Short Fiction, Aleksandr Kuprin [the speed reading book txt] 📗

of passion, from jealousy. Murder in a duel, that’s comprehensible.⁠ ⁠… But when people set about it mechanically⁠ ⁠… without irritation, without fear of any sort of responsibility⁠ ⁠… and without anticipating even self-defence⁠ ⁠… no, that is for me as savage, dreadful, and incomprehensible as the psychology of the executioner.⁠ ⁠… When I read or think about pogroms, about pacifying expeditions or about the way prisoners are finished off in war, so as not to overload a detachment, I lose my head. I seem to be standing over a kind of black fetid abyss into which the human soul is sometimes capable of falling.⁠ ⁠… But I understand nothing⁠ ⁠… I feel dread and disgust⁠ ⁠… a nausea⁠ ⁠… But⁠ ⁠… a strange torturing sick curiosity chains me to this dread⁠ ⁠… to all the immensity of this fall.”

He remained silent for a few seconds, breathing jerkily, and when he continued one could divine by his changed voice, which had become suddenly deadened, that he had covered his face with his hands.

“Well,⁠ ⁠… never mind⁠ ⁠… I must tell you this.⁠ ⁠… On my soul, too, lies this old blood-madness.⁠ ⁠… About ten years ago I committed a murder⁠ ⁠… I never told anybody about it until now.⁠ ⁠… But⁠ ⁠… never mind⁠ ⁠… In one of the isbas on my estate, you see, there lived a cat, such a small, thin, starved little thing⁠—more like a kitten than a cat⁠—meant to be white, but as she always lived under the stove, she had become a dirty grey, a sort of pale blue. It all happened in the winter⁠ ⁠… yes, late in the winter. It was a gorgeous morning, quiet and windless. The sun was shining and it was already warm. One simply could not look at the snow, it was so glittering. It was, too, extraordinarily thick that year and we all walked on skis. And so I put my skis on and went that morning to look at an orchard that had been damaged by hares during the night. I was moving quietly past the regular rows of young apple trees⁠—I can see it all at this moment⁠—the snow seemed to be pink and the shadows of the little trees lay quite still, so exquisite they looked that one felt like kneeling close to them and burying one’s face in the fleecy snow.

“Then I happened to meet an old workman, Iazykant; it wasn’t his real name, but just a nickname. He was on skis, too, and we went on together side by side, talking about one thing or another. All of a sudden, he said with a laugh:

“ ‘That little cat of ours has lost a leg, Master.’

“ ‘How did that happen?’ I asked.

“ ‘Most likely she fell into the wolf trap. Half her leg’s clean gone.’

“I thought I’d have a look at her and so we went on towards the servants’ quarters. Our road was soon crossed by a very thin little track of red spots, which led to a mound beside which the wounded cat was sitting. As soon as she saw us, she crinkled up her eyes, opened her mouth pitifully and gave a long ‘mi‑aow.’ Her little muzzle was extraordinarily thin and dirty. The right foreleg was bitten clean through, above the knee-joint, and was projecting in front curiously, just like a wounded hand. The blood dropped at long intervals, accentuating the whiteness of the poor thin bone.

“I said to Iazykant: ‘Go to my bedroom and bring me my rifle. It is hanging over the bed.’

“ ‘But what will happen to her? She will lick it up all right,’ the workman pleaded.

“I insisted on having my own way. I wished to end the torture of the mutilated animal. Besides, I was sure that the wound would suppurate and the cat would die in any case from blood-poisoning.

“Iazykant brought the rifle. One barrel was loaded with small shot for woodcock and the other with buckshot. I coaxed the cat, calling ‘Puss, Puss, Puss.’ She mewed quietly and came a few steps towards me. Then I turned to the right, so that she would be on my left, took aim, and fired. I was only some six or seven paces from the animal and, immediately after the shot, I thought that there was a black hole in her side, as large as my two fists. I hadn’t killed her. She shrieked and ran away from me with extraordinary speed and without limping. I watched her run across a stretch of about one hundred and fifty yards and then dive into a shed. I felt horribly ashamed and disgusted, but I followed her. On the way, one of my feet slipped out of the ski fastening and I fell on my side in the snow. I rose with difficulty. My movements had become laboured, snow had caught in the sleeve of my coat and my hand shook.

“I got into the shed, where it was dark. I wanted to call the cat but, for some reason or other, I felt ashamed. Suddenly I heard a low, angry grumbling above my head. I looked up and saw just two eyes⁠—two green burning spots.

“I fired at random into those spots, almost without taking aim. The cat spat, shrieked, threw herself about and then became still once more.⁠ ⁠… I wanted to go away, when I heard again from the stove that long angry grumbling sound. I looked round. Two green lights were shining in the dark with an expression of such devilish hatred that my hair rose and my scalp felt cold.

“I hurried home; my stock of cartridges for the rifle had run out, but I had a revolver from Smith and Wesson and a full box of revolver cartridges. I loaded the six chambers and returned to the shed.

“Even at a distance, the cat’s dreadful grumbling greeted me. I emptied the six chambers into her, went back, reloaded and again fired six rounds. And each time there was the same diabolical spitting, scratching and tossing about on the stove, the same tortured shrieks, and then the two green fires and the long-drawn