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

I bought them some fruit from a stand: a thing I had not done for a long time. I rather fear now that it may upset their little stomachs. Jena has grown so thin that it makes my heart ache to look at him. His eyes are pensive like Lidotchka’s. He used to be such a happy little fellow! Has the trouble affected him too?

A horrible fear has come over me again, I must go to bed, even though I can’t sleep; it may prevent horrible thoughts from entering my head. The children⁠ ⁠… Russia.⁠ ⁠…

I haven’t seen Sashenka today. She came home when I was at the office, and has not been able to get away again, I suppose. I am sorry I did not see her. I wanted to go to the hospital, but after my long absence I was afraid it might look funny.

Sashenka, Sashenka, my dear!

This, then, is the meaning of Russia!

29th July.

Depression and despair once again. I awoke for a brief moment and got a glimpse of reality, and again I have lapsed into sleep, eternal and restless. The newspapers fill one with horror. A dreadful rumour is abroad, and the office is full of incredible tales. They say Warsaw has fallen, and a great many other things, about which it would be best to keep silent. I have no faith in the Duma, but I should like to see it convoked.

I am afraid.

1st August.

The town is in a state of depression; the people in the streets look grave. Only some hooligan may be seen to laugh, or a contractor, portly and unscrupulous, who stalks along in sublime indifference. The pig!

As I write these words the Germans may be entering Warsaw. When I close my eyes I see them as plainly as on the film of a kinematograph, with their pointed helmets, marching victoriously through the ruined, deserted streets, past blazing houses. I remember how the men in our office used to joke about Wilhelm’s presumptuousness, the stories they used to tell of his having declared he would dine in Paris and sup in Warsaw, and the like; and while the fools were enjoying the joke, the Germans have come! they are here! What can we do? The disgrace of it!

How could we have been so blind as not to foresee the danger? Again I shut my eyes and see their pointed helmets, the flames, the panic-stricken inhabitants crouching behind the houses. What is the use of their hiding? Supposing it were not Petrograd where I sat writing in the dead of night, but in Warsaw, with the Germans marching across the bridge, entering the town.⁠ ⁠… Horrible thought! A loud knock comes at my door, and a German walks in and looks about him, strutting from room to room as though the place belonged to him. He questions me with a rifle in his hand, and keeps from shooting me down only out of a feeling of charity. How would I look into his blue Teutonic eyes? Would I smile to him, out of politeness only, of course, but would I? No!

I shall not sleep tonight.

8th August.

The Duma has met, and the sittings are in progress. I pray for fortitude when I read and reread the reports of the terrible speeches. I devour each sentence with my eyes. There must be some mistake. It can’t be that there are no shells! No shells! Shells were promised, but our men were left in the lurch! Our gallant soldiers tried to stay the Germans with their naked hands! To think of it! What is the country coming to?

I don’t understand. There must be something wrong. What about the people who prayed in the Kazan Square? How dared they call upon God when they betrayed our men? But was it the people who betrayed? I heard their prayers, and I prayed with them; I saw their hot tears and their anguish, but there was no sign of the fear and shame the guilty must feel before the all-seeing eyes of God. Was it then different people who prayed, and different people who betrayed? I don’t know, but I feel sure that the country is not guilty; I could swear to that by the life of my children! Something is wrong somewhere.

I can’t convey the impression I got when I first read the speeches of the Duma members. A big German shell seemed to have burst in my brain, deafening, blinding, and shaking me to the very roots of my being. It seemed to deprive me of human speech; I could only jabber unintelligibly and look horror-stricken. Everyone seemed to be affected in the same way. Even the fellows in the office, who always talked so lightly and decided all questions so easily, were almost speechless with consternation. They couldn’t work, and sat about in their shirt sleeves, red as boiled lobsters, devouring the papers, and making the office-boy run for every new edition. When they had had their fill, they set up an uproar, banging their fists on the table and shouting:

“I told you so!”

“What did I say?”

“No one would listen to me!”

“It was you who would not listen, I maintained.⁠ ⁠…”

One and all had maintained and prophesied, and the mischief had come through no one listening to them. And who had taken Tsar-Grad, and walked through the streets of Berlin, and even bought a tie in some shop on the Freidrich Strasse? They had all forgotten that.

The thing that surprises me most about them is the way they’ll say the most horrible things to each other⁠—things one would think that would keep any man awake for a week⁠—and then be as chummy as possible together. It seemed as if they were anxious to show off the good spirit in the office. After the most abusive argument one will begin on “Satirikon,” another will collect subscriptions for some choice refreshment, to be consumed in the back room, far