Leonid Andreyev

“ Tall Tourist. Say, have you any idea of what you have done? Do you realize the enormity of it? You are scoundrels, who for your own sordid personal ends have impiously exploited the finest human sentiment, love of one’s neighbor. You have caused us to undergo fear and suffering. You have poisoned our hearts with pity. And now, what is the upshot of it all? The upshot is that this scamp, your vile accomplice, is bound to the rock and not only will he not fall as everybody expects, but he can’t.
Military Woman. What is the matter? He has got to fall.
Tourist. Policeman! Policeman! ”

“ The Salvation Army man continues to beat his drum frantically; the rest begin to drawl a song. Shouts, laughter, whistling. Singing in the café, and calls of “Waiter!” in all languages. The bewildered policemen tear themselves away from the pastor, who is pulling them somewhere; the photographers turn and twist about as if the seats were burning under them. An English lady comes riding in on a donkey, who, stopping suddenly, sprawls out his legs and refuses to go farther, adding his noise to the rest. Gradually the noise subsides. ”

“ The devil! When a man’s in a hurry—
Second Photographer. Brother, your camera is closed.
Photographer. The devil take it.
Voices. Hush! He’s getting ready to fall.— No, he’s saying something.—No, he’s falling.—Hush!
Unknown Man on the Rock (faintly) . Save me! Save me!
Tourist. Ah, poor young man. Mary, Jimmie, there’s a tragedy for you. The sky is clear, the weather is beautiful, and has he to fall and be shattered to death? Can you realize how dreadful that is, Aleck?
Student (wearily) . Yes, I can realize it.
Tourist. Mary, can you realize it? Imagine. There is the sky. ”

“ Jimmie, you remember Hamlet? Quick.
Unknown Man (angrily) . Tell him my spinal column is broken.
Mary (wearily) . Papa, children, he’s beginning to kick with his legs.
Kate. Is that what is called convulsions, papa?
Tourist (rapturously) . I don’t know. I think it is. What a tragedy?
Aleck (glumly) . You fool! You keep cramming and cramming and you don’t know that the right name for that is agony. And you wear eye-glasses, too. I can’t bear it any longer, papa.
Tourist. Think of it, children. A man is about to fall down to his death and he is bothering about his spinal column. ”

“ Adulterer, thief, murderer, coveter of your neighbor’s ass—
Photographer. Ladies and gentlemen, an ass!
Second Photographer. Where, where is an ass?
Photographer (calmed) . I thought I heard one.
Second Photographer. It is you who are an ass. I have become cross-eyed on account of your shouting: “An ass! An ass!”
Mary (wearily) . Papa, children, look! A policeman is coming.
(Excitement and noise. On one side a crowd pulling a policeman, on the other the hotel keeper; both keep crying: “Excuse me! Excuse me!”)
Tourist. Policeman, there he is, the fakir, the swindler. ”

“ Tall Tourist (with heat) . We are not heathens, we are Christians. We should love our neighbors. When a man asks to be saved every measure which the government has at its command should be taken to save him. Policeman, have you taken every measure?
Policeman. Every one!
Tall Tourist. Every one without exception? Gentleman, every measure has been taken. Listen, young man, every measure has been taken to save you. ”

“ Tourist. What knowledge is required? A man will fall. That’s all.
Military Woman (mimicking) . “A man will fall. That’s all.” Won’t you have the goodness to tell me whether you have ever seen a man fall? No? Well, I did. Not one, but three. Two acrobats, one rope-walker and three aeronauts.
Tourist. That makes six.
Military Woman (mimicking) . “That makes six.” Say, you are a mathematical prodigy. And did you ever see a tiger tear a woman to pieces in a zoo, right before your eyes? ”

“ POETRY is an effort to create an organ for the art. While the ordinary magazines must minister to a large public little interested in poetry, this magazine appeals to and will develop a public primarily interested in poetry as an art, potentially the highest, most complete human expression of truth and beauty. ”

“ Salvation Army Man (frantically beating his drum and shouting in a nasal voice) . Brethren and sisters—
Pastor (shouting even louder in a still more nasal voice in an effort to drown the other’s) . He has already confessed. Bear witness, ladies and gentlemen, that he has confessed and made his peace with heaven.
Salvation Army Woman (climbing on a rock and shrieking) . I once wandered in the dark just as this sinner and I lived a bad life and was a drunkard, but when the light of truth—
A Voice. Why, she is drunk now.
Pastor. Policeman, didn’t he confess and make his peace with heaven? ”

“ It seems that the unhappy man has been in that desperate position a long time. A considerable crowd has already collected, extremely varied in composition. There are venders of cold drinks; there is a whole little bar behind which the bartender skips about out of breath and perspiring—he has more on his hands than he can attend to; there are peddlers selling picture postal cards, coral beads, souvenirs, and all sorts of trash. One fellow is stubbornly trying to dispose of a tortoise-shell comb, which is really not tortoise-shell. ”

“ Policeman. Get away, you loafer! The man’ll fall on your head and then your mother and father will be making a hullabaloo about it.
Boy. Will he fall here?
Policeman. Yes, here.
Boy. Suppose he drops farther?
Second Policeman. The boy is right. He may get desperate and jump, land beyond the rope and hit some people in the crowd. I guess he weighs at least about two hundred pounds.
First Policeman. Move on, move on, you! Where are you going? Is that your daughter, lady? Please take her away! The young man will soon fall. ”

“ A man in an attitude of despair is standing on a tiny projection of a rock that rises almost sheer from the ground. How he got there it is not easy to say, but he cannot be reached either from above or below. Short ladders, ropes and sticks show that attempts have been made to save the unknown person, but without success. ”

“ Each issue will be devoted exclusively to one individual, thereby giving him an opportunity to present his work in sufficient bulk to make it possible for the reader to obtain a much more comprehensive grasp of his personality than is afforded him in the restricted space allotted by the other magazines. ”

“ Tourists keep pouring in from all sides, attracted by the report that a catastrophe is impending—Englishmen, Americans, Germans, Russians, Frenchmen, Italians, etc., with all their peculiar national traits of character, manner and dress. Nearly all carry alpenstocks, field-glasses and cameras. ”

“ The air is shaken with the people’s groans. The minister of the church exhorts the criminal, that is, the unfortunate man, in touching language.—The unfortunate creature with tears in his eyes thanks him in a faint voice—
Unknown Man (faintly) . If you won’t go away I will jump on your head. I weigh three hundred pounds. (All jump away frightened behind each other.)
Voices. He is falling! He is falling!
Tourist (agitatingly) . Mary, Aleck, Jimmie.
Policeman (energetically) . ”

“ At the foot of the rock where the unknown man is to fall, two policemen are chasing the children away and partitioning off a space, drawing a rope around short stakes stuck in the ground. It is noisy and jolly. ”

“ Policeman? No? Nellie, you go. I’ll stay here and keep the place for papa.
(A tall, lanky woman of unusually independent and military appearance and a tourist dispute for the same place. The tourist, a short, quiet, rather weak man, feebly defends his rights; the woman is resolute and aggressive.) ”