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

is war, we all know; no one greets its coming with delight; still, it is a simple matter, when all is said and done; we have been through it before. The Japanese War is still fresh in our memories. At present, for example, when bloody battles are being fought, I have no sense of fear, and live as I always do. I go about my work, see my friends, indulge in a theatre or a picture-show, and were it not for my wife’s brother, Pavel, being at the war, I could almost forget, on occasions, the terrible events that are happening.

Of course, I don’t deny that there’s a restlessness and anxiety at bottom. I can’t exactly describe the sensation; it’s a kind of gnawing despair that comes over one mostly in the morning at breakfast. You no sooner open your paper (I take in two besides Kopeika) than you are brought back to the horrors that are happening over there to those poor Belgians, to their houses and children, and you feel as though someone had poured cold water over you, and turned you out naked on a frosty winter’s day. Still, this sensation has no relation to fear; it’s merely a feeling of human pity for those in distress.

As I was saying, on that first day I was ridiculously frightened. It makes me blush to think of it. I need only mention that on the 2nd August I paid no less than thirty roubles for a miserable conveyance to take us from Shuvalov, where we had been staying, back to town, and in less than five days I was taking the whole of my family back again by train, and that we actually remained in the country until the 25th August in the most peaceful manner possible. What a state we were in, to be sure! My wife, unkempt, unwashed, dazed and distraught, jolted along with the children in the cart, while I, the head of the family, marched in the road by their side, feeling as though doomsday were behind us and we must run, run without looking back, without stopping to take breath, not merely to St. Petersburgh, but to the very ends of the earth.

All the shops along the road were selling bread in abundance, and I had thrust some stupid crusts into my pocket in case of need. Prudence and foresight⁠—under any circumstances!

The weather was glorious at the time, but we had no faith even in the weather. It seemed to us that it was bound to pour with rain, or that a sudden snowstorm would descend upon us although it was August, and we should perish on the way! How horribly we worried our driver!

Another disgraceful circumstance comes to my mind. I picked some blue little bell flower on the wayside and gave it to Lidotchka, my little girl, chaffing her a bit as I did so. It was a natural act, being fond of my children as I am, especially of Lidotchka, but it pains me to recall the thought that occurred to me at the time. I congratulated myself on not having lost my head like other people, since there I was picking flowers, joking and trying to cheer up my family. An extraordinary act of heroism!

With what a sense of relief did we tumble into the house! Beside ourselves with joy as we lighted the candles (the electric light was disconnected owing to our absence) and seated ourselves at the table round the samovar.

The most astonishing thing is that I don’t know exactly when the absurd panic left me, nor how it happened that five days later we were going calmly back again to the country, not the least bit ashamed. However, half the carriage was full of heroes like ourselves. I wonder what we must have thought of each other? I don’t suppose we bothered, though; we were too engrossed in our journey, telling each other without the least embarrassment what we had been foolish enough to pay for our conveyances!

To do myself a little justice, I was largely infected by my wife’s unspeakable horror. At any rate, that is how I explain our “flight from Egypt” to our friends. The explanation, however, does not fully satisfy my own conscience. Had I been a coward, or what might be called an effeminate person, there would have been nothing more to say, but, far from being a coward, I am a man of some courage; a convulsion took place in my brain, and the world was turned upside down. What a fool I must have looked as I strutted along beside the cart, picking flowers into the bargain! And what a smart fellow I considered myself, to have got that cart to save my family!

I wonder what made me go like that?

I know now, to be sure. The vision the war must have presented to me was so appalling and strange as to bear no resemblance to a war at all. I can’t recall that vision, no matter how hard I try. It must have seemed like the crack of doom, that the end of the world had come and the destruction of all living things. I must have heard a tremendous crash of thunder that cleft the earth in two, and we had to fly for our very lives.

I remember one thing, however, I was not in the least afraid of the Germans or their Kaiser. I never thought of them at all, in fact. It must have seemed plain to any fool that they couldn’t come flying to Shuvalov in a day.

And why should I have been afraid of the Germans, anyway? Weren’t they human beings like ourselves, as much afraid of us as we of them?

We were both in the same boat, as it were. It was as if some antediluvian animals were close at our heels, crushing the earth with their tremendous paws.⁠ ⁠… But, no, that doesn’t describe it. What is an animal? Who is afraid of