Short Fiction

is permissible. Can you imagine a world, having no laws of gravitation, having no above nor below, in which everything is a matter of whim and chance?

I, Dr. Kerzhentseff, am that new world. All is permissible. And I, Dr. Kerzhentseff, shall prove that. I will simulate normality. I will attain freedom. I will spend the remainder of my life in learning. I will surround me with your books, I will take from you all the might of your knowledge, of which you are so proud, and will seek the one thing of which the world has stood in need for so long a time. That will be the explosive essence. The equal of its force has not been seen: it is more powerful than dynamite, than nitroglycerine, more powerful than the very thought of it. I possess talent, I am persistent, I will find it. And when I do find it, I shall scatter in the air your accursed earth, which has so many gods and not one eternal God.

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Upon his appearance in the court room. Dr. Kerzhentseff maintained a very calm demeanor, and remained during the entire proceedings in one and the same non-expressive attitude. He replied to questions indifferently and impassively, occasionally calling for their repetition. Once he aroused the mirth of the select public that crowded that court room in large numbers. It was when the presiding judge turned with some order to the usher, and the accused, evidently not having heard or because of abstraction, arose and asked loudly:

“What? You tell me to go?”

“Go where?” asked the astonished presiding official.

“I don’t know. I thought you said something.”

The crowd laughed, and the presiding judge explained to Kerzhentseff what was the matter.

Four expert psychiatrists were called to the stand, and their opinions were equally divided. After the speech of the district attorney, the presiding judge turned to the accused, who had refused to accept the services of an attorney.

“Accused, what have you to say in your justification?”

Dr. Kerzhentseff arose. He slowly surveyed the judges with his dull, unseeing-like eyes and glanced at the public. And those upon whom fell that heavy, unseeing gaze experienced a strange and painful sensation: it was as if out of the hollow orbs of a skull there had glanced upon them nothing less than death itself, mute and impassive.

“Nothing!” replied the accused.

Having cast another look upon the people gathered in judgment upon him, he repeated:

“Nothing!”

An Original

A moment of silence had fallen on the company and amid the clatter of knives on plates, and the confused talk at distant tables, the froufrou of a dress, and the creaking of the floor under the brisk steps of the waiters, someone’s quiet, meek voice was heard:

“But I do love negresses.”

Anton Ivanovich coughed over himself the vodka he was in the act of swallowing, and a waiter, who was collecting the plates, cast a glance of indiscriminate curiosity from under his brows. All turned with surprise to the speaker, and then for the first time took notice of the irregular little face with its red moustache, the ends of which were wet with vodka and soup, of the two dull, colourless little eyes, and of the carefully brushed head of Semyon Vasilyevich Kotel’nikov. For five years they had been in the same service as Kotel’nikov, every day they had said “How do you do?” and “Goodbye” to him, and talked to him about something or other; on the 20th of every month, after receiving their stipends, they had dined at the same restaurant as Kotel’nikov, as they were doing today; and now for the first time they were really conscious of his presence. They perceived him, and were astonished. It seemed that Semyon Vasilyevich was not so bad looking after all, if you did not count the moustache, and the freckles which were like splashes of mud from a rubber tyre, that he was decently well dressed, and his tall white collar, though a paper one, was at all events clean.

Anton Ivanovich, head of the office, coughing and still red with the exertion, looked at the confused Semyon Vasilyevich attentively, with curiosity in his prominent eyes, and still choking, asked with emphasis:

“So you, Semyon, ah!⁠—I beg your pardon, I forget.”

“Semyon Vasilyevich,” Kotel’nikov reminded him, pronouncing it, not “Vasilich,” but fully “Vasilyevich”; and this pronunciation was pleasing to all as expressive of a feeling of worth and self-respect.

“So you, Semyon Vasilyevich⁠—love negresses?”

“Yes, I do, indeed.”

And his voice, although rather weak, and, so to speak, somewhat wrinkled like a shrivelled turnip, was nevertheless pleasant. Anton Ivanovich pursed up his lower lip so that his grey moustache pressed against the tip of his red pitted nose, took in all the officials with his rounded eyes, and after an unavoidable pause emitted a fat unctuous laugh.

“Ha, ha, ha! He loves negresses! Ha, ha, ha!”

And all laughed in a friendly manner, even the stout dour Polzikov, who as a rule knew not how to laugh, gave a sickly neigh: “Hee, hee! hee!”

Semyon Vasilyevich laughed also, with a low staccato laugh, like a parched pea; he blushed with pleasure, but at the same time was rather afraid that some unpleasantness might arise.

“Are you really serious?” asked Anton Ivanovich, when he had done laughing.

“Perfectly serious, sir. In them, those black women, there is something so ardent, or⁠—so to speak⁠—exotic.”

“Exotic?”

And once more all spluttered with laughter. But, though they laughed, they considered Semyon Vasilyevich quite a clever and educated man, since he knew such a rare word as “exotic.” Then they began to argue with warmth that it was impossible for anyone to love a negress: they were black and greasy, they had such impossible thick lips, and smelt too strong of musk.

“But I love them,” modestly persisted Semyon Vasilyevich.

“Everyone to his choice,” said Anton Ivanovich with decision; “but I would rather fall in love with a nanny-goat than with one of those blacks.”

But all were pleased that among them in the person of one of their own comrades there was to be found