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

that someone was standing behind me. I had felt this deceptive sensation before, so I did not turn around for some time. But when I turned around at last I saw⁠—in the distance, between the crucifix and my portrait, about a quarter of a yard above the floor⁠—the body of my father, as though hanging in the air. It is hard for me to give the details, for twilight had long set in, but I can say with certainty that it was the image of a corpse, and not of a living being, although a cigar was smoking in its mouth. To be more exact, there was no smoke from the cigar, but a faintly reddish light was seen. It is characteristic that I did not sense the odour of tobacco either at that time or later⁠—I had long given up smoking. Here⁠—I must confess my weakness, but the illusion was striking⁠—I commenced to speak to the hallucination. Advancing as closely as possible⁠—the body did not retreat as I approached, but remained perfectly motionless⁠—I said to the ghost:

“I thank you, father. You know how your son is suffering, and you have come⁠—you have come to testify to my innocence. I thank you, father. Give me your hand, and with a firm filial handclasp I will respond to your unexpected visit. Don’t you want to? Let me have your hand. Give me your hand, or I will call you a liar!”

I stretched out my hand, but of course the hallucination did not deem it worth while to respond, and I was forever deprived of the opportunity of feeling the touch of a ghost. The cry which I uttered and which so upset my friend, the jailer, creating some confusion in the prison, was called forth by the sudden disappearance of the phantom⁠—it was so sudden that the space in the place where the corpse had been seemed to me more terrible than the corpse itself.

Such is the power of human imagination when, excited, it creates phantoms and visions, peopling the bottomless and ever silent emptiness with them. It is sad to admit that there are people, however, who believe in ghosts and build upon this belief nonsensical theories about certain relations between the world of the living and the enigmatic land inhabited by the dead. I understand that the human ear and eye can be deceived⁠—but how can the great and lucid human mind fall into such coarse and ridiculous deception?

I asked the jailer:

“I feel a strange sensation, as though there were the odour of cigar smoke in my cell. Don’t you smell it?”

The jailer sniffed the air conscientiously and replied:

“No I don’t. You only imagined it.”

If you need any confirmation, here is a splendid proof that all I had seen, if it existed at all, existed only in the net of my eye.

IX

Something altogether unexpected has happened; the efforts of my friends, the Warden and his wife, were crowned with success, and for two months I have been free, out of prison.

I am happy to inform you that immediately upon my leaving the prison I occupied a very honourable position, to which I could hardly have aspired, conscious of my humble qualities. The entire press met me with unanimous enthusiasm. Numerous journalists, photographers, even caricaturists (the people of our time are so fond of laughter and clever witticisms), in hundreds of articles and drawings reproduced the story of my remarkable life. With striking unanimity the newspapers assigned to me the name of “Master,” a highly flattering name, which I accepted, after some hesitation, with deep gratitude. I do not know whether it is worth mentioning the few hostile notices called forth by irritation and envy⁠—a vice which so frequently stains the human soul. In one of these notices, which appeared, by the way, in a very filthy little newspaper, a certain scamp, guided by wretched gossip and baseless rumours about my chats in our prison, called me a “zealot and liar.” Enraged by the insolence of the miserable scribbler, my friends wanted to prosecute him, but I persuaded them not to do it. Vice is its own proper punishment.

The fortune which my kind mother had left me and which had grown considerably during the time I was in prison has enabled me to settle down to a life of luxury in one of the most aristocratic hotels. I have a large retinue of servants at my command and an automobile⁠—a splendid invention with which I now became acquainted for the first time⁠—and I have skilfully arranged my financial affairs. Live flowers brought to me in abundance by my charming lady visitors give to my nook the appearance of a flower garden or even a bit of a tropical forest. My servant, a very decent young man, is in a state of despair. He says that he had never seen such a variety of flowers and had never smelled such a variety of odours at the same time. If not for my advanced age and the strict and serious propriety with which I treat my visitors, I do not know how far they would have gone in the expression of their feelings. How many perfumed notes! How many languid sighs and humbly imploring eyes! There was even a fascinating stranger with a black veil⁠—three times she appeared mysteriously, and when she learned that I had visitors she disappeared just as mysteriously.

I will add that at the present time I have had the honour of being elected an honourary member of numerous humanitarian organisations such as “The League of Peace,” “The League for Combating Juvenile Criminality,” “The Society of the Friends of Man,” and others. Besides, at the request of the editor of one of the most widely read newspapers, I am to begin next month a series of public lectures, for which purpose I am going on a tour together with my kind impresario.

I have already prepared my material for the first three lectures and, in the