Short Fiction

proving fatal to my child, of leaving indelible traces on its soul?

And the end of all this is brought by death, by the true, yet most accidental guest of all, for whose coming we prepare ourselves involuntarily by our dress, our drink, our food, our home, our dispositions, our love, and hatred.

No, I know nothing of this life, understand nothing. With obedient, dull fear I draw my lot, and cannot even read the unintelligible inscription upon it.

And never before has this been so clear to me as on this night when the disquieting knock was heard at my door. “Here is fate,” rushed through my mind, “come with her magic wheel.” I must go and draw my lot. Who can tell whether the person standing behind my door has brought me joy or grief, love or hatred? Will his coming mark a turning-point of my life, or will it glide past, leaving a scarcely perceptible trace, which I shall immediately forget, and not recall until death or even beyond it? And a superstitious thought comes to me that if I were to ask loudly, “Who is there?” an indifferent, scarcely audible voice would answer: “Fate.”

I say: “Enter!” Not a second intervenes between the sound of his knocking and my reply, but the thoughts which rushed through my head during that short interval of time have lifted up a corner of the curtain beyond which is hidden a black abyss; they have already aged me. And I feel that the nervous knock has already drawn invisible threads between the man on the other side of the door and myself.

Now he opens the door. Another instant, and the simplest, yet the most incomprehensible of things will take place. We shall begin to talk. With the aid of sounds of different pitch and intensity, he will express his thoughts in the customary form, while I shall receive those sound vibrations and decipher their meaning, and the other man’s thoughts will become mine.

Oh, how unintelligible to us, how mysterious, how strange are the commonest phenomena of life! And without understanding them, without conceiving of their true significance, we pile them one on the other, intertwine them, connect them, broaden them; we meet people and marry, write books, preach sermons, establish ministries, fight wars, conduct trade, make new inventions, and write history! And every time that I think of the vastness, complexity, darkness, and elemental accidentally of this general intertwining of lives, my own life appears to me like a tiny speck of dust, lost in the fury of a tempest.⁠ ⁠…

A Legend

The tall, thin, long-haired man, in whose face were so strangely blended the paleness of a life full of starvation and moral impurity and the stern profoundness of inspiration, began to play on his violin. It was a majestic, fairy tune, plaintively beautiful in its upper notes, dominated by sombre sadness in the lower. There was something medieval in it, something hopeless, unpleasantly sweet, cruel, prolonged, and terrifying.

The host, who considered himself a patron of music, dressed in a red dressing-gown, his large, light, wandering eyes glistening almost like those of a madman, arose from his chair, and, pretending to be overwhelmed by the ecstasy of creative inspiration, began to improvise a story to the music. And the studiedly irregular motions of his sleeves were overturning glasses and goblets on the wet cloth.

“It was long ago⁠ ⁠…” he began, closing his eyes and lifting up his chin, so that his words were curiously distorted. He seemed to speak like a foreigner, although he was of a well-known noble family, and a man of good education.

“It was long ago.⁠ ⁠… Oh, how long ago it was! Many ages have gone by.⁠ ⁠… Oh, how many ages.⁠ ⁠… And everybody has forgotten about this. It was so dreadfully long ago.⁠ ⁠…”

Suddenly a man arose from among those who were sitting about the table. He had been silent until then, and very few knew him. Someone had brought him to this house and did not even go to the trouble of introducing him. He was poorly dressed, short and broad-shouldered, vulgar in appearance, with his hair cut in a peculiarly ludicrous fashion.

“Won’t you please allow me?” said he, and there was entreaty in his voice.

The patron, stepping back like a clown, bending down and swinging his arms from his chest to the ground, said in the voice of a clown:

“Why, certainly.”

“Start at the beginning,” said the vulgar stranger, turning to the violinist.

His eyes met the eyes of the violinist for one short instant, and he began to speak with the first chords of the violin.

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It was long, long ago. Many an old family has died out since then, many an ancient castle has been destroyed.

At that time the old castle was still standing on a rock in the middle of the lake. And everybody around knew that the lake was fathomless, that the castle was impregnable, and that the long iron bridge was raised at night.

From time to time the king sent letters to the owner of the castle, calling him his cousin, and offering him titles and honors. But the proud prince, instead of thanking the king, ordered the royal messengers to be hung on the towers of his castle. He was afraid of no one. His castle was impregnable, and was always provisioned for a ten years’ siege.

The prince was noble, strong, and madly brave, although he was already sixty years of age. With the merry cry of an eagle, terrible in the ruddy glow of tar torches, he galloped at the head of his knights, over the bridge, and beneath him the waves were splashing in the dark, and the hoof-beats of the flying steeds were like the sound of the waves. Then villages burned in flames, women wept, and the rich transports of travelling merchants were his booty.

No one knows why he married the girl he chose. Were there not enough beautiful women among the daughters of his vassals? Would not any daughter