the walls of Bagdad.
Unexpectedly his hearing was caught by a hoarse cry. Some
body desperately clamored for help.
Djiaffar was noted among his companions for good sense and spirit
of calculation; but his heart was tilled with pity, and ho counted on
his strength.
He ran to the place from which came the cry, and he saw a de
crepit old man pressed to the town wall, by two murderers, who
were pillaging their victim.
Djiaffar drew out his Bword and attacked tho villians; he killed
one of them, and put to ilightthe other.
The delivered old man fell to the feet of his liberator and kissing
the end of his garment, exclaimed:
"Brave youth, thy magnanimity will not remain without a reward.
"I look a poor beggar: but I only look it. I am not an ordinary
man. Come tomorrow, in the early morning, on the principal mar
ket place;
"I shall wait for thee at the fountain, -and thou shalt be convinced
of the truth of my words."
Djiaffar was meditating: "This man looks like a beggar, it is true;
however, it often occurs differently- Why not try?" and answered:
"Well, father, I shall come." The old man looked into his eyes and
went off.
On the next morning it only began to dawn when Djiaffar wont
to the market place.
The old man was already waiting for him, leaning against tho
marble basin of the fountain.
In silence took he Djiaffar's hand and conducted him in a little
garden, surrounded on all sides with high walls.
In the very middle of the garden, on a green glass plat, was vege
tating a tree of unusual aspect.
It resembled a cypress tree, only its foliage was azure-colored.
Three fruits three apples were suspended on the thin, turned
up twigs; one of middle size, oblong, milk-white; the other, large,
round, bright red; the third, small, puckered, yellowish.
The whole tree made a weak noise, though there was nc wind.
It resounded finely and pitifully, as if made of glass. It seemed
to feel that Djiaffar was approaching it.
"Youth!" pronounced the old man. "Take off one of these fruits
and know; taking off and eating the white one, thou wilt be wiser
than aH men; taking off and eating the red one, thou wilt be rich,
like the Hebrew, Rothschild.
"Taking off and eating the yellow one thou wilt get liked by old
women.
"Decide! and do not linger.
"In one hour the fruits will be withered, and the treo itself will
disappear in the depth of the earth!"
Djiaffar let fall his head and reflected:
"How shall I conduct myself?" said he in a whisper, as if reason
ing with himself. "If I become too wise, might bo I would not bo
willing to live; If I become richer than everybody, I shall be envied
by all. Then I had better take off and eat up the third puckered
apple!"
So he did.
And the old man laughed with his toothless laugh and said: -"O,
wisest of youths! Thou has chosen the happy part! What
for wouldst thou need the white apple?
"Thou art without it wiser than Solomon. Thou dost not need
also tho red apple. Without it thou wilt be rich, only nobody will
envy thy riches."
"Tell mo then, old man," pronounced Djiaffar, starting, "where is
living the venerable mother of our God-protected Caliph?"
The old man bowed to the ground and indicated the road to tho
youth.
Who in Bagdad, does not know the sun of the universe, tho great
famous Djiaffar?
"END OP THE WORLD." (A DREAM.)
It seems to mo that I am somewhere in Russia, in a dull placo, in
a plain country house. Tho room is large, low, with three windows.
The walls are painted in white. No furniture
In front of the house is a baro plain. Gradually lowering, it ox
tends far off. The gray, one colored sky hangs over it lika a canopy.
I am not alone. About en people aro with me in tho room.
They aro all common people, plainly dressed; they walk up and
down in silence, as if stealthily.
They avoid one another. However they exchange incessantly
anxious looks.
No ono knows how ho got into this house, and who aro the people '
with him.
All faces express disquiotudo and despondency. Everybody
approaches by turnB to the windows ana attentively looks around, as
if expecting something from, the outside.
Thon, again, they begin to amble up and down. Among us turns
around a little boy. Now and then he pipes in a monotonous voice:
"Father, dear, I rm afraid."
Mp heart aches from this piping, and I, too, begin to fear what?
I do not know myself. I feel only it comes it approaches a
great calamity.
And the boy continues to pipe at long intervals.
Ah! I am thinking of means to get out of hero! How closo it is!
How languishing! how painful! But it is impossible to got out.
The sky is like a shroud and no wind.
Would the air be dead?
Is it possible? Unexpectedly thr boy ran up to tho window and
screamed out with the same pitiful voice:
"Look here! Look here! The earth sank down!"
"How is that? Sank down?" Truly, formerly in front of tho
house was a plain and now the house stands on tho summit of an
awfully high mountain!
The horizon fell, went down and from tho very Jhouso descends
almost vertically, as if torn, a black steepness.
We are all crowded near tho window, Our hearts are all terror
stricken.
"There it is! There it is!" whispers my neighbor. And there
along the whole far-off earthly surface something began to move a
littlo some roundish, small hillocks wero rising up and falling
down again.
"It is the sea!" was tho thought of everybody in ono and tho same
instant. ,
"It will instantly flow over us. But how is it that it can grow and
rise up?
"On such a steepness?"' And how it grows, grows prodigiously.
There are no more solitary hillocks that toss about in the far off.
It is one continuous, monstrous wave, wrapping up tho whole
circle of the horizon.
It is running, running full speed towards us! Like a frosty whirl
wind it is drifting and whirls in the complete darkness.
All trembled around, and there in the llying-on mass, crackling
and thundering, and as if coming from a thousand throats a tre
mendous barking:
Ha ! What a howling and roaring I
It is the earth that roars of fear
It is its end
The end of all!
The littlo boy piped once more.
I wished to have recourse to my companions, but wo aro already
all crushed, buried, drowned, carried off by that inky-black, icy,
roaring wave!
Darkness!
Darkness for eternity!
Nearly out of breath, I awoke. " E. R. '
"It is not what a man gets out of tho world, but what the world
gets out of the man, that should make him great," said
Chancellor Canfield of Nebraska University, in his address
here last Sunday. No truer axiom was ever spoken and if
human judgment always used that as a measure, many idols would
fall. It is a good idea to get into one's head and remember when
estimating worth hereafter. Omaha Excelsior.
"Is it hot enough for you?'' is a silly question: btt if you meet a
man who complains of suffering from the heat, ten to one you will
find, on inquiry, that he does not use Ayer's Sarsaparilla, to tone up
his system and free his blood from irritating humors.