"Then, again, I am afraid of crowds--of men, when many of them gather
together. When of an evening I hear a noise in the street--a loud
shout, for instance--I start and believe that ... a massacre has
begun. When several men stand together, and I cannot hear what they
are talking about, it seems to me that they will suddenly cry out,
fall upon each other, and blood will flow. And you know"--he bent
mysteriously towards my ear--"the papers are full of murders--strange
murders. It is all nonsense that there are as many brains as there
are men; mankind has only one intellect, and it is beginning to get
muddled. Just feel my head, how hot it is. It is on fire. And sometimes
it gets cold, and everything freezes in it, grows benumbed, and changes
into a terrible dead-like piece of ice. I must go mad; don't laugh,
brother, I must go mad. A quarter of an hour has passed, it's time for
you to get out of your bath."
"A little bit more. Just a minute."
It was so good to be sitting again in that bath and listening to
the well-known voice, without reflecting upon the words, and to see
all the familiar, simple and ordinary things around me: the brass,
slightly-green tap, the walls, with the familiar pattern, and all the
photographic outfit laid out in order upon the shelves. I would take up
photography again, take simple, peaceful landscapes and portraits of my
son walking, laughing and playing. One could do that without legs. And
I would take up my writing again--about clever books, the progress of
human thought, beauty, and peace.
"Ho, ho, ho!" roared I, splashing about.
"What is the matter with you?" asked my brother, growing pale and full
of fear.
"Nothing. I am glad to be home."
He smiled at me as one smiles at a child or on one younger than
oneself, although I was three years older than he, and grew thoughtful,
like a grown-up person or an old man who has great, burdensome old
thoughts.
"Where can one fly to?" he asked, shrugging his shoulders. "Every day,
at about the same hour, the papers close the circuit, and all mankind
gets a shock. This simultaneousness of feelings, tears, thoughts,
sufferings and horror deprives me of all stay, and I am like a chip of
wood tossing about on the waves, or a bit of dust in a whirlwind. I am
forcibly torn away from all that is habitual, and there is one terrible
moment every morning, when I seem to hang in the air over the black
abyss of insanity. And I shall fall into it, I must fall into it. You
don't know all, brother. You don't read the papers, and much is held
back from you--you don't know all, brother."
I took all his words for rather a gloomy joke--the usual attitude
towards all those who, being touched by insanity, have an inkling of
the insanity of war, and gave us a warning. I considered it as a joke,
as if I had forgotten for the moment, while I was splashing about in
the hot water, all that I had seen over there. "Well, let them hold
things back from me, but I must get out of the bath, anyway," said I
lightly, and my brother smiled and called my man, and together they
lifted me out of my bath and dressed me. Afterwards I had some fragrant
tea, which I drank out of my cut-glass tumbler, and said to myself
that life was worth living even without a pair of legs; and then they
wheeled me into the study up to my table and I prepared for work.
Before the war I was on the staff of a journal, reviewing foreign
literature, and now, disposed within my reach, lay a heap of those
dear, sweet books in yellow, blue and brown covers. My joy was so
great, my delight so profound, that I could not make up my mind to
begin reading them, and I merely fingered the books, passing my hand
caressingly over them. I felt a smile spread over my face, most
probably a very silly smile, but I could not keep it back, as I
contemplated admiringly the type, the vignettes, the severe beautiful
simplicity of the drawings. How much thought and sense of beauty there
was in them all! How many people had to work and search, how much
talent and taste were needed to bring forth that letter, for instance,
so simple and elegant, so clever, harmonious and eloquent in its
interlaced lines.
"And now I must set to work," said I, seriously, full of respect for
work.
And I took up my pen to write the heading and, like a frog tied to a
string, my hand began plunging about the paper. The pen stuck into the
paper, scratched it, jerked about, slipped irresistibly aside, and
brought forth hideous lines, broken, crooked, devoid of all sense. And
I did not cry out or move, I grew cold and still as the approaching
terrible truth dawned upon me; while my hand danced over the brightly
illuminated paper, and each finger shook in such hopeless, living,
insane horror, as if they, those fingers, were still at the front and
saw the conflagrations and blood, and heard the groans and cries of
undescribable pain. They had detached themselves from me, those madly
quivering fingers, they were alive, they had become ears and eyes; and,
growing cold from horror, without the strength to move or cry out, I
watched their wild dance over the clean, bright white page.
And all was quiet. They thought I was working, and had shut all the
doors, so as not to interrupt me by any sound--and I was alone in the
room, deprived of the power of moving, obediently watching my shaking
hands.
"It is nothing," said I aloud, and in the stillness and loneliness of
the study my voice sounded hollow and nasty like the voice of a madman.
"It is nothing. I will dictate. Why, Milton was blind when he wrote his
_Paradise Regained_. I can think, and that is the chief thing, in fact
it is all."
And I began inventing a long clever phrase about the blind Milton, but
the words got confused, fell away as out of a rotten printing frame,
and when I came to the end of the phrase I had forgotten the beginning.
Then I tried to remember what made me begin, and why I was inventing
that strange senseless phrase about Milton, and could not.
"_Paradise Regained, Paradise Regained_," I repeated, and could not
understand what it meant.
And then I saw that I often forgot very many things, that I had become
strangely absent-minded, and confused familiar faces; that I forgot
words even in a simple conversation, and sometimes, remembering a word,
I could not understand its meaning. And I clearly pictured to myself my
daily existence. A strange short day, cut off like my legs, with empty
mysterious spaces, long hours of unconsciousness or apathy, about which
I could remember nothing.
I wanted to call my wife, but could not remember her name--and this did
not surprise or frighten me. Softly I whispered,--
"Wife!"
The incoherent, unusual word sounded softly and died away without
bringing any response. And all was quiet. They were afraid of
disturbing me at my work by any careless sound, and all was quiet--a
perfect study for a savant--cosy, quiet, disposing one to meditation
and creative energy. "Dear ones, how solicitous they are of me!" I
thought tenderly.
... And inspiration, sacred inspiration, came to me. The sun burst
forth in my head, and its burning creative rays darted over the whole
world, dropping flowers and songs--flowers and songs. And I wrote on
through the whole night, feeling no exhaustion, but soaring freely
on the wings of mighty, sacred inspiration. I was writing something
great--something immortal--flowers and songs--flowers and songs....