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

one feel like going off somewhere, lying down and closing one’s eyes very tightly. Werner stretched himself and yawned slowly. Yanson also stretched himself and quickly yawned several times.

“I wish they’d be quicker about it,” said Werner wearily. Yanson was silent, shrinking together.

When the condemned moved along the deserted platform which was surrounded by soldiers, to the dimly lighted cars, Werner found himself near Sergey Golovin; Sergey, pointing with his hand somewhere aside, began to say something, but only the word “lantern” was heard distinctly, and the rest was drowned in slow and weary yawning.

“What did you say?” asked Werner, also yawning.

“The lantern. The lamp in the lantern is smoking,” said Sergey. Werner looked around. Indeed, the lamp in the lantern was smoking very much, and the glass had already turned black on top.

“Yes, it is smoking.”

Suddenly he thought: “What have I to do with the smoking of the lamp, since⁠—”

Sergey apparently thought the same, as he glanced quickly at Werner and turned away. But both stopped yawning.

They all went to the cars themselves, only Yanson had to be led by the arms. At first he stamped his feet and his boots seemed to stick to the boards of the platform. Then he bent his knees and fell into the arms of the gendarmes, his feet dangled like those of a very intoxicated man, and the tips of the boots scraped against the wood. It took a long time until he was silently pushed through the door.

Vasily Kashirin also moved himself, unconsciously imitating the movements of his comrades⁠—he did everything as they did. But on boarding the platform of the car, he stumbled, and a gendarme took him by the elbow to support him. Vasily shuddered and screamed shrilly, drawing back his arm:

“Ai!”

“What is it, Vasya?” Werner rushed over to him. Vasily was silent, trembling in every limb. The confused and even offended gendarme explained:

“I wanted to keep him from falling, and he⁠—”

“Come, Vasya, let me hold you,” said Werner, about to take him by the arm. But Vasily drew back his arm again and cried more loudly than before:

“Ai!”

“Vasya, it is I, Werner.”

“I know. Don’t touch me. I’ll go myself.”

And continuing to tremble he entered the car himself and seated himself in a corner. Bending over to Musya, Werner asked her softly, pointing with his eyes at Vasily:

“How about him?”

“Bad,” answered Musya, also in a soft voice. “He is dead already. Werner, tell me, is there such a thing as death?”

“I don’t know, Musya, but I think that there is no such thing,” replied Werner seriously and thoughtfully.

“That’s what I have thought. But he? I was tortured with him in the carriage⁠—it was like riding with a corpse.”

“I don’t know, Musya. Perhaps there is such a thing as death for some people. Meanwhile, perhaps, but later there will be no death. For me death also existed before, but now it exists no longer.”

Musya’s somewhat paled cheeks flushed as she asked:

“It did exist, Werner? It did?”

“It did. But not now any longer. Just the same as with you.”

A noise was heard in the doorway of the car. Mishka Tsiganok entered, stamping noisily with his heels, breathing loudly and spitting. He cast a swift glance and stopped obdurately.

“No room here, gendarme!” he shouted to the tired gendarme who looked at him angrily. “You make it so that I am comfortable here, otherwise I won’t go⁠—hang me here on the lamppost. What a carriage they gave me, dogs! Is that a carriage? It’s the devil’s belly, not a carriage!”

But suddenly he bent down his head, stretched out his neck and thus went forward to the others. Out of the disheveled frame of hair and beard his black eyes looked wildly and sharply with an almost insane expression.

“Ah, gentlemen!” he drawled out. “So that’s what it is. Hello, master!”

He thrust his hand to Werner and sat down opposite him. And bending closely over to him, he winked one eye and quickly passed his hand over his throat.

“You, too? What?”

“Yes!” smiled Werner.

“Are all of us to be hanged?”

“All.”

“Oho!” Tsiganok grinned, showing his teeth, and quickly felt everybody with his eyes, stopping for an instant longer on Musya and Yanson. Then he winked again to Werner.

“The Minister?”

“Yes, the Minister. And you?”

“I am here for something else, master. People like me don’t deal with ministers. I am a murderer, master, that’s what I am. An ordinary murderer. Never mind, master, move away a little, I haven’t come into your company of my own will. There will be room enough for all of us in the other world.”

He surveyed them all with one swift, suspicious, wild glance from under his disheveled hair. But all looked at him silently and seriously, even with apparent interest. He grinned, showing his teeth, and quickly clapped Werner on the knee several times.

“That’s the way, master! How does the song run? ‘Don’t rustle, O green little mother forest.⁠ ⁠…’ ”

“Why do you call me ‘master,’ since we are all going⁠—”

“Correct,” Tsiganok agreed with satisfaction. “What kind of master are you, if you are going to hang right beside me? There is a master for you”; and he pointed with his finger at the silent gendarme. “Eh, that fellow there is not worse than our kind”; he pointed with his eyes at Vasily. “Master! Eh there, master! You’re afraid, aren’t you?”

“No,” answered the heavy tongue.

“Never mind that ‘No.’ Don’t be ashamed; there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Only a dog wags his tail and snarls when he is taken to be hanged, but you are a man. Who is that dope? He isn’t one of you, is he?”

He darted his glance rapidly about, and hissing, kept spitting continuously. Yanson, curled up into a motionless bundle, pressed closely into the corner. The flaps of his outworn fur cap stirred, but he maintained silence. Werner answered for him:

“He killed his employer.”

“O Lord!” wondered Tsiganok. “Why are such people allowed to kill?”

For some time Tsiganok had been looking sideways at Musya; now turning quickly, he stared at her