Short Fiction

The war is decidedly giving me no rest. I see clearly that it is dragging, and when it will end is very difficult to foretell. Our soldiers are as splendid as ever, but the enemy has proved far from being as weak as we thought, and now, four months from the declaration of war, no decisive success has been gained by our side. In the meanwhile every extra day claims its hundreds of victims. Is it my nerves which cause the telegrams merely stating the numbers of killed and wounded to affect me far more than those around me? Somebody will calmly read out: “Our losses insignificant; officers, wounded, so many, giving names; rank and file, killed, 50; wounded, 100,” and even rejoice that the numbers are so small; but to me the reading of such news immediately brings the whole bloody picture before my eyes. Fifty dead, one hundred maimed⁠—this is “insignificant!” Why are we so horrified when the newspapers inform us of some murder where the victims are few? Why does not the sight of corpses riddled with bullets lying on a battlefield strike us with the same horror as the interior of a house ransacked by murder? Why does a catastrophe costing the lives of some scores of persons cause all Russia to cry out, whilst nobody pays any attention to advanced-guard skirmishes with “insignificant” losses, also of some scores of men?

I remember how we rushed through the wood; how the leaves and twigs came fluttering and twisting down on us as the humming bullets cut their way through the thick foliage. I remember how, as we pushed through the thick and prickly undergrowth, the firing became hotter and the fringe of the wood became alive with little spurts of flame which flashed redly from all points. I remember how Sedoroff, a recruit of No. I Company (How had he got into our firing-line? flashed through my mind), suddenly sat down, and without saying a word gazed at me with big startled eyes as a little stream of blood commenced to trickle from his mouth. Yes, I remember it well. I remember also how, just as we were on the very edge of the wood, I first saw him in the thick bushes. He was a huge and bulky Turk, but I ran straight at him although I am small and weak. There was a deafening noise; something enormous seemed to flash past me, making my ears ring. He has fired at me, I thought. I remember how with a scream of fear he pressed himself backwards into a thick and prickly bush, although he could easily have gone round it, but he could remember nothing from fright, and strove instead to push his way into its prickly branches.

How it has come about that I, who for almost two years have never thought seriously about anything, have suddenly commenced to reflect⁠—I cannot understand. It cannot be that man who has set me thinking, because I so often meet with men of his type that I am accustomed to their sermonizing.

Yes, they almost all, with the exception of the absolutely hardened or really clever ones, invariably talk about matters which are of no use to them or even me. First they ask my name and my age; then in the majority of cases, with an air of concern, they begin to ask, “Is it impossible for you to give up such a life?” At first this kind of thing used to upset me, but now I am accustomed to it. One becomes accustomed to a lot.

However, for the last fortnight, whenever I am quite alone and am not feeling gay⁠—that is, not drunk (because can I really be merry except when drunk?)⁠—I begin to think. And, however much I do not wish to think, I cannot help it. I cannot get away from depressing thoughts. There is only one way of forgetting⁠—to go out somewhere where there are plenty of people, where there is drunkenness and indecency. Then I too begin to drink and misbehave. My brain gets muddled, and I remember nothing.⁠ ⁠… Then it is⁠—easier. But why is it that this never happened before?⁠—not from the very first day I bid goodbye to everything?

Frost and cold. January is approaching, and is making its coming known to every unfortunate being⁠—dvorniks and gorodovois⁠—unable to hide their noses in some warm place. It is also letting me know. Not because I have been unable to find a warm corner, but through a whim of mine.

As a matter of fact, why am I stumping along this deserted quay? The lamps are shining brightly, although the wind keeps forcing its way inside them and making the gas-jets dance. Their bright light makes the dark mass of the sumptuous Palace, and especially its windows, look all the more gloomy. The wind is moaning and howling across the icy waste of the Neva. Through the gusts of wind comes the sound of the chimes of the Fortress Cathedral, and every stroke of the mournful bells keeps time with the tap of my wooden leg on the ice-covered granite slabs of the pavement and with the beating of my aching heart against the walls of its narrow cell.

I must present myself to the reader. I am a young man with a wooden leg. Perhaps you will say I am imitating Dickens. You remember Silas Wegg, the literary gent with the wooden leg (in Our Mutual Friend)? No, I am not copying him. I really am a young man with a wooden leg.

“In the name of His Imperial Majesty the Lord Emperor Peter the First, I order a revision of this Asylum!”

These words were uttered in a loud, strident, resounding voice. The clerk who had registered the patient in a large dilapidated book lying on an ink-bespattered table could not restrain a smile. But the two young men who had escorted the patient did not smile. They could scarcely keep on their feet after forty-eight hours without sleep, passed alone with the lunatic whom they had just brought along by train. At the station immediately preceding their destination the attack had increased in its intensity, and they had succeeded in obtaining a straitjacket from somewhere, which, with the assistance of the train-conductors and a gendarme, they had placed on the patient, and had brought him to the town, and finally to the Asylum in this dress.

He was dreadful to look at. Over his body and above his grey suit, which had been torn into rags during his paroxysms, was stretched a jacket of coarse canvas opened in front; its sleeves, which were fastened behind, forced his arms crosswise against his chest. His bloodshot eyes (he had not slept for ten days) blazed with a fixed and intense glare. His lower lip was twitching with a nervous tremor, whilst his tangled, curly hair fell mane-like over his forehead. With rapid, agitated steps, he paced from corner to corner of the office, gazing inquisitively at the old shelves laden with documents, and the chairs covered with a kind of oilcloth. Occasionally he glanced at his recent fellow-travellers.