The Gypsy

My travel notes come to several hundred pages. I love to reread them. Every now and then you find something remarkable. This short tale was told on the road by a young man of about thirty with a head of fire-red hair and freckled arms, bare to the shoulders. The carriage was overheated. We were going from Tumen to Omsk.

She came up to me at a station near Moscow. You`ll meet a lot of gypsies there. «Let me tell your fortune, my beauty,» she said.

I waved my hand at her. «Leave me alone.»

«Don`t want to part with your money?» she asked with scorn.

I threw the gypsy all the change that was in my pocked. «You don`t have any bills, beauty?» She wouldn`t give up.

Besides my ticket, I had a five-ruble note to last me to Moscow. «Don`t be afraid,» she laughed. She saw I was in a quandary. «I`ll show you a trick. Give me the bill. I`ll give it back. Put it here. Don`t begrudge it.»

I laid the five-ruble note on her narrow, dark palm. She smiled slyly, blew, waved her hand, and the money vanished. I started to call the police. «Call. What are the police to me? I made a fool jf you – my power!» She said it with such solemnity.

Now her friends came and surrounded her. I called the guard. How could I go without a kopeck for the road? «This girl…» I said, pointing at the young gypsy who had just duped me.

«What are you talking about ,girl!» She burst out laughing, quick as lightning throwing open her low –cut flowered dress. And before I knew what happened, a white stream shot into my eyes. I broke into a fever and backed off. The young woman calmly tucked her small, full breast back into the opening of her flowered dress.