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

think it’s too light!” returned Alexis hotly, as he snatched the paperweight from my hand and flourished it by its thin handle several times in the air. “Just try it!”

“Yes, I know⁠ ⁠…”

“No, take hold and see.”

I smiled, as unwillingly I took the heavy object. Just then Tatiana Nikolayevna interfered. Pale, her teeth chattering, she said, or rather shrieked:

“Stop that, Alexis, stop that!”

“Why, Tanya? What is the matter with you?” said he in an astonished tone.

“Stop that! You know I don’t like such jokes.”

We laughed, and the paperweight was replaced on the table.

On my visit to Professor T⁠⸺ everything happened as I had anticipated. He was cautious, controlled in his utterances and grave; he inquired whether I had any relatives in whose care I could trust myself; he counselled me to go home, take a rest and live quietly. Assuming the privilege due me as a member of the medical profession, I made a slight attempt at remonstrance. My boldness removed whatever doubts may have remained in the physician’s mind, and he definitely placed me in the ranks of the demented. I trust, gentlemen experts, you will not attribute undue significance to this harmless jest aimed against one of our colleagues. As a scholar, Professor T⁠⸺ undoubtedly deserves respect and honor.

The few days which followed were among the happiest of my life. Sympathy was extended me in my role of invalid, visits were paid me, and everyone addressed me in a broken, clumsy tongue. Only I knew that I was perfectly healthy, and I enjoyed to the full the well-planned, mighty labor of my mind. In a consideration of all that is wonderful and incomprehensible of life’s riches, nothing can be found to equal the human mind. There is divinity in it, a pledge of immorality and an indomitable force acknowledging no obstacles. People are overcome with ecstacy and wonderment when they behold the snowy summits of huge mountains. If they only would understand themselves, neither mountains, nor all the wonders and beauties of the earth, could transport them to such a degree as the consciousness of the power of thought. The simple mental process of the laborer as he expediently lays one brick upon the other⁠—that is the supreme marvel and the deepest mystery.

I enjoyed my thought. Innocent in her beauty, she gave herself up to me with passion as a mistress; served me like a slave; and upheld me like a friend. Don’t take it for granted that all these days spent at home between the four walls were employed only in thinking about my project. No, that was all clear and prepared. I meditated upon many things. I and my thought played with life and death and soared high, high above them. Among other things I solved during those days two very interesting chess problems over which I had labored for a long time without success. Probably you are aware of the fact that three years ago I participated in the international chess tourney and was second only to Lasker. Had I not been an avowed enemy of publicity and continued to contend, Lasker would have been compelled to surrender his kingdom.

From the moment that the life of Alexis was delivered in my hands I was strangely disposed towards him. It was pleasant for me to think that he lived, drank, ate and rejoiced, simply because I permitted it. It was a feeling akin to that of a father toward a son. What alarmed me was his health. Notwithstanding his ill health, he was unpardonably careless, refusing to wear a waist-jacket and venturing outdoors without galoshes in the most threatening, raw weather. Tatiana Nikolayevna reassured me. She paid me a visit and told me that Alexis was in sound health and even slept well, which was unusual for him. Overjoyed, I requested Tatiana Nikolayevna to take with her a gift I had intended to make Alexis⁠—a rare volume which accidentally fell into my hands and had struck for some time the literary man’s fancy. Possibly the gift was a mistake from the standpoint of my plan. My action could be suspected as a premeditated manoeuvre; but I wished so much to afford Alexis pleasure that I decided to run a small risk. I even ignored the circumstance that the gift sacrificed something of the artistic effect of my play.

Upon this occasion I was very amiable and frank, and made a favorable impression on Tatiana Nikolayevna. Neither she nor Alexis had witnessed a single one of my attacks, and hence it was difficult, even impossible, for them to imagine me as mad.

“Come and see us,” said Tatiana Nikolayevna at parting.

“Musn’t do it,” said I smilingly. “Doctor forbade.”

“Oh, fiddlesticks! That doesn’t mean us. In our house you are at home. And Alexis misses you.”

I promised, and never did I make a promise with such assurance of fulfillment as this one. When reflecting upon these happy coincidences, does it not strike you, gentlemen experts, that Alexis had been condemned not by me alone, but also by someone else? In truth, however, there was no one else. Nothing could be more simple or logical.

The cast-iron paperweight lay in its place, when on the eleventh of December, five o’clock in the afternoon, I entered the drawing-room of the Saveloffs. Both Alexis and Tatiana had been accustomed to rest the hour preceding dinner, which usually occurred at seven o’clock. They greeted me effusively.

“Thanks for the book, brother,” said Alexis, grasping my hand. “I was about to visit you, when Tanya told me that you were quite well again. We are going to the theatre this evening. Will you join us?”

A conversation began. I decided not to dissemble at all that evening⁠—it was an occasion when the absence of dissembling was the subtlest kind of dissembling⁠—and giving myself up to the mental exhilaration of the moment, I spoke at length and well. If the admirers of Saveloff’s glories only knew how many of “his” best ideas had their inception and development in the brain of