A Reckless Character, and Other Stories Part 28

Still I continue to walk on ... but now, in front of me, directly in my road, something looms up black and expands ... some sort of pit.... "The grave!" flashes through my mind.--"That is where she is driving me!"

I wheel abruptly round. Again the old woman is before me ... but she sees! She gazes at me with large, evil eyes which bode me ill ... the eyes of a bird of prey.... I bend down to her face, to her eyes....

Again there is the same film, the same blind, dull visage as before....

"Akh!" I think ... "this old woman is my Fate--that Fate which no man can escape!

"I cannot get away! I cannot get away!--What madness.... I must make an effort." And I dart to one side, in a different direction.

I advance briskly.... But the light footsteps, as before, rustle behind me, close, close behind me.... And in front of me again the pit yawns.

Again I turn in another direction.... And again there is the same rustling behind me, the same menacing spot in front of me.

And no matter in what direction I dart, like a hare pursued ... it is always the same, the same!

"Stay!" I think.--"I will cheat her! I will not go anywhere at all!"--and I instantaneously sit down on the ground.

The old woman stands behind me, two paces distant.--I do not hear her, but I feel that she is there.

And suddenly I behold that spot which had loomed black in the distance, gliding on, creeping up to me itself!

O G.o.d! I glance behind me.... The old woman is looking straight at me, and her toothless mouth is distorted in a grin....

"Thou canst not escape!"

February, 1878.

THE DOG

There are two of us in the room, my dog and I.... A frightful storm is raging out of doors.

The dog is sitting in front of me, and gazing straight into my eyes.

And I, also, am looking him straight in the eye.

He seems to be anxious to say something to me. He is dumb, he has no words, he does not understand himself--but I understand him.

I understand that, at this moment, both in him and in me there dwells one and the same feeling, that there is no difference whatever between us. We are exactly alike; in each of us there burns and glows the selfsame tremulous flame.

Death is swooping down upon us, it is waving its cold, broad wings....

"And this is the end!"

Who shall decide afterward, precisely what sort of flame burned in each one of us?

No! it is not an animal and a man exchanging glances....

It is two pairs of eyes exactly alike fixed on each other.

And in each of those pairs, in the animal and in the man, one and the same life is huddling up timorously to the other.

February, 1878.

THE RIVAU

I had a comrade-rival; not in our studies, not in the service or in love; but our views did not agree on any point, and every time we met, interminable arguments sprang up.

We argued about art, religion, science, about the life of earth and matters beyond the grave,--especially life beyond the grave.

He was a believer and an enthusiast. One day he said to me: "Thou laughest at everything; but if I die before thee, I will appear to thee from the other world.... We shall see whether thou wilt laugh then."

And, as a matter of fact, he did die before me, while he was still young in years; but years pa.s.sed, and I had forgotten his promise,--his threat.

One night I was lying in bed, and could not get to sleep, neither did I wish to do so.

It was neither light nor dark in the room; I began to stare into the grey half-gloom.

And suddenly it seemed to me that my rival was standing between the two windows, and nodding his head gently and sadly downward from above.

I was not frightened, I was not even surprised ... but rising up slightly in bed, and propping myself on my elbow, I began to gaze with redoubled attention at the figure which had so unexpectedly presented itself.

The latter continued to nod its head.

"What is it?" I said at last.--"Art thou exulting? Or art thou pitying?--What is this--a warning or a reproach?... Or dost thou wish to give me to understand that thou wert in the wrong? That we were both in the wrong? What art thou experiencing? The pains of h.e.l.l? The bliss of paradise? Speak at least one word!"

But my rival did not utter a single sound--and only went on nodding his head sadly and submissively, as before, downward from above.

I burst out laughing ... he vanished.

February, 1878.

THE BEGGAR MAN

I was pa.s.sing along the street when a beggar, a decrepit old man, stopped me.

Swollen, tearful eyes, blue lips, bristling rags, unclean sores.... Oh, how horribly had poverty gnawed that unhappy being!