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

still playing on. But⁠—the woman was still sitting with her hands clasped behind her head, smiling, unable to speak, almost fainting under the load of a happiness beyond sense and experience. But⁠—this was not a dream!

“What is all this? Is this⁠—Truth?”

“Truth, my darling! You and I inseparable!”

This was Truth? Truth⁠—those crumpled petticoats hanging on the wall in their bare disorder? Truth⁠—that carpet on which thousands of drunken men had scuffled in spasms of hideous passion? Truth⁠—this stale, moist fragrance, loathesomely cleaving to the face? Truth⁠—that music and the jingling spurs? Truth⁠—that woman with her pale and harassed face and smile of pitiful bliss?

Again he rested his heavy head on his hands, looking askance with the eyes of a wolf at bay; and his thoughts ran on without connection.

So she was Truth!⁠ ⁠… That meant that tomorrow and the day after he would not go, and everyone would know why he had not gone, that he had stayed with a girl, drinking; and they would call him traitor and coward and rascal. Some would intercede for him⁠—would guess⁠ ⁠… no, better not count on that, better see it all as it was! All over then? Was this the end? Into the dark⁠—thus⁠—into the dark? And what lay beyond? He did not know. In the dark? Probably some new horror. But then as yet he did not understand their ways. How strange that one had to learn to be common! And from whom? From her? No, she was no use. She didn’t know anything. He would find out for himself. One had to become really common oneself in order to.⁠ ⁠… Yes, he would wreck something that was great! And then? And then, some day he would come back to her, or where they were drinking, or into a prison, and he would say: “Now I am not ashamed, now I am not guilty in any respect in your eyes. Now I am one like you, besmirched, fallen, unhappy!” Or he would go into the open street and say: “Look at me, what I am! I had everything⁠—intellect, honour, dignity⁠—stranger still, immortality. And all this I flung at the feet of a whore. I renounced it all because she was common!” What would they say? They would gape, and be astounded, and say, “What a fool!” Yes⁠—yes, a fool! Was he guilty because he was fine? Let her⁠—let everyone⁠—try to be fine! “Sell all thou hast and give to the poor.” But that was just what he had done, all that he had. But this was Christ⁠—in whom he did not believe.⁠ ⁠… Or perhaps.⁠ ⁠… “He who loses his soul”⁠—not his life, but his soul.⁠ ⁠… That was what he was contemplating. Perhaps⁠ ⁠… did Christ himself sin with the sinners, commit adultery, get drunk? No, he only forgave those who did, and even loved them. Well, so did he love and forgive and pity her. Then, why sacrifice himself? For she was not of the faith. Nor he. Nor was this Christ; but something else, something more dreadful.

“Oh, this is dreadful, Liuba!”

“Dreadful, darling? Yes, it is dreadful to see Truth.”

Truth⁠—again she named it! But what made it dreadful? Why should he dread what he so desired? No⁠—no⁠—there was nothing to fear. There, in the open, in front of all those gaping mouths, would he not be the highest of them all? Though naked and dirty and ragged⁠—and his face would be horrible then⁠—he who had lost abandoned himself, would he not be the terrible proclaimer of justice eternal, to which God himself must submit⁠—otherwise he were not God?

“There is nothing dreadful about it, Liuba.”

“Yes, darling, there is. You are not afraid, and that is well. But do not provoke it. There is no need to do that.”

“So that is it⁠—that is my end! It is not what I expected⁠—not what I expected for the end of my young and beautiful life. My God, but this is senseless! I must have gone mad! Still it is not too late⁠ ⁠… not too late⁠ ⁠… I can still escape.”

“My darling,” the woman was murmuring, her hands still clasped behind her head.

He glanced at her and frowned. Her eyes were blissfully closed; a happy, unthinking smile upon her lips expressed an unquenchable thirst, an insatiable hunger, as though she had just tasted something and was preparing for more.

He looked down on her and frowned⁠—on her thin soft arms, on the dark hollows of her armpits; and he got up without any haste. With a last effort to save something precious⁠—life or reason, or the good old Truth⁠—without any flurry, but solemnly, he began dressing himself. He could not find his collar.

“Tell me, have you seen my collar?”

“Where are you going?” The woman looked round. Her hands fell away from her head, and the whole of her strained forward towards him.

“I am going away.”

“You are going away?” she repeated, dragging the words. “You are going? Where?”

He smiled derisively.

“As if I had nowhere to go! I am going to my comrades.”

“To the fine folk? Have you cheated me?”

“Yes. To the fine folk.” Again the same smile. He had finished dressing, he was feeling his pockets.

“Give me my pocketbook.”

She handed it to him.

“And my watch.”

She gave it to him. They had been lying together on the little table.

“Goodbye.”

“Are you frightened?”

The question was quiet and simple. He looked up. There stood a woman, tall and shapely, with thin, almost childlike arms, a pale smile, and blanched lips, asking: “Are you frightened?”

How strangely she could change! Sometimes forceful and even terrible, she was now pathetic and more like a girl than a woman. But all this was of no account. He stepped toward the door.

“But I thought you were going to stay.⁠ ⁠…”

“What?”

“The key’s in your pocket⁠—for my sake.”

The lock was already creaking.

“Very well, then! Go⁠ ⁠… go to your comrades and.⁠ ⁠…”

It was then, at the last moment, when he had nothing to do but to open the door and go out and seek his comrades and end a noble life with a heroic death⁠—it was then he committed