Short Fiction, Vsevolod Garshin [howl and other poems .txt] 📗

“Quite true, Your Excellency, because there is nowhere to go. I must look for work, sir.”

The stationmaster looked at him, thought a bit, and said: “Look here, friend, stay here a bit at the station. You are married, I think. Where is your wife?”

“Yes, Your Excellency, I am married. My wife is at Kursk, in service with a merchant.”

“Well, write to your wife to come here. I will give you a free pass for her. We have a linesman’s hut empty. I will speak to the District Chief on your behalf.”

“I shall be very grateful, Your Excellency,” replied Simon.

He stayed at the station, helped in the kitchen of the stationmaster, cut firewood, kept the yard clean, and swept the platform. In a fortnight’s time his wife arrived, and Simon went on a hand-trolley to his hut. The hut was a new one and warm, with as much wood as he wanted. There was a little vegetable garden, the legacy of former linesmen, and there was about half a dessiatine15 of ploughed land on either side of the railway embankment. Simon was rejoiced. He began to think of doing some farming, of purchasing a cow and horse.

He was given all necessary stores⁠—a green flag, a red flag, lanterns, a horn, hammer, screw-wrench for the nuts, a crowbar, spade, broom, bolts, and nails; they gave him two books of regulations, and a timetable of the trains. At first Simon could not sleep at night, and learnt the whole timetable by heart. Two hours before a train was due he would go round his section, sit on the bench at his hut, and look and listen whether the rails were trembling or the rumble of the train could be heard. He even learned the regulations by heart, although he could only read by spelling out each word.

It was summer; the work was not heavy; there was no snow to clear away, and the trains on that line are infrequent. Simon used to go over his verst twice a day, examine and screw up nuts here and there, keep the bed level, look at the water-pipes, and then go home to his own affairs. There was only one drawback⁠—i.e., whatever he wished to do he had first to obtain permission of the Traffic Inspector. Simon and his wife even began to get bored.

Two months passed, and Simon began to make the acquaintance of his neighbours, the other linesmen on either side of him. One was a very old man, whom the authorities were always meaning to relieve. He scarcely moved out of his hut. His wife used to do all his work. The other linesman nearer the station was a young man, thin, but muscular. He and Simon met for the first time on the line midway between the huts. Simon took off his hat and bowed. “Good health to you, neighbour,” he said.

The neighbour glanced askance at him. “How do you do?” he replied; then turned around and made off.

Later the wives met. Simon’s wife passed the time of day with her neighbour, but she also did not say much and went off.

On one occasion Simon said to her: “Young woman, your husband is not very talkative.”

The woman said nothing at first, then replied: “But what is there for him to talk with you about? Everyone has his own business. Go your way, and God be with you.”

However, after another month or so they became acquainted. Simon would go with Vassili along the line, sit on the edge of a pipe, smoke, and talk of life. Vassili, for the most part, kept silent, but Simon talked of his village, and of the campaign through which he had passed.

“I have had no little sorrow in my day,” he would say; “and goodness knows I have not lived long. God has not given me happiness, but what He may give, so will it be. That’s so, friend Vassili Stepanich.”

Vassili Stepanich knocked out the ashes of his pipe against a rail, stood up, and said: “It is not luck which follows us in life, but human beings. There is no wild beast on this earth more ferocious, cruel, and evil than man. Wolf does not eat wolf, but a man will readily devour man.”

“Come, friend, don’t say that; a wolf eats wolf.”

“The words came into my mind and I said it. All the same, there is nothing more cruel than man. If it were not for his wickedness and greed it would be possible to live. Everybody tries to sting you to the quick, to bite and devour you.”

Simon pondered a bit. “I don’t know, brother,” he said; “perhaps it is as you say, and perhaps it is God’s will.”

“And perhaps, then,” said Vassili, “it is waste of time for me to talk with you. To put everything unpleasant on God, and sit and suffer, means, brother, being not a man but an animal. That’s what I have to say.” And he turned and went off without saying goodbye.

Simon also got up. “Neighbour,” he called, “why do you lose your temper?” But his neighbour did not look round, and went on.

Simon gazed after him until Vassili was lost to sight in the cutting at the turn. He went home and said to his wife: “Well, Arina, our neighbour is a wicked person, not a man.”

However, they did not quarrel. They met again, and, as formerly, discussed the same old topics.

“Ah, friend, if it were not for men we should not be sitting, you and I, in these huts,” said Vassili, on one occasion.

“And what about the huts?⁠ ⁠… not so bad; it is possible to live in them.”

“Possible to live in them, indeed!⁠ ⁠… Eh! You!⁠ ⁠… You have lived long and learned little, looked at much and seen little. What sort of life is there for a poor man in a hut here or there. These cannibals are devouring you. They are extracting all your lifeblood, and when you