Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

within him, remained not only unextinguished during the seven years of his revolutionary activity, but fanned by the affection and esteem of those among whom he moved, burned more and more fiercely.

He attached no importance to the fact that he had given away for the cause almost all his fortune (inherited from his father), nor to the hardships and privations which he often had to encounter in the course of his activity. The only thing that grieved him was the sorrow he was causing to his mother and her ward⁠—a girl who lived with her and loved him.

At last one of his comrades⁠—a terrorist whom he did not much like, a disagreeable man⁠—when tracked by the police, asked Svetlogoúb to hide some dynamite in his house. Just because he did not like that comrade, Svetlogoúb agreed; and the next day the police searched the house and found the dynamite. When asked how the dynamite had come into his possession, Svetlogoúb refused to answer.

And now the martyrdom he expected began. At that time, after so many of his friends had been executed, imprisoned, or exiled, and so many women had suffered, Svetlogoúb almost desired martyrdom. During the first moments after his arrest and examination he felt a peculiar exultation and almost joy.

He felt this while he was being undressed and searched, and while he was being led to prison, and when the iron doors were locked upon him. But when one day passed, and another, and a third, a week, two weeks, three weeks, in the dirty, damp, vermin-infested cell, in loneliness and enforced idleness, varied only by cheerless or bad news, which his comrades and fellow-prisoners communicated by tapping on the walls of their cells; and by occasional examinations by cold, hostile men who tried to torment him into incriminating his comrades, his moral⁠—and with it his physical⁠—strength gradually began to give way. He became despondent and, as he said to himself, longed for this insufferable position to end one way or another. His despondency was aggravated by doubts of his own endurance. In the second month of his incarceration he detected himself thinking of revealing the whole truth: anything to be free! He was appalled at this weakness, but could no longer find in himself his former strength; and, hating and despising himself, became more despondent than ever. But what was most terrible was the fact that, in prison, he began to regret the youthful powers and pleasures he had sacrificed so lightly when he was free, and which now appeared so enchanting that he almost repented of doing what he had once considered right, and sometimes even of the whole of his activity. Thoughts came to him of how happy he would be if he had liberty, living in the country or abroad, free, among loving and beloved friends; how he might marry her, or perhaps another, and with her might live a simple, joyous, bright life.

IV

On one of the painfully monotonous days of the second month of Svetlogoúb’s imprisonment, the inspector, while making his daily round, handed him a little book with a gilt cross on its brown binding, saying that the Governor’s wife had visited the prison and had left some Testaments, and that permission had been granted to distribute them among the prisoners. Svetlogoúb thanked him, and smiled slightly as he put the book on the little table screwed fast to the wall. When the inspector had gone, Svetlogoúb informed his neighbour by tapping that the inspector had been, and had said nothing new, but had left a Testament. The neighbour replied that he also had received one.

After dinner Svetlogoúb opened the book, the pages of which stuck together from the damp, and began to read. He had never before read the gospels as a book, and knew them only as he had gone through them with the Scripture teacher at school, and as the priests and deacons chanted them in church.

“Chapter 1: The book of the generation of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham⁠ ⁠… Isaac begat Jacob, Jacob begat Judah⁠ ⁠…” and he went on to read: “Zorubbabel begat Abiud.⁠ ⁠…”

All this was just what he expected⁠—some kind of involved, worthless jargon. Had he not been in prison he could not have read a single page to the end; but here he went on reading for the sake of the mechanical act of reading⁠—“Just like Gógol’s Petroúsha,” he thought to himself. He read the first chapter, about the Virgin Birth and the prophecy which said that the newborn child would be named Emmanuel, which meant “God with us.”

“But where does the prophecy come in?” he thought, and went on reading the second chapter, about the wandering star; and the third, about John who ate locusts; and the fourth, about some devil who suggested to Christ a gymnastic performance from a roof. All this seemed so uninteresting to him that, in spite of the dullness of the prison, he was about to close the book and start on his usual evening occupation⁠—flea-hunting on the shirt he took off⁠—when suddenly he remembered how at an examination of the fifth class at school he had forgotten one of the Beatitudes, and how the rosy-faced, curly-headed priest had suddenly grown angry and given him a bad mark. He could not recollect the text, so he began reading the Beatitudes. “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” he read. “This might relate also to us,” he thought. “Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you.⁠ ⁠… Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast