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

And, indeed, he began to feel somewhat better. He tried also to eat less, so as to grow still weaker, but notwithstanding the lack of pure air and exercises, his appetite was very good⁠—it was difficult for him to control it, and he ate everything that was brought to him. Then he began to manage differently⁠—before starting to eat he would pour out half into the pail, and this seemed to work. A dull drowsiness and faintness came over him.

“I’ll show you what I can do!” he threatened his body, and at the same time sadly, yet tenderly he felt his flabby, softened muscles with his hand.

Soon, however, his body grew accustomed to this regime as well, and the fear of death appeared again⁠—not so keen, nor so burning, but more disgusting, somewhat akin to a nauseating sensation. “It’s because they are dragging it out so long,” thought Sergey. “It would be a good idea to sleep all the time till the day of the execution,” and he tried to sleep as much as possible. At first he succeeded, but later, either because he had slept too much, or for some other reason, insomnia appeared. And with it came eager, penetrating thoughts and a longing for life.

“I am not afraid of this devil!” he thought of Death. “I simply feel sorry for my life. It is a splendid thing, no matter what the pessimists say about it. What if they were to hang a pessimist? Ah, I feel sorry for life, very sorry! And why does my beard grow now? It didn’t grow before, but suddenly it grows⁠—why?”

He shook his head mournfully, heaving long, painful sighs. Silence⁠—then a sigh; then a brief silence again⁠—followed by a longer, deeper sigh.

Thus it went on until the trial and the terrible meeting with his parents. When he awoke in his cell the next day he realized clearly that everything between him and life was ended, that there were only a few empty hours of waiting and then death would come⁠—and a strange sensation took possession of him. He felt as though he had been stripped, stripped entirely⁠—as if not only his clothes, but the sun, the air, the noise of voices and his ability to do things had been wrested from him. Death was not there as yet, but life was there no longer⁠—there was something new, something astonishing, inexplicable, not entirely reasonable and yet not altogether without meaning⁠—something so deep and mysterious and supernatural that it was impossible to understand.

“Fie, you devil!” wondered Sergey, painfully. “What is this? Where am I? I⁠—who am I?”

He examined himself attentively, with interest, beginning with his large prison slippers, ending with his stomach where his coat protruded. He paced the cell, spreading out his arms and continuing to survey himself like a woman in a new dress which is too long for her. He tried to turn his head, and it turned. And this strange, terrible, uncouth creature was he, Sergey Golovin, and soon he would be no more!

Everything became strange.

He tried to walk across the cell⁠—and it seemed strange to him that he could walk. He tried to sit down⁠—and it seemed strange to him that he could sit. He tried to drink some water⁠—and it seemed strange to him that he could drink, that he could swallow, that he could hold the cup, that he had fingers and that those fingers were trembling. He choked, began to cough and while coughing, thought: “How strange it is that I am coughing.”

“Am I losing my reason?” thought Sergey, growing cold. “Am I coming to that, too? The devil take them!”

He rubbed his forehead with his hand, and this also seemed strange to him. And then he remained breathless, motionless, petrified for hours, suppressing every thought, all loud breathing, all motion⁠—for every thought seemed to him but madness, every motion⁠—madness. Time was no more; it appeared transformed into space, airless and transparent, into an enormous square upon which all were there⁠—the earth and life and people. He saw all that at one glance, all to the very end, to the mysterious abyss⁠—Death. And he was tortured not by the fact that Death was visible, but that both Life and Death were visible at the same time. The curtain which through eternity has hidden the mystery of life and the mystery of death was pushed aside by a sacrilegious hand, and the mysteries ceased to be mysteries⁠—yet they remained incomprehensible, like the Truth written in a foreign tongue. There were no conceptions in his human mind, no words in his human language that could define what he saw. And the words “I am afraid” were uttered by him only because there were no other words, because no other conceptions existed, nor could other conceptions exist which would grasp this new, un-human condition. Thus would it be with a man if, while remaining within the bounds of human reason, experience and feelings, he were suddenly to see God Himself. He would see Him but would not understand, even though he knew that it was God, and he would tremble with inconceivable sufferings of incomprehension.

“There is Müller for you!” he suddenly uttered loudly, with extreme conviction, and shook his head. And with that unexpected break in his feelings, of which the human soul is so capable, he laughed heartily and cheerfully.

“Oh, Müller! My dear Müller! Oh, you splendid German! After all you are right, Müller, and I am an ass!”

He paced the cell quickly several times and to the great astonishment of the soldier who was watching him through the peephole, he quickly undressed himself and cheerfully went through all the eighteen exercises with the greatest care. He stretched and expanded his young, somewhat emaciated body, sat down for a moment, drew deep breaths of air and exhaled it, stood up on tiptoe, stretched his arms and his feet. And after each exercise he announced, with satisfaction:

“That’s it! That’s