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

painful impression. For instance, that landscape⁠—a moonlight scene in Italy: it hangs crooked, yet no one gives it a straightening touch, and it seems to have hung so throughout the rule of successive Governors. The furniture, too, is costly, but worn and moth-eaten: like an apartment in a luxurious villa whose owner has suddenly died of a stroke, and whose estate has long lain in litigation, cared for by quarrelling heirs.

And nothing in the room was the property of its occupants; not even the photographs. Either they were official belongings or had been forgotten by some predecessor. Instead of portraits of friends and relatives, there was an album with views of the city: the seminary, the district court; then four unknown officials, two seated and two standing behind them; a weather-beaten bishop, and finally a round hole that ended at the cover.

“Hideous!” said the Governor aloud, and threw the album aside, with a gesture of loathing. He had been standing to look at the pictures, and now he turned again with a shrug and started his customary pacing. “This-is-the-way-the-Gov-er-nors-walk, -the-Gov-ev-nors-walk! the-Gov-er-nors-walk!”

—So trod the former Governor, and his predecessor, and his, and all the other unknown Governors. They rose from somewhere, paced these halls with firm, square steps; while over them hung the crooked Italian landscape⁠—held receptions, even gave balls⁠—and then vanished again somewhere. Perhaps they too had ordered the people shot⁠—at least something similar had occurred under his third predecessor.

A workman was crossing the deserted square, splashed with paint, and carrying his paint and brushes⁠—then all was empty again. Down from the ragged poplar fell a shrivelled leaf, floating aimlessly to the ground⁠—and instantly the thought whirled through his head: that signal with the white handkerchief⁠—the shots⁠—the blood!

Trivial detail occurred to him now; how he had prepared to give the signal. He had pulled his handkerchief from his pocket beforehand and held it tightly clutched in a ball in his right hand; then he unfolded it carefully and waved it hastily, not up and down, but forward and out, as though he were tossing something⁠—as though he were flinging bullets! Then it came to him that he had taken a stride⁠—had crossed an invisible threshold⁠—the iron door had clanged behind him with a loud grating of its iron hinges, and there was no return.

“Ah, you at last, Leo Andrejevitch. I’ve waited⁠—the Lord knows how long!”

“I’m sorry, Peter Iljitch, but you never can find anything in this beastly hole.”

“Now, let’s be off! Come! Yes, but listen!” The Governor stood still and continued, pursing his lips: “Why are all our public offices so dirty? Take, for instance, our government office; or⁠—I was in the police department the other day⁠—I tell you it’s a pothouse, a stable⁠—and decent men sit there in good, fresh uniform, with the dirt about in heaps!”

“But there’s no money!”

“Nonsense! Quibbles! And here”⁠—the Governor waved his hand to indicate the walls⁠—“look at that now⁠—disgusting!”

“Yes, but, Peter Iljitch, what’s to hinder your doing it over to suit yourself? How often have I said that very thing to Maria Petrovna, and her Excellency agrees with me thoroughly.”

The Governor strode to the door, muttering: “It’s not worth while!”

His aide cast a pitying glance at the broad back, at his stringy, muscular neck like a double column supporting the head, and, striving to keep anxiety out of his voice, he remarked: “By the way, I’ve just seen ‘the Pike’; he tells me that the last of the wounded was dismissed from the hospital yesterday. He was the worst of the lot, and seemed to have very little chance. But these peasants have the most astonishing vitality!” In private the Chief of Police was known as “the Pike” because of his pale, bulgy eyes, and his long, lank body, with its narrow, fin-like back.

The Governor made no answer. He was enjoying the autumn sunshine and the keen autumn air⁠—a mixture of languor and crispness, as though each could be enjoyed by itself; here freshness, and there a wave of heat:⁠—and the heavens were so lovely⁠—tender, distant, and such a wonderful, startling blue. How perfect it must be in the country now!

He had already seated himself in the carriage, and moved over to make room for the aide, when a man passed by with a peculiar stoop. As he pulled off his cap he shielded his face with his elbow, so that the Governor had only a glimpse of a shock of curly fair hair and a tanned young throat⁠—he noticed that he trod carefully and noiselessly, as though he had been barefooted, and that he bent over as if looking backward. “What a singularly unpleasant person!” thought he. Evidently the two men following the Governor thought so too. They were stepping into a carriage close at hand. With the rapid glance of professional keenness, they turned simultaneously to note the fellow, but finding nothing questionable about him, hurried on to precede the Governor.

They were in a smart rubber-tired trap⁠—the wheels leaped, the body swayed, and they sat leaning forward on account of the rapid motion, and had soon left the Governor far behind in order not to annoy him with their dust.

“Who are those two?” he asked his aide, looking at him suspiciously from the corner of his eye⁠—and the other answered carelessly: “Secret Police.”

“What’s that for?” asked the Governor abruptly.

“I don’t know,” said Leo Andrejevitch evasively; “that’s the Pike’s affair.”

At the corner stood the beardless young Police Commissioner, strutting and admiring his shiny lacquered boots⁠—the same one who had accompanied the Governor on his inspection of the bodies; and as they passed the police headquarters two mounted guards rode out from under the arch, their horses’ hoofs pounding behind in the dust. Their faces beamed with officious zeal, and they both gazed steadily at the Governor’s back. The aide pretended not to notice, but the Governor threw a lowering glance at the men, and then, with his white-gloved hands tightly clenched on his knees, he lost himself in gloomy thought.

The road to the