Of all the books and stories I read during my elementary school years, there is one that stands out above all others and that one is “Sredni Vashtar” by Saki (HH Munro). You can read the story for free here.
Munro was one of a host of brilliant British writers and poets who died in World War I. He was killed by a German sniper on 14 November 1916. He was 45.
“Sredni Vashtar” was written sometime between 1900 and 1911 and was published in his short story collection The Chronicles of Clovis.
Readers who say they don’t like short stories because they supposedly lack a fully developed storyline or fully developed characters, can’t have read any good short stories. Because a good short story will give you all of those things and will do so in a small package. A package that will be quick to read — yet possibly remain with you for a lifetime.
The Story (warning: there be spoilers here)
Like all good short stories, the focus of the tale is narrow. “Sredni Vashtar” revolves around two people who are forced to live together and who don’t like each other. We learn very little about the household or the two people’s history. But we don’t need that information in order to understand what is going on in the story. The tale is about two people at a specific point in their lives.
Ten year old Conradin is an orphan, and the story is told through his eyes. He is sickly, the doctor giving him but five more years at the most to live. He has been taken in by his well-to-do cousin, Mrs De Ropp, who is overbearing, controlling, and takes great delight in denying her ward any pleasures.
To escape the unpleasantness of Mrs De Ropp and her world, Conradin lives in his imagination. He dreams of escaping his cousin’s smothering attentiveness and of getting revenge for her meanness.
Somewhere along the way, Conradin picks up a hen and a polecat-ferret. The former he loves, and she becomes, in a way, the object of his affection. The latter he both fears and holds in awe. He names the creature Sredni Vashtar and comes to think of the animal as his god, even going so far as to worship the animal with offerings of nutmeg that he steals from his cousin, which she uses to help her toothache.
The two animals are kept in an unused garden shed. For a time, Conradin is able keep their presence a secret as Mrs De Ropp is quite myopic, but eventually his continual trips to the shed draw her attention, and that is not a good thing. So it is, one day, over tea, that she announces the hen has been sold.
Conradin doesn’t give his cousin the satisfaction of seeing the hurt she has caused. He simply refuses to eat the toast she has made for him, which is one of his favorite things to eat.
From that point on, Conradin’s faith in his god soars to a new level. He nightly prays an unmentioned request, simply saying: “Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar.”
But when Conradin’s trips to the shed do not stop, Mrs De Ropp becomes suspicious and makes another visit. This time she finds the locked hutch and suspects her ward has another pet. She goes through his room until she finds the key, and then forbids him to leave the house.
From his window, Conradin watches Mrs De Ropp invade the shed and feels that once again he has lost. Even his god is powerless against his cousin. He loses his faith, as it were, and despair seizes him. He will never be free of his cousin and will die as her doctor has predicted.
However, a long time passes and Mrs De Ropp does not leave the shed. And as Conradin watches, he sees the polecat-ferret, its mouth bloodied, depart the shed and head for the woods. In his joy, Conradin chants a hymn of praise to Sredni Vashtar.
Tea is served and Conradin makes himself a slice of toast. There is a scream and a general commotion in the household. Conradin overhears the servants discussing who is going to tell “the boy”, while he simply makes himself another piece of toast.
Meaning
“Sredni Vashtar” is rich in meaning. A search of the internet reveals numerous commentaries on the story. In the end, commentaries aside, a story either touches you or it doesn’t. It will touch you if your experience connects with that of the main character in the story.
I think what touched me (I was 11 when I first read the story) was Conradin himself. His world was not unlike my world. A boy with an unhappy home life. Emotional abandonment, yet the exercise of cloying overprotectiveness and control. And most devastating of all, the knowledge that nothing we children did was ever good enough.
Like Conradin, my imagination was my refuge from a world that was not pleasant and one that could even be viewed as being hostile. At least for the most part.
Any piece of writing that can tap into our basic fears, joys, hopes, wishes, desires, and dreams, has the potential to be life changing or inspiring or, at the very least, memorable. Short stories, because they are short, can pack an emotional wallop much more effectively than a novel with its tens upon tens of thousands of words.
A good short story makes an impression that does not soon go away. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”. Conrad Aikin’s “Silent Snow, Secret Snow”. Hemingway’s “The Hills like White Elephants”. Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”. O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi”. WW Jacob’s “The Monkey’s Paw”. Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. Algernon Blackwood’s “The Willows” and “The Man Whom the Trees Loved”. HP Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space”. And the list goes on and on.
Of all the short stories and novels I’ve read, the one I never forget, even when having a senior moment, is “Sredni Vashtar”. Now that is good storytelling.
Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!
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