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

with fear. She had nothing on but a crumpled chemise; among the others, all wrapped in their cloaks, the two, man and woman, both half naked, roused feelings of shame, disgust, and contempt.

They searched his clothing, ransacked the carpet, peered into the corners, into the cupboard, and found nothing.

“I took his revolver from him,” Liuba thoughtlessly insisted.

“Silence Liubka!” the superintendent shouted. He knew the girl well, had spent two or three nights with her. He believed her; but his relief was so unexpected that out of sheer pleasure he wanted to shout and command and show his authority.

“Your name?”

“I shall not say. I shall not answer any questions at all.”

“All right, sir, all right,” the superintendent replied ironically, but somewhat abashed. Then he looked again at the naked hairy feet and at the girl shuddering in the corner, and suddenly became suspicious.

“Is this the right man?” he said, taking a detective aside. “Something seems.⁠ ⁠…”

The detective went and stared closely in the man’s face, then nodded his head decisively.

“Yes. It’s he. He’s only shaved his beard. You can recognise him by his cheekbones.”

“A brigand’s cheekbones, sure enough.”

“And look at the eyes, too. I could pick him out of a thousand by his eyes.”

“His eyes? Let me see the photograph.”

He took a long look at the unfinished proof photograph of a man, very handsome, wonderfully pure and young, with a long bushy Russian beard. The expression on the face was the same. Not grim, but very calm and bright. The cheekbones were not markedly prominent.

“You see! His cheekbones don’t stand out like.⁠ ⁠…”

“They are concealed by the beard, but if you feel under it with the eye.⁠ ⁠…”

“It may be, but.⁠ ⁠… Is he a hard drinker?”

The detective, tall and thin, with a yellow face and sparse beard, himself a hard drinker, smiled patronizingly.

“There’s no drinking among them.”

“I know there isn’t but still.⁠ ⁠…” The superintendent approached the man. “Listen! Were you an accomplice in the murder of N⁠⸺?” It was a very important and well known name.

But the man remained silent and only smiled and fidgeted with one hairy leg; the toes were bent and distorted by boots.

“You are being examined!”

“You may as well leave him alone. He won’t reply. We’d better wait for the captain and prosecutor. They’ll make him talk.”

The superintendent smiled, but in his heart for some reason he felt the shrinking again.

They had been tearing up the carpet; they had upset something, and there was a very unpleasant smell in the ill-ventilated room.

“What filth!” thought the superintendent, though in the matter of cleanliness he was by no means nice. And he looked with disgust at that naked swinging foot. “So he is still fidgeting with his foot,” he thought.

He turned round; a young policeman, with pure white eyelashes and eyebrows, was sneering at Liuba, holding his rifle with both hands as a village night watchman holds his staff.

“Well, Liubka,” the superintendent cried, approaching her. “Why didn’t you report at once who you had with you, you bitch?”

“Oh, I was.⁠ ⁠…”

The superintendent smacked her face twice, quite neatly, first on one cheek then on the other.

“Take that then! I’ll show you!”

The man’s brows went up and the foot ceased swinging.

“So you don’t like that, young fellow?” The contempt of the superintendent was growing apace. “What are you going to do about it? You kissed this face, didn’t you, and we’ll do what we damn well.⁠ ⁠…”

He laughed, and the policeman smiled in some agitation. And what was more surprising, even the downtrodden Liuba laughed. She looked at the old superintendent in a friendly way, as though she enjoyed his jokes and jollity.

From the moment of the arrival of the police she had never looked at the man, betraying him naturally and openly; and this he saw, and was silent and smiled half scoffingly, a strange smile⁠—as a gray stone in the forest, sunk into the ground and mossgrown, might smile.

Half dressed women were crowding about the door, amongst them some of those who had visited them. But they looked at him indifferently, with a dull curiosity, as though this was the first time they had seen him. Apparently they remembered nothing of the night. They were soon hustled away.

It was now daylight, and the room was more bleak and repulsive than ever. Two officers who evidently had not had their full sleep came in, their faces ruffled, but properly dressed and clean.

“It’s no good, gentlemen, really,” the superintendent said with a spiteful glance at the man. The officers approached, looked him up and down from his crown to his naked feet with those bent toes, surveyed Liuba, and casually exchanged observations.

“Yes⁠—he’s good looking,” said the young one, the one who had invited them all to the cotillion. He had splendid white teeth and silky whiskers and soft eyes with girlish lashes. He looked at the arrested man with disdainful compassion, and wrinkled his eyes as if he were going to cry. There was a corn on the left little toe⁠ ⁠… somehow it was horrible and disgusting to see that little yellow mound. And the legs were dirty. “This is a fine pass for you to come to, sir,” he said, shaking his head and painfully contracting his brows.

“So that’s how it is, Mr. Anarchist? You’re no better than us sinners with the girls? The flesh was weak, eh?” jeered the other, the elder.

“Why did you give up your revolver? You might at least have had a shot for it. I understand that you found yourself here, as anyone might find himself; but why did you give up your revolver? A poor example to set your comrades!” said the little officer, hotly; and then explained to the elder: “He had a Browning with three cartridge clips. Just think of it! Stupid!”

But the man, smiling contemptuously from the height of his new, unmeasured, and terrible truth, looked on the little excited officer and indifferently kept on swinging his leg. The fact of his being nearly naked, of having dirty hairy legs with bent and crooked toes, gave