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

kiss; and yet I have no lover, and once more I seek for love and tell my tale in vain. I cannot bare my heart; my poison stupefies me, and my head grows heavy. Am I not beautiful in my despair? Move closer.

I love you.

Once I was bathing in a forest marsh. I like to be clean, for it is a sign of noble birth, and so I bathe often. And bathing there, and dancing in the water, I saw my own reflection and fell in love with it. Ah, how I love the beautiful and wise! And suddenly, upon my forehead, amongst the ornaments of nature, I saw a strange new sign. Perhaps it is this sign that causes my head to be so heavy, my gaze so sharp and steel-like, my mouth so sweet with poison. Here, here it is, this cross upon my forehead, here, you see? Move closer. Is it not strange? I did not understand it then; I was even fond of it. Let there be still another ornament, I said. And on that day, that awful day when first the cross appeared, my kiss, my kiss, became the first and last kiss I could give, the kiss of death.

Alone in the multitude! Alone in the multitude!

Ah!

You like precious stones, but think, O my beloved, think how much more precious is a small drop of my poison. It is so small; have you ever seen it? Never, never. But you will know it. Think, my beloved, what horrid pains, insults unbearable, and impotent, self-gnawing wrath, I had to suffer to bear that little drop. I am a queen! I am a queen! In this one drop, borne by me, I hold the death of all the living, and boundless is my kingdom, as boundless as grief and death. I am a queen! Relentless is my gaze. My dance is terrible! How beautiful I am!

Alone in the multitude! Alone in the multitude!

Do not fall. I have not finished. Move closer. Look into my eyes.

Ah!

And then it was I crawled into the foolish forest, my present kingdom. I was gentle as a queen, and graciously, so like a queen, I bowed to everybody. And they⁠—they ran away! I bowed to them, bowed graciously, bowed like a queen, and they, the fools, ran fast away. Why did they run away? What do you think? Look into my eyes. Do you see there a twinkle, a glitter? Do you? The rays of my bright crown now blind you; now they turn you to stone; you are lost. Ah, now I shall dance my last, last dance. Do not fall. Now I shall curl my body in rings, my scales will glitter dully, as I embrace myself so tenderly and in this tenderly-cold embrace multiply my body of steel. Here am I! Accept this bridal kiss of mine, this only kiss. Ah, there is in it the deathlike anguish of all lives oppressed!

Alone in the multitude! Alone in the multitude!

Bend over me. I love you.

Die!

Dies Irae Chant the First I

… This free song of the stern days of justice and retribution I have composed myself, as well as I could, I, Geronimo Pascagna, a Sicilian bandit, murderer, highwayman, criminal.

Having composed it to the best of my ability, I meant to sing it loudly, as good songs should be sung, but my jailer would not allow it. My jailer’s ear is overgrown with hair; it has a strait and a narrow channel: fit for words that are untruthful, sly, words that can crawl upon their bellies like reptiles. But my words walk erect, they have deep chests, broad backs⁠—ah, how painfully they tore at the tender ear of the jailer which was overgrown with hair!

“If the ear is shut, seek another entrance, Geronimo,” I said to myself amicably; and I pondered, and I sought, and finally I succeeded and found it, for Geronimo is no fool, let me tell you. And this is what I found: I found a stone. And this is what I did: I chiseled my song into the stone, and with the blows of my wrath I set aflame its icy heart. And when the stone came to life and glanced at me with the fiery eyes of wrath, I cautiously took it away and placed it at the very edge of the prison wall.

Can you not see what I have in mind? I am wise, I figure that a friendly quake will soon again set the earth aquiver, and once again it will destroy your city; and the walls will crumble, and my stone will drop and shatter the jailer’s head. And having shattered it, it will leave upon his soft waxy blood-grey brain the impress of my song of freedom, like the seal of a king, like a new commandment of wrath⁠—and thus will the jailer go down to his grave.

I say, jailer, shut not your ear, for I shall enter through your skull!

II

If I am then alive, I shall laugh with joy; and if I chance to be dead, my bones shall dance in their insecure grave. That will be a merry Tarantella!

Can you say upon your oath that such things can never be? The same quake might cast me back upon the face of the earth: my rotting coffin, my decayed flesh, my whole body, dead and buried for keeps, tightly clamped down. For such things have happened upon great days: the earth opening up about the cemeteries, the still coffins crawling out into the light.

Those still coffins, uninvited guests at the banquet!

III

These be the names of the comrades with whom I made friends in those fleeting hours: Pascale, a professor; Giuseppe, Pincio, Alba. They were shot by firing squads. There was also another one, young, obliging, and so handsome. It was a pity to look at him. I esteemed him as a son, he