In horror and trepidation have I been following the German siege of Antwerp. Thousands of heavy guns are shelling the town; the ruins are in flames; the people have fled; only detachments of soldiers are to be seen in the deserted streets. “The sky over Antwerp is ablaze,” my paper says, and I try to imagine the significance of the phrase. Zeppelins fly in this flaming sky and drop bombs. What fiends in men’s shapes must they be to fly over this hell, over the fires, explosions, and roofs, and rain down more destruction on this blazing mass of ruins?
Worked on by the horrors I read in the newspapers I flew over blazing Antwerp in the night, and despite my unbounded terror, I could not help being envious of those dauntless, fearless men. Did they belong to a different species that they were not afraid and had no pity? Why did their hands not tremble and their hearts not stop still? What kind of eyes must they have to peer over the sides of their zeppelins (or whatever it is that they do) at the burning, flaming town beneath, and calculate and take aim?
The whole thing seems so much like a fairy tale that I can hardly believe it is true. If it is true, what use am I in the world—a sheep lagging behind the species? It is only in my sleep that I can fly; in my waking moments I look about for a spot where I can hide my head. A long time before the war, one of our dirigibles flew over the Nevsky, and we all rushed out of the office to admire it. How brilliant it looked beneath the rays of the sun as it soared away in the dizzy heights! The people in the streets, too, craned their necks to have a sight of it, a tipsy civil servant among them, a regulation cap on his head, and the neck of a bottle peeping out of his pocket. He half closed his eyes as he looked, seeming to measure the distance, and said aloud, “It needs a sober man for that job!” He ran away, and the rest of us laughed, but his words come back to me now, when I try to picture the blazing sky over Antwerp. Is a sober or a drunken man needed for that job? I refuse to accept the new type that flies through the clouds dropping inflammable bombs! He is the new despot who despises and oppresses all men alike. We have had enough of his kind—truthless, merciless men who would as soon crack a man’s head as an egg. I would sooner be as I am, a lagging sheep, than like one of them. Let them butcher away if they will, I offer my own throat, if it pleases them!
My thoughts keep on reverting to Antwerp. It must be like our Petrograd, spacious and beautiful; its numerous waters reflect the flames now, and blood flows in the darkness of the night. And the sky is ablaze! God! what appalling things are going on in this world!