The Red Flower of the Madman by Mikhailovich Vsevolod Garshine

Author:Mikhailovich Vsevolod Garshine
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Electronic Text Center. University of Virginia Library.
Published: 2000-07-31T23:00:00+00:00

V.

ALL that night he did not close an eye.

He had plucked the flower, believing to have performed thereby a heroic action, which was imposed upon him, and which he wanted to accomplish regardless of consequences. At the first glance he had cast through the glass door, his attention had fixed itself on this red flower, and from that moment he had comprehended what was his mission.

In this red flower with incandescent petals were concentrated the evil, the sins of the whole world. He knew that poppies are used in the making of opium. Perhaps it was this thought, distorted by a morbid imagination, that took on monstrous forms and developed in him fantastic ideas of an exquisitely acute morbidness.

In his eyes, this flower was the incarnation of evil on the earth. It was steeped in blood, in all the blood shed wrongfully in the world! Gorged with the blood, the gall and the tears of humanity, it stood triumphant. This flower was a terrible and mysterious being, the adversary of God, Arimanes, who had clothed himself in a form of innocent and modest seeming. The flower had to be plucked and bruised to powder.

But that was not all. It was necessary when it died to prevent it from exhaling among men its last poisonous breath. Therefore he had buried it in his bosom. He hoped, if he kept it there until morning, it would have lost its destructive power. Evil sin would enter his bosom and would filter into his soul, and in this manner would be vanquished. As for himself, he would be lost, but would die in a heroic struggle. He would be humanity’s noblest martyr, because until now there had been no one found to dare the combat, body to body, with the personification of evil, that bad genius whose power was so great.

"They did not notice. I have seen that. Ought I to let it live? No. It must be destroyed, annihilated forever."

He writhed, extended on his couch, bathed with sweat, his hair erect with fright, his strength growing less little by little. In the morning the surgeon found him nearly dead. In spite of his weakness the patient arose, sprang down from his bed, and ran through the whole house in great agitation, holding with his companions conversations more incoherent than ever. He spoke with himself also, in a vibrating voice, gesticulating wildly. He was not permitted to go into the garden, and the surgeon on weighing him found his weight diminished by several pounds. He ordered strong injections of morphine to be administered. The madman made no opposition. At this moment he had happily a short interval of lucidity, which was favorable to the operation. He soon dropped asleep; his nervous gesticulation ceased, and the perpetual buzzing in his ears, which had occasioned his jerking and noisy step, and which he tried to escape in his feverish journeyings to and fro, completely disappeared. He became oblivious of all things, and dreamed of nothing, not even of the second flower, the task of plucking which he had imposed upon himself.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.