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

of tune and all was mingled in a merry splash in hasty confusion. Then a large, heavy drop would strike firmly and again the fast, spring melody resounded distinctly. And over the city, above the roofs of the fortress, hung a pale redness in the sky reflected by the electric lights.

“U-ach!” Sergey Golovin heaved a deep sigh and held his breath, as though he regretted to exhale from his lungs the fine, fresh air.

“How long have you had such weather?” inquired Werner. “It’s real spring.”

“It’s only the second day,” was the polite answer. “Before that we had mostly frosty weather.”

The dark carriages rolled over noiselessly one after another, took them in by twos, started off into the darkness⁠—there where the lantern was shaking at the gate. The convoys like gray silhouettes surrounded each carriage; the horseshoes struck noisily against the ground, or plashed upon the melting snow.

When Werner bent down, about to climb into the carriage, the gendarme whispered to him:

“There is somebody else going along with you.”

Werner was surprised.

“Where? Where is he going? Oh, yes! Another one? Who is he?”

The gendarme was silent. Indeed, in a dark corner a small, motionless but living figure pressed close to the side of the carriage. By the reflection of the lantern Werner noticed the flash of an open eye. Seating himself, Werner pushed his foot against the other man’s knee.

“Excuse me, comrade.”

The man made no reply. It was only when the carriage started, that he suddenly asked in broken Russian, speaking with difficulty:

“Who are you?”

“I am Werner, condemned to hanging for the attempt upon N⁠⸺. And you?”

“I am Yanson. They must not hang me.”

They were riding thus in order to appear two hours later face to face before the inexplicable great mystery, in order to pass from Life to Death⁠—and they were introducing each other. Life and Death moved simultaneously, and until the very end Life remained life, to the most ridiculous and insipid trifles.

“What have you done, Yanson?”

“I killed my master with a knife. I stole money.”

It seemed from the tone of his voice that Yanson was falling asleep. Werner found his flabby hand in the darkness and pressed it. Yanson withdrew it drowsily.

“Are you afraid?” asked Werner.

“I don’t want to be hanged.”

They became silent. Werner again found the Estonian’s hand and pressed it firmly between his dry, burning palms. Yanson’s hand lay motionless, like a board, but he made no longer any effort to withdraw it.

It was close and suffocating in the carriage. The air was filled with the smell of soldiers’ clothes, mustiness, and the leather of wet boots. The young gendarme who sat opposite Werner breathed warmly upon him, and in his breath there was the odor of onions and cheap tobacco. But some brisk, fresh air came in through certain clefts, and because of this, spring was felt even more intensely in this small, stifling, moving box, than outside. The carriage kept turning now to the right, now to the left, now it seemed to turn back. At times it seemed as though they had been turning around on one and the same spot for hours for some reason or other. At first a bluish electric light penetrated through the lowered, heavy window shades; then suddenly, after a certain turn it grew dark, and only by this could they guess that they had turned into deserted streets in the outskirts of the city and that they were nearing the S. railroad station. Sometimes during sharp turns, Werner’s live, bent knee would strike against the live, bent knee of the gendarme, and it was hard to believe that the execution was approaching.

“Where are we going?” Yanson asked suddenly. He was somewhat dizzy from the continuous turning of the dark box and he felt slightly sick at his stomach.

Werner answered and pressed the Estonian’s hand more firmly. He felt like saying something especially kind and caressing to this little, sleepy man, and he already loved him as he had never loved anyone in his life.

“You don’t seem to sit comfortably, my dear man. Move over here, to me.”

Yanson was silent for awhile, then he replied:

“Well, thank you. I’m sitting all right. Are they going to hang you too?”

“Yes,” answered Werner, almost laughing with unexpected jollity, and he waved his hand easily and freely, as though he were speaking of some absurd and trifling joke which kind but terribly comical people wanted to play on him.

“Have you a wife?” asked Yanson.

“No. I have no wife. I am single.”

“I am also alone. Alone,” said Yanson.

Werner’s head also began to feel dizzy. And at times it seemed that they were going to some festival; strange to say, almost all those who went to the scaffold experienced the same sensation and mingled with sorrow and fear there was a vague joy as they anticipated the extraordinary thing that was soon to befall them. Reality was intoxicated with madness and Death, united with Life, brought forth apparitions. It seemed very possible that flags were waving over the houses.

“We have arrived!” said Werner gayly when the carriage stopped, and he jumped out easily. But with Yanson it was a rather slow affair: silently and very drowsily he resisted and would not come out. He seized the knob. The gendarme opened the weak fingers and pulled his hand away. Then Yanson seized the corner of the carriage, the door, the high wheel, but immediately let it go upon the slightest effort on the part of the gendarme. He did not exactly seize these things; he rather cleaved to each object sleepily and silently, and was torn away easily, without any effort. Finally he got up.

There were no flags. The railroad station was dark, deserted and lifeless; the passenger trains were not running any longer, and the train which was silently waiting for these passengers on the way needed no bright light, no commotion. Suddenly Werner began to feel weary. It was not fear, nor anguish, but a feeling of enormous, painful, tormenting weariness which makes