A Reckless Character, and Other Stories Part 41

WHAT SHALL I THINK?...

What shall I think when I come to die,--if I am then in a condition to think?

Shall I think what a bad use I have made of my life, how I have dozed it through, how I have not known how to relish its gifts?

"What? Is this death already? So soon? Impossible! Why, I have not succeeded in accomplishing anything yet.... I have only been preparing to act!"

Shall I recall the past, pause over the thought of the few bright moments I have lived through, over beloved images and faces?

Will my evil deeds present themselves before my memory, and will the corrosive grief of a belated repentance descend upon my soul?

Shall I think of what awaits me beyond the grave ... yes, and whether anything at all awaits me there?

No ... it seems to me that I shall try not to think, and shall compel my mind to busy itself with some nonsense or other, if only to divert my own attention from the menacing darkness which looms up black ahead.

In my presence one dying person kept complaining that they would not give him red-hot nuts to gnaw ... and only in the depths of his dimming eyes was there throbbing and palpitating something, like the wing of a bird wounded unto death....

August, 1879.

"HOW FAIR, HOW FRESH WERE THE ROSES"

Somewhere, some time, long, long ago, I read a poem. I speedily forgot it ... but its first line lingered in my memory:

"How fair, how fresh were the roses...."

It is winter now; the window-panes are coated with ice; in the warm chamber a single candle is burning. I am sitting curled up in one corner; and in my brain there rings and rings:

"How fair, how fresh were the roses...."

And I behold myself in front of the low window of a Russian house in the suburbs. The summer evening is melting and merging into night, there is a scent of mignonette and linden-blossoms abroad in the warm air;--and in the window, propped on a stiffened arm, and with her head bent on her shoulder, sits a young girl, gazing mutely and intently at the sky, as though watching for the appearance of the first stars. How ingenuously inspired are the thoughtful eyes; how touchingly innocent are the parted, questioning lips; how evenly breathes her bosom, not yet fully developed and still unagitated by anything; how pure and tender are the lines of the young face! I do not dare to address her, but how dear she is to me, how violently my heart beats!

"How fair, how fresh were the roses...."

And in the room everything grows darker and darker.... The candle which has burned low begins to flicker; white shadows waver across the low ceiling; the frost creaks and snarls beyond the wall--and I seem to hear a tedious, senile whisper:

"How fair, how fresh were the roses...."

Other images rise up before me.... I hear the merry murmur of family, of country life. Two red-gold little heads, leaning against each other, gaze bravely at me with their bright eyes; the red cheeks quiver with suppressed laughter; their hands are affectionately intertwined; their young, kind voices ring out, vying with each other; and a little further away, in the depths of a snug room, other hands, also young, are flying about, with fingers entangled, over the keys of a poor little old piano, and the Lanner waltz cannot drown the grumbling of the patriarchal samovar....

"How fair, how fresh were the roses...."

The candle flares up and dies out.... Who is that coughing yonder so hoa.r.s.ely and dully? Curled up in a ring, my aged dog, my sole companion, is nestling and quivering at my feet.... I feel cold.... I am shivering ... and they are all dead ... all dead....

"How fair, how fresh were the roses."

Septembers 1879.

A SEA VOYAGE

I sailed from Hamburg to London on a small steamer. There were two of us pa.s.sengers: I and a tiny monkey, a female of the ouist.i.ti breed, which a Hamburg merchant was sending as a gift to his English partner.

She was attached by a slender chain to one of the benches on the deck, and threw herself about and squeaked plaintively, like a bird.

Every time I walked past she stretched out to me her black, cold little hand, and gazed at me with her mournful, almost human little eyes.--I took her hand, and she ceased to squeak and fling herself about.

There was a dead calm. The sea spread out around us in a motionless mirror of leaden hue. It seemed small; a dense fog lay over it, shrouding even the tips of the masts, and blinding and wearying the eyes with its soft gloom. The sun hung like a dim red spot in this gloom; but just before evening it became all aflame and glowed mysteriously and strangely scarlet.

Long, straight folds, like the folds of heavy silken fabrics, flowed away from the bow of the steamer, one after another, growing ever wider, wrinkling and broadening, becoming smoother at last, swaying and vanishing. The churned foam swirled under the monotonous beat of the paddle-wheels; gleaming white like milk, and hissing faintly, it was broken up into serpent-like ripples, and then flowed together at a distance, and vanished likewise, swallowed up in the gloom.

A small bell at the stern jingled as incessantly and plaintively as the squeaking cry of the monkey.

Now and then a seal came to the surface, and turning an abrupt somersault, darted off beneath the barely-disturbed surface.

And the captain, a taciturn man with a surly, sunburned face, smoked a short pipe and spat angrily into the sea, congealed in impa.s.sivity.

To all my questions he replied with an abrupt growl. I was compelled, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, to have recourse to my solitary fellow-traveller--the monkey.

I sat down beside her; she ceased to whine, and again stretched out her hand to me.

The motionless fog enveloped us both with a soporific humidity; and equally immersed in one unconscious thought, we remained there side by side, like blood-relatives.

I smile now ... but then another feeling reigned in me.

We are all children of one mother--and it pleased me that the poor little beastie should quiet down so confidingly and nestle up to me, as though to a relative.

November, 1879.

N. N.

Gracefully and quietly dost thou walk along the path of life, without tears and without smiles, barely animated by an indifferent attention.

Thou art kind and clever ... and everything is alien to thee--and no one is necessary to thee.