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

naively, with fearless eyes and called him “spy”⁠—and from that straightforward look, and from that cruel word, all the false phantoms of convictions and decency melted away as from fire. Emptiness everywhere. Mitrofan was silent, but his soul was filled with a cry of despair and horror. What did all this mean? Where had it all disappeared? What would he lean upon in order to save himself from falling into that dark and terrible abyss?

“My convictions,” he muttered. “My convictions. Everybody knows them, my convictions. For instance⁠—”

He searched his mind. He was grasping in his memory at fragments of conversations, he was looking for something clear, strong, convincing; he found nothing. He recalled absurd phrases such as this: “Ivanov, I am convinced that you have copied the problem from Sirotkin.” But is this a conviction? Fragments of newspaper articles passed before him, other people’s speeches, quite convincing⁠—but where was that which he had said himself, which he himself had thought? He spoke as everyone else spoke, and thought as everybody else did, and it was just as impossible to find an unmarked grain in a heap of grain. Some people are religious, some are not religious, while he⁠—

“Wait,” he said to himself. “Is there a God, or is there not? I don’t know. I don’t know anything. And who am I⁠—a teacher? Do I exist, I wonder?”

Mitrofan Krilov’s hands and feet grew cold.

“Nonsense! Nonsense!” he consoled himself. “My nerves are simply upset. What are convictions after all? Words. A man reads words in a book, and there are his convictions. Acts, these are things that count chiefly. A fine spy who⁠—”

But there were no acts of which he could think. There were school affairs, family affairs, other affairs, but there were no acts to speak of. Someone was persistently demanding of him: “Tell me, what have you done?” and he was searching his mind, desperately, sorrowfully⁠—he was passing over the years he had lived as over the keyboard of a piano, and each year struck the same empty, wooden sound⁠—“bya,” without meaning, without significance.

“Ivanov, I am convinced that you copied the problem from Sirotkin.” No, no, that is not the proper thing.

“Listen, madam, listen to me,” he muttered, lowering his head, gesticulating calmly and properly. “How absurd it is to think that I am a spy. I⁠—a spy? What nonsense! Please, let me convince you. Now, you see⁠—”

Emptiness. Where had everything disappeared? He knew that he had done something, but what? All his kin and his acquaintances regarded him as a sensible, kind and just man⁠—and they must have reasons for their opinion. Yes, he had bought goods for a dress for grandmother, and his wife even said to him: “You are too kind, Mitrofan!” But, then, spies may also love their grandmothers, and they may also buy goods for their grandmothers⁠—perhaps even the same black goods with little dots. What else? But, no, no. That is all nonsense!

Unconsciously Mitrofan came back from the boulevard to the house where the student girl disappeared, but he did not notice it. He felt that it was late, that he was tired, and that he was on the point of crying.

Mitrofan stopped in front of the many storied house and looked at it with a sense of unpleasant perplexity.

“What a repulsive house! Oh, yes, it is the same house.”

He walked away from the house quickly as though from a bomb, then he paused and reflected.

“The best thing for me to do is to write to her⁠—to consider the matter calmly and write to her. Of course, I will not mention my name. Simply: that ‘the man whom you mistook for a spy’⁠—Point by point I will analyse it. She’ll be a fool if she will not believe me.”

After a time, Mitrofan touched the cold knob several times, opened the heavy door, and entered with a stern look. The porter appeared in the doorway of the little room under the staircase, and his face bespoke his willingness to be of service.

“Listen, friend, a student girl passed here a little while ago⁠—what is the number of her room?”

“What do you want to know it for?”

Mitrofan Krilov stared at him abruptly through his spectacles, in silence, and the porter understood: he shook his head strangely and extended his hand to him.

“Come in to my room,” called the porter.

“What for? I simply⁠—” But the porter had already turned into his little room, and Mitrofan, gnashing his teeth, followed him meekly.

“He believed me⁠—he believed me at once! The scoundrel!” he thought.

The little room was narrow; there was but one chair, and the porter occupied it calmly.

“Are you single?” asked Mitrofan good naturedly.

But the porter did not think it necessary to reply. Surveying the teacher from head to foot with an audacious glance, he maintained silence, and after a time, asked:

“One of you was here the day before yesterday. A light-haired fellow, with moustaches. Do you know him?”

“Of course I do. He is light-haired⁠—”

“I suppose there are lots of you people roaming about nowadays,” the porter remarked indifferently.

“Look here,” Mitrofan said, growing indignant, “I haven’t come here⁠—I simply want to⁠—”

But the porter paid no attention to his words, and continued:

“Do you get a large salary? The light-haired fellow said he was getting fifty. Too little.”

“Two hundred,” lied Mitrofan Krilov, and noticed an expression of delight on the porter’s face.

“Really? Two hundred! I can understand that. Won’t you have a cigarette?”

Mitrofan took a cigarette from the porter’s fingers with thanks, and recalled sadly his own Japanese cigarette case, his study, his dear blue copy books. It was nauseating. The tobacco was strong, foul odoured⁠—tobacco for spies. It was nauseating.

“Do you often get a drubbing?”

“Look here⁠—”

“The light-haired fellow told me that he had never been thrashed yet. I suppose he lied. How is it possible that you people shouldn’t get any thrashing,” the porter smiled good-naturedly.

“I must find out⁠—”

“One must have ability and a suitable face. I have seen a spy whose face was crooked and one eye was missing. What