His Excellency the Governor by Leonid Andreyev

Fifteen days had passed since that memorable occurrence, and yet it filled his mind -- as though Time itself had lost its ascendancy over thought and things, or else had stopped like a broken clock. Wherever he might turn his fancy, in whatever strange and distant channels, still his hunted thoughts returned to that same incident, and ran, helpless, against it; as upon a great silent prison wall in a blind alley. And what strange paths these fancies took. He thought, for instance, of an Italian trip of long ago -- a journey full of sunshine, youth and song. He pictured one of those Italian beggars, and directly rose before his vision the mob of workmen, the volley of musketry, the smell of powder, and the blood! Or perhaps a perfume rose to his brain, and at once he remembered his handkerchief -- that had been perfumed too -- and with that he had signalled for the filing!

At first the sequence of his thought had been logical -- quite comprehensible; and though burdensome had caused him no uneasiness. But soon everything reminded him of that occasion, abruptly and with most painful untimeliness: like a blow from around the corner. He laughs, and suddenly he seems to hear general laughter on all sides, and sees with hideous clearness the face of one of the dead -- although at the time he had not really thought of laughing: nor had the others laughed! . Or else he hears the swallows twittering in the twilight; or sees a chair -- just a common oak chair; or reaches for the -- everything calls to his mind one and the same indelible scene -- the white waving handkerchief, the shots, the blood! As though he lived in a room with a thousand doors, and whichever one he tried to open, the same fixed picture met his gaze: the signal -- the smoke -- the blood!