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

towards these men⁠—not so much to what they stood for⁠—I had no clear knowledge of that⁠—as to the men themselves, to the infamy in their faces. Horrible crowd!

I was so struck by a certain black moustached man among them that I forgot, for a time, the hopelessness of my own position. He was not old, robust and strong, and the only one among the rabble who was well-dressed; he held himself with a calmness and dignity that inspired awe. He listened more than he spoke, smiling now and again, and refused to shake hands with a grubby man who approached him. Neither the man nor anyone else paid any heed to that; it was taken as a matter of course. Once he let his black eye fall on me, cruel and indifferent; and, knowing him by instinct to be the rogue and swindler he was, still felt the servile impulse to incline my head in an ingratiating way. I don’t suppose he noticed me, or if he did, he must have soon sized me up at my true value, and turned his attention to someone else. He allowed no one to pay for his tea when he got up to go; but five men followed him to the door, deferential even to his back. I learned afterwards from the remarks of the others, that the man had made several millions. Three or four was the figure mentioned, but even if half had been exaggerated, it still left the sufficient sum of two millions.

I thought of the man for the rest of the day after I had left the café. What had he done to earn two millions? What robberies and treacheries did they represent? What manner of man must he be? What kind of soul must he possess to be so calm, to fear neither the bloodshed, nor God, nor the devil? I found it hard to believe that he was made of the same stuff as myself. I marvelled as I tried to recall his face, his powerful, robust figure, his calmness. I compared him to mother during dinner⁠—mother who grudged herself every morsel she ate. I tried to recall Pavel, and the awful moment when informed her of his death, and still more did I marvel at the mysteries of human life.

No amount of reflection on the rights and wrongs of it could have so completely killed the desire to take my share of the plunder as the sight of that man. To be a big rogue, you must be born a big rogue, and I haven’t the quickness, the ease of manner, nor lightness of heart to make a small one. It is given to some men to possess millions, to others a conscience⁠—a truly wise division of wealth!

11th September.

I’ve had a fit of extravagance. I enjoyed my supper.

Earlier in the day I went into Eliseyev’s and, throwing a rouble on the counter in the lordly way of a man who possessed four millions, I asked for a pound of Moscow sausage of which mother and the children are very fond. Why shouldn’t they enjoy a good meal for once, and think kindly of the man who was able to supply it? I bought two pounds of choice sweets, too, and two thousand cigarettes, which I took to Sashenka for her soldiers. I received her tender kiss and thanks without the smallest qualms of conscience. I hadn’t courage enough to rob in the café, but didn’t mind robbing at home.

Despite the satisfaction of a hearty meal, I am filled with remorse at this moment, as though I had indeed committed a robbery in the highway. A full stomach, however, is stronger than remorse and conscience, and I soon began to yawn with the callousness of a millionaire. This is the first time I have felt sleepy since I lost my work.

12th September.

I did not sleep, however, even though I did feel sleepy. I no sooner got to bed than all desire for sleep left me. I lay tossing about or smoking the whole night trying to think of some honest work I could do. A waiter in a restaurant seemed to me a possible idea, or a tram-conductor since men were scarce now, but with morning and the sun, I realised the futility of it. How could I do a waiter’s difficult task with my poor health and inexperience. Such work was not for me!

14th September.

I am getting to know Petrograd as well as a tourist or a philosopher. I spend hours staring at monuments as though I had never seen them before. I try to understand their symbolic meaning. I inspect the palaces and new buildings. I am quite stirred by good architecture. With the greatest interest did I walk round the new Turkish Mosque near the Troitsky Bridge, to get a good view of it from all sides. I felt as though I were travelling in the Far East. I had my lunch on a bench in the Square, and meditated on the many different religions. I went into the Alexander III Museum and admired the pictures. Acquaintances, only, I can’t bear to meet, and disappear down a side street when I catch sight of one in the distance.

About the doings of the Germans I only learn from the staff bulletins on the public notices; I never buy any newspapers now. To judge by people’s countenances, things are going badly with us, and the Germans are still advancing. I don’t know how it will end, and I care very little; my own end will come first. It escaped my notice, somehow, that on the 3rd of the month Grodno was taken.

A ghost among the living, I abandon myself for hours together to ghostly reflections. I can see life as an outsider; I seem to get a bird’s-eye view of it from above, I philosophise; mentally I arrange the affairs of men and governments. The rumbling