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

The persistent collectors, men and women alike, with their flags and flowers, do not increase the general pleasantness. Particularly insolent in this respect are the boys and girls whose parents would do much better to keep them at home, than let them drag themselves about the streets.

I am as prepared as any man to take my share of the burden; it is a pleasure to me, in so far as my limited means will allow, and I object to this distrust of my feelings of duty and compassion, and the indecency with which these people search your eyes to demand your purse. People seem afraid to look each other square in the face as they walk along the streets, but in reality everyone takes a stealthy glance to see if his neighbour has the symbol of the day. Even I can’t resist doing so. It is more than the scrutiny of my purse that I mind, it is the scrutiny of my soul that I object to. My soul is my own; I am its master. The State can dispose of my body, if it wills, in so far as the law permits, but no one, not Peter the Great himself, has the right of probing into my soul and introducing his laws there, no matter how excellent they may be. People have tampered with my soul too much of late, using it as freely as a public road. Today, for instance, I had a wild argument with Sasha. I have always considered myself a Liberal, and was rather proud of the fact. Every intelligent man ought to be a Liberal. Nations are all alike to me. I make no difference between a German, a Frenchman, or even a Jew. For the past two months, however, the papers, the fellows in the office, and everyone, has been trying to impress upon me that I ought to hate the Germans. Sasha even said to me today in the most brutal manner, “You must be mean if you can love the Germans now!”

“How do you know I love them?” I demanded. “With my principles I can’t hate anyone, no matter who it is.”

She laughed.

“Principles, indeed! We should hear a different tale if Pavel had been your brother and not mine! I wonder mother can bear to come here, seeing how much you love her son?”

Then with a brutality of which I should not have thought her capable, she called me a coward and a traitor, and declared that I was glad that my age prevented me from going to the war. And this, after all the talks we had had when she had seemed to agree with me, and after the way she had been concerned about my digestion but a day or two ago! A fine soldier I should make with my poor digestion and my palpitations.

I didn’t say a word the whole evening to show my resentment, and won’t speak for a day or two to come; but I fear it will have but little effect.

The war is beginning to get on one’s nerves; one can’t escape it for a day. I left off reading the papers, but that proved too much for me; I couldn’t keep it up for long. The papers are full of sensations, and the men in our office are forever disputing and arguing round the maps. Horrible! I would go right away if I could afford it. There must be some spot in the world where one would be free from the war. Living as one is amidst the general folly, it is practically impossible to preserve one’s own individuality, and save one’s soul from corruption. I didn’t want the war, as I said before! I loathe it for all its “significance.” Why should I be compelled to think and read about its horrors every day of my life?

I am not a heartless blackguard. I have my sympathies and sense of decency⁠—I say this in all modesty⁠—and I suffer agonies at these unbearable horrors. The killing of thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands, is bad enough, but the fiendish way in which it is done, the deafening noise and the fire, surpasses all understanding. Before death comes to release a man he is driven mad a thousand times by all their devilish inventions and surprises! There is not much use in living in Post Office Street, far removed from the sight of a gun, when the newspapers, and photographs, and information from people spare me none of the horrors!

What good does my suffering do to anyone? I don’t care what people might say to this, but if I could bewitch or hypnotise myself to get this war out of my head, I would do so without the smallest hesitation. Since I am not fighting, my torments are of no use to anyone. I don’t see why I should lose my sleep and thereby get too ill to do my work!

How sad it is that Sasha doesn’t understand it! If she gave the matter a single thought she would see that my health was essential to the family, and that if I began to hate the Germans as she and mother do, and went about in fear and trembling over Pavel, it would be a poor lookout for them all. There she is, sleeping with a feeling of injury, while I cannot sleep, and suffer in my forced loneliness. Ah, Sasha, Sasha! Do you think my lot is an easy one? I envy every dog barking innocently in its backyard, for it knows nothing of Germans slaughtering Russians and Russians Germans! Oh, for some dark garret in which to hide, as when a boy I used to hide from my stepfather! “How shall I fly from thy spirit?”

I ought to be thankful that from childhood I have never been in the habit of dreaming; sleep does afford me a certain forgetfulness and rest, but no sooner do I wake than an unbearable irritation takes possession of my