Short Fiction - Fyodor Sologub (best romance ebooks .txt) 📗

before you realised that it was a sin. Like this old gentleman who was here just now, I was ready to forgive deviation from rhythm, and even a mistake in the playing, if only the playing were not without soul. But you have always warmed and enlightened my life. You have not been like these mechanical musicians who have learned by heart their parts, which never express their souls. I have been happy with you, because you have given me the rapture of love.”

“My dear one, my beloved,” said she, touched by his words, “I knew that you had a great and a beautiful soul. It’s true, I didn’t want to grieve you. But now that so many years have passed, and we have not much longer to live in this beautiful world, I resolved at last to tell you all. This morning I wrote to Doctor Horn, and at my request he sent me back the crimson ribbon. I put it on your writing-table after lunch, before we came out here. It is yours.”

“No, no,” answered Edward with animation. “Our dear friend, Doctor Bernard Horn, must keep it. He has done us much service, and he was with you in that fateful moment when your heart was surcharged with an unreasonable, immeasurable love. He held a cup of sweet wine to your thirsty lips, and may God bless him for this as I bless him for it. But now, Agnes, dry your tears and send at once to Bernard. He must come today and bring his violin, and we again⁠ ⁠…”

VIII

By this time the music below had come to an end. The young folks, laughing and talking noisily together, were climbing upwards along the sloping road that wound along the steep cliff.

Edward and Agnes walked slowly homeward. There was a sweet delicate fragrance of eglantine in the air, pale peonies fluttered their rosy double petals, the first poppies crimsoned and flamed on the long beds under the windows. Over the straggling dark green of the wild vine on the terrace was borne the fragrance of stocks. Wonderful tuberoses dreamed unceasingly, exhaling an infinite fragrance of happiness immeasurable and of love without end.

On the threshold of their home Edward Roggenfeldt paused for a moment and said:

“Yes, he is right. These wooden musicians are terrible. I’m glad we can’t hear them playing any longer. But you and I, Agnes, have not played our part in life without inspiration!”

Slayers of Innocent Babes

Having with great success quelled the rebellion of those who had refused to offer sacrifice and bow before the effigy of the godlike emperor, the detachment of Roman horse returned to camp. Much blood had been shed, many of those disrespectful unto Caesar had been slain, and the tired soldiers looked forward impatiently to the joyful hour when they could get to their tents, where they could without disturbance take delight in the company of the wives and daughters that they had borne off from the villages of the rebellious.

These women and maids, seized at the very moment of the slaying of their husbands and fathers, at the moment of the burning of their farms, lay bound on straw at the bottom of the heavy carts drawn by stout horses, and they had been sent on in advance by the direct road to the camp.

The horsemen themselves had chosen a roundabout road home, for, according to the Centurion, several of the insurgent villagers had taken to flight and hidden themselves in out-of-the-way parts, and he thought to come up with some of them and despatch them. For though their swords had been made into long-toothed saws by the fighting and were covered with blood, though their spears were blunted with hard work, their Roman appetite still craved the fresh hot blood of further victims.

It was a sultry day, and the hottest hour of the day, just afternoon. The sky was cloudlessly and mercilessly bright. The fiery Dragon of the sky quivering with fury poured streams of fierce rage into the vast and tired emptiness. The withered grass held to the thirsting and parched earth, and grieved with her, and lay stifling under the hot dust.

Smoke of dust rose from the horses’ feet and remained a cloud in the still air. The dust settled on the armour of the tired horsemen and gave a dull glimmer of velvet to their accoutrements. Through the clouds of their own dust the country through which they passed seemed portentous, gloomy, melancholy.

Earth herself, burned up by the fierce Dragon, lay submissive under the horses’ hoofs. The empty road trembled and jingled under the blows of the iron horseshoes.

At rare intervals they came upon poor villages and collections of wretched huts, but the Centurion, overcome by the heat, relented in his purpose of searching out those who might be in hiding. As he sat in his saddle, jogging rhythmically with his horse’s movement, he thought merely of the end of the journey, the escape from the heat, the cool tent, the night tide, the new bride.

A young soldier, however, interrupted his thoughts, saying:

“Over there by the roadside I see a crowd of people. Order us, Marcellus, and we will whirl down upon them and scatter them. The wind which our horses will make will disperse the stupor into which the heat has cast us, and will fan away the dust and tiredness from both you and us.”

The Centurion cast his sharp gaze in the direction indicated by the soldier, and looked attentively.

“No, Lucillus,” said he, smiling, “that crowd is a crowd of children playing by the roadside. It’s not worth chasing them. Let them look at our fine horses, at our gallant troop, and so gain in early years a strong impression of the grandeur of the Roman arms and the fame of our unconquerable and godlike Caesar.”

Young Lucillus did not dare to object to the Centurion’s words. But his face grew dark. He dropped back into his accustomed