Short Fiction by Leonid Andreyev (fastest ebook reader TXT) 📕

“But how did you happen to know the very day⁠ ⁠… that Sunday!” asked the angry officer who was conducting the examination.

“Can’t say,” said the man, somewhat cowed⁠—he had been three days without drinking or smoking⁠—“I was drunk!”

“I’d like to send you all to⁠—” fumed the lieutenant⁠—but he did not finish his remark.

Even the ones who were sober were no better. They spoke freely of the Governor in the workshops and on the streets, raged at him, and exulted at his approaching death⁠—yet never anything definite⁠—and soon they stopped talking and waited patiently. Now and again passing labourers exchanged comments.⁠—“He drove by again yesterday without any guard.”

“He’s walking into the trap himself!” And they went about their work. Bat next day a whisper ran through the shops:

“Yesterday he drove down the lane!”

“Let him drive!”

They counted each day of his life⁠ ⁠… their number seemed too great!⁠ ⁠… Twice the rumour of his death was started. It spread suddenly in the Kawatnaja lane, and immediately grew to certainty in the factories. It was impossible to say how it arose but, scattered in little groups, they told each other the details of the murder: the street, the hour, the number of the murderers⁠—the weapon! Some could have sworn they heard the explosion. And all stood there, pale, determined; outwardly neither glad nor sorry: till at last word came that it was a false alarm. Then they separated, just as calmly, and without disappointment⁠—as though it were not worth while to be excited over an affair that was postponed but for a few days at most⁠ ⁠… or perhaps a few hours⁠—or even minutes!

Both in the city and in the Kawatnaja lane the women were the harshest, most unrelenting judges. They produced no evidence, they gave no verdict⁠—they simply bided their time! And on then waiting, they laid the coals of their unshakable belief; the whole burden of their unhappy lives; and the hideousness of their depraved, hungry, smothered thoughts. They had in their daily lives one special adversary that the men did not know⁠ ⁠… the oven!⁠—the ever-hungry, open-mouthed oven; more awful than the glowing fires of hell! From morning till night, throughout their days, and every day, it held them in its sway; eating their soul, casting out from their brains all thought, save that which concerned itself.

The men knew nothing of this. When a woman waked at dawn and saw the stove⁠—the oven door half open⁠—it worked on her fancy like a ghost; gave her a sickening sense of disgust and fear, and dull, brutish terror!

Robbed of her thoughts, she hardly knew what had robbed her; and in her confusion humbly offered up her soul again each day before this altar; black, deadly misery wrapping her as in a veil. And thus the women in the Kawatnaja lane became so fierce and hard! They beat their children⁠—beat them nearly to death!⁠—quarrelled amongst themselves, and with their husbands, and their mouths streamed with abuse, complaints and wantonness.

In those three terrible weeks of famine, when for days no fires were made⁠—then at last, the women rested⁠ ⁠… that strange, calm rest of the dying whose pains have ceased some moments before the end! Their thoughts, freed for an instant from those iron bands, fastened with all their passion and power to the vision of a new life⁠ ⁠… as though this strike were not about the monthly wages of the men, but about a full and glad release of their eternal bonds. And in those heavy days when they buried their little children⁠ ⁠… dead from exhaustion!⁠ ⁠… and numb with pain, weariness and hunger⁠—bewailed them with bloody tears⁠—the women grew kind and gentle as never before! They were convinced that such horrors could not have been sent without a purpose⁠—that some vast reward must follow their sufferings.

So when on the 17th of August the Governor stepped out before them, into the Square shimmering in the sunlight, they took him for the dear Lord Himself⁠—with his grey beard.⁠ ⁠… And he said:

“You must go back to your work! I cannot talk to you till you have gone back to your work.”

Then: “I will see what I can do for you. Get to work and I shall write to Petersburg!”

Then: “Your employers are not robbers, but honourable men, and I forbid you to speak so of them. And if you are not back at your work by tomorrow, I shall lock up the shops and send you all to the workhouse!”

Then: “It is your own fault that the children died! Take up your work again!”

Then: “If you act like this, and do not disperse, I’ll have you driven off!”⁠ ⁠…

Then followed a chaos of howls; babies crying; the whine of bullets; pushing; and a wild flight! They do not know themselves where they are fleeing to⁠—they fall! Up again and on⁠—children and home are lost!⁠ ⁠… Then suddenly again, in the twinkling of an eye, there sits the cursed oven!⁠—stupid, insatiable, with its everlasting open mouth!⁠ ⁠… And the same old round begins again from which they thought to have torn themselves forever; and to which they have returned⁠ ⁠… forever!

Perhaps the idea of the Governor’s assassination emanated from the women’s brains. The well-worn words in which man had been wont to clothe his hatred for man no longer sufficed them. Loathing! Contempt! Rage!⁠—it transcended all these⁠ ⁠… it was a feeling of calm, unqualified condemnation⁠ ⁠… If the axe in the headsman’s hands could feel, it might have this emotion⁠—that cool, sharp, shining, steady blade! The women waited quietly; without wavering and without doubts.

And while they wait they take their fill of the good, fresh air⁠—the same air that the Governor breathes!⁠ ⁠… They are like children. If a door chances to slam, or someone runs clattering down the lane, they rush out⁠—bareheaded and excited.⁠ ⁠… “Is he dead yet?”

“No⁠—it was only Ssenjka running to the shop for vodka.”

And so it goes till another knock comes, or a sudden rush of feet, to break the deadly silence of the street.

When the Governor