The little angel, and other stories;

Preface

Leonid Nikolaivich Andreyev was bom in Orel in 1871. After his father's death he was thrown upon his own resources, but managed to study at both Petrograd and Moscow Universities, graduating in Law in 1897. During this period he endured great hardship — often even actual hunger — and was the victim of deep melancholia. His first writings were unsuccessful ; and, for a time, he devoted himself to painting. Later he came into touch with the Russian press as police-court reporter for a leading newspaper. Then Silence was published, and brought him immediate recognition. This terrible story may serve as an example of his method. The silence of the frightened girl, dying with her secret, and of her mother, stricken, through shock, wi.h paralysis, crushes the pride of the priest whose training has so stiffened his nature that he cannot express or welcome affection. He cries for help ; he entreats them to show him pity. His daughter Ues dead ; his wife motionless. An abstract idea is the germ of each tale ; around it are woven both characters and incident — a process which is in marked contrast to the work of his contemporary Maxim Gorky whose people with their actions come directly from hfe — mostly, indeed, from his own personal experiences. Sometimes the double note is tragic ; oftener, the abstract idea redeems the gloom or horror of the actual tale, as in The Little Angel and In the Basement, for, while the stories of Andreyev are tinged with more than even the ordinary tone of sadness of the Russian writer, there seems to be in his mind a balancing, a search for some kind of compensation, as though he would say, ' No man is wholly good or wholly bad.' Perhaps it is the weakness of a method by which his characters become the puppets — however real — illustrating an idea ; perhaps it is the strength

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PREFACE 7

of the author's vision, that makes his people sometimes morbid and unhealthy. They are driven by a relentless creator, as in Masefield's Nan, to their destiny. Nevertheless, the beauty of his style, the clear imagination, and the perfect form of his stories come not only from an artist but from a philosopher and poet. His work is not for babes. Deep truths are presented not more realistically in the anomalies and terrors of life than in the symbolism of his short stories and, in its more elaborate form, of his plays. Touches of tenderness, beauty, and sympathetic insight are found on every page side by side with brutality and coarseness, for Andreyev draws Life without hiding, without shirking. But, beyond and behind, his mind is working ceaselessly, struggling to co-ordinate the whole.

His works comprise a large number of stories, including beside the present collection Jtidas Iscariot, The Red Laugh, The Seven Who were Hanged, and some powerful studies in madness ; and of plays most of which

8 PREFACE

are performed upon the Russian, though, not yet upon the Enghsh, stage. Among the latter are The Life of Man, Anathema, The Black Maskers, The Sabine Women, and The Tragedy of Belgium.

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Contents

PAGE

Preface 5

Q^The Little Angel 11

II

The children had not yet been admitted to the drawing-room, where the Christmas tree stood, but remained chattering in the nursery. Sashka, with lofty superciliousness, stood Hstening to their naive talk, and fingering in his breeches pocket the broken cigarettes which he had managed to abstract from his host's study. At this moment there came up to him the youngest of the Svetchnikovs, Kolya, and stood motionless before him, a look of surprise on his face, his toes turned in, and a finger stuck in the corner of his pouting mouth. Six months ago, at the instance of his relatives, he had given up this bad habit of putting his finger in his mouth, but he could not quite break himself of it. He had blonde locks cut in a fringe on his forehead and falling in ringlets on his shoulders, and blue, wondering eyes; in fact, he was just such a boy in appearance as Sashka particularly loved to bully.

' Are 'oo weally a naughty boy ? ' he inquired of Sashka. ' Miss said 'oo was. I'm a dood boy.'

' That you are ! ' replied Sashka, considering the other's short velvet trousers and great turndown collars.

* Would 'oo like to have a dun ? There ! ' and he pointed at him a little pop-gun with a cork tied to it. The Wolfkin took the gun, pressed down the spring, and, aiming at the nose of the unsuspecting Kolya, pulled the trigger. The cork struck his nose, and rebounding, hung by the string. Kolya's blue eyes opened wider than ever, and filled with tears. Transferring his finger from his mouth to his reddening nose he blinked his long eyelashes and whispered :

' Bad— bad boy ! '

A young lady of striking appearance, with her hair dressed in the simplest and the most becoming fashion, now entered the nursery. She was sister to the lady of the house, the very one indeed to whom Sashka's father had formerly given lessons.

' Here's the boy,' said she, pointing out Sashka to the bald-headed man who accompanied her. ' Bow, Sashka, you should not be so rude ! *

But Sashka would bow neither to her, nor to her companion of the bald head. She little suspected how much he knew. But, as a fact, Sashka did know that his miserable father had loved her, and that she had married another ; and, though this had taken place subsequent to his father's marriage, Sashka could not bring himself to forgive what seemed to him like treachery.

* Takes after his father ! ' sighed Sofia Dmitrievna. * Could not you, Plutov Michailovich, do something for him ? My husband says that a commercial school would suit him better than the grammar school. Sashka, would you like to go to a technical school ? '

' No ! ' ciurtly replied Sashka, who had caught the offensive word ' husband.'

* Do you want to be a shepherd, then ? ' asked the gentleman.

* Not likely !' said Sashka, in an offended tone. ' What then ? '

Now Sashka did not know what he would i like to be, but upon reflection replied : ' Well, fit's all the same to me, even a shepherd, if you like.'

The bald-headed gentleman regarded the strange boy with a look of perplexity. When his eyes had travelled up from his patched boots to his face, Sashka put out his tongue and quickly drew it back again, so that Sofia Dmitrievna did not notice anything, but the old gentleman showed an amount of irascibility that she could not understand.

* I should not mind going to a commercial school,' bashfully suggested Sashka.

The lady was overjoyed at Sashka's decision, and meditated with a sigh on the beneficial influence exercised by an old love.

' I don't know whether there will be a vacancy,' dryly remarked the old man avoiding looking at Sashka, and smoothing down the ridge of hair which stuck up on the back of his head. ' However, we shall see.'

Meanwhile the children were becoming noisy, and in a great state of excitement were waiting impatiently for the Christmas tree.

The excellent practice with the pop-gun made in the hands of a boy, who commanded respect both for his stature and for his reputation for naughtiness, found imitators, and many a little button of a nose was made red. The tiny maids, holding their sides, bent almost double with laughter, as their little cavaliers with manly contempt of fear and pain, but all the same wrinkling up their faces in suspense, received the impact of the cork.

At length the doors were opened, and a voice said : ' Come in, children ; gently, not so fast ! ' Opening their little eyes wide, and holding their breath in anticipation, the children filed into the brightly illumined drawing-room in orderly pairs, and quietly walked round the glittering tree. It cast a strong/ shadowless light on their eager faces, with rounded eyes and mouths. For a minute there reigned the silence of profound enchantment, which all at once broke out into a chorus of dehghted exclamation. One of the little girls, unable to restrain her delight, kept dancing up and down in the same place, her little tress braided with blue ribbon beating meanwhile rhythmically against her shoulders. Sashka remained morose and gloorny — something evil was working in his little wounded breast. The tree blinded him with its red, shriekingly insolent glitter jpf countless candles. It was foreign, hostile to him, even as the crowd of smart, pretty children which surrounded it. He would have liked to give it a shove, and topple it over on their shining heads. It seemed as though some iron hand were gripping his heart, and wringing out of it every drop of blood. He crept behind the piano, and sat down there in a corner unconsciously crumpling to pieces in his pocket the last of the cigarettes, and thinking that though he had a father and mother and a home, it came to the same thing as if he had none, and nowhere to go to. He tried to recall to his imagination his little penknife, which he had acquired by a swap not long ago, and was very fond of ; but his knife all at once seemed to him a very poor affair with its ground-down blade and only half of a yellow haft. To-morrow he would

', smash it up, and then he would have nothing

'J left at aU ! ■ But suddenly Sashka's narrow eyes gleamed with astonishment, and his face in a moment resumed its ordinary expression of audacity and self-confidence. On the side of the tree turned towards him — which was the back of it, and less brightly illumined than the other side — he discovered some^thing such as had never come within the circle of his existence, and without which all his surroundings appeared as empty as though peopled by persons without life. It was a little angel in wax carelessly hung in the thickest of the dark boughs, and looking as if it were floating in the air. His transparent dragon-fly wings trembled in the light, and he seemed altogether alive and ready to fly away. The rosy fingers of his exquisitely^ formed hands were stretched upwards, and from his head there floated just such locks as Kolya's. But there was something here that was wanting in Kolya's face, and in all other faces and things. The face of the little angel did not shine with joy, nor was it clouded by grief ; but there lay on it the impress of another feeling, not to be explained in words, nor defined by thought, but to be attained only by the sympathy of a kindred feeling:. Sashka was not conscious of the force of the mysterious influence which attracted him towards the Httle angel, but he felt that he had known him all his life, and had always loved him, loved him more than his penknife, more than his father, more than anything else^ Filled with doubt, alarm, and a delight which he could not comprehend, Sashka clasped his hands to his bosom and whispered :

' Dear — dear little angel ! '

The more intently he looked the more fraught with significance the expression of the little angel's face became. He was so infinitely far off, so unlike everything which .surrounded him there. The other toys seemed to take a pride in hanging there pretty, and decked out, upon the glittering tree, but he was pensive, and fearing the intrusive light purposely hid himself in the dark greenery, so that none might see him. It would be a mad cruelty to touch his dainty little wings.

* Dear — dear ! ' whispered Sashka.

His head became feverish. He clasped his hands behind his back, and in full readiness to fight to the death to win the little angel, he walked to and fro with cautious, stealthy steps. He avoided looking at the little angel, lest he should direct the attention of others towards him, but he felt that he was still there, and had not flown away.

Now the hostess appeared in the doorway, a tall, stately lady with a bright aureole of grey hair dressed high upon her head. The children trooped round her with expressions of delight, and the little girl — the same that had danced about in her place — hung wearily on her hand, blinking heavily with sleepy eyes.

As Sashka approached her he seemed almost choking with emotion.

* Auntie — auntie ! ' ^ said he, trying to speak caressingly, but his voice sounded harsher than ever. ' Auntie, dear ! '

She did not hear him, so he tugged impatiently at her dress.

' What's the matter with you ? Why are you pulling my dress ? ' said the grey-haired lady in surprise. ' It's rude.'

'Auntie — auntie, do give me one thing from the tree ; give me the little angel.'

' Impossible,' replied the lady in a tone of indifference. ' We are going to keep the tree decorated till the New Year. But you are no longer a child ; you should call me by name — Maria Dmitrievna.'

* This is, of course, only a child's way of addressing an elder. — Tr,

Sashka, feeling as if he were falling down a precipice, grasped the last means of saving himself.

' I am sorry I have been naughty. I'll be more industrious for the future,' he blurted out. But this formula, wliich had always paid \\ith his masters, made no impression upon the lady of the grey hair.

' A good thing, too, my friend,' she said, as unconcernedly as before.

* Give me the little angel,' demanded Sashka, gruffly.

' But it's impossible. Can't 3'-ou understand that ? '

But Sashka did not understand, and when the lady turned to go out of the room he followed her, his gaze fixed without conscious thought upon her black silk dress. In his surging brain there glimmered a recollection of how one of the boys in his class had asked the master to mark him 3,^ and when the master refused he had knelt down before him, and putting his hands together as in prayer, had begun to cry. The master was angry, but gave him 3 all the same. At the time Sashka had immortalised this episode in a caricature, but now his only means left was to follow the boy's example. Accordingly

* In Russian schools 5 is the maximum mark. — Tr.

vi he plucked at the lady's dress again, and when she turned round, dropped with a bang on to his knees, and folded his hands as described above. But he could not squeeze out a single tear !

' Are you out of your mind ? ' exclaimed the grey-haired lady, casting a searching look round the room ; but luckily no one was present.

* What is the matter with you ? ' Kneeling there with clasped hands, Sashka

looked at her with dislike, and rudely repeated :

* Give me the little angel.'

His eyes, fixed intently on the lady to catch the first word she should utter, were anything but good to look at, and the hostess answered hurriedly :

' Well, then, I'll give it to you. Ah ! what a stupid you are ! I will give you what you want, but why could you not wait till the New Year ? '

* Stand up ! And never,' she added in a didactic tone, ' never kneel to any one : it is humiliating. Kneel before God alone.'

* Talk 'away ! ' thought Sashka, trying to get in front of her, and merely succeeding in treading on her dress.

When she had taken the toy from the tree, Sashka devoured her with his eyes, b'' i stretched out his hands for it with a painful pucker of the nose. It seemed to him that the tall lady would break the little angel.

' Beautiful thing ! ' said the lady, who was sorry to part with such a dainty and presumably expensive toy. ' Who can have hung it there ? Well, what do you want with such a thing ? Are you not too big to know what to do with it ? Look, there are some picture-books. But this I promised to give to Kolya ; he begged so earnestly for it.' But this was not the truth.

Sashka's agony became unbearable. He clenched his teeth convulsively, and seemed almost to grind them. The lady of the grey hair feared nothing so much as a scene, so she slowly held out the httle angel to Sashka.

* There now, take it ! ' she said in a displeased tone ; ' what a persistent boy you are ! '

Sashka's hands as they seized the little angel seemed like tentacles, and were tense as steel springs, but withal so soft and careful that the little angel might have imagined himself to be flying in the air.

' A-h-h ! ' escaped in a long diminuendo sigh from Sashka's breast, while in his eyes glistened two little tear-drops, which stood still there as though unused to the light. Slowly drawing the little angel to his bosom, he kept his shining eyes on the hostess, with a quiet, tender smile which died away in a feeling of unearthly bHss. It seemed, when the dainty wings of the little angel touched Sashka's sunken breast, as if he experienced something so blissful, so bright, the like of which had never before been experienced in this sorrowful, sinful, suffering world.

* A-h-h ! ' sighed he once more as the little angel's wings touched him. And at the shining of his face the absurdly decorated and insolently glowing tree seemed to be extinguished, and the grey-haired, portly dame smiled with gladness, and the parchmentlike face of the bald-headed gentleman twitched, and the children fell into a vivid silence as though touched by a breath of human happiness.

For one short moment all observed a mysterious likeness between the awkward boy who had outgrown his clothes, and the lineaments of the little angel, which had been spiritualised by the hand of an unknown artist.

But the next moment the picture was entirely changed. Crouching hke a panther preparing to spring, Sashka surveyed the surrounding company, on the look-out for

I some one who should dare wrest his httle

angel from him.

■^A- * I'm going home/ he said in a dull voice, -having in view a way of escape through the

crowd, ' home to Father.'

Ill

His mother was asleep worn out with a whole day's work and vodka-drinking. In the little room behind the partition there stood a small cooking-lamp burning on the table. Its feeble yellow light, with difficulty penetrating the sooty glass, threw a strange shadow over the faces of Sashka and his father.

* Is it not pretty ? ' asked Sashka in a whisper, holding the little angel at a distance from his father, so as not to allow him to touch it.

' Yes, there's something most remarkable about him,' whispered the father, gazing thoughtfully at the toy. And his face expressed the same concentrated attention and delight, as did Sashka's.

' Look, he is going to fly.'

' I see it too,' replied Sashka in an ecstasy. * Think I'm blind? But look at his little wings ! Ah ! don't touch ! '

The father withdrew his hand, and with

L

THE LITTLE iiNGEL 33

troubled eyes studied the details of the little angel, while Sashka whispered with the air of a pedagogue :

' Father, what a bad habit you have of touching everything ! You might break it.'

There fell upon the wall the shadows of two grotesque, motionless heads bending towards one another, one big and shaggy, the other small and round.

Within the big head strange torturing thoughts, though at the same time full of delight, were seething. His eyes unblinkingl}^ regarded the little angel, and under his steadfast gaze it seemed to grow larger and brighter, and its wings to tremble with a noiseless trepidation, and all the surroundings— the timber-built, soot-stained wall, the dirty table, Sashka — everything became fused into one level grey mass without light or shade. It seemed to the broken man that he heard a pitying voice from the world of wonders, wherein once he had dwelt, and wTience he had been cast out for ever. There they knew nothing of dirt, of weary quarrelling, of the blindly-cruel strife of egotism, there they knew nothing of the tortures of a man arrested in the streets with callous laughter, and beaten by the rough hand of the night-watchman. There everything is pure, joyful, bright. And all this purity found an asylum in the soul of her whom he loved more than life, and had lost — when he had kept his hold upon his own useless life. With the smell of wax, which emanated from the toy, was mingled a subtle aroma, and it seemed to the broken man that her dear fingers touched the angel, those fingers which he would fain have caressed in one long kiss, till death should close his lips for ever. This was why the little toy was so beautiful, this was why there WcLS in it something specially attractive, ^ /which defied description. The little angel A had descended from that heaven which her soul was to him, and had brought a ray of light into the damp room, steeped in sulphurous fumes, and to the dark soul of the man from whom had been taken all : love, and happiness, and lije^

On a^ level with the eyes of the man, who had lived his life, sparkled the eyes of the '■ boy, who was beginning his life, and embraced the little angel in their caress. For them present and future had disappeared : the ever-sorrowful, piteous father, the rough, unendurable mother, the black darkness of insults, of cruelty, of humiliations, and of spiteful grief. The thoughts of Sashka were formless, nebulous, but all the more deeply for that did they move his agitated soul.

Everything that is good and bright in the world, all profound grief, and the hope of a soul that sighs for God — the little angel absorbed them all into himself, and that was why he glowed with such a soft divine radiance, that was why his little dragon-fly wings trembled with a noiseless trepidation.

The father and son did not look at one another : their sick hearts grieved, wept, and rejoiced apart ^ But there was a something in their thoughts which fused their hearts in one, and annihilated that bottomless abyss which separates man from man and makes him so lonely, unhappy, and weak. Tlie father with an unconscious motion put his arm round the neck of his son, and the son's head rested equally without conscious volition upon his father's consumptive chest.

' She it was who gave it to thee, was it not ? ' whispered the father, without taking his eyes off the little angel.

At another time Sashka would have replied with a rude negation, but now the only reply possible resounded of itself within his soul, and he calmly pronounced the pious fraud : * Who else ? of course she did. '

The father made no reply, and Sashka relapsed into silence.

Something grated in the adjoining room, then dicked, and then was silent for a moment, and then noisily and hurriedly the clock struck ' One, two, three.'

' Sashka, do you ever dream ? ' asked the father in a meditative tone.

' No ! Oh, yes,' he admitted, ' once I had one, in which I fell down from the roof. We were climbing after the pigeons, and I fell down.'

' But I dream always. Strange things are dreams. One sees the whole past, one loves and suffers as though it were reality.'

Again he was silent, and Sashka felt his arm tremble as it lay upon his neck. The trembling and pressure of his father's arm became stronger and stronger, and the sensitive silence of the night was all at once broken by the pitiful sobbing sound of suppressed weeping. Sashka sternly puckered his brow, and cautiously — so as not to disturb the heavy trembling arm — wiped away a tear from his eyes. So strange was it to see a big old man crying.

* Ah ! Sashka, Sashka,' sobbed the father, ' what is the meaning of everything ? '

' Why, what's the matter ? ' sternly whispered Sashka. * You're crying just like a little boy.'

* Well, I won't, then,' said the father with a piteous smile of excuse. ' Wliat's the good ? '

Feoktista Petrovna turned on her bed. She sighed, cleared her throat, and mumbled incoherent sounds in a loud and strangely persistent manner.

It was time to go to bed. But before doing so the little angel must be disposed of for the night. He could not be left on the floor, so he was hung up by his string, which was fastened to the flue of the stove. There it stood out accurately delineated against the white Dutch-tiles. And so they could both see him, Sashka and his father.

Hurriedly throwing into a corner the various rags on which he was in the habit of sleeping, Sashka lay down on his back, in order as quickly as possible to look again at the little angel.

' Why don't you undress ? ' asked his father as he shivered and \vrapped himself up in his tattered blanket, and arranged his clothes, which he had thrown over his feet.

' What's the good ? I shall soon be up again.'

Sashka wished to add that he did not care to go to sleep at all, but he had no time to do so, since he fell to sleep as suddenly as though he had sunk to the bottom of a deep swift river.

His father presently fell asleep also. And gentle sleep and restfulness lay upon the weary face of the man who had lived his life, and upon the brave face of the little man who was just beginning his hfe.

But the little angel hanging by the hot stove began to melt. The lamp, which had been left burning at the entreaty of Sashka, filled the room with the smell of kerosene, and through its smoked glass threw a melancholy light upon a scene of gradual dissolution. The little angel seemed to stir. Over his rosy fingers there rolled thick drops which fell upon the bench. To the smell of kerosene was added the stifling scent of rnelting wax. The little angel gave a tremble as though on the point of flight, and — fell with a soft thud upon the hot flags.

An inquisitive cockroach singed its wings as it ran round the formless lump of melted wax, climbed up the dragon-fly wings, and twitching its feelers went on its way.

Through the curtained window the greyblue light of coming day crept in, and the frozen water-carrier was already making a noise in the courtyard with his iron scoop.

It was early spring when I went to the bungalow. On the road still lay last year's darkened leaves. I was unaccompanied ; and alone I wandered through the still empty bungalow, the windows of which reflected the April sun. I mounted the broad bright terraces, and wondered who would live here under the green canopy of birch and oak. And when I closed my eyes I seemed to hear quick, cheerful footsteps, youthful song, and the ringing sound of women's laughter.

I used often to go to the station to meet the passenger trains. I was not expecting any one, for there was no one to come and see me ; but I am fond of those iron giants, when they rush past, rolling their shoulders, tearing along the rails with colossal momentum, and carrying somewhither persons unknown to me, but still my fellow-creatures. They seem to me alive and uncanny. In their speed I recognize the immensity of the world and the might of man, and when they whistle with such abandon and in so imperious a manner, I think how they are whistling in the same way in America, and Asia, maybe in torrid Africa.

The station was a small one, with two short sidings, and when the passenger train had left it became still and deserted. The forest and the streaming sunshine dominated the little low platform and the desolate track, and blended the rails in silence and light. On one of the sidings under an empty sleeping-car fowls wandered about, swarming round the iron wheels, and one could hardly believe, as one watched their peaceful, fussy activity, that it would be much the same in America, in Asia, or in torrid Africa. ... In a week I became acquainted with all the inhabitants of this Httle corner, and saluted as acquaintances the watchmen in their blue blouses, and the silent pointsmefn with their dull countenances and their brass horns, which glittered in the sun.

Every day I saw at the station a gendarme. He was a healthy, strong fellow, as are they all, with broad back, in a tightly stretched blue uniform, with enormous anus and a youthful countenance, upon which, from behind a severe official dignity, there still looked out the blue-eyed naivete of the country. At first he used to scan me all over with a gloomy suspicion, and put on a look of unapproachable severity without a touch of indulgence, and when he passed me would clank his spurs in a peculiarly sharp and eloquent manner. But he soon became used to me, just as he had become used to the pillars which supported the roof of the platform, to the desolate track, and to the discarded sleeping-car under which the fowls kept running about. In such quiet corners a habit is soon formed. And when he left off observing me, I perceived that this man was bored — bored as no one else in the world. He was bored with the wearisome station, bored by the absence of thoughts, bored by his strength-devouring inactivity, bored by the exclusiveness of his position, somewhere in the void between the station-master, who was unapproachable to him, and the lower employes to whom he was himself unapproachable. His soul lived on breaches of the peace, but at this tinv station no one ever committed a breach of the peace, and every time the passenger train departed without any adventure there passed over the face of the gendarme the expression of annoyance and vexation of a person who has been deprived of his due. For some minutes he would stand still in indecision, and then with listless gait walk to the other end of the platform without any aim or object. On his way he might stop for a second in front of some peasant woman who had been waiting for the train — but she was only a peasant woman like any other — and so knitting his brows the gendarme would pass on his way. Then he would sit down stout and listless, as though he had been boiled soft, and felt how soft and flabby were his useless arms under the cloth of his uniform, and how his powerful body, created for work, grew weary with the torturing fatigue of doing nothing. We are bored only in the head, but he was bored in every part of him, from head to foot : his cap, cocked on one side with youthful lack of purpose, was bored, his spurs were bored and tinkled inharmoniously and irregularly as though muffled. Then he began to yawn. How he yawned ! his mouth became contorted, expanded from ear to ear, grew broader and broader, till it swallowed up his whole face, it seemed that in another second, through the ever enlarging aperture, you would be able to see down his throat, choke-full of greasy soup. How he yawned ! He went away in a hurry, but for long that awful yawn seemed to put my jaw-bone out of joint, and the trees were broken and bobbing about i;o my tear-filled eyes.