Passages from Short Fiction

The thing that keeps an army moving is not hatred or fear.

But we did not stop. An unknown, mysterious force was drawing us—the strongest force in human life. Each of us, taken separately, would have gone home, but the whole mass went forward in obedience to discipline, and not from any recognition of the justice of the cause, nor from any feeling of hatred towards an unknown enemy; not from any fear of punishment, but moved solely by that hidden and unconscious something which will, for many a long day yet, lead humanity to sanguinary slaughter—the most potent cause of every description of human ill and suffering.

A battlefield seen from far enough away looks like weather.

Under a lowering sky lies a broad snow-covered field surrounded by white hills, on which are trees, also white with frost, although there is a touch of thaw in the air. Above the rattle of musketry comes the frequent boom of guns. One of the hills is almost enveloped in smoke, through which, as it slowly rolls down on to the field below, can be seen a dark, moving mass. Looking more attentively, it is seen that this mass is composed of little black spots. Many of these spots are already motionless, but others are ever moving forward, although their goal, indicated only by the extra density of the smoke, is still far away, and although their numbers become less every second.

An old bear looks at his master and understands what is coming.

The youth freed the huge beast, and led him a short distance away from the wagon. The bear sat on his haunches, letting his front paws hang loosely, and swayed from side to side, breathing heavily and hoarsely. He was very old, his teeth were yellow, his coat had grown a reddish colour and was falling out. He gazed in a friendly but melancholy manner at his old master with his one small eye. All around was an absolute silence, broken only by the noise of the ramrods against the barrels of the rifles as the wads were pressed home.

The lies we tell about ourselves are the ones we defend most angrily.

He dwelt on these words with a perverted sense of enjoyment. He appeared to be almost proud of them. He did not perceive that in designating his whole life a fraud, and in besmearing himself, he was telling lies at that very moment—the worst possible description of lie—a self-lie, because he did not in reality place anything like so low an estimate on himself. Had anyone charged him with even a tenth part of what he had accused himself of during that long evening, his face would have flushed, but not with the flush of shame and recognition of the truth of such reproaches, but with the flush of anger. He would have known how to answer the offender who had touched the pride which he was himself now apparently trampling on so pitilessly.

A plant in a greenhouse decides the glass roof is the enemy.

Another month went by. Attalea continued to grow and raise herself. At last it was solidly against the framework. It could go no farther. Then the trunk began to bend. Its leafy top doubled up, and the cold framework pierced into the tender young leaves, cut through them, and deformed them, but the palm was obstinate, and did not spare its leaves. Notwithstanding everything it continued to press against the bars, and the bars were already yielding although they were made out of strong iron.

We keep telling our troubles to strangers who cannot use them.

Ah, good people! why have I begun to tell you of my wounds? But such is the stupidity of the poor human heart. When it is stricken it dreams of seeking relief from each it meets, and does not find it. This is, however, quite intelligible. Who is in want of an old undarned stocking? Everyone endeavours to throw it away—the farther the better.

A ward issues old war caps, and patients read the cross.

The patients filed, one by one, out of the glass door, at which stood a warder, who gave to each as he passed a thick white cotton cap having a red cross in front. These caps had been intended for hospital use during the war, and had been bought at an auction. But the patients, of course, attributed a special hidden meaning to the cross. The newcomer took off his cap, and looked first at the cross, then at the poppy-blossoms. The latter were the brighter.

A frog's life is happy until a stork is mentioned.

Once upon a time there lived in this world a frog. She used to sit in a swamp and catch mosquitoes and midges, and in the spring used to croak loudly in company with her friends. And but for an event which occurred she would have lived happily her whole life through—provided, of course, a stork had not eaten her.

The classical ideal of the human form meets a Russian soldier in the 1870s.

Nikita made even more haste, threw off his shirt and trousers, and stood in a state of nature. That there is nothing more beautiful than the human form has often been said by someone, somewhen, and somewhere, but if he who first made this pronouncement had lived in the seventies, and had seen the naked Nikita, he would certainly have retracted his words.