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

the truth, I went cold with horror. I stood waiting for the arrival of the train, unable to picture the sight I was to see.

And when they arrived, and men without arms and legs were carried out, and the blind and the halt hobbled along, and the band struck up in honour of the warriors’ return, my heart melted within me, and I wept with the rest of the crowd. When I shut my eyes, I could not hear the sound of voices; I only heard the sound of feet and crutches along the platform, and the strains of the music.⁠ ⁠… I couldn’t understand what was happening. I understood no better when I opened my eyes. In bright-coloured shirts of blue and red they came, as gay as bridegrooms, but their arms and legs were gone.⁠ ⁠… Were these, then, the new bridegrooms of Mother Russia? Who was I to look at them?

What a picture they made when they were seated at the table where a meal had been prepared for them! The tears rolled down their cheeks and salted the bread of their native land that they were eating. How weary their faces looked! They seemed as dear and familiar to me as the face of an old friend. Speeches were made to welcome them home.⁠ ⁠… And as I stood watching a blind little pockmarked man near me, who couldn’t carry his spoon to his mouth, I felt that the earth ought to open and swallow me up. At that moment a young officer caught the eye of one of his men, a little fellow who had lost an arm. The officer came up, and the two smiled to each other, and when I saw that smile I could endure it no longer. I turned away, and pushing my way out of the crowd, I walked over to a remote corner of the station, and prostrated myself three times to the ground.

Ah, my bridegrooms in bright-coloured shirts! How heavily do the wedding crowns rest on your brows, and how burning hot are the wedding rings that will join you forever to your native land!

Forgive me, a sinner and outcast!

20th September.

Sashenka, my dear friend, from the short letter you will find on the table, you will see that you must seek for the explanation of my death in this diary. Read it carefully, my dear, read it in a friendly spirit, and you will understand, and perhaps approve of my resolve to quit a life where I was so superfluous, and where I suffered so much. I know you love me. I have a sacred belief in your love. I will carry this belief to our dear Lidotchka in her solitude that I am soon to join with so much joy and gladness. Yes, with joy and gladness, Sashenka. Don’t worry yourself with the thought that I died suffering, that I died in terror. I am glad to cast off this wearisome life. I am but a weak creature, Sashenka. For three weeks I have kept from you the knowledge that I have lost my work, and that we were faced with starvation. I was ashamed to confess my inefficiency in the battle of life. Another, a stronger man, would have got out of his difficulties, and found himself some other work, but I couldn’t. What was the good of me? To live on public charity I have no right and no desire to do. There are men who have more claim on the public than I. I saw a company of wounded arrive at the station yesterday, and the bitterness of their lot made me weep. These are the men the public must help.

As for you, my sad beauty, my heart of gold, I am no longer a young man, and my person could not have been attractive to you⁠—it was only your goodness of heart that induced you to love me. When I am gone you will be free; I only stood in your way. I was but a poor husband to you! I did not lead you with a firm hand along the difficult path of life, nor did I illumine the darkness for you with the light of my wisdom. I was unkind, petty and egoistic. I could hide my head with shame when I think of the way I used to blame you for my digestion. It was I, too, who tried to drag you away from yourself-denying work at the hospital. I complained of not being able to look after the children, forgetting that you had learned the more difficult task of looking after the wounded. To think of the injured expression I used to put on whenever you came home, or when I visited you at the hospital, and criticised your arrangements! Please, dear, forget one thing⁠—forget what I said to you when Lidotchka died. Wipe out those base words from your memory and the cruel reproaches, or I shall never be able to rest in my grave.

When the children grow up, so that they may have no cause to be ashamed of their father, don’t tell them what you know about me. Sashenka, I have been cursed by Mother Russia. I heard her voice plainly yesterday when I saw our blind and maimed heroes as they returned from Germany. They were our defenders, Sashenka, yours and mine; it broke my heart to see their misery. The few useless tears I shed would never have seen the light of day had I not strolled by accident into the railway station. “Be thou accursed, base son!” I heard the voice of Russia say. It was not delusion, Sashenka, it wasn’t a dream; I heard it as plainly as could be.

You may think it madness. It would pain me to have you think that. There was a time when I was mad, dear, but that was in the days before I heard Russia’s voice, in the days when I used to beat my