Short Fiction by Aleksandr Kuprin (nonfiction book recommendations .txt) 📕

damp, cold day and over the town a thick black fog was hovering, that same black fog which had poisoned the soul and eaten the body of my poor friend.

But the nearer we came to the South, the more excited and joyful my poor Boris became. The spring seemed rushing to meet us. And when we caught our first glimpse of the white dabbed little huts of Ukraine, it was already in full bloom. Boris could not tear himself from the window. All along the line, large simple flowers, bearing the poetical name of “dreams,” blossomed in blue patches. Boris told me with ecstasy that in Little Russia one dyes Easter eggs with these flowers.

At his home, under the blue caressing sky, under the full but not yet hot rays of the sun, Boris began to revive quickly, as if he were recovering with his soul from some low, clutching, icy nightmare.

But bodily he grew weaker every day. The black fog had killed in him something vital, something that gave life and the desire to live.

A fortnight after his arrival, he was confined to his bed.

All the time he had no doubt that he would soon die, and he died bravely and simply.

I was with him the day before his death. He pressed my hand hard with his dry, hot, emaciated fingers, smiled caressingly and sadly, and said:

“Do you remember our conversation about the North and the South? It’s long ago now; do you remember it? Don’t imagine that I’m eating my words. Well, I admit it, I have not withstood the struggle, I have perished.⁠ ⁠… But after me others are coming⁠—hundreds, thousands of others. Understand, they must win the victory, they cannot fail to conquer. Because over there the black fog is in the streets, in the hearts and in the heads of the people, and we come from the exulting South with joyous songs, with the dear bright sun in our souls. My friend, people cannot live without the sun.”

I looked at him attentively. He had just washed and had combed his hair flat back over his head after moistening it with water. It was still moist, and this gave his face a pitiable and innocent and festive expression behind which one detected all the more clearly the proximity of death. I remember, too, that he kept looking attentively and in apparent astonishment at his nails and the palms of his hands as though they were strange to him.

The next day I was called hastily to his bedside to find⁠—not my friend, but only his body, which was passing unconsciously in a swift death agony.

Early that morning he had asked to have his window opened and it remained open. Into the room, from the old garden, crept in branches of white lilac with their fresh, elastic, odorous flowers. The sun was shining. The blackbirds sang out their madness of delight.

Boris was becoming quiet. But in the very last minute he suddenly lifted himself up and sat on his bed; an insane awe showed itself in his wide-open eyes. And when he fell again against the pillows and after a deep sigh stretched himself out with all his body, as if he wanted to stretch himself before a long, deep sleep, this expression of awe did not leave his face for a long time.

What had he seen in that last minute? Perhaps to the eyes of his soul there had outlined itself that bottomless, perpetual black fog which, inevitably and pitilessly, absorbs people, and animals, and the grass, and the stars and whole worlds?⁠ ⁠…

When they were laying him out I could not bear to see his terrible yellow feet and I left the room. But when I came back he was already lying on the table and the mysterious little smile of death lurked peacefully round his eyes and lips. The window was still open. I broke off a small branch of lilac⁠—wet and heavy under its white clusters⁠—and placed it on Boris’ breast.

The sun shone joyfully, at once tender and indifferent⁠ ⁠… In the garden the blackbirds were singing.⁠ ⁠… On the other side of the river the bells were ringing for the late church service.

The Murderer

They were talking over current events, executions, people being shot, burnt alive, women being violated, old men and children killed, gentle, liberty-loving souls disfigured forever, trampled into the mud by the loathsome force of violence.

The master of the house said: “It is terrible to think how the scale of life has altered. Was it long ago?⁠—no, only about five years ago⁠—when our whole Russian society was distressed and shocked over any solitary instance of violence. The police had beaten a Tchinovnik in prison, some rural authority had arrested a newly-arrived student for disrespect. And now⁠ ⁠… a crowd has been fired on without warning; a man has been executed through error, having been mistaken for his namesake; nowadays, people are shot casually, out of mere idleness, just to let off a round or two. An intellectual young man is seized in the middle of the street and whipped with knouts, whipped for no reason at all, just as a gratuitous distraction for the soldiers and officers. And already this sort of thing provokes no astonishment, no alarm. Everything goes on as though nothing at all had happened.”

Someone moved nervously in the corner of the sofa. Everyone turned towards him, feeling, though they could not see him, that he was going to talk. And he did begin in a low, exaggeratedly even tone, but with so many pauses between the words and such curious shudders in his voice that he was clearly keeping back, only with the greatest difficulty, his inner emotion and sorrow.

“Yes,⁠ ⁠… that is what I want to get at.⁠ ⁠… In my opinion⁠ ⁠… it is not true that one can⁠ ⁠… become used to this. I can understand⁠ ⁠… murder out of revenge⁠—there is a kind of terrific⁠ ⁠… wild beast pleasure in that. I understand murder in anger, in the blindness