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

And he saw the naked arms, and all of her, alien, decisive, ready to do something irrevocable. He saw the prostitute⁠—a creature repellant to him.

“What’s the matter with you? Are you drunk?” he asked, seriously disquieted, and put out a hand to take his high starched collar. But, anticipating his movement, she snatched at the collar, and without looking hurled it somewhere, anywhere, into the room, behind the chest of drawers, into a corner.

“I won’t give it to you!”

“What are you after now?” he asked calmly enough, but gripping her arm with a hard firm pressure all round like an iron ring, so that the fingers of her thin hand drooped powerlessly.

“Let go! You’re hurting me!” she cried, and he held her more gently, but did not release his hold.

“You⁠—look for it!”

“What is it, my dear? Are you going to shoot me? Isn’t that a revolver you have in your pocket? Well, shoot, shoot! I’ll see how you shoot me! Or would you like to tell me why you take a woman and then go to sleep by yourself and tell her to drink⁠—‘Drink, and I’ll go to sleep!’ With his hair cut and clean shaven, so that he thinks nobody will know him! Do you want to go to the police, my dear? To the police, eh?”

She laughed, loud and merrily⁠—and in a way that really frightened him, there was such a savage, despairing joy on her face, as though she had gone mad. And then the idea that all was going to be lost in such a ludicrous fashion, that he would have to commit this silly, cruel, and senseless murder, and yet himself probably perish in vain, struck him with even greater horror. Deadly pale, but externally calm and with the same resolute air, he looked at her, followed her every movement and word, collecting his thoughts.

“Well? Silent now? Lost your tongue?”

He could seize this snaky neck and crush it and she would never be able to utter a shriek. He could do it without compunction; actually, while he held her so firmly, she had been twisting herself about like a snake.

“So you know, Liuba, what I am?”

“I do. You”⁠—she enunciated the words syllable by syllable, harshly and with an air of triumph⁠—“you are a revolutionary! That’s what you are!”

“How do you know?”

She smiled mockingly.

“We aren’t quite in the backwoods here.”

“Well, suppose we admit that I.⁠ ⁠…”

“Pooh, suppose we admit! Let go of my arm! You’re all alike, you men, always ready to use your strength against a woman. Let go!”

He released her arm and sat down, looking at her with a heavy and obstinate wonder. Something was moving about his cheekbones, a little ball of muscle, with a disturbed motion; but his expression was tranquil, serious, somewhat melancholy. And this made him again seem strange and unknown to her⁠—and also very handsome.

“Well, will you know me again?” she exclaimed, and surprised herself by adding a coarse reproof. He raised his brows in surprise and spoke to her calmly, but without averting his eyes, dully, remotely, as from a great distance.

“Listen, Liuba, certainly you can betray me, not only you, but anyone in this house, or in the street. One shout⁠—Halt! arrest him!⁠—and men will come in their tens and hundreds and try to get me⁠—or kill me. And for what reason? Merely because I have done no harm, merely because I have devoted all my life to these very people. Do you understand what it means, to sacrifice one’s life?”

“No, I do not,” the girl retorted harshly, but listening attentively.

“Some do it out of stupidity, some for spite. Because, Liuba, a common man cannot endure a fine man, and the wicked do not love the good.⁠ ⁠…”

“What should they love them for?”

“Don’t think, Liuba, that I am simply praising myself. But just look what my life has been, what it is! From the age of fourteen I have been rubbing along in prisons, expelled from school, expelled from home. My parents drove me out. Once I was nearly shot dead, saved only by a miracle. Try to picture it⁠—all one’s life passed in this way, all for the sake of others, and for oneself, nothing⁠—yes, nothing!”

“And what induced you to be so⁠ ⁠… fine?” she asked jeeringly. But he replied seriously:

“I don’t know. I must have been born so.”

“And I was born such a common sort of thing! And yet I came into the world the same way you did, didn’t I?”

But he was not listening. All his mind was held by the vision of his own past, so unexpectedly, so simply heroic, called up by his own words.

“Yes⁠ ⁠… think of it⁠ ⁠… I’m 26 years old and there are already grey hairs on my head, and yet until today⁠ ⁠…” he hesitated a moment and went on firmly, proudly. “Up to now I have never known a woman.⁠ ⁠… Never⁠ ⁠… do you understand? You are the first I even see⁠ ⁠… like that. And to tell the truth, I am just a little ashamed to be looking at your bare arms.”

The music rose again wildly, and the floor vibrated with the rhythm of dancing feet, broken by a drunken man’s wild whoop, as though he were heading off a herd of stampeding horses. But in the room it was still, and the tobacco smoke rose serenely and melted into a ruddy mist.

“That is what my life has been, Liuba!”

He looked down, thoughtfully and sternly, overcome by the thought of a life so pure, so painfully beautiful. And she made no reply.

Then she got up and threw a wrap around her bare shoulders. But at the sight of his look of astonishment, almost gratitude, she smiled and brusquely threw the wrap off, and so arranged her chemise that one breast, rosy and soft, was left bared. He turned away and slightly shrugged his shoulders.

“Take a drink!” she said.

“No, I never drink anything.”

“What, never drink! But you see, I do!”

“If you’ve got some cigarettes, I’ll have one.”

“They’re very common ones.”

“I don’t care.”

And when he