



Produced by Jarrod Newton








THE CRUSHED FLOWER AND OTHER STORIES


By Leonid Andreyev

Translated by Herman Bernstein





CONTENTS

     The Crushed Flower
     A Story Which Will Never Be Finished
     On the Day of the Crucifixion
     The Serpent's Story
     Love, Faith and Hope
     The Ocean
     Judas Iscariot and Others
     "The Man Who Found the Truth"





THE CRUSHED FLOWER




CHAPTER I


His name was Yura.

He was six years old, and the world was to him enormous, alive and
bewitchingly mysterious. He knew the sky quite well. He knew its deep
azure by day, and the white-breasted, half silvery, half golden clouds
slowly floating by. He often watched them as he lay on his back upon the
grass or upon the roof. But he did not know the stars so well, for he
went to bed early. He knew well and remembered only one star--the green,
bright and very attentive star that rises in the pale sky just before
you go to bed, and that seemed to be the only star so large in the whole
sky.

But best of all, he knew the earth in the yard, in the street and in the
garden, with all its inexhaustible wealth of stones, of velvety grass,
of hot sand and of that wonderfully varied, mysterious and delightful
dust which grown people did not notice at all from the height of their
enormous size. And in falling asleep, as the last bright image of the
passing day, he took along to his dreams a bit of hot, rubbed off stone
bathed in sunshine or a thick layer of tenderly tickling, burning dust.

When he went with his mother to the centre of the city along the large
streets, he remembered best of all, upon his return, the wide, flat
stones upon which his steps and his feet seemed terribly small, like
two little boats. And even the multitude of revolving wheels and horses'
heads did not impress themselves so clearly upon his memory as this new
and unusually interesting appearance of the ground.

Everything was enormous to him--the fences, the dogs and the people--but
that did not at all surprise or frighten him; that only made everything
particularly interesting; that transformed life into an uninterrupted
miracle. According to his measures, various objects seemed to him as
follows:

His father--ten yards tall.

His mother--three yards.

The neighbour's angry dog--thirty yards.

Their own dog--ten yards, like papa.

Their house of one story was very, very tall--a mile.

The distance between one side of the street and the other--two miles.

Their garden and the trees in their garden seemed immense, infinitely
tall.

The city--a million--just how much he did not know.

And everything else appeared to him in the same way. He knew many
people, large and small, but he knew and appreciated better the little
ones with whom he could speak of everything. The grown people behaved
so foolishly and asked such absurd, dull questions about things that
everybody knew, that it was necessary for him also to make believe that
he was foolish. He had to lisp and give nonsensical answers; and, of
course, he felt like running away from them as soon as possible.
But there were over him and around him and within him two entirely
extraordinary persons, at once big and small, wise and foolish, at once
his own and strangers--his father and mother.

They must have been very good people, otherwise they could not have been
his father and mother; at any rate, they were charming and unlike other
people. He could say with certainty that his father was very great,
terribly wise, that he possessed immense power, which made him a person
to be feared somewhat, and it was interesting to talk with him about
unusual things, placing his hand in father's large, strong, warm hand
for safety's sake.

Mamma was not so large, and sometimes she was even very small; she was
very kind hearted, she kissed tenderly; she understood very well how he
felt when he had a pain in his little stomach, and only with her could
he relieve his heart when he grew tired of life, of his games or when he
was the victim of some cruel injustice. And if it was unpleasant to cry
in father's presence, and even dangerous to be capricious, his tears
had an unusually pleasant taste in mother's presence and filled his soul
with a peculiar serene sadness, which he could find neither in his games
nor in laughter, nor even in the reading of the most terrible fairy
tales.

It should be added that mamma was a beautiful woman and that everybody
was in love with her. That was good, for he felt proud of it, but that
was also bad--for he feared that she might be taken away. And every time
one of the men, one of those enormous, invariably inimical men who were
busy with themselves, looked at mamma fixedly for a long time, Yura felt
bored and uneasy. He felt like stationing himself between him and mamma,
and no matter where he went to attend to his own affairs, something was
drawing him back.

Sometimes mamma would utter a bad, terrifying phrase:

"Why are you forever staying around here? Go and play in your own room."

There was nothing left for him to do but to go away. He would take a
book along or he would sit down to draw, but that did not always help
him. Sometimes mamma would praise him for reading but sometimes she
would say again:

"You had better go to your own room, Yurochka. You see, you've spilt
water on the tablecloth again; you always do some mischief with your
drawing."

And then she would reproach him for being perverse. But he felt worst of
all when a dangerous and suspicious guest would come when Yura had to
go to bed. But when he lay down in his bed a sense of easiness came
over him and he felt as though all was ended; the lights went out, life
stopped; everything slept.

In all such cases with suspicious men Yura felt vaguely but very
strongly that he was replacing father in some way. And that made him
somewhat like a grown man--he was in a bad frame of mind, like a grown
person, but, therefore, he was unusually calculating, wise and serious.
Of course, he said nothing about this to any one, for no one would
understand him; but, by the manner in which he caressed father when he
arrived and sat down on his knees patronisingly, one could see in the
boy a man who fulfilled his duty to the end. At times father could not
understand him and would simply send him away to play or to sleep--Yura
never felt offended and went away with a feeling of great satisfaction.
He did not feel the need of being understood; he even feared it. At
times he would not tell under any circumstances why he was crying; at
times he would make believe that he was absent minded, that he heard
nothing, that he was occupied with his own affairs, but he heard and
understood.

And he had a terrible secret. He had noticed that these extraordinary
and charming people, father and mother, were sometimes unhappy and
were hiding this from everybody. Therefore he was also concealing his
discovery, and gave everybody the impression that all was well. Many
times he found mamma crying somewhere in a corner in the drawing room,
or in the bedroom--his own room was next to her bedroom--and one night,
very late, almost at dawn, he heard the terribly loud and angry voice of
father and the weeping voice of mother. He lay a long time, holding his
breath, but then he was so terrified by that unusual conversation in the
middle of the night that he could not restrain himself and he asked his
nurse in a soft voice:

"What are they saying?"

And the nurse answered quickly in a whisper:

"Sleep, sleep. They are not saying anything."

"I am coming over to your bed."

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Such a big boy!"

"I am coming over to your bed."

Thus, terribly afraid lest they should be heard, they spoke in whispers
and argued in the dark; and the end was that Yura moved over to nurse's
bed, upon her rough, but cosy and warm blanket.

In the morning papa and mamma were very cheerful and Yura pretended that
he believed them and it seemed that he really did believe them. But that
same evening, and perhaps it was another evening, he noticed his father
crying. It happened in the following way: He was passing his father's
study, and the door was half open; he heard a noise and he looked in
quietly--father lay face downward upon his couch and cried aloud. There
was no one else in the room. Yura went away, turned about in his room
and came back--the door was still half open, no one but father was in
the room, and he was still sobbing. If he cried quietly, Yura could
understand it, but he sobbed loudly, he moaned in a heavy voice and his
teeth were gnashing terribly. He lay there, covering the entire couch,
hiding his head under his broad shoulders, sniffing heavily--and that
was beyond his understanding. And on the table, on the large table
covered with pencils, papers and a wealth of other things, stood the
lamp burning with a red flame, and smoking--a flat, greyish black strip
of smoke was coming out and bending in all directions.

Suddenly father heaved a loud sigh and stirred. Yura walked away
quietly. And then all was the same as ever. No one would have learned of
this; but the image of the enormous, mysterious and charming man who
was his father and who was crying remained in Yura's memory as something
dreadful and extremely serious. And, if there were things of which he
did not feel like speaking, it was absolutely necessary to say nothing
of this, as though it were something sacred and terrible, and in that
silence he must love father all the more. But he must love so that
father should not notice it, and he must give the impression that it is
very jolly to live on earth.

And Yura succeeded in accomplishing all this. Father did not notice that
he loved him in a special manner; and it was really jolly to live on
earth, so there was no need for him to make believe. The threads of his
soul stretched themselves to all--to the sun, to the knife and the cane
he was peeling; to the beautiful and enigmatic distance which he saw
from the top of the iron roof; and it was hard for him to separate
himself from all that was not himself. When the grass had a strong and
fragrant odour it seemed to him that it was he who had such a fragrant
odour, and when he lay down in his bed, however strange it may seem,
together with him in his little bed lay down the enormous yard, the
street, the slant threads of the rain and the muddy pools and the whole,
enormous, live, fascinating, mysterious world. Thus all fell asleep
with him and thus all awakened with him, and together with him they
all opened their eyes. And there was one striking fact, worthy of the
profoundest reflection--if he placed a stick somewhere in the garden
in the evening it was there also in the morning; and the knuckle-bones
which he hid in a box in the barn remained there, although it was dark
and he went to his room for the night. Because of this he felt a natural
need for hiding under his pillow all that was most valuable to him.
Since things stood or lay there alone, they might also disappear of
their accord, he reasoned. And in general it was so wonderful and
pleasant that the nurse and the house and the sun existed not only
yesterday, but every day; he felt like laughing and singing aloud when
he awoke.

When people asked him what his name was he answered promptly:

"Yura."

But some people were not satisfied with this alone, and they wanted to
know his full name--and then he replied with a certain effort:

"Yura Mikhailovich."

And after a moment's thought he added:

"Yura Mikhailovich Pushkarev."



CHAPTER II


An unusual day arrived. It was mother's birthday. Guests were expected
in the evening; military music was to play, and in the garden and upon
the terrace parti- lanterns were to burn, and Yura need not go
to bed at 9 o'clock but could stay up as late as he liked.

Yura got up when all were still sleeping. He dressed himself and jumped
out quickly with the expectation of miracles. But he was unpleasantly
surprised--the rooms were in the same disorder as usual in the morning;
the cook and the chambermaid were still sleeping and the door was closed
with a hook--it was hard to believe that the people would stir and
commence to run about, and that the rooms would assume a holiday
appearance, and he feared for the fate of the festival. It was still
worse in the garden. The paths were not swept and there was not a single
lantern there. He grew very uneasy. Fortunately, Yevmen, the coachman,
was washing the carriage behind the barn in the back yard and though he
had done this frequently before, and though there was nothing unusual
about his appearance, Yura clearly felt something of the holiday in the
decisive way in which the coachman splashed the water from the bucket
with his sinewy arms, on which the sleeves of his red blouse were rolled
up to his elbows. Yevmen only glanced askance at Yura, and suddenly Yura
seemed to have noticed for the first time his broad, black, wavy beard
and thought respectfully that Yevmen was a very worthy man. He said:

"Good morning, Yevmen."

Then all moved very rapidly. Suddenly the janitor appeared and started
to sweep the paths, suddenly the window in the kitchen was thrown open
and women's voices were heard chattering; suddenly the chambermaid
rushed out with a little rug and started to beat it with a stick, as
though it were a dog. All commenced to stir; and the events, starting
simultaneously in different places, rushed with such mad swiftness that
it was impossible to catch up with them. While the nurse was giving Yura
his tea, people were beginning to hang up the wires for the lanterns in
the garden, and while the wires were being stretched in the garden, the
furniture was rearranged completely in the drawing room, and while the
furniture was rearranged in the drawing room, Yevmen, the coachman,
harnessed the horse and drove out of the yard with a certain special,
mysterious mission.

Yura succeeded in concentrating himself for some time with the greatest
difficulty. Together with father he was hanging up the lanterns. And
father was charming; he laughed, jested, put Yura on the ladder; he
himself climbed the thin, creaking rungs of the ladder, and finally both
fell down together with the ladder upon the grass, but they were not
hurt. Yura jumped up, while father remained lying on the grass, hands
thrown back under his head, looking with half-closed eyes at the
shining, infinite azure of the sky. Thus lying on the grass, with a
serious expression on his face, apparently not in the mood for play,
father looked very much like Gulliver longing for his land of giants.
Yura recalled something unpleasant; but to cheer his father up he sat
down astride upon his knees and said:

"Do you remember, father, when I was a little boy I used to sit down on
your knees and you used to shake me like a horse?"

But before he had time to finish he lay with his nose on the grass; he
was lifted in the air and thrown down with force--father had thrown him
high up with his knees, according to his old habit. Yura felt offended;
but father, entirely ignoring his anger, began to tickle him under his
armpits, so that Yura had to laugh against his will; and then father
picked him up like a little pig by the legs and carried him to the
terrace. And mamma was frightened.

"What are you doing? The blood will rush to his head!"

After which Yura found himself standing on his legs, red faced,
dishevelled, feeling very miserable and terribly happy at the same time.

The day was rushing fast, like a cat that is chased by a dog. Like
forerunners of the coming great festival, certain messengers appeared
with notes, wonderfully tasty cakes were brought, the dressmaker came
and locked herself in with mamma in the bedroom; then two gentlemen
arrived, then another gentleman, then a lady--evidently the entire city
was in a state of agitation. Yura examined the messengers as though they
were strange people from another world, and walked before them with
an air of importance as the son of the lady whose birthday was to be
celebrated; he met the gentlemen, he escorted the cakes, and toward
midday he was so exhausted that he suddenly started to despise life. He
quarrelled with the nurse and lay down in his bed face downward in order
to have his revenge on her; but he fell asleep immediately. He awoke
with the same feeling of hatred for life and a desire for revenge, but
after having looked at things with his eyes, which he washed with cold
water, he felt that both the world and life were so fascinating that
they were even funny.

When they dressed Yura in a red silk rustling blouse, and he thus
clearly became part of the festival, and he found on the terrace a long,
snow white table glittering with glass dishes, he again commenced to
spin about in the whirlpool of the onrushing events.

"The musicians have arrived!