THE DARK

BY

LEONID ANDREEV

TRANSLATED BY L. A. MAGNUS AND K. WALTER

1922

PUBLISHED BY LEONARD AND VIRGINIA WOOLF AT

THE HOGARTH PRESS, HOGARTH HOUSE, RICHMOND

As a rule success had accompanied him in all his undertakings, but during the last three days complications had arisen which were unfavourable, not to say critical. His life, though a short one, had long been a game of terrible hazards; he was accustomed to these sudden turns of chance and could deal with them; the stake had before been life itself, his own and others', and this by itself had taught him alertness, swiftness of thought, and a cold hard outlook.

Chance this time had turned dangerously against him. A mere fluke, one of those unforeseeable accidents, had provided the police with a clue; for two whole days the detectives had been on his track, a known terrorist and nihilist, drawing the net ever closer round him. One after another the conspirators' hiding places had been cut off from him; there still remained to him a few streets and boulevards and restaurants where he might go undiscovered. But his terrible exhaustion, after two sleepless nights and days of ceaseless vigilance, had brought in its train a new danger: he might drop off to sleep anywhere, on a seat in the boulevards, even in a cab, and be ludicrously arrested as a common drunk.

It was now Tuesday. On Thursday—only one day to spare—he had to carry out a terrorist act of great importance. The preparations for the assassination had kept the little organization busy for some considerable time. The »honour« of throwing the last and decisive bomb had fallen to him. He must retain self-command at all costs.

But sleep....

It was thus, on that October evening, standing at the crossing of crowded streets, that he decided to take refuge in a brothel. He would have had recourse earlier to this refuge, though none too secure, had it not been for the good reason that all his twenty-six years he had been chaste, had never known women as mere women, had never been in a brothel. Now and then he had had to fight sternly against such desires, but gradually restraint had become habit, and had produced in him an attitude of calmness and complete indifference towards the sex. So now, at the thought of being forced into close contact with a woman who traded in such pleasures, and of perhaps seeing her naked, he had forebodings of any number of unpleasantnesses and awkward moments. True, he had only decided to go to a prostitute now, when his passion was quiescent, when a step had to be taken so important and serious that virginity and the struggle for it lost their value. But in any event it was unpleasant, as might be any other obnoxious incident which must be endured. Once, when assisting in an important act, in which he played the part of second bomb-thrower, he saw a horse which had been killed with its hind parts burst open and the entrails exposed; this incident, its filthy and disgusting character, and its needlessness, gave him a similar sensation—in its way even more unpleasant than the death of a comrade from an exploding bomb. And the more quietly and fearlessly, and even joyously, he anticipated Thursday, when he would probably have to die, the more was he oppressed with the prospect of a night with a woman who practised love as a profession, a thing utterly ridiculous, an incarnation of chaos, senseless, petty, and dirty.

But there was no alternative. He was tottering with fatigue.

It was still early when he arrived, about ten o'clock; but the great white hall with its gilded chairs and mirrors was ready for the reception of guests, and all the fires were lighted. The pianist was sitting beside the piano, a dapper young man in a black frock coat—for it was an expensive house. He was smoking, carefully flicking the ash of his cigarette so as not to soil the carpet, and glancing over the music. In the corner near the darkened dining room there sat all arow, on three chairs, three girls whispering to one another.

As he entered with the manageress, two of the girls rose, but the third remained sitting; the two who rose were very décolletée, the third wore a deep black frock. The two looked at him straight, with a look of invitation, half indifferent, half weary; but the third turned aside. Her profile was calm and simple, like that of any proper young maiden,—a thoughtful face. Apparently she had been telling a story to the others, and the others had been listening, and now she was continuing the train of thought, telling the rest in silence.

And just because she was silent and reflective and did not look at him, because she had the appearance of a proper woman, he chose her. Never before having been to a brothel he did not know that in every well equipped house of this sort there are one or two such women, dressed in black like nuns or young widows, with pale faces, unrouged, even stern, their task being to provide an illusion of propriety to those who seek it,—but when they go with a man to their room, drinking and becoming like the rest, or even worse,—brawling and breaking the china, dancing about, undressing and dancing into the hall naked, and even killing men who are too importunate. Such are the women with whom drunken students fall in love, whom they persuade to begin new, honourable lives.

But of all this he knew nothing. And when she rose reluctantly, and looked at him with displeased and averted eyes, glancing at him sharply out of her pale and colourless face, he thought once again, »How very proper she is!«—and felt some relief. But, keeping up the dissimulation, constant, unavoidable, which caused him to have two lives and made his life a stage, he balanced himself elegantly on his feet from his heels to his toes, snapped his fingers, and said to the girl with the careless air of a habitual debauchee:—

»Well, what about it, my dear? Shall we pay you a visit, now, eh? Where is your little nest?«

»Now—at once?« the girl asked, surprised, and raised her eyebrows. He smiled gaily, disclosing even rows of strong straight teeth, blushed deeply, and replied:

»Certainly. Why lose valuable time?«

»There will be some music soon. We can dance.«

»Dance, my fair charmer? Silly twiddles,—catching oneself by the tail. As to the music, it can be heard from up there?«

She looked at him and smiled.

»Fairly well.«

She was beginning to like him. He had prominent cheek bones and was clean shaven; his cheeks and the lower part of the mouth, under the clean-cut lips, were slightly blue, as when dark-bearded men shave. He had fine dark eyes, although in expression a little too unswerving; and they moved slowly and heavily, as though every movement were a great distance to be traversed. But despite his shaven face and easy manner, she reasoned, he did not resemble an actor, but rather an acclimatized foreigner.

»You are not a German?« she asked.

»Nnno. Not quite. I mean, I am an Englishman. Do you like Englishmen?«

»But what good Russian you speak! I should never have guessed!«

He recollected his British passport and the affected accent he had been using lately, and he blushed again at the thought of having forgotten to keep up the pretence as he ought to have done. Then with a slight frown, and assuming a business-like dryness of tone in which a certain amount of weariness was perceptible, he took the girl by the elbow and led her along swiftly.

»No, I am a Russian, Russian. Now, where are we to go? Show me! This way?«

The large mirror showed the full-length figures of the pair sharply and clearly—she in black, pale, and at that distance very pretty; he also in black, and just as pale.

Under the glare of the electric lights hanging from the ceiling his wide forehead and the hard mass of his prominent cheeks were peculiarly