Anton Tarasovitch lay dying. He lay in a pleasant cornfield whither he had dragged himself in the heat of the afternoon, for a shelter against the merciless sun. But now it was evening and the stars were out, and dying was not now so bad an affair as it had been in the dust and the blinding sunlight. True, the pain was at times terrible, but at other times it made one only light-headed, so that oneself or the part that was Anton Tarasovitch seemed to be a different thing altogether from the body of Anton Tarasovitch which lay beneath It shot to pieces, while It fluttered and hovered above.
He had not been lying for many hours in the Austrian cornfield. He knew that by the progress of the sun downward—downward until it made the long summer shadows that he loved in the fields at home; downward until it brought a breath of coolness and a gray light that had brushed out the clear distinction of shadows and sunlight; downward until it was gone forever and a few stars burned quietly in the sky overhead. It was the last sunset that Anton Tarasovitch was to see in this world. But time had no longer any meaning for Anton Tarasovitch. Lying on one’s back, so, and waiting to die, a minute can seem all there is of the world, and then an hour can be burned up like a minute, while one faints into unconsciousness, before one is slowly dragged back again to the thought, “I am I”—the thought that makes the world for each man, that creates for him the stars and the shadows and the sun sinking downward.
Yes, Anton Tarasovitch knew that now—that it was this thought that made the world. And when he stopped thinking it, the world would again be nothing. Down! down! down! one would plunge, and then the world would be nothing. But it would exist still for other men. Yet how could that be? Tomorrow the sun would come up again into the sky just as every day it had come up in the fields at home, making the long shadows that he had so loved in the mornings and in the evenings. Tomorrow other men would see the sun—many other men would see it. But if Anton Tarasovitch did not see it——! In vain he struggled to create for himself a universe in which there would be no Anton Tarasovitch. Well, he was not clever enough to understand such matters. Men in universities and men who wrote books had figured them out and knew all about them. But how was he, who had never been to a University, who had not been to school even, to understand!
Yet this much he understood—that he was dying for his country. This the general had told them, and he had known always, since a boy, that it was a brave and fine thing to fight for one’s country and to die if need be. Anton Tarasovitch was dying that his country might be saved.
Yet it was strange that the big Russia had need of him, just one common peasant. The great Russia had so many men that were strong and powerful, men with uniforms that glittered—men that were much cleverer and braver than Anton. Why should the country have need of him? Sasha needed him, and the children. Sasha needed him in the fields and she needed him in her heart too. She had often called him the light of her heart, in the strange words—so different from the words of other women—that Sasha often used. And he knew by her face that she needed him. She didn’t have to tell him so. He knew by the kindling of her face, as of a curtain behind which suddenly a candle appears. So her face would light up when she saw him. Sasha would mind greatly if she never saw him again.
He was dying because it was a glorious thing to die for one’s country—for the White Tsar, the little Father. You died to protect your country, so that your great country might live forever. But if you weren’t there to know that it lived forever!—now why couldn’t he think of the world without Anton Tarasovitch in it? Why did he land against a black wall every time he tried to think of tomorrow without Anton Tarasovitch?
It was needful that he die to save his country. What if, to the general, he were only one of thousands and to Sasha and the children all of life—nevertheless, if every man should think that, then there would be no one at all to save the country. It was rather clever of him to figure it out so, especially with the fire in his side that made his head so light and his thoughts fly off from it and refuse to anchor down for more than a minute. It was clever of him to reason it out—Anton Tarasovitch who had never been to a University—that if every man should say to himself, “O, I don’t count. Just one more or less!”—then there would be no army at all to fight the Tsar’s battles.
Yet he was not fighting or dying now to save Sasha. Nor was he dying to save his children even in the years to come. That wouldn’t be bad—to die so that years afterwards, even though it might be many years afterwards, one’s children would prosper and would live more happily. That would be a sort of living when one was dead, because one’s children were in a way oneself in different bodies. But he couldn’t see how Maxim and Ignat and Sofya and Tatya would at any time be better off because he was dying right now. He couldn’t see but that the land would be poorer and that they would have to work harder because he and the other peasants were dying for the Little Father and for their country.
But if he couldn’t figure out just what people he was saving, at least he knew against what men he was fighting. He was fighting against the Austrians. The Austrians were a horrible people who spoke a language one couldn’t understand at all. When you tried to understand them, you couldn’t understand a word they were saying. He had known an Austrian once—a big blonde fellow who had stayed a few days at their little village. One day Anton had been walking with the tiny Tatya on the road that led to the market and they had met the Austrian, who had stopped and had given Tatya a flower out of his button-hole. Anton remembered Tatya’s crows of delight. The Austrian had smiled at her, a nice, friendly smile, and Tatya had grabbed for his hand as children will, even when the people they grab at are Austrians.
Tatya had seemed to like the Austrian. And Anton had had to confess to himself that he wasn’t a bad fellow. But he must have been pleasant only because of Tatya. No one could help being pleasant to Tatya. The Austrian had been for a moment friendly because of her. At heart he was a hateful fellow. All Austrians were hateful. They all hated the Tsar and the Fatherland and they all hated him, Anton, because he was a Russian.