Short Fiction, Aleksandr Kuprin [the speed reading book txt] 📗

sewed Christians up in the skins of wild animals and hunted them with dogs, when they fed the beasts with the bodies of captive slaves⁠ ⁠… I have seen the wild and bloody orgies of Nero, and heard the wailing of the Jews at the ruined walls of Jerusalem.⁠ ⁠…”

“You’re⁠—only my dream⁠ ⁠… go away⁠ ⁠… you’re⁠—only a figure in my delirium. Go away from me!” Markof’s parched lips uttered the words with difficulty.

The old man got up from the stool. His bent figure became in a moment immensely tall, so that his hair seemed to touch the ceiling. He began to speak again, slowly, monotonously, terribly:

“I saw how the blood of man was first shed upon the earth. There were two brothers. One was gentle, tender, industrious, compassionate; the other, the elder, was proud, cruel, and envious. One day they both brought offerings to the Lord according to the custom of their fathers: the younger brought of the fruits of the earth, the elder of the flesh of animals killed by him in the chase. But the elder cherished in his heart a feeling of ill-will towards his brother, and the smoke of his sacrifice spread itself out over the earth, while that of his brother ascended as an upright column to the heavens. Then the hate and envy which oppressed the soul of the elder overflowed, and there was committed the first murder on the earth.⁠ ⁠…”

“Go away, leave me⁠ ⁠… for God’s sake,” Markof muttered to himself, and tossed about in his crumpled sheets.

“Yes, I saw his eyes grow wide with the terror of death, and his clenched fingers clutch convulsively at the sand, wet with his blood. And when after his last shudder his pale cold body lay still upon the ground, then the murderer was overwhelmed by an unbearable terror. He hid his face in his hands and ran into the depths of the forest, and lay trembling there, until at eventide he heard the voice of his offended God⁠—‘Cain, where is thy brother Abel?’ ”

“Go away; don’t torture me!” Markof’s lips could scarcely move. Yet he seemed to hear the voice continue,

“In fear and trembling I answered the Lord, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ And then the Lord pronounced on me an eternal curse:

“ ‘Thou shalt remain among the number of the living as long as the earth shall endure. Thou shalt roam as a homeless wanderer through all centuries, among all nations and in all lands, and thine eyes shall behold nought but the blood shed by thee upon the earth, thine ears shall hear only the moans of the dying⁠—eternal reminders of the brother thou hast slain.’ ”

There was silence for a moment, and when the old man spoke again each word fell into Markof’s soul with pain:

“O Lord, how just and inexorable is Thy judgment! Already many centuries and tens of centuries have I wandered upon the earth, vainly expecting to die. A mighty and merciless power ever calls me to appear where on the battlefields the soldiers lie dead in their blood, where mothers weep, and curses are heaped upon me, the first murderer. There is no end to my sufferings, for every time I see the blood of man flowing from his body I see again my brother, stretched out upon the ground clutching handfuls of sand with his dying fingers⁠ ⁠… And in vain do I desire to cry out, ‘Awake! Awake! Awake!’ ”

“Wake up, your honour, wake!” The insistent voice of the sergeant-major sounded in Markof’s ears. “A telegram!⁠ ⁠…”

The captain was awake and on his feet in a moment. His strong will asserted itself at once, as usual. The fire had long since died out, and the pale light of dawn gleamed through the window.

“What about⁠ ⁠… those⁠ ⁠…” asked Markof, in a trembling voice.

“As you ordered, your honour, just this moment.”

“But the old man? The old man?”

“As well.”

The captain sank down upon the bed as if his strength had suddenly left him. The sergeant-major stood at attention beside him, awaiting orders.

“That’s it, brother,” said the captain in a feeble voice. “You must take the command in my place. I will send in my papers today, for I⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… ’m absolutely tormented by this cursed fever.⁠ ⁠… And perhaps”⁠—he tried to smile, but only distorted his features by the effort⁠—“perhaps I may soon be entirely at rest.”

The sergeant-major saluted and answered calmly, as if nothing could surprise him,

“Yes, your honour.”

The Bracelet of Garnets L. van Beethoven, 2 Son. (Op. 2, No. 2)
Largo Appassionato I

In the middle of August, just before the birth of the new moon, the weather suddenly took a turn for the worse and assumed that disagreeable character which is sometimes characteristic of the northern coast of the Black Sea. Sometimes a heavy fog would hang drearily over land and sea, and then the immense siren of the lighthouse would howl day and night like a mad bull. Sometimes it would rain from morning to morning, and the thickly falling raindrops, as fine as dust, would transform the clayey roads and paths into one continuous sheet of mud, in which the passing wagons and carriages stuck for a long time. Sometimes a hurricane-like wind would begin to blow from the steppes lying toward the northwest, and then the tops of the trees would bend down to the ground, and again sweep up, like waves during a storm; the iron roofs of the country houses would rattle at night, as though someone were walking over them in iron-shod boots, the windowpanes would jingle, the doors snap, and the flues howl dismally. Several fishing barks lost their way in the sea, and two of them never returned to shore; it was only a week later that the bodies of the fishermen were washed ashore in different places.

The inhabitants