There must be some Austrians lying in this cornfield now, wounded as he was wounded. But he could see no one. Flat on his back, he could see only the stars which were thick now against the sky. And he began to think that this was a cruel thing—that a man should be alone when he was dying. Even when a chap was just ill, he wanted someone to take care of him. Once when Anton had been ill of a fever he had been just like a baby, so weak and helpless. He had cried then because the milk that Sasha had brought him had been too hot for his tongue and had burned him. It was silly for a big man to cry, but that was the way you became when you were sick—weak and silly. He had never in his life cried when he was well. When men were well they were never silly.
Women—women were different! Five times had Sasha been so ill that it was terrible—four times for the children that were living and once for the little one that had died. Sasha had almost died too that time. She had been so white and so hopeless looking for weeks after! But in all the times she was ill she had not complained as much as he had, that one month that he was sick with the fever. That must be because women were used to pain. The good God had so ordained it. For every life that they brought into the world they had to suffer, not only at the time, but for months before and then for years afterward.
They were strange creatures, were women. If a child became ill or died, its mother suffered again, just as the day she had borne him. At least so Sasha had suffered when the baby had died—and other women that he had seen in the village.
Birth was a strange thing now! He had never really thought of it before, but wasn’t it a strange thing that each time a person was born into the world, there should be pain and the long months of waiting. Then in one second an Austrian shell could blow away the body that some woman had waited for and had carried in her own body. In one second—why, so he had been waited for—he, Anton Tarasovitch. Now wasn’t that wonderful!—and he had never until this minute really thought of it. He, Anton Tarasovitch, had been carried in the body of his mother and had been born in pain and in rejoicing. Why, it was like a miracle! And he had thought so lightly of it, had just taken it for granted that he should be born and that she should love him.
He would like to make it up to her in some way now. But it was too late. She had been dead for very many years now and he also was dying. Well, he could tell her about it when he saw her with the saints in Heaven.
Heaven! He would go there, of course, because he had always, since a boy, been obedient and had done just what the priests had told him. He ought to think now about Heaven. But somehow he did not care to think about it, and the strange part was that it did not trouble him that he did not care. Even if he woke tomorrow in Heaven, he would not be the same Anton. He might live forever, but that wouldn’t be the same thing as waking up in the morning with Sasha at his side. He tried to think what “forever” meant, and he fetched up against the same black wall that he had when he had tried to think of a world without Anton Tarasovitch to know himself in it. Forever! ever! ever! No stopping! On and on! But that would be horrible. No! no! he couldn’t bear that. One could do nothing, nothing, to get out of it. Even if one could be blown to pieces with a gun, say a thousand years from now, in Heaven, one’s soul would gather itself together again and go on and on, forever and forever.
No, he mustn’t think about it. If he thought about it any more, he would lift his hands and strangle himself, so as to be able to stop thinking about it. Now he would think about Sasha. When he thought about her, he could feel her right next to him. He couldn’t see her face exactly, nor could he see her standing there. And yet it was as if she really were there, and he could see her. That was the way it was when you loved a person. She was, as it were, in you, or at least right next to you, and yet she was separate from you, too.
He had liked life with Sasha. He didn’t know until now how much he had liked it. True, it was a hard life they had lived together. One was on the go every minute—in bad weather when the frost stung and to walk even a mile became an agony; and in good weather one was constantly on the go, when it might perhaps have been pleasant to sit under the trees and play with the children. But life was good, for all that. Of course, if they could have saved money—only a little money—it would have been better. But the little money they could save had had to go for the taxes. The taxes were for the Fatherland, the priest had told him. The taxes were paid so that when the need came, Anton would be able to die for his country. But there was something confusing about that. Life would be better if it were not for the taxes, and the taxes were paid so that he might—no, that was bewildering. With the fire in one’s side and in one’s brain, how could one think clearly about so difficult a matter? Besides, there were many matters of that sort that he, Anton Tarasovitch, was not clever enough to think about. One left such things to the priests, who were good men, and to the clever men at the universities.
The stars were sometimes a long way off now and sometimes very near to him. But neither near nor far away did they seem to care about him. They were the only things he could see in the world and they did not seem to care about him. Undoubtedly they had seen many men dying. He knew about the stars! A young teacher who had come to the village when he was a boy had talked about them and Anton had never forgotten.
The young teacher had not stayed long in the village. He was “dangerous,” they said, and Anton heard afterwards that he had gone to America. It gave one many thoughts to listen to the teacher. He had said that the stars were worlds, just like our own earth—the earth that Anton knew the good Christ had come down to save. Anton, who was just a boy, had wanted to ask him if Christ had had to save all these worlds that were stars. But that was only one of the many confusing thoughts one had in listening to the young teacher. One felt strange in listening to him, as if the world weren’t solid at all, but were flowing like a river. * * *