Sredni Vashtar (narration)
Sredni Vashtar is a short story written by the English writer Saki between 1900 and 1911 . The story is about a ten-year-old boy named Conradin who suffers from an unspecified, fatal disease. Since his parents perished, he lives with his strict cousin Mrs. De Ropp. Under his cousin's regime, Conradin develops a flowering fantasy in which he views a ferret as a kind of god and worships it.
action
Conradin, who lives with his cousin and new guardian Mrs. De Ropp after the death of his parents, is very ill. She deliberately torments Conradin through Mrs. De Ropp's excessive care. Conradin collects as much silver as possible to give to the butcher boy. In return, he receives a ferret, which he hides in a small shed in the garden together with a chicken. He keeps the ferret in a cage that is part of a kind of shrine for him. Due to the strict upbringing of Mrs. De Ropp, the boy has created his own fantasy world in which the ferret is a god for him. Conradin gives the ferret the fictional name "Sredni Vashtar". He flees into his fantasy world more and more often in order to escape reality. Conradin's daily trips to the little shed do not go unnoticed by Mrs. De Ropp, which makes her curious. One day she goes into the shed and finds Conradin's chicken, which he decided was an Anabaptist. He doesn't know what an Anabaptist is, but he chooses it because he thinks Mrs. De Ropp would not like it. Mrs. De Ropp takes this chicken and sells it, but she cannot discover the hidden shrine with the ferret. She suspects that Conradin is hiding some guinea pigs next to the chicken. Then Conradin is very angry and worships “Sredni Vashtar”: “Do this one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar!” He repeats this sentence over and over, but does not say what exactly the ferret should do for him.
A few days later, Mrs. De Ropp finally gets to the bottom of Conradin's secret. She searches for the key to the hidden shrine in Conradin's room and ultimately finds it. She opens the door of the shed and enters. Now she discovers the well-hidden shrine. Conradin watches from a window and sees his adored ferret running away. Then he smiles. When Mrs. De Ropp still does not come back from the shed after a long time, a servant who wants to serve the food checks to see where Mrs. De Ropp is. In the meantime Conradin has started toasting a piece of bread and smearing it thickly with butter, although he knows that Mrs. De Ropp did not allow this. The servant goes into the shed and comes out screaming. Footsteps can be heard in the corridor and someone asks, “Who should teach the poor boy?” Saki leaves open what exactly happened. But since he has previously described that the ferret has moist, dark red spots on its mouth when it leaves the shed, everything indicates that it is the blood of Mrs. De Ropp, who apparently bit Sredni Vashtar's throat through (something what ferrets are capable of in reality).
Adaptations
The short story was first filmed by Sheldon Reynolds in 1954 as an episode of a TV series called "Danger". There were other film adaptations under the original title in 1981 by Andrew Birkin , 1995 by Pavel Marek and 2003 by Angela M. Murray.
In 2007 the most recent adaptation appeared as a segment of the BBC production Who Killed Mrs De Ropp? which is based on three short stories by Saki: "The Storyteller", "The Lumber Room" and "Sredni Vashtar".
Individual evidence
- ↑ Who Killed Mrs De Ropp? in the Internet Movie Database (English)