"... We look to you for the regeneration of human life!"
So shouted a speaker, holding on with difficulty to a small pillar,
balancing himself with his arm, and waving a flag with a large
inscription half-hidden in its folds: "Down with the war!"
"You, who are young, you, whose lives are only just beginning, save
yourselves and the future generations from this horror, from this
madness. It is unbearable, our eyes are drowned with blood. The sky
is falling upon us, the earth is giving way under our feet. Kind
people...."
The crowd was buzzing enigmatically and the voice of the speaker was
drowned at times in the living threatening noise.
"... Suppose I am mad, but I am speaking the truth. My father and
brother are rotting over there like carrion. Make bonfires, dig pits
and destroy, bury all your arms. Demolish all the barracks, and strip
all the men of their bright clothes of madness, tear them off. One
cannot bear it.... Men are dying...."
Somebody very tall gave him a blow and knocked him off the pillar; the
flag rose once again and fell. I had no time to see the face of the
man who struck him, as instantly everything turned into a nightmare.
Everything became commotion, became agitated and howled; stones and
logs of wood went flying through the air, fists, that were beating
somebody, appeared above the heads. The crowd, like a living, roaring
wave, lifted me up, carried me along several steps and threw me
violently against a fence, then carried me back and away somewhere, and
at last pressed me against a high pile of wood, that inclined forwards,
threatening to fall down upon somebody's head. Something crackled
and rattled against the beams in rapid dry succession; an instant's
stillness--and again a roar burst forth, enormous, open-mouthed,
terrible in its overwhelming power. And then the dry rapid crackling
was heard again and somebody fell down near me with the blood flowing
out of a red hole where his eye had been. And a heavy log of wood came
whirling through the air and struck me in the face, and I fell down and
began crawling, whither I knew not, amidst the trampling feet, and
came to an open space. Then I climbed over some fences, breaking all
my nails, clambered up piles of wood; one pile fell to pieces under
me and I fell amidst a cataract of thumping logs; at last I succeeded
with difficulty in getting out of a closed-in space--while behind me
all crashed, roared, howled and crackled, trying to overtake me. A
bell was ringing somewhere; something fell with a thundering crash, as
if it were a five-storey house. The twilight seemed to have stopped
still, keeping back the night, and the roar and shots, as if steeped in
red, had driven away the darkness. Jumping over the last fence I found
myself in a narrow, crooked lane resembling a corridor, between two
obscure walls, and began running. I ran for a long time, but the lane
seemed to have no outlet: it was terminated by a wall, behind which
piles of wood and scaffolding rose up black against the sky. And again
I climbed over the mobile, shifting piles, falling into pits, where all
was still and smelt of damp wood, getting out of them again into the
open, not daring to look back, for I knew quite well what was happening
by the dull reddish colour that tinged the black beams and made them
look like murdered giants. My smashed face had stopped bleeding and
felt numbed and strange, like a mask of plaster; and the pain had
almost quite disappeared. I believe I fainted and lost consciousness in
one of the black holes into which I had fallen, but I am not certain
whether I only imagined it or was it really so, as I can only remember
myself running.
I rushed about the unfamiliar streets, that had no lamps, past the
black death-like houses for a long time, unable to find my way out of
the dumb labyrinth. I ought to have stopped and looked around me to
define the necessary direction, but it was impossible to do so: the
still distant din and howl was following at my heels and gradually
overtaking me; sometimes, at a sudden turning, it struck me in the
face, red and enveloped in clouds of livid, curling smoke, and then I
turned back and rushed on until it was at my back once more. At one
corner I saw a strip of light, that disappeared at my approach: it was
a shop that was being hastily closed. I caught a glimpse of the counter
and a barrel through a wide chink, but suddenly all became enveloped in
a silent, crouching gloom. Not far from the shop I met a man, who was
running towards me, and we almost collided in the darkness, stopping
short at the distance of two steps from each other. I do not know who
he was: I only saw the dark alert outline.
"Are you coming from over there?" he asked.
"Yes."
"And where are you running to?"
"Home."
"Ah! Home?"
He was silent for an instant and suddenly flung himself upon me, trying
to bring me to the ground, and his cold fingers searched hungrily for
my throat, but got entangled in my clothes. I bit his hand, loosened
myself from his grip and set off running through the deserted streets
with him after me, stamping loudly with his boots, for a long time.
Then he stopped--I suppose the bite hurt him.
I do not know how I hit upon my street. It had no lamps either and the
houses had not a single light, as if they were dead, and I would have
run past without recognising it, if I had not by chance lifted my eyes
and seen my house. But I hesitated for some time: the house in which
I had lived for so many years seemed to me unfamiliar in that strange
dead street, in which my loud breathing awakened an extraordinary
and mournful echo. Then I was seized by a sudden wild terror at
the thought that I had lost my key when I fell, and I found it with
difficulty, although it was there all the time in the pocket of my
coat. And when I turned the lock the echo repeated the sound so loudly
and extraordinarily, as if all the doors of those dead houses in the
whole street had opened simultaneously.
... At first I hid myself in the cellar, but it was terrible and dull
down there, and something began darting before my eyes, so I quietly
stole into the rooms. Groping my way in the dark I locked all the
doors and after a short meditation decided to barricade them with the
furniture, but the sound of the furniture being moved was terribly
loud in the empty rooms and terrified me. "I shall await death thus.
It's all the same," I decided. There was some water, very warm water
in the water-jug, and I washed my face in the dark and wiped it with a
sheet. The parts that were smashed galled and smarted much, and I felt
a desire to look at myself in the looking-glass. I lit a match--and in
its uneven, faint light there glanced at me from out of the darkness
something so hideous and terrible, that I hastily threw the match upon
the floor. I believe my nose was broken. "It makes no difference now,"
said I to myself. "Nobody will mind."
And I felt gay. With strange grimaces and contortions of the body, as
if I were personating a thief on the stage, I went into the larder and
began searching for food. I clearly saw the unsuitableness of all my
grimaces, but it pleased me so. And I ate with the same contortions,
pretending that I was very hungry.
But the darkness and quiet frightened me. I opened the window into
the yard and began listening. At first, probably as the traffic had
ceased, all seemed to me to be quite still. And I heard no shots. But
soon I clearly distinguished a distant din of voices: shouts, the crash
of something falling, a laugh. The sounds grew louder perceptibly. I
looked at the sky; it was livid and sweeping past rapidly. And the
coach-house opposite me, and the paving of the streets, and the dog's
kennel, all were tinged with the same reddish glare. I called the dog
softly,--
"Neptune!"
But nothing stirred in the kennel, and near it I distinguished in the
livid light a shining piece of broken chain. The distant cries and
noise of something falling kept on growing, and I shut the window.
"They are coming here!" I said to myself, and began looking for some
place to hide myself. I opened the stoves, fumbled at the grate, opened
the cupboards, but they would not do. I made the round of all the
rooms, excepting the study, into which I did not want to look. I knew
he was sitting in his armchair at his table, heaped with books, and
this was unpleasant to me at that moment.
Gradually it began to appear that I was not alone: around me people
were silently moving about in the darkness. They almost touched me, and
once somebody's breath sent a cold thrill through the back of my head.
"Who is there?" I asked in a whisper, but nobody answered.
And when I moved on they followed me, silent and terrible. I knew that
it was only a hallucination because I was ill and apparently feverish,
but I could not conquer my fear, from which I was trembling all over as
if I had the ague. I felt my head: it was hot as if on fire.
"I had better go there," said I to myself. "He is one of my own people
after all."
He was sitting in his armchair at his table, heaped with books, and
did not disappear as he did the last time, but remained seated. The
reddish light was making its way through the red drawn curtains into
the room, but did not light up anything, and he was scarcely visible. I
sat down at a distance from him on the couch and waited. All was still
in the room, while from outside the even buzzing noise, the crash of
something falling and disjointed cries were borne in upon us. And they
were nearing us. The livid light became brighter and brighter, and I
could distinguish him in his armchair--his black, iron-like profile,
outlined by a narrow stripe of red.
"Brother!" I said.
But he kept silence, immobile and black, like a monument. A board
cracked in the next room and suddenly all became so extraordinarily
still, as it is where there are many dead. All the sounds died away
and the livid light itself assumed a scarcely perceptible shade of
deathliness and stillness and became motionless and a little dim. I
thought the stillness was coming from my brother and told him so.
"No, it is not from me," he answered. "Look out of the window."