Gora, Dirk
Stories
1
Chapters
46
Words
30.3 K
Comments
0
Reading
2 h, 31 m
I went out today in spite of severe snowdrifts. I could not stand it any longer in the room. My first walk’ was toward that house, up beyond there, where I used to live before I was taken sick. In that sorrowful, empty house, the old grandmother sat together with the two orphan girls. Those two clung to me as if something of their beloved parents, with whom I had been most intimate, still hovered about my personality. I avoided speaking of their parents; I could not do it, the words would not come…- 30.3 K • Completed
- Instead of the Ukrainian Anarchists now we are having the Russian Bolsheviks in the house. These latter are on the heels of the fleeing Anarchists and have taken up their station here. Most of the colonists fear the Bolsheviks as they did the Anarchists. We notice, however, that the Bolsheviks are organized in regular army troops. Often they show a human pity for the misery which has been caused by their enemies. They are conscripted soldiers recruited from all classes of society and are not all Bolsheviks…
- 30.3 K • Completed
- Now I question: was the epidemic the greatest evil that came to us in these last months? Hardly so! … When I hear that, today, there passed by our house twenty-one coffins—and yesterday their number was twelve—it alarms us not as much as the news of the return of the Anarchists. All these rumors have much probability. They did come back; three times they had come back. Why not a fourth time? It was at Christmas and around New Year’s day that they did return, for the last time. They rushed,…
- 30.3 K • Completed
- I suffered a relapse on account of recalling the past. The day before yesterday I began to bring back to memory the troublesome time and to take it down on paper. That set me back. However, today I feel much better again. I have an unappeasable hunger. But these people have not enough bread even for themselves. Except three persons of this family, all are recovering at present, and we cannot help being constantly possessed by a vexing feeling of appetite. It is the same in the neighbors’ houses and…
- 30.3 K • Completed
- I am here in another house. The disease is overcome. I am still weak, it is true, but I can sit! up in bed and continue my diary. Oh, how far back is that time when I became ill. It seems to me almost like an eternity. Memory has remained, and so I shall write down what I can recall. That unforgettable night when the Anarchists left our house there on the top of the slope, we locked our door for the first time after a long reign of licentiousness. We were now alone in the house and felt, somehow,…
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- My temperature has gone up to 100.3. There is no doubt about it, I am getting ill. It was a bad night. I could not remain upright. On account of the precious stove heat we have to stay all in one room. There was no place to lie down flat; I had to bend in the form of a question mark to get down. My feet were under the bed of my friend. I had to look after him as he was throwing off his blanket all the time. I had an awful time keeping him covered. Marguerite says that I recited French poems and asked…
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- A thing scarcely believable becomes true: the Anarchists are preparing to leave. It awakens us from our state of petrifaction; it is like a ray of light in dark night. But then? Well, then there remains with us suffering, sorrow, death, emptiness. What they took away nobody can bring back again. I do not feel well. Yesterday I had a temperature of 99.5 degrees. What will happen when I, too, shall become unable to help? Marguerite cannot keep up very much longer, either. She looks suspiciously…
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- It is a sunny day with frost. We heard the thunder of the guns and cannons and pricked up our ears; is a decision near? Is the ice on the river strong enough to bear traffic? Our telephone men were in excitement, calling all the time. But after a while the cannons ceased to shoot and only the rattling of the rifles was heard. When in the afternoon our patients seemed to quiet themselves, I decided to make a little round through our neighboring houses. I hoped to find a little encouragement for…
- 30.3 K • Completed
- Our colonist patients, in their feverish ravings, talk much of New Zealand, the land of their longing. Anyone who has preserved any kind of hope for the future thinks only of emigration. But, alas, most of them emigrate to the cemetery. Through the window I see every day coffins passing by. Coffins? No, there are no coffins any more. They bury the dead without coffins, either in troughs or in sleeping benches or even bare. And the burying has become a difficult thing; there are scarcely any men left who…
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- The death harvest is increasing so rapidly that we are alarmed in spite of our prevailing apathy. For many days I could not find a single minute to write down a line in my diary. There is no rest either at daytime or at night. The condition of my friend is most critical. For several days he has remained unconscious. It is cold and dark everywhere. Weather and season intensify the cheerlessness of the day. At three o’clock in the afternoon it is dark, and we have to wait for daylight until nine…
- 30.3 K • Completed
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