Andre Malraux - Man's Fate

Hemmelrich had no more bullets. He was watching that mass passing from one wire to another. The wires stood out sharp against the light, but without perspective, so that he was unable to gauge the progress it was making. Like an enormous insect, it hung to a wire, fell back, attached itself again. Hemmelrich drew nearer, along the wall. It was clear that the man would pass; at this moment, however, he was entangled, and was trying with a strange grunting to free himself from the barbs that had caught his clothes, and it seemed to Hemmelrich that the monstrous insect might remain there forever, enormous and knotted, suspended against the gray light. But one hand reached out, black and sharp, to seize another wire, and the body resumed its movement.

This was the end. Behind, the street and the machine- gun. Up there, Katov and his men, on the floor. The deserted house, opposite, was certainly occupied, no doubt by machine-gunners who still had cartridges. If he went out, the enemy would aim at his knees, to make him a prisoner (he suddenly felt the fragility of those small bones, the knee-caps.). At least he would perhaps this one.

The monster-man, bear and spider combined-continued to disentangle itself from the wires. Alongside of the black mass a line of light marked the ridge of his large pistol. Hemmelrich felt himself at the bottom of a hole, fascinated less by the creature that was moving so slowly, approaching like death itself, than by everything that followed it, everything that was once more going to crush him, like a coffin-lid screwed down over a living person; it was everything that had choked his everyday life, which was now retu^rning to crush him with one blow. “They have beaten me for thirty-seven years, and now they’re going to kill me.” It was not only his own suffering which was approaching, it was that of his wife with her belly ripped open, of his murdered child: everything mingled in a haze of thirst, of fever, and of hatred. Again, without looking at it, he felt the blood-stain on his left hand, neither as a burn nor as a discomfort: he simply knew that it was there, and that the man would finally emerge from his barbed wires. It was not for money that this man who was the first to pass was corning to kill those upstairs who were still alive, it was for an idea, for a faith; Hemmelrich hated this shadow that had now stopped before the barrage of wires-hated everything it stood for: it was not enough that the race of the fortunate should assassinate them, they also had to believe they were right. The silhouette, its body now upright, was prodigiously stretched against the gray court, against the telegraph wires that vanished into the limitless peace of the rainy spring morning. From a window came a shout, which the man answered; his response filled the corridor, enveloped Hemmelrich. The line of light on the pistol disappeared, buried in the holster and replaced by a flat bar, almost white in the dim light: the man was pulling out his bayonet. He was no longer a man, he was everything that Hemmelrich had suffered from until now. In this black corridor, with the machine- gunners lying in ambush on the other side of the door, and this enemy who was approaching, the Belgian became crazed with hatred. “They have made us starve all our lives, but this one is going to get it, he’s going to get it. ” The man was approaching, step by step, his bayonet held out. Hemmelrich crouched, and the sil-

houette immediately grew larger, the torso above legs that were strong as posts.

The instant the bayonet passed over his head, he jumped up, seized the man’s neck with his right hand, tightened his grip. The bayonet was knocked to the floor by the impact. The man's neck was too large for a single hand, and the fingers plunged convulsively into the flesh without greatly checking the respiration, but the other hand, furiously clutching at the panting face, was seized by an uncontrol!able rage. “You’ll pay for it,” Hemmelrich shouted hoarsely. “You’ll pay for it!” The man was staggering. Instinctively he backed up against the wall. Summoning all his strength, Hemmelrich smashed the head against that wall, then bent down a second; the Chinaman felt an enormous body entering into ^m, tearing his intestines: the bayonet. He opened both hands, brought them back to his belly with a piercing groan and fell, shoulders forward, between Hemmel- rich's legs. He straightened out with a jerk; a drop of blood fell from the bayonet on his open hand, then another. And as if this hand that was being spattered with blood had avenged him, Hemmelrich dared at last to look at his own, and understood that the blood-stain had rubbed off hours before.

And he discovered that perhaps he was not going to die. He undressed the officer with feverish haste, seized both with love for this man who had come to bring him his freedom and with rage because the clothes did not come off the body readily enough, as though the latter were holding on to them. Finally, dressed in the Chinaman's uniform, he showed himself at the window, his bent-over face hidden by the visor of the cap. The enemy, across the courtyard, opened their windows with shouts of jubilation. “I must get out before they’re here.”

He went out on the street-side, turned to the left as the man he had killed would have done to rejoin his group.

“Any prisoners?” shouted the men at the windows.

He made a vague gesture towards those he was supposed to rejoin. That no one fired on him was both stupid and natural: there was no astonishment left in him. He again turned to the left and headed in the direction of the concessions: they were guarded, but he knew al the buildings with double entrances on the Avenue of the Two Republics.

One after the other the men of the Kuo^rnintang were co^rning out.

"TEMPORARY", said the guard.

Kyo understood that he was being incarcerated in the common-law prison.

As soon as he entered the prison, even before he was able to look around, he was stunned by the frightful smell: slaughter-house, dog-kennel, excrements. The door through which he had just passed opened on a corridor similar to the one he was leaving; right and left, up to the ceiling, enormous wooden bars. Within the wooden cages, men. In the center, the warder seated before a small table, on which lay a whip: a short handle, a flat thong, broad as a hand, thick as a finger-a weapon.

“Stay there, son of a pig,” he said.

The man, accustomed to the dim light, was writing out a description of the prisoner. Kyo’s head still ached, and standing still made him feel faint; he leaned against the bars.

“How, how, how are you?” someone called behind him.

A disturbing voice, like that of a parrot, but a human voice. The place was too dark for Kyo to make out his face; he could see only enormous fingers clutching the bars-not very far from his neck. Behind, lying down or standing, swarmed shadows that were too elongated for human proportions: men, like worms.

“Could be better,” he answered, moving away.

“Shut that, son of a turtle, if you don’t want my fist in your face,” said the warder.

Kyo had heard the word “temporary” several times; he knew therefore that he would not remain here long. He was resolved not to hear the insults, to endure everything that could be endured; the important thing was to get out of there, to resume the struggle. Yet he felt the nauseating humiliation that every man feels before someone upon whom he depends, powerless against that foul shadow with a whip-shorn of himself.

“How, how, how are you?” the voice called again. The warder opened a door, luckily in the bars on the left: Kyo entered the stall. At the back, a low bench on which a solitary man was lying. The door shut. “Political?” asked the man.