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

eyes, and afterwards showed me such attention that it seemed as if I were her betrothed and she loved me more than anybody in the world. She showed me such attention that I very nearly told her about my dark empty rooms, in which I am worse than alone⁠—miserable heart, that never loses hope.⁠ ⁠… And she managed that we remained alone.

“How pale you are and what dark rings you have under your eyes,” she said kindly. “Are you ill? Are you grieving for your brother?”

“I am grieving for everybody. And I do not feel well.”

“I know why you kissed my brother’s hand. They did not understand. Because he is mad, yes.”

“Yes, because he is mad.”

She grew thoughtful and looked very much like her brother, only younger.

“And will you,” she stopped and blushed, but did not lower her eyes, “will you let me kiss your hand?”

I kneeled before her and said: “Bless me.”

She paled slightly, drew back and whispered with her lips⁠—

“I do not believe.”

“And I also.”

For an instant her hand touched my head, and the instant was gone.

“Do you know,” she said, “I am leaving for the war.”

“Go? But you will not be able to bear it.”

“I do not know. But they need help, the same as you or my brother. It is not their fault. Will you remember me?”

“Yes, And you?”

“And I will remember you too. Goodbye!”

“Goodbye forever!”

And I grew calm and felt happier, as if I had passed through the most terrible that there is in death and madness. And yesterday, for the first time, I entered my house calmly without any fear, and opened my brother’s study and sat for a long time at his table. And when in the night I suddenly awoke as if from a push, and heard the scraping of the dry pen upon the paper, I was not frightened, but thought to myself almost with a smile⁠—

“Work on, brother, work on! Your pen is not dry, it is steeped in living human blood. Let your paper seem empty⁠—in its ominous emptiness it is more eloquent of war and reason than all that is written by the most clever men. Work on, brother, work on!”

… And this morning I read that the battle is still raging, and again I was possessed with a dread fear and a feeling of something falling upon my brain. It is coming, it is near; it is already standing upon the threshold of these empty, light rooms. Remember, remember me, dear girl; I am going mad. Thirty thousand dead, thirty thousand dead!⁠ ⁠…

Fragment XVII

… A fight is going on in the town. There are dark and fearful rumours.⁠ ⁠…

Fragment XVIII

This morning, looking through the endless list of killed in the newspaper, I saw a familiar name; my sister’s affianced husband, an officer called for military service at the same time as my dead brother, was killed. And, an hour later, the postman handed me a letter addressed to my brother, and I recognised the handwriting of the deceased on the envelope: the dead was writing to the dead. But still it was better so than the dead writing to the living. A mother was pointed out to me who kept receiving letters from her son for a whole month after she had read of his terrible death in the papers: he had been torn to pieces by a shell. He was a fond son, and each letter was full of endearing and encouraging words and youthful, naive hopes of happiness. He was dead, but wrote of life with a fearful accuracy every day, and the mother ceased to believe in his death; and when a day passed without any letter, then a second and a third, and the endless silence of death ensued, she took a large old-fashioned revolver belonging to her son in both hands, and shot herself in the breast. I believe she survived, but I am not sure; I never heard.

I looked at the envelope for a long time, and thought: He held it in his hands, he bought it somewhere, he gave the money to pay for it, and his servant went to fetch it from some shop; he sealed and perhaps posted it himself. Then the wheel of the complex machine called “post” came into action, and the letter glided past forest, fields and towns, passing from hand to hand, but rushing infallibly towards its destination. He put on his boots that last morning, while it went gliding on; he was killed, but it glided on; he was thrown into a pit and covered up with dead bodies and earth, while it still glided on past forests, fields and towns, a living phantom in a grey, stamped envelope. And now I was holding it in my hands.

Here are the contents of the letter. It was written with a pencil on scraps of paper, and was not finished: something interfered.

“… Only now do I understand the great joy of war, the ancient, primitive delight of killing man⁠—clever, scheming, artful man, immeasurably more interesting than the most ravenous animal. To be ever taking life is as good as playing at lawn-tennis with planets and stars. Poor friend, what a pity you are not with us, but are constrained to weary away your time amidst an unleavened daily existence! In the atmosphere of death you would have found all that your restless, noble heart yearned for. A bloody feast⁠—what truth there is in this somewhat hackneyed comparison! We go about up to our knees in blood, and this red wine, as my jolly men call it in jest, makes our heads swim. To drink the blood of one’s enemy is not at all such a stupid custom as we think: they knew what they were doing.⁠ ⁠…

“… The crows are cawing. Do you hear, the crows are cawing. From whence have they all gathered? The sky is black with them; they settle down beside us, having lost all fear, and follow us everywhere;