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

glittering career of Alexey Petrovitch, who was regarded with some attention as the son of an energetic and farsighted man. He dimly remembered (it was so long ago) that the peasants had taken some grain from the proprietors by force, and he had come, with a detachment of soldiers and police, to restore it to the owners of the estates. The affair was nothing terrible, nothing threatening in itself, but rather farcical!

The soldiers dragged away the sacks of grain, and the peasants lay down on them and were dragged too, amid the laughter and jeers of the force, to whom the whole thing was a huge lark! But the fellows began to shriek and fight; striking out and running amuck against the fences⁠—the walls⁠—the soldiers!⁠ ⁠… One of them, torn from his sack of grain, fumbled silently in the grass with his trembling hands, looking for a stone to throw. Not a stone could he find, but he kept on hunting till a policeman, at a signal from his chief, kicked him in the rear, so that he fell on all fours, and crawled away.

But they all, these peasants, seemed to be made of wood. They were so clumsy, almost creaking in their movements! To turn one of them forward where he belonged took two men. Then, faced about, he still was uncertain where to look; and when he was finally settled, he could not tear himself away again, so that it took two men to force him back.

“Here, uncle, off with your clothes! You’re going swimming!”

“What!” asked the peasant, dumbfounded. “How?”⁠—although the thing was so perfectly clear and simple. A rough hand loosened the single button, the clothes fell, and the lean, bare peasant back stood out, unabashed. They laid the lash on lightly, more as a threat than as a punishment, and the mood of the whole affair was simply comical. On the homeward march the soldiers raised a jolly chorus, and those about the carts where the peasants were bound winked at them genially.

It was autumn. Windswept clouds hung over the bare stubble fields, and they all marched off to the city⁠ ⁠… to the light! But the village behind them still lay as before; under its depressing sky, in the midst of its dark, sodden, loamy fields, with their short, spare stubble⁠ ⁠…

“The children are all dead! The children are all dead!⁠ ⁠… The children! The children!⁠ ⁠…”

The gong sounded for luncheon. Its clear, penetrating tones rang cheerily through the park. Abruptly the Governor faced about and glanced sharply at his watch. “Ten minutes to twelve!” He put the watch back and stood still. “Disgraceful!” he cried, in a rage, his mouth trembling with emotion. “Disgraceful! I’m almost afraid I’m a coward!”

After luncheon he went to his study to look through the mail from town. Grumbling, and woolgathering and blinking through his glasses, he sorted the envelopes, laying some aside and cutting others carefully, to skim through their contents. Presently he came upon a note in a narrow envelope of cheap, thin paper, pasted over with yellow stamps of one copek. He opened it as carefully as he had the others. When he laid the envelope to one side he unfolded the thin, ink-splotched sheet, and read:

“Butcher of our Children!”

Whiter and whiter grew his face, till it was almost as white as his hair. And his dilated pupils stared through the thick convex glasses at the words:

“Butcher of our Children!”

The letters were large, crooked and pointed, and terribly black⁠—they staggered uncertainly across the rough, coarse paper and cried:

“Butcher of our Children!”

V

Already the city knew that the Governor was to be killed. They had heard it at dawn of the day after the shooting. None spoke of it openly, but all felt it; as though while the living lay in their uneasy sleep, the dead were stretched out quietly in careful order⁠ ⁠… shoulder to shoulder, in the engine-room, a dark shape had floated over the city, shadowing it with its wings. And the people spoke of the assassination of the Governor as a foregone conclusion⁠—an irrevocable fact. Some accepted it at once; others, more conservative, not till later. Some took it carelessly for granted as a thing that concerned them but slightly; like an eclipse, only visible in another hemisphere, and hardly interesting the inhabitants of this one. Others, a small minority, rose and agitated the question whether the Governor deserved this fearful sentence⁠—whether the death of one single individual, no matter how dangerous, could have any effect while the general conditions of the living were unchanged. Opinions differed, but even the most heated arguments were impersonal, as though the question were not a possibility of the future, but already an accomplished fact which no discussion might alter.

Among the better educated the arguments took a broader theoretical stand, and the Governor’s personality was forgotten, as though he were already dead. The debate proved that the Governor had more friends than enemies, and many even of those who believed ethically in political assassination found excuses for him. Had a vote been taken in the city, probably an overwhelming majority, on various practical or theoretical grounds, would have cast then ballot against the death⁠—or as some called it, the “execution”!

But the women, generally so merciful and timid at the sight of blood, showed in this case a surprising grimness⁠—a pitiless spite. Nearly all demanded his death⁠—the most hideous death! Reasoning had no power over them; they held their opinions stubbornly, with a certain brute force. A woman might be convinced by evening that the assassination was unnecessary, but next morning she would awake firm in her original conviction; as though she had slept off the effects of the argument overnight!

Bewilderment and confusion reigned supreme. A disinterested listener, hearing their talk, could not have gathered whether the Governor should be killed or not, and might have asked, in amazement: “But where did you get the idea that he must die?⁠ ⁠… And who is to kill him?”⁠ ⁠… But there