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

Desfoso comes forward and speaks cautiously:

“That isn’t quite so, abbot. It seems you didn’t say exactly what you ought to say, abbot. They seem to think differently. I don’t say anything for myself⁠—I am simply talking about them. What do you say, Thomas?”

Thomas⁠—We ought to go to sleep, I say. Isn’t it true that it is time to go to sleep?

Mariet Softly.⁠—Sit down, Gart. You are tired tonight. You don’t answer?

An old fisherman says:

“There used to be a custom in our land, I heard, that a murderer was to pay a fine for the man he killed. Have you heard about it, Desfoso?”

Another voice is heard:

“Philipp is dead. Philipp is dead already, do you hear, neighbour? Who is going to support his mother?”

“I haven’t enough even for my own! And the fog is rising, neighbour.”

“Abbot, did you hear us say: ‘Gart is a bad man; Gart is a good-for-nothing, a city trickster?’ No, we said: ‘This thing has never happened here before,’ ” says Desfoso.

Then a determined voice remarks:

“Gart is a good man! Wild Gart is a good man!”

Desfoso⁠—If you looked around, abbot, you couldn’t find a single, strong boat here. I haven’t enough tar for mine. And the church⁠—is that the way a good church ought to look? I am not saying it myself, but it comes out that way⁠—it can’t be helped, abbot.

Haggart turns to Mariet and says:

“Do you hear, woman?”

“I do.”

“Why don’t you spit into their faces?”

“I can’t. I love you, Haggart. Are there only ten Commandments of God? No, there is still another: ‘I love you, Haggart.’ ”

“What sad dreams there are in your land.”

The abbot rises and walks over to the fishermen.

“Well, what did you say about the church, old man? You said something interesting about the church, or was I mistaken?”

He casts a swift glance at Mariet and Haggart.

“It isn’t the church alone, abbot. There are four of us old men: Legran, Stoffle, Puasar, Kornu, and seven old women. Do I say that we are not going to feed them? Of course, we will, but don’t be angry, father⁠—it is hard! You know it yourself, abbot⁠—old age is no fun.”

“I am an old man, too!” begins old Rikke, lisping, but suddenly he flings his hat angrily to the ground. “Yes, I am an old man. I don’t want any more, that’s all! I worked, and now I don’t want to work. That’s all! I don’t want to work.”

He goes out, swinging his hand. All look sympathetically at his stooping back, at his white tufts of hair. And then they look again at Desfoso, at his mouth, from which their words come out. A voice says:

“There, Rikke doesn’t want to work any more.”

All laugh softly and forcedly.

“Suppose we send Gart to the city⁠—what then?” Desfoso goes on, without looking at Haggart. “Well, the city people will hang him⁠—and then what? The result will be that a man will be gone, a fisherman will be gone⁠—you will lose a son, and Mariet will lose her husband, and the little boy his father. Is there any joy in that?”

“That’s right, that’s right!” nods the abbot, approvingly. “But what a mind you have, Desfoso!”

“Do you pay attention to them, Abbot?” asked Haggart.

“Yes, I do, Haggart. And it wouldn’t do you any harm to pay attention to them. The devil is prouder than you, and yet he is only the devil, and nothing more.”

Desfoso affirms:

“What’s the use of pride? Pride isn’t necessary.”

He turns to Haggart, his eyes still lowered; then he lifts his eyes and asks:

“Gart! But you don’t need to kill anybody else. Excepting Philipp, you don’t feel like killing anybody else, do you?”

“No.”

“Only Philipp, and no more? Do you hear? Only Philipp, and no more. And another question⁠—Gart, don’t you want to send away this man, Khorre? We would like you to do it. Who knows him? People say that all this trouble comes through him.”

Several voices are heard:

“Through him. Send him away, Gart! It will be better for him!”

The abbot upholds them.

“True!”

“You, too, priest!” says Khorre, gruffly. Haggart looks with a faint smile at his angry, bristled face, and says:

“I rather feel like sending him away. Let him go.”

“Well, then, Abbot,” says Desfoso, turning around, “we have decided, in accordance with our conscience⁠—to take the money. Do I speak properly?”

One voice answers for all:

“Yes.”

Desfoso⁠—Well, sailor, where is the money?

Khorre⁠—Captain?

Haggart⁠—Give it to them.

Khorre Rudely.⁠—“Then give me back my knife and my pipe first! Who is the eldest among you⁠—you? Listen, then: Take crowbars and shovels and go to the castle. Do you know the tower, the accursed tower that fell? Go over there⁠—”

He bends down and draws a map on the floor with his crooked finger. All bend down and look attentively; only the abbot gazes sternly out of the window, behind which the heavy fog is still grey. Haggart whispers in a fit of rage:

“Mariet, it would have been better if you had killed me as I killed Philipp. And now my father is calling me. Where will be the end of my sorrow, Mariet? Where the end of the world is. And where is the end of the world? Do you want to take my sorrow, Mariet?”

“I do, Haggart.”

“No, you are a woman.”

“Why do you torture me, Gart? What have I done that you should torture me so? I love you.”

“You lied.”

“My tongue lied. I love you.”

“A serpent has a double tongue, but ask the serpent what it wants⁠—and it will tell you the truth. It is your heart that lied. Was it not you, girl, that I met that time on the road? And you said: ‘Good evening.’ How you have deceived me!”

Desfoso asks loudly:

“Well, abbot? You are coming along with us, aren’t you, father. Otherwise something wrong might come out of it. Do I speak properly?”

The abbot replies merrily:

“Of course, of course, children. I am going with you. Without me, you will think of the church. I have just