"Do you know," she said, "do you know they are building barricadeson our street?"
It was quiet. We looked straight into each other's eyes, and I feltmy face turning pale. Life vanished somewhere and then returned againwith a loud throbbing of the heart. It was quiet and the flame of thecandle was quivering, and it was small, dull, but sharp-pointed, likea crooked sword.
"Are you afraid?" I asked.
The pale chin trembled, but her eyes remained motionless and lookedat me, without blinking, and only now I noticed what unfamiliar, whatterrible eyes they were. For ten years I had looked into them andhad known them better than my own eyes, and now there was somethingnew in them which I am unable define. I would have called it pride,but there was something different in them, something new, entirelynew. I took her hand; it was cold. She grasped my hand firmly andthere was something new, something I had not known before, in herhandclasp.
She had never before clasped my hand as she did this time.
"How long?" I asked.
"About an hour already. Your brother has gone away. He wasapparently afraid that you would not let him go, so he went awayquietly. But I saw it."
It was true then; the time had arrived. I rose, and, for somereason, spent a long time washing myself, as was my wont in themorning before going to work, and my wife held the light. Then weput out the light and walked over to the window overlooking thestreet. It was spring; it was May, and the air that came in from theopen window was such as we had never before felt in that old, largecity. For several days the factories and the roads had been idle;and the air, free from smoke, was filled with the fragrance of thefields and the flowering gardens, perhaps with that of the dew. I donot know what it is that smells so wonderfully on spring nights whenI go out far beyond the outskirts of the city. Not a lantern, not acarriage, not a single sound of the city over the unconcerned stonysurface; if you had closed your eyes you would really have thoughtthat you were in a village. There a dog was barking. I had neverbefore heard a dog barking in the city, and I laughed for happiness.
"Listen, a dog is barking."
My wife embraced me, and said:
"It is there, on the corner."
We bent over the window-sill, and there, in the transparent, darkdepth, we saw some movement--not people, but movement. Something wasmoving about like a shadow. Suddenly the blows of a hatchet or ahammer resounded. They sounded so cheerful, so resonant, as in aforest, as on a river when you are mending a boat or building a dam.And in the presentiment of cheerful, harmonious work, I firmlyembraced my wife, while she looked above the houses, above the roofs,looked at the young crescent of the moon, which was already setting.The moon was so young, so strange, even as a young girl who isdreaming and is afraid to tell her dreams; and it was shining onlyfor itself.
"When will we have a full moon?..."
"You must not! You must not!" my wife interrupted. "You must notspeak of that which will be. What for? IT is afraid of words. Comehere."
It was dark in the room, and we were silent for a long time, withoutseeing each other, yet thinking of the same thing. And when Istarted to speak, it seemed to me that some one else was speaking; Iwas not afraid, yet the voice of the other one was hoarse, as thoughsuffocating for thirst.
"What shall it be?"
"And--they?"
"You will be with them. It will be enough for them to have amother. I cannot remain."
"And I? Can I?"
I know that she did not stir from her place, but I felt distinctlythat she was going away, that she was far--far away. I began to feelso cold, I stretched out my hands--but she pushed them aside.
"People have such a holiday once in a hundred years, and you want todeprive me of it. Why?" she said.
"But they may kill you there. And our children will perish."
"Life will be merciful to me. But even if they should perish--"
And this was said by her, my wife--a woman with whom I had lived forten years. But yesterday she had known nothing except our children,and had been filled with fear for them; but yesterday she had caughtwith terror the stern symptoms of the future. What had come overher? Yesterday--but I, too, forgot everything that was yesterday.
"Do you want to go with me?"
"Do not be angry"--she thought that I was afraid, angry--"Don't beangry. To-night, when they began to knock here, and you were stillsleeping, I suddenly understood that my husband, my children--allthese were simply temporary... I love you, very much"--she found myhand and shook it with the same new, unfamiliar grasp--"but do youhear how they are knocking there? They are knocking, and somethingseems to be falling, some kind of walls seem to be falling--and it isso spacious, so wide, so free. It is night now, and yet it seems tome that the sun is shining. I am thirty years of age, and I am oldalready, and yet it seems to me that I am only seventeen, and that Ilove some one with my first love--a great, boundless love."
"What a night!" I said. "It is as if the city were no more. Youare right, I have also forgotten how old I am."
"They are knocking, and it sounds to me like music, like singing ofwhich I have always dreamed--all my life. And I did not know whom itwas that I loved with such a boundless love, which made me feel likecrying and laughing and singing. There is freedom--do not take myhappiness away, let me die with those who are working there, who arecalling the future so bravely, and who are rousing the dead past fromits grave."
"There is no such thing as time."
"What do you say?"
"There is no such thing as time. Who are you? I did not know you.Are you a human being?"
She burst into such ringing laughter as though she were really onlyseventeen years old.
"I did not know you, either. Are you, too, a human being? Howstrange and how beautiful it is--a human being!"
That which I am writing happened long ago, and those who aresleeping now in the sleep of grey life and who die without awakening--those will not believe me: in those days there was no such thing astime. The sun was rising and setting, and the hand was moving aroundthe dial--but time did not exist. And many other great and wonderfulthings happened in those days.... And those who are sleeping now thesleep of this grey life and who die without awakening, will notbelieve me.
"I must go," said I.
"Wait, I will give you something to eat. You haven't eaten anythingto-day. See how sensible I am: I shall go to-morrow. I shall givethe children away and find you."
"Comrade," said I.
"Yes, comrade."
Through the open windows came the breath of the fields, and silence,and from time to time, the cheerful strokes of the axe, and I sat bythe table and looked and listened, and everything was so mysteriouslynew that I felt like laughing. I looked at the walls and they seemedto me to be transparent. As if embracing all eternity with one glance,I saw how all these walls had been built, I saw how they were beingdestroyed, and I alone always was and always will be. Everything willpass, but I shall remain. And everything seemed to me strange andqueer--so unnatural--the table and the food upon it, and everythingoutside of me. It all seemed to me transparent and light, existingonly temporarily.
"Why don't you eat?" asked my wife.
I smiled:
"Bread--it is so strange."
She glanced at the bread, at the stale, dry crust of bread, and forsome reason her face became sad. Still continuing to look at it, shesilently adjusted her apron with her hands and her head turnedslightly, very slightly, in the direction where the children weresleeping.
"Do you feel sorry for them?" I asked.
She shook her head without removing her eyes from the bread.
"No, but I was thinking of what happened in our life before."
How incomprehensible! As one who awakens from a long sleep, shesurveyed the room with her eyes and all seemed to her soincomprehensible. Was this the place where we had lived?
"You were my wife."
"And there are our children."
"Here, beyond the wall, your father died."
"Yes. He died. He died without awakening."
The smallest child, frightened at something in her sleep, began tocry. And this simple childish cry, apparently demanding something,sounded so strange amid these phantom walls, while there, below,people were building barricades.
She cried and demanded--caresses, certain queer words and promisesto soothe her. And she soon was soothed.
"Well, go!" said my wife in a whisper.
"I should like to kiss them."
"I am afraid you will wake them up."
"No, I will not."
It turned out that the oldest child was awake--he had heard andunderstood everything. He was but nine years old, but he understoodeverything--he met me with a deep, stern look.
"Will you take your gun?" he asked thoughtfully and earnestly.
"I will."
"It is behind the stove."
"How do you know? Well, kiss me. Will you remember me?"
He jumped up in his bed, in his short little shirt, hot from sleep,and firmly clasped my neck. His arms were burning--they were so softand delicate. I lifted his hair on the back of his head and kissedhis little neck.
"Will they kill you?" he whispered right into my ear.
"No, I will come back."
But why did he not cry? He had cried sometimes when I had simplyleft the house for a while: Is it possible that IT had reached him,too? Who knows? So many strange things happened during the greatdays.
I looked at the walls, at the bread, at the candle, at the flamewhich had kept flickering, and took my wife by the hand.
"Well--'till we meet again!"
"Yes--'till we meet again!"
That was all. I went out. It was dark on the stairway and therewas the odour of old filth. Surrounded on all sides by the stonesand the darkness, groping down the stairs, I was seized with atremendous, powerful and all-absorbing feeling of the new, unknownand joyous something to which I was going.
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