Leonid Andreyev

“ This mean whisper worked me up into a rage, and I stamped on the floor and cried:
"There is no lie! I killed the lie."
Then I purposely turned aside, for I knew what it would reply. And it did reply slowly from the depths of the bottomless abyss:
"Lie!"
The fact is, as you perceive, that I had made a grievous mistake. I had killed the woman, but made the lie immortal. Kill not a woman till you have, by prayer, by fire, and torture, torn from her soul the truth!
So thought I, and continued my endless tramp from corner to corner of the cell. ”

“ The cage was gently and tenderly silent; and grief and tears, and far-away dead laughter were felt in that silence. The silence of his wife, softened by the intervening walls, was obstinate, heavy as lead; and terrible, so terrible that Father Ignaty turned cold on the hottest day. Endless, cold as the grave, mysterious as death, was the silence of his daughter. It was as though the silence were a torture to itself, and as though it longed passionately to pass into speech, but that something strong and dull as a machine, held it motionless, and stretched it like a wire. ”

“ Kneeling there with clasped hands, Sashka looked at her with dislike, and rudely repeated:
"Give me the little angel."
His eyes, fixed intently on the lady to catch the first word she should utter, were anything but good to look at, and the hostess answered hurriedly:
"Well, then, I'll give it to you. Ah! what a stupid you are! I will give you what you want, but why could you not wait till the New Year?"
"Stand up! And never," she added in a didactic tone, "never kneel to any one: it is humiliating. Kneel before God alone." ”

“ It was still as death, and it seemed as though some one suddenly jumped out from a corner, or that some horrible, terrible face appeared through the aperture left by a broken window. By degrees Petka began to feel quite at home at the bungalow, and he forgot that there was any Osip Abramovich or barber’s shop in the world.
“Just look how he is putting on flesh! He’s a regular merchant!” Nadejda at this time would exclaim with delight.
She was stout enough herself and her face shone with the heat of the kitchen like a copper samovar. ”

“ Sitting down on the neighbouring tomb, and sighing repeatedly. Father Ignaty looked round, cast a glance at the cloudless desert sky, in which the red-hot disc of the sun hung suspended in perfect immobility—and then only did he become conscious of that profound stillness, like nothing else in the world, which holds sway over a cemetery, when there is not a breath of wind to rustle the dead leaves. And once more the thought came to Father Ignaty, that this was not stillness, but silence. It overflowed to the very brick walls of the cemetery, climbed heavily over them, and submerged the city. ”

“ There everything is pure, joyful, bright. And all this purity found an asylum in the soul of her whom he loved more than life, and had lost—when he had kept his hold upon his own useless life. With the smell of wax, which emanated from the toy, was mingled a subtle aroma, and it seemed to the broken man that her dear fingers touched the angel, those fingers which he would fain have caressed in one long kiss, till death should close his lips forever. This was why the little toy was so beautiful, this was why there was in it something specially attractive, which defied description. ”

“ And every passer-by was a separate microcosm, with his own rules and aims of life, with his own affinity, whom he loved, with his own separate joys and sorrows, and each was like a ghost, which appeared for a moment and then disappeared inexplicably and unrecognized. And the more people there were, who were unknown to one another, the more terrible became the solitude of each. And during those black, rumbling nights Petrov often felt inclined to cry out in fear, and to betake himself to the deep cellar, in order to be there perfectly alone. ”

“ THE LITTLE ANGEL I
At times Sashka wished to give up what is called living: to cease to wash every morning in cold water, on which thin sheets of ice floated about; to go no more to the grammar school, and there to have to listen to every one scolding him; no more to experience the pain in the small of his back and indeed over his whole body when his mother made him kneel in the corner all the evening. ”

“ But suddenly Sashka’s narrow eyes gleamed with astonishment, and his face in a moment resumed its ordinary expression of audacity and self-confidence. On the side of the tree turned towards him—which was the back of it, and less brightly illumined than the other side—he discovered something such as had never come within the circle of his existence, and without which all his surroundings appeared as empty as though peopled by persons without life. It was a little angel in wax carelessly hung in the thickest of the dark boughs, and looking as if it were floating in the air. ”

“ On Sundays, when the windows of the stores and shops ceased to illuminate the street, those of the hair-dresser’s till late at night cast a bright sheaf of light upon the pavement, and the passer-by might observe a little thin figure huddled upon his seat in the corner, and immersed in something between thought and a heavy slumber. Petka slept a great deal, but still for some reason or other he was always wanting to sleep, and it often seemed to him that all around him was not real, but a very unpleasant dream. ”

“ More frightened than at the sight of a corpse risen from the grave, would have been any one who had met this wild figure of a man running, leaping, waving his arms—if he had recognized his mad, distorted face, and heard the dull rattle that escaped from his open mouth.
At full run Father Ignaty jumped out upon the little square at the end of which stood the low white mortuary chapel. In the porch on a little bench there dozed an old man who looked like a pilgrim from afar, and near him two old beggar-women were flying at one another, quarrelling and scolding. ”

“ When Father Ignaty reached home, it was already getting dark, and the lamp was lit in Olga Stepanovna’s room. Without change of clothes or removing his hat, torn and dusty, he came hurriedly to his wife and fell on his knees.
“Mother—Olga—pity me!” he sobbed; “I am going out of my mind.”
He beat his head against the edge of the table, and sobbed tumultuously, painfully, as a man does who never weeps. He lifted his head, confident that in a moment a miracle would be performed, and that his wife would speak, and pity him. ”

“ Strange things are dreams. One sees the whole past, one loves and suffers as though it were reality.”
Again he was silent, and Sashka felt his arm tremble as it lay upon his neck. The trembling and pressure of his father’s arm became stronger and stronger, and the sensitive silence of the night was all at once broken by the pitiful sobbing sound of suppressed weeping. Sashka sternly puckered his brow, and cautiously—so as not to disturb the heavy trembling arm—wiped away a tear from his eyes. So strange was it to see a big old man crying. ”

“ But the most terrible thing of all was, that in all the houses there lived human beings, and about all the streets were moving human beings. There were a multitude of them, and all of them were unknown to him—strangers; and all of them lived their own separate life, hidden from the eyes of others; they were without interruption being born, and dying, and there was no beginning nor end to this stream. Whenever Petrov went to the bank, or out for a walk, he saw the same familiar, well-known houses, and everything appeared to him simply an old acquaintance ”

“ She knew that I could not prove her lie, and that all my heavy massive structure of torturing thought would crumble at one word from her, even one lying word. I waited for it—and it came forth from her lips, sparkling on the surface with the colours of truth, but dark in its innermost depths:
"I love thee! Am not I all thine?"
We were far from the town, and the snowclad plain looked in at the dark windows. Upon it was darkness, and around it was darkness, gross, motionless, silent, but the plain shone with its own latent coruscation, like the face of a corpse in the dark. ”

“ But Vladimir Mikhailovich did not even wish to see the body; it would be too distressing a sight. When he lay down in bed, and all noises were stilled in the empty flat, he began to weep restrainedly. His lips puckered up silently, and tears forced their way through his closed eyelids, and rolled quickly down on to his bosom. He was ashamed that he was kissing a woman at the very moment when he, who had been his friend, lay a-dying on the floor alone. And he dreaded what his Aunt would think of him, a serious man, if she heard that he had been crying about a dog. ”

“ Some one was persistently demanding of him: "Tell me, what have you done?" and he was searching his mind, desperately, sorrowfully—he was passing over the years he had lived as over the keyboard of a piano, and each year struck the same empty, wooden sound—"bya," without meaning, without significance.
"Ivanov, I am convinced that you copied the problem from Sirotkin." No, no, that is not the proper thing.
"Listen, madam, listen to me," he muttered, lowering his head, gesticulating calmly and properly. "How absurd it is to think that I am a spy. I—a spy? What nonsense! ”

“ When the fresh loud voice of Abram Petrovich and his quick steps resounded near the door, Khinyakov's heart's blood curdled with fear and suspense, and he could not help groaning aloud, and then was all the more frightened. In one distinct picture that drinking-bout passed befoie him: how they had sat in some dark tavern or other, illumined by a single lamp, amid dark people who kept whispering together about something, while they themselves also whispered together. Abram Petrovich was pale and excited, and complained of the hardships of a thief's life ”

“ Only the ill-used woman would keep on weeping, uttering meaningless oaths, with her rumpled hair covered with sand, and her semi-made bust looking dirty and yellow in the morning light, cynically and piteously exposed. They would put her on the bottom of a cab and drive her off with her head hanging down, and swaying, as if she were dead.
Nikolka knew several of the men and women by name, and told Petka nasty stories about them, and laughed showing his sharp teeth. And Petka admired his knowledge and daring, and thought that some day he would be like him. ”

“ Pressing his razor resolutely, Mitrofan threw his head back and carefully passed the dull side of the knife across his neck.
“It would be good to kill myself,” he thought, “but how could I?”
“Coward! Scoundrel!” he said aloud, indifferently.
To-morrow people would laugh at him—his comrades, his pupils. And his wife would also laugh at him.
He longed to be sunk in despair, to cry, to strike the mirror, to do something, but his soul was empty and dead, and he was sleepy. ”

“ He may be beaten half to death or nearly starved at the police station, still they can never break him of bad language, of his most offensively foul tongue.
He will stand under the windows of any of the most respectable people in Gunner Street, and begin to swear without rhyme or reason. The shopmen seize Garaska and beat him—the crowd laughs and advises them to give it him hot. Garaska would revile even Bargamot himself in such fantastically realistic language, that without understanding all the subtleties of his wit, he felt himself more insulted, than if he had been whipped. ”

“ But even there people were to be met, whom he had never seen before, and never would see again; and the houses towered on either side in a dull wall, and inside they were full of persons utterly unknown to him, who slept, and talked and quarrelled: some one was dying behind those walls, and close to him a fresh human being was coming into the world, to be lost for a time in its ever-moving infinity, and then to die for ever. In order to console himself, Petrov would count over all his acquaintances; and their neighbourly familiar faces were like a wall which separated him from infinity. ”

“ And once more Petrov did not inquire his name, but he began to look upon him as quite an old acquaintance, and thought of him with pleasurable feelings. "Him," he named him, but when he wanted to recall his face, he could only conjure up an evening coat, white waistcoat, and a smile; and since he could not in the least recollect the face, it inevitably appeared as though the coat and waistcoat smiled. That summer Petrov went out very frequently to a certain bungalow, wore a red neck-tie, dyed his moustache, and said to Fedot that in the autumn he should change his quarters ”

“ Dark and terrible is the place to which she carried the truth, and the lie—and I am going thither. At the very throne of Satan I shall overtake her, and falling on my knees will weep; and cry:
"Tell me the truth!"
But God! This is also a lie. There, there is darkness, there is the void of ages and of infinity, and there she is not—she is nowhere. But the lie remains, it is immortal. I feel it in every atom of the air, and when I breathe, it enters my bosom with a hissing, and then rends it—yes, rends!
Oh! what madness it is—to be man and to seek the truth! ”

“ And when the long autumn night drew on, it became still in the cemetery, and there reached it only in distant echoes the rumbling of the street traffic, which ceased not day nor night.
THE MARSEILLAISE
He was a nonentity, with the soul of a hare and the shameless endurance of a beast of burden. When the malicious irony of fate cast his lot in among our black ranks, we laughed like maniacs at the thought that such absurd inept mistakes could actually be made. As for him, well—he cried. And never have I met with a man of so many tears, flowing so freely—from eyes and nose and mouth. ”

“ There one might think only of those one knew, and not feel oneself so infinitely alone among a multitude of strange people.
At Easter, he, the other, did not turn up at the Vasilyevskys’, and Petrov did not observe his absence until the end of his call, when he had begun to make his adieux, and failed to meet the well-known smile. And he felt a disquiet at heart, and suddenly was conscious of a painful longing to see him, the other, and to say something to him about his loneliness and his nights. ”

“ But gradually Petka’s thoughts began to clear and a strange metamorphosis took place: Osip Abramovich became the fact, and the fishing-rod, which had not yet had time to dry, was changed into the phantom. And then Petka surprised his mother, and distressed the master and his wife, and would have been surprised himself if he had been capable of self-analysis. He did not begin to cry, as town children, thin and half-starved, cry; he simply bawled louder than the strongest-voiced man; and began to roll on the ground, as the drunken women rolled on the boulevard. ”

“ The thoughts of Sashka were formless, nebulous, but all the more deeply for that did they move his agitated soul. Everything that is good and bright in the world, all profound grief, and the hope of a soul that sighs for God—the little angel absorbed them all into himself, and that was why he glowed with such a soft divine radiance, that was why his little dragonfly wings trembled with a noiseless trepidation. ”

“ And Father Ignaty felt with horror that something cold as the tomb penetrated his ear, and froze the brain, and that Vera spoke—but what she said was ever the same long silence. It became ever more and more alarming and terrible, and when Father Ignaty dragged his head with an effort from the ground, pale as that of a corpse, it seemed to him that the whole air trembled and vibrated with a resonant silence, as though a wild storm had arisen on that terrible sea. ”

“ They kept falling, leaving behind them a fiery track, and burst kindling with a bluish light a pretty girl’s face, and were reflected in her dark eyes—as though a glow-worm had appeared at the bottom of a deep dark well. And greedy lips noiselessly kissed those eyes, those lips fresh as the night air, and those cool cheeks. Voices exultant, and trembling with love, whispered, prattling of joy and life.
When Vladimir Mikhailovich drove up to his house, he remembered the dog, and his breast ached with a dark foreboding. ”