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anna_pardo's review against another edition
3.0
En algun moment d'aquesta història, un dels condemnats diu que el pitjor "de tot aquest maleït tema" es que tot es porta a terme en la més absoluta i freda normalitat. Que la vida segueix com si res. I ja és això.
Una gran recomanació de la @mardellibres a la que m'he de sumar, perquè malgrat la curta extensió del relat, déu n'hi do quantes tecles toca! Lectura realment interessant.
Una gran recomanació de la @mardellibres a la que m'he de sumar, perquè malgrat la curta extensió del relat, déu n'hi do quantes tecles toca! Lectura realment interessant.
ozielbispo's review against another edition
5.0
As angústias e desespero de sete condenados a forca no começo do século passado na Rússia. 5 foram condenados por tentativa de ataque a um poderoso Primeiro Ministro, um outro por ser um assassino profissional e outro por matar e roubar seu patrão. Apesar de todos os esforços e métodos para se vencer o medo da morte, quando se aproxima a hora o terror toma conta. O livro expõe esse terror em cada um dos setes condenados.
É o primeiro livro que leio de Leonid e gostei muito. O autor morreu com apenas 22 anos(1871-1919).
Esse livro é um dos favoritos de Graciliano Ramos que foi um dos grandes escritores Brasileiros .
Outra curiosidade sobre livro é que ele inspirou um grupo de revolucionários da Bósnia a matar o arquiduque Franz Ferdinand, levando então à primeira guerra Mundial.
Ainda sobre esse livro há um comentário muito bom de Emilio Renzi :
"Estou lendo Os sete enforcados, de Andreiev. Os condenados do livro são todos livres-pensadores, niilistas: serão executados ao amanhecer, o tempo não passa, porém é sempre mais tarde – ou mais cedo – do que eles imaginam. Impossível descrever essa espera. “Ainda
não era a morte, mas já não era a vida.” Uma revolucionária, a heroína, pensa: “Eu queria que fosse assim: sair sozinha ao encontro dos soldados, com um leve revólver na liga; a morte não me importa, mas não quero morrer como uma galinha…”.
É o primeiro livro que leio de Leonid e gostei muito. O autor morreu com apenas 22 anos(1871-1919).
Esse livro é um dos favoritos de Graciliano Ramos que foi um dos grandes escritores Brasileiros .
Outra curiosidade sobre livro é que ele inspirou um grupo de revolucionários da Bósnia a matar o arquiduque Franz Ferdinand, levando então à primeira guerra Mundial.
Ainda sobre esse livro há um comentário muito bom de Emilio Renzi :
"Estou lendo Os sete enforcados, de Andreiev. Os condenados do livro são todos livres-pensadores, niilistas: serão executados ao amanhecer, o tempo não passa, porém é sempre mais tarde – ou mais cedo – do que eles imaginam. Impossível descrever essa espera. “Ainda
não era a morte, mas já não era a vida.” Uma revolucionária, a heroína, pensa: “Eu queria que fosse assim: sair sozinha ao encontro dos soldados, com um leve revólver na liga; a morte não me importa, mas não quero morrer como uma galinha…”.
mrcasals's review against another edition
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Set condemnats, set maneres d'afrontar la mort. Bona construcció de personatges, reflexions interessants i variades.
urlphantomhive's review against another edition
4.0
Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com
Seven Hanged was exactly why I like the Little Black Classics! I had never even heard of the author, and the subject of the book was so dark (the final weeks/days of seven people condemned to death) but I really liked it.
Russian books always have this kind of depressing atmosphere, and Seven Hanged even more, but it really worked well for me. It was very interesting and also very sad, especially the end.
Recommended - but maybe not a good read at this time because it is slightly depressing.
~Little Black Classics #104~
Seven Hanged was exactly why I like the Little Black Classics! I had never even heard of the author, and the subject of the book was so dark (the final weeks/days of seven people condemned to death) but I really liked it.
Russian books always have this kind of depressing atmosphere, and Seven Hanged even more, but it really worked well for me. It was very interesting and also very sad, especially the end.
Recommended - but maybe not a good read at this time because it is slightly depressing.
~Little Black Classics #104~
shivani_maurya's review against another edition
4.0
Seven Hanged is about seven convicts sentenced to death by hanging. Literally on the nose with the plot, it however turns out to be a reflection on how humans process death. The plot revolves around a band of terrorists (Seryozha, Musya, Werner, Vassily, Tanya), a cut throat (Gypsy Mike) and a peasant (Yanson). Seven in all, they get sentenced within days from each other and are scheduled for execution. The terrorists were foiled in their plans to assassinate a minister, Mike got caught for murder during an armed robbery and Yanson was caught emulating a crime way out of his league. The prisoners are placed in solitary cells and as the book progresses, the chapters visit each character in his/her turn and expand on their state of mind given their impending deaths.
This allows the readers to get acquainted with each character and follow their mental journey to acceptance or denial in face of death. Sergey's youthful energy and promise of future (now thwarted) revolts against the approaching end. But he resigns himself to his fate, intending to meet it with as much vigor as he can muster. Musya comes to terms with her fate by likening it to that of a martyr. Finding solace in the glory she thinks is implicit in her execution and denying the death to be the end. Werner, who had become disillusioned with humanity, confronts the raw force of death and realizes the value of his fellow humans in the brevity of their lives. Of all the condemned, he seems the most balanced in his approach to death. Vassily for the most part tussles with his cowardice and feebleness which had always been at odds with his desire to appear strong willed. Quite contrary to a life governed by his will or at least the thin veneer of a will, he finds himself at sea with his life getting governed by laws and to be ended by those laws. It is pitiful to witness how he loses his grip on reality by this breach. Tanya, on the other hand, is either too preoccupied by nature to realize the gravity of her situation or keeping herself immune to the threat by fussing over the fate of others and not her own. Either way, she is the most inconspicuous character. Mike, for all the swagger and talk, turns out to be deathly afraid at the prospect of meeting his own end. So acute is his fear that he clings to Musya towards the end, choosing to believe in her rather than the death (that overwhelms him). Yanson is the most pitiful character indeed. There is much to be said about his mental state before he was condemned. Having to live and work in the foreign country, whose language he croaks in bits and pieces, and then to be condemned to death breaks even the most tenuous link to sanity. He folds in on himself both mentally and physically. And goes out pleading to meet his end. Death too big to reconcile with in his feeble mind.
Seven Hanged is a poignant philosophical read. From the very first chapter it latches on to the theme of death. Even the minister who had escaped the assassination plot (and isn't condemned to die) fixates on what could have happened. Getting pranked by death in a farcical ding-dong-ditch game, opens his eyes to how close death always is. And the phantasms cooked up by his morbid mind result in him freaking out. This episode pitches him in stark contrast to the convicts, who have every reason to freak out. Bringing out the truth: that promise of another day in life is no guarantee of guard against death. And this pre-occupation with death and incessant reflections do not give us an edge when our time really does come to face our own.
Seven Hanged is a great read. Andreyev makes one think and provides fodder for meditation on the inevitability of death. He often talks of guards looking into the cells and reacting to the prisoners and their hysteria. To me it seems as if Andreyev casts his readers into that role. We too are the jailers. We aren't condemned like the prisoners and will live to see another day or may be many more days. But in proximity of the convicts dealing with their deaths, we too are rubbed raw. Witnessing their maniacal laughs, cries, silences, restlessness, gloom, longing to be done with or bleak hope of escaping death at the last moment, the only question ringing out in the deafening silence of the reader's mind is : How will I face my last moments? Forcing his readers into the dark corners of the prison cell, Andreyev rips out for us to confront, our fear of death. Within its thin covers, Seven Hanged packs a punch we need every now and then.
This allows the readers to get acquainted with each character and follow their mental journey to acceptance or denial in face of death. Sergey's youthful energy and promise of future (now thwarted) revolts against the approaching end. But he resigns himself to his fate, intending to meet it with as much vigor as he can muster. Musya comes to terms with her fate by likening it to that of a martyr. Finding solace in the glory she thinks is implicit in her execution and denying the death to be the end. Werner, who had become disillusioned with humanity, confronts the raw force of death and realizes the value of his fellow humans in the brevity of their lives. Of all the condemned, he seems the most balanced in his approach to death. Vassily for the most part tussles with his cowardice and feebleness which had always been at odds with his desire to appear strong willed. Quite contrary to a life governed by his will or at least the thin veneer of a will, he finds himself at sea with his life getting governed by laws and to be ended by those laws. It is pitiful to witness how he loses his grip on reality by this breach. Tanya, on the other hand, is either too preoccupied by nature to realize the gravity of her situation or keeping herself immune to the threat by fussing over the fate of others and not her own. Either way, she is the most inconspicuous character. Mike, for all the swagger and talk, turns out to be deathly afraid at the prospect of meeting his own end. So acute is his fear that he clings to Musya towards the end, choosing to believe in her rather than the death (that overwhelms him). Yanson is the most pitiful character indeed. There is much to be said about his mental state before he was condemned. Having to live and work in the foreign country, whose language he croaks in bits and pieces, and then to be condemned to death breaks even the most tenuous link to sanity. He folds in on himself both mentally and physically. And goes out pleading to meet his end. Death too big to reconcile with in his feeble mind.
Seven Hanged is a poignant philosophical read. From the very first chapter it latches on to the theme of death. Even the minister who had escaped the assassination plot (and isn't condemned to die) fixates on what could have happened. Getting pranked by death in a farcical ding-dong-ditch game, opens his eyes to how close death always is. And the phantasms cooked up by his morbid mind result in him freaking out. This episode pitches him in stark contrast to the convicts, who have every reason to freak out. Bringing out the truth: that promise of another day in life is no guarantee of guard against death. And this pre-occupation with death and incessant reflections do not give us an edge when our time really does come to face our own.
Seven Hanged is a great read. Andreyev makes one think and provides fodder for meditation on the inevitability of death. He often talks of guards looking into the cells and reacting to the prisoners and their hysteria. To me it seems as if Andreyev casts his readers into that role. We too are the jailers. We aren't condemned like the prisoners and will live to see another day or may be many more days. But in proximity of the convicts dealing with their deaths, we too are rubbed raw. Witnessing their maniacal laughs, cries, silences, restlessness, gloom, longing to be done with or bleak hope of escaping death at the last moment, the only question ringing out in the deafening silence of the reader's mind is : How will I face my last moments? Forcing his readers into the dark corners of the prison cell, Andreyev rips out for us to confront, our fear of death. Within its thin covers, Seven Hanged packs a punch we need every now and then.
coys's review against another edition
5.0
edit: read #2
it's so goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
original review:
Visceral and expressive -- fabulous portraiture.
it's so goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
original review:
Visceral and expressive -- fabulous portraiture.
schmidtmark56's review
5.0
Okay. I wanted to hate this because it's kinda socialist propaganda, but I see how it's renowned, especially as it went on. The premise is so simple, but the content is so beautifully Russian in the best way imaginable. We slog through an unnecessary introduction, we roll our eyes at the one-sided politics in that and the first chapter, but then we get to the terroristic revolutionaries. We remain with them until the end.
We start off with a dignitary who is startled by the announcement from his guards that an assassination attempt on his life has been foiled. There is some temporary astonishment at the very fact, because it implies that the would-be assassins knew his schedule, so he has a traitor among his men, but that's never really addressed. From his perspective, we get neurotic dwellings upon death from the perspective of someone who accidentally learned when he would have died. But instead of dying, he knows he specifically won't die at that time, paradoxically making him even more nervous, as he ponders when he will die (he has some physical condition and knows he can't last forever).
After that initial chapter, we are switched to the 5 proto-communist terrorists who intended to kill the dignitary (two women and three men). They range from stoic to totally losing it, and we get to see them on trial. We then switch to a couple other characters who committed heinous crimes before the 5 terrorists. These two guys are on death row for a while as the guards wait for enough capital punishment convicts to pile up to warrant a hanging.
“And when will that be?” persisted Yanson. He was not at all offended that it was not worth while to hang him alone. He did not believe it, but considered it as an excuse for postponing the execution, preparatory to revoking it altogether. And he was seized with joy; the confused, terrible moment, of which it was so painful to think, retreated far into the distance, becoming fictitious and improbable, as death always seems."
Death becomes an impossibility for him, an indefinite future event, like it is for most of us. This nervous man contemplated his fate ever-increasingly, especially as a set date was announced suddenly:
"His weak mind was unable to combine these two things which so monstrously contradicted each other—the bright day, the odor and taste of cabbage—and the fact that two days later he must die. He did not think of anything. He did not even count the hours, but simply stood in mute stupefaction before this contradiction which tore his brain in two."
Another man, Tsiganok, committed many crimes in a spree and willingly gave all the details, was almost overjoyed at the prospect of turning himself in, just to make something interesting happen. His madness drives him to imagine he is among the hangmen, that he's part of the killing party (but killing for the state? somehow that's fine because it's solomn? but his was crazed?):
"After that, into that chaos of bright, yet incomplete images which oppressed Tsiganok by their impetuosity, a new image came—how good it would be to become a hangman in a red shirt. He pictured to himself vividly a square crowded with people, a high scaffold, and he, Tsiganok, in a red shirt walking about upon the scaffold with an ax. The sun shone overhead, gaily flashing from the ax, and everything was so gay and bright that even the man whose head was soon to be chopped off was smiling. And behind the crowd, wagons and the heads of horses could be seen—the peasants had come from the village; and beyond them, further, he could see the village itself."
As his mind deteriorates, he starts making a ruckus, but we have a poignant moment with the guards:
And the sentinel, in the meantime white as chalk, weeping with pain and fright, would knock at the door with the butt-end of the gun and cry helplessly:
“I’ll fire! I’ll kill you as sure as I live! Do you hear?”
But he dared not shoot. If there was no actual rebellion they never fired at those who had been condemned to death. And Tsiganok would gnash his teeth, would curse and spit. His brain thus racked on a monstrously sharp blade between life and death was falling to pieces like a lump of dry clay.
When discussing or even imagining capital punishment, we have lots of contradictions. I always remember being alarmed that known criminals and mass murderers were carted into hospitals to be repaired while their victims lay dead, all so that they could be taken to trial, waste taxpayer money, and then get killed in an orderly way by the state. Kinda feels like a power trip or some sort of petty attempt to prove to itself that the state is legitimate, by flexing on helpless prisoners. So of course they won't shoot this madman right now, we have to make a spectacle out of it.
Those two are utterly alone, and only some of the revolutionaries have family members who wish them goodbye. One of their meetings was especially poignant:
“The main thing is, kiss—and say nothing!” he taught her. “Later you may speak—after a while—but when you kiss him, be silent. Don’t speak right after the kiss, do you understand? Or you will say what you should not say.”
“I understand, Nikolay Sergeyevich,” answered the mother, weeping.
“And you must not weep. For God’s sake, do not weep! You will kill him if you weep, old woman!”
We have moments of dark comedy (or is it really comedy? is it actually just a sad reflection on desire and control of the situation?):
Death was something inevitable and even unimportant, of which it was not worth while to think; but for a man in prison, before his execution, to be left without tobacco—that was altogether unbearable.
Each of the various terrorists react to the prospect differently. Some totally deny the existence of death, and confound their enemies within their head:
“You will be executed. Here is the noose.”
“I will be executed, but I will not die. How can I die, when I am already—now—immortal?”
And the scientists and philosophers and hangmen would retreat, speaking—with a shudder:
“Do not touch this place. It is holy.”
Some of them are defiant (like the eternal rebel of contemporary ideology):
What do those people think? That there is nothing more terrible than death. They themselves have invented Death, they are themselves afraid of it, and they try to frighten us with it. I should like to do this—I should like to go out alone before a whole regiment of soldiers and fire upon them with a revolver. It would not matter that I would be alone, while they would be thousands, or that I might not kill any of them. It is that which is important—that they are thousands. When thousands kill one, it means that the one has conquered.
One of them had been doing stretches and gymnastic movements in his cell, but he eventually gives it up as futile, because of finitude:
“It is foolish, Sergey! To die more easily, you should weaken the body and not strengthen it. It is foolish!”
So he dropped his gymnastics and the rub-downs. To the soldier he shouted, as if to explain and justify himself:
“Never mind that I have stopped. It’s a good thing, my friend,—but not for those who are to be hanged. But it’s very good for all others.”
We are faced again and again with this unlawful knowledge of the time of one's death. Normally it is hard enough for us conscious creatures to suffer the vague, shadowy foreknowledge of our own death, but when we know the exact date, it makes our souls, our very being melt into less than shadows:
When he awoke in his cell the next day he realized clearly that everything between him and life was ended, that there were only a few empty hours of waiting and then death would come,—and a strange sensation took possession of him. He felt as though he had been stripped, stripped entirely,—as if not only his clothes, but the sun, the air, the noise of voices and his ability to do things had been wrested from him. Death was not there as yet, but life was there no longer,—there was something new, something astonishing, inexplicable, not entirely reasonable and yet not altogether without meaning,—something so deep and mysterious and supernatural that it was impossible to understand.
In this in-between existence, nothing is real, not even life:
Everything became strange.
He tried to walk across the cell—and it seemed strange to him that he could walk. He tried to sit down—and it seemed strange to him that he could sit. He tried to drink some water—and it seemed strange to him that he could drink, that he could swallow, that he could hold the cup, that he had fingers and that those fingers were trembling. He choked, began to cough and while coughing, thought: “How strange it is that I am coughing.”
I have experienced the same hyper-consciousness when my mind dwells too long on death or eternity. I feel myself floating off of the surface of the world, just like part of me is grating with the physical part of me, like the inevitability of time is a weight which continually makes the scale hand inch up, until I'm so deep underwater I am crushed by the pressure into sand.
He saw all that at one glance, all to the very end, to the mysterious abyss—Death. And he was tortured not by the fact that Death was visible, but that both Life and Death were visible at the same time. The curtain which through eternity has hidden the mystery of life and the mystery of death was pushed aside by a sacrilegious hand, and the mysteries ceased to be mysteries—yet they remained incomprehensible, like the Truth written in a foreign tongue.
There were some points as the moment of death neared that possible references to Christ appeared (which also recasts the entire story, as we consider this psychology going along with Christ, the God-Man, God himself dying, experiencing the fear of it, for which one suffers twice, both in the mind and in the body):
He can no longer choose freely, like all people, between life and death, but he will surely and inevitably be put to death. The incarnation of will-power, life and strength an instant before, he has now become a wretched image of the most pitiful weakness in the world. He has been transformed into an animal waiting to be slaughtered, a deaf-mute object which may be taken from place to place, burnt and broken.
&
“What kind of master are you, if you are going to hang right beside me? There is a master for you”
As they load up and ride toward death, the most trivial things all become impactful, like small talk and last-minute introductions:
They were riding thus in order to appear two hours later face to face before the inexplicable great mystery, in order to pass from Life to Death—and they were introducing each other. Life and Death moved simultaneously, and until the very end Life remained life, to the most ridiculous and insipid trifles.
&
“Well, thank you. I’m sitting all right. Are they going to hang you too?”
“Yes,” answered Werner, almost laughing with unexpected jollity, and he waved his hand easily and freely, as though he were speaking of some absurd and trifling joke which kind but terribly comical people wanted to play on him.
“Have you a wife?” asked Yanson.
“No. I have no wife. I am single.”
“I am also alone. Alone,” said Yanson.
Here is the train of thought until the end:
Then again everything died out, and only their sense of smell remained: the unbearably fresh smell of the forest and of the melting snow. And everything became unusually clear to the consciousness: the forest, the night, the road and the fact that soon they would be hanged.
...
“The train will stop for five minutes.”
And there death would be waiting—eternity—the great mystery.
...
“Master! master! There’s the forest! My God! what’s that? There—where the lanterns are—are those the gallows? What does it mean?”
Werner looked at him. Tsiganok was writhing in agony before his death.
...
The services of the priest were also declined by them all. Tsiganok said:
“Stop your fooling, father—you will forgive me, but they will hang me. Go to—where you came from.”
...
“Oh, my God!” some one cried hoarsely and wildly. They looked about. It was Tsiganok, writhing in agony at the thought of death. “They are hanging!”
They turned away from him, and again it became quiet. Tsiganok was writhing, catching at the air with his hands.
“How is that, gentlemen? Am I to go alone? It’s livelier to die together. Gentlemen, what does it mean?”
...
“Good-by, master!” called Tsiganok loudly. “We’ll meet each other in the other world, you’ll see! Don’t turn away from me. When you see me, bring me some water to drink—it will be hot there for me!”
...
“I am alone,” sighed Tanya Kovalchuk suddenly. “Seryozha is dead, Werner is dead—and Vasya, too. I am alone! Soldiers! soldiers! I am alone, alone—”
The sun was rising over the sea.
The bodies were placed in a box. Then they were taken away. With stretched necks, with bulging eyes, with blue, swollen tongues, looking like some unknown, terrible flowers between the lips, which were covered with bloody foam—the bodies were hurried back along the same road by which they had come—alive. And the spring snow was just as soft and fresh; the spring air was just as strong and fragrant. And on the snow lay Sergey’s black rubber-shoe, wet, trampled under foot.
Thus did men greet the rising sun.
I was shocked that there was no, and I mean no description of the actual executions: no sound effects, no visuals, no first person thoughts, or only third person complaints of people feeling alone. There is a little gore of the bodies afterwards, as you read above. That’s a fascinating choice... It really conveys a feeling of hollowness, emptiness, and anti-climax. We go the entire story knowing that there will be a hanging, and we don’t even get to see it. I’m not complaining from a place of vicarious hunger, I’m merely stating how surreal that made the story, like death doesn’t even exist………....
We start off with a dignitary who is startled by the announcement from his guards that an assassination attempt on his life has been foiled. There is some temporary astonishment at the very fact, because it implies that the would-be assassins knew his schedule, so he has a traitor among his men, but that's never really addressed. From his perspective, we get neurotic dwellings upon death from the perspective of someone who accidentally learned when he would have died. But instead of dying, he knows he specifically won't die at that time, paradoxically making him even more nervous, as he ponders when he will die (he has some physical condition and knows he can't last forever).
After that initial chapter, we are switched to the 5 proto-communist terrorists who intended to kill the dignitary (two women and three men). They range from stoic to totally losing it, and we get to see them on trial. We then switch to a couple other characters who committed heinous crimes before the 5 terrorists. These two guys are on death row for a while as the guards wait for enough capital punishment convicts to pile up to warrant a hanging.
“And when will that be?” persisted Yanson. He was not at all offended that it was not worth while to hang him alone. He did not believe it, but considered it as an excuse for postponing the execution, preparatory to revoking it altogether. And he was seized with joy; the confused, terrible moment, of which it was so painful to think, retreated far into the distance, becoming fictitious and improbable, as death always seems."
Death becomes an impossibility for him, an indefinite future event, like it is for most of us. This nervous man contemplated his fate ever-increasingly, especially as a set date was announced suddenly:
"His weak mind was unable to combine these two things which so monstrously contradicted each other—the bright day, the odor and taste of cabbage—and the fact that two days later he must die. He did not think of anything. He did not even count the hours, but simply stood in mute stupefaction before this contradiction which tore his brain in two."
Another man, Tsiganok, committed many crimes in a spree and willingly gave all the details, was almost overjoyed at the prospect of turning himself in, just to make something interesting happen. His madness drives him to imagine he is among the hangmen, that he's part of the killing party (but killing for the state? somehow that's fine because it's solomn? but his was crazed?):
"After that, into that chaos of bright, yet incomplete images which oppressed Tsiganok by their impetuosity, a new image came—how good it would be to become a hangman in a red shirt. He pictured to himself vividly a square crowded with people, a high scaffold, and he, Tsiganok, in a red shirt walking about upon the scaffold with an ax. The sun shone overhead, gaily flashing from the ax, and everything was so gay and bright that even the man whose head was soon to be chopped off was smiling. And behind the crowd, wagons and the heads of horses could be seen—the peasants had come from the village; and beyond them, further, he could see the village itself."
As his mind deteriorates, he starts making a ruckus, but we have a poignant moment with the guards:
And the sentinel, in the meantime white as chalk, weeping with pain and fright, would knock at the door with the butt-end of the gun and cry helplessly:
“I’ll fire! I’ll kill you as sure as I live! Do you hear?”
But he dared not shoot. If there was no actual rebellion they never fired at those who had been condemned to death. And Tsiganok would gnash his teeth, would curse and spit. His brain thus racked on a monstrously sharp blade between life and death was falling to pieces like a lump of dry clay.
When discussing or even imagining capital punishment, we have lots of contradictions. I always remember being alarmed that known criminals and mass murderers were carted into hospitals to be repaired while their victims lay dead, all so that they could be taken to trial, waste taxpayer money, and then get killed in an orderly way by the state. Kinda feels like a power trip or some sort of petty attempt to prove to itself that the state is legitimate, by flexing on helpless prisoners. So of course they won't shoot this madman right now, we have to make a spectacle out of it.
Those two are utterly alone, and only some of the revolutionaries have family members who wish them goodbye. One of their meetings was especially poignant:
“The main thing is, kiss—and say nothing!” he taught her. “Later you may speak—after a while—but when you kiss him, be silent. Don’t speak right after the kiss, do you understand? Or you will say what you should not say.”
“I understand, Nikolay Sergeyevich,” answered the mother, weeping.
“And you must not weep. For God’s sake, do not weep! You will kill him if you weep, old woman!”
We have moments of dark comedy (or is it really comedy? is it actually just a sad reflection on desire and control of the situation?):
Death was something inevitable and even unimportant, of which it was not worth while to think; but for a man in prison, before his execution, to be left without tobacco—that was altogether unbearable.
Each of the various terrorists react to the prospect differently. Some totally deny the existence of death, and confound their enemies within their head:
“You will be executed. Here is the noose.”
“I will be executed, but I will not die. How can I die, when I am already—now—immortal?”
And the scientists and philosophers and hangmen would retreat, speaking—with a shudder:
“Do not touch this place. It is holy.”
Some of them are defiant (like the eternal rebel of contemporary ideology):
What do those people think? That there is nothing more terrible than death. They themselves have invented Death, they are themselves afraid of it, and they try to frighten us with it. I should like to do this—I should like to go out alone before a whole regiment of soldiers and fire upon them with a revolver. It would not matter that I would be alone, while they would be thousands, or that I might not kill any of them. It is that which is important—that they are thousands. When thousands kill one, it means that the one has conquered.
One of them had been doing stretches and gymnastic movements in his cell, but he eventually gives it up as futile, because of finitude:
“It is foolish, Sergey! To die more easily, you should weaken the body and not strengthen it. It is foolish!”
So he dropped his gymnastics and the rub-downs. To the soldier he shouted, as if to explain and justify himself:
“Never mind that I have stopped. It’s a good thing, my friend,—but not for those who are to be hanged. But it’s very good for all others.”
We are faced again and again with this unlawful knowledge of the time of one's death. Normally it is hard enough for us conscious creatures to suffer the vague, shadowy foreknowledge of our own death, but when we know the exact date, it makes our souls, our very being melt into less than shadows:
When he awoke in his cell the next day he realized clearly that everything between him and life was ended, that there were only a few empty hours of waiting and then death would come,—and a strange sensation took possession of him. He felt as though he had been stripped, stripped entirely,—as if not only his clothes, but the sun, the air, the noise of voices and his ability to do things had been wrested from him. Death was not there as yet, but life was there no longer,—there was something new, something astonishing, inexplicable, not entirely reasonable and yet not altogether without meaning,—something so deep and mysterious and supernatural that it was impossible to understand.
In this in-between existence, nothing is real, not even life:
Everything became strange.
He tried to walk across the cell—and it seemed strange to him that he could walk. He tried to sit down—and it seemed strange to him that he could sit. He tried to drink some water—and it seemed strange to him that he could drink, that he could swallow, that he could hold the cup, that he had fingers and that those fingers were trembling. He choked, began to cough and while coughing, thought: “How strange it is that I am coughing.”
I have experienced the same hyper-consciousness when my mind dwells too long on death or eternity. I feel myself floating off of the surface of the world, just like part of me is grating with the physical part of me, like the inevitability of time is a weight which continually makes the scale hand inch up, until I'm so deep underwater I am crushed by the pressure into sand.
He saw all that at one glance, all to the very end, to the mysterious abyss—Death. And he was tortured not by the fact that Death was visible, but that both Life and Death were visible at the same time. The curtain which through eternity has hidden the mystery of life and the mystery of death was pushed aside by a sacrilegious hand, and the mysteries ceased to be mysteries—yet they remained incomprehensible, like the Truth written in a foreign tongue.
There were some points as the moment of death neared that possible references to Christ appeared (which also recasts the entire story, as we consider this psychology going along with Christ, the God-Man, God himself dying, experiencing the fear of it, for which one suffers twice, both in the mind and in the body):
He can no longer choose freely, like all people, between life and death, but he will surely and inevitably be put to death. The incarnation of will-power, life and strength an instant before, he has now become a wretched image of the most pitiful weakness in the world. He has been transformed into an animal waiting to be slaughtered, a deaf-mute object which may be taken from place to place, burnt and broken.
&
“What kind of master are you, if you are going to hang right beside me? There is a master for you”
As they load up and ride toward death, the most trivial things all become impactful, like small talk and last-minute introductions:
They were riding thus in order to appear two hours later face to face before the inexplicable great mystery, in order to pass from Life to Death—and they were introducing each other. Life and Death moved simultaneously, and until the very end Life remained life, to the most ridiculous and insipid trifles.
&
“Well, thank you. I’m sitting all right. Are they going to hang you too?”
“Yes,” answered Werner, almost laughing with unexpected jollity, and he waved his hand easily and freely, as though he were speaking of some absurd and trifling joke which kind but terribly comical people wanted to play on him.
“Have you a wife?” asked Yanson.
“No. I have no wife. I am single.”
“I am also alone. Alone,” said Yanson.
Here is the train of thought until the end:
Then again everything died out, and only their sense of smell remained: the unbearably fresh smell of the forest and of the melting snow. And everything became unusually clear to the consciousness: the forest, the night, the road and the fact that soon they would be hanged.
...
“The train will stop for five minutes.”
And there death would be waiting—eternity—the great mystery.
...
“Master! master! There’s the forest! My God! what’s that? There—where the lanterns are—are those the gallows? What does it mean?”
Werner looked at him. Tsiganok was writhing in agony before his death.
...
The services of the priest were also declined by them all. Tsiganok said:
“Stop your fooling, father—you will forgive me, but they will hang me. Go to—where you came from.”
...
“Oh, my God!” some one cried hoarsely and wildly. They looked about. It was Tsiganok, writhing in agony at the thought of death. “They are hanging!”
They turned away from him, and again it became quiet. Tsiganok was writhing, catching at the air with his hands.
“How is that, gentlemen? Am I to go alone? It’s livelier to die together. Gentlemen, what does it mean?”
...
“Good-by, master!” called Tsiganok loudly. “We’ll meet each other in the other world, you’ll see! Don’t turn away from me. When you see me, bring me some water to drink—it will be hot there for me!”
...
“I am alone,” sighed Tanya Kovalchuk suddenly. “Seryozha is dead, Werner is dead—and Vasya, too. I am alone! Soldiers! soldiers! I am alone, alone—”
The sun was rising over the sea.
The bodies were placed in a box. Then they were taken away. With stretched necks, with bulging eyes, with blue, swollen tongues, looking like some unknown, terrible flowers between the lips, which were covered with bloody foam—the bodies were hurried back along the same road by which they had come—alive. And the spring snow was just as soft and fresh; the spring air was just as strong and fragrant. And on the snow lay Sergey’s black rubber-shoe, wet, trampled under foot.
Thus did men greet the rising sun.
I was shocked that there was no, and I mean no description of the actual executions: no sound effects, no visuals, no first person thoughts, or only third person complaints of people feeling alone. There is a little gore of the bodies afterwards, as you read above. That’s a fascinating choice... It really conveys a feeling of hollowness, emptiness, and anti-climax. We go the entire story knowing that there will be a hanging, and we don’t even get to see it. I’m not complaining from a place of vicarious hunger, I’m merely stating how surreal that made the story, like death doesn’t even exist………....
maivugon's review against another edition
4.0
"He willed his head to turn, and it did turn. And this...
this thing that somehow seemed rather frightening...
this was him, Sergey Golovin, and this is what would cease to be."
this thing that somehow seemed rather frightening...
this was him, Sergey Golovin, and this is what would cease to be."
mobyskine's review against another edition
4.0
A novella about seven prisoners facing their few last days before execution. It was heartwarming, honestly. I love the story telling from their trials to living inside their cells to the end of their day, the narratives and each side of stories from each prisoners. Very Russian, very realistic. The moment each came to realization about the horror of their punishments, those phrases and questions of fate, and how they all facing their end of life-- regretting or just let it be, their wandering thoughts and feelings. Lovely writing by Andreyev. Intriguing and soul-stirring much.