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

melt and rush off into the open door.

“Don’t drink it all at once, Noni! Not all at once!” says the sailor and gently takes the bottle away from him. Haggart seats himself and clasps his head with both hands.

“I have a headache. What is that cry? Was there a shipwreck?”

“No, Noni. It is the wind playing roguishly.”

“Khorre!”

“Captain.”

“Give me the bottle.”

He drinks a little more and sets the bottle on the table. Then he paces the room, straightening his shoulders and his chest, and looks out of the window. Khorre looks over his shoulder and whispers:

“Not a single light. It is dark and deserted. Those who had to die have died already, and the cautious cowards are sitting on the solid earth.”

Haggart turns around and says, wiping his face:

“When I am intoxicated, I hear voices and singing. Does that happen to you, too, Khorre? Who is that singing now?”

“The wind is singing, Noni⁠—only the wind.”

“No, but who else? It seems to me a human being is singing, a woman is singing, and others are laughing and shouting something. Is that all nothing but the wind?”

“Only the wind.”

“Why does the wind deceive me?” says Haggart haughtily.

“It feels lonesome, Noni, just as I do, and it laughs at the human beings. Have you heard the wind lying like this and mocking in the open sea? There it tells the truth, but here⁠—it frightens the people on shore and mocks them. The wind does not like cowards. You know it.”

Haggart says morosely:

“I heard their organist playing not long ago in church. He lies.”

“They are all liars.”

“No!” exclaims Haggart angrily. “Not all. There are some who tell the truth there, too. I shall cut your ears off if you will slander honest people. Do you hear?”

“Yes.”

They are silent; they listen to the wild music of the sea. The wind has evidently grown mad. Having taken into its embrace a multitude of instruments with which human beings produce their music⁠—harps, reed-pipes, priceless violins, heavy drums and brass trumpets⁠—it breaks them all, together with a wave, against the sharp rocks. It dashes them and bursts into laughter⁠—only thus does the wind understand music⁠—each time in the death of an instrument, each time in the breaking of strings, in the snapping of the clanging brass. Thus does the mad musician understand music. Haggart heaves a deep sigh and with some amazement, like a man just awakened from sleep, looks around on all sides. Then he commands shortly:

“Give me my pipe.”

“Here it is.”

Both commence to smoke.

“Don’t be angry, Noni,” says the sailor. “You have become so angry that one can’t come near you at all. May I chat with you?”

“There are some who do tell the truth there, too,” says Haggart sternly, emitting rings of smoke.

“How shall I say it you, Noni?” answers the sailor cautiously but stubbornly. “There are no truthful people there. It has been so ever since the deluge. At that time all the honest people went out to sea, and only the cowards and liars remained upon the solid earth.”

Haggart is silent for a minute; then he takes the pipe from his mouth and laughs gaily.

“Have you invented it yourself?”

“I think so,” says Khorre modestly.

“Clever! And it was worth teaching you sacred history for that! Were you taught by a priest?”

“Yes. In prison. At that time I was as innocent as a dove. That’s also from sacred scriptures, Noni. That’s what they always say there.”

“He was a fool! It was not necessary to teach you, but to hang you,” says Haggart, adding morosely: “Don’t talk nonsense, sailor. Hand me a bottle.”

They drink. Khorre stamps his foot against the stone floor and asks:

“Do you like this motionless floor?”

“I should have liked to have the deck of a ship dancing under my feet.”

“Noni!” exclaims the sailor enthusiastically. “Noni! Now I hear real words! Let us go away from here. I cannot live like this. I am drowning in gin. I don’t understand your actions at all, Noni! You have lost your mind. Reveal yourself to me, my boy. I was your nurse. I nursed you, Noni, when your father brought you on board ship. I remember how the city was burning then and we were putting out to sea, and I didn’t know what to do with you; you whined like a little pig in the cook’s room. I even wanted to throw you overboard⁠—you annoyed me so much. Ah, Noni, it is all so touching that I can’t bear to recall it. I must have a drink. Take a drink, too, my boy, but not all at once, not all at once!”

They drink. Haggart paces the room heavily and slowly, like a man who is imprisoned in a dungeon but does not want to escape.

“I feel sad,” he says, without looking at Khorre. Khorre, as though understanding, shakes his head in assent.

“Sad? I understand. Since then?”

“Ever since then.”

“Ever since we drowned those people? They cried so loudly.”

“I did not hear their cry. But this I heard⁠—something snapped in my heart, Khorre. Always sadness, everywhere sadness! Let me drink!”

He drinks.

“He who cried⁠—am I perhaps afraid of him, Khorre? That would be fine! Tears were trickling from his eyes; he wept like one who is unfortunate. Why did he do that? Perhaps he came from a land where the people had never heard of death⁠—what do you think, sailor?”

“I don’t remember him, Noni. You speak so much about him, while I don’t remember him.”

“He was a fool,” says Haggart. “He spoilt his death for himself, and spoilt me my life. I curse him, Khorre. May he be cursed. But that doesn’t matter, Khorre⁠—no!”

Silence.

“They have good gin on this coast,” says Khorre. “He’ll pass easily, Noni. If you have cursed him there will be no delay; he’ll slip into hell like an oyster.”

Haggart shakes his head:

“No, Khorre, no! I am sad. Ah, sailor, why have I stopped here, where I hear the sea? I should go away, far away on land, where the people don’t know the sea at