I got tired of waiting for my train in the stuffy little general waiting-hole of the most microscopic station on the whole N—— Railway, so I went out to sit and smoke on the platform. It was getting on for eleven o’clock on a warm, dark autumn night. The only light on the platform came from three small paraffin lamps, placed at long distances from one another, and giving so little light that I was quite unable to see clearly the group of dark human silhouettes collected on the platform close to me, and, like myself, waiting for the train. I could see several black shadows, but it was impossible to form an idea what sort of people they were. The conversation that they were carrying on together was, however, distinctly audible in the motionless silence of the dusky, sultry night.
Unfortunately, this conversation was of a most gloomy character. It referred to an unusual misfortune which had happened early that morning at a neighbouring station, and had been a subject of general conversation along the whole line. A certain publichouse keeper, well known to every one connected with the railway, had thrown himself in front of the train. He had been a confirmed drunkard for some years, and had arrived at absolute beggary.
“You see, mates, towards the last he went off his head altogether,” said one of the black silhouettes, whom, from the glittering of his badge when he moved, one could guess to be the railway watchman. “He tried to do it five times before ... but he always got frightened. He’d run up to the train and then begin to yell.... The train would come thundering along, and he’d just scream with terror, and yet he’d run on, throwing up his hands. ‘Ah!—ah!—ah!—ah!’ and yet he’d run at it.... He was mortally scared, and yet he couldn’t let it alone!... God always saved him; the good Christian people didn’t want to let him die; ... they’d catch him and take him home by force; ... they put him in the hospital.... Well, it seems this time he was too sharp for them.”...
“Did he call out? Did any one hear?”
“They said afterwards that somebody yelled like a wild thing. They say they heard something crying and screaming.... But, you see, it was night-time; it was quite dark that’s plain!”...
“The devil’s will, you mean. In such business as that, it’s the devil that’s lord and master, not God!” said a voice from the group of silhouettes.
“True! true!” muttered several voices; and a short silence followed.
The conversation was an unpleasant one; the subject under discussion was gloomy and fearful, and the people seemed ill at ease in talking of it. But maybe for that very reason they were unable to free themselves from the haunting idea, and enter into the ordinary small talk of chance-met passengers. Unpleasant as it was to think and talk of a suicide, the conversation about it started afresh.
“They do say it was all his wife’s doing that he got like that; he took to drinking because of her.”
“Did the silly fellow care more for his wife than his soul?”