Short Fiction, Leonid Andreyev [good e books to read .TXT] 📗

hiding. No animal would have acted so stupidly, so senselessly. Bat the soldier became savage. I saw him go close up to him, stoop down and, thrusting his gun into the left hand, strike something soft and flat with the right one. And then again. A crowd was gathering. Laughter and shouts were heard.⁠ ⁠… Fragment XIV

… In the eleventh row of stalls. Somebody’s arms were pressing closely against me on my right- and left-hand side, while far around me in the semidarkness stuck out motionless heads, tinged with red from the lights upon the stage. And gradually the mass of people, confined in that narrow space, filled me with horror. Everybody was silent, listening to what was being said on the stage or, perhaps, thinking out his own thoughts, but as they were many, they were more audible, for all their silence, than the loud voices of the actors. They were coughing, blowing their noses, making a noise with their feet and clothes, and I could distinctly hear their deep, uneven breathing, that was heating the air. They were terrible, for each of them could become a corpse, and they all had senseless brains. In the calmness of those well-brushed heads, resting upon white, stiff collars, I felt a hurricane of madness ready to burst every second.

My hands grew cold as I thought how many and how terrible they were, and how far away I was from the entrance. They were calm, but what if I were to cry out “Fire!”⁠ ⁠… And full of terror, I experienced a painfully passionate desire, of which I cannot think without my hands growing cold and moist. Who could hinder me from crying out⁠—yes, standing up, turning round and crying out: “Fire! Save yourselves⁠—fire!”

A convulsive wave of madness would overwhelm their still limbs. They would jump up, yelling and howling like animals; they would forget that they had wives, sisters, mothers, and would begin casting themselves about like men stricken with sudden blindness, in their madness throttling each other with their white fingers fragrant with scent. The lights would be turned on, and somebody with an ashen face would appear upon the stage, shouting that all was in order and that there was no fire, and the music, trembling and halting, would begin playing something wildly merry⁠—but they would be deaf to everything⁠—they would be throttling, trampling, and beating the heads of the women, demolishing their ingenious, cunning headdresses. They would tear at each other’s ears, bite off each other’s noses, and tear the very clothes off each other’s bodies, feeling no shame, for they would be mad. Their sensitive, delicate, beautiful, adorable women would scream and writhe helplessly at their feet, clasping their knees, still believing in their generosity⁠—while they would beat them viciously upon their beautiful upturned faces, trying to force their way towards the entrance. For men are always murderers, and their calmness and generosity is the calmness of a well-fed animal, that knows itself out of danger.

And when, having made corpses of half their number, they would gather at the entrance in a trembling, tattered group of shamefaced animals, with a false smile upon their lips, I would go on to the stage and say with a laugh⁠—

“It has all happened because you killed my brother.” Yes, I would say with a laugh: “It has all happened because you killed my brother.”

I must have whispered something aloud, for my neighbour on the right-hand side moved angrily in his chair and said⁠—

“Hush! You are interrupting.”

I felt merry and wanted to play a joke. Assuming a warning severe expression, I stooped towards him.

“What is it?” he asked suspiciously. “Why do you look at me so?”

“Hush, I implore you,” whispered I with my lips. “Do you not perceive a smell of burning? There is a fire in the theatre.”

He had enough power of will and good sense not to cry out. His face grew pale, his eyes starting out of their sockets and almost protruding over his cheeks, enormous as bladders, but he did not cry out. He rose quietly and, without even thanking me, walked totteringly towards the entrance, convulsively keeping back his steps. He was afraid of the others guessing about the fire and preventing him getting away⁠—him, the only one worthy of being saved.

I felt disgusted and left the theatre also; besides I did not want to make known my incognito too soon. In the street I looked towards that part of the sky where the war was raging; everything was calm, and the night clouds, yellow from the lights of the town, were slowly and calmly drifting past.

“Perhaps it is only a dream, and there is no war?” thought I, deceived by the stillness of the sky and town.

But a boy sprang out from behind a corner, crying joyously⁠—

“A terrible battle. Enormous losses. Buy a list of telegrams⁠—night telegrams!”

I read it by the light of the street lamp. Four thousand dead. In the theatre, I should say, there were not more than one thousand. And the whole way home I kept repeating⁠—“Four thousand dead.”

Now I am afraid of returning to my empty house. When I put my key into the lock and look at the dumb, flat door, I can feel all its dark empty rooms behind it, which, however, the next minute, a man in a hat would pass through, looking furtively around him. I know the way well, but on the stairs I begin lighting match after match, until I find a candle. I never enter my brother’s study, and it is locked with all that it contains. And I sleep in the dining-room, whither I have shifted altogether: there I feel calmer, for the air seems to have still retained the traces of talking and laughter and the merry clang of dishes. Sometimes I distinctly hear the scraping of a dry pen⁠—and when I lay down on my bed.⁠ ⁠…

Fragment XV

… That absurd and terrible dream. It seemed as if