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

an air that I was tired and that I wanted to walk about in the cell, I staggered as from a quiver of senility in my legs, and pushed the clothes aside. The entire wall was covered with drawings!

The artist had already leaped from his cot, and thus we stood facing each other in silence. I said in a tone of gentle reproach:

“How did you allow yourself to do this, my friend? You know the rules of the prison, according to which no inscriptions or drawing on the walls are permissible?”

“I know no rules,” said K. morosely.

“And then,” I continued, sternly this time, “you lied to me, my friend. You said that you did not take the pencil into your hands for a whole week.”

“Of course I didn’t,” said the artist, with a strange smile, and even a challenge. Even when caught red-handed, he did not betray any signs of repentance, and looked rather sarcastic than guilty. Having examined more closely the drawings on the wall, which represented human figures in various positions, I became interested in the strange reddish-yellow colour of an unknown pencil.

“Is this iodine? You told me that you had a pain and that you secured iodine.”

“No. It is blood.”

“Blood?”

“Yes.”

I must say frankly that I even liked him at that moment.

“How did you get it?”

“From my hand.”

“From your hand? But how did you manage to hide yourself from the eye that is watching you?”

He smiled cunningly, and even winked.

“Don’t you know that you can always deceive if only you want to do it?”

My sympathies for him were immediately dispersed. I saw before me a man who was not particularly clever, but in all probability terribly spoiled already, who did not even admit the thought that there are people who simply cannot lie. Recalling, however, the promise I had made to the Warden, I assumed a calm air of dignity and said to him tenderly, as only a mother could speak to her child:

“Don’t be surprised and don’t condemn me for being so strict, my friend. I am an old man. I have passed half of my life in this prison; I have formed certain habits, like all old people, and submitting to all rules myself, I am perhaps overdoing it somewhat in demanding the same of others. You will of course wipe off these drawings yourself⁠—although I feel sorry for them, for I admire them sincerely⁠—and I will not say anything to the administration. We will forget all this, as if nothing had happened. Are you satisfied?”

He answered drowsily:

“Very well.”

“In our prison, where we have the sad pleasure of being confined, everything is arranged in accordance with a most purposeful plan and is most strictly subjected to laws and rules. And the very strict order, on account of which the existence of your creations is so short lived, and, I may say, ephemeral, is full of the profoundest wisdom. Allowing you to perfect yourself in your art, it wisely guards other people against the perhaps injurious influence of your productions, and in any case it completes logically, finishes, enforces, and makes clear the meaning of your solitary confinement. What does solitary confinement in our prison mean? It means that the prisoner should be alone. But would he be alone if by his productions he would communicate in some way or other with other people outside?”

By the expression of K.’s face I noticed with a sense of profound joy that my words had produced on him the proper impression, bringing him back from the realm of poetic inventions to the land of stern but beautiful reality. And, raising my voice, I continued:

“As for the rule you have broken, which forbids any inscription or drawing on the walls of our prison, it is not less logical. Years will pass; in your place there may be another prisoner like you⁠—and he may see that which you have drawn. Shall this be tolerated? Just think of it! And what would become of the walls of our prison if everyone who wished it were to leave upon them his profane marks?”

“To the devil with it!”

This is exactly how K. expressed himself. He said it loudly, even with an air of calmness.

“What do you mean to say by this, my youthful friend?”

“I wish to say that you may perish here, my old friend, but I shall leave this place.”

“You can’t escape from our prison,” I retorted, sternly.

“Have you tried?”

“Yes, I have tried.”

He looked at me incredulously and smiled. He smiled!

“You are a coward, old man. You are simply a miserable coward.”

I⁠—a coward! Oh, if that self-satisfied puppy knew what a tempest of rage he had aroused in my soul he would have squealed for fright and would have hidden himself on the bed. I⁠—a coward! The world has crumbled upon my head, but has not crushed me, and out of its terrible fragments I have created a new world, according to my own design and plan; all the evil forces of life⁠—solitude, imprisonment, treachery, and falsehood⁠—all have taken up arms against me, but I have subjected them all to my will. And I who have subjected to myself even my dreams⁠—I am a coward?

But I shall not tire the attention of my indulgent reader with these lyrical deviations, which have no bearing on the matter. I continue.

After a pause, broken only by K.’s loud breathing, I said to him sadly:

“I⁠—a coward! And you say this to the man who came with the sole aim of helping you? Of helping you not only in word but also in deed?”

“You wish to help me? In what way?”

“I will get you paper and pencil.”

The artist was silent. And his voice was soft and timid when he asked, hesitatingly:

“And⁠—my drawings⁠—will remain?”

“Yes; they will remain.”

It is hard to describe the vehement delight into which the exalted young man was thrown; naive and pure-hearted youth knows no bounds either in grief or in joy. He pressed my hand warmly, shook me, disturbing my old bones;