Big Book of Best Short Stories - Specials - Russia E-Book

Leonid Andreyev

• Herausgeber: Tacet Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

This book contains 25 short stories from 5 classic, prize-winning and noteworthy authors. The stories were carefully selected by the critic August Nemo, in a collection that will please the literature lovers.The theme of this edition is: Russia. For more exciting titles, be sure to check out our 7 Best Short Stories and Essential Novelists collections. This book contains: - Leonid Andreyev: - Lazarus - On The Day of Crucifixion - The Crushed Flower - The Serpent's Story - JUdas Iscariot - The Little Angel - A Story Wich Will Never Be Finished - Daniil Kharms: - Symphony no. 2 - On phenomena and existences - No. 1 - The thing - Andrey Semyonovich - An unexpected drinking bout - The destiny of a professor's wife - The memoirs of a wise old man - Alexander Pushkin: - The Queen of Spades - The Shot - The Snowstorm - The Postmaster - The Coffin-maker - Kirdjali - Peter, The Great's Negro - Ivan Turgenev: - A Desperate Character - Knock, Knock, Knock - A Strange Story - The Dog - The District Doctor - The Inn - Mumu - Maxim Gorky: - Her Lover - One Autumn Night - Twenty Six Men and a Girl - The Dead Man - Waiting for the Ferry - The Billionaire - The Birth of a Man

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Introduction

Daniil Kharms

Leonid Andreyev

Alexander Pushkin

Ivan Turgenev

Maxim Gorky

About the Publisher

Introduction

Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia and its émigrés and to the Russian-language literature. The roots of Russian literature can be traced to the Middle Ages, when epics and chronicles in Old East Slavic were composed. By the Age of Enlightenment, literature had grown in importance, and from the early 1830s, Russian literature underwent an astounding golden age in poetry, prose and drama. Romanticism permitted a flowering of poetic talent: Vasily Zhukovsky and later his protégé Alexander Pushkin came to the fore. Prose was flourishing as well. The first great Russian novelist was Nikolai Gogol. Then came Ivan Turgenev, who mastered both short stories and novels. Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky soon became internationally renowned. In the second half of the century Anton Chekhov excelled in short stories and became a leading dramatist. The beginning of the 20th century ranks as the Silver Age of Russian poetry. The poets most often associated with the "Silver Age" are Konstantin Balmont, Valery Bryusov, Alexander Blok, Anna Akhmatova, Nikolay Gumilyov, Osip Mandelstam, Sergei Yesenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Marina Tsvetaeva and Boris Pasternak. This era produced some first-rate novelists and short-story writers, such as Aleksandr Kuprin, Nobel Prize winner Ivan Bunin, Leonid Andreyev, Fyodor Sologub, Aleksey Remizov, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Andrei Bely.

After the Revolution of 1917, Russian literature split into Soviet and white émigré parts. While the Soviet Union assured universal literacy and a highly developed book printing industry, it also enforced ideological censorship. In the 1930s Socialist realism became the predominant trend in Russia. Its leading figure was Maxim Gorky, who laid the foundations of this style. Nikolay Ostrovsky's novel How the Steel Was Tempered has been among the most successful works of Russian literature. Alexander Fadeyev achieved success in Russia. Various émigré writers, such as poets Vladislav Khodasevich, Georgy Ivanov and Vyacheslav Ivanov; novelists such as Mark Aldanov, Gaito Gazdanov and Vladimir Nabokov; and short story Nobel Prize-winning writer Ivan Bunin, continued to write in exile. Some writers dared to oppose Soviet ideology, like Nobel Prize-winning novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who wrote about life in the gulag camps. The Khrushchev Thaw brought some fresh wind to literature and poetry became a mass cultural phenomenon. This "thaw" did not last long; in the 1970s, some of the most prominent authors were banned from publishing and prosecuted for their anti-Soviet sentiments.

The end of the 20th century was a difficult period for Russian literature, with few distinct voices. Among the most discussed authors of this period were Victor Pelevin, who gained popularity with short stories and novels, novelist and playwright Vladimir Sorokin, and the poet Dmitri Prigov. In the 21st century, a new generation of Russian authors appeared, differing greatly from the postmodernist Russian prose of the late 20th century, which lead critics to speak about "new realism".

Russian authors have significantly contributed to numerous literary genres. Russia has five Nobel Prize in literature laureates. As of 2011, Russia was the fourth largest book producer in the world in terms of published titles. A popular folk saying claims Russians are "the world's most reading nation".

Daniil Kharms

Daniil Kharms (1905-1942) was a Russian writer, poet, and playwright who composed short stories, poems, epigrams, plays, and children’s books. Kharms’ biography may actually seem like one of his stories; rather absurd and filled with terror. In the brief thirty-six years of his life, he was persecuted by the Soviet government and his adult works barely saw publication. His greatness and significance were only discovered in the 1960s, two decades after his death. Kharms was born under the name Daniil Yuvatchov.

He invented the assumed name Kharms while still at school after he toyed with various options: Charms (“charm”); Harm (“harm”); Chardam, etc. Kharms’ father was a revolutionary who was imprisoned by the authorities. Upon his release, he became a devout Christian who dedicated his life to writing his literary memoirs. He didn’t understand his son’s work or consider it to be literature. Kharms developed as a writer and poet through the second decade of the 20th century. He was influenced by Khlebnikov and Truphanov and was among the founders of a group of avant-garde subversive poets called OBERIU (Union of Real Art). In 1930, an article was published in the youth magazine “Smena” naming the group members literary hooligans and accusing them of being enemies of the working class. In 1931, some members of the group were imprisoned, among them Kharms, who was sent to spend a year in Kursk. After his imprisonment, Kharms was no longer able to get his adult works published and was, therefore, forced to focus on children’s magazines only. Nevertheless, he continued writing seven hours a day, although he knew he would never manage to get the works published in his lifetime.

With the discovery of his works, in the 60s and 70s, the voice of the Russian absurd had emerged (Kharms was active at the same time as Beckett and Ionesco) and since then was considered one of the genre’s founders. It seems that this literary genre was perfect for describing the hardships and senseless day-to-day life in Communist Russia; few writers equal Kharms’ ability to describe the chasm in Russian society and its disintegration or possess his talent for depicting the relationships between people as a sequence of follies lacking meaning and context.

Toward the end of the 1930s, Kharms stopped publishing children’s literature almost entirely and he and his wife were on the brink of starvation. In 1941, he was arrested again after supposedly speaking out against the conscription to WWII. To avoid death sentence, Kharms feigned madness and, as a result, died of starvation in a psychiatric asylum in 1942.

Symphony no. 2

––––––––

Anton Mikhailovich spat, said "yuck", spat again, said "yuck" again, spat again, said "yuck" again and left. To Hell with him. Instead, let me tell about Ilya Pavlovich.

Ilya Pavlovich was born in 1893 in Constantinople. When he was still a boy, they moved to St. Petersburg, and there he graduated from the German School on Kirchnaya Street. Then he worked in some shop; then he did something else; and when the Revolution began, he emigrated. Well, to Hell with him. Instead, let me tell about Anna Ignatievna.

But it is not so easy to tell about Anna Ignatievna. Firstly, I know almost nothing about her, and secondly, I have just fallen of my chair, and have forgotten what I was about to say. So let me instead tell about myself.

I am tall, fairly intelligent; I dress prudently and tastefully; I don't drink, I don't bet on horses, but I like ladies. And ladies don't mind me. They like when I go out with them. Serafima Izmaylovna have invited me home several times, and Zinaida Yakovlevna also said that she was always glad to see me. But I was involved in a funny incident with Marina Petrovna, which I would like to tell about. A quite ordinary thing, but rather amusing. Because of me, Marina Petrovna lost all her hair - got bald like a baby's bottom. It happened like this: Once I went over to visit Marina Petrovna, and bang! she lost all her hair. And that was that.

On phenomena and existences - No. 1

––––––––

The artist Michelangelo sits down on a heap of bricks and, propping his head in his hands, begins to think. Suddenly a cockerel walks past and looks at the artist Michelangelo with his round, golden eyes. Looks, but doesn't blink. At this point, the artist Michelangelo raises his head and sees the cockerel. The cockerel does not lower his gaze, doesn't blink and doesn't move his tail. The artist Michelangelo looks down and is aware of something in his eye. The artist Michelangelo rubs his eyes with his hands. And the cockerel isn't standing there any more, isn't standing there, but is walking away, walking away behind the shed, behind the shed to the poultry-run, to the poultry-run towards his hens.

And the artist Michelangelo gets up from the heap of bricks, shakes the red brick dust from his trousers, throws aside his belt and goes off to his wife.

The artist Michelangelo's wife, by the way, is extremely long, all of two rooms in length.

On the way, the artist Michelangelo meets Komarov, grasps him by the hand and shouts: - Look! ...

Komarov looks and sees a sphere

- What's that? - whispers Komarov.

And from the sky comes a roar: - It's a sphere.

- What sort of a sphere is it? - whispers Komarov.

And from the sky it roars: - A smooth-surfaced sphere!

Komarov and the artist Michelangelo sit down on the grass and they are seated on the grass like mushrooms. They hold each other's hands and look up at the sky. And in the sky appears the outline of a huge spoon. What on earth is that? No-one knows. People run about and lock themselves in their houses. They lock their doors and their windows. But will that really help? Much good it does them! It will not help.

I remember in 1884 an ordinary comet the size of a steamer appearing in the sky. It was very frightening. But now - a spoon! Some phenomenon for a comet!

Lock your windows and doors!

Can that really help? You can't barricade yourself with planks against a celestial phenomenon.

Nikolay Ivanovich Stupin lives in our house. He has a theory that everything is smoke. But in my view not everything is smoke. Maybe even there's no smoke at all. Maybe there's really nothing. There's one category only. Or maybe there's no category at all. It's hard to say.

It is said that a certain celebrated artist scrutinised a cockerel. He scrutinised it and scrutinised it and came to the conclusion that the cockerel did not exist.

The artist told his friend this, and his friend just laughed. How, he said, doesn't it exist, he said, when it's standing right here and I, he said, am clearly observing it.

And the great artist thereupon hung his head and, retaining the same posture in which he stood, sat down on a pile of bricks.

That's all.

The thing

––––––––

A mom, a dad, and the maid named Natasha, were sitting at the table, drinking.

The dad was undoubtedly an alcoholic. Furthermore, even the mom looked down on him. But that didn't prevent the dad from being a good man. He was smiling honestly while rocking in a chair. The maid Natasha had a lace apron and was very extremely shy. The dad was playing with his beard, but maid Natasha was lowering her eyes shyly, showing, in that way, that she was ashamed.

The mom, a tall woman with a big hairdo, spoke with a horse­like voice. Her voice spread around the dining room and echoed back from the yard and other rooms.

After the first drink, everyone was quiet for a moment while they ate a sausage. A moment later, they all started talking again.

Suddenly, completely unexpected, someone knocked at the front door. Neither the dad, nor the mom, nor the maid, Natasha, could guess who was knocking on the front door.

- How strange? - said the dad. - Who could that be?

The mom looked at him with compassion and, even if it was not her turn, poured another glass, chugged it down and said:

- Strange.

The dad did not swear, but also poured a glass, chugged it down and got up from the table.

The dad was a short man. Completely opposite from the mom. The mom was a tall, plump woman with a voice like a horse, and the dad was simply her husband. And above all that, the dad had freckles.

He approached the door in one step and said:

- Who is it?

- Me - said the voice behind the door.

The door opened immediately, and in the room entered a maid, Natasha, all confused and blushing. Like a flower. Like a flower.

The dad sat down.

The mom had another drink.

The maid Natasha, and the other one, the "flower-like" one, got very shy and blushed. The dad looked at them but he did not swear, instead he had another drink and so did the mom.

The dad opened a can of crab paté to get the bad taste out of his mouth. Everyone was happy and they ate until morning. But the mom was quiet and she did not move from the chair. That was very impolite.

When the dad was about to sing a song, something hit the window. The mom jumped up terrified and yelled that she could clearly see someone looking through the window from the street. The others tried to convince the mom that that was impossible, because they were on the third floor and nobody from the street could possibly look through the window, as he would have to be a giant or Goliath.

But the mom would not change her mind. Nothing in the world could convince her that nobody could have been looking through the window.

In order to calm her down, they gave her another drink. The mom chugged it down. The dad also poured a glass and drank it.

Natasha and the maid, the "flower-like" one, were sitting, looking down in confusion.

- I cannot be happy when someone is looking at us through the window - said the mom.

The dad was desperate; he did not know how to calm the mom down. So he went down in the yard and tried to look through the window on the first floor. Of course, that was impossible. But that did not convince the mom. She did not even see that he couldn't reach the first floor window.

Finally, confused by the situation, the dad ran into the dining room and had two drinks in a row, giving one of them to the mom. The mom had her drink, and said that she was drinking solely because someone was looking at them through the window.

The dad spread his hands.

- Here - he said to the mom, and opened the window.

A man with a dirty coat and a big knife in his hands tried to get in through the window. When the dad noticed him, he closed the window and said:

- There is nobody.

But, the man with a dirty coat was outside looking into the room through the window, and furthermore, he opened the window and got in.

The mom was extremely disturbed by this. She started acting hysterically, and, after she had a drink that the dad gave her and ate a little mushroom, she calmed down.

Soon the dad calmed down, too. Again everybody sat at the table and continued to drink.

The dad took the papers and spent a long time flipping them up and down trying to determine what comes up and what comes down. But no matter how long he tried he couldn't sort it out so he put the papers aside and had a drink.

- Nice - said the dad - but we're out of pickles.

The mom made a sound like a horse, which was pretty inappropriate, and made the maids look at the table cloth and laugh silently.

The dad had another drink and suddenly grabbed the mom and put her on the cupboard.

The mom's gray, big, light hair was shaking, she got red spots all over her face, and, generally speaking, she was pretty upset.

The dad adjusted his trousers and started on a speech.

But at this point a secret hatch opened down on the floor and out from it crawled a monk.

The maids were so confused that one of them started to vomit. Natasha was holding her forehead and tried to hide what was going on.

The monk, the one that got out of the floor, aimed at the dad's ear and hit him so hard that everybody could hear the bells ringing in the dad's head!

The dad just sat down without even finishing his speech.

Then the monk approached the mom and with his hand, or leg, somehow from below, he kicked her.

The mom started to scream and cry for help.

Then the monk grabbed both maids by their aprons and, after swinging them through the air, let them hit the wall.

Then, unnoticed, the monk crawled back into the floor and closed the hatch behind him.

For a long time neither the dad, nor the mom, nor the maid Natasha could get their compoure again. But later, when they got some fresh air, they had another drink while adjusting their appearance, they sat down at the table, and started to eat salad.

After another drink everyone was talking quietly.

Suddenly the dad got red in the face and started to yell:

- What! What! - the dad was yelling. - You think that Iøm anal! You look at me like at a devil! I do not ask for your love! You are the devils!

The mom and the maid Natasha ran out of the room and locked themselves in the kitchen.

- Go away you drunk! Go, you son of a devil! - whispered the mom and the totally confused maid Natasha, behind the door.

And the dad stayed in the dining room until the morning when he took his bag, put on a white hat and quietly went to work.

Andrey Semyonovich

––––––––

Andrey Semyonovich spat into a cup of water. The water immediately turned black. Andrey Semyonovich screwed up his eyes and looked attentively into the cup. The water was very black. Andrey Semyonovich's heart began to throb.

At that moment Andrey Semyonovich's dog woke up. Andrey Semyonovich went over to the window and began ruminating.

Suddenly something big and dark shot past Andrey Semyonovich's face and flew out of the window. This was Andrey Semyonovich's dog flying out and it zoomed like a crow on to the roof of the building opposite. Andrey Semyonovich sat down on his haunches and began to howl.

Into the room ran Comrade Popugayev.

- What's up with you? Are you ill? - asked Comrade Popugayev.

Andrey Semyonovich quieted down and rubbed his eyes with his hands.

Comrade Popugayev took a look into the cup which was standing on the table. - What's this you've poured into here? - he asked Andrey Semyonovich.

- I don't know - said Andrey Semyonovich.

Popugayev instantly disappeared. The dog flew in through the window again, lay down in its former place and went to sleep.

Andrey Semyonovich went over to the table and took a drink from the cup of blackened water. And Andrey Semyonovich's soul turned lucid.

An unexpected drinking bout

––––––––

Once Antonina Alekseyevna struck her husband with her office stamp and imprinted his forehead with stamp-pad ink.

The mortally offended Pyotr Leonidovich, Antonina Alekseyevna's husband, locked himself in the bathroom and wouldn't let anyone in.

However, the residents of the communal flat, having a strong need to get in to where Pyotr Leonidovich was sitting, decided to break down the locked door by force.

Seeing that the game was up, Pyotr Leonidovich came out of the bathroom and, going back into his own flat, lay down on the bed.

But Antonina Alekseyevna decided to persecute her husband to the limit. She tore up little bits of paper and showered them on to Pyotr Leonidovich who was lying on the bed.

The infuriated Pyotr Leonidovich leaped out into the corridor and set about tearing the wallpaper.

At this point all the residents ran out and, seeing what the hapless Pyotr Leonidovich was doing, they threw themselves on to him and ripped the waistcoat that he was wearing.

Pyotr Leonidovich ran off to the porter's office.

During this time, Antonina Alekseyevna had stripped naked and had hidden in a trunk.

Ten minutes later Pyotr Leonidovich returned, followed by the house manager.

Not finding his wife in the room, Pyotr Leonidovich and the house manager decided to take advantage of the empty premises in order to down some vodka. Pyotr Leonidovich undertook to run off to the corner for the said beverage.

When Pyotr Leonidovich had gone out, Antonina Alekseyevna climbed out of the trunk and appeared before the house manager in a state of nakedness.

The shaken house manager leaped from his chair and rushed up to the window, but, seeing the stout build of the young twenty-six-year-old woman, he suddenly gave way to wild rapture.

At this point Pyotr Leonidovich returned with a litre of vodka.

Catching sight of what was afoot in his room, Pyotr Leonidovich knitted his brows.

But his spouse Antonina Alekseyevna showed him her office stamp and Pyotr Leonidovich calmed down.

Antonina Alekseyevna expressed a desire to participate in the drinking session, but strictly on condition that she maintain her naked state and, to boot, that she sit on the table on which it was proposed to set out the snacks to accompany the vodka. The men sat down on chairs, Antonina Alekseyevna sat on the table and the drinking commenced.

It cannot be called hygienic if a naked young woman is sitting on the very table at which people are eating. Moreover, Antonina Alekseyevna was a woman of a rather plump build and not all that particular about her bodily cleanliness, so it was a pretty devilish state of affairs.

Soon, however, they had all drunk themselves into a stupor and fallen asleep: the men on the floor and Antonina Alekseyevna on the table.

And silence was established in the communal flat.

The destiny of a professor's wife

––––––––

Once a professor had something to eat, and you could not say a little something, and he began to feel sick. His wife approached him and said: "What's wrong with you?" And the professor said: "Nothing." The wife went back to the kitchen.

The professor lay down on a divan, stayed there for a while, got some rest, and went to work.

And there, a surprise awaited him: They had cut down his salary, instead of 650 rubles now he made only 500. The professor tried everything, but nothing would help. He went to the director, but the director wanted to strangle him. He went to the bookkeeper, and the bookkeeper said: "You should go see the director." The professor got on a train and went to Moscow.

On the train the professor caught the flu. When he got to Moscow, he was so sick he could not get off the train.

He was put on a stretcher and taken to a hospital.

He stayed there no longer than four days and died.

The professor was cremated, and his ashes were put in a little jar and sent off to his wife.

So here is the professor's wife, sitting and drinking coffee. Suddenly the doorbell rings. What's going on? "You got a parcel." The wife is very happy, she is smiling, tipping the mailman with 5 rubles, and quickly opens the parcel.

She looks, and inside the parcel are a little jar with the ashes and a note: "This is all that is left of your husband."

The wife cannot understand what is going on, she shakes the jar, looks at it, she reads the note six times - finally she understands and gets really sad.

The wife gets oh so very sad, she cries for three hours and then decides to bury the jar with the ashes. She wraps the jar in a newspaper and takes it to 1st Petoletka Park, formerly known as Tavrinchesky.

The wife finds a spot, a little out of the way, and then, as she is about to start digging - a park guard appears. "Hey!" shouts the guard. "What are you doing here?" The wife gets scared and says: "Oh nothing, I wanted to catch some frogs in a jar." "Well," says the guard, "that's OK, but be careful, it's forbidden to walk on the grass."

When the guard leaves, the wife buries the jar in the ground, packs the dirt and goes for a walk around the park.

In the park a sailor approaches her. "Let's," he says, "go somewhere and sleep." She says: "Why would we sleep in the middle of the day?" And he is going on: "Sleep, sleep."

And really, the wife got sleepy.

She is walking around and feeling very sleepy. Around her, some blue and green people are running around - and she is getting sleepier and sleepier.

She is walking and sleeping. And she dreams that Leo Tolstoy approaches her with a patty in his hand. She asks him: "What is this?" And he points at the patty and says: "See." He says: "Here I made something, and now I want the whole world to see it. So," he says, "everybody can share it."

The wife looks and sees that this is not Tolstoy anymore, but a shack, and on the shack there is a hen.

The wife starts chasing the hen, but the hen gets under the bed and from there peeks out, but now as a rabbit.

The wife goes under the bed after the rabbit, and wakes up.

She wakes up and sees: Really, she is under the bed.

She gets out from under the bed and sees - her own room. See, here is the table with the unfinished cup of coffee. On the table is the note: "This is all that is left of your husband."

The wife cries again and sits down to finish the coffee.

Suddenly the doorbell rings. What's going on? Some people come in and order her: "Let's go."

"Where?" asks the wife.

"To a loony-bin," answer the people.

The wife starts to scream and resist them, but the people get her and take her to the loony-bin.

And here, a completely normal woman is sitting on a bed in a loony-bin with a note in her hands, and fishing, all over the floor, for some little, invisible fish.

This professor's wife is just one sad example of many unlucky people who in their lives do not take the place which they deserve.

The memoirs of a wise old man

––––––––

I used to be a very wise old man.

Now I am not quite right; you may even consider me not to exist at all. But there was a time when any one of you would have come to me and, whatever burden may have oppressed a person, whatever sins may have tormented his thoughts, I would have embraced him and said: - My son, take comfort, for no burden is oppressing you and I see no bodily sins in you - and he would scamper away from me in happiness and joy.

I was great and strong. People who meet me on the street would shy to one side and I would pass through a crowd like a flat iron.

My feet would often be kissed, but I didn't protest: I knew I deserved it. Why deprive people of the pleasure of honouring me? I myself, being extraordinarily lithe of body, even tried to kiss myself on my own foot. I sat on a bench, got hold of my right foot and pulled it up to my face. I managed to kiss the big toe. I was happy. I understood the happiness of others.

Everyone worshipped me! And not only people, but even beasts, and even various insects crawled before me and wagged their tails. And cats! They simply adored me and, somehow gripping each other's paws, would run in front of me whenever I was on the staircase.

At that time I was indeed very wise and understood everything. There was not a thing that would nonplus me. Just a minute's exertion of my colossal mind and the most complicated question would be resolved in the simplest possible manner. I was even taken to the Brain Institute and shown off to the learned professors. They measured my mind by electricity and simply boggled. - We have never seen anything like it - they said.

I was married but rarely saw my wife. She was afraid of me: The enormity of my mind overwhelmed her. She did not so much live, as tremble; and if I as much as looked at her, she would begin to hiccup. We lived together for a long time, but then I think she disappeared somewhere. I don't remember exactly.

Memory - that's a strange thing altogether. How hard remembering is, and how easy forgetting. That's how it often is: You memorise one thing, and then remember something entirely different. Or: you memorise something with some difficulty, but very thoroughly, and then you can't remember anything. That also happens. I would advise everyone to work a bit on their memory.

I always believed in fair play and never beat anyone for no reason, because, when you are beating someone, you always go a bit daft and you might overdo it. Children, for example, should never be beaten with a knife or with anything made of iron, but women - the opposite: They shouldn't be kicked. Animals - they, it is said, have more endurance. But I have carried out experiments in this line and I know that this is not always the case.

Thanks to my litheness, I was able to do things which no one else could do. For example, I managed to retrieve by hand from an extremely sinuous sewage pipe my brother's earring, which had accidently fallen there. And I could, for example, hide in a comparatively small basket and put the lid on myself.

Yes, certainly, I was phenomenal!

My brother was my complete opposite: In the first place, he was taller and, secondly, more stupid.

He and I were never very friendly. Although, however, we were friendly, even very. I've got something wrong here: To be exact, he and I were not friendly and were always on bad terms. And this is how we got crossed: I was standing beside a shop; they were issuing sugar there, and I was standing in the queue, trying not to listen to what was being said around me. I had slight toothache and was not in the greatest of moods. It was very cold outside, and though everyone was wearing quilted fur coats they were still freezing. I was also wearing a quilted fur, but I was not freezing myself, though my hands were freezing because I had to keep taking them out of my pockets to move the suitcase I was holding between my knees, so that it didn't go missing. Suddenly someone struck me on the back. I flew into a state of indescribable indignation and, quick as lightning, began to consider how to punish the offender. During this time, I was struck a second time on the back. I pricked up my ears, but decided against turning my head and pretended that I hadn't noticed. I just, to be on the safe side, took the suitcase in my hand. Seven minutes passed and I was struck on the back a third time. At this I turned round and saw in front of me a tall middle-aged man in a rather shabby, but still quite good, military fur coat.

- What do you want from me? - I asked him in strict and even slightly metallic voice.

- And you, why don't you turn when you're called? - he said.

I had begun to think over the content of his words when he again opened his mouth and said: - What's wrong with you? Don't you recognise me or something? I'm your brother.

I again began to think over his words when he again opened his mouth and said: - Just listen, brother mine. I'm four roubles short for the sugar and it's a nuisance to have to leave the queue. Lend me five and I'll settle up with you later. - I started to ponder why my brother should be four roubles short, but he grabbed hold of my sleeve and said: - Well, so then, are you going to lend your own brother some money? - and with these words he undid my quilted fur for me himself, got into my inside pocket and reached my purse.

- Here we are - he said. - I'm taking a loan of a certain sum, and your purse, look, here it is, I'm putting back in your coat. - And he shoved my purse into the outer pocket of my fur.

I was of course surprised at meeting my brother so unexpectedly. For a while I was silent, and then I asked him: - But where have you been until now?

- There - replied my brother, waving in some direction or other.

I started thinking over where this 'there' might be, but my brother nudged me in the side and said: - Look, they've started letting us in to the shop.

We went together as far as the shop doors, but inside the shop I proved to be on my own, without my brother. Just for a moment, I jumped out of the queue and looked through the door on to the street. But there was no sign of my brother.

When I again wanted to take my place in the queue, they wouldn't let me in and even pushed me gradually out on to the street. Holding back my anger at such bad manners, I went off home. At home I discovered that my brother had taken all the money from my purse. At this stage I got absolutely furious with my brother, and since then he and I have never made it up.

I lived alone and granted admittance only to those who came to me for advice. But there were many of these and it turned out that I knew peace neither by day nor by night. Sometimes I would get so tired that I would lie down on the floor and rest. I would lie on the floor until I got cold; then I would jump up and start running round the room, to warm up. Then I would again sit down on the bench and give advice to all in need of it.

They would come in to me one after the other, sometimes not even opening the doors. I used to enjoy looking at their excruciating faces. I would talk to them, hardly able to stop myself laughing.

Once I couldn't contain myself and burst out laughing. They rushed in horror to escape - some through the door, some through the window, and some straight through the walls.

Left on my own, I drew myself up to my full majestic height, opened my mouth and said: - Prin tim pram.

But at this point something in me cracked and, since then, you might consider that I am no more.

Leonid Andreyev

Leonid Andreyev was a Russian author and playwright. He was born on 1871 in the provincial town of Oryol. After his father’s death in 1889, he had to provide for his mother and younger siblings. While pursuing a career in law, Andreyev tried his hand as a police-court reporter and found this line of work much more engaging. In 1898 his first short story, a Dickensian Christmas story titled “Bargamot and Garaska,” was published in Kuryer newspaper, marking the beginning of his quick ascension to literary fame.

Less than ten years later, in 1907, he would be dubbed “Russia’s foremost man of letters – except for Tolstoy, of course.” His body of work includes two novels, five novellas, and a number of short stories and plays. Andreyev’s style defies easy labeling. During his lifetime he was ranked among realists, then symbolists, sometimes romanticists and even pulp fiction writers. Naturally inclined to the fantastic and grotesque, Andreyev went through a shift toward realism due to his longtime friendship with Maxim Gorky, Russia’s leading social-realist writer of the time. However, even his down-to-earth stories hint at another, darker reality which exists beyond everyday experiences.

Leonid Andreyev’s life was filled with extravagancies: he had five children with two wives; was considered a handsome and flamboyant man, and had over 100 colored photographs of himself. He also had his portraits made by Russia’s premier painters of the time. As he grew rich, he designed a grand villa for his family, which would eventually be built in Finland, due to Andreyev’s grave disappointment of the Russian Revolution in February 1917. In 1918, he moved to Finland to spend the rest of his life in poverty and misery, struggling to draw the world’s attention to the outcome of the Bolshevik revolution.

He died of a heart failure in 1919, most likely as a result of stress and anguish. His last major work was Satan’s Diary, an account of the Devil’s misfortunes in the treacherous world of humans. It is little wonder that Andreyev’s works were hardly known during the Soviet period. It was only in the late 1980s that Leonid Andreyev returned as a full value classic. His popularity has been growing steadily ever since.

Lazarus

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I

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When Lazarus rose from the grave, after three days and nights in the mysterious thraldom of death, and returned alive to his home, it was a long time before any one noticed the evil peculiarities in him that were later to make his very name terrible. His friends and relatives were jubilant that he had come back to life. They surrounded him with tenderness, they were lavish of their eager attentions, spending the greatest care upon his food and drink and the new garments they made for him. They clad him gorgeously in the glowing colours of hope and laughter, and when, arrayed like a bridegroom, he sat at table with them again, ate again, and drank again, they wept fondly and summoned the neighbours to look upon the man miraculously raised from the dead.

The neighbours came and were moved with joy. Strangers arrived from distant cities and villages to worship the miracle. They burst into stormy exclamations, and buzzed around the house of Mary and Martha, like so many bees.

That which was new in Lazarus' face and gestures they explained naturally, as the traces of his severe illness and the shock he had passed through. It was evident that the disintegration of the body had been halted by a miraculous power, but that the restoration had not been complete; that death had left upon his face and body the effect of an artist's unfinished sketch seen through a thin glass. On his temples, under his eyes, and in the hollow of his cheek lay a thick, earthy blue. His fingers were blue, too, and under his nails, which had grown long in the grave, the blue had turned livid. Here and there on his lips and body, the skin, blistered in the grave, had burst open and left reddish glistening cracks, as if covered with a thin, glassy slime. And he had grown exceedingly stout. His body was horribly bloated and suggested the fetid, damp smell of putrefaction. But the cadaverous, heavy odour that clung to his burial garments and, as it seemed, to his very body, soon wore off, and after some time the blue of his hands and face softened, and the reddish cracks of his skin smoothed out, though they never disappeared completely. Such was the aspect of Lazarus in his second life. It looked natural only to those who had seen him buried.

Not merely Lazarus' face, but his very character, it seemed, had changed; though it astonished no one and did not attract the attention it deserved. Before his death Lazarus had been cheerful and careless, a lover of laughter and harmless jest. It was because of his good humour, pleasant and equable, his freedom from meanness and gloom, that he had been so beloved by the Master. Now he was grave and silent; neither he himself jested nor did he laugh at the jests of others; and the words he spoke occasionally were simple, ordinary and necessary words—words as much devoid of sense and depth as are the sounds with which an animal expresses pain and pleasure, thirst and hunger. Such words a man may speak all his life and no one would ever know the sorrows and joys that dwelt within him.

Thus it was that Lazarus sat at the festive table among his friends and relatives—his face the face of a corpse over which, for three days, death had reigned in darkness, his garments gorgeous and festive, glittering with gold, bloody-red and purple; his mien heavy and silent. He was horribly changed and strange, but as yet undiscovered. In high waves, now mild, now stormy, the festivities went on around him. Warm glances of love caressed his face, still cold with the touch of the grave; and a friend's warm hand patted his bluish, heavy hand. And the music played joyous tunes mingled of the sounds of the tympanum, the pipe, the zither and the dulcimer. It was as if bees were humming, locusts buzzing and birds singing over the happy home of Mary and Martha.

II

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Some one recklessly lifted the veil. By one breath of an uttered word he destroyed the serene charm, and uncovered the truth in its ugly nakedness. No thought was clearly defined in his mind, when his lips smilingly asked: "Why do you not tell us, Lazarus, what was There?" And all became silent, struck with the question. Only now it seemed to have occurred to them that for three days Lazarus had been dead; and they looked with curiosity, awaiting an answer. But Lazarus remained silent.

"You will not tell us?" wondered the inquirer. "Is it so terrible There?"

Again his thought lagged behind his words. Had it preceded them, he would not have asked the question, for, at the very moment he uttered it, his heart sank with a dread fear. All grew restless; they awaited the words of Lazarus anxiously. But he was silent, cold and severe, and his eyes were cast down. And now, as if for the first time, they perceived the horrible bluishness of his face and the loathsome corpulence of his body. On the table, as if forgotten by Lazarus, lay his livid blue hand, and all eyes were riveted upon it, as though expecting the desired answer from that hand. The musicians still played; then silence fell upon them, too, and the gay sounds died down, as scattered coals are extinguished by water. The pipe became mute, and the ringing tympanum and the murmuring dulcimer; and as though a chord were broken, as though song itself were dying, the zither echoed a trembling broken sound. Then all was quiet.

"You will not?" repeated the inquirer, unable to restrain his babbling tongue. Silence reigned, and the livid blue hand lay motionless. It moved slightly, and the company sighed with relief and raised their eyes. Lazarus, risen from the dead, was looking straight at them, embracing all with one glance, heavy and terrible.

This was on the third day after Lazarus had arisen from the grave. Since then many had felt that his gaze was the gaze of destruction, but neither those who had been forever crushed by it, nor those who in the prime of life (mysterious even as death) had found the will to resist his glance, could ever explain the terror that lay immovable in the depths of his black pupils. He looked quiet and simple. One felt that he had no intention to hide anything, but also no intention to tell anything. His look was cold, as of one who is entirely indifferent to all that is alive. And many careless people who pressed around him, and did not notice him, later learned with wonder and fear the name of this stout, quiet man who brushed against them with his sumptuous, gaudy garments. The sun did not stop shining when he looked, neither did the fountain cease playing, and the Eastern sky remained cloudless and blue as always; but the man who fell under his inscrutable gaze could no longer feel the sun, nor hear the fountain, nor recognise his native sky. Sometimes he would cry bitterly, sometimes tear his hair in despair and madly call for help; but generally it happened that the men thus stricken by the gaze of Lazarus began to fade away listlessly and quietly and pass into a slow death lasting many long years. They died in the presence of everybody, colourless, haggard and gloomy, like trees withering on rocky ground. Those who screamed in madness sometimes came back to life; but the others, never.

"So you will not tell us, Lazarus, what you saw There?" the inquirer repeated for the third time. But now his voice was dull, and a dead, grey weariness looked stupidly from out his eyes. The faces of all present were also covered by the same dead grey weariness like a mist. The guests stared at one another stupidly, not knowing why they had come together or why they sat around this rich table. They stopped talking, and vaguely felt it was time to leave; but they could not overcome the lassitude that spread through their muscles. So they continued to sit there, each one isolated, like little dim lights scattered in the darkness of night.

The musicians were paid to play, and they again took up the instruments, and again played gay or mournful airs. But it was music made to order, always the same tunes, and the guests listened wonderingly. Why was this music necessary, they thought, why was it necessary and what good did it do for people to pull at strings and blow their cheeks into thin pipes, and produce varied and strange-sounding noises?

"How badly they play!" said some one.

The musicians were insulted and left. Then the guests departed one by one, for it was nearing night. And when the quiet darkness enveloped them, and it became easier to breathe, the image of Lazarus suddenly arose before each one in stern splendour. There he stood, with the blue face of a corpse and the raiment of a bridegroom, sumptuous and resplendent, in his eyes that cold stare in the depths of which lurked The Horrible! They stood still as if turned into stone. The darkness surrounded them, and in the midst of this darkness flamed up the horrible apparition, the supernatural vision, of the one who for three days had lain under the measureless power of death. Three days he had been dead. Thrice had the sun risen and set—and he had lain dead. The children had played, the water had murmured as it streamed over the rocks, the hot dust had clouded the highway—and he had been dead. And now he was among men again—touched them—looked at them—looked at them! And through the black rings of his pupils, as through dark glasses, the unfathomable There gazed upon humanity.

III

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No one took care of Lazarus, and no friends or kindred remained with him. Only the great desert, enfolding the Holy City, came close to the threshold of his abode. It entered his home, and lay down on his couch like a spouse, and put out all the fires. No one cared for Lazarus. One after the other went away, even his sisters, Mary and Martha. For a long while Martha did not want to leave him, for she knew not who would nurse him or take care of him; and she cried and prayed. But one night, when the wind was roaming about the desert, and the rustling cypress trees were bending over the roof, she dressed herself quietly, and quietly went away. Lazarus probably heard how the door was slammed—it had not shut properly and the wind kept knocking it continually against the post—but he did not rise, did not go out, did not try to find out the reason. And the whole night until the morning the cypress trees hissed over his head, and the door swung to and fro, allowing the cold, greedily prowling desert to enter his dwelling. Everybody shunned him as though he were a leper. They wanted to put a bell on his neck to avoid meeting him. But some one, turning pale, remarked it would be terrible if at night, under the windows, one should happen to hear Lazarus' bell, and all grew pale and assented.

Since he did nothing for himself, he would probably have starved had not his neighbours, in trepidation, saved some food for him. Children brought it to him. They did not fear him, neither did they laugh at him in the innocent cruelty in which children often laugh at unfortunates. They were indifferent to him, and Lazarus showed the same indifference to them. He showed no desire to thank them for their services; he did not try to pat the dark hands and look into the simple shining little eyes. Abandoned to the ravages of time and the desert, his house was falling to ruins, and his hungry, bleating goats had long been scattered among his neighbours. His wedding garments had grown old. He wore them without changing them, as he had donned them on that happy day when the musicians played. He did not see the difference between old and new, between torn and whole. The brilliant colours were burnt and faded; the vicious dogs of the city and the sharp thorns of the desert had rent the fine clothes to shreds.

During the day, when the sun beat down mercilessly upon all living things, and even the scorpions hid under the stones, convulsed with a mad desire to sting, he sat motionless in the burning rays, lifting high his blue face and shaggy wild beard.

While yet the people were unafraid to speak to him, same one had asked him: "Poor Lazarus! Do you find it pleasant to sit so, and look at the sun?" And he answered: "Yes, it is pleasant."

The thought suggested itself to people that the cold of the three days in the grave had been so intense, its darkness so deep, that there was not in all the earth enough heat or light to warm Lazarus and lighten the gloom of his eyes; and inquirers turned away with a sigh.

And when the setting sun, flat and purple-red, descended to earth, Lazarus went into the desert and walked straight toward it, as though intending to reach it. Always he walked directly toward the sun, and those who tried to follow him and find out what he did at night in the desert had indelibly imprinted upon their mind's vision the black silhouette of a tall, stout man against the red background of an immense disk. The horrors of the night drove them away, and so they never found out what Lazarus did in the desert; but the image of the black form against the red was burned forever into their brains. Like an animal with a cinder in its eye which furiously rubs its muzzle against its paws, they foolishly rubbed their eyes; but the impression left by Lazarus was ineffaceable, forgotten only in death.

There were people living far away who never saw Lazarus and only heard of him. With an audacious curiosity which is stronger than fear and feeds on fear, with a secret sneer in their hearts, some of them came to him one day as he basked in the sun, and entered into conversation with him. At that time his appearance had changed for the better and was not so frightful. At first the visitors snapped their fingers and thought disapprovingly of the foolish inhabitants of the Holy City. But when the short talk came to an end and they went home, their expression was such that the inhabitants of the Holy City at once knew their errand and said: "Here go some more madmen at whom Lazarus has looked." The speakers raised their hands in silent pity.

Other visitors came, among them brave warriors in clinking armour, who knew not fear, and happy youths who made merry with laughter and song. Busy merchants, jingling their coins, ran in for awhile, and proud attendants at the Temple placed their staffs at Lazarus' door. But no one returned the same as he came. A frightful shadow fell upon their souls, and gave a new appearance to the old familiar world.

Those who felt any desire to speak, after they had been stricken by the gaze of Lazarus, described the change that had come over them somewhat like this:

All objects seen by the eye and palpable to the hand became empty, light and transparent, as though they were light shadows in the darkness; and this darkness enveloped the whole universe. It was dispelled neither by the sun, nor by the moon, nor by the stars, but embraced the earth like a mother, and clothed it in a boundless black veil.

Into all bodies it penetrated, even into iron and stone; and the particles of the body lost their unity and became lonely. Even to the heart of the particles it penetrated, and the particles of the particles became lonely.

The vast emptiness which surrounds the universe, was not filled with things seen, with sun or moon or stars; it stretched boundless, penetrating everywhere, disuniting everything, body from body, particle from particle.

In emptiness the trees spread their roots, themselves empty; in emptiness rose phantom temples, palaces and houses—all empty; and in the emptiness moved restless Man, himself empty and light, like a shadow.

There was no more a sense of time; the beginning of all things and their end merged into one. In the very moment when a building was being erected and one could hear the builders striking with their hammers, one seemed already to see its ruins, and then emptiness where the ruins were.

A man was just born, and funeral candles were already lighted at his head, and then were extinguished; and soon there was emptiness where before had been the man and the candles.

And surrounded by Darkness and Empty Waste, Man trembled hopelessly before the dread of the Infinite.

So spoke those who had a desire to speak. But much more could probably have been told by those who did not want to talk, and who died in silence.

IV

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At that time there lived in Rome a celebrated sculptor by the name of Aurelius. Out of clay, marble and bronze he created forms of gods and men of such beauty that this beauty was proclaimed immortal. But he himself was not satisfied, and said there was a supreme beauty that he had never succeeded in expressing in marble or bronze. "I have not yet gathered the radiance of the moon," he said; "I have not yet caught the glare of the sun. There is no soul in my marble, there is no life in my beautiful bronze." And when by moonlight he would slowly wander along the roads, crossing the black shadows of the cypress-trees, his white tunic flashing in the moonlight, those he met used to laugh good-naturedly and say: "Is it moonlight that you are gathering, Aurelius? Why did you not bring some baskets along?"

And he, too, would laugh and point to his eyes and say: "Here are the baskets in which I gather the light of the moon and the radiance of the sun."

And that was the truth. In his eyes shone moon and sun. But he could not transmit the radiance to marble. Therein lay the greatest tragedy of his life. He was a descendant of an ancient race of patricians, had a good wife and children, and except in this one respect, lacked nothing.

When the dark rumour about Lazarus reached him, he consulted his wife and friends and decided to make the long voyage to Judea, in order that he might look upon the man miraculously raised from the dead. He felt lonely in those days and hoped on the way to renew his jaded energies. What they told him about Lazarus did not frighten him. He had meditated much upon death. He did not like it, nor did he like those who tried to harmonise it with life. On this side, beautiful life; on the other, mysterious death, he reasoned, and no better lot could befall a man than to live—to enjoy life and the beauty of living. And he already had conceived a desire to convince Lazarus of the truth of this view and to return his soul to life even as his body had been returned. This task did not appear impossible, for the reports about Lazarus, fearsome and strange as they were, did not tell the whole truth about him, but only carried a vague warning against something awful.

Lazarus was getting up from a stone to follow in the path of the setting sun, on the evening when the rich Roman, accompanied by an armed slave, approached him, and in a ringing voice called to him: "Lazarus!"

Lazarus saw a proud and beautiful face, made radiant by fame, and white garments and precious jewels shining in the sunlight. The ruddy rays of the sun lent to the head and face a likeness to dimly shining bronze—that was what Lazarus saw. He sank back to his seat obediently, and wearily lowered his eyes.

"It is true you are not beautiful, my poor Lazarus," said the Roman quietly, playing with his gold chain. "You are even frightful, my poor friend; and death was not lazy the day when you so carelessly fell into its arms. But you are as fat as a barrel, and 'Fat people are not bad,' as the great Caesar said. I do not understand why people are so afraid of you. You will permit me to stay with you over night? It is already late, and I have no abode."

Nobody had ever asked Lazarus to be allowed to pass the night with him.

"I have no bed," said he.

"I am somewhat of a warrior and can sleep sitting," replied the Roman. "We shall make a light."

"I have no light."

"Then we will converse in the darkness like two friends. I suppose you have some wine?"

"I have no wine."

The Roman laughed.

"Now I understand why you are so gloomy and why you do not like your second life. No wine? Well, we shall do without. You know there are words that go to one's head even as Falernian wine."

With a motion of his head he dismissed the slave, and they were alone. And again the sculptor spoke, but it seemed as though the sinking sun had penetrated into his words. They faded, pale and empty, as if trembling on weak feet, as if slipping and falling, drunk with the wine of anguish and despair. And black chasms appeared between the two men—like remote hints of vast emptiness and vast darkness.

"Now I am your guest and you will not ill-treat me, Lazarus!" said the Roman. "Hospitality is binding even upon those who have been three days dead. Three days, I am told, you were in the grave. It must have been cold there... and it is from there that you have brought this bad habit of doing without light and wine. I like a light. It gets dark so quickly here. Your eyebrows and forehead have an interesting line: even as the ruins of castles covered with the ashes of an earthquake. But why in such strange, ugly clothes? I have seen the bridegrooms of your country, they wear clothes like that—such ridiculous clothes—such awful garments... Are you a bridegroom?"

Already the sun had disappeared. A gigantic black shadow was approaching fast from the west, as if prodigious bare feet were rustling over the sand. And the chill breezes stole up behind.