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

uttered in the same stern and cold voice, would have such a strange effect upon the woman’s heart? With a cry, all the bitter passion of which I could not describe, she threw herself before me on her knees, exclaiming:

“So you do love me!”

Forgetting that our life had already been lived, that we were old, that all had been ruined and scattered like dust by Time, and that it can never return again; forgetting that I was grey, that my shoulders were bent, that the voice of passion sounds strangely when it comes from old lips⁠—I burst into impetuous reproaches and complaints.

“Yes, I did deceive you!” her deathly pale lips uttered. “I knew that you were innocent⁠—”

“Be silent. Be silent.”

“Everybody laughed at me⁠—even your friends, your mother whom I despised for it⁠—all betrayed you. Only I kept repeating: ‘He is innocent!’ ”

Oh, if this woman knew what she was doing to me with her words! If the trumpet of the angel, announcing the day of judgment, had resounded at my very ear, I would not have been so frightened as now. What is the blaring of a trumpet calling to battle and struggle to the ear of the brave? It was as if an abyss had opened at my feet. It was as if an abyss had opened before me, and as though blinded by lightning, as though dazed by a blow, I shouted in an outburst of wild and strange ecstasy:

“Be silent! I⁠—”

If that woman were sent by God, she would have become silent. If she were sent by the devil, she would have become silent even then. But there was neither God nor devil in her, and interrupting me, not permitting me to finish the phrase, she went on:

“No, I will not be silent. I must tell you all. I have waited for you so many years. Listen, listen!”

But suddenly she saw my face and she retreated, seized with horror.

“What is it? What is the matter with you? Why do you laugh? I am afraid of your laughter! Stop laughing! Don’t! Don’t!”

But I was not laughing at all, I only smiled softly. And then I said very seriously, without smiling:

“I am smiling because I am glad to see you. Tell me about yourself.”

And, as in a dream, I saw her face and I heard her soft terrible whisper:

“You know that I love you. You know that all my life I loved you alone. I lived with another and was faithful to him. I have children, but you know they are all strangers to me⁠—he and the children and I myself. Yes, I deceived you, I am a criminal, but I do not know how it happened. He was so kind to me, he made me believe that he was convinced of your innocence⁠—later I learned that he did not tell the truth, and with this, just think of it, with this he won me.”

“You lie!”

“I swear to you. For a whole year he followed me and spoke only of you. One day he even cried when I told him about you, about your sufferings, about your love.”

“But he was lying!”

“Of course he was lying. But at that time he seemed so dear to me, so kind that I kissed him on the forehead. Then we used to bring you flowers to the prison. One day as we were returning from you⁠—listen⁠—he suddenly proposed that we should go out driving. The evening was so beautiful⁠—”

“And you went! How did you dare go out with him? You had just seen my prison, you had just been near me, and yet you dared go with him. How base!”

“Be silent. Be silent. I know I am a criminal. But I was so exhausted, so tired, and you were so far away. Understand me.”

She began to cry, wringing her hands.

“Understand me. I was so exhausted. And he⁠—he saw how I felt⁠—and yet he dared kiss me.”

“He kissed you! And you allowed him? On the lips?”

“No, no! Only on the cheek.”

“You lie!”

“No, no. I swear to you.”

I began to laugh.

“You responded? And you were driving in the forest⁠—you, my fiancée, my love, my dream! And all this for my sake? Tell me! Speak!”

In my rage I wrung her arms, and wriggling like a snake, vainly trying to evade my look, she whispered:

“Forgive me; forgive me.”

“How many children have you?”

“Forgive me.”

But my reason forsook me, and in my growing rage I cried, stamping my foot:

“How many children have you? Speak, or I will kill you!”

I actually said this. Evidently I was losing my reason completely if I could threaten to kill a helpless woman. And she, surmising apparently that my threats were mere words, answered with feigned readiness:

“Kill me! You have a right to do it! I am a criminal. I deceived you. You are a martyr, a saint! When you told me⁠—is it true that even in your thoughts you never deceived me⁠—even in your thoughts!”

And again an abyss opened before me. Everything trembled, everything fell, everything became an absurd dream, and in the last effort to save my extinguishing reason I shouted:

“But you are happy! You cannot be unhappy; you have no right to be unhappy! Otherwise I shall lose my mind.”

But she did not understand. With a bitter laugh, with a senseless smile, in which her suffering mingled with bright, heavenly joy, she said:

“I am happy! I⁠—happy! Oh, my friend, only near you I can find happiness. From the moment you left the prison I began to despise my home. I am alone there; I am a stranger to all. If you only knew how I hate that scoundrel! You are sensible; you must have felt that you were not alone in prison, that I was always with you there⁠—”

“And he?”

“Be silent! Be silent! If you only heard with what delight I called him scoundrel!”

She burst into laughter, frightening me by the wild expression on her face.

“Just think of it! All his life he embraced only a lie. And when, deceived, happy, he