Short Fiction

Short Fiction

By Vsevolod Garshin.

Translated by Rowland Smith.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Introduction
4. Preface
5. Short Fiction
   1. Coward
   2. Four Days
   3. An Incident
      1. I
      2. II
      3. III
      4. IV
   4. A Very Short Romance
   5. The Meeting
   6. Officer and Soldier-Servant
   7. A Night
      1. I
      2. II
      3. III
      4. IV
      5. V
      6. VI
   8. Attalea Princeps
   9. From the Reminiscences of Private Ivanoff
      1. I
      2. II
      3. III
      4. IV
      5. V
      6. VI
      7. VII
      8. VIII
      9. IX
   10. “Make Believe”
   11. The Bears
   12. The Scarlet Blossom
       1. I
       2. II
       3. III
       4. IV
       5. V
       6. VI
   13. A Toad and a Rose
   14. Nadejda Nicolaievna
       1. I
       2. II
       3. III
       4. IV
       5. V
       6. VI
       7. VII
       8. VIII
       9. IX
       10. X
       11. XI
       12. XII
       13. XIII
       14. XIV
       15. XV
       16. XVI
       17. XVII
       18. XVIII
       19. XIX
   15. The Action at Aislar
       1. I
       2. II
       3. III
       4. IV
   16. The Frog Who Travelled
   17. The Signal
6. Endnotes
7. Colophon
8. Uncopyright

Imprint

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Introduction

Vsevolod Michailovich Garshin (1855⁠–⁠1888), the “melancholiac,” as he is sometimes called, was of good family. He was born in February, 1855. In appearance of a Southern type, he was nice-looking, and possessed a sweetness of disposition and a temperament sympathetic to a degree unusual in a man. His early life was spent on the family estate with his parents, his father having retired from the army in 1858. When nine years old, he was placed at school in St. Petersburg. His original intention of becoming a doctor was frustrated by the issue at that time of a Government regulation making a University course obligatory on all wishing to take up medicine. He early showed an abnormal nervousness, and in 1872, when only seventeen years old, was temporarily placed under restraint. Recovering his sanity in 1873, and having completed his school course, he entered the Institute of Mining Engineers in 1874. In 1876 the Russo-Turkish War broke out. Although the horrors of war affected him very deeply, Garshin considered it his bounden duty to take an active share in the campaign, and enlisted at Kishineif as a private in an infantry regiment of the line. He displayed great gallantry in action, was wounded in the leg, and invalided home. From this time his mind became periodically unhinged, and it was immediately preceding one of these attacks that he wrote A Night, which bears unmistakable evidence of a disordered brain. Finally, in 1887, in an access of physical and mental agony, he succeeded in eluding those who were watching by his bedside, and threw himself down a flight of stone steps which formed the staircase leading to his apartment. He inflicted grave injuries to himself, and added to his mental trouble by brooding over the state of mind which had led him to commit such an act. He was shortly afterwards transferred to a hospital for better treatment, where he expired in April, 1888, at the early age of thirty-three, in the presence of some of his always numerous friends and a devoted wife.

An added interest is given to his stories (he only wrote some twenty in all), from the fact that the majority of them possess a groundwork of truth, and embody personal ideas and experiences, or those of friends and acquaintances.

Preface

It has been said that to know the literature of a country is to know its people, and to know a people is to appreciate them. The wealth of the Russian language, its nuance of expression, its bewildering detail and plentiful use of diminutives, makes its translation into equivalent English especially difficult. But I trust, nevertheless, that this volume of short stories, translations from the Russian, may assist in promoting knowledge in England of Russia and Russians.

Nowhere is there more genuine hospitality than in Russia, and in no other country is there greater or more general kindliness of feeling.

Translator.

Short Fiction

Coward

The war is decidedly giving me no rest. I see clearly that it is dragging, and when it will end is very difficult to foretell. Our soldiers are as splendid as ever, but the enemy has proved far from being as weak as we thought, and now, four months from the declaration of war, no decisive success has been gained by our side. In the meanwhile every extra day claims its hundreds of victims. Is it my nerves which cause the telegrams merely stating the numbers of killed and wounded to affect me far more than those around me? Somebody will calmly read out: “Our losses insignificant; officers, wounded, so many, giving names; rank and file, killed, 50; wounded, 100,” and even rejoice that the numbers are so small; but to me the reading of such news immediately brings the whole bloody picture before my eyes. Fifty dead, one hundred maimed⁠—this is “insignificant!” Why are we so horrified when the newspapers inform us of some murder where the victims are few? Why does not the sight of corpses riddled with bullets