WE PLAY GAMES
THE hunt was over, a cloth had been spread in the shade of some
young birch-trees, and the whole party was disposed around it.
The butler, Gabriel, had stamped down the surrounding grass,
wiped the plates in readiness, and unpacked from a basket a
quantity of plums and peaches wrapped in leaves.
Through the green branches of the young birch-trees the sun
glittered and threw little glancing balls of light upon the
pattern of my napkin, my legs, and the bald moist head of
Gabriel. A soft breeze played in the leaves of the trees above
us, and, breathing softly upon my hair and heated face,
refreshed me beyond measure, When we had finished the fruit and
ices, nothing remained to be done around the empty cloth, so,
despite the oblique, scorching rays of the sun, we rose and
proceeded to play.
"Well, what shall it be?" said Lubotshka, blinking in the
sunlight and skipping about the grass, "Suppose we play
Robinson?"
"No, that's a tiresome game," objected Woloda, stretching
himself lazily on the turf and gnawing some leaves, "Always
Robinson! If you want to play at something, play at building a
summerhouse."
Woloda was giving himself tremendous airs. Probably he was proud
of having ridden the hunter, and so pretended to be very tired.
Perhaps, also, he had too much hard-headedness and too little
imagination fully to enjoy the game of Robinson. It was a game
which consisted of performing various scenes from The Swiss
Family Robinson, a book which we had recently been reading.
"Well, but be a good boy. Why not try and please us this time?"
the girls answered. "You may be Charles or Ernest or the father,
whichever you like best," added Katenka as she tried to raise him
from the ground by pulling at his sleeve.
"No, I'm not going to; it's a tiresome game," said Woloda again,
though smiling as if secretly pleased.
"It would be better to sit at home than not to play at
ANYTHING," murmured Lubotshka, with tears in her eyes. She was a
great weeper.
"Well, go on, then. Only, DON'T cry; I can't stand that sort of
thing."
Woloda's condescension did not please us much. On the contrary,
his lazy, tired expression took away all the fun of the game.
When we sat on the ground and imagined that we were sitting in a
boat and either fishing or rowing with all our might, Woloda
persisted in sitting with folded hands or in anything but a
fisherman's posture. I made a remark about it, but he replied
that, whether we moved our hands or not, we should neither gain
nor lose ground--certainly not advance at all, and I was forced to
agree with him. Again, when I pretended to go out hunting, and,
with a stick over my shoulder, set off into the wood, Woloda only
lay down on his back with his hands under his head, and said that
he supposed it was all the same whether he went or not. Such
behaviour and speeches cooled our ardour for the game and were
very disagreeable--the more so since it was impossible not to
confess to oneself that Woloda was right, I myself knew that it
was not only impossible to kill birds with a stick, but to shoot
at all with such a weapon. Still, it was the game, and if we were
once to begin reasoning thus, it would become equally impossible
for us to go for drives on chairs. I think that even Woloda
himself cannot at that moment have forgotten how, in the long
winter evenings, we had been used to cover an arm-chair with a
shawl and make a carriage of it--one of us being the coachman,
another one the footman, the two girls the passengers, and three
other chairs the trio of horses abreast. With what ceremony we
used to set out, and with what adventures we used to meet on the
way! How gaily and quickly those long winter evenings used to
pass! If we were always to judge from reality, games would be
nonsense; but if games were nonsense, what else would there be
left to do?
