How, then, did I get into the bushes, if I were shot in the open field?
It is likely that I crawled here when I was wounded and the pain
obliterated the memory of it. It is singular, however, that I should
not be able to move now, and that I had been able to drag myself then
towards these bushes. It is possible that I got my second wound while
lying here, which may explain the matter.
I now see pale-rose stains around me. The large star has lost its
brilliancy; some of the small ones have disappeared. It is because the
moon has begun to rise. How good it must be at home!...
I hear strange sounds somewhere.... As if some one were moaning. Yes,
it is a moan. Is it another unfortunate lying near me, forgotten like
myself, with broken legs--or with a bullet in his stomach? No, the
moans sound so near, and yet it seems there is no one here.... Oh, God,
but it is--myself! Low, piteous moans; am I actually in such agony? I
must be. Only, I don’t understand this pain; because there is a fog in
my head that weighs me down like lead. It is better that I should lie
down again and go to sleep--and sleep and sleep.... Shall I ever wake
again? It does not really matter.
At the instant that I am gathering strength to lie down, a broad, pale
strip of moonlight strikes the spot where I am sitting, revealing
something dark and large lying only a few feet away. Here and there
upon it little gleams are visible in the moonlight. Is it buttons or
bullets? Is it a corpse, or is it some one wounded?
Well, I will lie down....
No, it is impossible. Our soldiers have not departed. They are here,
they have beaten the Turks and have remained here. Why do I not hear
voices and the crackle of bonfires? I must be too weak to hear. They
are surely here.
“Help! Help!”
Wild, incoherent, and hoarse cries burst from my bosom, and they
receive no answer. Loudly they scatter in the nocturnal air. Everything
else is silent. Only the crickets chirrup on ceaselessly as before. The
round moon looks compassionately down on me.
If _he_ were only wounded, my cries surely would have roused him. It
is a corpse. Is it one of us or a Turk? Oh, God! as if it really
mattered.... And I feel sleep descending upon my inflamed eyes.
* * * * *
I am lying with closed eyes, though I have been awake for some time. I
do not wish to open my eyes, because I feel through the shut eyelids
the blaze of the sun; if I open them, they will begin to smart. Perhaps
I had better not even stir.... It was yesterday--yes, it must have been
yesterday--that I was wounded; a day has now passed, and other days
will pass, and I shall die. It does not matter. It is better not to
stir. I will keep my body motionless. If I could only stop the working
of the brain! Nothing will stop that. Thoughts, memories, crowd upon
me. In any case, it will not be for long; the end must come soon. The
newspapers will publish just a few lines to say that our losses have
been insignificant: so many have been wounded; among those killed is
Ivanov, a private in the volunteers’ ranks. No, even my name will not
be mentioned; they will simply say, “One killed.” One soldier in the
ranks--like some little dog.
The entire picture now comes to mind. It happened long ago; in fact,
everything, all my life, _that_ life, before I lay here with wounded
legs, seems to have been such a long time ago.... I remember strolling
along the street. Seeing a crowd of people, I stopped. The crowd stood
and silently looked upon something white, bloody, piteously whining.
It was a handsome little dog which had been run over by a tram-car.
It was dying, as I am now. A house-porter made his way through the
crowd, picked the dog up by the collar, and carried it away. The crowd
dispersed.
Will some one carry me away? No, you lie here and die. But how good
it is to live!... Upon that particular day--when the little dog met
misfortune--I was happy. I was walking along in a kind of intoxication;
and there was good cause. Oh, my memories, don’t torture me, leave me!
My past was happiness; my present is agony.... If only my sufferings
alone remained, and my memories ceased to torture me--for they compel
comparisons. Ah, longings, longings! You are wounded worse.
It is becoming hot. The sun is scorching me. I open my eyes, see the
same bushes, the same sky--only, in the light of day. And here, too,
is my neighbor. Yes, it is the Turk--his body. What a huge fellow! I
recognize him--it is the very same one.
Before my eyes lies a man I have killed. Why have I killed him?
He lies here dead, blood-stained. What fate brought him here? Who is
he? Perhaps, like myself, he has an old mother. Long will she sit
evenings at the door of her wretched hut, looking ever towards the
north: is he coming home, he, her beloved son, her protector and
provider?...
And I? Yes, I also.... I would even change places with him. How happy
he is! He hears nothing; neither does he feel pain from wounds, nor
terrible longing, nor thirst.... The bayonet entered his very heart....
There is a large black hole in his uniform, and blood all around it.
_That is my work._
I did not wish to do it. I did not wish to harm any one when I
volunteered. The thought that I too should have to kill somehow escaped
me. I only imagined how I would expose _my own_ breast to bullets. And
I did expose it.
Well, and what has it come to? Fool, fool! This unfortunate _fellah_,
in Egyptian uniform, he is even less to blame than you are. Before
he and others were packed, like herrings in a barrel, into a steamer
and brought to Constantinople, he had not even heard of Russia or of
Bulgaria. He was commanded to go, and he went. Had he refused to go,
he would have been beaten with sticks, and perhaps some Pasha or other
would have fired a bullet into him. It was a long, difficult march
for him from Stamboul to Rustchuk. We attacked, he defended himself.
Seeing, however, that we were a fearless people, and that, unafraid of
his English carbine, we rushed forward and still moved forward, he was
seized with terror. Just as he was trying to get away, some sort of
little man, whom he could have killed with one blow of his dark fist,
ran forward and plunged a bayonet into his heart.
Of what had he been guilty?
And of what am I guilty, even though I have killed him? Of what am I
guilty? Why am I tortured by thirst? Thirst! Who knows the meaning of
this word? Even during the days when we marched through Roumania, fifty
versts at a stretch, through unbearable heat, I did not feel what I
feel now. If only some one came along this way!
Oh, God! But there must be water in that big flask of his! Only to
reach it! Come what may, I will get it.
I begin to crawl. I drag my legs slowly; my exhausted arms barely stir
the passive body from its place. The spot is hardly more than fifteen
feet away, but it seems like ten versts. Nevertheless, I must crawl on.
My throat is aflame with a terrible fire. To be sure, without water, I
could die the more quickly. All the same, perhaps....
And so I crawl. My legs drag on the ground, and every movement calls
forth most excruciating pain. I cry out again and again, with tears in
my eyes, and still I crawl on. At last! The flask is in my hand....
There’s water in it--and quite a deal! It seems more than half full.
Ah, it will last me some time ... until I die!
It is you, my victim, who will save me! I begin to undo the flask,
propping myself up on one elbow; and suddenly, losing my balance, I
fall downward across the breast of my deliverer. Decay having set in, a
strong stench comes from his body.
I have slaked my thirst. The water is warm, but not spoilt; and there
is a great deal of it. I can live a few more days. I remember having
read somewhere that one could exist without food for over a week,
provided one had water. Yes, and I recall also the story of the man who
committed suicide by starvation, but who lived a long time because he
drank water.
Well, and what’s to be the end of it? And if I do live five or six
days longer, what of that? Our troops have gone, the Bulgarians have
dispersed. I am far from a road. Death--there is no way out of it. I
have but prolonged my three-day agony with a seven-day one. Perhaps I
had better end it all. At my neighbor’s side lies his gun, an excellent
English mechanism. I have only to stretch out my hand; then--one little
moment, and an end. There is quite a lot of cartridges here, too. He
hadn’t had time to dispose of them all.
Shall I end it all--or wait? Wait for what? Deliverance? Death? Or
shall I wait until the Turks come here and tear the skin from my
wounded legs? Far better that I should put an end to it myself.
No; there is no need to lose courage. I will struggle to the end, to my
last resource. There is still hope of being found. It is possible my
bones are not affected; and I may return to health. I shall again see
my native land, my mother, and Masha....
Oh, Lord, save them from knowing the whole truth! Let them think I was
killed outright. What if they should learn that I had suffered slow
torture for two, three, or four days!
My head is in a whirl. My journey to my neighbor has completely
exhausted me. What a terrible stench! He has grown black ... and what
will he be like to-morrow or the day after? And now I am lying here
only because I haven’t sufficient strength to drag myself away. I will
rest awhile, and will then crawl back to my old place; and, besides,
the breeze blows from that direction and will drive the smell away.
I am lying now in complete exhaustion. The sun is scorching my face
and hands. There is nothing to cover oneself with. If only night would
come! I think this will be the second night.
* * * * *
My thoughts wander, and I am losing consciousness.
I must have slept a long time, because when I awoke it was already
night. As before, the wounds ache, and my neighbor lies beside me--the
same huge, motionless figure.
I cannot help thinking of him. Have I really left behind me all that is
pleasant and dear to me, and marched here at the speed of four versts
an hour, hungered, froze, suffered from the heat, only to undergo this
final torture--for no other reason than that this unfortunate should
cease to live? And have I really accomplished anything useful for my
country except this murder?
This is murder--and I am a murderer.
When I first got the idea into my head to go and fight, Mother and
Masha did not try to dissuade me, although they both wept much. Blinded
by my idea, I did not understand those tears. Only now I understand
what I have done to those so near to me.
Why recall all this? There is no returning to the past.
And what a singular attitude my acquaintances assumed towards my
action! “What a madman! He is meddling without knowing why!” How could
they say that? How could they reconcile their words with _their_ ideas
of heroism, love of mother country, and other such things? Surely I
earned their admiration for living up to these virtues. Yet I am a
“madman.”
Presently I am on my way to Kishinev; I am supplied with a knapsack and
all the other military accoutrements. I go with thousands of others;
among them a few, like myself, are volunteers. The rest would have
preferred to remain at home, if they were permitted. Nevertheless, they
go along just like we “conscious ones,” march thousands of versts,
and fight as well as ourselves, or even better. They fulfil their
obligations notwithstanding the fact that they would on the instant
drop everything and go home if permission were given them.
A fresh early morning breeze has begun to blow. There is a stirring
among the bushes; I can hear the flutter of a bird’s wings. The
stars are no longer visible. The dark blue sky has turned gray, and
stretching across it are gentle, fleecy cloudlets; a gray mist is
rising from the earth. It is the beginning of the third day of my ...
what can I call it? Life? Agony?
The third day.... How many more are left to me? At any rate, only a
few. I have grown terribly weak, and I fear that I am unable to move
away from the corpse. Only a little while longer, and I will stretch
out by his side, and we shall not be unpleasant to each other.
I must have a drink. I will drink three times a day--in the morning, at
noon, and in the evening.
* * * * *
The sun has risen. Its enormous disk, broken and intersected by the
dark branches of the bushes, is red like blood. It looks as if it will
be a hot day. My neighbor--what will become of you? Even now you are
quite terrible.
Yes, he is terrible. His hair has begun to fall out. His skin, dark by
nature, has grown a pale yellow; his bloated face has become so tightly
stretched that the skin burst just behind one ear. The worms have begun
to swarm there. The lower limbs, encased in gaiters, have swollen, and
huge blisters have showed themselves from between the hooks of the
gaiters. What will the sun make of him to-day?
It is unendurable to be so near him. I must get away, at all costs. Can
I do it? I am still able to lift my hand, open the flask, and drink;
but to move my passive, cumbersome body is quite another matter. Still,
I will make an effort, even if it should take me an hour to move a few
inches.
The entire morning passes in this attempt to shift. The pain is
intense, but what does it matter? I no longer remember; I cannot
imagine to myself the perception of a normal man. I have gotten used
to the pain. I have managed to shift about fifteen feet, and am now in
my old place. Not for long, however, have I enjoyed the fresh breeze,
as far as it can be fresh with a rotting corpse only a few steps away.
The breeze too has shifted and has brought the stench upon me anew
to the point of nausea. The empty stomach contracts painfully and
convulsively; all the internals groan. But the ill-smelling, infected
air continues to pour upon me.