Futility: A Novel by William Gerhardie (Melville House 1922)

When the train arrived at Omsk, the new regime of Kolchak had been established. The Admiral was distinctly pleased with the change; for he no longer believed in granting the Russian people a Constituent Assembly because he had grounds for thinking that the Russian people, if given this opportunity, would take advantage of it and elect a government other than that of Kolchak. And the Admiral was rather fond of little Kolchak, whose interpretation of democracy was that of denying the people the choice of government until such time as by some vague, mysterious, but anyhow protracted system of education he hoped their choice would fall upon his own administration. We lived in our train, a verst or thereabouts from the station — a thoroughly unwholesome place; and the Admiral diverted most of his time by throwing empty tobacco tins at the pigs that dwelt in the ditches around the train. ‘You have no conception what a pig a pig really is,’ he said, ‘till you see an Omsk pig.’

‘Splendid!’ said Sir Hugo. ‘Splendid!’

‘There she goes again!’ yelled the Admiral, and hit an old big sow with a Navy Cut tobacco tin.

‘Splendid effort!’ said Sir Hugo. ‘Splendid effort!’

‘I give dem h-h-hell!’ roared General Bologoevski. ‘Dam-rotten pigs!’ But, as usual, his threat remained an empty one.

The Graveyard by Marek Hlasko (Melville House 1956)

He walked out. Was that really water dripping—or was it Bear's little boy still talking and staring with his black eyes at the murky grayness of the wall? He was in the street when Bear caught up with him. They walked side by side in silence, breathing heavily.

"Listen," Bear stammered. He gripped Franciszek's arm and looked in his eyes, stumbling all the while. "It isn't the way you think it is. Listen, you've got to understand. I have a son . . ."

"Franek," Franciszek said. "In memory of those moments."

"Those moments, those moments," Bear stammered. "What are they next to life? Next to the fear you've got to live with, constantly, without interruption, from morning till night? Can we bask in the days of glory when we live in a time of pestilence? They'll finish us off, you, me, Jerzy. Our time is over; and the others, the ones on top, they know it. They commit crimes when they have to, but in spite of everything they're laying the foundations for faith in man; they believe in you, in me, in Jerzy, and that's why they'll finish us off when the times comes. They believe that we're somehow decent, and that someday we'll wake up, and let out a wild shout: no! And maybe this shout will be taken up by a few others. It's neither you nor I that's at stake, but something beside which we mean nothing at all. Ah, Franciszek, we wanted to take the road to life, and we've come to a graveyard; we set out for a promised land, and all we see is a desert; we talked about justice, and all we know is terror and despair. Once I lived on the fourth floor, and all day long I did nothing but count people's footsteps on the staircase—were they coming for me or not? Someday they would come, I thought. History has no use for witnesses. The next generation will rush headlong into whatever is expected of it. It will regard each of the crimes now being committed as sacred, as necessary. And what about us? You? Me? We've done our part, and now we must try to survive, just survive as long as possible. Do you want to be the righteous man of Gomorrah? What do you want? Testimonials? Give it up. Can't you die like a strong animal, alone and in silence? You've nothing left, no teeth to bite with, and nothing to shoot with. Go away, and if you don't understand, at least leave the rest of us alone. After all, we're entitled to something in return for our days of glory: at least we have the right to be forgotten."

"Have you seen Jerzy since those days?" Franciszek asked.

"No, and I don't want to see him."

Franciszek slackened his pace. "You certainly don't think," he said, "that he would ever be capable of saying the kind of thing you've just said. Do you?"

They were silent for a while.

"No," Bear said. "Jerzy? No, Jerzy will never say such things, I know. I often think of him; he was the purest of all, better than either of us. Maybe that's what has saved him."

They stopped.

"Farewell, Bear," Franciszek said.

"Goodbye, Skinny," Bear said.

Neither of them saw the other's face: they were far from any street lamp, standing in darkness and rain. After a moment's hesitation, each of them extended a hand. Their hands did not meet, but they pretended not to notice.

The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars by Maurice Dekobra (Melville House 1925)

"Well! Well! Nobody is eavesdropping . . ."

"Are you sure there are no wires hidden under the rug?" asked Lady Diana.

Varichkine made a reassuring gesture.

"I have taken every precaution. The man who is serving us is also in the service of my private agents, although the valet, I discovered yesterday, is in the employ of Madam Mouravieff."

"Isn't that amusing! You each have your special army of spies?"

"It's absolutely necessary. You will not be surprised, Lady Wynham, to learn that you are not exactly persona gratissima in Madam Mouravieff's eyes and that, consequently, she employs, in your case, the usual procedure of our good city of Moscow."

"Which is the capital of the spy system, if I am not misinformed."

"Exactly. The Tcheka without spies would be a newly married woman without her husband—or a Soviet without an executioner!"

I poured out some Rudesheimer for Varichkine, at the same time asking him to explain his jest.

"Why it's perfectly obvious, old fellow. We don't pretend for an instant that the Soviet Government is an expression of the will of the majority of the Russian people. When your French and English communist papers comment on the demands of Russian public opinion, they are speaking of the opinion of an extremely active but very small minority. With us, the freedom of the press, along with the other sorts of freedom, has not existed since nineteen-eighteen, and it's a good thing because liberty is as injurious for a race of people as it is for women."

Lady Diana listened attentively to these words.

"But," she asked, "how can you endure an atmosphere of perpetual espionage?"

Varichkine offered her one of his best cigarettes, lighted it for her with extreme grace, and in his gentlest tone, replied:

"My dear Lady Wynham, it's a matter of habit, I might say, even an acquired taste. Our Tcheka, which is a kind of political Committee of Surveillance, plays the rôle of a doctor whose duty it is to tap the arteries of our citizens at every hour of the day and night. Consequently, it has in its employ some thousands of benevolent nurses, who apply the stethoscope to the door, listen to the conversation and diagnose the malady."

"One is, then, at the mercy of the denunciations of these people, who, I presume, are not round-shouldered from an excess of honesty. But who would accept such degrading work?"

"Pardoned speculators, acquitted murderers, and policemen of the days of Czarism, who thus buy their personal safety. Thanks to their revelations, we are able to crush all the attempts at counter-revolution, which state of affairs, for a régime like ours, is the beginning of real development."

"And yet the result must be quantities of unjust accusations, of delations inspired by vengeance and of false reports."

"Most assuredly! And as anyone who is accused of counter-revolution, even if there is no proof, is automatically condemned to death, those innocent people end up in the dungeons of the Loubianka. But all that is of no importance for it is better to shoot ten innocent people than to let one dangerous agitator escape."

Lady Diana's white shoulders trembled slightly. She looked at Varichkine in such a way as to make him regret his cynical avowal. Very gently, just as one comforts a frightened child with kind words, he added:

"But remember, Lady Wynham, that the Red Peril has undoubtedly already made more victims than it ever will in the future. It is always best to forget the past. Dead people are soon forgotten, you know. Between us, tell me if the last European rulers are still thinking about the massacre of the Czar and his family? Does the tragic fate of that lost potentate prevent the King of Spain from the mad pursuit of pleasure, or the Prince of Wales from disguising himself at Masquerade Balls? All right, then don't be more of a royalist than the kings, those living fossils of a worthless age, and don't bother yourself about the sad destiny of a few thousand aristocrats or ordinary people, who would soon have died of paralysis or appendicitis. My dear friend, Danton, Marat, Robespierre, are great names in the history of France. My dear Lady Wynham, you aren't ashamed, are you, of being the compatriot of Cromwell, who caused the head of your king Charles the First to be cut from his shoulders? Explain to me how the axe or the guillotine are superior to the machine-gun of our executioners. You say we have killed more people. Yes, but there are more than a hundred million Russians. The proportion of the blood shed remains approximately the same. And, after all, we are only imitating the Americans."

The Train by Georges Simenon (Melville House 1958)

I sometimes say "we" when talking of the people in our train because, on certain points, I know that our reactions were the same. But on this point I speak for myself, although I am convinced that I wasn't the only one in my position.

A break had occurred. That didn't mean that the past had ceased to exist, still less that I repudiated my family and had stopped loving them.

It was just that, for an indeterminate period, I was living on another level, where the values had nothing in common with those of my previous existence.

I might say that I was living on two levels at once, but that for the moment the one which counted was the new one, represented by our car with its smell of the stables, by faces I hadn't known a few days before, by the baskets of sandwiches carried by the young ladies with the arm bands, and by Anna.

I am convinced that she understood me. She no longer tried to cheer me up by telling me, for instance, that my wife and daughter were in no danger and that I would soon find them again.

Something she had said that morning came back to me.

"You're a cool one."

She took me for a strong-minded character, and I suspect that that is why she attached herself to me. At that time I knew nothing of her life, apart from the reference she had made to the Namur prison, and I know little more now. It is obvious that she had no ties, nothing solid to lean on.