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

thee with his thunder, raising thee to thy feet with the force of terror, holding thee erect with a mighty arm: so that dying thou shalt see death. Wide as the day will open thy eyes; terror will tear them wide open. Ears will come to thy heart, so that dying thou shalt hear death.

And thy clock will stop.

XXVIII

Freedom!

The Ocean I

A misty February twilight is descending over the ocean. The newly fallen snow has melted and the warm air is heavy and damp. The northwestern wind from the sea is driving it silently toward the mainland, bringing in its wake a sharply fragrant mixture of brine, of boundless space, of undisturbed, free and mysterious distances.

In the sky, where the sun is setting, a noiseless destruction of an unknown city, of an unknown land, is taking place; structures, magnificent palaces with towers, are crumbling; mountains are silently splitting asunder and, bending slowly, are tumbling down. But no cry, no moan, no crash of the fall reaches the earth⁠—the monstrous play of shadows is noiseless; and the great surface of the ocean, as though ready for something, as though waiting for something, reflecting it faintly, listens to it in silence.

Silence reigns also in the fishermen’s settlement. The fishermen have gone fishing; the children are sleeping and only the restless women, gathered in front of the houses, are talking softly, lingering before going to sleep, beyond which there is always the unknown.

The light of the sea and the sky behind the houses, and the houses and their bark roofs are black and sharp, and there is no perspective: the houses that are far and those that are near seem to stand side by side as if attached to one another, the roofs and the walls embracing one another, pressing close to one another, seized with the same uneasiness before the eternal unknown.

Right here there is also a little church, its side wall formed crudely of rough granite, with a deep window which seems to be concealing itself.

A cautious sound of women’s voices is heard, softened by uneasiness and by the approaching night.

“We can sleep peacefully tonight. The sea is calm and the rollers are breaking like the clock in the steeple of old Dan.”

“They will come back with the morning tide. My husband told me that they will come back with the morning tide.”

“Perhaps they will come back with the evening tide. It is better for us to think they will come back in the evening, so that our waiting will not be in vain.

“But I must build a fire in the stove.”

“When the men are away from home, one does not feel like starting a fire. I never build a fire, even when I am awake; it seems to me that fire brings a storm. It is better to be quiet and silent.”

“And listen to the wind? No, that is terrible.”

“I love the fire. I should like to sleep near the fire, but my husband does not allow it.”

“Why doesn’t old Dan come here? It is time to strike the hour.”

“Old Dan will play in the church tonight; he cannot bear such silence as this. When the sea is roaring, old Dan hides himself and is silent⁠—he is afraid of the sea. But, as soon as the waves calm down, Dan crawls out quietly and sits down to play his organ.”

The women laugh softly.

“He reproaches the sea.”

“He is complaining to God against it. He knows how to complain well. One feels like crying when he tells God about those who have perished at sea. Mariet, have you seen Dan today? Why are you silent, Mariet?”

Mariet is the adopted daughter of the abbot, in whose house old Dan, the organist, lives. Absorbed in thought, she does not hear the question.

“Mariet, do you hear? Anna is asking you whether you have seen Dan today.”

“Yes, I think I have. I don’t remember. He is in his room. He does not like to leave his room when father goes fishing.”

“Dan is fond of the city priests. He cannot get used to the idea of a priest who goes fishing, like an ordinary fisherman, and who goes to sea with our husbands.”

“He is simply afraid of the sea.”

“You may say what you like, but I believe we have the very best priest in the world.”

“That’s true. I fear him, but I love him as a father.”

“May God forgive me, but I would have been proud and always happy, if I were his adopted daughter. Do you hear, Mariet?”

The women laugh softly and tenderly.

“Do you hear, Mariet?”

“I do. But aren’t you tired of always laughing at the same thing? Yes, I am his daughter⁠—Is it so funny that you will laugh all your life at it?”

The women commence to justify themselves confusedly.

“But he laughs at it himself.”

“The abbot is fond of jesting. He says so comically: ‘My adopted daughter,’ and then he strikes himself with his fist and shouts: ‘She’s my real daughter, not my adopted daughter. She’s my real daughter.’ ”

“I have never known my mother, but this laughter would have been unpleasant to her. I feel it,” says Mariet.

The women grow silent. The breakers strike against the shore dully with the regularity of a great pendulum. The unknown city, wrapped with fire and smoke, is still being destroyed in the sky; yet it does not fall down completely; and the sea is waiting. Mariet lifts her lowered head.

“What were you going to say, Mariet?”

“Didn’t he pass here?” asks Mariet in a low voice.

Another woman answers timidly:

“Hush! Why do you speak of him? I fear him. No, he did not pass this way.”

“He did. I saw from the window that he passed by.”

“You are mistaken; it was someone else.”

“Who else could that be? Is it possible to make a mistake, if you have once seen him walk? No one walks as he does.”

“Naval officers, Englishmen, walk like that.”

“No. Haven’t I seen naval officers in the city?