Short Fiction Vsevolod Garshin (best e reader for epub .txt) 📖
- Author: Vsevolod Garshin
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“You did not expect me?” he said stammeringly. “I did not disturb you, and came in by the back entrance.”
I jumped to my feet and faced him. We stood for some time like this, measuring each other with our eyes. He was indeed a terrifying spectacle. He was white, his bloodshot eyes, full of raging hate, were fixed on me. He said nothing, but his thin lips trembled, and seemed to be whispering something. Suddenly a wave of pity for him swept over me.
“Serge Vassilivich, why did you come? If you want to talk to me, come along and calm yourself.”
“I am quite calm, Lopatin. … I am ill, but calm. I have already decided, and I have nothing to excite me.”
“Why have you come?”
“To say a few words to you. You imagine you will be happy with her?” With a wave of his hand, he pointed to Nadejda Nicolaievna. “You will not be happy! I will not allow it.”
“Leave this place,” said I, making tremendous efforts to speak quietly. “Go away—go and rest. You yourself say you are unwell.”
“That’s my business. Listen to what I am going to tell you. I have made a mistake. … I am to blame. I love her. Give her to me.”
“He has gone out of his mind,” flashed through my mind.
“I cannot live without her,” he continued in a dull, hoarse voice. “I will not leave you until you say ‘Yes.’ ”
“Serge Vassilivich!”
“And you will say ‘Yes,’ or …”
I took him by the shoulders and turned him towards the door. He went quietly, but when we reached the door, instead of taking hold of the handle, he turned the key in the lock, then, with a sudden violent movement, threw me off and stood in a threatening pose. Nadejda Nicolaievna gave a shriek.
I saw him transfer the key from his right hand into his left, and put his right hand into his pocket. When he drew it out, something glistened in it which I had not time to name. But its sight terrified me. Not knowing what I was doing, I seized the lance standing in the corner, and when he pointed the revolver at Nadejda Nicolaievna, I rushed at him with a wild yell. Everything reverberated with a terrific report. …
Then the slaughter began.
I do not know how long I lay unconscious. When I came to I remembered nothing, only that I was lying on the floor, that I could see the ceiling through a strange dove-coloured mist, that I felt there was something in my chest preventing me from moving or speaking—all this did not astonish me. It seemed to me that it was all a necessary part of some matter which had to be done, but what I could not in any way remember.
The picture! Yes. Charlotte Corday and Ilia Murometz. … He is sitting and reading, and she is turning the leaves for him and laughing wildly. … What nonsense! … It is not that; that is not the question about which Helfreich is speaking.
I make a movement, and feel great pain. Of course, that is as it should be—otherwise is impossible.
Absolute quiet. A fly is buzzing in the air, and then bumps itself against the windowpane. The double windows have not yet been taken out, but through them comes the rattle of the droshkies passing along the street. The faint smoke clears away before my eyes—a strange bluish smoke—and I see clearly on the ceiling a coarsely modelled rosette round the hook for a candelabra. I think that this is a very strange ornament. I have never noticed it before. And somebody is touching my arm. I turn my head and see somebody’s hand—a little soft white hand lying on the floor. I cannot get at it, and I am dreadfully sorry, because this is Nadia’s hand, whom I love more than anybody or anything else in the world. …
And suddenly a bright gleam of consciousness illuminates me, and in a flash I remember all that has happened. … He has killed her.
Impossible! Impossible! She is alive. She is only wounded. “Help! help!” I cry, but no sound is heard. Only a kind of gurgling in my chest which chokes me, and a rosy froth collects on my lips. He has killed me also.
Collecting my strength, I raised myself and looked at her face. Her eyes were closed and she was motionless. I felt how the very hair on my head moved. I wanted to become unconscious. I fell on her breast, and commenced to smother with kisses the face which but half an hour ago had been full of life and happiness, and had so confidingly snuggled to my heart. Now it was still and severe. The blood had already ceased to trickle from a little wound over one eye. She was dead.
When they burst open the door and Simon Ivanovich rushed towards me, I felt that I was at my last gasp. They lifted me up and placed me on the sofa. I saw how they took hold of her and carried her out. I wanted to cry out, to beg, implore them not to do it, but to leave her alongside me. But I could not cry out. I only noiselessly whispered whilst the doctor examined my chest, through which a bullet had passed.
They took him out. He lay with a severe and terrible face covered in blood, which had poured like a wave from a mortal wound on his head.
I am finishing now. What is there to add?
Sonia arrived almost immediately, summoned by a telegram from Simon Ivanovich. They have been treating me for a long time, and persistently continue to treat me. Sonia and Helfreich are convinced that I shall live. They want to take me abroad, and rely on this journey as on a mountain of stone.
But I feel I have only a few days more. My wound has closed, but my chest is being racked by another disease. I know
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