К звёздам

by Leonid Andreyev, Леонид Андреев

LUNTZ. Aujourd'hui, j'ai peur des étoiles. Je me dis : comme elles sont gigantesques, comme elles sont indifférentes, et comme elles n'ont rien à faire de moi, et je deviens tellement petit, tellement pitoyable - comme, vous savez, une espèce de poussin qui se cache je ne sais où pendant un pogrom qui reste là et qui ne, comprend rien. VERKHOVTSEV. Les étoiles et le pogrom. Combinaison étrange. (...) LUNTZ. Le duvet vole, les vitres se cassent, et lui, il se cache - à quoi il pense ? VERKHOVTSEV. Il ne pense à rien. Il pense qu'il neige. LUNTZ. J'ai peur de l'infini. Qu'est-ce que c'est, l'infini ? A quoi bon, l'infini ? tenez moi, je regarde les étoiles : une étoile, dix, un million - et sans fin. Mon Dieu, à qui est-ce que je me plaindrai ? VERKHOVTSEV. Et à quoi bon se plaindre ?

50 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2013

About the author

Leonid Nikolayevich Andreyev (Russian: Леонид Николаевич Андреев; 1871-1919) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who led the Expressionist movement in the national literature. He was active between the revolution of 1905 and the Communist revolution which finally overthrew the Tsarist government. His first story published was About a Poor Student, a narrative based upon his own experiences. It was not, however, until Gorky discovered him by stories appearing in the Moscow Courier and elsewhere that Andreyevs literary career really began. His first collection of stories appeared in 1901, and sold a quarter-million copies in short time. He was hailed as a new star in Russia, where his name soon became a byword. He published his short story, In the Fog in 1902. Although he started out in the Russian vein he soon startled his readers by his eccentricities, which grew even faster than his fame. His two best known stories may be The Red Laugh (1904) and The Seven Who Were Hanged (1908). His dramas include the Symbolist plays The Life of Man (1906), Tsar Hunger (1907), Black Masks (1908), Anathema (1909) and He Who Gets Slapped (1915).