Suddenly the great bell utters an uncertain tone, and grows dumb. The disturbed smaller bells ring out with an unfinished trill, cutting it short, as if to listen to the sad hollow note which trembles and flows and weeps, gradually dying upon the air. The old bell-ringer drops down upon the bench in utter exhaustion, and two last tears softly roll over his pale cheeks——
"Ho there, send up a change; the old bell-ringer has done his ringing——"
Vsévolod Mikháylovich Garshín. (1855-1888.)
Gárshin was born in the Government of Ekaterinosláv, where his father was a small landed proprietor. In his early childhood he travelled a great deal over Russia, as his father was in the military service. He was placed in the Gymnasium at St. Petersburg, and there he excelled as a student, but in 1872 he had the first attacks of insanity which afterwards returned periodically and finally caused him to commit suicide by throwing himself headlong from an upper story. He took part in the Turko-Russian War as a common soldier, and while in the field composed his first story, Four Days, in which he described the suffering of a wounded comrade of his. Upon his return he wrote, in his lucid intervals, a series of wonderfully realistic stories, many of which deal with painful situations. Among his best are The Coward, The Artists, The Red Flower, Attalea Princeps, and That Which Was Not.
In English translation are: Four Days, translated by N. H. Dole, in Poet Lore, vol. iii.; Mad Love, or, An Artist's Dream, London, 1890, and Stories, translated by E. L. Voynich, London, 1893.
THAT WHICH WAS NOT
One beautiful June day—it was beautiful because it was twenty-eight degrees Réaumur—one beautiful June day it was warm everywhere, but it was even warmer in the clearing in the garden, where stood some ricks of newly mown hay, because the place was protected from the wind by a thick, impenetrable, cherry grove. Nearly everything was asleep: people had had their fill and were devoting themselves to post-prandial lateral occupations; the birds were
