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

himself and others. When a man begins to count other men, he loses all values and every sense of pity. Here is an example of my meaning in a few words taken out of my paper, reporting some engagement. “Our losses were insignificant; only two killed and five wounded.”

Who considers these losses insignificant, I wonder? Is it the killed? I should like to hear what they had to say on the subject, if they could rise from their graves! Would they consider the losses insignificant when they recalled their childhood, their kith and kin, the women they had loved, their emotions and terror as they marched along, and how all was cut short by the horror of death.⁠ ⁠… Insignificant losses, indeed! The blackguard ought to be made to realise whom it is that he serves with his clever arithmetic to keep him from his lying statements regarding the welfare of the human race about which he is so ignorant.

Condfound the beggar, how furious he’s made me!

The children are well. Lidotchka has lost two milk teeth, making her face look sweeter than ever. It’s nice to have a clever child. During my illness she read me fairy tales, spelling out each word.

11th March.

Fimotchka has just made an interesting discovery. Just before the war, she says, red was very much in fashion. Women wore red dresses, and hats and ribbons and all the other little requisites peculiar to the sex. As far as I can remember, this seems to be true. I wonder if it was not some presentiment of the bloodshed that was to come? How blind the people were to have considered it an attractive colour! No one wears red now; as a colour it seems to have disappeared, washed out by wind and rain. In what darkness must man grope, when the choice of his garments is not left to his free will!

I am tired, and not drawn to my diary. I have so much to do and so little time. The confounded war simply eats up the money. No matter how hard you work, you cannot earn enough.

I don’t know whether I’ve grown indifferent to the wholesale murder going on, or that I take a saner view of things, but I can read about twenty thousand killed and calmly light a cigarette. I no longer devour the papers too, as in the early days, when I was always rushing round the corner for the new editions, in all weathers. It doesn’t do any good.

Sashenka is at the hospital as usual, and the house just as disorderly as before, but I’ve got used to that too, and hardly notice what food I eat. Mother is like a shadow in the house; you would hardly know she was there. To drive away my depression, I have taken to teaching Lidotchka, and to read fairy tales to her. She is a dear child! In our gloomiest moments she lights up our house like a sacred lamp.

I have another confession to make which will not meet with the approval of the serious-minded. I have no need of their approval, thank God. Fimotchka called one day when Sashenka was out, and seeing how depressed I was, taught me to play Patience. It’s a silly game for a grown man to play, but if you happen to be in the condition when you can neither take in what you read nor what’s being said to you, it’s very comforting, and gets so interesting sometimes that you forget about your sleep. I tried to teach Mother the game, but she either couldn’t or wouldn’t understand; she seemed to look upon it as an attempt on my part to interfere with her legitimate grief.

I came across a curious saying in the calendar: “If you don’t learn to play cards in your youth, you are storing up a sad old age.”

It’s not a question of playing cards. One would jump at anything at a time like this.

I’m tired.

18th March.

I got a letter from Andrei Vasilevitch. After expressing his sympathy over Pavel’s death (he was very fond of Pavel) he asks me to excuse him for writing so seldom, on the plea of being busy and tired. In answer to certain questions of mine, he gives me this unexpected piece of advice, “Learn from the Germans.” Here is an extract from his extraordinary letter: “I don’t like the Germans, but I think we would do well to learn from them, especially those of you in the rear. Mark how the Germans build up the walls of their state, and how wise they are in their self-abnegation. Knowing that you can’t build a good, steady wall from all sorts of irregularly-shaped materials, every German voluntarily rubs off his corners and projecting parts to make himself into an even brick. From these bricks alone you get a good wall, and when the mortar is added you get the soundest of walls, not, as with us, a ramshackle affair, full of holes. Don’t be afraid, but learn from the Germans, Ilya Petrovitch!”

Excellent! A moment ago I was a “cell” and now I am to turn myself into a brick. And the fact that I am a man I am persistently asked to forget. Ilya Petrovitch is in future to be called brick number so-and-so.

For the sake of argument I consent to be a brick, but who is to be the architect and the unscrupulous contractor? Must I submit if the architect builds a brothel instead of a temple or a palace? No, Andrei Vasilevitch, I am not a “cell” nor a “brick,” but Ilya Petrovitch, the same as I always was and mean to remain to the end of my days. There are many “bricks” and “cells” in the world of one and the same pattern, but I am the one and only Ilya Petrovitch, and there never will be another man like me. With every ounce of strength I possess I will hold myself