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

committed murder, yet you do not want to be hanged?”

“He wants to kill human beings without paying for it. Fool! fool!” said another.

“I don’t want to be hanged,” said Yanson.

“Well, my friend, you may want it or not, that’s your affair,” replied the chief warden indifferently. “Instead of talking nonsense, you had better arrange your affairs. You still have something.”

“He has nothing. One shirt and a suit of clothes. And a fur cap! A sport!”

Thus time passed until Thursday. And on Thursday, at midnight a number of people entered Yanson’s cell, and one man, with shoulder-straps, said:

“Well, get ready. We must go.”

Yanson, moving slowly and drowsily as before, put on everything he had and tied his muddy-red muffler about his neck. The man with shoulder-straps, smoking a cigarette, said to someone while watching Yanson dress:

“What a warm day this will be. Real spring.”

Yanson’s small eyes were closing; he seemed to be falling asleep, and he moved so slowly and stiffly that the warden cried to him:

“Hey, there! Quicker! Have you fallen asleep?”

Suddenly Yanson stopped.

“I don’t want to be hanged,” said he.

He was taken by the arms and led away, and began to stride obediently, raising his shoulders. Outside he found himself in the moist, spring air, and beads of sweat stood under his little nose. Notwithstanding that it was night, it was thawing very strongly and drops of water were dripping upon the stones. And waiting while the soldiers, clanking their sabres and bending their heads, were stepping into the unlighted black carriage, Yanson lazily moved his finger under his moist nose and adjusted the badly tied muffler about his neck.

IV We Come from Oryol

The same council-chamber of the military district court which had condemned Yanson had also condemned to death a peasant of the Government of Oryol, of the District of Yeletzk, Mikhail Golubets, nicknamed Tsiganok, also Tatarin. His latest crime, proven beyond question, had been the murder of three people and armed robbery. Behind that, his dark past disappeared in a depth of mystery. There were vague rumors that he had participated in a series of other murders and robberies, and in his path there was felt to be a dark trail of blood, fire, and drunken debauchery. He called himself murderer with utter frankness and sincerity, and scornfully regarded those who, according to the latest fashion, styled themselves “expropriators.” Of his last crime, since it was useless for him to deny anything, he spoke freely and in detail, but in answer to questions about his past, he merely gritted his teeth, whistled, and said:

“Search for the wind of the fields!”

When he was annoyed in cross-examination, Tsiganok assumed a serious and dignified air:

“All of us from Oryol are thoroughbreds,” he would say gravely and deliberately. “Oryol and Kroma are the homes of first-class thieves. Karachev and Livna are the breeding-places of thieves. And Yeletz⁠—is the parent of all thieves. Now⁠—what else is there to say?”

He was nicknamed Tsiganok (gypsy) because of his appearance and his thievish manner. He was black-haired, lean, with yellow spots on his prominent, Tartar-like cheekbones. His glance was swift, brief, but fearfully direct and searching, and the thing upon which he looked for a moment seemed to lose something, seemed to deliver up to him a part of itself, and to become something else. It was just as unpleasant and repugnant to take a cigarette at which he looked, as though it had already been in his mouth. There was a certain constant restlessness in him, now twisting him like a rag, now throwing him about like a body of coiling live wires. And he drank water almost by the bucket.

To all questions during the trial he answered shortly, firmly, jumping up quickly, and at times he seemed to answer even with pleasure.

“Correct!” he would say.

Sometimes he emphasized it.

“Cor-r-rect!”

At one time, suddenly, when they were speaking of something that would hardly have seemed to suggest it, he jumped to his feet and asked the presiding judge:

“Will you allow me to whistle?”

“What for?” asked the judge, surprised.

“They said that I gave the signal to my comrades. I would like to show you how. It is very interesting.”

The judge consented, somewhat wonderingly. Tsiganok quickly placed four fingers in his mouth, two fingers of each hand, rolled his eyes fiercely⁠—and then the dead air of the courtroom was suddenly rent by a real, wild, murderer’s whistle⁠—at which frightened horses leap and rear on their hind legs and human faces involuntarily blanch. The mortal anguish of him who is to be assassinated, the wild joy of the murderer, the dreadful warning, the call, the gloom and loneliness of a stormy autumn night⁠—all this rang in his piercing shriek, which was neither human nor beastly.

The presiding officer shouted⁠—then waved his arm at Tsiganok, and Tsiganok obediently became silent. And, like an artist who had triumphantly performed a difficult aria, he sat down, wiped his wet fingers upon his coat, and surveyed those present with an air of satisfaction.

“What a robber!” said one of the judges, rubbing his ear.

Another one, however, with a wild Russian beard, but with the eyes of a Tartar, like those of Tsiganok, gazed pensively above Tsiganok’s head, then smiled and remarked:

“It is indeed interesting.”

With light hearts, without mercy, without the slightest pangs of conscience, the judges brought out against Tsiganok a verdict of death.

“Correct!” said Tsiganok, when the verdict was pronounced. “In the open field and on a crossbeam! Correct!”

And turning to the convoy, he hurled with bravado:

“Well, are we not going? Come on, you sour-coat. And hold your gun⁠—I might take it away from you!”

The soldier looked at him sternly, with fear, exchanged glances with his comrade, and felt the lock of his gun. The other did the same. And all the way to the prison the soldiers felt that they were not walking but flying through the air⁠—as if hypnotized by the prisoner, they felt neither the ground beneath their feet, nor the passage of time, nor themselves.

Mishka Tsiganok,