FOUR DAYS
By Wsewolod Garshin
I remember how we ran through the wood, how the bullets whizzed past us, how the twigs that were hit by them snapped and fell, how we scrambled through the bushes. The firing grew heavier. Looking through to the outer edge, I could see little flashes of red here and there. Sidorov, a young private of Company I—“How did he come to fall into our line?” was the thought that flashed through my head—suddenly sat down on the ground and silently looked at me with open, terrified eyes. A stream of blood trickled from his mouth. Yes, that too I remember well. I also remember how when almost on the edge of the wood I first saw ...himin the thick bushes. He was an enormous, corpulent Turk, but I ran straight at him, although I am weak and small. Something burst, something huge seemed to fly past me; there was a ringing in my ears. “He has shot me,” was my thought. But he, with a cry of terror, pressed his back against the dense foliage. He could have gone around it without difficulty,but in his fright he lost his presence of mind completely, and he tried to crawl through the prickly bushes.
With a blow, I knocked the gun out of his hand; I followed this by a thrust with my bayonet. There was an outcry: a roar that died into a moan. I ran on farther. Our soldiers cried, “Hurrah!” fell low, and discharged their guns. I remember that I too fired several times after we had left the wood and were in the field. Suddenly the cry of “Hurrah!” grew louder, and we all in a body moved forward. That is, not we, but my comrades; I remained behind. That seemed strange to me. Still stranger was the fact that suddenly everything vanished; all the cries and firing died away. I could hear nothing, but saw only something blue, which I concluded was the sky. Afterwards, that too passed out of my senses.
Never before have I found myself in such a strange situation. I am lying, it seems, on my stomach, and I see before me only a small clod of earth. A few blades of grass, an ant climbing down one of these head downwards, bits of litter from last year’s grass—that is my whole world. And I can see with only one eye, because the other is obstructed by some hardsubstance, perhaps a twig upon which my head rests. I feel terribly uncomfortable, and I wish to stir; it is incomprehensible to me why I cannot. So the time passes. I hear the noise of the grasshoppers and the humming of bees. Nothing more. At last I make an effort, and, extracting my right arm from under me, I press both my hands against the earth and try to rise to my knees.
Something sharp and rapid like lightning shoots across my entire body from the knees to my chest and head, and I collapse to the ground. Again darkness, again nothingness.
I am awake once more. Why do I see stars, which shine so brightly in the dark-blue Bulgarian sky? Am I in my tent? Why have I crawled out of it? I make a movement, and feel an agonizing pain in my legs.
Yes, I have been wounded in battle. Dangerously or not? I catch hold of my legs, there where the pain is. And both the right and the left legs are covered with clotted blood. When I touch them with my hands, the pain becomes even more intense. It is like a protracted toothache, gnawing at the very soul. There is a ringing in the ears, an oppressiveness in the head. I vaguely understand that I have been wounded in bothlegs. But it is all incomprehensible. Why have I not been picked up? Have the Turks really beaten us? I try to recall what has happened to me; at the beginning things seem a bit confused, but they gradually become clearer, and I come to the conclusion that we have not been beaten. And simply because I fell on the little field on top of the slope. In any case, how it all happened is difficult for me to remember; but I do recall how they all rushed forward, and that I alone could not run; and that only something blue remained before my eyes. Somewhat earlier our captain pointed towards this hillock. “Boys, we will get there!” he cried in his sonorous voice. And we got there; it is clear we have not been beaten.... Why, then, was I not picked up? This is such an open spot, and everything is visible. There must be others lying here. The shots came so thick. I must turn my head to look. It is easier to do this now, because when I first came to consciousness and I saw the grass, and the ant crawling head downwards, I tried to rise, and I fell back, not into my former position, but turned over on my spine. That explains why I see the stars.
I try to rise to a sitting position. This is very difficult, when both legs are wounded. After several attempts I begin to despair; at last,however, with tears in my eyes, forced out by the pain, I manage it.
Overhead I see a spot of dark-blue sky, in which are visible a large star and a number of small ones; and around me something dark and tall—the bushes. I am in the bushes—that is why I have not been found!
I feel a stirring at the roots of my hair.
How, then, did I get into the bushes, if I were shot in the open field? It is likely that I crawled here when I was wounded and the pain obliterated the memory of it. It is singular, however, that I should not be able to move now, and that I had been able to drag myself then towards these bushes. It is possible that I got my second wound while lying here, which may explain the matter.
I now see pale-rose stains around me. The large star has lost its brilliancy; some of the small ones have disappeared. It is because the moon has begun to rise. How good it must be at home!...
I hear strange sounds somewhere.... As if some one were moaning. Yes, it is a moan. Is it another unfortunate lying near me, forgotten like myself, with broken legs—or with a bullet in his stomach? No, the moans sound so near, and yet it seems there is no one here.... Oh, God, but it is—myself! Low, piteous moans;am I actually in such agony? I must be. Only, I don’t understand this pain; because there is a fog in my head that weighs me down like lead. It is better that I should lie down again and go to sleep—and sleep and sleep.... Shall I ever wake again? It does not really matter.
At the instant that I am gathering strength to lie down, a broad, pale strip of moonlight strikes the spot where I am sitting, revealing something dark and large lying only a few feet away. Here and there upon it little gleams are visible in the moonlight. Is it buttons or bullets? Is it a corpse, or is it some one wounded?
Well, I will lie down....
No, it is impossible. Our soldiers have not departed. They are here, they have beaten the Turks and have remained here. Why do I not hear voices and the crackle of bonfires? I must be too weak to hear. They are surely here.
“Help! Help!”
Wild, incoherent, and hoarse cries burst from my bosom, and they receive no answer. Loudly they scatter in the nocturnal air. Everything else is silent. Only the crickets chirrup on ceaselessly as before. The round moon looks compassionately down on me.
Ifhewere only wounded, my cries surely would have roused him. It is a corpse. Is it one of usor a Turk? Oh, God! as if it really mattered.... And I feel sleep descending upon my inflamed eyes.
I am lying with closed eyes, though I have been awake for some time. I do not wish to open my eyes, because I feel through the shut eyelids the blaze of the sun; if I open them, they will begin to smart. Perhaps I had better not even stir.... It was yesterday—yes, it must have been yesterday—that I was wounded; a day has now passed, and other days will pass, and I shall die. It does not matter. It is better not to stir. I will keep my body motionless. If I could only stop the working of the brain! Nothing will stop that. Thoughts, memories, crowd upon me. In any case, it will not be for long; the end must come soon. The newspapers will publish just a few lines to say that our losses have been insignificant: so many have been wounded; among those killed is Ivanov, a private in the volunteers’ ranks. No, even my name will not be mentioned; they will simply say, “One killed.” One soldier in the ranks—like some little dog.
The entire picture now comes to mind. It happened long ago; in fact, everything, all my life,thatlife, before I lay here with wounded legs, seems to have been such a long time ago....I remember strolling along the street. Seeing a crowd of people, I stopped. The crowd stood and silently looked upon something white, bloody, piteously whining. It was a handsome little dog which had been run over by a tram-car. It was dying, as I am now. A house-porter made his way through the crowd, picked the dog up by the collar, and carried it away. The crowd dispersed.
Will some one carry me away? No, you lie here and die. But how good it is to live!... Upon that particular day—when the little dog met misfortune—I was happy. I was walking along in a kind of intoxication; and there was good cause. Oh, my memories, don’t torture me, leave me! My past was happiness; my present is agony.... If only my sufferings alone remained, and my memories ceased to torture me—for they compel comparisons. Ah, longings, longings! You are wounded worse.
It is becoming hot. The sun is scorching me. I open my eyes, see the same bushes, the same sky—only, in the light of day. And here, too, is my neighbor. Yes, it is the Turk—his body. What a huge fellow! I recognize him—it is the very same one.
Before my eyes lies a man I have killed. Why have I killed him?
He lies here dead, blood-stained. What fate brought him here? Who is he? Perhaps, like myself, he has an old mother. Long will she sit evenings at the door of her wretched hut, looking ever towards the north: is he coming home, he, her beloved son, her protector and provider?...
And I? Yes, I also.... I would even change places with him. How happy he is! He hears nothing; neither does he feel pain from wounds, nor terrible longing, nor thirst.... The bayonet entered his very heart.... There is a large black hole in his uniform, and blood all around it.That is my work.
I did not wish to do it. I did not wish to harm any one when I volunteered. The thought that I too should have to kill somehow escaped me. I only imagined how I would exposemy ownbreast to bullets. And I did expose it.
Well, and what has it come to? Fool, fool! This unfortunatefellah, in Egyptian uniform, he is even less to blame than you are. Before he and others were packed, like herrings in a barrel, into a steamer and brought to Constantinople, he had not even heard of Russia or of Bulgaria. He was commanded to go, and he went. Had he refused to go, he would have been beaten with sticks, and perhaps some Pasha or other wouldhave fired a bullet into him. It was a long, difficult march for him from Stamboul to Rustchuk. We attacked, he defended himself. Seeing, however, that we were a fearless people, and that, unafraid of his English carbine, we rushed forward and still moved forward, he was seized with terror. Just as he was trying to get away, some sort of little man, whom he could have killed with one blow of his dark fist, ran forward and plunged a bayonet into his heart.
Of what had he been guilty?
And of what am I guilty, even though I have killed him? Of what am I guilty? Why am I tortured by thirst? Thirst! Who knows the meaning of this word? Even during the days when we marched through Roumania, fifty versts at a stretch, through unbearable heat, I did not feel what I feel now. If only some one came along this way!
Oh, God! But there must be water in that big flask of his! Only to reach it! Come what may, I will get it.
I begin to crawl. I drag my legs slowly; my exhausted arms barely stir the passive body from its place. The spot is hardly more than fifteen feet away, but it seems like ten versts. Nevertheless, I must crawl on. My throat is aflame with a terrible fire. To be sure, without water, Icould die the more quickly. All the same, perhaps....
And so I crawl. My legs drag on the ground, and every movement calls forth most excruciating pain. I cry out again and again, with tears in my eyes, and still I crawl on. At last! The flask is in my hand.... There’s water in it—and quite a deal! It seems more than half full. Ah, it will last me some time ... until I die!
It is you, my victim, who will save me! I begin to undo the flask, propping myself up on one elbow; and suddenly, losing my balance, I fall downward across the breast of my deliverer. Decay having set in, a strong stench comes from his body.
I have slaked my thirst. The water is warm, but not spoilt; and there is a great deal of it. I can live a few more days. I remember having read somewhere that one could exist without food for over a week, provided one had water. Yes, and I recall also the story of the man who committed suicide by starvation, but who lived a long time because he drank water.
Well, and what’s to be the end of it? And if I do live five or six days longer, what of that? Our troops have gone, the Bulgarians have dispersed. I am far from a road. Death—there is no wayout of it. I have but prolonged my three-day agony with a seven-day one. Perhaps I had better end it all. At my neighbor’s side lies his gun, an excellent English mechanism. I have only to stretch out my hand; then—one little moment, and an end. There is quite a lot of cartridges here, too. He hadn’t had time to dispose of them all.
Shall I end it all—or wait? Wait for what? Deliverance? Death? Or shall I wait until the Turks come here and tear the skin from my wounded legs? Far better that I should put an end to it myself.
No; there is no need to lose courage. I will struggle to the end, to my last resource. There is still hope of being found. It is possible my bones are not affected; and I may return to health. I shall again see my native land, my mother, and Masha....
Oh, Lord, save them from knowing the whole truth! Let them think I was killed outright. What if they should learn that I had suffered slow torture for two, three, or four days!
My head is in a whirl. My journey to my neighbor has completely exhausted me. What a terrible stench! He has grown black ... and what will he be like to-morrow or the day after? And now I am lying here only because Ihaven’t sufficient strength to drag myself away. I will rest awhile, and will then crawl back to my old place; and, besides, the breeze blows from that direction and will drive the smell away.
I am lying now in complete exhaustion. The sun is scorching my face and hands. There is nothing to cover oneself with. If only night would come! I think this will be the second night.
My thoughts wander, and I am losing consciousness.
I must have slept a long time, because when I awoke it was already night. As before, the wounds ache, and my neighbor lies beside me—the same huge, motionless figure.
I cannot help thinking of him. Have I really left behind me all that is pleasant and dear to me, and marched here at the speed of four versts an hour, hungered, froze, suffered from the heat, only to undergo this final torture—for no other reason than that this unfortunate should cease to live? And have I really accomplished anything useful for my country except this murder?
This is murder—and I am a murderer.
When I first got the idea into my head to go and fight, Mother and Masha did not try to dissuade me, although they both wept much. Blinded by my idea, I did not understand thosetears. Only now I understand what I have done to those so near to me.
Why recall all this? There is no returning to the past.
And what a singular attitude my acquaintances assumed towards my action! “What a madman! He is meddling without knowing why!” How could they say that? How could they reconcile their words withtheirideas of heroism, love of mother country, and other such things? Surely I earned their admiration for living up to these virtues. Yet I am a “madman.”
Presently I am on my way to Kishinev; I am supplied with a knapsack and all the other military accoutrements. I go with thousands of others; among them a few, like myself, are volunteers. The rest would have preferred to remain at home, if they were permitted. Nevertheless, they go along just like we “conscious ones,” march thousands of versts, and fight as well as ourselves, or even better. They fulfil their obligations notwithstanding the fact that they would on the instant drop everything and go home if permission were given them.
A fresh early morning breeze has begun to blow. There is a stirring among the bushes; I can hear the flutter of a bird’s wings. The stars are no longer visible. The dark blue sky hasturned gray, and stretching across it are gentle, fleecy cloudlets; a gray mist is rising from the earth. It is the beginning of the third day of my ... what can I call it? Life? Agony?
The third day.... How many more are left to me? At any rate, only a few. I have grown terribly weak, and I fear that I am unable to move away from the corpse. Only a little while longer, and I will stretch out by his side, and we shall not be unpleasant to each other.
I must have a drink. I will drink three times a day—in the morning, at noon, and in the evening.
The sun has risen. Its enormous disk, broken and intersected by the dark branches of the bushes, is red like blood. It looks as if it will be a hot day. My neighbor—what will become of you? Even now you are quite terrible.
Yes, he is terrible. His hair has begun to fall out. His skin, dark by nature, has grown a pale yellow; his bloated face has become so tightly stretched that the skin burst just behind one ear. The worms have begun to swarm there. The lower limbs, encased in gaiters, have swollen, and huge blisters have showed themselves from between the hooks of the gaiters. What will the sun make of him to-day?
It is unendurable to be so near him. I must get away, at all costs. Can I do it? I am still able to lift my hand, open the flask, and drink; but to move my passive, cumbersome body is quite another matter. Still, I will make an effort, even if it should take me an hour to move a few inches.
The entire morning passes in this attempt to shift. The pain is intense, but what does it matter? I no longer remember; I cannot imagine to myself the perception of a normal man. I have gotten used to the pain. I have managed to shift about fifteen feet, and am now in my old place. Not for long, however, have I enjoyed the fresh breeze, as far as it can be fresh with a rotting corpse only a few steps away. The breeze too has shifted and has brought the stench upon me anew to the point of nausea. The empty stomach contracts painfully and convulsively; all the internals groan. But the ill-smelling, infected air continues to pour upon me.
I weep in my desperation.
Broken in body and spirit and half insane, I was beginning to lose consciousness. Suddenly ... or is it only a delusion of a distressed imagination? Yes, I think I hear voices. The clatter of horses’ hoofs—and human voices. I almost came near shouting, but restrainedmyself. Suppose they should be Turks? They, of course—as if I already hadn’t suffered enough—will subject me to terrible torture, such as makes your hair stand on end just to read about in the newspapers. They’ll peel my skin off, and they’ll apply a fire to my wounded legs ... or they might invent some new torture. Is it not better to end my life at their hands than die here? Who can tell?—they may be my countrymen! Oh, accursed bushes! Why have you fenced yourselves so thickly around me? There is no opening except one aperture in the foliage, that opens like a window upon a hollow visible in the distance. There, I think, is a brook from which we drank before the battle. I can see, too, the huge flat stone across the stream, put there to serve as a bridge. They will surely cross it. The voices are dying away. I cannot make out the language they speak; my hearing too has grown weak. Oh, Lord! what if they are my countrymen!... I will shout. They will hear me even from the brook. That is better than falling into the hands of the Bashi-Bazouks. What has become of them? I don’t see them. I am being consumed with impatience; I no longer even notice the smell of the corpse, although it has not grown any less.
Suddenly a body of horsemen make theirappearance crossing the bridge. Cossacks! Blue uniforms, red stripes, lances! About fifty of them! At the fore, upon a handsome horse, is an officer with a black beard. No sooner do the fifty horsemen cross the brook than he turns full face in his saddle and shouts:
“Tro-t, march!”
“Stop, stop, for God’s sake! Help, help, brothers!” But the stamping of sturdy horses, the clanging of many sabres, and the lusty shouting of Cossack throats are too much for my weak outcry—and I am not heard.
Oh, curses! In complete exhaustion, I fall face to the ground and begin to weep. In my falling, I fail to notice that I have upset the flask and out of its mouth the water—my life, my deliverance, my respite from death—is oozing. I notice it only when there is no more than a half-cupful left; the rest has been absorbed by the dry, thirsty earth.
It is simply agony to recall the stupor which seized me after this terrible accident. I lay motionless, with half-closed eyes. The wind kept changing, and now fanned me with pure, clear air and now sent the stench upon me anew. My neighbor has become unsightly beyond all description. Once I opened my eyes to glance at him, and I recoiled in horror. He no longer hadany face. The flesh seemed to peel right off the bone. That horrible smile of bones, that eternal grin, seemed never so repulsive, never so awful, although it had been my lot to hold many a human skull in my hands before, in the medical classes. The skeleton in uniform with shining buttons caused me to shudder. “This is war,” I reflected, “and here is its symbol.”
The sun is burning and scorching me as before. My hands and face have been smarting for some time. I drank up the remaining water. The thirst tortured me so intensely that in trying to take a single swallow I gulped down all. Fool that I was not to have called to the Cossacks when they were so near! Even if they had been Turks, it would have been better than this. They would have tortured me an hour or two; but now there’s no saying how long I am to lie here and suffer. My dear, dearest mother! If you only knew! You would tear your gray hair out, you would knock your head against the wall, you would curse the day of my birth, you would curse the world which invented war and its sorrows.
It is well that you and Masha will not hear of my sufferings. Farewell, Mother; farewell, my sweetheart, my love! But how sad and bitter I feel! And there is something gnawing at the heart....
Again I am thinking of that little white dog! The porter did not pity it, but knocked its head against the wall and threw it into a garbage heap. And still it was alive; and suffered a whole day. I am more unfortunate, because I have suffered already three days. To-morrow will be the fourth day, then the fifth, the sixth.... Death, where art thou? Come, come! Take me!
But death does not come. And I am lying in the blaze of this terrible sun; and there is not a drop of water to refreshen my inflamed throat; the corpse, too, is making me ill. Myriads of vermin are feeding in it. How they swarm! When he is eaten, and there is nothing left except the bones and the uniform, then it will be my turn. I too shall share the same fate.
The day passes, and the night passes. No change. Again morning. No change. Another day will pass....
The bushes are stirring and rustling, as if they were talking among themselves. “You will die, you will die, you will die!” they whisper. “You will not see, you will not see, you will not see!” answer the bushes on the other side.
“No, you will not see them here!” I hear a loud voice quite near.
I tremble and at once come to myself. I lookup, to find the good blue eyes of our corporal Yakovlev looking at me.
“Spades!” he cries out. “There are two more of them here—and one of them is theirs!”
“There is no need for spades, no need to bury me; I’m alive!” I wish to cry out; but only a feeble groan issues from my parched lips.
“Lord! But he is alive!Barin[1]Ivanov! Children, come this way! OurBarinis alive! And bring the doctor, quick!”
Presently I feel the pleasant contact in my mouth of water, whiskey, and of something else. Then everything disappears.
The stretcher sways with a measured motion. This motion is soothing. Now I recall myself, now everything lapses from my memory. The bandaged wounds no longer hurt. An inexpressible feeling of comfort has diffused itself through my entire body....
“Hal-t! L-lo-wer! Fresh hands to the stretchers! Now get hold—lift—march!”
The command is issued by Peter Ivanich, our sanitary officer, a tall, lean, and very kindly man. He is so tall that as I turn my eyes in his direction I can see his head, his peculiar long beard,and his shoulders, although the stretcher is being carried on the shoulders of four big men.
“Peter Ivanich!” I whisper.
“What is it, dear fellow?”
Peter Ivanich leans toward me.
“Peter Ivanich, what did the doctor tell you? Will I die soon?”
“What are you saying, Ivanov? Of course you will live. Your bones are whole. What a lucky fellow you are! Your bones are all right, and so are your arteries! But tell me, how did you manage to pull through these three and a half days? What did you eat?”
“Nothing.”
“And had you anything to drink?”
“I took the Turk’s flask. Peter Ivanich, I cannot speak now. Later....”
“Well, God be with you, dear fellow, and have your nap.”
Again sleep, forgetfulness....
When I awake again, I am in the division hospital, surrounded by nurses and doctors. At my feet stands a man whom I recognize as a celebrated St. Petersburg professor. His hands are blood-stained. He is attending to me, and presently he turns to speak to me:
“Well, the Lord has been good to you, young man. You will remain alive. We’ve deprivedyou of one leg; but that is a mere trifle. Can you talk?”
Yes, I can talk, and I am telling him all that I have written here.