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The duel

by A. I. Kuprin · English · Gutenberg #44117 · 564,595 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The duel

Author: A. I. Kuprin


        
Release date: November 6, 2013 [eBook #44117]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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                                THE DUEL

                        [Illustration: colophon]




                           BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE


 Alexander Kuprin was born in 1870. He passed through the Cadet School
and Military College at Moscow, entered the Army as lieutenant in 1890,
    and resigned after seven years to devote himself to literature.




                                THE DUEL

                             _By_ A. KUPRIN

                    [Illustration: text decoration]

                                LONDON:
                       GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD.
                  RUSKIN HOUSE 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.

                       _First published in 1916_

          [_An abridged version was published under the title
                      "In Honour's Name" in 1907_]

                        (_All rights reserved_)




                                THE DUEL




I


The 6th Company's afternoon drill was nearly over, and the junior
officers looked with increasing frequency at their watches, and with
growing impatience. The rank and file of the new regiment were being
instructed in garrison duty. Along the whole of the extensive
parade-ground the soldiers stood in scattered groups: by the poplars
that bordered the causeway, by the gymnastic apparatus, by the door of
the company's school, and in the neighbourhood of the butts. All these
places were to represent during the drill the most important buildings
in the garrison--the commander's residence, the headquarters, the powder
magazine, the administration department, etc. Sentries were posted and
relieved; patrols marched here and there, shouting at and saluting each
other in military fashion; harsh non-commissioned officers visited and
examined the sentries on duty, trying, sometimes by a trick, sometimes
by pretended threats, to fool the soldiers into infringing the rules,
e.g. to quit their posts, give up their rifles, to take charge of
contraband articles, etc. The older men, who had had previous experience
of such practical jokes, were very seldom taken in, but answered rudely,
"The Tsar alone gives orders here," etc., etc. The young recruits, on
the other hand, often enough fell into the snare set for them.

"Khliabnikov!" a stout little "non-com." cried angrily in a voice which
betrayed a passion for ruling. "What did I tell you just now, simpleton?
Did I put you under arrest? What are you sticking there for, then? Why
don't you answer?"

In the third platoon a tragi-comic scene took place. Moukhamedjinov, a
young soldier, Tartar by birth, was not yet versed in the Russian
language. He got more and more confused under the commander's irritating
and insidious questions. At last he lost his head entirely, brought his
rifle to the charge, and threatened all the bystanders with the bayonet.

"Stop, you madman!" roared Sergeant Bobuilev. "Can't you recognize your
own commander, your own captain?"

"Another step and you are a dead man!" shouted the Tartar, in a furious
rage. His eyes were bloodshot, and he nervously repelled with his
bayonet all who approached him. Round about him, but at a respectful
distance, a crowd of soldiers flocked together, accepting with joy and
gratitude this interesting little interlude in the wearisome drill.

Sliva, the captain of the company, approached to see what was going on.
While he was on the opposite side of the parade-ground, where, with bent
back and dragging steps, he tottered slowly backwards and forwards, a
few young officers assembled in a small group to smoke and chatter. They
were three, all told: Lieutenant Viätkin, a bald, moustached man of
thirty-three, a jovial fellow, chatterbox, singer, and particularly fond
of his glass; Sub-Lieutenant Romashov, who had hardly served two years
in the regiment; and, lastly, Sub-Ensign Lbov, a lively, well-shaped
young man, with an expression of shrewd geniality in his pale eyes and
an eternal smile on his thick, innocent lips. He passed for a
peripatetic storehouse of anecdotes, specially crammed with old and
worn-out officers' stories.

"This is an out-and-out scandal," said Viätkin, as he looked at his
dainty little watch, the case of which he angrily closed with a little
click. "What the devil does he mean by keeping the company all this
time?"

"You should ask him that question, Pavel Pavlich," replied Lbov, with a
sly look.

"Oh, go to the devil! Go and ask him yourself. But the point which I
want to emphasize is that the whole business is utterly futile; there is
always this fuss before the review, and every time they overdo it. The
soldiers are so worried and badgered, that at the review they stand like
blockheads. Do you know that story about the two captains who made a
pretty heavy bet as to which of them had in his company the best
trencher-man? When one of the 'champions' had consumed seven pounds of
bread he was obliged to acknowledge himself beaten. His Captain, furious
with indignation, sent for his sergeant-major, and said: 'What made you
send me a creature like that? After his seventh pound he had to give up,
and I've lost my wager!' The poor sergeant-major stared at his superior.
'I don't know what could have happened to him, your Excellency. This
very morning I rehearsed with him, and then he ate _eight_ pounds
without any ado.' It's the same case here, gentlemen. We rehearse
without mercy and common-sense up to the very last, and thus, when the
tug-of-war comes, the soldier drops down from sheer weariness."

"Last night," began Lbov, who could hardly get his words out for
laughing--"last night, when the drill was over, I went to my quarters.
It was past eight, and quite dark then. As I was approaching the
barracks of the 11th Company I heard some ear-piercing music from there.
I go there and am told that the men are being taught our horn signals.
All the recruits were obliged to sing in chorus. It was a hideous
concert, and I asked Lieutenant Andrusevich how any one could put up
with such a row so late at night. He answered laughingly, 'Why shouldn't
we now and then, like the dogs, howl at the moon?'"

"Now I can't stand this any longer," interrupted Viätkin, with a yawn.
"But who's that riding down there? It looks like Biek."

"Yes, it's Biek-Agamalov," replied sharp-sighted Lbov. "Look how
beautifully he rides."

"Yes, he does," chimed in Romashov. "To my thinking, he rides better
than any other of our cavalrymen. But just look at his horse dancing.
Biek is showing off."

An officer, wearing an Adjutant's uniform and white gloves, was riding
quietly along the causeway. He was sitting on a high, slim-built horse
with a gold-coloured and short-clipped tail, after the English fashion.
The spirited animal pirouetted under his rider, and impatiently shook
its branch-bit by the violent tossings of its long and nobly formed
neck.

"Pavel Pavlich, is it a fact that Biek is a Circassian by birth?" asked
Romashov.

"Yes, I think so," answered Viätkin. "Armenians pretend sometimes that
they are Circassians or Lezghins,[1] but nobody can be deceived with
regard to Biek. Only look how he carries himself on horseback."

"Wait, I'll call him," said Lbov.

Lbov put his hands to his mouth, and tried to form out of them a sort of
speaking-tube, and shouted in a suppressed voice, so as not to be heard
by the Commander--

"Lieutenant Biek-Agamalov!"

The officer on horseback pulled the reins, stopped for a second, and
swung in the saddle towards the right. Then he also turned his horse to
the right, bent slightly forward, and, with a springy and energetic
movement, jumped the ditch, and rode in a short gallop up to the
officers.

He was a man somewhat below the medium height, lean, muscular, and very
powerful. His countenance, with its receding forehead, delicate,
aquiline nose, and strong, resolute lines about the mouth, was manly and
handsome, and had not yet got the pale and sickly hue that is so
characteristic of the Oriental when he is getting on in years.

"Good-day, Biek," was Viätkin's greeting. "Who was the girl for whom you
were exercising your arts of seduction down there, you lady-killer?"

Biek-Agamalov shook hands with the officers, whilst with an easy and
graceful movement he bent slightly forward in the saddle. He smiled, and
his gleaming white and even row of teeth cast a sort of lustre over the
lower part of his face, with its black and splendidly cultivated
moustache.

"Two or three little Jewess girls were there, but what is that to do
with me? I took no notice of them."

"Ah! we know well enough how you play the game with ladies," said
Viätkin jestingly.

"I say!" interrupted Lbov, with a laugh; "have you heard what General
Dokturov[2] remarked about the Adjutants in the infantry? It ought to
interest you, Biek. He said they were the most dare-devil riders in the
whole world."

"No lies, now, ensign," replied Biek, as he gave his horse the reins and
assumed an expression as if he intended to ride down the joker.

"It's true, by God it is! 'They ride,' said he, 'the most wretched
"crocks" in the world--spavined "roarers"--and yet, only give the order,
and off they fly at the maddest speed over stocks and stones, hedges and
ditches--reins loose, stirrups dropped, cap flying, ah!--veritable
cantaurs.'"

"What news, Biek?" asked Viätkin.

"What news? None. Ah! stay. A little while ago the Commander of the
regiment ran across Lieutenant-Colonel Liekh at mess. Liekh, as drunk as
a lord, was wobbling against the wall with his hands behind him, and
hardly able to stammer out a syllable. Shulgovich rushed at him like an
infuriated bull, and bellowed in such a way that it might be heard over
the whole market-place: 'Please remove your hands from the small of your
back when you stand in the presence of your commanding officer.' And all
the servants witnessed this edifying scene."

"Ah! that is detestable," chimed in Viätkin, laughing. "Yesterday, when
he favoured the 4th Company with a visit, he shouted: 'Who dares to
thrust the regulations in my face? I am your regulations. Not a word
more. Here I'm your Tsar and your God.'"

Lbov was again laughing at his own thoughts.

"Gentlemen, have you heard what happened to the Adjutant of the 4th
Regiment?"

"Keep your eternal stories to yourself, Lbov," exclaimed Viätkin,
interrupting him in a severe tone. "To-day you're worse than usual."

"I have some more news to tell," Biek-Agamalov went on to say, as he
again facetiously threatened Lbov with his horse, which, snorting and
shaking its head, beslavered all around it with foam. "The Commander has
taken it into his head that the officers of all the companies are to
practise sabre-cutting at a dummy. He has aroused a fearful animosity
against himself in the 9th Company. Epifanov was arrested for having
neglected to sharpen his sabre. But what are you frightened of, Lbov? He
isn't dangerous, and you must teach yourself to make friends with these
noble animals. It may, you know, some day fall to your lot to be
Adjutant; but then, I suppose, you will sit your horse as securely as a
roast sparrow on a dish."

"_Retro, Satanas!_" cried Lbov, who had some difficulty in protecting
himself against the horse's froth-covered muzzle. "You've heard, I
suppose, what happened to an Adjutant of the 4th Regiment who bought
himself a circus-horse? At the review itself, right before the eyes of
the inspecting General, the well-trained beast began to exhibit its
proficiency in the 'Spanish walk.' You know, I suppose, what that is? At
every step the horse's legs are swung high in the air from one side to
the other. At last, both horse and rider alighted in the thick of the
company. Shrieks, oaths, universal confusion, and a General, half-dead
with rage, who at last, by a supreme effort, managed to hiss out:
'Lieutenant and Adjutant, for this exhibition of your skill in riding
you have twenty-one days' arrest. March!'"

"What rot!" interrupted Viätkin in an indignant tone. "I say, Biek, the
news of the sabre-cutting was by no means a surprise to us. It means
that we do not get any free time at all. Turn round and see what an
abortion some one brought here yesterday."

He concluded his sentence by a significant gesture towards the middle of
the parade-ground, where a monstrously ugly figure of raw clay, lacking
both arms and legs, had been erected.

"Ha! look there--already. Well, have you tried it?" asked Biek, his
interest excited. "Have you had a go at it yet, Romashov?"

"Not yet."

"Don't you think I've something better to do than occupy myself with
rubbish of that sort?" exclaimed Viätkin angrily. "When am I to find
time for that? From nine in the morning to six at night I have to be
here, there, and everywhere, and hardly manage to get a bite or sup.
Besides, thank God! I've still my wits about me."

"What silly talk! An officer ought to be able to handle his sabre."

"Why? if I may ask. You surely know that in warfare, with the firearms
now in use, one never gets within a range of a hundred paces of the
enemy. What the devil's the use of a sabre to me? I'm not a cavalryman.
When it comes to the point, I shall seize hold of a rifle and--bang! So
the matter's simple enough. People may say what they please; the bullet
is, after all, the safest."

"Possibly so; but, even in time of peace, there are still many occasions
when the sabre may come in useful--for instance, if one is attacked in
street riots, tumults, etc."

"And you think I should condescend to exchange cuts with the tag-rag of
the streets? No, thank you, my good friend. In such a case I prefer to
give the command, 'Aim, fire'--and all's said and done."

Biek-Agamalov's face darkened.

"You are talking nonsense, Pavel Pavlich. Now answer me this: Suppose,
when you are taking a walk, or are at a theatre or restaurant, some
coxcomb insults you or a civilian boxes your ears. What will you do
then?"

Viätkin shrugged his shoulders and protruded his under lip
contemptuously.

"In the first place, that kind of man only attacks those who show that
they are afraid of him, and, in the second, I have my--revolver."

"But suppose the revolver were left at home?" remarked Lbov.

"Then, naturally, I should have to go home and fetch it. What stupid
questions! You seem to have clean forgotten the incident of a certain
cornet who was insulted at a music-hall by two civilians. He drove home
for his revolver, returned to the music-hall, and cheerfully shot down
the pair who had insulted him--simple enough."

Biek-Agamalov made an indignant gesture. "We know--we have heard all
that, but in telling the story you forget that the cornet in question
was convicted of deliberate murder. Truly a very pretty business. If I
had found myself in a similar situation, I should have----"

He did not finish his sentence, but the little, well-formed hand in
which he held the reins was clenched so hard that it trembled. Lbov was
seized with one of his usual paroxysms of laughter.

"Ah! you're at it again," Viätkin remarked severely.

"Pardon me, gentlemen, but I really couldn't--ha, ha, ha! I happened to
think of a tragi-comic scene that was enacted in the 17th Regiment.
Sub-Ensign Krause on one occasion had a row with some one in an
aristocratic club. The steward, to prevent further mischief, seized him
so violently by the shoulder-knot that the latter was torn off,
whereupon Krause drew his revolver and put a bullet through the
steward's skull. A little lawyer who incautiously mixed himself up in
the game shared the same fate. The rest of the party rushed out of the
room like so many frightened hens. But Krause quietly proceeded to the
camp, and was then challenged by the sentry. 'Who goes there?' shouted
the sentry. 'Sub-Ensign Krause, who is coming to die by the colours of
his regiment'; whereupon he walked straight up to the colours, laid
himself down on the ground, and fired a bullet through his left arm. The
court afterwards acquitted him."

"That was a fine fellow," exclaimed Biek-Agamalov.

Then began the young officers' usual favourite conversation on duels,
fights, and other sanguinary scenes, whereupon it was stated with great
satisfaction that such transgressions of law and municipal order always
went unpunished. Then, for instance, a story was told about how a
drunken, beardless cornet had drawn his sword at random on a small crowd
of Jews who were returning from keeping the Passover; how a
sub-lieutenant in the infantry had, at a dancing-hall, stabbed to death
an undergraduate who happened to elbow him at the buffet, how an officer
at St. Petersburg or Moscow shot down like a dog a civilian who dared to
make the impertinent observation that decent people were not in the
habit of accosting ladies with whom they are not acquainted.

Romashov, who, up to now, had been a silent listener to these piquant
stories, now joined in the conversation; but he did so with every sign
of reluctance and embarrassment. He cleared his throat, slowly adjusted
his eyeglass, though that was not absolutely necessary then, and
finally, in an uncertain voice, spoke as follows--

"Gentlemen, allow me to submit to you this question: In a dispute of
that sort it might happen, you know, that the civilian chanced to be a
respectable man, even perhaps a person of noble birth. Might it not, in
that case, be more correct to demand of him an explanation or
satisfaction? We should both belong to the cultured class, so to speak."

"You're talking nonsense, Romashov," interrupted Viätkin. "If you want
satisfaction from such scum you'll most certainly get the following
answer, which is little gratifying: 'Ah, well, my good sir, I do not
give satisfaction. That is contrary to my principles. I loathe duels and
bloodshed--and besides, you can have recourse, you know, to the Justice
of the Peace, in the event of your feeling yourself wronged.' And then,
for the whole of your life, you must carry the delightful recollection
of an unavenged box on the ears from a civilian."

Biek-Agamalov smiled in approbation, and with more than his usual
generosity showed his whole row of gleaming white teeth. "Hark you,
Viätkin, you ought really to take some interest in this sabre-cutting.
With us at our home in the Caucasus we practise it from childhood--on
bundles of wattles, on water-spouts, the bodies of sheep."

"And men's bodies," remarked Lbov.

"And on men's bodies," repeated Agamalov with unruffled calm. "And such
strokes, too! In a twinkling they cleave a fellow from his shoulder to
the hip."

"Biek, can you perform a test of strength like that?"

Biek-Agamalov sighed regretfully.

"No, alas! A sheep, or a calf; I can say I could cleave to the neck by a
single stroke, but to cut a full-grown man down to the waist is beyond
my power. To my father it would be a trifle."

"Come, gentlemen, and let us try our strength and sabres on that
scarecrow," said Lbov, in a determined tone and with flashing eyes.
"Biek, my dear boy, come with us."

The officers went up to the clay figure that had been erected a little
way off. Viätkin was the first to attack it. After endeavouring to
impart to his innocent, prosaic face an expression of wild-beast
ferocity, he struck the clay man with all his might and with an
unnecessarily big flourish of his sabre. At the same time he uttered the
characteristic sound "Khryass!" which a butcher makes when he is cutting
up beef. The weapon entered about a quarter of an inch into the clay,
and Viätkin had some trouble to extricate his brave sabre.

"Wretchedly done," exclaimed Agamalov, shaking his head. "Now, Romashov,
it's your turn."

Romashov drew his sabre from its sheath, and adjusted his eyeglass with
a hesitating movement. He was of medium height, lean, and fairly strong
in proportion to his build, but through constitutional timidity and lack
of interest not much accustomed to handling the weapon. Even as a pupil
at the Military Academy he was a bad swordsman, and after a year and a
half's service in the regiment he had almost completely forgotten the
art.

He raised his sabre high above his head, but stretched out,
simultaneously and instinctively, his left arm and hand.

"Mind your hand!" shouted Agamalov.

But it was too late then. The point of the sabre only made a slight
scratch on the clay, and Romashov, to his astonishment, who had
mis-reckoned on a strong resistance to the steel entering the clay, lost
his balance and stumbled forward, whereupon the blade of the sabre
caught his outstretched hand and tore off a portion of skin at the lower
part of his little finger, so that the blood oozed.

"There! See what you've done!" cried Biek angrily as he dismounted from
his charger. "How can any one handle a sabre so badly? You very nearly
cut off your hand, you know. Well, that wound is a mere trifle, but
you'd better bind it up with your handkerchief. Ensign, hold my horse.
And now, gentlemen, bear this in mind. The force or effect of a stroke
is not generated either in the shoulder or the elbow, but _here_, in the
wrist." He made, as quick as lightning, a few rotary movements of his
right hand, whereupon the point of his sabre described a scintillating
circle above his head. "Now look, I put my left hand behind my back.
When the stroke itself is to be delivered it must not be done by a
violent and clumsily directed blow, but by a vigorous cut, in which the
arm and sabre are jerked slightly backwards. Do you understand?
Moreover, it is absolutely necessary that the plane of the sabre exactly
coincides with the direction of the stroke. Look, here goes!"

Biek took two steps backwards from the manikin, to which he seemed, as
it were, to fasten himself tightly by a sharp, penetrating glance.
Suddenly the sabre flashed in the air, and a fearful stroke, delivered
with a rapidity that the eye could not follow, struck like lightning the
clay figure, the upper part of which rolled, softly but heavily, down to
the ground. The cut made by the sabre was as smooth and even as if it
had been polished.

"The deuce, that was something like a cut!" cried the enthusiastic Lbov
in wild delight. "Biek, my dear fellow, of your charity do that over
again."

"Yes, do, Biek," chimed in Viätkin.

But Agamalov, who was evidently afraid of destroying the effect he had
produced, smiled as he replaced the sabre in its scabbard. He breathed
heavily, and at that moment, by his bloodthirsty, wildly staring eyes,
his hawk's nose, and set mouth, he put one in mind of a proud, cruel,
malignant bird of prey.

"That was really nothing remarkable," he exclaimed in a tone of assumed
contempt. "At home in the Caucasus my old father, although he is over
sixty-six, could cut off a horse's head in a trice. You see, my
children, everything can be acquired by practice and perseverance. At my
home we practise on bundles of fagots tightly twisted together, or we
try to cut through a water-spout without the least splash being
noticeable. Well, Lbov, it's your turn now."

At that very moment, however, Bobuilev, the "non-com.," rushed up to
Viätkin, with terror depicted on every feature.

"Your Honour! The Commander of the regiment is here."

"Attention!" cried Captain Sliva's sharp voice from the other side of
the parade-ground. The officers hastily made their way to their
respective detachments.

A large open carriage slowly approached the avenue and stopped at the
parade-ground. Out of it stepped the Commander with great trouble and
agony amidst a loud moaning and groaning from the side of the poor
carriage. The Commander was followed by his Adjutant, Staff-Captain
Federovski, a tall, slim officer of smart appearance.

"Good day, 7th Company," was his greeting in a careless, indistinct
voice. An ear-splitting chorus of soldiers, dispersed over the whole
extent of the ground, replied instantly: "God preserve your Excellency!"

The officers touched their caps.

"Proceed with the drill," ordered the Commander, as he went up to the
nearest platoon.

Colonel Shulgovich was evidently not in a good humour. He wandered about
the platoons, growling and swearing, all the while repeatedly trying to
worry the life out of the unhappy recruits by catch-questions from the
"Military Regulations." Time after time he was heard to reel out the
most awful strings of insults and threats, and in this he displayed an
inventive power and mastery that could hardly be surpassed. The soldiers
stood before him, transfixed with terror, stiff, motionless, scarcely
daring to breathe, and, as it were, hypnotized by the incessant,
steadfast glances, as hard as marble, from those senile, colourless,
severe eyes. Colonel Shulgovich, although much troubled with fatness and
advanced in years, nevertheless still contrived to carry his huge,
imposing figure. His broad, fleshy face, with its bloated cheeks and
deeply receding forehead, was surrounded below by a thick, silvery,
pointed beard, whereby the great head came very closely to resemble an
awe-inspiring rhomboid. The eyebrows were grey, bushy, and threatening.
He always spoke in a subdued tone, but his powerful voice--to which
alone he owed his comparatively rapid promotion--was heard all the same
as far as the most distant point of the parade-ground, nay! even out on
the highroad.

"Who are you?" asked the Colonel, suddenly halting in front of a young
soldier named Sharafutdinov, who was on sentry duty near the gymnastic
apparatus.

"Recruit in the 6th Company, Sharafutdinov, your Excellency," the Tartar
answered in a strained and hoarse voice.

"Fool! I mean, of course, what post are you supposed to occupy?"

The soldier, who was frightened by his Commander's angry tone, was
silent: he could only produce one or two nervous twitchings of the
eyebrows.

"Well?" Shulgovich raised his voice.

"I--am--standing--on guard," the Tartar at last spluttered out, chancing
it. "I cannot--understand, your Excellency," he went on to say, but he
relapsed into silence again, and stood motionless.

The Colonel's face assumed a dark brick colour, a shade with a touch of
blue about it, and his bushy eyebrows began to pucker in an alarming
way. Beside himself with fury, he turned round and said in a sharp
tone--

"Who is the youngest officer here?"

Romashov stepped forward and touched his cap.

"I am, Colonel."

"Ha--Sub-lieutenant Romashov, you evidently train your men well. Stand
at attention and stretch your legs," bawled Shulgovich suddenly, his
eyes rolling. "Don't you know how to stand in the presence of your
commanding officer? Captain Sliva, I beg to inform you that your
subaltern officer has been lacking in the respect due to his chief. And
you, you miserable cur," he now turned towards the unhappy
Sharafutdinov, "tell me the name of your Commander."

"I don't know," replied Sharafutdinov quickly, but in a firm tone in
which, nevertheless, a melancholy resignation might be detected.

"Oh, _I_ ask you the name of your Colonel. Do you know who I am?
I--I--I!" and Shulgovich drummed with the flat of his hand several times
on his broad chest.

"I don't know."

The Colonel delivered himself of a string of about twenty words of
cynical abuse. "Captain Sliva, I order you at once to exhibit this son
of a sea-cook, so that all may see him, with rifle and heavy
accoutrements, and let him stand there till he rots. And as for you,
Sub-lieutenant, I know well enough that loose women and flirtation
interest you more than the service does. In waltzing and reading Paul de
Kock you're said to be an authority, but as to performing your duties,
instructing your men--that, of course, is beneath your dignity. Just
look at this creature" (he gave Sharafutdinov a sound slap on the
mouth)--"is this a Russian soldier? No, he's a brute beast, who does not
even recognize his own commanding officer. You ought to be ashamed of
yourself."

Romashov stared speechlessly at his chief's red and rage-distorted
countenance. He felt his heart threatening to burst with shame and
indignation. Suddenly, almost unconsciously, he burst out in a hollow
voice--

"Colonel, this fellow is a Tartar and does not understand a word of our
language, and besides...."

But he did not finish his sentence. Shulgovich's features had that very
instant undergone a ghastly change. His whole countenance was as white
as a corpse's, his withered cheeks were transfused with sharp, nervous
puckers, and his eyes assumed a terrible expression.

"Wh-at!" roared he in a voice so unnatural and awe-inspiring that a
little crowd of Jew boys, who, some distance from the causeway, were
sitting on the fence on which they had swarmed, were scattered like
sparrows--"you answer back? Silence! A raw young ensign permits himself
to---- Lieutenant Federovski, enter in my day-book that I have ordered
Sub-lieutenant Romashov four days' arrest in his room for breach of
discipline. And Captain Sliva is to be severely rebuked for neglecting
to instil into his junior officers 'a true military spirit.'"

The Adjutant saluted respectfully without any sign of fear. Captain
Sliva stood the whole time bending slightly forward, with his hand to
his cap, and quivering with emotion, though without altering a feature
of his wooden face.

"I cannot help being surprised at you, Captain Sliva," again grunted
Shulgovich, who had now to some extent regained his self-control. "How
is it possible that you, who are one of the best officers in the
regiment, and, moreover, old in the service, can let your youngsters run
so wild? They want breaking in. It is no use to treat them like young
ladies and being afraid of hurting them."

With these words he turned his back on the Captain, and, followed by the
Adjutant, proceeded to the carriage awaiting him. Whilst he was getting
into the carriage, and till the latter had turned round behind the
corner of the regimental school, a dull, painful silence reigned in the
parade-ground.

"Ah! you dear old ducky," exclaimed Captain Sliva in a dry tone and with
deep contempt, when the officers had, some minutes later, separated.
"Now, gentlemen, I suppose I, too, ought to say a couple of loving words
to you. Learn to stand at attention and hold your jaw even if the sky
falls--etc. To-day I've had a wigging for you before the whole of my
company. Who saddled me with you? Who asked for your services? Not I, at
any rate. You are, for me and my company, about as necessary as a fifth
leg is to a dog. Go to the deuce, and return to your feeding-bottle."

He finished his bitter lecture with a weary, contemptuous movement of
his hand, and dragged himself slowly away in the direction of his dark,
dirty, cheerless bachelor quarters. Romashov cast a long glance at him,
and gazing at the tall, thin figure, already bent with age, as well as
by the affront just endured, he felt a deep pity for this lonely,
embittered man whom nobody loved, who had only two interests in the
whole world--correct "dressing" of the 6th Company when marching at a
review, and the dear little schnapps bottle which was his trusty and
sole companion till bedtime.

And whereas Romashov also had the absurd, silly habit, which is often
peculiar to young people, viz. in his introspection to think of himself
as a third party, and then weave his noble personality into a
sentimental and stilted phrase from novelettes, our soft-hearted
lieutenant now expressed his opinion of himself in the following
touching manner--

"And over his kindly, expressive eyes fell the shadow of grief."




II


The soldiers marched home to their quarters in platoon order. The square
was deserted. Romashov stood hesitating for a moment at the causeway. It
was not the first time during the year and a half he had been in the
service he had experienced that painful feeling of loneliness, of being
lost among strangers either hostile or indifferent, or that distressful
hesitation as to where one shall spend the evening. To go home or spend
the evening at the officers' mess was equally distasteful to him. At the
latter place, at that time of day, there was hardly a soul, at most a
couple of ensigns who, whilst they drank ale and smoked to excess and
indulged in as many oaths and unseemly words as possible, played
pyramids in the wretched little narrow billiard-room; in addition to all
this, the horrible smell of food pervading all the rooms.

"I shall go down to the railway-station," said Romashov at last. "That
will be something to do."

In the poor little town, the population of which mainly consisted of
Jews, the only decent restaurant was that at the railway-station. There
were certainly two clubs--one for officers, the other for the civilian
"big-wigs" of the community. They were both, however, in a sorry plight,
and on these grounds the railway restaurant had become the only place
where the inhabitants assembled to shake off the dust of everyday life,
and to get a drink or a game at cards. Even the ladies of the place
accompanied their male protectors there, chiefly, however, to witness
the arrival of the trains and scrutinize the passengers, which always
offered a little change in the dreary monotony of provincial life.

Romashov liked to go down to the railway-station of an evening at the
time when the express arrived, which made its last stop before reaching
the Prussian frontier. With a curious feeling of excitement and tension,
he awaited the moment when the train flashed round a sharp curve of the
line, the locomotive's fiery, threatening eye grew rapidly in size and
intensity, and, at the next second, thundered past him a whole row of
palatial carriages. "Like a monstrously huge giant that suddenly checks
himself in the middle of a furious leap," he thought, the train came to
an abrupt stop before the platform. From the dazzling, illuminated
carriages, that resembled a fairy palace, stepped beautiful and elegant
ladies in wonderful hats, gentlemen dressed according to the latest
Paris fashion, who, in perfect French or German, greeted one another
with compliments or pointed witticisms. None of the passengers took the
slightest notice of Romashov, who saw in them a striking little sample
of that envied and unattainable world where life is a single,
uninterrupted, triumphal feast.

After an interval of eight minutes a bell would ring, the engine would
whistle, and the _train de luxe_ would flit away into the darkness. The
station would be soon deserted after this, and the lights lowered in the
buffet and on the platform, where Romashov would remain gazing with
melancholy eyes, after the lurid gleam of the red lamp of the rear
coach, until it disappeared in the gloom like an extinguished spark.

"I shall go to the station for a while," Romashov repeated to himself
once more, but when he cast a glance at his big, clumsy goloshes,
bespattered with clay and filth, he experienced a keen sense of shame.
All the other officers in the regiment wore the same kind of goloshes.
Then he noticed the worn buttonholes of his shabby cloak, its many
stains, and the fearfully torn lower border that almost degenerated into
a sort of fringe at the knees, and he sighed. One day in the previous
week he had, as usual, been promenading the platform, looking with
curiosity at the express train that had just arrived, when he noticed a
tall, extraordinarily handsome lady standing at the open door of a
first-class carriage. She was bare-headed, and Romashov managed to
distinguish a little, straight, piquant nose, two charming, pouting
lips, and a splendid, gleaming black head of hair which, parted in the
middle of her forehead, stole down to her coquettish little ears. Behind
her, and looking over her shoulder, stood a gigantic young man in a
light suit, with a scornful look, and moustaches after the style
affected by Kaiser Wilhelm. In fact, he bore a certain resemblance to
Wilhelm. The lady looked at Romashov, it seemed to him with an
expression of interest, and he said to himself: "The fair unknown's eyes
rested with pleasure on the young warrior's tall, well-formed figure."
But when, after walking on a few steps, he turned round to catch the
lady's eyes again, he saw that both she and her companion were looking
after him and laughing. In that moment he saw himself from outside, as
it were--his awful goloshes, his cloak, pale face, stiff, angular
figure--and experienced a feeling of shame and indignation at the
thought of the bombastic, romantic phrase he had just applied to
himself. Ah! even at this moment, when he was walking along the road in
the gloomy spring evening, he flushed at that torturing recollection.

"No, I shall not go to the station," he whispered to himself with bitter
hopelessness. "I'll take a little stroll and then go straight home."

It was in the beginning of April. The dusk was deepening into night. The
poplars that bordered the road, the small white houses with their
red-tiled roofs, the few wanderers one met in the street at this
hour--all grew darker, lost colour and perspective. All objects were
changed into black shadow, the lines of which, however, still showed
distinctly against the dark sky. Far away westwards, outside the town,
the sunset still gleamed fiery red. Vast dark-blue clouds melted slowly
down into a glowing crater of streaming, flaming gold, and then assumed
a blood-red hue with rays of violet and amber. But above the volcano,
like a dome of varying green, turquoise and beryl, arose the boundless
sky of a luminous spring night.

Romashov looked steadily at this enchanting picture whilst he slowly and
laboriously dragged himself and his goloshes along the causeway. As he
always did, even from childhood, he even now indulged in fancies of a
mysterious, marvellous world that waited for and beckoned to him in the
far distance, beyond the sunset. Just there--there behind the clouds and
the horizon--is hidden a wonderfully beautiful city lighted up by the
beams of a sun invisible from here, and protected against our eyes by
heavy, inexorable, threatening clouds. There the human eye is blinded by
streets paved with gold; there, to a dazzling height, the dome-capped
towers rise above the purple-hued roofs, where the palace windows
shimmer in the sun like innumerable gems, where countless flags and
banners resplendent with colour sway in the breeze. And in this fairy
city throng bands of rejoicing people, whose whole life is nothing but
an endless, intoxicating feast, a chord of harmony and bliss vibrating
for ever and ever. In paradisaical parks and gardens, amidst fountains
and flowers, stroll godlike men and women fair as the day, who have
never yet known an unfulfilled desire, who have never yet experienced
sorrow and struggle and shame.

Romashov suddenly called to mind the painful scene in the parade-ground,
the Commander's coarse invectives and that outrageous insult in the
presence of his comrades and subordinates. Ah! what affected him most
bitterly of all was that a person had railed at him before the soldiers
in the same rough and ruthless way as he himself, alas! had only too
often done to his subordinates. This he felt almost as a degradation,
nay, even as a debasement of his dignity as a human being.

Then awoke within him, exactly as was the case in his early youth--alas!
in many respects he still much resembled a big child--feelings at once
revengeful, fantastic, and intoxicating. "Stuff and nonsense!" he
shouted out to himself. "All my life is before me." And, as it were, in
keeping with his thoughts, he took firmer strides, and breathed more
deeply. "To-morrow to spite them all I shall rise with the sun, stick to
my books, and force an entrance into the Military Academy. Hard work? I
can work hard if I like. I must take myself in hand, that is all. I'll
read and cram like fury, early and late, and then, some fine day, to
every one's astonishment, I shall pass a brilliant examination. And
then, of course, every one will say: 'This was nothing unexpected, we
might have foretold that long ago. Such an energetic, talented young
man!'"

And our Romashov already saw himself in his mind's eye with a snug Staff
appointment and unlimited possibilities in the future. His name stood
engraved on the golden tablet of the Military Academy. The professors
had predicted a brilliant career for him, tried to retain him as a
lecturer at the Academy, etc. etc.--but in vain. All his tastes were for
the practical side, for troop service. He had also first to perform his
duties as company officer, and as a matter of course--yes, _as a matter
of course_--in his old regiment. He would, therefore, have to make
another appearance here--in this disgusting little out-of-the-way
hole--as a Staff officer uncommonly learned and all-accomplished, in
every respect unsurpassable, well-bred and elegant, inexorably severe to
himself, but benevolently condescending towards others, a pattern for
all, envied by all, etc. etc. He had seen at the manoeuvres in the
previous year a similar prodigy, who stood millions of miles above the
rest of mankind, and who, therefore, kept himself far apart from his
comrades at the officers' mess. Cards, dice, heavy drinking and noisy
buffoonery were not in his line; he had higher views. Besides, he had
only honoured with a short visit that miserable place, which for him was
only a stage, a step-ladder on the road to honour--and decorations.

And Romashov pursued his fancies. The grand manoeuvres have begun, and
the battalion is busy. Colonel Shulgovich, who never managed to make out
the strategical or tactical situation, gets more and more muddled in his
orders, commands and countermands, marches his men aimlessly here and
there, and has already got two orderlies at him, bringing severe
reprimands from the Commander of the corps. "Look here, Captain," says
Shulgovich, turning to his former sub-lieutenant, "help me out of this.
We are old and good friends, you know--well, we did have a little
difference on one occasion. Now tell me what I ought to do." His face is
red with anxiety and vexation; but Romashov sits straight in the saddle,
salutes stiffly, and in a respectful but freezing tone replies: "Pardon,
Colonel. _Your_ duty is to advance your regiment in accordance with the
Commander's order; _mine_ is only to receive your instructions and to
carry them out to the best of my ability." In the same moment a third
orderly from the Commander approaches at a furious gallop.

Romashov, the brilliant Staff officer, rises higher and higher towards
the pinnacles of power and glory. A dangerous strike has taken place at
a steel manufactory. Romashov's company is charged with the difficult
and hazardous task of restoring peace and order amongst the rioters.
Night and gloom, incendiarism, a flaming sea of fire, an innumerable,
hooting, bloodthirsty mob, a shower of stones. A stately young officer
steps in front of the company, his name is Romashov. "Brothers," cries
he, in a strong but melodious voice, "for the third and last time I
beseech you to disperse, otherwise--I shall fire." Wild shouts, derisive
laughter, whistling. A stone hits Romashov on the shoulder, but his
frank, handsome countenance maintains its unalterable calm. Slowly he
turns towards his soldiers, whose eyes scintillate with rage at the
insolent outrage that some one had dared to commit on their idolized
Captain. A few brief, energetic words of command are heard, "Line and
aim--fire!" A crashing report of rifles, immediately followed by a roar
of rage and despair from the crowd. A few score dead and wounded lie
where they have fallen; the rest flee in disorder or beg for mercy and
are taken prisoners. The riot is quelled, and Romashov awaits a gracious
token of the Tsar's gratitude and favour, together with a special reward
for the heroism he displayed.

Then comes the longed-for war. Nay, even before the war he is sent by
the War Office to Germany as a spy on the enemy's military power near
the frontier. Perfectly familiar with the German language, he enters
upon his hazardous career. How delightful is such an adventure to a
brave and patriotic man! Absolutely alone, with a German passport in his
pocket and a street organ on his back, he wanders from town to town,
from village to village, grinds out tunes, collects coppers, plays the
part of a simple lout, and meanwhile obtains, in all secrecy, plans and
sketches of fortresses, stores, barracks, camps, etc., etc. Foes and
perils lie in wait for him every minute. His own Government has left him
helpless and unprotected. He is virtually an outlaw. If he succeeds in
his purpose, honours and rewards of all kinds await him. Should he be
unmasked, he will be condemned straight off to be shot or hanged. He
sees himself standing in the dark and gloomy trench, confronted by his
executioners. Out of compassion they fasten a white cloth before his
eyes; but he tears it away and throws it to the ground with the proud
words, "Do you not think an officer can face death?" An old Colonel
replies, in a quivering voice: "Listen, my young friend. I have a son of
the same age as you. I will spare you. Tell us your name--tell us, at
any rate, your nationality, and the death sentence will be commuted to
imprisonment." "I thank you, Colonel; but it is useless. Do your duty."
Then he turns to the soldiers, and says to them in a firm voice in
German: "Comrades, there is only one favour I would crave: spare my
face, aim at my heart." The officer in command, deeply moved, raises his
white pocket-handkerchief--a crashing report--and Romashov's story is
ended.

This picture made such a lively impression on his imagination that
Romashov, who was already very excited and striding along the road,
suddenly stopped short, trembling all over. His heart beat violently,
and he clenched his hands convulsively. He gained, however, command over
himself immediately, and smiling compassionately at himself, he
continued on his way in the darkness.

But it was not long before he began to conjure up fresh pictures in his
imagination. The cruel war with Prussia and Austria, long expected and
prepared for, had come. An enormous battlefield, corpses everywhere,
havoc, annihilation, blood, and death. It was the chief battle, on the
issue of which the whole war depended. The decisive moment had arrived.
The last reserves had been brought up, and one was waiting anxiously for
the Russian flanking column to arrive in time to attack the enemy in the
rear. At any cost the enemy's frantic attack must be met without
flinching. The most important and threatened position on the field was
occupied by the Kerenski regiment, which was being decimated by the
concentrated fire of the enemy. The soldiers fight like lions without
yielding an inch, although the whole line is being mowed down by a
murderous fire of shells. Every one feels that he is passing through an
historical moment. A few more seconds of heroic endurance and victory
will be snatched out of the enemy's hands. But Colonel Shulgovich
wavers. He is a brave man--that must be admitted--but the perils of a
fight like this are too much for his nerves. He turns pale and trembles.
The next moment he signals to the bugler to sound the retreat, and the
latter has already put the bugle to his lips, when, that very moment,
Colonel Romashov, chief of the Staff, comes dashing from behind the hill
on his foaming Arab steed. "Colonel, we dare not retreat. The fate of
Russia will be decided here." Shulgovich begins blustering. "Colonel
Romashov, it is I who am in command and must answer to God and the Tsar.
The regiment must retire--blow the bugle." But Romashov snatches the
bugle from the bugler's hand and hurls it to the ground. "Forward, my
children!" he shouts; "the eyes of your Emperor and your
fellow-countrymen are fixed on you." "Hurrah!" With a deafening shout of
joy the soldiers, led by Romashov, rush at the foe. Everything
disappears in a chasm of fire and smoke. The enemy wavers, and soon his
lines are broken; but behind him gleam the Russian bayonets. "The
victory is ours! Hurrah, comrades"----

Romashov, who no longer walked but ran, gesticulating wildly, at last
stopped and gradually became himself again. It seemed to him as if some
one with fingers cold as ice had suddenly passed them over his back,
arms, and legs, his hair bristled, and his strong excitement had brought
tears to his eyes. He had no notion how he suddenly found himself near
his quarters, and, as he recovered from his mad fancies, he gazed with
astonishment at the street door he knew so well, at the neglected
fruit-garden within which stood the little whitewashed wing where he
lodged.

"How does all this nonsense get into my head?" said he, with a sense of
shame and a shrug of his shoulders in self-contempt.




III


When Romashov reached his room he threw himself, just as he was, with
cap and sabre, on his bed, and for a long time he lay there motionless,
staring up at the ceiling. His head burned, his back ached; and he
suffered from a vacuum within him as profound as if his mind was
incapable of harbouring a feeling, a memory, or a thought. He felt
neither irritation nor sadness, but he was sensible of a suffocating
weight on his heart, of darkness and indifference.

The shades of a balmy April night fell. He heard his servant quietly
occupied with some metal object in the hall.

"Curiously enough," said he to himself, "I have read somewhere or other
that one cannot live a single second without thinking. But here I lie
and think about absolutely nothing. Isn't that so? Perhaps it is just
this: I am thinking that _I am thinking about nothing_. It even seems as
if a tiny wheel in my brain is in motion. And see here a new reflection,
an objective introspection--I am also thinking of----"

He lay so long and tortured himself with such forced mental images that
returned in an eternal circle that it finally became physically
repulsive to him. It was just as if a great loathsome spider, from which
he could not extricate himself, was softly groping about _under his
brain_. At last he raised his head from the pillows and called out--

"Hainán."

At that very moment was heard a tremendous crash of something falling
and rolling on the floor. It was probably the funnel belonging to the
samovar which had dropped. The door was opened hastily and shut again
with a loud bang. The servant burst into the room, making as much noise
in opening and shutting the door as if we were running away from some
one.

"It is I, your Honour," shrieked Hainán in a fear-stricken voice.

"Has there been any message from Lieutenant Nikoläiev?"

"No, your Excellency," replied Hainán in the same shrieking tone.

Between the officer and his servant there existed a certain simple,
sincere, affectionately familiar relationship. When the question only
required the usual stereotyped, official answer, e.g. "Yes, your
Excellency," "No, your Excellency," etc., then Hainán shrieked the words
in the same wooden, soulless, and unnatural way as soldiers always do in
the case of their officers, and which, from their first days in the
recruit school, becomes ineradicably ingrained in them as long as they
live.

Hainán was by birth a Circassian, and by religion an idolater. This
latter circumstance gave great satisfaction to Romashov, because among
the young officers of the regiment the silly and boyish custom prevailed
of training their respective servants to be something unique, or of
teaching them certain semi-idiotic answers and phrases.

For instance, when his friends paid him a visit, Viätkin used to say to
his orderly, a Moldavian, "Busioskul, have we any champagne in the
cellar?" And Busioskul would answer with imperturbable gravity, "No,
your Excellency. Last night you were pleased to drink up the last
dozen." Another officer, Sub-lieutenant Epifanov, amused himself by
putting to his servant learned and difficult questions which he himself
could hardly answer. "Listen, my friend, what are your views on the
restoration of the monarchy in France at the present day?" The servant
answers, "Your Honour, it will, I think, succeed." Lieutenant Bobetinski
had written down a whole catechism for his flunkey, and the latter
trained genius replied frankly and unhesitatingly to the most absurd
questions, e.g. "Why is this important for the third?" Answer--"For the
third this is not important." "What is Holy Church's opinion about it?"
Answer--"Holy Church has no opinion about it." The same servant would
declaim, with the quaintest, semi-tragical gestures, Pinen's rôle in
"Boris-Gudunov." It was also usual and much appreciated to make him
express himself in French: "Bong shure, musseur. Bon nuite, moussier.
Vulley vous du tay, musseur?" etc. etc., in that style. All these
follies naturally arose from the dullness of that little garrison town,
and the narrowness of a life from which all interests were excluded
except those belonging to the service.

Romashov often talked to Hainán about his gods--about whom the
Circassian had only dim and meagre ideas; but it amused him greatly to
make Hainán tell the story of how he took the oath of allegiance to the
Tsar and Russia--a story well worth hearing now and then. At that time
the oath of allegiance was, for the Orthodox, administered by a priest
of the Greek Church; for Catholics, by the _ksends_[3]; for
Protestants, when a Lutheran pastor was not available, by Staff-Captain
Ditz; and for Mohammedans, by Lieutenant Biek-Agamalov. For Hainán and
two of his fellow-countrymen a particular and highly original form had
been authorized. The three soldiers were ordered to march in turn up to
the Adjutant of the regiment, and from the point of the sabre held
towards them they were required to bite off, with deep reverence, a
piece of bread that had been dipped in salt. Under no circumstances was
the bread to be touched by their hands. The symbolism of this curious
ceremony was as follows: When the Circassian had eaten his lord's--the
Tsar's--bread and salt in this peculiar way he was ruthlessly condemned
to die by the sword if he ever failed in loyalty and obedience. Hainán
was evidently very proud of having thus taken his oath of allegiance to
the Tsar, and he never got tired of relating the circumstance; but as
every time he told his story he adorned it with fresh inventions and
absurdities, it became at last a veritable Münchausen affair, which was
always received with Homeric laughter by Romashov and his guests.

Hainán now thought that his master would start his usual questions about
gods and Adjutants, and stood ready to begin with a cunning smile on his
face, when Romashov said--

"That will do; you can go."

"Shall I not lay out your Honour's new uniform?" asked the
ever-attentive Hainán.

Romashov was silent and pondered. First he would say "Yes," then "No,"
and again "Yes." At last, after a long, deep sigh, uttered in the
descending scale, he replied in a tone of resignation--

"No, Hainán, never mind about that--get the samovar ready and then run
off to the mess for my supper."

"I will stay away to-day," whispered he to himself. "It doesn't do to
bore people to death by calling on them like that every day. And,
besides, it is plain I am not a man people long for."

His resolution to stay at home that evening seemed fixed enough, and yet
an inner voice told him that even to-day, as on most other days during
the past three months, he would go to the Nikoläievs'. Every time he
bade these friends of his good-bye at midnight, he had, with shame and
indignation at his own weakness and lack of character, sworn to himself
on his honour that he would not pay another call there for two or three
weeks. Nay, he had even made up his mind to give up altogether these
uncalled-for visits. And all the while he was on his way home, whilst he
was undressing, ah! even up to the moment he fell asleep, he believed it
would be an easy matter for him to keep his resolution. The night went
by, the morning dawned, and the day dragged on slowly and unwillingly,
evening came, and once more an irresistible force drew him to this
handsome and elegant abode, with its warm, well-lighted, comfortable
rooms, where peace, harmony, cheerful and confidential conversation,
and, above all, the delightful enchantment of feminine beauty awaited
him.

Romashov sat on the edge of his bed. It was already dark, but he could,
nevertheless, easily discern the various objects in his room. Oh, how he
loathed day by day his mean, gloomy dwelling, with its trumpery,
tasteless furniture! His lamp, with its ugly shade that resembled a
night-cap, on the inconvenient, rickety writing-table, looked haughtily
down on the nerve-torturing alarm-clock and the dirty, vulgar inkstand
that had the shape of a badly modelled pug-dog. Over his head something
intended to represent a wall decoration--a piece of felt on which had
been embroidered a terrible tiger and a still more terrible Arab riding
on horseback, armed with a spear. In one corner a tumbledown bookstand,
in the other the fantastic silhouette of a hideous violoncello case.
Over the only window the room could boast a curtain of plaited straw
rolled up into a tube. Behind the door a clothes-stand concealed by a
sheet that had been white in prehistoric times. Every unmarried
subaltern officer had the same articles about him, with the exception of
the violoncello which Romashov had borrowed from the band attached to
the regiment--in which it was completely unnecessary--with the intention
of developing on it his musical talent. But as soon as he had tried in
vain to teach himself the C major scale, he tired of the thing
altogether, and the 'cello had now stood for more than a year, dusty and
forgotten, in its dark corner.

More than a year ago Romashov, who had just left the military college,
had taken both pride and joy in furnishing his modest lodgings. To have
a room of his own, his own things, to choose and buy household furniture
according to his own liking, to arrange everything according to his own
consummate taste--all that highly flattered the _amour propre_ of that
young man of two-and-twenty. It seemed only yesterday that he sat on the
school form, or marched in rank and file with his comrades off to the
general mess-room to eat, at the word of command, his frugal breakfast.
To-day he was his own master. And how many hopes and plans sprang into
his brain in the course of those never-to-be-forgotten days when he
furnished and "adorned" his new home! What a severe programme he
composed for his future! The first two years were to be devoted chiefly
to a thorough study of classical literature, French and German, and also
music. After that, a serious preparation for entering the Staff College
was to follow. It was necessary to study sociology and society life, and
to be abreast of modern science and literature. Romashov therefore felt
himself bound at least to subscribe to a newspaper and to take in a
popular monthly magazine. The bookstand was adorned with Wundt's
_Psychology_, Lewes's _Physiology_, and Smiles's _Self-Help_, etc., etc.

But for nine long months have the books lain undisturbed on their
shelves, forgotten by Hainán, whose business it is to dust them. Heaps
of newspapers, not even stripped of their wrappers, lie cast in a pile
beneath the writing-table, and the æsthetic magazine to which we just
referred has ceased to reach Romashov on account of repeated
"irregularities" with regard to the half-yearly payment. Sub-Lieutenant
Romashov drinks a good deal of vodka at mess; he has a tedious and
loathsome liaison with a married woman belonging to the regiment, whose
consumptive and jealous husband he deceives in strict accordance with
all the rules of art; he plays _schtoss_,[4] and more and more
frequently comes into unpleasant collisions both in the service and also
in the circles of his friends and acquaintances.

"Pardon me, your Honour," shouted his servant, entering the room
noisily. Then he added in a friendly, simple, good-natured tone: "I
forgot to mention that a letter has come from Mrs. Peterson. The
orderly who brought it is waiting for an answer."

Romashov frowned, took the letter, tore open a long, slender,
rose-coloured envelope, in a corner of which fluttered a dove with a
letter in its beak.

"Light the lamp, Hainán," said he to his servant.

     MY DEAR DARLING IRRESISTIBLE LITTLE GEORGI (read Romashov in the
     sloping, crooked lines he knew so well),--For a whole week you have
     not been to see me, and yesterday I was so miserable without you
     that I lay and wept the whole night. Remember that if you fool me
     or deceive me I shall not survive it. One single drop of poison and
     I shall be freed from my tortures for ever; but, as for you,
     conscience shall gnaw you for ever and ever. You must--must come to
     me to-night at half-past seven. _He_ is not at home, he is
     somewhere--on tactical duty or whatever it is called. Do come! I
     kiss you a thousand thousand times.

Yours always,
RAISA.

     P.S.--

    Have you forgotten the river fast rushing,
      Under the willow-boughs wending its way,
    Kisses you gave me, dear, burning and crushing,
      When in your strong arms I tremblingly lay?

     P.SS.--You must absolutely attend the soirée next Saturday at the
     officers' mess. I will give you the third quadrille. You
     understand.

A long way down on the fourth page lay written--

    I have kissed
       here.

This delightful epistle wafted the familiar perfume of Persian lilac,
and drops of that essence had, here and there, left yellow stains behind
them on the letter, in which the characters had run apart in different
directions. This stale scent, combined with the tasteless, absurdly
sentimental tone throughout this letter from a little, immoral,
red-haired woman, excited in Romashov an intolerable feeling of disgust.
With a sort of grim delight he first tore the letter into two parts,
laid them carefully together, tore them up again, laid the bits of paper
once more together, and tore them again into little bits till his
fingers got numb, and then, with clenched teeth and a broad, cynical
grin, threw the fragments under his writing-table. At the same time,
according to his old habit, he had time to think of himself in the third
person--

"And he burst out into a bitter, contemptuous laugh."

A moment later he realized that he would have to go that evening to the
Nikoläievs'. "But this is the last time." After he had tried to deceive
himself by these words, he felt for once happy and calm.

"Hainán, my clothes."

He made his toilet hastily and impatiently, put on his elegant new
tunic, and sprinkled a few drops of eau-de-Cologne on a clean
handkerchief; but when he was dressed, and ready to go, he was stopped
suddenly by Hainán.

"Your Honour," said the Circassian, in an unusually meek and
supplicating tone, as he began to execute a most curious sort of dance
before his master. Whilst he was performing a kind of "march on the
spot" he lifted his knees right up, one after the other, rocking his
shoulders, nodding his head, and making a series of convulsive movements
in the air with his arms and fingers. Hainán was in the habit of giving
vent to his excited feelings by curious gestures of that sort.

"What do you want now?"

"Your Honour," stammered Hainán, "I want to ask you something; please
give me the white gentleman."

"The white gentleman? What white gentleman?"

"The one you ordered me to throw away--the one standing in that corner."

Hainán pointed with his fingers to the stove-corner, where a bust of
Pushkin was standing on the floor. This bust, which Romashov had
obtained from a wandering pedlar, really did not represent the famous
poet, but merely reproduced the forbidding features of an old Jew
broker. Badly modelled, so covered with dust and fly dirt as to be
unrecognizable, the stone image aroused Romashov's aversion to such an
extent that he had at last made up his mind to order Hainán to throw it
into the yard.

"What do you want with it?" asked Romashov, laughing. "But take it by
all means, take it, I am only too pleased. I don't want it, only I
should like to know what you are going to do with it."

Hainán smiled and changed from one foot to the other.

"Well, take him, then; I wish you joy of it. By the way, do you know who
it is?"

Hainán smiled in an embarrassed way, and infused still more energy into
his caperings.

"No--don't know." Hainán rubbed his lips with his coat sleeve.

"So you don't know. Well, listen. This is Pushkin--Alexander Sergievich
Pushkin. Did you understand me? Now repeat--'Alexander Sergievich----'"

"Besiäev," repeated Hainán in a determined tone.

"Besiäev? Well, call him Besiäev if you like. Now I am off. Should any
message come from Mr. and Mrs. Peterson, say I'm not at home, and you
don't know where I have gone. Do you understand? But if any one wants me
in the way of business connected with the regiment, run down at once for
me at Lieutenant Nikoläiev's. You may fetch my supper from the mess and
eat it yourself. Good-bye, old fellow."

Romashov gave his servant a friendly smack on his shoulder, which was
answered by a broad, happy, familiar smile.




IV


When Romashov reached the yard it was quite dark. He stumbled like a
blind man into the street, his huge goloshes sank deep into the thick,
stiff mud, and every step he took was accompanied by a smacking noise.
Now and again one golosh stuck so fast in the mud of the road that it
remained there, and he had all the difficulty in the world, whilst
balancing himself wildly on his other foot, to recover his treasure.

The little town seemed to him to be absolutely dead. Not a sound was
heard, even the dogs were silent. Here and there a gleam of light
streamed from the small, low-pitched, white house, against which the
window-sills sharply depicted their shapes in the yellowish-brown mire.
From the wet and sticky palings along which Romashov slowly worked his
way, from the raw, moist bark of the poplars, from the dirty road
itself, there arose a strong, refreshing scent of spring, which aroused
a certain unconscious sense of joy and comfort. Nay, even with the
tormenting gale which swept violently through the streets seemed mingled
a youthful, reawakened desire of life, and the gusts of wind chased one
another like boisterous and sportive children in a "merry-go-round."

When Romashov reached the house where the Nikoläievs dwelt, he stopped,
despondent and perplexed. The close, cinnamon-coloured curtains were
let down, but behind them one could, nevertheless, distinguish the
clear, even glow of a lamp. On one side the curtain curved inwards and
formed a long, small chink against the window-sill. Romashov pressed his
face cautiously against the window, and hardly dared to breathe for fear
of betraying his presence.

He could distinguish Alexandra Petrovna's head and shoulders. She was
sitting in a stooping attitude on that green rep divan that he knew so
well. From her bowed head and slight movements he concluded that she was
occupied with some needlework. Suddenly she straightened herself up,
raised her head, and drew a long breath. Her lips moved.

"What is she saying?" thought Romashov. "And look! now she's smiling.
How strange to see through a window a person talking, and not to be able
to catch a word of what she says."

The smile, however, suddenly disappeared from Alexandra Petrovna's face;
her forehead puckered, and her lips moved rapidly and vehemently.
Directly afterwards she smiled again, but wickedly and maliciously, and
with her head made a slow gesture of disapproval.

"Perhaps they are talking about me," thought Romashov, not without a
certain disagreeable anxiety; but he knew how something pure, chaste,
agreeably soothing and benevolent beamed on him from this young woman
who, at that moment, made the same impression on him as a charming
canvas, the lovely picture of which reminded him of happy, innocent days
of long ago. "Shurochka," whispered Romashov tenderly.

At that moment Alexandra Petrovna lifted her face from her work and cast
a rapid, searching, despondent glance at the window. Romashov thought
she was looking him straight in the face. It felt as if a cold hand had
seized his heart, and in his fright he hid himself behind a projection
of the wall. Again he was irresolute and ill at ease, and he was just
about to return home, when, by a violent effort of the will, he overcame
his pusillanimity and walked through a little back-door into the
kitchen.

The Nikoläievs' servant relieved him of his muddy goloshes, and wiped
down his boots with a kitchen rag. When Romashov pulled out his
pocket-handkerchief to remove the mist from his eyeglass he heard
Alexandra Petrovna's musical voice from the drawing-room.

"Stepan, have they brought the orders of the day yet?"

"She said that with an object," thought Romashov to himself. "She knows
well enough that I'm in the habit of coming about this time."

"No, it is I, Alexandra Petrovna," he answered aloud, but in an
uncertain voice, through the open drawing-room door.

"Oh, it's you, Romashov. Well, come in, come in. What are you doing at
the side entrance? Volodya, Romashov is here."

Romashov stepped in, made an awkward bow, and began, so as to hide his
embarrassment, to wipe his hands with his handkerchief.

"I am afraid I bore you, Alexandra Petrovna."

He tried to say this in an easy and jocose tone, but the words came out
awkwardly, and as it seemed to him, with a forced ring about them.

"What nonsense you talk!" exclaimed Alexandra Petrovna. "Sit down,
please, and let us have some tea."

Looking him straight in the face with her clear, piercing eyes, she
squeezed as usual his cold fingers with her little soft, warm hand.

Nikoläiev sat with his back to them at the table that was almost hidden
by piles of books, drawings, and maps. Before the year was out he had to
make another attempt to get admitted to the Staff College, and for many
months he had been preparing with unremitting industry for this stiff
examination in which he had already twice failed. Staring hard at the
open book before him, he stretched his arm over his shoulder to Romashov
without turning round, and said, in a calm, husky voice--

"How do you do, Yuri[5] Alexievich? Is there any news? Shurochka, give
him some tea. Excuse me, but I am, as you see, hard at work."

"What a fool I am!" cried poor Romashov to himself. "What business had I
here?" Then he added out loud: "Bad news. There are ugly reports
circulating at mess with regard to Lieutenant-Colonel Liech. He is said
to have been as tight as a drum. The resentment in the regiment is
widespread, and a very searching inquiry is demanded. Epifanov has been
arrested."

"Oh!" remarked Nikoläiev in an absent tone. "But excuse my interruption.
You don't say so!"

"I, too, have been rewarded with four days. But that is stale news."

Romashov thought at that moment that his voice sounded peculiar and
unnatural, as if he were being throttled. "What a wretched creature I am
in their eyes!" thought he, but in the next moment consoled himself by
the help of that forced special pleading to which weak and timid persons
usually have recourse in similar predicaments. "Such you always are;
something goes wrong; you feel confused, embarrassed, and at once you
fondly imagine that others notice it, though only you yourself can be
clearly conscious of it," etc., etc.

He sat down on a chair near Shurochka, whose quick crochet needle was in
full swing again. She never sat idle, and all the table-covers,
lamp-shades, and lace curtains were the product of her busy fingers.
Romashov cautiously took up the long crochet threads hanging from the
ball, and said--

"What do you call this sort of work?"

"Guipure. This is the tenth time you have asked me that."

Shurochka glanced quickly at him, and then let her eyes fall on her
work; but before long she looked up again and laughed.

"Now then, now then, Yuri Alexievich, don't sit there pouting.
'Straighten your back!' and 'Head up!' Isn't that how you give your
commands?"

But Romashov only sighed and looked out of the corner of his eye at
Nikoläiev's brawny neck, the whiteness of which was thrown into strong
relief by the grey collar of his old coat.

"By Jove! Vladimir Yefimovich is a lucky dog. Next summer he's going to
St. Petersburg, and will rise to the heights of the Academy."

"Oh, that remains to be seen," remarked Shurochka, somewhat tartly,
looking in her husband's direction. "He has twice been plucked at his
examination, and with rather poor credit to himself has had to return to
his regiment. This will be his last chance."

Nikoläiev turned round suddenly; his handsome, soldierly, moustached
face flushed deeply, and his big dark eyes glittered with rage.

"Don't talk rubbish, Shurochka. When I say I shall pass my examination,
I shall pass it, and that's enough about it." He struck the side of his
outstretched hand violently on the table. "You are always croaking. I
said I should--"

"Yes, '_I said I should_,'" his wife repeated after him, whilst she
struck her knee with her little brown hand. "But it would be far better
if you could answer the following question: 'What are the requisites for
a good line of battle?' Perhaps you don't know" (she turned with a
roguish glance towards Romashov) "that I am considerably better up in
tactics than he. Well, Volodya--Staff-General that is to be--answer the
question now."

"Look here, Shurochka, stop it," growled Nikoläiev in a bad temper. But
suddenly he turned round again on his chair towards his wife, and in his
wide-open, handsome, but rather stupid eyes might be read an amusing
helplessness, nay, even a certain terror.

"Wait a bit, my little woman, and I will try to remember. 'Good fighting
order'? A good fighting order _must_ be arranged so that one does not
expose oneself too much to the enemy's fire; that one can easily issue
orders, that--that--wait a minute."

"That waiting will be costly work for you in the future, I think," said
Shurochka, interrupting him, in a serious tone. Then, with head down and
her body rocking, she began, like a regular schoolgirl, to rattle off
the following lesson without stumbling over a single word--

"'The requisites of "good fighting order" are simplicity, mobility,
flexibility, and the ability to accommodate itself to the ground. It
ought to be easy to be inspected and led. It must, as far as possible,
be out of reach of the enemy's fire, easy to pass from one formation to
another, and able to be quickly changed from fighting to marching
order.' Done!"

She opened her eyes, took a deep breath, and, as she turned her lively,
smiling countenance to Romashov, said--

"Was that all right?"

"What a memory!" exclaimed Nikoläiev enviously, as he once more plunged
into his books.

"We study together like two comrades," explained Shurochka. "I could
pass this examination at any time. The main thing"--she made an
energetic motion in the air with her crochet needle--"the main thing is
to work systematically or according to a fixed plan. Our system is
entirely my own invention, and I say so with pride. Every day we go
through a certain amount of mathematics and the science of war--I may
remark, by the way, that artillery is not my _forte_; the formulæ of
projectiles are to me specially distasteful--besides a bit out of the
Drill and Army Regulations Book. Moreover, every other day we study
languages, and on the days we do not study the latter we study history
and geography."

"And Russian too?" asked Romashov politely.

"Russian, do you say? Yes, that does not give us much trouble; we have
already mastered Groth's _Orthography_, and so far as the essays are
concerned, year after year they are after the eternal stereotyped
pattern: _Para pacem, para bellum_; characteristics of Onyägin and his
epoch, etc., etc."

Suddenly she became silent, and snatched by a quick movement the
distracting crochet needle from Romashov's fingers. She evidently wanted
to monopolize the whole of his attention to what she now intended to
say. After this she began to speak with passionate earnestness of what
was at present the goal of all her thoughts and aims.

"Romochka, please, try to understand me. I cannot--cannot stand this any
longer. To remain here is to deteriorate. To become a 'lady of the
regiment,' to attend your rowdy _soirées_, to talk scandal and intrigue,
to get into tempers every day, and wear out one's nerves over the
housekeeping, money and carriage bills, to serve in turn, according to
precedency, on ladies' committees and benevolent associations, to play
whist, to--no, enough of this. You say that our home is comfortable and
charming. But just examine this _bourgeois_ happiness. These eternal
embroideries and laces; these dreadful clothes which I have altered and
modernized God knows how often; this vulgar, 'loud'-coloured sofa rug
composed of rags from every spot on earth--all this has been hateful and
intolerable to me. Don't you understand, my dear Romochka, that it is
society--real society--that I want, with brilliant drawing-rooms, witty
conversation, music, flirtation, homage. As you are well aware, our good
Volodya is not one to set the Thames on fire, but he is a brave,
honourable, and industrious fellow. If he can only gain admission to the
Staff College I swear to procure him a brilliant career. I am a good
linguist; I can hold my own in any society whatever; I possess--I don't
know how to express it--a certain flexibility of mind or spirit that
helps me to hold my own, to adapt myself everywhere. Finally, Romochka,
look at me, gaze at me carefully. Am I, as a human being, so
uninteresting? Am I, as a woman, so devoid of all charms that I deserve
to be doomed to stay and be soured in this hateful place, in this awful
hole which has no place on the map?"

She suddenly covered her face with her handkerchief, and burst into
tears of self-pity and wounded pride.

Nikoläiev sprang from his chair and hastened, troubled and distracted,
to his wife; but Shurochka had already succeeded in regaining her
self-control and took her handkerchief away from her face. There were no
tears in her eyes now, but the glint of wrath and passion had not yet
died out of them.

"It is all right, Volodya. Dear, it is nothing." She pushed him
nervously away. Immediately afterwards she turned with a little laugh to
Romashov, and whilst she was again snatching the thread from him, she
said to him coquettishly: "Answer me candidly, you clumsy thing, am I
pretty or not? Remember, though, it is the height of impoliteness not to
pay a woman the compliment she wants."

"Shurochka, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" exclaimed Nikoläiev
reprovingly, from his seat at the writing-table.

Romashov smiled with a martyr's air of resignation. Suddenly he replied,
in a melancholy and quavering voice--

"You are very beautiful."

Shurochka looked at him roguishly from her half-closed eyes, and a
turbulent curl got loose and fell over her forehead.

"Romochka, how funny you are!" she twittered in a rather thin, girlish
voice. The sub-lieutenant blushed and thought according to his wont--

"And his heart was cruelly lacerated."

Nobody said a word. Shurochka went on diligently crocheting. Vladimir
Yefimovich, who was bravely struggling with a German translation, now
and then mumbled out some German words. One heard the flame softly
sputtering and fizzing in the lamp, which displayed a great yellow silk
shade in the form of a tent. Romochka had again managed to possess
himself of the crochet-cotton, which, almost without thinking about it,
he softly and caressingly drew through the young woman's fingers, and it
afforded him a delightful pleasure to feel how Shurochka unconsciously
resisted his mischievous little pulls. It seemed to him as if
mysterious, magnetic currents, now and again, rushed backwards and
forwards through the delicate white threads.

Whilst he was steadily gazing at her bent head, he whispered to himself,
without moving his lips, as if he were carrying on a tender and
impassioned conversation--

"How boldly you said to me, 'Am I pretty?' Ah, you are most beautiful!
Here I sit looking at you. What happiness! Now listen. I am going to
tell you how you look--how lovely you are. But listen carefully. Thy
face is as dark as the night, yet pale. It is a face full of passion.
Thy lips are red and warm and good to kiss, and thine eyes surrounded by
a light yellowish shadow. When thy glance is directed straight before
thee, the white of thine eyes acquires a bluish shade, and amidst it all
there beams on me a great dark blue mysteriously gleaming pupil. A
brunette thou art not; but thou recallest something of the gipsy. But
thy hair is silky and soft, and braided at the back in a knot so neat
and simple that one finds a difficulty in refraining from stroking it.
You little ethereal creature, I could lift you like a little child in my
arms; but you are supple and strong, your bosom is as firm as a young
girl's, and in all thy being there is something quick, passionate,
compelling. A good way down on your left ear sits a charming little
birthmark that is like the hardly distinguishable scar after a ring has
been removed. What charm----"

"Have you read in the newspapers about the duel between two officers?"
asked Shurochka suddenly.

Romashov started as he awoke from his dreams, but he found it hard to
remove his gaze from her.

"No, I've not read about it, but I have heard talk of it. What about
it?"

"As usual, of course, you read nothing. Truly, Yuri Alexeitch, you are
deteriorating. In my opinion the proceedings were ridiculous. I quite
understand that duels between officers are as necessary as they are
proper."

Shurochka pressed her crochet to her bosom with a gesture of conviction.

"But why all this unnecessary and stupid cruelty? Just listen. A
lieutenant had insulted another officer. The insult was gross, and the
Court of Honour considered a duel necessary. Now, there would have been
nothing to say about it, unless the conditions themselves of the duel
had been so fixed that the latter resembled an ordinary execution:
fifteen paces distance, and the fight to last till one of the duellists
was _hors de combat_. This is only on a par with ordinary slaughter, is
it not? But hear what followed. On the duelling-ground stood all the
officers of the regiment, many of them with ladies; nay, they had even
put a photographer behind the bushes! How disgusting! The unfortunate
sub-lieutenant or ensign--as Volodya usually says--a man of your
youthful age, moreover the party insulted, and not the one who offered
the insult--received, after the third shot, a fearful wound in the
stomach, and died some hours afterwards in great torture. By his
deathbed stood his aged mother and sister, who kept house for him. Now
tell me why a duel should be turned into such a disgusting spectacle.
Of course the immediate consequence" (Shurochka almost shrieked these
words) "was that all those sentimental opponents of duelling--eugh, how
I despise these 'liberal' weaklings and poltroons!--at once began making
a noise and fuss about 'barbarism,' 'fratricide,' how 'duels are a
disgrace to our times,' and more nonsense of that sort."

"Good God! I could never believe that you were so bloodthirsty,
Alexandra Petrovna," exclaimed Romashov, interrupting her.

"I am by no means bloodthirsty," replied Shurochka, sharply. "On the
contrary, I am very tender-hearted. If a beetle crawls on to my neck I
remove it with the greatest caution so as not to inflict any hurt on
it--but try and understand me, Romashov. This is my simple process of
reasoning: 'Why have we officers?' Answer: 'For the sake of war.' 'What
are the most necessary qualities of an officer in time of war?' Answer:
'Courage and a contempt of death.' 'How are these qualities best
acquired in time of peace?' Answer: 'By means of duels.' How can that be
proved? Duels are not required to be obligatory in the French Army, for
a sense of honour is innate in the French officer; he knows what respect
is due to himself and to others. Neither is duelling obligatory in the
German Army, with its highly developed and inflexible discipline. But
with us--us, as long as among our officers are to be found notorious
card-sharpers such as, for instance, Artschakovski; or hopeless sots, as
our own Nasanski, when, in the officers' mess or on duty, violent scenes
are of almost daily occurrence--then, such being the case, duels are
both necessary and salutary. An officer must be a pattern of
correctness; he is bound to weigh every word he utters. And, moreover,
this delicate squeamishness, the fear of a shot! Your vocation is to
risk your life--which is precisely the point."

All at once she brought her long speech to a close, and with redoubled
energy resumed her work.

"Shurochka, what is 'rival' in German?" asked Nikoläiev, lifting his
head from the book.

"Rival?" Shurochka stuck her crochet-needle in her soft locks. "Read out
the whole sentence."

"It runs--wait--directly--directly--ah! it runs: 'Our rival abroad.'"

"_Unser ausländischer Nebenbuhler_" translated Shurochka straight off.

"_Unser_," repeated Romashov in a whisper as he gazed dreamily at the
flame of the lamp. "When she is moved," thought he, "her words come like
a torrent of hail falling on a silver tray. _Unser_--what a funny word!
_Unser--unser--unser._"

"What are you mumbling to yourself about, Romashov?" asked Alexandra
Petrovna severely. "Don't dare to sit and build castles in the air
whilst I am present."

He smiled at her with a somewhat embarrassed air.

"I was not building castles in the air, but repeating to myself
'_Unser--unser._' Isn't it a funny word?"

"What rubbish you are talking! _Unser._ Why is it funny?"

"You see" (he made a slight pause as if he really intended to think
about what he meant to say), "if one repeats the same word for long, and
at the same time concentrates on it all his faculty of thought, the word
itself suddenly loses all its meaning and becomes--how can I put it?"

"I know, I know!" she interrupted delightedly. "But it is not easy to
do it now. When I was a child, now--how we used to love doing it!"

"Yes--yes--it belongs to childhood--yes."

"How well I remember it! I remember the word 'perhaps' particularly
struck me. I could sit for a long time with eyes shut, rocking my body
to and fro, whilst I was repeatedly saying over and over again,
'Perhaps, perhaps.' And suddenly I quite forgot what the word itself
meant. I tried to remember, but it was no use. I saw only a little
round, reddish blotch with two tiny tails. Are you attending?" Romashov
looked tenderly at her.

"How wonderful that we should think the same thoughts!" he exclaimed in
a dreamy tone. "But let us return to our _unser_. Does not this word
suggest the idea of something long, thin, lanky, and having a sting--a
long, twisting insect, poisonous and repulsive?"

"_Unser_, did you say?" Shurochka lifted up her head, blinked her eyes,
and stared obstinately at the darkest corner of the room. She was
evidently striving to improve on Romashov's fanciful ideas.

"No, wait. _Unser_ is something green and sharp. Well, we'll suppose it
is an insect--a grasshopper, for instance--but big, disgusting, and
poisonous. But how stupid we are, Romochka!"

"There's another thing I do sometimes, only it was much easier when I
was a child," resumed Romashov in a mysterious tone. "I used to take a
word and pronounce it slowly, extremely slowly. Every letter was drawn
out and emphasized interminably. All of a sudden I was seized by a
strangely inexpressible feeling: all--everything near me sank into an
abyss, and I alone remained, marvelling that I lived, thought, and
spoke."

"I, too, have had a similar sensation," interrupted Shurochka gaily,
"yet not exactly the same. Sometimes I made violent efforts to hold my
breath all the time I was thinking. 'I am not breathing, and I won't
breathe again till, till'--then all at once I felt as if time was
running past me. No, time no longer existed; it was as if--oh, I can't
explain!"

Romashov gazed into her enthusiastic eyes, and repeated in a low tone,
thrilling with happiness--

"No, you can't explain it. It is strange--inexplicable."

Nikoläiev got up from the table where he had been working. His back
ached, and his legs had gone dead from long sitting in the same
uncomfortable position. The arteries of his strong, muscular body
throbbed when, with arms raised high, he stretched himself to his full
length.

"Look here, my learned psychologists, or whatever I should call you, it
is supper-time."

A cold collation had been laid in the comfortable little dining-room,
where, suspended from the ceiling, a china lamp with frosted glass shed
its clear light. Nikoläiev never touched spirits, but a little decanter
of schnapps had been put on the table for Romashov. Shurochka,
contorting her pretty face by a contemptuous grimace, said, in the
careless tone she so often adopted--

"Of course, you can't do without that poison?"

Romashov smiled guiltily, and in his confusion the schnapps went the
wrong way, and set him coughing.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" scolded his young hostess. "You can't
even drink it without choking over it. I can forgive it in your adored
Nasanski, who is a notorious drunkard, but for you, a handsome,
promising young man, not to be able to sit down to table without vodka,
it is really melancholy. But that is Nasanski's doing too!"

Her husband, who was glancing through the regimental orders that had
just come in, suddenly called out--

"Just listen! 'Lieutenant Nasanski has received a month's leave from the
regiment to attend to his private affairs.' Tut, tut! What does that
mean? He has been tippling again? You, Yuri Alexievich, are said, you
know, to visit him. Is it a fact that he has begun to drink heavily?"

Romashov looked embarrassed and lowered his gaze.

"No, I have not observed it, but he certainly does drink a little now
and again, you know."

"Your Nasanski is offensive to me," remarked Shurochka in a low voice,
trembling with suppressed bitterness. "If it were in my power I would
have a creature like that shot as if he were a mad dog. Such officers
are a disgrace to their regiment."

Almost directly after supper was over, Nikoläiev, who in eating had
displayed no less energy than he had just done at his writing-table,
began to gape, and at last said quite plainly--

"Do you know, I think I'll just take a little nap. Or if one were to go
straight off to the Land of Nod, as they used to express it in our good
old novels----"

"A good idea, Vladimir Yefimovich," said Romashov, interrupting him in,
as he thought, a careless, dreamy tone, but as he rose from table he
thought sadly, "They don't stand on ceremony with me here. Why on earth
do I come?"

It seemed to him that it afforded Nikoläiev a particular pleasure to
turn him out of the house; but just as he was purposely saying good-bye
to his host first, he was already dreaming of the delightful moment
when, in taking leave of Shurochka, he would feel at the same time the
strong yet caressing pressure of a beloved one's hand. When this
longed-for moment at length arrived he found himself in such a state of
happiness that he did not hear Shurochka say to him--

"Don't quite forget us. You know you are always welcome. Besides, it is
far more healthy for you to spend your evenings with us than to sit
drinking with that dreadful Nasanski. Also, don't forget we stand on no
ceremony with you."

He heard her last words as it were in a dream, but he did not realize
their meaning till he reached the street.

"Yes, that is true indeed; they don't stand on ceremony with me,"
whispered he to himself with the painful bitterness in which young and
conceited persons of his age are so prone to indulge.




V


Romashov was still standing on the doorstep. The night was rather warm,
but very dark. He began to grope his way cautiously with his hand on the
palings whilst waiting until his eyes got accustomed to the darkness.
Suddenly the kitchendoor of Nikoläiev's dwelling was thrown open, and a
broad stream of misty yellow light escaped. Heavy steps sounded in the
muddy street, the next moment Romashov heard Stepan's, the Nikoläievs'
servant's, angry voice--

"He comes here every blessed day, and the deuce knows what he comes
for."

Another soldier, whose voice Romashov did not recognize, answered
indifferently with a lazy, long-drawn yawn--

"What business can it be of yours, my dear fellow? Good-night, Stepan."

"Good-night to you, Baúlin; look in when you like."

Romashov's hands suddenly clung to the palings. An unendurable feeling
of shame made him blush, in spite of the darkness. All his body broke
out into a perspiration, and, in his back and the soles of his feet, he
felt the sting of a thousand red-hot, pointed nails. "This chapter's
closed; even the soldiers laugh at me," thought he with indescribable
pain. Directly afterwards it flashed on his mind that that very evening,
in many expressions used, in the tones of the replies, in glances
exchanged between man and wife, he had seen a number of trifles that he
had hitherto not noticed, but which he now thought testified only to
contempt of him, and ridicule, impatience and indignation at the
persistent visits of that insufferable guest.

"What a disgrace and scandal this is to me!" he whispered without
stirring from the spot. "Things have reached such a pitch that it is as
much as the Nikoläievs can do to endure my company."

The lights in their drawing-room were now extinguished. "They are in
their bedroom now," thought Romashov, and at once he began fancying that
Nikoläiev and Shurochka were then talking about him whilst making their
toilet for the night with the indifference and absence of bashfulness at
each other's presence that is characteristic of married couples. The
wife is sitting in her petticoat in front of the mirror, combing her
hair. Vladimir Yefimovitch is sitting in his night-shirt at the edge of
the bed, and saying in a sleepy but angry tone, whilst flushed with the
exertion of taking off his boots: "Hark you, Shurochka, that infernal
bore, your dear Romashov, will be the death of me with his insufferable
visits. And I really can't understand how you can tolerate him." Then to
this frank and candid speech Shurochka replies, without turning round,
and with her mouth full of hairpins: "Be good enough to remember, sir,
he is not _my_ Romochka, but _yours_."

Another five minutes elapsed before Romashov, still tortured by these
bitter and painful thoughts, made up his mind to continue his journey.
Along the whole extent of the palings belonging to the Nikoläievs' house
he walked with stealthy steps, cautiously and gently dragging his feet
from the mire, as if he feared he might be discovered and arrested as a
common vagrant. To go straight home was not to his liking at all. Nay,
he dared not even think of his gloomy, low-pitched, cramped room with
its single window and repulsive furniture. "By Jove! why shouldn't I
look up Nasanski, just to annoy _her_?" thought he all of a sudden,
whereupon he experienced the delightful satisfaction of revenge.

"She reproached me for my friendship with Nasanski. Well, I shall just
for that very reason pay him a visit."

He raised eyes to heaven, and said to himself passionately, as he
pressed his hands against his heart--

"I swear--I swear that to-day I have visited them for the last time. I
will no longer endure this mortification."

And immediately afterwards he added mentally, as was his ingrained
habit--

"His expressive black eyes glistened with resolution and contempt."

But Romashov's eyes, unfortunately, were neither "black" nor
"expressive," but of a very common colour, slightly varying between
yellow and green.

Nasanski tenanted a room in a comrade's--Lieutenant Siégerscht's--house.
This Siégerscht was most certainly the oldest lieutenant in the whole
Russian Army. Notwithstanding his unimpeachable conduct as an officer
and the fact of his having served in the war with Turkey, through some
unaccountable disposition of fate, his military career seemed closed,
and every hope of further advancement was apparently lost. He was a
widower, with four little children and forty-eight roubles a month, on
which sum, strangely enough, he managed to get along. It was his
practice to hire large flats which he afterwards, in turn, let out to
his brother officers. He took in boarders, fattened and sold fowls and
turkeys, and no one understood better than he how to purchase wood and
other necessaries cheap and at the right time. He bathed his children
himself in a common trough, prescribed for them from his little
medicine-chest when they were ill, and, with his sewing-machine, made
them tiny shirts, under-vests, and drawers. Like many other officers,
Siégerscht had, in his bachelor days, interested himself in woman's
work, and acquired a readiness with his needle that proved very useful
in hard times. Malicious tongues went so far as to assert that he
secretly and stealthily sold his handiwork.

Notwithstanding all his economy and closeness, his life was full of
troubles. Epidemic diseases ravaged his fowl-house, his numerous rooms
stood unlet for long periods; his boarders grumbled at their bad food
and refused to pay. The consequence of this was that, three or four
times a year, Siégerscht--tall, thin, and unshaven, with cheerless
countenance and a forehead dripping with cold sweat--might be seen on
his way to the town to borrow some small sum. And all recognized the
low, regimental cap that resembled a pancake, always with its peak
askew, as well as the antiquated cloak, modelled on those worn in the
time of the Emperor Nicholas, which waved in the breeze like a couple of
huge wings.

A light was burning in Siégerscht's flat, and as Romashov approached the
window, he saw him sitting by a round table under a hanging-lamp. The
bald head, with its gentle, worn features, was bent low over a little
piece of red cloth which was probably destined to form an integral part
of a Little Russian _roubashka_.[6] Romashov went up and tapped at the
window. Siégerscht started up, laid aside his work, rose from the table,
and went up to the window.

"It is I, Adam Ivanich--open the window a moment."

Siégerscht opened a little pane and looked out.

"Well, it's you, Sub-Lieutenant Romashov. What's up?"

"Is Nasanski at home?"

"Of course he's at home--where else should he be? Ah! your friend
Nasanski cheats me nicely, I can tell you. For two months I have kept
him in food, but, as for his paying for it, as yet I've only had grand
promises. When he moved here, I asked him most particularly that, to
avoid unpleasantness and misunderstandings, he should----"

"Yes, yes, we know all about that," interrupted Romashov; "but tell me
now how he is. Will he see me?"

"Yes, certainly, that he will; he does nothing but walk up and down his
room." Siégerscht stopped and listened for a second. "You yourself can
hear him tramping about. You see, I said to him, 'To prevent
unpleasantness and misunderstandings, it will be best for----'"

"Excuse me, Adam Ivanich; but we'll talk of that another time. I'm in a
bit of a hurry," said Romashov, interrupting him for the second time,
and meanwhile continuing his way round the corner. A light was burning
in one of Nasanski's windows; the other was wide open. Nasanski himself
was walking, in his shirt sleeves and without a collar, backwards and
forwards with rapid steps. Romashov crept nearer the wall and called him
by name.

"Who's there?" asked Nasanski in a careless tone, leaning out of the
window. "Oh, it's you, Georgie Alexievich. Come in through the window.
It's a long and dark way round through that door. Hold out your hand and
I'll help you."

Nasanski's dwelling was if possible more wretched that Romashov's. Along
the wall by the window stood a low, narrow, uncomfortable bed, the
bulging, broken bottom of which was covered by a coarse cotton coverlet;
on the other wall one saw a plain unpainted table with two common chairs
without backs. High up in one corner of the room was a little cupboard
fixed to the wall. A brown leather trunk, plastered all over with
address labels and railway numbers, lay in state. There was not a single
thing in the room except these articles and the lamp.

"Good-evening, my friend," said Nasanski, with a hearty hand-shake and a
warm glance from his beautiful, deep blue eyes. "Please sit down on this
bed. As you've already heard, I have handed in my sick-report."

"Yes, I heard it just now from Nikoläiev."

Again Romashov called to mind Stepan's insulting remark, the painful
memory of which was reflected in his face.

"Oh, you come from the Nikoläievs," cried Nasanski and with visible
interest. "Do you often visit them?"

The unusual tone of the question made Romashov uneasy and suspicious,
and he instinctively uttered a falsehood. He answered carelessly--

"No, certainly not often. I just happened to look them up."

Nasanski, who had been walking up and down the room during the
conversation, now stopped before the little cupboard, the door of which
he opened. On one of its shelves stood a bottle of vodka, and beside it
lay an apple cut up into thin, even slices. Standing with his back to
his guest, Nasanski poured out for himself a glass, and quickly drained
it. Romashov noticed how Nasanski's back, under its thin linen shirt,
quivered convulsively.

"Would you like anything?" asked Nasanski, with a gesture towards the
cupboard. "My larder is, as you see, poor enough; but if you are hungry
one can always try and procure an omelette. Anyhow, that's more than our
father Adam had to offer."

"Thanks, not now. Perhaps later on."

Nasanski stuck his hands in his pockets, and walked about the room.
After pacing up and down twice he began talking as though resuming an
interrupted conversation.

"Yes, I am always walking up and down and thinking. But I am quite
happy. To-morrow, of course, they will say as usual in the regiment,
'He's a drunkard.' And that is true in a sense, but it is not the whole
truth. All the same, at this moment, I'm happy; I feel neither pain nor
ailments. It is different, alas! in ordinary circumstances. My mind and
will-power are paralysed; I shall again become a cowardly and despicably
mean creature, vain, shabby, hypocritical--a curse to myself and every
one else. I loathe my profession, but, nevertheless, I remain in it. And
why? Ah! the devil himself could not explain that. Because I had it
knocked into me in my childhood, and have lived since in a set where it
is held that the most important thing in life is to serve the State, to
be free from anxiety as to one's clothes and daily bread. And
philosophy, people say, is mere rubbish, good enough for one who has
nothing else to do or who has come into a goodly heritage from his dear
mamma.

"Thus I, too, occupy myself with things in which I don't take the
slightest interest, or issue orders that seem to me both harsh and
unmeaning. My daily life is as monotonous and cheerless as an old deal
board, as rough and hard as a soldier's regulation cap. I dare scarcely
think of, far less talk of, love, beauty, my place in the scheme of
creation, of freedom and happiness, of poetry and God. They would only
laugh ha! ha! ha! at me, and say: 'Oh, damn it! That, you know, is
philosophy. It is not only ridiculous but even dangerous for an officer
to show he holds any high views,' and at best the officer escapes with
being dubbed a harmless, hopeless ass."

"And yet it is this that alone gives life any value," sighed Romashov.

"And now the happy hour is drawing nigh about which they tattle so
heartlessly and with so much contempt," Nasanski went on to say without
listening to Romashov's words. He walked incessantly backwards and
forwards, and interpolated his speech, every now and then, with striking
gestures, which were not, however, addressed to Romashov, but were
always directed to the two corners of the room which he visited in turn.
"Now comes my turn of freedom, Romashov--freedom for soul, thought, and
will. Then I shall certainly live a peculiar, but nevertheless rich,
inner life. All that I have seen, heard, and read will then gain a
deeper meaning, will appear in a clear and more distinct light, and
receive a deep, infinite significance. My memory will then be like a
museum of rare curiosities. I shall be a very Rothschild. I take the
first object within my reach, gaze at it long, closely, and with
rapture. Persons, events, characters, books, women, love--nay, first and
last, women and love--all this is interwoven in my imagination. Now and
then I think of the heroes and geniuses of history, of the countless
martyrs of religion and science. I don't believe in God, Romashov, but
sometimes I think of the saints and martyrs and call to mind the Holy
Scriptures and canticles."

Romashov got up quietly from his seat at the edge of the bed and walked
away to the open window, and then he sat down with his back resting
against the sill. From that spot, from the lighted room, the night
seemed to him still darker and more fraught with mystery. Tepid breezes
whispered just beneath the window, amongst the dark foliage of the
shrubs. And in this mild air, charged with the sharp, aromatic perfume
of spring, under those gleaming stars, in this dead silence of the
universe, one might fancy he felt the hot breath of reviving,
generating, voluptuous Nature.

Nasanski continued all along his eternal wandering, and indulged in
building castles in the air, without looking at Romashov, as if he were
talking to the walls.

"In these moments my thoughts--seething, motley, original--chase one
another. My senses acquire an unnatural acuteness; my imagination
becomes an overwhelming flood. Persons and things, living or dead, which
are evoked by me stand before me in high relief and also in an
extraordinarily intense light, as if I saw them in a _camera obscura_. I
know, I know now, that all that is merely a super-excitation of the
senses, an emanation of the soul flaming up like lightning, but in the
next instant flickering out, being produced by the physiological
influence of alcohol on the nervous system. In the beginning I thought
such psychic phenomena implied an elevation of my inner, spiritual Ego,
and that even I might have moments of inspiration. But no; there was
nothing permanent or of any value in this, nothing creative or
fructifying. Altogether it was only a morbid, physiological process, a
river wave that at every ebb that occurs sucks away with it and destroys
the beach. Yes, this, alas! is a fact. But it is also equally
indisputable that these wild imaginings procured me moments of ineffable
happiness. And besides, let the devil keep for his share your
much-vaunted high morality, your hypocrisy, and your insufferable rules
of health. I don't want to become one of your pillar-saints nor do I
wish to live a hundred years so as to figure as a physiological miracle
in the advertisement columns of the newspapers. I am happy, and that
suffices."

Nasanski again went up to the little cupboard, poured out and swallowed
a "nip," after which he shut the cupboard door with much ceremony and an
expression on his face as if he had fulfilled a religious duty. Romashov
walked listlessly up from the window to the cupboard, the life-giving
contents of which he sampled with a gloomy and _blasé_ air. This done,
he returned to his seat on the window-bench.

"What were you thinking about just before I came, Vasili Nilich?" asked
Romashov, as he made himself as comfortable as possible.

Nasanski, however, did not hear his question. "How sweet it is to dream
of women!" he exclaimed with a grand and eloquent gesture. "But away
with all unclean thoughts! And why? Ah! because no one has any right,
even in imagination, to make a human being a culprit in what is low,
sinful, and impure. How often I think of chaste, tender, loving women,
of their bright tears and gracious smiles; of young, devoted,
self-sacrificing mothers, of all those who have faced death for love; of
proud, bewitching maidens with souls as pure as snow, knowing all, yet
afraid of nothing. But such women do not exist--yet I am wrong,
Romashov; such women do exist although neither you nor I have seen them.
This may possibly be vouchsafed you; but to me--never!"

He was now standing right in front of Romashov and staring him straight
in the face, but by the far-off expression in his eyes, by the
enigmatical smile that played on his lips, any one could observe that he
did not even see to whom he was talking. Never had Nasanski's
countenance--even in his better and sober moments--seemed to Romashov so
attractive and interesting as at this instant. His golden hair fell in
luxuriant curls around his pure and lofty brow; his blond, closely
clipped beard was curled in light waves, and his strong, handsome head
on his bare, classically shaped neck reminded one of the sages and
heroes of Greece, whose busts Romashov had seen in engravings and at
museums. Nasanski's bright, clever blue eyes glistened with moisture,
and his well-formed features were rendered still more engaging by the
fresh colour of his complexion, although a keen eye could not, I
daresay, avoid noticing a certain flabbiness--the infallible mark of
every person addicted to drink.

"Love--what an abyss of mystery is contained in the word, and what bliss
lies hidden in its tortures!" Nasanski went on to say in an enraptured
voice. In his violent excitement he caught hold of his hair with both
hands, and took two hasty strides towards the other end of the room, but
suddenly stopped, and turned round sharply to Romashov with a merry
laugh. The latter observed him with great interest, but likewise not
without a certain uneasiness.

"Just this moment I remember an amusing story" (Nasanski now dropped
into his usual good-tempered tone), "but, ugh! how my wits go
wool-gathering--now here, now there. Once upon a time I sat waiting for
the train at Ryasan, and wait I did--I suppose half a day, for it was
right in the middle of the spring floods, and the train had met with
real obstacles. Well, you must know, I built myself a little nest in the
waiting-room. Behind the counter stood a girl of eighteen--not pretty,
being pockmarked, but brisk and pleasant. She had black eyes and a
charming smile. In fact, she was a very nice girl. We were three, all
told, at the station: she, I, and a little telegraphist with white
eyebrows and eyelashes. Ah! excuse me, there was another person
there--the girl's father, a fat, red-faced, grey-haired brute, who put
me in mind of a rough old mastiff. But this attractive figure kept
itself, as a rule, behind the scenes. Only rarely and for a few minutes
did he put in an appearance behind the counter, to yawn, scratch himself
under his waistcoat, and immediately afterwards disappear for a longish
time. He spent his life in bed, and his eyes were glued together by
eternally sleeping. The little telegraphist paid frequent and regular
visits to the waiting-room, laid his elbows on the counter, but was, for
the most part, as mute as the grave. She, too, was silent and looked
dreamily out of the window at the floods. All of a sudden our youngster
began humming--

    "'Love--love.
     What is love?
     Something celestial
     That drives us wild.'

"After this, again silence. A pause of five minutes, she begins, in her
turn--

    "'Love--love.
     What is love?' etc.

"Both the sentimental words as well as the melody were taken from some
musty old operetta that had perhaps been performed in the town, and had
become a pleasant recollection to both the young people. Then again the
same wistful song and significant silence. At last she steals softly a
couple of paces to the window, all the while keeping one hand on the
counter. Our Celadon quietly lays hold of the delicate fingers, one by
one, and with visible trepidation gazes at them in profound devotion.
And again the _motif_ of that hackneyed operetta is heard from his lips.
It was spring with all its yearning. Then all this cloying 'love' only
awoke in me nausea and disgust, but, since then, I have often thought
with deep emotion of the vast amount of happiness this innocent
love-making could bestow, and how it was most certainly the only ray of
light in the dreary lives of these two human beings--lives, very likely,
even more empty and barren than my own. But, I beg your pardon,
Romashov; why should I bore you with my silly, long-winded stories?"

Nasanski again betook himself to the little cupboard, but he did not
fetch out the schnapps bottle, but stood motionless with his back turned
to Romashov. He scratched his forehead, pressed his right hand lightly
to his temple, and maintained this position for a considerable while,
evidently a prey to conflicting thoughts.

"You were speaking of women, love, abysses, mystery, and joy," remarked
Romashov, by way of reminder.

"Yes, love," cried Nasanski in a jubilant voice. He now took out the
bottle, poured some of its contents out, and drained the glass quickly,
as he turned round with a fierce glance, and wiped his mouth with his
shirt sleeve. "Love! who do you suppose understands the infinite meaning
of this holy word? And yet--from it men have derived subjects for
filthy, rubbishy operettas; for lewd pictures and statues, shameless
stories and disgusting 'rhymes.' That is what we officers do. Yesterday
I had a visit from Ditz. He sat where you are sitting now. He toyed with
his gold pince-nez and talked about women. Romashov, my friend, I tell
you that if an animal, a dog, for instance, possessed the faculty of
understanding human speech, and had happened to hear what Ditz said
yesterday, it would have fled from the room ashamed. Ditz, as you know,
Romashov, is a 'good fellow,' and even the others are 'good,' for really
bad people do not exist; but for fear of forfeiting his reputation as a
cynic, 'man about town,' and 'lady-killer,' he dares not express himself
about women otherwise than he does. Amongst our young men there is a
universal confusion of ideas that often finds expression in bragging
contempt, and the cause of this is that the great majority seek in the
possession of women only coarse, sensual, brutish enjoyment, and that
is the reason why love becomes to them only something contemptible,
wanton--well, I don't know, damn it! how to express exactly what I
mean--and, when the animal instincts are satisfied, coldness, disgust,
and enmity are the natural result. The man of culture has said
good-night to love, just as he has done to robbery and murder, and seems
to regard it only as a sort of snare set by Nature for the destruction
of humanity."

"That is the truth about it," agreed Romashov quietly and sadly.

"No, that is _not_ true!" shouted Nasanski in a voice of thunder. "Yes,
I say it once more--it is a lie. In this, as in everything else, Nature
has revealed her wisdom and ingenuity. The fact is merely that whereas
Lieutenant Ditz finds in love only brutal enjoyment, disgust, and
surfeit, Dante finds in it beauty, felicity, and harmony. True love is
the heritage of the elect, and to understand this let us take another
simile. All mankind has an ear for music, but, in the case of millions,
this is developed about as much as in stock-fish or Staff-Captain
Vasilichenko. Only one individual in all these millions is a Beethoven.
And the same is the case in everything--in art, science, poetry. And so
far as love is concerned, I tell you that even this has its peaks which
only one out of millions is able to climb."

He walked to the window, and leaned his forehead against the sill where
Romashov sat gazing out on the warm, dark, spring night. At last he said
in a voice low, but vibrating with strong inward excitement--

"Oh, if we could see and grasp Love's innermost being, its supernatural
beauty and charm--we gross, blind earth-worms! How many know and feel
what happiness, what delightful tortures exist in an undying, hopeless
love? I remember, when I was a youth, how all my yearning took form and
shape in this single dream: to fall in love with an ideally beautiful
and noble woman far beyond my reach, and standing so high above me that
every thought of possessing her I might harbour was mad and criminal; to
consecrate to her all my life, all my thoughts, without her even
suspecting it, and to carry my delightful, torturing secret with me to
the grave; to be her slave, her lackey, her protector, or to employ a
thousand arts just to see her once a year, to come close to her,
and--oh, maddening rapture!--to touch the hem of her garment or kiss the
ground on which she had walked----"

"And to wind up in a mad-house," exclaimed Romashov in a gloomy tone.

"Oh, my dear fellow, what does that matter?" cried Nasanski
passionately. "Perhaps--who knows?--one might then attain to that state
of bliss one reads of in stories. Which is best--to lose your wits
through a love which can never be realized, or, like Ditz, to go stark
mad from shameful, incurable diseases or slow paralysis? Just think what
felicity--to stand all night in front of her window on the other side of
the street. Look, there's a shadow visible behind the drawn curtain--can
it be _she_? What's she doing? What's she thinking of? The light is
lowered--sleep, my beloved, sleep in peace, for Love is keeping vigil.
Days, months, years pass away; the moment at last arrives when Chance,
perhaps, bestows on you her glove, handkerchief, the concert programme
she has thrown away. She is not acquainted with you, does not even know
that you exist. Her glance passes over you without seeing you; but
there you stand with the same unchangeable, idolatrous adoration, ready
to sacrifice yourself for her--nay, even for her slightest whim, for her
husband, lover, her pet dog, to sacrifice life, honour, and all that you
hold dear. Romashov, a bliss such as this can never fall to the lot of
our Don Juans and lady-killers."

"Ah, how true this is! how splendidly you speak!" cried Romashov,
carried away by Nasanski's passionate words and gestures. Long before
this he had got up from the window, and now he was walking, like his
eccentric host, up and down the long, narrow room, pacing the floor with
long, quick strides. "Listen, Nasanski. I will tell you something--about
myself. Once upon a time I fell in love with a woman--oh, not here; no,
in Moscow. I was then a mere stripling. Ah, well, she had no inkling of
it, and it was enough for me to be allowed to sit near her when she
sewed, and to draw quietly and imperceptibly, the threads towards me.
That was all, and she noticed nothing; but it was enough to turn my head
with joy."

"Ah, yes, how well I understand this!" replied Nasanski with a friendly
smile, nodding his head all the time. "A delicate white thread charged
with electrical currents. What a store of poetry is enshrined in that!
My dear fellow, life is so beautiful!"

Nasanski, absorbed in profound reverie, grew silent, and his blue eyes
were bright with tears. Romashov also felt touched, and there was
something nervous, hysterical, and spontaneous about this melancholy of
his, but these expressions of pity were not only for Nasanski, but
himself.

"Vasili Nilich, I admire you," cried he as he grasped and warmly pressed
both Nasanski's hands. "But how can so gifted, far-sighted, and
wide-awake a man as you rush, with his eyes open, to his own
destruction? But I am the last person on earth who ought to read you a
lesson on morals. Only one more question: supposing in the course of
your life you happened to meet a woman worthy of you, and capable of
appreciating you, would you then----? I've thought of this so often."

Nasanski stopped and stared for a long time through the open window.

"A woman----" he uttered the word slowly and dreamily. "I'll tell you a
story," he continued suddenly and in an energetic tone. "Once in my life
I met an exceptional--ah! wonderful--woman, a young girl, but as Heine
somewhere says: 'She was worthy of being loved, and he loved her; but he
was not worthy, and she did not love him.' Her love waned because I
drank, or perhaps it was I drank because she did not love me. _She_--by
the way, it was not here that this happened. It was a long time ago, and
you possibly know that I first served in the infantry for three years,
after that for four years with the reserves, and for a second time,
three years ago, I came here. Well, to continue, between her and me
there was no romance whatever. We met and had five or six chats
together--that was all. But have you ever thought what an irresistible,
bewitching might there is in the past, in our recollections? The memory
of these few insignificant episodes of my life constitutes the whole of
my wealth. I love her even to this very day. Wait, Romashov, you deserve
to hear it--I will read out to you the first and only letter I ever
received from her." He crouched down before the old trunk, opened it,
and began rummaging impatiently among a mass of old papers, during
which he kept on talking. "I know she never loved any one but herself.
There was a depth of pride, imperiousness, even cruelty about her, yet,
at the same time, she was so good, so genuinely womanly, so infinitely
pleasant and lovable. She had two natures--the one egoistical and
calculating, the other all heart and passionate tenderness. See here, I
have it. Read it now, Romashov. The beginning will not interest you
much" (Nasanski turned over a few lines of the letter), "but read from
here; read it all."

Romashov felt as if some one had struck him a stunning blow on the head,
and the whole room seemed to dance before his eyes, for the letter was
written in a large but nervous and compressed hand, that could only
belong to Alexandra Petrovna--quaint, irregular, but by no means
unsympathetic. Romashov, who had often received cards from her with
invitations to small dinners and card parties, recognized this hand at
once.

"It is a bitter and hard task for me to write this," read Romashov under
Nasanski's hand; "but only you yourself are to blame for our
acquaintance coming to this tragic end. Lying I abominate more than
anything else in life. It always springs from cowardice and weakness,
and this is the reason why I shall also tell you the whole truth. I
loved you up to now; yes, I love you even now, and I know it will prove
very hard for me to master this feeling. But I also know that, in the
end, I shall gain the victory. What do you suppose our lot would be if I
acted otherwise? I confess I lack the energy and self-denial requisite
for becoming the housekeeper, nurse-girl, or sister of mercy to a
weakling with no will of his own. I loathe above everything
self-sacrifice and pity for others, and I shall let neither you nor any
one else excite these feelings in me. I will not have a husband who
would only be a dog at my feet, incessantly craving alms or proofs of
affection. And you would never be anything else, in spite of your
extraordinary talents and noble qualities. Tell me now, with your hand
upon your heart, if you are capable of it. Alas! my dear Vasili Nilich,
if you could. All my heart, all my life yearns for you. I love you. What
is the obstacle, then? No one but yourself. For a person one loves, one
can, you know, sacrifice the whole world, and now I ask of you only this
one thing; but can you? No, you cannot, and now I bid you good-bye for
ever. In thought I kiss you on your forehead as one kisses a corpse, and
you are dead to me--for ever. I advise you to destroy this letter, not
that I blush for or fear its contents, but because I think it will be a
source to you of tormenting recollections. I repeat once more----"

"The rest is of little interest to you," said Nasanski abruptly, as he
took the letter from Romashov's hand. "This, as I have just told you,
was her only letter to me."

"What happened afterwards?" stammered Romashov awkwardly.

"Afterwards? We never saw one another afterwards. She went her way and
is reported to have married an engineer. That, however, is another
matter."

"And you never visit Alexandra Petrovna?"

Romashov uttered these words in a whisper, but both officers started at
the sound of them, and gazed at each other a long time without speaking.
During these few seconds all the barriers raised by human guile and
hypocrisy fell away, and the two men read each other's soul as an open
book. Hundreds of things that had hitherto been for them a profound
secret stood before them that moment in dazzling light, and the whole of
the conversation that evening suddenly took a peculiar, deep, nay,
almost tragic, significance.

"What? you too?" exclaimed Nasanski at last, with an expression
bordering on fear in his eyes, but he quickly regained his composure and
exclaimed with a laugh, "Ugh! what a misunderstanding! We were
discussing something quite different. That letter which you have just
read was written hundreds of years ago, and the woman in question lived
in Transcaucasia. But where was it we left off?"

"It is late, Vasili Nilich, and time to say good-night," replied
Romashov, rising.

Nasanski did not try to keep him. They separated neither in a cold or
unfriendly way, but they were, as it seemed, ashamed of each other.
Romashov was now more convinced than ever that the letter was from
Shurochka. During the whole of his way home he thought of nothing except
this letter, but he could not make out what feelings it aroused in him.
They were a mingling of jealousy of Nasanski--jealousy on account of
what had been--but also a certain exultant pity for Nasanski, and in
himself there awoke new hopes, dim and indefinite, but delicious and
alluring. It was as if this letter had put into his hand a mysterious,
invisible clue that was leading him into the future.

The breeze had subsided. The tepid night's intense darkness and silence
reminded one of soft, warm velvet. One felt, as it were, life's mystic
creative force in the never-slumbering air, in the dumb stillness of the
invisible trees, in the smell of the earth. Romashov walked without
seeing which way he went, and it seemed to him as if he felt the hot
breath of something strong and powerful, but, at the same time, sweet
and caressing. His thoughts went back with dull, harrowing pain to
bygone happy springs that would never more return--to the blissful,
innocent days of his childhood.

When he reached home he found on the table another letter from Raisa
Alexandrovna Peterson. In her usual bad taste she complained, in turgid,
extravagant terms, of his "deceitful conduct" towards her. She "now
understood everything," and the "injured woman" within her invoked on
him all the perils of hatred and revenge.

     Now I know what I have to do (the letter ran). If I survive the
     sorrow and pain of your abominable conduct, you may be quite
     certain I shall cruelly avenge this insult. You seem to think that
     nobody knows where you are in the habit of spending your evenings.
     You are watched! and even walls have ears. Every step you take is
     known to me. But all the same, you will never get anything _there_
     with all your soft, pretty speeches, unless N. flings you
     downstairs like a puppy. So far as I am concerned, you will be wise
     not to lull yourself into fancied security. I am not one of those
     women who let themselves be insulted with impunity.

    A Caucasian woman am I
    Who knows how to handle a knife.

   --Once yours, now nobody's,

RAISA.

     PS.--I command you to meet me at the soirée on Saturday and explain
     your conduct. The third quadrille will be kept for you; but mind,
     there is no special importance _now_ in that.

R. P.

To Romashov this ill-spelled, ungrammatical letter was a breath of the
stupidity, meanness, and spiteful tittle-tattle of a provincial town. He
felt for ever soiled from head to foot by this disgusting _liaison_,
scarcely of six months' standing, with a woman he had never loved. He
threw himself on his bed with an indescribable feeling of depression. He
even felt as if he were torn to tatters by the events of the day, and he
involuntarily called to mind Nasanski's words that very night: "his
thoughts were as grey as a soldier's cloak."

He soon fell into a deep, heavy sleep. As he had always done of late,
when he had had bitter moments, he saw himself, even now in his dreams,
as a little child. There were no impure impulses in him, no sense of
something lacking, no weariness of life; his body was light and healthy,
and his soul was luminous and full of joy and hope; and in this world of
radiance and happiness he saw dear old Moscow's streets in the dazzling
brightness that is presented to the eyes in dreamland. But far away by
the horizon, at the very verge of this sky that was saturated with
light, there arose quickly and threateningly a dark, ill-boding wall of
cloud, behind which was hidden a horrible provincial hole of a place
with cruel and unbearable slavery, drills, recruit schools, drinking,
false friends, and utterly corrupt women. His life was nothing but joy
and gladness, but the dark cloud was waiting patiently for the moment
when it was to fold him in its deadly embrace. And it so happened that
little Romashov, amidst his childish babble and innocent dreams,
bewailed in silence the fate of his "double."

He awoke in the middle of the night, and noticed that his pillow was wet
with tears. Then he wept afresh, and the warm tears again ran down his
cheeks in rapid streams.




VI


With the exception of a few ambitious men bent on making a career for
themselves, all the officers regarded the service as an intolerable
slavery to which they must needs submit. The younger of them behaved
like veritable schoolboys; they came late to the drills, and wriggled
away from them as soon as possible, provided that could be done without
risk of serious consequences to themselves afterwards. The captains,
who, as a rule, were burdened with large families, were immersed in
household cares, scandals, money troubles, and were worried the whole
year through with loans, promissory notes, and other methods of raising
the wind. Many ventured--often at the instigation of their
wives--secretly to divert to their own purposes the moneys belonging to
the regiment and the soldiers' pay--nay, they even went so far as
"officially" to withhold their men's private letters when the latter
were found to contain money. Some lived by gambling--vint, schtoss,
lansquenet--and certain rather ugly stories were told in connection with
this--stories which high authorities had a good deal of trouble to
suppress. In addition to all this, heavy drinking, both at mess and in
their own homes, was widespread amongst the officers.

With regard to the officers' sense of duty, that, too, was, as a rule,
altogether lacking. The non-commissioned officers did all the work; the
pay-sergeants set in motion and regulated the inner mechanism of the
company, and were held responsible for the despatch of it; hence very
soon, and quite imperceptibly, the commander became a mere marionette in
the coarse, experienced hands of his subordinates. The senior officers,
moreover, regarded the exercises of the troops with the same aversion as
did their junior comrades, and if at any time they displayed their zeal
by punishing an ensign, they only did it to gain prestige or--which was
more seldom the case--to satisfy their lust of power or desire for
revenge.

Captains of brigades and battalions had, as a rule, absolutely nothing
to do in the winter. During the summer it was their duty to inspect the
exercises of the battalion, to assist at those of the regiment and
division, and to undergo the hardships of the field-manoeuvres. During
their long freedom from duty they used to sit continually in their
mess-room, eagerly studying the _Russki Invalid_,[7] and savagely
criticizing all new appointments; but cards were, however, their alpha
and omega, and they most readily permitted their juniors to be their
hosts, though they but very rarely exercised a cautious hospitality in
their own homes, and then only with the object of getting their numerous
daughters married.

But when the time for the great review approached, it was quite another
tune. All, from the highest to the lowest, were seized by a sort of
madness. There was no talk of peace and quiet then; every one tried, by
additional hours of drill and an almost maniacal activity, to make up
for previous negligence. The soldiers were treated with the most
heartless cruelty, and overtaxed to the last degree of sheer exhaustion.
Every one was tyrant over some wretch; the company commanders, with
endless curses, threatened their "incompetent" subalterns, and the
latter, in turn, poured the vials of their wrath over the "non-coms.,"
and the "non-coms.," hoarse with shouting orders, oaths, and the most
frightful insults, struck and misused the soldiers in the most ferocious
manner. The whole camp and parade-ground were changed into a hell, and
Sundays, with their indispensable rest and peace, loomed like a heavenly
paradise in the eyes of the poor tortured recruits.

This spring the regiment was preparing for the great May parade. It was
at this time common knowledge that the review was to take place before
the commander of the corps--a strict old veteran, known throughout
military literature by his works on the Carlist War and the
Franco-German Campaign of 1870, in which he took part as a volunteer.
Besides, he was known throughout the kingdom for his eccentric general
orders and manifestoes that were invariably couched in a lapidary style
à la Savóroff. The reckless, sharp, and coarse sarcasm he always infused
into his criticism was feared by the officers more than even the
severest disciplinary punishment.

It was not to be wondered at that for a fortnight the whole regiment
worked with feverish energy, and Sunday was no less longed for by the
utterly worn-out officers than by the men, who were well-nigh tortured
to death.

But to Romashov, who sat idle under arrest, Sunday brought neither joy
nor repose. As he had tried in vain to sleep during the night, he got up
early, dressed slowly and unwillingly, drank his tea with undisguised
repugnance, and refreshed himself at last by hurling a few insults at
Hainán, who did not heed them in the least, but continued to stalk about
the room as happy, active, and clumsy as a puppy.

Romashov sauntered up and down his narrow room in his unbuttoned,
carelessly donned undress uniform. Now he bumped his knee against the
foot of the bed, now his elbow against the rickety bookcase. It was the
first time now for half a year--thanks to a somewhat unpleasant
accident--that he found himself alone in his own abode. He had always
been occupied with drill, sentry duty, card-playing, and libations to
Bacchus, dancing attendance on the Peterson woman, and evening calls on
the Nikoläievs. Sometimes, if he happened to be free and had nothing
particular in view, Romashov might, if worried by moping and laziness,
and as if he feared his own company, rush aimlessly off to the club, or
some acquaintance, or simply to the street, in hopes of finding some
bachelor comrade--a meeting which infallibly ended with a drinking-bout
in the mess-room. Now he contemplated with dread the long, unendurable
day of loneliness and boredom before him, and a crowd of stupid,
extraordinary fancies and projects buzzed in his brain.

The bells in the town were ringing for High Mass. Through the inner
window, which had not been removed since the winter began, forced their
way into the room these trembling tones that were produced, as it were,
one from the other, and in the melancholy clang of which, on this
sentimental spring morning, there lay a peculiar power of charm.
Immediately outside Romashov's window lay a garden in which many
cherry-trees grew in rich abundance, all white with blooms, and all
soft and round as a flock of snow-white sheep whose wool was fine.
Between them, here and there, arose slim but gigantic poplars that
stretched their boughs beseechingly towards heaven, and ancient,
venerable chestnut-trees with their dome-like crests. The trees were
still bare, with black, naked boughs, but on these, though the eye could
hardly discern them, the first yellowish verdure, fresh as the dew,
began to be visible. In the pure, moisture-laden air of the
newly-awakened spring day, the trees rocked softly here and there before
the cool, sportive breezes that murmured from time to time among the
flowers, and bowed them to the ground with a roguish kiss.

From the windows one could discern, on the left, through a gateway, a
part of the dirty street, which on one side was fenced off. People
passed alongside of the fence from time to time, walking slowly as they
picked out a dry place for their next step. "Lucky people," thought
Romashov, as he enviously followed them with his eyes, "they need not
hurry. They have the whole of the long day before them--ah! a whole,
free, glorious day."

And suddenly there came over him a longing for freedom so intense and
passionate that tears rushed to his eyes, and he had great difficulty in
restraining himself from running out of the house. Now, however, it was
not the mess-room that attracted him, but only the yard, the street,
fresh air. It was as if he had never understood before what freedom was,
and he was astonished at the amount of happiness that is comprised in
the simple fact that one may go where one pleases, turn into this or
that street, stop in the middle of the square, peep into a half-opened
church door, etc., etc., all at one's own sweet will and without having
to fear the consequences. The right to do, and the possibility of doing,
all this would be enough to fill a man's heart with an exultant sense of
joy and bliss.

He remembered in connection with this how, in his earliest youth, long
before he entered the Cadet School, his mother used to punish him by
tying him tightly to the foot of the bed with fine thread, after which
she left him by himself; and little Romashov sat for whole hours
submissively still. But never for an instant did it occur to him to flee
from the house, although, under ordinary circumstances, he never stood
on ceremony--for instance, to slide down the water-pipe from other
storys to the street; to dangle, without permission, after a military
band or a funeral procession as far as the outskirts of Moscow; or to
steal from his mother lumps of sugar, jam, and cigarettes for older
playfellows, etc. But this brittle thread exercised a remarkable
hypnotizing influence on his mind as a child. He was even afraid of
breaking it by some sudden, incautious movement. In that case he was
influenced by no fear whatsoever of punishment, neither by a sense of
duty, nor by regret, but by pure hypnosis, a superstitious dread of the
unfathomable power and superiority of grown-up or older persons, which
reminds one of the savage who, paralysed by fright, dares not take a
step beyond the magic circle that the conjurer has drawn.

"And here I am sitting now like a schoolboy, like a little helpless,
mischievous brat tied by the leg," thought Romashov as he slouched
backwards and forwards in his room. "The door is open, I can go when I
please, can do what I please, can talk and laugh--but I am kept back by
a thread. _I_ sit here; _I_ and nobody else. Some one has ordered me to
sit here, and I shall sit here; but who has authorized him to order
this? Certainly not _I_.

"I"--Romashov stood in the middle of the room with his legs straddling
and his head hanging down, thinking deeply. "_I, I, I!_" he shouted in a
loud voice, in which there lay a certain note of astonishment, as if he
now was first beginning to comprehend the meaning of this short word.
"Who is standing here and gaping at that black crack in the floor?--Is
it really I? How curious--I"--he paused slowly and with emphasis on the
monosyllable, just as if it were only by such means that he could grasp
its significance.

He smiled unnaturally; but, in the next instant, he frowned, and turned
pale with emotion and strain of thought. Such small crises had not
infrequently happened to him during the last five or six years, as is
nearly always the case with young people during that period of life when
the mind is in course of development. A simple truth, a saying, a common
phrase, with the meaning of which he has long ago been familiar,
suddenly, by some mysterious impulse from within, stands in a new light,
and so receives a particular philosophical meaning. Romashov could still
remember the first time this happened to him. It was at school during a
catechism lesson, when the priest tried to explain the parable of the
labourers who carried away stones. One of them began with the light
stones, and afterwards took the heavier ones, but when at last he came
to the very heaviest of all his strength was exhausted. The other worked
according to a diametrically different plan, and luckily fulfilled his
duty. To Romashov was opened the whole abyss of practical wisdom that
lay hidden in this simple picture that he had known and understood ever
since he could read a book. Likewise with the old saying: "Seven times
shalt thou measure, once shalt thou cut." In a happy moment he suddenly
perceived the full, deep import of this maxim; wisdom, understanding,
wise economy, calculation. A tremendous experience of life lay concealed
in these few words. Such was the case now. All his mental individuality
stood suddenly before him with the distinctness of a lightning flash.

"My Ego," thought Romashov, "is only that which is within me, the very
kernel of my being; all the rest is the non-Ego--that is, only secondary
things. This room, street, trees, sky, the commander of my regiment,
Lieutenant Andrusevich, the service, the standard, the soldiers--all
this is non-Ego. No, no, this is non-Ego--my hands and feet." Romashov
lifted up his hands to the level of his face, and looked at them with
wonder and curiosity, as if he saw them now for the first time in his
life. "No, all this is non-Ego. But look--I pinch my arm--that is the
Ego. I see my arm, I lift it up--_this_ is the Ego. And what I am
thinking now is also Ego. If I now want to go my way, that is the Ego.
And even if I stop, that is the Ego.

"Oh, how wonderful, how mysterious is this. And so simple too. Is it
true that all individuals possess a similar Ego? Perhaps it is only I
who have it? Or perhaps nobody has it. Down there hundreds of soldiers
stand drawn up in front of me. I give the order: 'Eyes to the right,' to
hundreds of human beings who has each his own Ego, and who see in me
something foreign, distant, i.e. non-Ego--then turn their heads at once
to the right. But I do not distinguish one from the other; they are to
me merely a mass. And to Colonel Schulgovich both I and Viätkin and
Lbov, and all the captains and lieutenants, are likewise perhaps merely
a 'mass,' viz., he does not distinguish one of us from the other, or, in
other words, we are entirely outside his ken as individuals to him."

The door was opened, and Hainán stole into the room. He began at once
his usual dance, threw up his legs into the air, rocked his shoulders,
and shouted--

"Your Honour, I got no cigarettes. They said that Lieutenant Skriabin
gave orders that you were not to have any more on credit."

"Oh, damn! You can go, Hainán. What am I to do without cigarettes?
However, it is of no consequence. You can go, Hainán."

"What was it I was thinking of?" Romashov asked himself, when he was
once more alone. He had lost the threads, and, unaccustomed as he was to
think, he could not pick them up again at once. "What was I thinking of
just now? It was something important and interesting. Well, let us turn
back and take the questions in order. Also, I am under arrest; out in
the street I see people at large; my mother tied me up with a
thread--_me, me_. Yes, so it was. The soldier perhaps has an Ego,
perhaps even Colonel Shulgovich. Ha, he! now I remember; go on. Here I
am sitting in my room. I am arrested, but my door is open. I want to go
out, but I dare not. Why do I not dare? Have I committed any
crime--theft--murder? No. All I did was merely omitting to keep my heels
together when I was talking to another man. Possibly I was wrong. Yet,
why? Is it anything important? Is it the chief thing in life? In about
twenty or thirty years--a second in eternity--my life, my Ego, will go
out like a lamp does when one turns the wick down. They will light
life--the lamp--afresh, over and over again; but my Ego is gone for
ever. Likewise this room, this sky, the regiment, the whole army, all
stars, this dirty globe, my hands and feet--all, all--shall be
annihilated for ever. Yes, yes; that is so. Well, all right--but wait a
bit. I must not be in too much of a hurry. I shall not be in existence.
Ah, wait. I found myself in infinite darkness. Somebody came and lighted
my life's lamp, but almost immediately he blew it out again, and once
more I was in darkness, in the eternity of eternities. What did I do?
What did I utter during this short moment of my existence? I held my
thumb on the seam of my trousers and my heels together. I shrieked as
loud as I could: 'Shoulder arms!' and immediately afterwards I thundered
'Use your butt ends, you donkeys!' I trembled before a hundred tyrants,
now miserable ghosts in eternity like my own remarkable, lofty Ego. But
why did I tremble before those ghosts and why could they compel me to do
such a lot of unnecessary, idiotic, unpleasant things? How could they
venture to annoy and insult my Ego--these miserable spectres?"

Romashov sat down by the table, put his elbows on it, and leaned his
head on his hands. It was hard work for him to keep in check these wild
thoughts which raced through his mind.

"H'm!--my friend Romashov, what a lot you have forgotten--your
fatherland, the ashes of your sire, the altar of honour, the warrior's
oath and discipline. Who shall preserve the land of your sires when the
foe rushes over its boundaries? Ah! when I am dead there will be no
more fatherland, no enemy, no honour. They will disappear at the same
time as my consciousness. But if all this be buried and brought to
naught--country, enemies, honour, and all the other big words--what has
all this to do with _my Ego_? I am more important than all these phrases
about duty, honour, love, etc. Assume that I am a soldier and my Ego
suddenly says, 'I won't fight,' and not only _my own_ Ego, but millions
of other Egos that constitute the whole of the army, the whole of
Russia, the entire world; all these say, 'We won't!' Then it will be all
over so far as war is concerned, and never again will any one have to
hear such absurdities as 'Open order,' 'Shoulder arms,' and all the rest
of that nonsense.

"Well, well, well. It must be so some day," shouted an exultant voice in
Romashov. "All that talk about 'warlike deeds,' 'discipline,' 'honour of
the uniform,' 'respect for superiors,' and, first and last, the whole
science of war exists only because humanity will not, or cannot, or dare
not, say, 'I won't.'"

"What do you suppose all this cunningly reared edifice that is called
the profession of arms really is? Nothing, humbug, a house hanging in
midair, which will tumble down directly mankind pronounces three short
words: 'I will not.' My Ego will never say, 'I will not eat,' 'I will
not breathe,' 'I will not see,' But if any one proposes to my Ego that
it shall die, it infallibly replies: 'I will not.' What, then, is war
with all its hecatombs of dead and the science of war, which teaches us
the best methods of murdering? Why, a universal madness, an illusion.
But wait. Perhaps I am mistaken. No, I cannot be mistaken, for this 'I
will not' is so simple, so natural, that everybody must, in the end, say
it. Let us, however, examine the matter more closely. Let us suppose
that this thought is pronounced this very moment by all Russians,
Germans, Englishmen, and Japanese. Ah, well, what would be the
consequence? Why, that war would cease for ever, and the officers and
soldiers would go, every man, to his home. And what would happen after
that? I know: Shulgovich would answer; Shulgovich would immediately get
querulous and say: 'Now we are done for; they can attack us now whenever
they please, take away our hearths and homes, trample down our fields,
and carry off our wives and sisters.' And what about rioters,
socialists, revolutionaries? But when the whole of mankind without
exception has shouted: 'We will no longer tolerate bloodshed,' who will
then dare to assail us? No one! All enemies would be reconciled, submit
to each other, forgive everything, and justly divide among themselves
the abundance of the earth. Gracious God, when shall this dream be
fulfilled?"

Whilst Romashov was indulging in these fancies, he failed to notice that
Hainán had quietly stolen in behind his back and suddenly stretched his
arm over his shoulder. Romashov started in terror, and roared out
angrily--

"What the devil do you want?"

Hainán laid before him on the table a cinnamon-coloured packet. "This is
for you," he replied in a friendly, familiar tone, and Romashov felt
behind him his servant's jovial smile. "They are cigarettes; smoke now."

Romashov looked at the packet. On it was printed, "The Trumpeter,
First-class Cigarettes. Price 3 kopecks for 20."

"What does this mean?" he asked in astonishment. "Where did this come
from?"

"I saw that you had no cigarettes, so I bought these with my own money.
Please smoke them. It is nothing. Just a little present."

After this, to conceal his confusion, Hainán ran headlong to the door,
which he slammed after him with a deafening bang. Romashov lighted a
cigarette, and the room was soon filled with a perfume that strongly
reminded one of melted sealing-wax and burnt feathers.

"Oh, you dear!" thought Romashov, deeply moved. "I get cross with you
and scold you and make you pull off my muddy boots every evening, and
yet you go and buy me cigarettes with your few last coppers. 'Please
smoke them.' What made you do it?"

Again he got up and walked up and down the room with his hands behind
him.

"Our company consists of at least a hundred men, and each of them is a
creature with thoughts, feelings, experience of life, personal
sympathies and antipathies. Do I know anything about them? No, nothing,
except their faces. I see them before me as they stand in line every
day, drawn up from right to left: Sóltyss, Riaboschápka, Yégoroff,
Yaschtschischin, etc., etc.--mere sorry, grey figures. What have I done
to bring my soul nearer to their souls, my Ego to theirs? Nothing."

He involuntarily called to mind a rough night at the end of autumn, when
(as was his custom) he was sitting drinking in the mess-room with a few
comrades. Suddenly the pay-sergeant Goumeniuk, of the 9th Company,
rushed into the room, and breathlessly called to his commander--

"Your Excellency, the recruits are here."

Yes, there they stood in the rain, in the barrack-yard, driven together
like a herd of frightened animals without any will of their own, which
with cowed, suspicious glances gazed at their tormentors. "Each
individual," thought Romashov, as he slowly and carefully inspected
their appearance, "has his own characteristic expression of countenance.
This one, for instance, is most certainly a smith; that is, doubtless, a
jolly chap who plays his accordion with some talent; that one with the
shrewd features can both read and write, and looks as if he were a
_polevói_."[8] And one felt that these poor recruits who, a few days
ago, had been violently seized whilst their wives and children were
crying and lamenting, had tried, with tears in their voices, to join in
the coarse songs of their wild, drunken brothers in misfortune. But a
year later they stood like soldiers in long rigid rows--grey, sluggish,
apathetic figures, all cast, as it were, in the same mould. But they
never left their homes of their own free will. Their Ego resented it.
And yet they went. Why all this inconsistency? How can one not help
thinking of that old and well-known story about the cock who fought
desperately with his wings and resisted to the uttermost when his beak
was pressed against a table, but who stood motionless, hypnotized, when
some one drew a thick line with a piece of chalk across the table from
the tip of his beak.

Romashov threw himself on the bed.

"What is there left for you to do under the circumstances?" he asked
himself in bitter mockery. "Do you think of resigning? But, in that
case, where do you think of going? What does the sum of knowledge amount
to that you have learnt at the infants' school, the Cadet School, at
the Military Academy, at mess? Have you tried the struggle and
seriousness of life? No, you have been looked after and your wants
supplied, as if you were a little child, and you think perhaps, like a
certain schoolgirl, that rolls grow on trees. Go out into the world and
try. At the very first step you would slip and fall; people would
trample you in the dust, and you would drown your misery in drink. And
besides, have you ever heard of an officer leaving the service of his
own free will? No, never. Just because he is unfit for anything he will
not give up his meagre bread-and-butter. And if any one is forced into
doing this, you will soon see him wearing a greasy old regimental cap,
and accepting alms from people in the street. I am a Russian officer of
gentle birth, _comprenez-vous_? Alas, where shall I go--what will become
of me?"

"Prisoner, prisoner!" cried a clear female voice beneath the window.

Romashov jumped up from his bed and rushed to the window. Opposite him
stood Shurochka. She was protecting her eyes from the sun with the palm
of her hand, and pressing her rosy face against the window pane,
exclaiming in a mocking tone:--

"Oh, give a poor beggar a copper!"

Romashov fumbled at the window-catch in wild eagerness to open it, but
he remembered in the same moment that the inner window had not been
removed. With joyous resolution he seized the window-frame with both
hands, and dragged it to him with a tremendous tug. A loud noise was
heard, and the whole window fell into the room, besprinkling Romashov
with bits of lime and pieces of dried putty. The outer window flew up,
and a stream of fresh air, charged with joy and the perfume of flowers,
forced its way into the room.

"Ha, at last! Now I'll go out, cost what it may," shouted Romashov in a
jubilant voice.

"Romashov, you mad creature! what are you doing?"

He caught her outstretched hand through the window; it was closely
covered by a cinnamon-coloured glove, and he began boldly to kiss it,
first upwards and downwards, and after that from the finger-tips to the
wrist. Last of all, he kissed the hole in the glove just below the
buttons. He was astonished at his boldness; never before had he ventured
to do this. Shurochka submitted as though unconscious to this passionate
burst of affection, and smilingly accepted his kisses whilst gazing at
him in shy wonderment.

"Alexandra Petrovna, you are an angel. How shall I ever be able to thank
you?"

"Gracious, Romochka! what has come to you? And why are you so happy?"
she asked laughingly as she eyed Romashov with persistent curiosity.
"But wait, my poor prisoner, I have brought you from home a splendid
_kalátsch_ and the most delicious apple puffs."

"Stepan, bring the basket here."

He looked at her with devotion in his eyes, and without letting go her
hand, which she allowed to remain unresistingly in his, he said
hurriedly--

"Oh, if you knew all I have been thinking about this morning--if you
only knew! But of this, later on."

"Yes, later on. Look, here comes my lord and master. Let go my hand. How
strange you look to-day! I even think you have grown handsome."

Nikoläiev now came up to the window. He frowned, and greeted Romashov
in a rather cool and reserved way.

"Come, Shurochka," he said to his wife, "what in the world are you
thinking about? You must both be mad. Only think, if the Commander were
to see us. Good-bye, Romashov; come and see us."

"Yes, come and see us, Yuri Alexievich," repeated Shurochka. She left
the window, but returned almost at once and whispered rapidly to
Romashov. "Don't forget us. You are the only man here whom I can
associate with--as a friend--do you hear? And another thing. Once for
all I forbid you to look at me with such sheep's eyes, remember that.
Besides, you have no right to imagine anything. You are not a coxcomb
yet, you know."




VII


At 3.30 p.m. Lieutenant Federovski, the Adjutant of the regiment, drove
up to Romashov's house. He was a tall, stately, and (as the ladies of
the regiment used to say) presentable young man, with freezingly cold
eyes and an enormous moustache that almost grazed his shoulder. Towards
the younger officers he was always excessively polite, but, at the same
time, officially correct in his conduct. He was not familiar with any
one, and had a very high opinion of himself and his position. Nearly all
the captains flattered and paid court to him.

As he entered the door, he rapidly scanned with his blinking eyes the
whole of the scanty furniture in Romashov's room. The latter, who lay
resting on his bed, jumped off, and, blushing, began to button up his
undress tunic.

"I am here by orders of the commander, who wishes to speak to you," said
Federovski in a dry tone. "Be good enough to dress and accompany me as
soon as possible."

"I shall be ready at once. Shall I put on undress or parade uniform?"

"Don't, please, stand on ceremony. A frock-coat, if you like, that would
be quite sufficient. Meanwhile, with your permission, I will take a
seat."

"Oh, I beg your pardon--will you have some tea?" said Romashov fussily.

"No, thanks. My time is short, and I must ask you to be as quick as
possible about changing your clothes."

And without taking off his cloak or gloves, he sat down whilst Romashov
changed his clothes in nervous haste and with painful glances at his not
particularly clean shirt. Federovski sat the whole time with his hands
resting on the hilt of his sabre, as motionless as a stone image.

"I suppose you do not happen to know why I am sent for?"

The Adjutant shrugged his shoulders.

"A singular question! How should I know? You ought to know the reason
better than I. But if I may give you a bit of friendly advice, put the
sabre-belt under--not over--the shoulder strap. The Colonel is, as you
are aware, particular about such matters. And now, if you please, we
will start."

Before the steps stood a common _calèche_, attached to which were a
couple of high, lean army horses. Romashov was polite enough to encroach
as little as possible on the narrow seat, so as not to cause his
attendant any discomfort, but the latter did not, so it seemed, take the
slightest notice of that. On the way they met Viätkin; the latter
exchanged a chilly and correct salute with the Adjutant, but honoured
Romashov, who for a second turned round, with a comic but enigmatical
gesture that might probably mean: "Ah, poor fellow, you are on your way
to Pontius Pilate." They met other officers, some of whom regarded
Romashov with a sort of solemn interest, others with unfeigned
astonishment, and some bestowed on him only a derisive smile. Romashov
tried to avoid their glances and felt himself shrinking beneath them.

The Colonel did not receive him at once. He had some one in his private
room. Romashov had to wait in a half-dark hall that smelt of apples,
naphtha, newly-polished furniture and, besides that, of something which
not at all unpleasantly reminded him of the odour which seems
particularly inseparable from clothes and furniture in well-to-do German
families that are pedantically careful about their goods and chattels.

As he walked slowly up and down the hall, he glanced at himself several
times in a mirror in a light ashwood frame which was fixed to the wall;
and each time he looked his face struck him as being unhealthily pale,
ugly, and queer. His uniform, too, was shabby, and his epaulettes
soiled.

Out in the hall might be heard the incessant rumbling of the Colonel's
deep bass voice. The words themselves could not be distinguished, but
the ferocious tone told the tale clearly enough that Colonel Shulgovich
was scolding some one with implacable and sustained rage. This went on
for about five minutes; after which Schulgovich suddenly became silent,
a trembling, supplicating voice succeeded his, and, after a moment's
pause, Romashov clearly heard the following frightful tirade uttered
with a terrible accent of pride, indignation, and contempt:

"What nonsense is it that you dare to talk about your wife and your
children? What the devil have I to do with them? Before you brought your
children into the world you ought to have considered how you could
manage to feed them. What? So now you are trying to throw the blame on
your Colonel, are you? But it has nothing to do with him. You know too
well, Captain, that if I do not deliver you into the hands of justice I
shall fail in my duty as your commander. Be good enough not to
interrupt me. Here there is no question of an offence against
discipline, but a glaring crime, and _your_ place henceforward will
certainly not be in the regiment, but you yourself best know _where_."
Again he heard that miserable, beseeching voice, so pitiful that it did
not sound human.

"Good Lord! what is it all about?" thought Romashov, who, as if he were
glued to the looking-glass, gazed at his pale face without seeing it,
and felt his heart throbbing painfully. "Good Lord! how horrible!"

The plaintive, beseeching voice again replied, and spoke at some length.
When it ceased, the Colonel's deep bass began thundering, but now
evidently a trifle more calmly and gently than before, as if his rage
had spent itself, and his desire to witness the humiliation of another
were satisfied.

Shulgovich said abruptly: "Engrave it for ever on your red nose. All
right! But this is the last time. Remember now! The last time! Do you
hear? If it ever comes to my ears that you have been drunk,
the--silence!--I know what you intend to say, but I won't hear any more
of your promises. In a week's time I shall inspect your company. You
understand? And as to the troops' pay, that matter must be settled
to-morrow. You hear? _To-morrow._ And now I shall not detain you longer,
Captain. I have the honour----"

The last words were interrupted by a scraping on the floor, and a few
tottering steps towards the door; but, suddenly, the Colonel's voice was
again heard, though this time its wrathful and violent tone did not
sound quite natural.

"Wait a moment! Come here, you devil's pepper-box! Where are you off
to? To the Jews, of course--to get a bill signed. Ah, you fool--you
blockhead! Here you are! One, two, three, four--three hundred. I can't
do more. Take them and be off with you. Pay me back when you can. What a
mess you have made of things, Captain! Now be off with you! Go to the
devil--your servant, sir!"

The door sprang open, and into the hall staggered little Captain
Sviatovidov, red and perspiring, with harassed, nay, ravaged, features.
His right hand grasped convulsively his new, rustling bundle of
banknotes. He made a sort of pirouette directly he recognized Romashov,
tried, but failed miserably in the attempt, to assume a sportive,
free-and-easy look, and clutched tight hold of Romashov's fingers with
his hot, moist, trembling hand. His wandering, furtive glances rested at
last on Romashov as if he would ask the question: "Have you heard
anything or have you not?"

"He's a tiger, a bloodhound!" he whispered, pointing to the door of the
Colonel's room; "but what the deuce does it matter?" Sviatovidov twice
crossed himself quickly. "The Lord be praised! the Lord be praised!"

"Bon-da-ren-ko!" roared Shulgovich from his room, and his powerful voice
that moment filled every nook and corner of the house. "Bondarenko, who
is out there still? Bring him in."

"Hold your own, my young lion," whispered Sviatovidov with a false
smile. "_Au revoir_, Lieutenant. Hope you'll have a good time."

Bondarenko glided through the door. He was a typical Colonel's servant,
with an impudently condescending look, hair pomaded and parted in the
middle, dandified, with white gloves. He addressed Romashov in a
respectful tone, but eyed him, at the same time, in a very bold way.

"His Excellency begs your Honour to step in."

He opened the door and stepped aside. Romashov walked in.

Colonel Shulgovich sat at a table in a corner of the room, to the left
of the door. He was wearing his fatigue tunic, under which appeared his
gleaming white shirt. His red, sinewy hands rested on the arm of his
easy chair. His unnaturally big, old face, with short tufts of hair on
the top of his head, and the white pointed beard, gave an impression of
a certain hardness and coldness. The bright colourless eyes gleamed
almost aggressively at the visitor, whose salutation was returned with a
brief nod. Romashov at that moment noticed a crescent-shaped ring in the
Colonel's ear, and thought to himself: "Strange that I never saw that
ring before."

"This is very serious," began Shulgovich, in a gruff bass that seemed to
proceed from the depths of his diaphragm, after which he made a long
pause. "Shame on you!" he continued in a raised voice. "Because you've
served a year all but one week you begin to put on airs. Besides this, I
have many other reasons to be annoyed with you. For instance: I come to
the parade-ground and make a justifiable remark about you. At once you
are ready to answer your commanding officer in a silly, insolent manner.
Can that be called military tact and discipline? No. Such a thing is
incredible, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself." The latter words
were roared by Shulgovich with such deafening violence that his victim
felt a tremor under his knee-cap.

Romashov looked gloomily away, and no power in the world, thought he,
should induce him to look at the Colonel straight in his basilisk face.

"Where's my _Ego_ now?" he asked himself ironically. "Here the only
thing to do is to suffer, keep silent, and stand at attention."

"It does not matter now how I obtained my information about you. It is
quite sufficient I know all your sins. _You drink._ You, a mere boy--a
callow creature that has but lately left school--swig schnapps like a
cobbler's apprentice. Hold your tongue, don't try to defend yourself, I
know everything--and much more than you think. Well, God forbid!--if you
are bent on going down the broad path you are welcome to do it, so far
as I'm concerned. Still, I'll give you a warning: drink has made more
than one of your sort acquainted with the inside of a prison. Lay these
words of mine to heart. My long-suffering is great, but even an angel's
patience can be exhausted. The officers of a regiment are mutually
related as members of one family; but don't forget that an unworthy
member who tarnishes the honour of the family is ruthlessly cast out."

"Here I stand paralysed with fright, and my tongue is numbed," thought
Romashov, as he stared, as though hypnotized, at the little silver ring
in the Colonel's ear. "At this moment I ought to tell him straight out
that I do not in the least degree value the honour of belonging to this
worthy family, and that I shall be delighted to leave it to enter the
reserves; but have I the courage to say so?" His lips moved, he found a
difficulty in swallowing, but he stood still, as he had throughout the
interview.

"But let us," continued Shulgovich in the same harsh tone, "examine more
closely your conduct in the past. In the previous year--practically as
soon as you entered the service, you requested leave on account of your
mother's illness, nay, you even produced a sort of letter about it.
Well, in such cases an officer cannot, you know, openly express his
doubts as to the truth of a comrade's word. But I take this opportunity
of telling you in private that I had my own opinion then about that
story. You understand?"

Romashov had for a long time felt a tremor in his right knee. This
tremor was at first very slight, in fact scarcely noticeable, but it
very soon assumed alarming proportions, and finally extended over the
whole of his body. This feeling grew very painful at the thought that
Shulgovich might possibly regard his nervousness as proceeding from
fear; but when his mother's name was mentioned, a consuming heat coursed
through Romashov's veins, and his intense nervous tremor ceased
immediately. For the first time during all this painful scene he raised
his eyes to his torturer and looked him defiantly straight in the face.
And in this look glittered a hatred, menace, and imperious lust of
vengeance from the insulted man, so intense and void of all fear that
the illimitable distance between the omnipotent commander and the
insignificant sub-lieutenant, who had no rights at all, was absolutely
annihilated. A mist arose before Romashov's eyes, the various objects in
the room lost their shape, and the Colonel's gruff voice sounded to him
as if from a deep abyss. Then there suddenly came a moment of darkness
and ominous silence, devoid of thoughts, will, or external perception,
nay, even without consciousness. He experienced only a horrible
certainty that, in another moment, something terrible and maniacal,
something irretrievably disastrous, would happen. A strange, unfamiliar
voice whispered in his ear: "Next moment I will kill him," and Romashov
was slowly but irresistibly forced to fix his eyes on the Colonel's bald
head.

Afterwards, as if in a dream, he became aware, although he could not
understand the reason, of a curious change in his enemy's eyes, which,
in rapid succession, reflected wonder, dread, helplessness, and pity.
The wave of destruction that had just whelmed through Romashov's soul,
by the violence of natural force, subsided, sank, and disappeared in
space. He tottered, and now everything appeared to him commonplace and
uninteresting. Shulgovich, in nervous haste, placed a chair before him,
and said, with unexpected but somewhat rough kindness--

"The Devil take you! what a touchy fellow you are! Sit down and be
damned to you! But you are all alike. You look at me as if I were a wild
beast. 'The old fossil goes for us without rhyme or reason.' And all the
time God knows I love you as if you were my own children. Do you think I
have nothing to put up with, either? Ah, gentlemen, how little you know
me! It is true I scold you occasionally, but, damn it all! an old fellow
has a right to be angry sometimes. Oh, you youngsters! Well, let us make
peace. Give me your hand and come to dinner."

Romashov bowed without uttering a syllable, and pressed the coarse,
cold, hairy hand. His recollection of the past insult to some extent
faded, but his heart was none the lighter for this. He remembered his
proud, inflated fancies of that very morning, and he now felt like a
little pale, pitiful schoolboy, like a shy, abandoned, scarcely
tolerated brat, and he thought of all this with shame and
mortification. Also, whilst accompanying Shulgovich to the dining-room,
he could not help addressing himself, as his habit was, in the third
person--

"And a shadow rested on his brow."

Shulgovich was childless. In the dining-room, his wife--a fat, coarse,
self-important, and silent woman--awaited him. She had not a vestige of
neck, but displayed a whole row of chins. Notwithstanding her
_pince-nez_ and her scornful mien, there was a certain air of vulgarity
about her countenance, which gave the impression of its being formed, at
the last minute, hurriedly and negligently, out of dough, with raisins
or currants instead of eyes. Behind her waddled, dragging her feet, the
Colonel's old mother--a little deaf, but still an active, domineering,
venomous old hag. While she closely and rudely examined Romashov over
her spectacles, she clawed hold of his fingers and coolly pressed to his
lips her black, shrivelled, bony hand, that reminded one most of an
anatomical specimen. This done, she turned to the Colonel and asked him,
just as if they had been absolutely alone in the dining-room--

"Who is this? I don't remember seeing him here before?"

Shulgovich formed his hands into a sort of speaking-tube, and bawled
into the old woman's ear:

"Sub-lieutenant Romashov, mamma. A capital officer, a smart fellow, and
an ornament to his regiment--comes from the Cadet School. By the way,
Sub-lieutenant," he exclaimed abruptly, "we are certainly from the same
province. Aren't you from Pevsa?"[9]

"Yes, Colonel, I was born in Pevsa."

"To be sure, to be sure; now I remember. You are from the Narovtschátski
district?"

"Quite right, Colonel."

"Ah, yes--how could I have forgotten it! Mamma," he again trumpeted into
his mother's ear, "mamma, Sub-lieutenant Romashov is from our province;
he's from Narovtschátski."

"Ah, ah," and the old woman raised her eyebrows as a sign that she
understood. "Well, then, you're, of course, a son of Sergei Petrovich
Shishkin?"

"No, dear mother," roared the Colonel, "you are wrong. His name is
Romashov, not Shishkin."

"Yes, didn't I say so? I never knew Sergei Petrovich except by hearsay;
but I often met Peter Petrovich. He was a charming young man. We were
near neighbours, and I congratulate you, my young friend, on your
relationship."

"Well, as you will have it, you old deaf-as-a-post," exclaimed the
Colonel, interrupting her with good-humoured cynicism." But now, let's
sit down; please take a seat, Sub-lieutenant. Lieutenant Federovski," he
shrieked towards the door, "stop your work and come and have a
schnapps." The Adjutant, who, according to the custom in many regiments,
dined every day with his chief, hurriedly entered the dining-room. He
clicked his spurs softly and discreetly, walked straight up to the
little majolica table with the _sakuska_,[10] calmly helped himself to a
schnapps, and ate with extreme calmness and enjoyment. Romashov noticed
all that with an absurd, envious feeling of admiration.

"You'll take one, won't you?" said Shulgovich to Romashov. "You're no
teetotaller, you know."

"No, thank you very much," replied Romashov hoarsely; and, with a slight
cough, "I do not usually----"

"Bravo, my young friend. Stick to that in future."

They sat down to table. The dinner was good and abundant. Any one could
observe that, in this childless family, both host and hostess had an
innocent little weakness for good living. Dinner consisted of chicken
soup with vegetables, roast bream with _kascha_,[11] a splendid fat duck
and asparagus. On the table stood three remarkable decanters containing
red wine, white wine, and madeira, resplendent with embossed silver
stoppers bearing elegant foreign marks. The Colonel, whose violent
explosion of wrath but a short time previously had evidently given him
an excellent appetite, ate with an elegance and taste that struck the
spectator with pleasure and surprise. He joked all the time with a
certain rough humour. When the asparagus was put on the table, he
crammed a corner of his dazzlingly white serviette well down under his
chin, and exclaimed in a lively way--

"If I were the Tsar, I would eat asparagus every day of my life."

Only once, at the fish course, he fell into his usual domineering tone,
and shouted almost harshly to Romashov--

"Sub-lieutenant, be good enough to put your knife down. Fish and cutlets
are eaten only with a fork. An officer must know how to eat properly; he
may, at any time, you know, be invited to the palace. Don't forget
that."

Romashov was uncomfortable and constrained the whole time. He did not
know what to do with his hands, which, for the most part, he kept under
the table plaiting the fringe of the tablecloth. He had long got out of
the habit of observing what was regarded as "good form" in an elegant
and wealthy house. And, during the whole time he was at table, one sole
thought tortured him: "How disagreeable this is, and what weakness and
cowardice on my part not to have the courage to refuse this humiliating
invitation to dinner. Now I shall not stand this any longer. I'll get up
and bow to the company, and go my way. They may think what they please
about it. They can hardly eat me up for that--nor rob me of my soul, my
thoughts, my consciousness. Shall I go?" And again he was obliged to
acknowledge to himself, with a heart overflowing with pain and
indignation, that he lacked the moral courage necessary to assert his
individuality and self-respect.

Twilight was falling when at last coffee was served. The red, slanting
beams of the setting sun filtered in through the window blinds, and
sportively cast little copper-coloured spots or rays on the dark
furniture, on the white tablecloth, and the clothes and countenances of
those present. Conversation gradually languished. All sat silent, as
though hypnotized by the mystic mood of the dying day.

"When I was an ensign," said Shulgovich, breaking the silence, "we had
for the chief of our brigade a General named Fofanov. He was just one of
those gentle and simple old fogies who had risen from the ranks during a
time of war, and, as I believe, belonged at the start to what we call
Kantonists.[12] I remember how at reviews he always went straight up to
the big drum--he was insanely enamoured of that instrument--and said to
the drummer, 'Come, come, my friend, play me something really
melancholy.' This same General had also the habit of going to bed
directly the clock struck eleven. When the clock was just on the stroke
of the hour, he invariably said to his guests, 'Well, well, gentlemen,
eat, drink, and enjoy yourselves, but I'm going to throw myself into the
arms of Neptune.' Somebody once remarked, 'Your Excellency, you mean the
arms of Morpheus?' 'Oh, that's the same thing. They both belong to the
same mineralogy.' Well, that's just what I am going to do, gentlemen."

Shulgovich got up and placed his serviette on the arm of his chair. "I,
too, am going to throw myself into the arms of Neptune. I release you,
gentlemen."

Both officers got up and stretched themselves. "A bitter, ironical smile
played on his thin lips," thought Romashov about himself--only
_thought_, however, for at that moment his countenance was pale,
wretched, and by no means prepossessing to look at.

Once more Romashov was on his way home, and once more he felt himself
lonely, abandoned, and helpless in this gloomy and hostile place. Once
more the sun flamed in the west, amidst heavy, dark blue thunder-clouds,
and once more before Romashov's eyes, in the distance, behind houses and
fields, at the verge of the horizon, there loomed a fantastic fairy city
beckoning to him with promises of marvellous beauty and happiness.

The darkness fell suddenly between the rows of houses. A few little
Jewish children ran, squealing, along the path. Here and there in
doorways, in the embrasures of windows, and in the dusk of gardens there
were sounds of women's laughter, provocative and unintermittent, and
with a quiver of warm animalistic gladness which is heard only when
spring is near. With the deep yet calm melancholy that now lay heavy on
Romashov's heart there were mingled strange, dim memories of a bliss
miraged but never enjoyed in youth's still lovelier spring, and there
arose in his heart a delicious presentiment of a strong, invincible love
that at last gained its object.

When Romashov reached his abode he found Hainán in his dark and dirty
cupboard in front of Pushkin's bust. The great bard was smeared all over
with grease, and before him burning candles cast bright blurs on the
statue's nose, its thick lips and muscular neck. Hainán sat, in the
Turkish style, cross-legged on the three boards that constituted his
bed, rocked his body to and fro, and mumbled out in a sing-song tone
something weird, melancholy, and monotonous.

"Hainán," shouted Romashov.

The servant started, jumped up, and stood at attention. Fear and
embarrassment were displayed on his countenance.

"Allah?" asked Romashov in the most friendly way.

The Circassian's shaven boyish mouth expanded in a broad grin which
showed his beautiful white teeth in the candle-light.

"Allah, your Honour."

"It is all the same, Hainán. Allah is in you. Allah is in me. There is
one Allah for us all."

"My excellent Hainán," thought Romashov to himself as he went into his
room. "And I dare not shake hands with him. Dare not! Damn it all! from
to-day I will dress and undress myself. It's a disgrace that some one
else should do it for me."

That evening he did not go to the mess-room, but stayed at home and
brought out of a drawer a thick, ruled book, nearly entirely filled with
elegant, irregular handwriting. He wrote far into the night. It was the
third in order of Romashov's novels, and its title ran: _A Fatal
Beginning_.

But our lieutenant blushed furiously at his literary efforts, and he
would not have been induced for anything in the world to acknowledge his
authorship.




VIII


Barracks had just begun to be built for the garrison troops on what was
called the "Cattle Square," outside the town, on the other side of the
railway. Meanwhile the companies were quartered here and there in the
town. The officers' mess-room was situated in a rather small house. The
drawing-room and ballroom had their windows over the street. The other
rooms, the windows of which overlooked a dark, dirty backyard, were set
apart for kitchen, dining-room, billiard-room, guest-chamber, and
ladies'-room. A long narrow corridor with doors to all the rooms in the
house ran the whole length of the building. In the rooms that were
seldom used, and not often cleaned or aired, a musty, sour smell greeted
the visitor as he entered.

Romashov reached the mess at 9 p.m. Five or six unmarried officers had
already assembled for the appointed soirée, but the ladies had not yet
arrived. For some time past there had been a keen rivalry amongst the
latter to display their acquaintance with the demands of fashion,
according to which it was incumbent on a lady with pretensions to
elegance scrupulously to avoid being among the first to reach the
ballroom. The musicians were already in their places in a sort of
gallery that was connected with the room by means of a large window
composed of many panes of glass. Three-branched candelabra on the
pillars between the windows shed their radiance, and lamps were
suspended from the roof. The bright illumination on the scanty
furniture, consisting only of Viennese chairs, the bare walls, and the
common white muslin window-curtains, gave the somewhat spacious room a
very empty and deserted air.

In the billiard-room the two Adjutants of the battalion, Biek-Agamalov
and Olisár--the only count in the regiment--were engaged in a game of
"Carolina." The stakes were only ale. Olisár--tall, gaunt, sleek, and
pomaded--an "old, young man" with wrinkled face and bald crown,
scattered freely billiard-room jests and slang. Biek-Agamalov lost both
his game and his temper in consequence. In the seat by the window sat
Staff-Captain Lieschtschenko--a melancholy individual of forty-five, an
altogether miserable figure, the mere sight of which could bore people
to death--watching the game. His whole appearance gave the impression of
hopeless melancholy. Everything about him was limp: his long, fleshy,
wrinkled red nose; his dim, dark-brown thread-like moustache that
reached down below his chin. His eyebrows, which grew a good way down to
the bridge of his nose, made his eyes look as if he were just about to
weep, and his thin, lean body with his sunken chest and sloping
shoulders looked like a clothes-horse in its worn and shiny uniform.
Lieschtschenko neither smoked, drank, nor played; but he found a strange
pleasure in looking at the cards from behind the players' backs, and in
following the movements of the balls in the billiard-room. He likewise
delighted in listening, huddled up in a dining-room window, to the row
and vulgarities of the wildest drinking-bouts. He could thus sit, for
hours at a time, motionless as a stone statue, and without uttering a
single word. All the officers were so accustomed to this that they
almost regarded the silent Lieschtschenko as one of the inevitable
fixtures of a normal gambling or drinking bout.

After saluting the three officers, Romashov sat down by Lieschtschenko,
who courteously made room for him, as with a deep sigh he fixed his
sorrowful and friendly, dog-like eyes on him.

"How is Maria Viktorovna?" asked Romashov in the careless and
intentionally loud voice which is generally employed in conversation
with deaf or rather stupid people, and which all the regiment (including
the ensigns) used when they happened to address Lieschtschenko.

"Quite well, thanks," replied Lieschtschenko with a still deeper sigh.
"You understand--her nerves; but, you know, at this time of year----"

"But why did she not come with you? But perhaps Maria Viktorovna is not
coming to the soirée to-night?"

"What do you mean? of course she's coming; but you see, my dear fellow,
there was no room for me in the cab. She and Raisa Peterson took a trap
between them, and as you'll understand, my dear fellow, they said to me,
'Don't come here with your dirty, rough boots, they simply ruin our
clothes.'"

"Croisez in the middle--a nice 'kiss.' Pick up the ball, Biek," cried
Olisár.

"I am not a lackey. Do you think I'll pick up your balls?" replied
Biek-Agamalov in a furious tone.

Lieschtschenko caught in his mouth the tips of his long moustaches, and
thereupon began sucking and chewing them with an extremely thoughtful
and troubled air.

"Yuri Alexievich, my dear fellow, I have a favour to ask you," he
blurted out at last in a shy and deprecating tone. "You lead the dance
to-night, eh?"

"Yes, damn it all! They have so arranged it among themselves. I did try
to get off it, kow-towed to the Adjutant--ah, pretty nearly reported
myself ill. 'In that case,' said he, 'you must be good enough to hand in
a medical certificate.'"

"This is what I want you to do for me," Lieschtschenko went on in the
same humble voice. "For God's sake see that she does not have to sit out
many dances."

"Maria Viktorovna?"

"Yes, please----"

"Double with the yellow in the corner," said Biek-Agamalov, indicating
the stroke he intended to make. Being short, he often found billiards
very troublesome. To reach the ball now he was obliged to lie lengthways
on the table. He became quite red in the face through the effort, and
two veins in his forehead swelled to such an extent that they converged
at the top of his nose like the letter V.[13]

"What a conjurer!" said Olisár in a jeering, ironical tone. "I could not
do that."

Agamalov's cue touched the ball with a dry, scraping sound. The ball did
not move from its place.

"Miss!" cried Olisár jubilantly, as he danced a _cancan_ round the
billiard table. "Do you snore when you sleep, my pretty creature?"

Agamalov banged the thick end of his cue on the floor.

"If you ever again speak when I am making a stroke," he roared, his
black eyes glittering, "I'll throw up the game."

"Don't, whatever you do, get excited. It's so bad for your health. Now
it's my turn."

Just at that moment in rushed one of the soldiers stationed in the hall
for the service of the ladies, and came to attention in front of
Romashov.

"Your Honour, the ladies would like you to come into the ballroom."

Three ladies who had just arrived were already pacing up and down the
ballroom. They were none of them exactly young; the eldest of them, the
wife of the Club President--Anna Ivanovna Migunov--turned to Romashov
and exclaimed in a prim, affected tone, drawling out the words and
tossing her head:

"Sub-lieutenant Romashov, please order the band to play something whilst
we are waiting."

"With pleasure, ladies," replied Romashov with a polite bow. He then
went up to the orchestra and called to the conductor, "Zisserman, play
us something pretty."

The first thundering notes of the overture to "Long live the Tsar"
rolled through the open windows of the music gallery across the
ballroom, and the flames of the candelabra vibrated to the rhythm of the
drum beats.

The ladies gradually assembled. A year ago, Romashov had felt an
indescribable pleasure in those very minutes before the ball when, in
accordance with his duties as director of the ball, he received the
ladies as they arrived in the hall. Oh, what mystic witchery those
enchantresses possessed when, fired by the strains of the orchestra, by
the glare of many lights, and by the thought of the approaching ball,
they suffered themselves, in delicious confusion, to be divested of
their boas, fur cloaks, wraps, etc. Women's silvery laughter,
high-pitched chatter, mysterious whispers, the freezing perfume from
furs covered with hoar-frost, essences, powder, kid gloves, etc. All
this commingled constituted the mystic, intoxicating atmosphere that is
only found where beautiful women in evening dress crowd one another
immediately before entering a ballroom. What a charm in their lovely
eyes, beaming with the certainty of victory, that cast a last, swift,
scrutinizing glance in the mirror at their hair! What music in the
_frou-frou_ of trains and silken skirts! What bliss in the touch of
delicate little hands, shawls, and fans!

All this enchantment, Romashov felt, had now ceased for ever. He now
understood, and not without a certain sense of shame, that much of this
enchantment had owed its origin to the perusal of bad French novels, in
which occurred the inevitable description of how "Gustave and Armand
cross the vestibule when invited to a ball at the Russian Embassy." He
also knew that the ladies of his regiment wore for years the same
evening dress, which, on certain festive occasions, was pathetically
remodelled, and that the white gloves very often smelt of benzine. The
generally prevailing passion for different sorts of aigrettes, scarves,
sham diamonds, feathers, and ribbons of loud and gaudy colours, struck
him as being highly ridiculous and pretentious. The same lack of taste
and shabby-genteel love of display were shown even in their homes. They
"made up" shamelessly, and some faces by this means had acquired a
bluish tint; but the most unpleasant part of the affair, in Romashov's
opinion, was what he and others in the regiment, on the day after the
ball, discovered as having happened behind the scenes--gossip,
flirtations, and big and little scandals. And he also knew how much
poverty, envy, love of intrigue, petty provincial pride, and low
morality were hidden behind all this splendid misery.

Now Captain Taliman and his wife entered the room. They were both tall
and compact. She was a delicate, fragile blonde; he, dark, with the face
of a veritable brigand, and affected with a chronic hoarseness and
cough. Romashov knew beforehand that Taliman would very soon whisper his
usual phrase, and, sure enough, the latter directly afterwards
exclaimed, as his gipsy eyes wandered spy-like over the ballroom--

"Have you started cards yet, Lieutenant?"

"No, not yet, they are all together in the dining-room."

"Ah, really, do you know, Sonochka, I think I'll go into the dining-room
for a minute just to glance at the _Russki Invalid_. And you, my dear
Romashov, kindly look after my wife here for a bit--they are starting
the quadrille there."

After this the Lykatschev family--a whole caravan of pretty, laughing,
lisping young ladies, always chattering--made its appearance. At the
head walked the mother, a lively little woman, who, despite her forty
years, danced every dance, and brought children into the world "between
the second and third quadrille," as Artschakovski, the wit of the
regiment, liked to put it.

The young ladies instantly threw themselves on Romashov, laughing and
chattering in the attempt to talk one another down.

"Lieutenant Romashov, why do you never come to thee uth?"

"You wicked man!"

"Naughty, naughty, naughty!"

"Wicked man!"

"I will give you the firtht quadwille."

"Mesdames, mesdames," said Romashov in self-defence, bowing and scraping
in all directions, and forced against his will to do the polite.

At that very moment he happened to look in the direction of the street
door. He recognized, silhouetted against the glass, Raisa Alexandrovna's
thin face and thick, prominent lips, which, however, were almost hidden
by a white kerchief tied over her hat.

Romashov, like a schoolboy caught in the act, slipped into the
reception-room as quick as lightning, but however much he might try to
convince himself that he escaped Raisa's notice, he felt a certain
anxiety. In his quondam mistress's small eyes lay a new expression,
hard, menacing, and revengeful, that foreboded a bad time for him.

He walked into the dining-room, where a crowd of officers were
assembled. Nearly all the chairs round the long oilcloth-covered table
were engaged. The blue tobacco smoke curled slowly along the roof and
walls. A rancid smell of fried butter emanated from the kitchen. Two or
three groups of officers had already made inroads on the cold collation
and schnapps. A few were reading the newspapers. A loud, multitudinous
murmur of voices blended with the click of billiard balls, the rattle of
knives, and the slamming of the kitchen door. A cold, unpleasant draught
from the vestibule caught one's feet and legs.

Romashov looked for Lieutenant Bobetinski and went to him.

Bobetinski was standing, with his hands in his trousers pockets, quite
near the long table. He was rocking backwards and forwards, first on
his toes, then on his heels, and his eyes were blinking from the smoke.
Romashov gently touched his arm.

"I beg your pardon!" said Bobetinski as he turned round and drew one
hand out of his pocket; but he continued peering with his eyes,
squinting at Romashov, and screwing his moustache with a superior air
and his elbows akimbo. "Ha! it is you? This is very delightful!"

He always assumed an affected, mincing air, and spoke in short, broken
sentences, thinking, by so doing, that he imitated the aristocratic
Guardsmen and the _jeunesse dorée_ of St. Petersburg. He had a very high
opinion of himself, regarded himself as unsurpassed as a dancer and
connoisseur of women and horses, and loved to play the part of a _blasé_
man of the world, although he was hardly twenty-four. He always shrugged
his shoulders coquettishly high, jabbered horrible French, pattered
along the streets with limp, crooked knees and trailing gait, and
invariably accompanied his conversation with careless, weary gestures.

"My good Peter Taddeevich," implored Romashov in a piteous voice, "do,
please, conduct the ball to-night instead of me."

"_Mais, mon ami_"--Bobetinski shrugged his shoulders, raised his
eyebrows, and assumed a stupid expression. "But, my friend," he
translated into Russian, "why so? _Pourquoi donc?_ Really, how shall I
say it? You--you astonish me."

"Well, my dear fellow, please----"

"Stop! No familiarities, if you please. My dear fellow, indeed!"

"But I beg you, Peter Taddeevich. You see, my head aches, and I have a
pain in my throat; it is absolutely impossible for me to----"

In this way Romashov long and fruitlessly assailed his brother officer.
Finally, as a last expedient, he began to deluge him with gross
flattery.

"Peter Taddeevich, there is no one in the whole regiment so capable as
yourself of conducting a ball with good taste and genius, and, moreover,
a lady has specially desired----"

"A lady!" Bobetinski assumed a blank, melancholy expression. "A lady,
did you say? Ah, my friend, at my age----" he smiled with a studied
expression of hopeless resignation. "Besides, what is woman? Ha, ha! an
enigma. However, I'll do what you want me to do." And in the same
doleful tone he added suddenly, "_Mon cher ami_, do you happen to
have--what do you call it--three roubles?"

"Ah, no, alas!" sighed Romashov.

"Well, one rouble, then?"

"But----"

"_Désagréable._ The old, old story. At any rate, I suppose we can take a
glass of vodka together?"

"Alas, alas! Peter Taddeevich, I have no further credit."

"Oh! _O pauvre enfant!_ But it does not matter, come along!" Bobetinski
waved his hand with an air of magnanimity. "I will treat you."

Meanwhile, in the dining-room the conversation had become more and more
high-pitched and interesting for some of those present. The talk was
about certain officers' duels that had lately taken place, and opinions
were evidently much divided.

The speaker at that moment was Artschakovski, a rather obscure
individual who was suspected, not without reason, of cheating at cards.
There was a story current about him, which was whispered about, to the
effect that, before he entered the regiment, when he still belonged to
the reserves, he had been head of a posting-station, and was arrested
and condemned for killing a post-boy by a blow of his fist.

"Duels may often be necessary among the fools and dandies of the
Guards," exclaimed Artschakovski roughly, "but it is not the same thing
with us. Let us assume for an instance that I and Vasili Vasilich Lipski
get blind drunk at mess, and that I, who am a bachelor, whilst drunk,
box his ears. What will be the result? Well, either he refuses to
exchange a couple of bullets with me, and is consequently turned out of
the regiment, or he accepts the challenge and gets a bullet in his
stomach; but in either case his children will die of starvation. No, all
that sort of thing is sheer nonsense."

"Wait a bit," interrupted the old toper, Lieutenant-Colonel Liech, as he
held his glass with one hand and with the other made several languid
motions in the air; "do you understand what the honour of the uniform
is? It is the sort of thing, my dear fellow, which---- But speaking of
duels, I remember an event that happened in 1862 in the Temriukski
Regiment."

"For God's sake," exclaimed Artschakovski, interrupting him in turn,
"spare us your old stories or tell us something that took place after
the reign of King Orre."

"What cheek! you are only a little boy compared with me. Well, as I was
saying----"

"Only blood can wipe out the stain of an insult," stammered Bobetinski,
who plumed himself on being a cock, and now took part in the
conversation in a bragging tone.

"Well, gentlemen, there was at that time a certain ensign--Solúcha,"
said Liech, making one more attempt.

Captain Osadchi, commander of the 1st Company, approached from the
buffet.

"I hear that you are talking about duels--

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