Chapter 20 of Best Russian Short Stories This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Algi Pug Perth, Western Australia Best Russian Short Stories, edited and compiled by Thomas Seltzer Lazarus Eleazar by Leonid Andreev 1. When Lazarus rose from the grave after three days and nights in the mysterious thralldom of death and returned alive to his home, it was a long time before anyone 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, though a 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 it 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 miraculous power but that the restoration had not been complete. The death had left upon his face and body the effect of an artist's unfittest sketch seen through a thin glass.  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 listening 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 odor 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's face but his very character it seemed had changed though it astonished no one and did not attract the attention it deserved.  It was because of his good humour, pleasant and equitable, his freedom from meanness and gloom that he had been so beloved by the master. Now he was grave and silent. Neither he himself gestured 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.  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 with the sounds of the tympanum, the pipe, the zither and the dulcimer. It was as if these were humming locusts buzzing and birds singing over the happy home of Mary and Martha. Two, someone recklessly lifted the veil.  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.  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 were 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 into spare, 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 passed 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 gray weariness looked stupidly from out his eyes. The faces of all present were also covered by the same dead gray 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.  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 its strings and blow their cheeks into thin pipes and produce varied and strange-sounding noises? How badly they play, said someone. The musicians were insulted and left. Then the guests departed one by one, before it was nearing night. And when the quiet darkness enveloped them and it became easy to breathe, the image of Lazarus suddenly arose before each one in stern splendor. There he stood, with the blue face of a corpse and the raiment of a bridegroom, sumptuous and reslendent, 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. Three, 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 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 someone, turning pale, remarked it would be terrible if at night, under the windows, one should happen to hear Lazarus's bell. And all grew pale and dissented. 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 in the desert, his house was fallen to ruins, and his hungry, bleeding 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, someone 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 inquire as 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 minds vision the black silhouette of a tall, stout man against the red background of an immense disc. 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 ineffacable, 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, You go some more madman 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 soul. Busy merchants jingling their coins ran in for a while and proud attendants of the temple placed their staffs at Lazarus's 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 grace 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. This darkness enveloped the whole universe. It was bespelled 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 have 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 respite 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 same 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 in 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. Four at that time they 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. 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 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, Sean Moon and the 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 the 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 that you so carelessly fell into his arms and 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 permit me to stay with you every night it is already late and I have nearer bed no one 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 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 so claimy and why you do not like your second life nail wine well we should do without you know there are words that go to one's head even as Fellini in wine with emotion of his head he dismissed the slave and they were alone 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 vast darkness now I am your guest and you will not ill treat me Lazarus said the Roman hospitality is binding even upon theirs you have been three days dead three days I am told you are in the grave it must have been cold there and it is from there that you were brought this bad habit of doing without light and wine I like a light 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 bridegroomers 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 stalled up behind in darkness you seem even bigger Lazarus as though you had graved stalter in these few minutes do you feel on darkness for chance and I would like a light just a small light just a small light and I am cold the nights here are so barbarously cold they were not so dark I should say you were looking at me Lazarus yes it seems you were looking you are looking you are looking at me I feel it now you were smiling the night had come and heavy blackness filled the air how good it will be when the sun rises again tomorrow you know I am a great sculptor so my friends call me I create yes they say I create but for that daylight is necessary I give life to cold marble I melt the green bronze into fire in a bright hot fire why did you touch me with your hand come said Lazarus you are my guest and they went into the house and the shadows of the long evening fell on the earth the slave at last retired waiting for his master and when the sun stood high he came to the house and he saw directly under his burning rays Lazarus and his master sitting close together they looked straight up and were silent the slave wept and cried aloud master what hails you master the same day Aurelius left for Rome the whole way he was thoughtful and silent attentively examining everything the people the ship and the sea as though endeavouring to recall something on the sea a great storm overtook them and all the while Aurelius remained on deck and gazed eagerly at the approaching and falling waves when he reached home his family was shocked at the terrible change in his demeanour but he calmed them with the words I have found it in the dusty clothes which he had worn during the entire journey and had not changed he began his work and the marble ringingly responded the resounding blows of the hammer long and eagerly he worked admitting no one at last one evening he announced that the work was ready and gave instructions that all his friends and the severe critics and judges of art be called together then he donned gorgeous garments shining with gold glowing with the purple of the bison here is what I have created he said thoughtfully his friends looked immediately the shadow of deep sorrow covered their faces it was a thing monstrous possessing none of the forms similar to the eye he had not devoid of a hint of some new unknown form on a thin tortuous little branch or rather an ugly likeness of one they crooked strange unsightly shapeless heaps of something turned outside in or something turned inside out wild fragments they feebly tried to get away from themselves and accidentally under one of the wild projections they noticed a wonderfully sculptured butterfly with transparent wings trembling as though with a wick longing to fly why that wonderful butterfly Orelius timidly asked someone I do not know answered the sculptor the truth had to be told and one of his friends the one who loved Orelius best said this is ugly my poor friend it must be destroyed give me the hammer and with two blows he destroyed the monstrous mass leaving only the wonderfully sculptured butterfly after that Orelius created nothing he looked with absolute indifference at marble and at bronze and at his own divine creations in which dwelt immortal beauty in the hope of breathing into him once again the old flame of inspiration with the idea of awakening his dead soul his friends led him to see the beautiful creations of others but he remained indifferent and no smile warmed his closed lips and only after they spoke to him much and longer beauty he would reply wearily but all less is a lie and in the daytime when the sun was shining he would go into his rich and beautifully laid out garden and finding a place where there was no shadow would expose his bare head and his dull eyes to the glitter and burning heat of the sun red and white butterflies fluttered around down into the marble cyst and ran splashing water from the crooked mouth of a blissfully drunken satter but he sat motionless like a pale shadow of that other one who in a far land at the very gates of the stony desert also sat motionless under the fiery sun 5 and it came about finally that Lazarus was summoned to Rome by the great Augustus they dressed him in gorgeous garments as though it had been ordained that he was to remain a bridegroom to an unknown bride until a very day of his death it was as if an old coffin rotten and falling apart were regaled over and over and gay tassels were hung on it and solemnly they conducted him in gala attire as though in truth it were a bridal procession the runners loudly sounding the trumpet that the way we made for the ambassadors of the emperor but the roads along which he passed were deserted his entire native land cursed the executable name of Lazarus the man miraculously brought to life and the people scattered at the mere report of his horrible approach the trumpet as blue lonely blasts only the desert answered with a dying echo then they carried him across the sea on the saddest and most gorgeous ship that was ever mirrored in the azure waves of the Mediterranean there were many people aboard but the ship was silent and still as a coffin and the water seemed to moan as it parted before the short curved prow Lazarus sat lonely bearing his head to the sun and listening in silence to the splashing of the waters further away the seamen and the ambassadors gathered like a crowd of distressed shadows if a thunderstorm had happened to burst upon them at that time or the wind had overwhelmed the red sails the ship would probably have perished for none of those who were on her had strength or desire enough to fight for life with supreme effort some went to the side of the ship and eagerly gazed at the blue transparent abyss then they saw a nade flashing a pink shoulder through the waves or an insanely joyous and drunken centaur galloping by splashing up the water with its hooves but the sea was deserted and mute and so was the watery abyss listlessly Lazarus sat foot on the streets of the eternal city as though it's riches all the majesty of its gigantic edifices all the lustre and beauty and music of refined life simply the echo of the wind in the desert or the misty images of hot running sand chariots world by the crowd of strong, beautiful haughty men passed on builders of the eternal city and proud partakers of its life songs rang out fountains laughed pearly laughter of women filled the air while the drunken philosophised and the sober ones smilingly listened horseshoes rattled on the pavement and surrounded on all sides by glad sounds a fat heavy man moved through the centre of the city like a cold spot of silence sowing in his path grief anger and wave carking distress who dared to be sad in Rome indignantly demanded frowning citizens and in two days the swift-tongued Rome knew of Lazarus the man miraculously raised from the grave and timidly evaded him there were many brave men ready to try their strength and at their senseless call Lazarus came immediately the emperor was so engrossed with state affairs that he delayed receiving the visitor and for seven days Lazarus moved among the people a jovial drunkard met him with a smile on his red lips read Lazarus drink he cried would not Augustus laugh to see you drink a naked besotted women laughed and decked the blue hands of Lazarus with rose leaves but the drunkard looked into the eyes of Lazarus and his joy ended forever thereafter he was always drunk he drank no more but was drunk all the time shattered by fearful dreams instead of the joyous reveries that wine gives fearful dreams became the food of his broken spirit fearful dreams held him day and night in the midst of monstrous fantasy Lazarus was no more fearful than the apparition of its fierce precursor Lazarus came to a youth and his lass who loved each other and were beautiful in their love proudly and strongly holding his arms his beloved one the youth said with gentle pity look at us Lazarus rejoice with us is there anything stronger than love and Lazarus looked at them the whole life they continued to love one another but their love became mournful and gloomy even as they cypress trees over the tombs that feed their roots on the putrescence of the grave and striving vain in the quiet evening hour to touch the sky with their pointed tops hurled by featherless life forces into each other's arms they mingled their kisses with tears their joy with pain and only succeeded in realizing the morbidly a sense of their slavery to the silent nothing forever united forever pardoned they flashed like sparks and like sparks went out in boundless darkness Lazarus came to a proud sage and the sage said to him I already know all the horrors that you may tell me Lazarus with what else can you terrify me only a few moments passed before the sage realized that the knowledge of the horrible is not the horrible and that the sight of death is not death and he felt that in the eyes of the infinite wisdom and folly are the same for the infinite knows them not and the boundaries between knowledge and ignorance, between truth and falsehood, between top and bottom faded and his shapeless thought was suspended in emptiness then he grasped his grey head in his hands and cried out insanely I cannot think I cannot think of the horrors that under the cool gaze of Lazarus the man miraculously raised from the dead all that serves to affirm life its sense and its joys perished the people began to say it was dangerous to allow him to see the emperor that it were better to kill him and bury him secretly and swear that he had disappeared swords were sharpened and youths devoted to the welfare of the people announced their readiness to become assassins when Augustus upset the cruel plans that Lazarus appear before him even though Lazarus could not be kept away it was felt that the heavy impression conveyed by his face might be somewhat softened with that end in view expert painters, barbers and artists were secured who worked the whole night on Lazarus' head his beard was trimmed and curled the disagreeable and deadly bluishness of his hands and face was covered up with paint his hands were whitened his cheeks rouged the disgusting wrinkles of suffering that ridged his old face were patched up and painted and on the smooth surface wrinkles of good nature and laughter and of present good human cheeriness were laid on artistically with fine brushes Lazarus submitted indifferently to all they did with him and soon was transformed into a stout, nice looking old man for all the world are quiet and good human grandfather numerous grandchildren he looked as though the smile with which he told funny stories had not left his lips as they were quiet tenderness still lay hidden in the corner of his eyes but the wedding dress they did not dare to take off and they could not change his eyes the dark terrible eyes from out of which stared the incomprehensible there 6 Lazarus was untouched by the magnificence of the imperial apartments he remained solidly indifferent as though he saw no contrast between his ruined house at the edge of the desert and the solid beautiful palace of stone under his feet the hard marble of the floor took on the semblance of the moving sands of the desert and to his eyes the throngs of gaily dressed haughty men were as unreal as the emptiness of the air they looked not into his face as he passed by fearing to come under the awful bane of his eyes but when the sound of his heavy steps announced that he had passed heads were lifted and eyes examined with timid curiosity the figure of the corpulent tall slightly stooping old man as he slowly passed into the heart of the imperial palace if death itself had appeared men would not have feared it so much for hitherto death had been known to the dead only for the living only and between these two there had been no bridge but this strange being in new death and that knowledge of his was felt to be mysterious and cursed he will kill our great divine Augustus men cried with horror and they held curses after him slowly and solidly he passed them by penetrating ever deeper into the palace Caesar knew already who Lazarus was and was prepared to meet him he was a courageous man he felt his power was invincible and in the fateful encounter with the man wonderfully raised from the dead he refused to lean on other men's weak help man to man face to face he met Lazarus do not fix your gaze on me Lazarus he commanded I have heard that your head is like the head of Medusa and turns into stone all upon whom you look but I should like to have a close look at you and to talk to you before I turn into stone he added in the spirit of playfulness that concealed his real misgivings approaching him he examined closely Lazarus' face and his strange festive clothes though his eyes were sharp and keen he was deceived by the skillful counterfeit well your appearance is not terrible venerable sir but all the worse for men when the terrible takes on such a venerable and pleasant appearance now let us talk Augustus sat down and as much by glance as by words began the discussion why did you not salute me when you entered Lazarus answered indifferently well you did not know it was necessary you are a Christian no Augustus nodded approvingly that is good I do not like the Christians they shake the tree of life and they scatter to the wind its fragrant blossoms but who are you with some effort Lazarus answered I was dead I heard about that but who are you now Lazarus' answer came slowly finally he said again listlessly and indistinctly I was dead listen to me stranger said the emperor sharply giving expression to what had been in his mind before my empire is an empire of the living my people are a people of the living and not of the dead you are superfluous here I do not know who you are I do not know what you have seen there but if you lie I hate your lies and if you tell the truth hate your truth in my heart I feel a pulse of life in my hands I feel power and my proud thoughts like eagles fly through my space behind my back under the protection of my authority under the shadow of the laws I have created men live and labour and rejoice do you hear this divine harmony of life do you hear the war cry that men hurl into the face of the future challenging it to strive Augustus extended his arms reverently and solemnly cried out blessed art thou great divine life the Lazarus was silent and the emperor continued more severely you are not wanted here bed of all remnant half devout of death you fill men with the stress and aversion to life like a caterpillar on the fields you are gnawing away at the full seed of joy exuding the slime of despair and sorrow your truth is like a rust of the sword in the hands of a knight assassin and I shall continue to death as an assassin but first I want to look into your eyes may happen any cowards fear them and brave men are spurred on to struggle and victory then will you merit not death but a reward look at me Lazarus at first it seemed to divine Augustus as if a friend were looking at him so soft so alluring so gently fascinating was the gaze of Lazarus he promised not horror but quiet rest and the infinite dwelt there as a fond mistress a compassionate sister a mother an ever stronger gruish gentle embrace until he felt as it were the breath of a mouth hungry for kisses then it seemed as if iron bones protruded in a ravenous script and closed upon him in an iron band and cold nails touched his heart and slowly slowly sank into it it pains me said divine Augustus growing pale but look Lazarus look ponderous gates shutting off eternity appeared to be slowly swinging open and through the growing aperture poured in coldly and calmly the awful horror of the infinite boundless emptiness and boundless gloom entered like two shadows extinguishing the sun removing the ground from under the feet and the cover from over the head and the pain in his icy heart ceased look at me look at me Lazarus commanded Augustus staggering time ceased and the beginning of things came perilously near to the end the throne of Augustus so recently erected fell to pieces and emptiness took the place of the throne and of Augustus Rome fell silently into ruins a new city rose in its place and it too was erased by emptiness like phantom giants cities kingdoms and countries swiftly fell and disappeared into emptiness swallowed up in the black more of the infinite cease of the emperor already the accent of indifference was in his voice his arms hung powerless and his eagle eyes flashed and were dimmed again struggling against overwhelming darkness you have killed me Lazarus he said drowsily these words of despair saved him he thought of the people whose shield he was destined to be and a sharp redeeming pang pierced his dull heart he thought of them doomed to perish and he is filled with anguish first they seem bright shadows in the gloom of the infinite how terrible then they appear as fragile vessels with life agitated blood and hearts that knew both sorrow and great joy and he thought of them with tenderness and so thinking and feeling inclining the scales now to the side of life now to the side of death he slowly returned to life in its suffering and joy a refuge from the gloom, emptiness and fear of the infinite now you did not kill me Lazarus said he firmly but I will kill you go evening came and divine Augustus partook of food and drink with great joy but there were moments when his raised arm would remain suspended in the air and the light of his shining eagle eyes was dimmed as if an icy wave of horror washed against his feet he was vanquished but not killed and coldly awaited his doom like a black shadow his knights were haunted by horror but the bright day still brought him the joys as well as the sorrows of life next day by order of the emperor they burned out Lazarus' eyes with hot irons and sent him home even Augustus did not kill him Lazarus returned to the desert and the desert received him with the breath of the hissing wind and the ardor of the glowing sun again he sat on the stone with matted beard uplifted and two black holes where the eyes had once been looked dull and horrible at the sky in the distance the holy city surged and roared restlessly but near him always deserted and still no one approached the place where Lazarus miraculously raised from the dead past his last days for his neighbors had long since abandoned their homes his cursed knowledge driven by the hot eyes from his eyes deep into the brain lay there in ambush as if from ambush it might spring out upon men with a thousand unseen eyes no one dared to look at Lazarus and in the evening when the sun swollen crimson and growing larger bent its way toward the west blind Lazarus slowly groped after it he stumbled against stones and fell coagulate and feeble he rose heavily and walked on and against the red curtain of sunset his dark form and outstretched arms gave him the semblance of a cross it happened once that he went and never returned thus ended the second life of Lazarus who for three days had been in the mysterious thralldom of death and then was miraculously raised from the dead End of Lazarus Eliezer by Leonid Andreev Recording by Algipug Perth, Western Australia Chapter 21 of Best Fresh and Short Stories This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org Recording by Rachel Craig of Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA Best Russian Short Stories edited and compiled by Thomas Seltzer Chapter 21 The Revolutionist by Mikoyel Artsy by Shev 1. Gabriel Anderson the teacher walked to the edge of the school garden where he paused undecided what to do off in the distance two miles away the woods hung like bluish lace over a field of pure snow it was a brilliant day a hundred tints glistened on the white ground and the iron bars of the garden railing there was a lightness and transparency in the air that only the early days of spring possess Gabriel Anderson turned his steps toward the fringe of blue lace for a tramp in the woods another spring in my life he said breathing deep and peering up at the heavens through his spectacles Anderson was rather given to sentimental poeticizing he walked with his hands folded behind him dangling his cane he had gone but a few paces when he noticed a group of soldiers and horses on the road beyond the garden rail their drab uniform stood out dully against the white of the snow but their swords and horses coats tossed back the light their bowed calvary legs moved awkwardly on the snow and wondered what they were doing there suddenly the nature of their business flashed upon him it was an ugly errand they were upon an instinct rather that his reason told him something unusual and terrible was about to happen and the same instinct told him he must conceal himself from the soldiers he turned to the left quickly dropped on his knees and crawled on the soft thawing crackling snow to a low haystack from behind which by craning his neck he could watch what the soldiers were doing there were twelve of them one a stocky young officer in a grey cloak caught in prettily at the waist by a silver belt his face was so red that even at that distance Anderson caught the odd whitish gleam of his light protruding mustache and eyebrows against the vivid color of his skin the broken tones of his raucous voice reached distinctly to where the teacher listening intently lay hidden I know what I'm about I don't need anybody's advice the officer cried he clapped his arms a kimbo and looked down at someone among the group of bustling soldiers I'll show you how to be a rebel you damn skunk Anderson's heart beat fast good heavens he thought is it possible his head grew chill as if struck by a cold wave officer a quiet, restrained yet distinct voice came from among the soldiers you aren't a court to decide you aren't a judge it's plain murder not silence thundered the officer his voice choking with rage I'll give you a court Ivanov go ahead he put the spurs to his horse and rode away Gabriel Anderson mechanically observed how carefully the horse picked its way placing its feet daintily as if for the steps of a minuet its ears were pricked to catch every sound there was momentary bustle and excitement among the soldiers then they dispersed in different directions leaving three persons in black behind two tall men and one very short and frail Anderson could see the hair of the short one's head it was very light and he saw his rosy ears sticking out on each side now he fully understood what was to happen but it was the thing so out of the ordinary so horrible that he fancied he was dreaming it's so bright so beautiful no the field the woods the sky the breath of spring is upon everything yet people are going to be killed how can it be impossible so his thoughts ran in confusion he had the sensation of a man suddenly gone insane who finds he sees hears and feels what he is not accustomed to and ought not to hear see and feel the three men in black stood next to one another hard by the railing two quite close together the short one some distance away officer one of them cried in a desperate voice Anderson could not see which it was God sees us officer eight soldiers dismounted quickly their spurs and sabers catching awkwardly evidently they were in a hurry as if doing a thief's job several seconds passed in silence until the soldiers placed themselves in a row a few feet from the black figures and leveled their guns in doing so one soldier knocked his cap from his head he picked it up and put it on again without brushing off the wet snow the officers mount still kept dancing on one spot with his ears pricked while the other horses also with sharp ears erect to catch every sound stood motionless looking at the men in black their long wise heads inclined to one side spare the boy at least another voice suddenly pierced the air why kill a child damn you what has the child done Ivanov do what I've told you to do thundered the officer drowning the other voice his face turned as scarlet as a piece of red flannel there followed a scene savage and repulsive in its gruesomeness the short figure in black with the light hair and the rosy ears uttered a wild shriek and a shrill child's tones and reeled to one side instantly it was caught up by two or three soldiers the boy began to struggle and two more soldiers ran up ow ow ow ow the boy cried let me go let me go ow ow his shrill voice cut the air like the yell of a stuck porkling not quite done to death suddenly he grew quiet someone must have stuck him an unexpected oppressive silence ensued the boy was being pushed forward then there came a deafening report Anderson started back all in a tremble he saw distinctly yet vaguely as in a dream the dropping of two dark bodies the flash of pale sparks and a light smoke rising in the clean bright atmosphere he saw the soldiers hastily mounting their horses without even glancing at the bodies he saw them galloping along the muddy road their armors clanking their horses hooves clattering he saw all this himself now standing in the middle of the road not knowing when and why he had jumped into the haystack he was deathly pale his face was covered with dank sweat his body was a quiver a physical sadness smote and tortured him he could not make out the nature of the feeling it was akin to extreme sickness though far more nauseating and terrible after the soldiers had disappeared beyond the bend toward the woods people came hurrying to the spot of the shooting though till then not a soul had been in sight the bodies lay at the roadside on the other side of the railing where the snow was clean brittle and untrampled and glistened cheerfully in the bright atmosphere there were three dead bodies two men and a boy the boy lay with his long soft neck stretched on the snow the face of the man next to the boy was invisible he had fallen face downward in a pool of blood the third was a big man with a black beard and huge muscular arms he lay stretched out to the full length of the big body his arms extended over a large area of bloodstained snow the three men who had been shot lay black against the white snow motionless from afar no one could have told the terror that was in their immobility as they lay there at the edge of the narrow road crowded with people that night Gabriel Anderson in his little room in the school house did not write poems as usual he stood at the window and looked at the distant peak of the moon in the misty blue sky and thought and his thoughts were confused, gloomy and heavy as if a cloud had descended upon his brain indistinctly outlined in the dull moonlight he saw the dark railing the trees, the empty garden it seemed to him that he beheld them the three men who had been shot two grown up, one child they were lying there now on the roadside in the empty silent field looking at the far off cold moon with their dead white eyes as he with his living eyes the time will come someday he thought when the killing of people by others will be an utter impossibility the time will come when even the soldiers and officers who killed these three men will realize what they have done and will understand that what they killed them for is just as necessary, important and dear to them to the officers and soldiers as to those whom they killed he said aloud and solemnly his eyes moistening that time will come they will understand and the pale disc of the moon was blotted out by the moisture in his eyes a large pity pierced his heart for the three victims whose eyes looked at the moon sad and unseen a feeling of rage cut him as with a sharp knife and took possession of him but Gabriel Anderson quieted his heart whispering softly and this old and ready phrase gave him the strength to stifle his rage and indignation two the day was as bright and white but the spring was already advanced the wet soil smelt of spring clear cold water ran everywhere from under the loose thawing snow the branches of the trees were springy and elastic for miles and miles around the country opened up in clear azure stretches yet the clearness and the joy of the spring day were not in the village they were somewhere outside the village where there were no people in the fields the woods and the mountains in the village the air was stifling heavy and terrible as in a nightmare Gabriel Anderson stood in the road near a crowd of dark sad absent minded people and craned his neck to see the preparations for the flogging of seven peasants they stood in the thawing snow and Gabriel Anderson could not persuade himself that they were people whom he had long known and understood by that which was about to happen to them the shameful terrible irratical thing that was about to happen to them they were separated from all the rest of the world and so were unable to feel what he Gabriel Anderson felt just as he was unable to feel what they felt round them were the soldiers confidently and beautifully mounted on high upon their large steeds who tossed their wise heads and turned their dappled wooden faces slowly from side to side looking contemptuously at him Gabriel Anderson who was soon to behold this horror, this disgrace and would do nothing would not dare to do anything so it seemed to Gabriel Anderson and a sense of cold intolerable shame gripped him as between two clamps of ice through which he could see everything without being able to move, cry or utter a groan at the first peasant Gabriel Anderson saw his strange imploring hopeless look his lips moved but no sound was heard and his eyes wondered there was a bright gleam in them as in the eyes of a madman his mind it was evident was no longer able to comprehend what was happening and so terrible was that face at once full of reason and of madness that Anderson felt relieved when they put him face down on the snow with the fiery eyes he saw his bare back glistening a senseless, shameful, horrible sight the large red-faced soldier in a red cap pushed toward him looked down at his body with seeming delight and then cried in a clear voice well let her go with God's blessing Anderson seemed not to see the soldiers the sky, the horses or the crowd he did not feel the cold the terror or the shame he did not hear the swish in the air or the savage howl of pain and despair he only saw the bare back of a man's body swelling up and covered over evenly with white and purple stripes gradually the bare back lost the semblance of human flesh the blood oozed and squirted forming patches drops and rivulets which ran down on the white thawing snow terror gripped the soul of Gabriel Anderson as he thought of the moment when the man would rise and face all the people who had seen this broad body out in the open and reduced to a bloody pulp he closed his eyes when he opened them he saw four soldiers in uniform and red hats forcing another man down on the snow his back bare just as shamefully terribly and absurdly a ludicrously tragic sight then came the third the fourth and so on to the end and Gabriel Anderson stood on the wet thawing snow craning his neck trembling and stuttering though he did not say a word dank sweat poured from his body a sense of shame permeated his whole being it was a humiliating feeling having to escape being noticed so that they should not catch him and lay him there on the snow and strip him bare him Gabriel Anderson the soldiers pressed and crowded the horses tossed their heads the knouts swished in the air shamed human flesh swelled up tore ran over with blood and curled like a snake oaths wild shrieks rained upon the village through the clean white air of that spring day Anderson now saw five men's faces at the steps of the town hall the faces of those men who had already undergone their shame he quickly turned his eyes away after seeing this a man must die he thought three there were seventeen of them fifteen soldiers a subaltern and a young beardless officer the officer lay in front of the fire looking intently into the flames the soldiers were tinkering with their firearms in the wagon their gray figures moved about quietly at the black thawing ground and occasionally stumbled across the logs sticking out from the blazing fire Gabriel Anderson wearing an overcoat and carrying his cane behind his back approached them the subaltern a stout fellow with a mustache jumped up and turned from the fire and looked at him who are you what do you want he asked excitedly from his tone it was evident that the soldiers feared everybody in that district through which they were scattering death destruction and torture officer he said there is a man here I don't know the officer looked at Anderson without speaking officer said Anderson in a thin strained voice my name is Michelson I am a businessman here and I am going to the village on business I was afraid I might be mistaken for someone else you know then what are you nosing about here for the officer said angrily and turned away a businessman sneered a soldier he ought to be searched this businessman ought so as not to be knocking about at night a good one in the jaws what he needs suspicious character officer said the subaltern don't you think we'd better arrest him what don't answered the officer lazily I'm sick of them dammel Gabriel Anderson stood there without saying anything his eyes flashed strangely in the dark by the firelight and it was strange to see his short substantial clean neat figure in the field at night among the soldiers with his overcoat and cane and glasses glistening in the firelight the soldiers left him and walked away Gabriel Anderson remained standing for a while then he turned and left rapidly disappearing into the darkness the night was drawing to a close the air turned chilly and the tops of the bushes defined themselves more clearly in the dark Gabriel Anderson went again to the military post but this time he hid crouching low as he made his way under the cover of the bushes behind him people moved about quietly and carefully bending the bushes silent as shadows next to Gabriel on his right walked a tall man with a revolver in his hand the figure of a soldier on the hill outlined itself strangely unexpectedly not where they had been looking for it it was faintly illumined by the gleam of the dying fire Gabriel Anderson recognized the soldier it was the one who had proposed that he should be searched nothing stirred in Anderson's heart his face was cold and motionless as of a man who was asleep round the fire the soldiers lay stretched out sleeping all except the subaltern who sat with his head drooping over his knees the tall thin man on Anderson's right raised the revolver and pulled the trigger a momentary blinding flash a deafening report Anderson saw the guard lift his hands and then sit down on the ground grasping his bosom from all directions short crackling sparks flashed up which combined into one riveting roar the subaltern jumped up and dropped straight into the fire gray soldiers figures moved about in all directions like apparitions throwing up their hands and falling and writhing on the black earth the young officer ran past Anderson fluttering his hands like some strange frightened bird Anderson as if he were thinking of something else raised his cane with all his strength he hit the officer on the head each blow descending with a dull ugly thud the officer reeled in a circle stark a bush and sat down after the second blow covering his head with both hands as children sometimes do someone ran up and discharged a revolver as if from Anderson's own hand the officer sank together in a heap and lunged foremost on the ground his legs twitched for a while then he curled up quietly the shot ceased black men with white faces ghostly gray in the dark moved about the dead bodies of the soldiers taking away their arms and ammunition Anderson watched all this with a cold attentive stare when all was over he went up took hold of the burned subaltern's legs and tried to remove the body from the fire but it was too heavy for him and he let it go four Anderson set motionless on the steps of the town hall and thought he thought of how he, Gabriel Anderson with his spectacles, cane overcoat and poems had lied and betrayed fifteen men he thought it was terrible yet there was neither pity shame nor regret in his heart were he to be set free he knew that he, Gabriel Anderson with his spectacles and poems would go straight away and do it again he tried to examine himself to see what was going on inside his soul but his thoughts were heavy and confused for some reason it was more painful for him to think of the three men lying on the snow looking at the pale disc of the far off moon with their dead unseeing eyes then of the murdered officer whom he had struck two dry ugly blows on the head of his own death he did not think it seemed to him that he had done with everything long long ago something had died had gone out and left him empty and he must not think about it and when they grabbed him by the shoulder and he rose and they quickly led him through the garden where the cabbages raised their dry heads he could not formulate a single thought he was conducted to the road and placed at the railing with his back to one of the iron bars he fixed his spectacles behind him and stood there with his neat stocky body his head slightly inclined to one side at the last moment he looked in front of him and saw rifle barrels pointing at his head, chest and stomach and pale faces with trembling lips he distinctly saw how one barrel leveled at his forehead suddenly dropped something strange and incomprehensible as if no longer of this world no longer earthly passed through Anderson's mind he straightened himself to the full height of his short body and threw back his head in simple pride a strange and distinct sense of cleanness, strength and pride filled his soul and everything the sun and the sky and the people and the field and death seemed to him insignificant remote and useless the bullets hit him in the chest in the left eye and the stomach went through his clean coat buttoned all the way up his eyes shivered into bits he uttered a shriek, circled round and fell with his face against one of the iron bars his one remaining eye open he clawed the ground with his outstretched hands as if trying to support himself the officer who had turned green rushed toward him and senselessly thrust the revolver against his neck and fired twice Anderson stretched out on the ground the soldiers left quickly but Anderson remained pressed flat to the ground the index finger of his left hand continued to quiver for about 10 seconds End of The Revolutionist by Mikoyel Arsi by Shev Recording by Rachel Craig www.ttb.org All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org This recording by Rachel Craig of Colorado Springs, USA The Outrage A True Story It was 5 o'clock on a July afternoon The heat was terrible The whole of the huge stone-built town breathed out heat like a glowing furnace The glare of the white-walled house was insufferable The asphalt pavements grew soft and burned the feet The shadows of the acacia spread over the cobbled road pitiful and weary They too seemed hot The sea, pale in the sunlight lay heavy and immobile as one dead Over the streets hung a white dust In the foyer of one of the private theaters a small committee of local barristers who had undertaken to conduct the cases of those who had suffered in the last pogrom against the Jews was reaching the end of its daily task There were 19 of them all juniors, young, progressive and conscientious men This sitting was without formality and white suits of duck, flannel and alpaca were in the majority They sat anywhere at little marble tables and the chairman stood in front of the empty counter where chocolates were sold in the winter The barristers were quite exhausted by the heat which poured in through the windows with the dazzling sunlight and the noise of the streets The proceedings went lazily and with a certain irritation A tall young man with a fair mustache and thin hair was in the chair He was dreaming voluptuously how he would be often an instant on his new-bought bicycle to the bungalow He would undress quickly and without waiting to cool still bathed in sweat would fling himself into the clear, cold sweet-smelling sea His whole body was innervated and tense, thrilled by the thought Impatiently moving the papers before him he spoke in a drowsy voice So Joseph Moretsovich will conduct the cases of Rubenshik Perhaps there is still mention to be made on the order of the day His youngest colleague a short stout carite very black and lively said in a whisper so that everyone could hear the day the best thing would be ice claws The chairman gave him a stern side glance but could not restrain a smile He sighed and put both hands on the table to raise himself and declare the meeting closed when the doorkeeper who stood at the entrance to the theater suddenly moved forward and said There are seven out s-people outside sir, they want to come in The chairman looked impatiently around the company What's to be done gentlemen The voices were heard Next time, boss stop Let them put it in writing If they'll get it over with decided at once Let them go to the devil Phew, it's like boiling pitch Let them in The chairman gave them a sign with his head annoyed Then bring me a vichy please but it must be cold The porter opened the door and called down the corridor Come in, they say you may Then seven of the most surprising unexpected individuals filed into the foyer First appeared a full grown confident man in a smart suit of the color of dry sea sand and a magnificent pink shirt with white stripes and a crimson rose in his buttonhole From the front, his head looked like an upright bean From the side, like a horizontal bean His face was adorned with a strong, bushy, marshal mustache He wore dark blue print snaz on his nose and his hands straw covered gloves In his left hand he held a black walking stick with a silver mount In his right, a light blue handkerchief The other six produced a strange chaotic, incongruous impression exactly as though they had all hastily pulled not merely their clothes but their hands, feet, and heads as well There was a man with the splendid profile of a Roman senator dressed in rags and tatters Another wore an elegant, dressed waistcoat From the deep opening of which a dirty little Russian shirt leapt to the eye Here were the unbalanced faces of the criminal type but looking with a confidence that nothing could shake All these men, in spite of their apparent youth evidently possessed a large experience of life, an easy manner a bold approach, and some hidden, suspicious cunning The gentleman in the sandy suit bowed just his head neatly and said with a half-question in his voice Mr. Chairman Yes, I am the Chairman What is your business? We, all who you see before you The gentleman began in a quiet voice and turned around to indicate his companions We come as delegates from the united Rostov, Karkov and Odessa Niklayev Association of Thieves The Barristers began to shift in their seats The Chairman flung himself back and opened his eyes wide Association of what? He said, perplexed The Association of Thieves The gentleman in the sandy suit coolly repeated As for myself, my comrades did me the signal glory of electing me the spokesperson of this deputation Very pleased, the Chairman said, uncertainly Thank you All seven of us are ordinary thieves naturally of different departments The Association has authorized us to put before your esteemed committee The gentleman again made an elegant bow Our respectable demand for assistance I don't quite understand quite frankly what is the connection The Chairman waved his hands helplessly However, please go on The matter about which we have the courage and the honor to apply to you gentlemen is very clear very simple and very brief It will take only six or seven minutes I consider it my duty to warn you of this beforehand in view of the late hour and the 115 degrees that Fahrenheit marks in the shade The Orator expected to rate it slightly and glanced at his superb gold watch You see, in the reports that have lately appeared in the local papers of the melancholy and terrible days of the last pogrom, there have very often been indications that among the instigators of the pogrom who were paid and organized by the police The dregs of society consisting of drunkards, tramps pseudoneers and hooligans from the slums thieves were also to be found At first we were silent but finally we considered ourselves under the necessity of protesting against such an unjust and serious accusation before the face of the whole of intellectual society I know well that in the eye of the law we are offenders and enemies of society Imagine only for a moment gentlemen the situation of this enemy of society when he is accused wholesale of an offense which he not only never committed but which he is ready to resist with the whole strength of his soul It goes without saying that he will feel the outrage of such an injustice more keenly than a normal, average fortunate citizen Now, we declare that the accusation brought against us is utterly devoid of all basis, not merely a fact but even of logic I intend to prove this in a few words if the Honorable Committee will kindly listen Proceed said the Chairman Please do, please was heard from the Barristers now animated I offer you my sincere thanks in the name of all my comrades Believe me, you will never repent your attention to our representatives of our well, let us say slippery but nonetheless difficult profession So we begin when he sings in the prologue of Pagliasi But first I would ask your permission, Mr. Chairman to quench my thirst a little Porter, bring me a lemonade and a glass of English bitter There's a good fellow Gentlemen, I will not speak of the moral aspect of our profession nor of its social importance Doubtless you know better than I the striking and brilliant paradox of Prudin A paradox if you like the one that has never yet been refuted by the sermons of cowardly bourgeois or fat priests For instance, a father accumulates a million by energetic and clever exploitation and leaves it to his son a rickety, lazy, ignorant, degenerate idiot a brainless maggot, a true parasite Potentially a million rubles is a million working days the absolutely irrational right to labor sweat a terrible number of men Why? What is the ground of reason? Utterly unknown Then why not agree with the proposition, gentlemen that our profession is to some extent as it were a correction of the excessive accumulation of values in the hands of individuals and serves as a protest against all the hardships abominations, arbitrariness violence and negligence of the human personality against all the monstrosities created by the bourgeois, capitalistic organization of modern society Sooner or later this order of things will assuredly be overturned by the social revolution Property will pass away in the limbo of melancholy memories and with it, alas we will disappear from the face of the earth We The orator pause to take the tray from the hands of the porter and placed it near his hands on the table Excuse me, gentlemen Here, my good man, take this and, by the way, when you go shut the door and close it behind you Very good, Your Excellency the porter bawled in jest The orator drank off half his glass and continued However, let us leave aside the philosophical, social and economic aspects of the question I do not wish to fatigue your attention I must nevertheless point out that our profession very closely approaches the idea of that which is called art Into it enter all the elements which go to form art vocation, inspiration, fantasy inventiveness, ambition and along an arduous apprenticeship to the science From it is absence virtue alone concerning which the great car moms in wrote with such stupendous and fiery fascination Gentlemen, nothing is further from my intention than to trifle you and waste your precious time with idle paradoxes but I cannot avoid expounding my idea briefly To an outsider's ear it sounds absurdly wild and ridiculous to speak of the vocation of a thief However, I venture to assure you that this vocation is a reality There are men who possess a peculiarly strong visual memory, sharpness and accuracy of eye, presence of mind dexterity of hand above all, a subtle sense of touch who are, as it were born into God's world for the soul and special purpose of becoming distinguished card sharpers The pickpocketers profession demands extraordinary nimbleness and agility a terrific certainty of movement not to mention a ready wit a talent for observation and a strained attention Some have a positive vocation for breaking open safes From their tenderest childhood by the mysteries of every kind of complicated mechanism bicycles, sewing machines, clockwork toys and watches Finally, gentlemen there are people with a hereditary animus against private property You may call this phenomenon degeneracy but I tell you that you cannot entice a true thief and thief by vocation into the prose of honest vegetation by any gingerbread reward or by the offer of a secure position or by the gift of money or by a woman's love because there is here a permanent beauty of brisk, a fascinating abyss of danger, the delightful sinking of the heart, the impetuous pulsation of life, the ecstasy You are armed with the protection of the law by locks, revolvers telephones, police and soldiery but we only by our dexterity, cunning and fearlessness and society is a chicken run guarded by dogs Are you aware that the most artistic and gifted natures in our villages become horse thieves and poachers? What would you have? Life is so meager, so insimped so intolerably dull to eager and high-spirited souls I pass on to inspiration Gentlemen, doubtless you have read of the thefts that were supernatural in design and execution In the headlines of the newspapers they are called an amazing robbery or an ingenious swindle or again, a clever roost of the gangsters In such cases our bourgeois pedophilia waves his hands and exclaims what a terrible thing if only their abilities returned to good their inventiveness, their amazing knowledge of human psychology their self-possession, their fearlessness their incomparable histrionic powers what extraordinary benefits they would bring to the country But it is well known that the bourgeois pedophilia was specially devised by heaven to utter commonplaces and trivialities I myself sometimes we thieves are sentimental people I confess I myself sometimes admire a beautiful sunset in alexandra park or by the seashore and I am always certain beforehand that someone near me will say a plum look at it, if it were put into a picture no one would ever believe it I turn around and naturally I see a self-satisfied, full-fed pedophilia who delights in repeating someone else's silly statement as though it were his own As for our dear country the bourgeois pedophilia looks upon it as though it were a roast turkey If you've managed to cut the best part of the bird for yourself, eat it quietly in a comfortable corner and praise god but he's not really the important person I was led away by my detestation of vulgarity and I apologize for the digression The real point is that genius and inspiration even when they are not devoted to the service of the orthodox church remain rare and beautiful things Progress is a law and theft too has its creation Finally our profession is by no means as easy and pleasant as it seems at first glance in my experience constant practice slow and painful apprenticeship it comprises in itself hundreds of supple, skillful processes that the cleverest juggler cannot compass that I may not give you only empty words gentlemen I will perform a few experiments before you now I ask you to have every confidence in the demonstrators we are all at present in the enjoyment of legal freedom and though all usually watched and every one of us is known by face and our photographs adorn the albums of all detective departments for the time being we are not under the necessity of hiding ourselves from anybody if any one of you should recognize any of us in the future under different circumstances we ask you earnestly always to act in accordance with your professional duties and your obligations as citizens in grateful return for your kind attention to declare your property inviolable and to invest it with thieves to boo however I proceed to business the orator turned round and gave an order seswa the great will you come this way an enormous fellow with a stoop whose hands reached to his knees without a forehead or neck like a big fair Hercules came forward he grinned stupidly and rubbed his left eyebrow in his confusion can't do nothing here he said hoarsely the gentleman in the sandy suit spoke for him turning to the committee gentlemen before you stands a respected member of our association his specialty is breaking open safes iron strongboxes and other receptacles for monetary tokens in his night work he sometimes avails himself of the electric current of the lightning installation for fusing metals unfortunately he has nothing on which he can demonstrate the best items of his repertoire he will open the most elaborate lock irreproachably by the way this door here it's locked is it not everyone turned to look at the door on which a printed notice hung stage door strictly private yes the doors locked evidently the chairman agreed admirable seswa the great will you be so kind tank nothing at all said the giant leisurely he went close to the door shook it cautiously with his hand took out of his pocket a small bright instrument bent down to the keyhole made some almost imperceptible movements with the tool and suddenly straightened and flung the door wide in silence the chairman had his watch in his hands the whole affair took only 10 seconds thank you seswa the great said the gentleman in the sandy suit politely you may go back to your seat but the chairman interrupted in some alarm excuse me this is all very interesting and instructive but is it included in your esteemed colleagues profession to be able to lock the door again ah mille pardon the gentleman bowed hurriedly it slipped my mind seswa the great would you oblige the door was locked with the same adroitness and the same silence the esteemed colleague waddled back to his friends grinning now I will have the honor to show you the skill of one of our comrades who is in the line of picking pockets in theaters and railway stations continued the order he is still very young but you may to some extent judge from the delicacy of his present work of the heights he will attain by diligence yasha a swarthy youth in a blue silk blouse and long glazed boots like a gypsy came forward with a swagger fingering the tassels of his belt and merrily screwing up his big impudent black eyes with yellow whites gentlemen so the gentleman in the sandy suit persuasively I must ask if one of you would be kind enough to submit yourself to a little experiment I assure you this will be an exhibition only just a game he looked around over the seated company the short plump carite black as a beetle came forward from his table at your service he said amusingly yasha the orator signed his head yasha came close to the solicitor on his left arm which was bent hung a bright colored figured scarf suppose you're in church you're at the bar in one of the halls or watching a circus he began in a sugary fluent voice I see straight off there's a tough excuse me sir suppose you're the top there's no offense just means a rich gent decent enough but don't know his way about first what's he likely to have about him all sorts most likely a ticker in a chain whereabouts does he keep them somewhere in his top vest pocket here others have them in the bottom pocket just here purse most always in the trousers except when a greeny keeps it in his jacket cigar case have a look at it first what is it gold silver with a monogram leather what decent man it's soil his hands cigar case seven pockets here here here up there there here and here again that's right ain't it that's how you go to work as he spoke the young man smiled his eyes shown straight into the barristers with a quick dexterous movement of his right hand he pointed to various portions of his clothes then again you might see a pin here in the tie however we do not appropriate such gents nowadays they hardly ever wear real stone then it comes up to him I begin to straight off to talk to him like a gent sir would you be so kind as to give me a light from your cigarette or something of the sort at any rate I enter into conversation what's next I look him straight in the papers just like this only two of me fingers at it just this and this yasha lifted two fingers of his right hand on the level with the solicitor's face the forefinger and the middle finger and move them about they see with these two fingers I run over the whole piano nothing's wonderful in it one two three ready any man who wasn't stupid learn easily that's all it is most ordinary business I thank you the pig pocket swung on his heel as if to return to his seat yasha the gentleman in the sandy suit said with meaning weight yasha he repeated sternly yasha stopped his back was turned to the barrister but he evidently gave his representative an imploring look because the latter frowned and shook his head yasha he said for the third time in a threatening tone huh the thief grunted in vexation and turned to the face the solicitor where's your little watch sir he said in a piping voice oh the carite brought himself up sharply you see now you say oh yasha continued reproachfully all the while you were just admiring me right hand I was operating your watch with me left with these two little fingers under the scarf that's why we carry a scarf since your chain's not worth anything a present from some men's L and the watch is a gold one I've left you the chain as a keepsake take it he added with a sigh holding out the watch but that is clever the barrister said in confusion I didn't notice it at all that's our business yasha said with pride he swaggered back to his comrades meantime the orator took a drink from his glass and continued now gentlemen our next collaborator will give you an exhibition of some ordinary card tricks which are worked at bears on steamboats and railways with three cards for instance an ace a queen and a six he can quite easily but perhaps you are tired of these demonstrations gentlemen not at all it's extremely interesting the chairman answered affably I should like to ask one question that is if it's not too indiscreet what is your own specialty mine no how could it be an indiscretion I work the big diamond shops and my other business is banks answered the orator with a modest smile don't think this occupation is easier than others enough that I know four European languages German French English and Italian not to mention Polish Ukrainian and Yiddish but shall I show you some more experiments mr chairman the chairman did his watch unfortunately the time is too short he said wouldn't it be better to pass on to the substance of your business besides the experiments we have just seen have amply convinced us of the talent of your esteemed associates am I not right Isaac Abramich yes yes absolutely the carite barrister readily confirmed admirable the gentlemen in the sandy suit kindly agreed my dear count he turned to a blonde curly haired man with a face like a billiard maker on a holiday put your instruments away they will not be wanted I have only a few words more to say gentlemen now that you have convinced yourselves that our art although it does not enjoy the patronage of high placed individuals is nevertheless an art and you have probably come to my opinion that this art is one which demands many personal qualities besides constant labor danger and unpleasant misunderstandings you will also I hope believe that it is possible to become attached to its practice and to love and esteem it however strange that may appear at first sight picture to yourselves that a famous poet of talent one whose tales and poems adorn the pages of our best magazines is suddenly offered the chance of writing verses at a penny a line signed into the bargain as an advertisement for cigarettes jasmine or that a slander was spread about one of you the distinguished barristers accusing you of making a business of concocting evidence for divorce cases or of writing petitions from the cabinet to the government in public houses certainly your relatives friends and acquaintances wouldn't believe it but the rumor has already done its poisonous work and you have to live through minutes of torture now picture to yourselves that such a disgraceful and vexatious slander started by god knows whom begins to threaten not only your good name and your quiet digestion but your freedom your health and even your life this is the position of us thieves now being slandered by the newspapers I must explain there is in existence a class of scum say more than one whom we call their mother's darlings with these we are unfortunately confused they have neither shame nor conscience a dissipated riffraff mother's useless darlings idle clumsy drums shop assistants who commit unskillful thefts he thinks nothing of living on his mistress a prostitute like the male mackerel who always swims after the female who lives on her excrements he is capable of robbing a child with violence in a dark alley in order to get a penny he will kill a man in his sleep and torture an old woman these men are the pests of our profession for them the beauties and the traditions of the art have no existence they watch us real talented thieves like a pack of jackals after a lion suppose I've managed to bring off an important job we won't mention the fact that I have to leave two thirds of what I get to the receivers who sell the goods and discount the nodes or the customary subsidies to our incorruptible police I still have to share out something to each of these parasites who have got wind of my job by accident hearsay or casual glance so we call them moissons which means half a corruption of moiti original etymology I pay him only because he knows and may inform against me and it mostly happens that even when he's got his share he runs off to the police in order to get another dollar we honest thieves yes you may laugh gentlemen but I repeat it we honest thieves do test these reptiles we have another name for them a stigma of ignominy but I dare not utter it here in the respect and place of my audience oh yes they would gladly accept an invitation to the pogrom the thought that we may be confused with them is a hundred times more insulting to us even than the accusation of taking part in the pogrom gentlemen while I have been speaking I have often noticed smiles on your faces I understand you our presence here our application for your assistance and above all the unexpectedness of such a phenomenon as a systemic organization of thieves with delegates who are thieves and deputation also with thief by profession it is also original that it must inevitably arouse a smile but now I will speak from the depth of my heart let us be rid of our outward wrappings gentlemen let us speak as men to men almost all of us are educated and all love books we don't only read the adventures of racquembele as the realistic writers say of us our hearts did not bleed and our cheeks did not burn from shame as though we had been slapped in the face all the time that this unfortunate disgraceful accursed cowardly war lasted do you really think that our souls did not flame with anger when our country is lashed with gossip whips and trodden underfoot shot and spit it by mad exasperated men will you not believe that we thieves meet every step towards the liberation to come with a thrill of ecstasy we understand every one of us perhaps only a little less than you barristers, gentlemen the real sense of the programs every time that some dastardly event or some ignominious failure has occurred after executing a martyr in a dark corner of a fortress or after deceiving public confidence someone who is hidden and unapproachable gets frightened of the people's anger and diverts its vicious element upon the heads of the innocent who's diabolical mind invents these pogroms these titanic bloodlettings these cannibal amusements for the dark bestial souls we all see with certain clearness that the last convulsions of bureaucracy are at hand forgive me if I presented imaginatively there was a people that had a chief temple wherein dwelled a blood thirsty deity behind a curtain guarded by priests once fearless hands tore the curtains away then all the people saw instead of a god a huge shaggy voracious spider like a loathsome cuttlefish they beat it and shot at it it is dismembered already but still in the frenzy of its final agony it stretches over all the ancient temple its disgusting clawing tentacles and the priests themselves under sentence of death push into the monsters grasp all whom they can seize in their terrified trembling fingers forgive me what I have said is probably wild and incoherent but I am somewhat agitated forgive me I continue we these by profession know better than anyone else how these pogroms were organized we wonder everywhere into public houses, markets tea shops, dos houses public places, the harbor we can swear before god we can and posterity that we have seen how the police organized the massacres without shame and almost without concealment we know them all by face in uniform or disguise they invited many of us to take part but there was none so vile among us as to give even the outward consent that fear might have extorted you know of course how the various strata of russian society have towards the police it is not even respected by those who avail themselves of its dark services but we despise and hate it three, ten times more not because many of us have been tortured in the detective departments which are just chambers of horror beaten almost to death beaten with whips of oxide and of rubber in order to extort a confession or to make us betray a comrade yes, we hate them for that too but we thieves who have been in prison have a mad passion for freedom therefore we despise our golears with all the hatred that a human heart can feel I will speak for myself I have been tortured three times by police detectives till I was half dead my lungs and liver have been shattered in the mornings I spit blood until I can breathe no more but if I were told that I will be spared a fourth blogging only by shaking hands with the chief of the detective police I would refuse to do it and then the newspaper say that we took from the hands Judas's money dripping with human blood no gentlemen, it is a slander which stabs our very souls and inflicts inseparable pain not money nor threats nor promises will suffice to make us mercenary murderers of our brethren nor accomplices with them and comrades standing behind him began to murmur I will say more the thief continued many of us protected the victims during this program our friends called seswa the great you have just seen him gentlemen was then lodging with a Jewish bread maker on the multivanka with a poker in his hands he defended the landlord from the great horde of assassins it is true, seswa the great and this is well known to many of the inhabitants of the multivanka but you must agree gentlemen that in these moments seswa the great looked straight into the face of death our comrade martin the minor this gentleman here the orator pointed to a pale bearded man with beautiful eyes who was holding himself in the background saved an old Jewish whom he had never seen before who was being pursued by a crowd of these canal they broke his head with a crowbar for his pains smashed his arm in two places and splintered a rib he is only just out of the hospital that is the way our most ardent and determined members acted the others trembled for anger and wet for their own impotence none of us will forget the horrors of these bloody days and bloody nights lit up by the glares of fires those sobbing women those little children's bodies torn to pieces not lying in the streets but for all that not one of us thinks the police and the mob are the real origin of the evil these teeny stupid loathsome vermin are only a senseless fist that is governed by a vile calculating mind moved by a diabolical will yes gentlemen the orator continued we thieves have nevertheless merited your legal contempt but when you noble gentlemen need the help of clever brave, obedient men at the barricades men who will be ready to meet death with a song and adjust on their lips for the most glorious word in the world freedom will you cast us off then and order us away because of an inveterate revulsion damn it all the first victim in the french revolution was a prostitute she jumped up on the barricade with her skirt caught elegantly up in her hand and called out which of you soldiers will dare shoot a woman yes by god the orator exclaimed aloud and brought down his fist to the marble tabletop they killed her but her action was magnificent and the beauty of her words immortal if you should drive us away on the great day we will turn to you and say you spotless cherubin if human thoughts had the power to wound kill and rob man of honor and property then which of you innocent doves would not deserve the nowt and imprisonment for life then we will go away from you and build our own gay sporting desperate thieves' barricade and we'll die with such united songs on our lips that you will envy us you who are wider than snow but i have been more than once carried away forgive me i am at the end you now see gentlemen what feelings the newspaper slanders have excited in us believe in our sincerity and do what you can to remove the filthy stain which has so unjustly been cast upon us i have finished he went away from the table and joined his comrades the barristers were whispering in an undertone very much as the magistrate of the bench at sessions then the chairman rose we trust you absolutely and we will make every effort to clear your association of this most grievous charge at the same time my colleagues have authorized me gentlemen to convey to you their deep respect for your passionate feelings as citizens and for my own part i asked the leader of the deputation for permission to shake him by the hand the two men both tall and serious held each other's hands in a strong masculine grip the barristers were leaving the theater but four of them hung back a little beside the clothes rack in the hall Isaac Abramovich could not find his new dark gray hat anywhere in its place on the wooden peg hung a cloth cap chontilly flattened in on either side yasha the stern voice of the order was suddenly heard from the other side of the door yasha it's the last time i'll speak to you curse you do you hear the heavy door opened wide the gentleman in the sandy suit entered in his hands he held Isaac Abramovich's hat on his face was a well-bred smile gentlemen for heaven's sake forgive us an odd little misunderstanding one of our comrades exchanged his hat by accident oh it is yours a thousand pardons doorkeeper why don't you peep an eye on things my good fellow eh just give me that cap there once more i ask you to forgive me gentlemen with a pleasant bow and the same well-bred smile he made his way quickly into the street end of the outrage a true story by alexander ivanovich kubrin read by rachel cregg of colorado springs usa