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

his own perfect symmetry as coolly and complacently as though he were quite alone.⁠ ⁠… One day a Chinaman appeared at the baths, and everyone stared at him⁠—some with a sneaking curiosity and some quite openly and unabashed. He alone did not vouchsafe him a glance⁠—considering himself far more interesting and more important than any Chinaman.⁠ ⁠…

Everything in the world was clear and simple to him; everything could be reduced to a formula⁠—and he knew that with the Cossacks things would certainly go better than without the Cossacks.

His reproaches had a ring of righteous indignation, only tempered by politeness and the fear of wounding the old man’s vanity. All this that his father had told him was not entirely unexpected. He had always known him to be a dreamer. But it struck him as something coarse, barbarous, atavistic. “Crosses! Blood for blood! Ivan and Peter!” How absurd it all was!

“You’re a poor stick of a Governor, even if they have given you an ‘Honourable Mention,’ ” thought he slowly, as he followed his father’s retreating figure with his handsome eyes.⁠ ⁠…

“Well, what is it, father⁠—are you vexed with me?”

“No,” answered the Governor simply. “I am grateful for your sympathy, and you’ll do well to quiet your mother. As to myself I am perfectly convinced! I’ve explained my impressions to you now. This is my view of it, and yours is different. We shall see which is correct!⁠—But now, be off to bed. It’s time you went to sleep.”

“I’m not tired yet. Shan’t we take a turn in the garden?”

“That suits me.”

They went out into the darkness and disappeared from each other’s view⁠—only their voices and an occasional hasty touch disturbing their sense of a strange, all-embracing loneliness. The stars, on the other hand, were numberless, and sparkled in bright companionship, and when they reached the open, out from under the close-set trees, Alexey Petrovitch could distinguish at his side the tall, heavy silhouette of his father. The night, the air and the stars had called up a tenderer feeling for this dark shadowy presence, and he repeated his reassuring explanations.

“Yes, yes,” answered Peter Iljitch from time to time⁠—though it was not quite clear whether he agreed or not.

“But how dark it is!” said Alexey Petrovitch, and stood still. They had come to a shady walk where the darkness was complete. “You should have lanterns put here, father!”

“What for? Tell me.”

They both stood still, and now that the sound of their steps was hushed, the loneliness reigned unbroken⁠—unbounded!

“Well, what is it?” asked Alexey Petrovitch impatiently.

“Does this darkness mean anything to you?”

“Dreaming again!” thought the lieutenant, and observed, with jaunty gaiety: “It means that you are not to wander about here alone! Anywhere in these woods they might have laid an ambush.”

“An ambush! Yes, that’s what the darkness tells me too. Imagine! Behind each one of these trees sits a man⁠—an invisible man⁠—watching! So many men⁠—forty-seven⁠—as many as we killed that day! And they sit there and hear what I say⁠—and spy!”

The lieutenant had grown nervous. He searched the darkness round about and took a step forward. “How unnecessary to excite yourself so!” he exclaimed involuntarily.

“No⁠—but wait a moment!” The son started as he felt a light touch of the hand. “Picture to yourself that everywhere⁠—there in the town even, and wherever I go⁠—they are lying in wait. If I walk⁠—he walks too; and watches me! Or I get into the carriage, and a man passes and pulls off his cap⁠—he is spying on me!”

The darkness grew sinister, and the invisible speaker’s voice sounded strange and distant.

“That will do, father, let’s go!” said the lieutenant, striding hastily off without waiting for his father.

“You see now, my dear boy!” came in Peter Iljitch’s deep voice, with a startling ring of mockery. “You wouldn’t believe me when I told you! There he sits in your own head!”

The lights in the house seem so far and dim that the lieutenant feels a mad impulse to run. If he might only reach them!⁠ ⁠… He almost doubts his own courage, and at the same time develops a feeling of respect for his father, who strides so calmly along through the darkness.

But fear and respect both vanish as soon as he enters the well-lighted rooms; and nothing remains but the impression of rage against his father, who will not listen to the voice of Reason, and refuses the Cossack guard with the stubbornness of senility!

IV

Summer and winter, the Governor rose at seven, had his cold tub, drank his milk, and took his two-hour walk⁠—no matter what the weather. He had given up smoking early in life, hardly drank at all, and at fifty-six years, for all his white hair, he was as sound and fresh as a stripling. His teeth were even, powerful, and slightly yellowed with tartar, like those of an old horse. The eyes were a bit puffy, but full of fire still; and his great fleshy old nose bore the marks of his glasses. He never wore a pince-nez, but for reading or writing used a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles with powerful lenses.

In the country he busied himself very much with his garden. He cared very little for flowers, or the purely aesthetic side of horticulture, but had built fine conservatories and a forcing house, where he cultivated peaches. Since the day of the catastrophe he had only glanced into the hothouse one single time, and then had come hastily away⁠—there was something so pleasant, so peaceful, and consequently so grievous! in the warm, damp air.

The greater part of his days, when he was not busy in town, he spent in the vast park, pacing with firm, direct steps down the long avenues that traversed its fifteen dessiatines. He was not much given to reflection. Now and again lively and interesting thoughts came to him, never with any particular sequence, and wandered through his brain like an unshepherded flock. And sometimes for hours he strode along, lost in thought and oblivious to his surroundings; yet