IV
Grishka felt more joyful when this thought came into his mind. He ran along more quickly, noticing nothing around him. But suddenly an unexpected shock brought him to his senses. He felt frightened, even before he understood what had taken place.
The bag containing the cakes and biscuits fell from his hand, the thin paper burst, and the yellow lemon biscuits were scattered over the worn and dirty grey pavement.
“You horrid little boy, how dare you knock into me!” cried the shrill voice of a tall stout lady against whom Grishka had run.
She smelt unpleasantly of scent, and she held up to her small angry eyes a horrible tortoiseshell lorgnette. Her whole face looked rude and angry and repulsive, and Grishka was filled with terror and distress. He looked up at her in fright, and did not know what to do. He thought that perhaps dvorniks and policemen, dreadful fantastic beings, would come from all directions and seize him and drag him away somewhere.
By the side of the lady stood a young man, very much overdressed, wearing a top hat and horrible yellow gloves. He looked down upon Grishka with his fierce protruding reddish eyes, and everything about him looked red and angry.
“Good-for-nothing little hooligan,” he hissed through his teeth.
With a careless movement he knocked off the child’s cap from his head, gave him a box on the ear, and turning again to the lady, said:
“Come along, mamma. It’s not worth having anything more to do with such a creature.”
“But what a rude and daring boy he is,” said the lady, turning away. “Dirty little ragamuffin, where were you pushing yourself? You’ve quite upset me. Fancy not being able to walk quietly along the streets. What can the policemen be doing?”
The lady and her companion, talking angrily to one another, walked away. Grishka picked up his cap and collected as many as he could of the scattered cakes and biscuits, putting them into the torn paper bag, and ran off home. He felt ashamed and he wanted to weep, but no tears came. He could no longer dream about Turandina, and he thought:
“She’s just as bad as everybody here. She cast me into a terrible dream, and I shall never wake out of that dream, and forever I shall be unable to remember my real name. And I shall never be able to answer truly the question, ‘Who am I?’ ”
Who am I, sent into this world by an unknown will for an unknown end? If I am a slave, then whence have I the power to judge and to condemn, and whence come my lofty desires? If I am more than a slave, then why does all the world around me lie in wickedness, ugliness, and falsehood?
Who am I?
The cruel but still beautiful Turandina laughs at poor Grishka, at his dreams and his vain questionings.