gabriel andersen, the teacher, walked to the edge of the school garden, where he paused, undecided what to do. off in the distance, two miles away, the woods hung like bluish lace over a field of pure snow. it was a brilliant day. a hundred tints glistened on the white ground and the iron bars of the garden railing. there was a lightness and transparency in the air that only the days of early spring possess. gabriel andersen turned his steps toward the fringe of blue lace for a tramp in the woods.
“another spring in my life,” he said, breathing deep and peering up at the heavens through his spectacles. andersen was rather given to sentimental poetising. he walked with his hands folded behind him, dangling his cane.
he had gone but a few paces when he noticed a group of soldiers and horses on the road beyond the garden rail. their drab uniforms stood out dully against the white of the snow, but their swords and horses’ coats tossed back the light. their bowed cavalry legs moved awkwardly on the snow. andersen wondered what they were doing there. suddenly the nature of their business flashed upon him. it was an ugly errand they were upon, an instinct rather that his reason told him. something unusual and terrible was to happen. and the same instinct told him he must conceal himself from the soldiers. he turned to the left quickly, dropped on his knees, and crawled on the soft, thawing, crackling snow to a low haystack, from behind which, by craning his neck, he could watch what the soldiers were doing.
there were twelve of them, one a stocky young officer in a grey cloak caught in prettily at the waist by a silver belt. his face was so red that even at that distance andersen caught the odd, whitish gleam of his light protruding moustache and eyebrows against the vivid colour of his skin. the broken tones of his raucous voice reached distinctly to where the teacher, listening intently, lay hidden.
“i know what i am about. i don’t need anybody’s advice,” the officer cried. he clapped his arms akimbo and looked down at some one among the group of bustling soldiers. “i’ll show you how to be a rebel, you damned skunk.”
andersen’s heart beat fast. “good heavens!” he thought. “is it possible?” his head grew chill as if struck by a cold wave.
“officer,” a quiet, restrained, yet distinct voice came from among the soldiers, “you have no right—it’s for the court to decide—you aren’t a judge—it’s plain murder, not—” “silence!” thundered the officer, his voice choking with rage. “i’ll give you a court. ivanov, go ahead.”
he put the spurs to his horse and rode away. gabriel andersen mechanically observed how carefully the horse picked its way, placing its feet daintily as if for the steps of a minuet. its ears were pricked to catch every sound. there was momentary bustle and excitement among the soldiers. then they dispersed in different directions, leaving three persons in black behind, two tall men and one very short and frail. andersen could see the hair of the short one’s head. it was very light. and he saw his rosy ears sticking out on each side.
now he fully understood what was to happen. but it was a thing so out of the ordinary, so horrible, that he fancied he was dreaming.
“it’s so bright, so beautiful—the snow, the field, the woods, the sky. the breath of spring is upon everything. yet people are going to be killed. how can it be? impossible!” so his thoughts ran in confusion. he had the sensation of a man suddenly gone insane, who finds he sees, hears and feels what he is not accustomed to, and ought not hear, see and feel.
the three men in black stood next to one another hard by the railing, two quite close together, the short one some distance away.
“officer!” one of them cried in a desperate voice—andersen could not see which it was—“god sees us! officer!”
eight soldiers dismounted quickly, their spurs and sabres catching awkwardly. evidently they were in a hurry, as if doing a thief’s job.
several seconds passed in silence until the soldiers placed themselves in a row a few feet from the black figures and levelled their guns. in doing so one soldier knocked his cap from his head. he picked it up and put it on again without brushing off the wet snow.
the officer’s mount still kept dancing on one spot with his ears pricked, while the other horses, also with sharp ears erect to catch every sound, stood motionless looking at the men in black, their long wise heads inclined to one side.
“spare the boy at least!” another voice suddenly pierced the air. “why kill a child, damn you! what has the child done?”
“ivanov, do what i told you to do,” thundered the officer, drowning the other voice. his face turned as scarlet as a piece of red flannel.
there followed a scene savage and repulsive in its gruesomeness. the short figure in black, with the light hair and the rosy ears, uttered a wild shriek in a shrill child’s tones and reeled to one side. instantly it was caught up by two or three soldiers. but the boy began to struggle, and two more soldiers ran up.
“ow-ow-ow-ow!” the boy cried. “let me go, let me go! ow-ow!”
his shrill voice cut the air like the yell of a stuck porkling not quite done to death. suddenly he grew quiet. some one must have struck him. an unexpected, oppressive silence ensued. the boy was being pushed forward. then there came a deafening report. andersen started back all in a tremble. he saw distinctly, yet vaguely as in a dream, the dropping of two dark bodies, the flash of pale sparks, and a light smoke rising in the clean, bright atmosphere. he saw the soldiers hastily mounting their horses without even glancing at the bodies. he saw them galloping along the muddy road, their arms clanking, their horses’ hoofs clattering.
he saw all this, himself now standing in the middle of the road, not knowing when and why he had jumped from behind the haystack. he was deathly pale. his face was covered with dank sweat, his body was aquiver. a physical sadness smote and tortured him. he could not make out the nature of the feeling. it was akin to extreme sickness, though far more nauseating and terrible.
after the soldiers had disappeared beyond the bend toward the woods, people came hurrying to the spot of the shooting, though till then not a soul had been in sight.
the bodies lay at the roadside on the other side of the railing, where the snow was clean, brittle and untrampled and glistened cheerfully in the bright atmosphere. there were three dead bodies, two men and a boy. the boy lay with his long soft neck stretched on the snow. the face of the man next to the boy was invisible. he had fallen face downward in a pool of blood. the third was a big man with a black beard and huge, muscular arms. he lay stretched out to the full length of his big body, his arms extended over a large area of blood-stained snow.
the three men who had been shot lay black against the white snow, motionless. from afar no one could have told the terror that was in their immobility as they lay there at the edge of the narrow road crowded with people.
that night gabriel andersen in his little room in the schoolhouse did not write poems as usual. he stood at the window and looked at the distant pale disk of the moon in the misty blue sky, and thought. and his thoughts were confused, gloomy, and heavy as if a cloud had descended upon his brain.
indistinctly outlined in the dull moonlight he saw the dark railing, the trees, the empty garden. it seemed to him that he beheld them—the three men who had been shot, two grown up, one a child. they were lying there now at the roadside, in the empty, silent field, looking at the far-off cold moon with their dead, white eyes as he with his living eyes.
“the time will come some day,” he thought, “when the killing of people by others will be an utter impossibility. the time will come when even the soldiers and officers who killed these three men will realise what they have done and will understand that what they killed them for is just as necessary, important, and dear to them—to the officers and soldiers—as to those whom they killed.”
“yes,” he said aloud and solemnly, his eyes moistening, “that time will come. they will understand.” and the pale disk of the moon was blotted out by the moisture in his eyes.
a large pity pierced his heart for the three victims whose eyes looked at the moon, sad and unseeing. a feeling of rage cut him as with a sharp knife and took possession of him.
but gabriel andersen quieted his heart, whispering softly, “they know not what they do.” and this old and ready phrase gave him the strength to stifle his rage and indignation.
