Short Fiction Vsevolod Garshin (best e reader for epub .txt) 📖

“And is it really impossible to return to this happiness? To this ability to recognize that what one says and thinks is true? How many years it is since I experienced it! One speaks warmly and apparently sincerely, but in one’s soul there is all the time sitting a cankerworm, devouring it, and sucking it dry, and saying: ‘My friend, are you not lying? Do you in reality think what you are now speaking?’ ”

Yet one more apparently senseless phrase took shape in the head of Alexei Petrovich. “Do you really think what you are thinking?” It was a senseless phrase, but he understood it.

Yes, then he really thought what he thought. He had loved his father, who knew that he loved him. “Oh, if there were but one genuine real feeling within me. Yet there exists such a world. The bell reminded me of it. When it sounded I remembered the church, the crowd, the enormous mass of humanity, the real life. That is where one must go⁠—out of oneself⁠—and that is where one must love, and love as children love. As children⁠ ⁠… just as it is said there.⁠ ⁠…”

He went to the table, drew out one of the drawers, and commenced to rummage in it. A little dark green book, bought by him once at some exhibition as a cheap curio, lay in a corner. He seized it joyously, quickly turning over the leaves with their two narrow columns of small print. Familiar words and sentences rose to mind. He began to read from the first page, and read it all without a pause, having forgotten even about the sentence in search of which he had got out the book. This sentence, which had so long been familiar and so long forgotten, astonished him, when he came upon it with the weight of the substance expressed in its words: “Except ye become as little children⁠ ⁠…”

It seemed to him that he understood all.

“Do I know what these words mean ‘Become as a little child?’ It means not to place oneself first in everything, to tear from one’s heart this horrid little deformed god with its protuberant paunch, this repulsive ‘ego’ which, like some cankerworm, sucks dry the soul, and ceaselessly demands of it fresh food. But out of where shall I tear it? Thou hast already devoured all. All my time, all my forces, have been devoted to thy service. I have nourished thee, have revered thee. Although I hated thee I still worshipped thee, bringing to thee in sacrifice, and giving to thee all the good which I possessed, and for this I have bowed and bowed⁠ ⁠…”

He repeated this word as he continued to pace the room. But his gait was now unsteady. He staggered as if drunk, with his head lowered on his chest, which was heaving with sobs, not stopping to wipe his tear-moistened face. At last his legs refused to serve him any longer, and he sat down, pressing himself into a corner of the sofa. Supporting himself on his elbows, he dropped his fevered head into his hands and wept like a child. This loss of strength lasted for some time, but he was no longer in torture. The storm was abating, the tears were flowing, giving him relief, and he felt no shame in them. No matter who had entered the room at that moment, he would not have tried to restrain these tears which were carrying away hate with them. He felt now that all had not yet been swallowed up by the idol to which he had bowed for so many years. That there still remained love and even self-denial. That it was worth while living if only to pour forth this remnant; where, and on what, he did not know. At that moment it was not necessary to know where to take his guilty head. He recalled the grief and suffering which it had been his lot to witness in life⁠—genuine living grief before which all his torments in solitude had no significance; and he understood that he ought to go to this grief, to take his share of it upon himself, and only then would there be peace in his soul.

“It is terrible! I can no longer live on engrossed in my own fears and in myself. It is necessary, absolutely necessary, to bind myself with life in general, to suffer or to rejoice, to hate or to love, not for my own sake, not for my ‘ego,’ devouring all and giving nothing in return, but for the sake of truth, common to all, which is in the world, notwithstanding anything I may have said, which speaks in the soul in spite of all attempts to stifle it. Yes, yes,” repeated Alexei Petrovich in awful excitement, “all this is written in the little green book, is said for ever and aye, and is truly said. It is necessary to ‘reject’ oneself, to kill one’s ‘ego,’ to make for the road⁠ ⁠…”

“What use is it to you, madman?” whispered a voice. But another, once timid and unheeded voice, thundered in reply: “Silence! What benefit will it be to him if he tortures himself?”

Alexei Petrovich jumped to his feet and straightened himself to his full height. This argument rendered him enthusiastic. He had never yet experienced such enthusiasm from any life-success or from woman’s love. This enthusiasm was born of his heart, burst from it, pouring out in a hot, wide wave, and flowed through all his limbs. In an instant his numbed, unhappy being flamed to life. Thousands of bells sounded in majestic triumph. A blinding sun flashed out, illumined the whole world, and disappeared.⁠ ⁠…

The lamp, which had burned throughout the long night, became dimmer and dimmer, and finally went out altogether. But it was no longer dark in the room. Day had broken. Its calm grey light little by little found its way into the room, faintly showing up the loaded weapon and the letter