VI

“It hardly can be called a sin,If something’s funny and you grin!...”’

‘Will you stand me some champagne, darling.... Since you’re so stingy, oranges will do. Are you going soon or staying the night?’

‘Staying the night. Come to me.’

She lay down with him, hastily threw her cigarette over on to the floor and wriggled beneath the blanket.

‘Do you like to be next to the wall?’ she asked. ‘Do if you want to. O-oh, how cold your legs are! You know I love army men. What’s your name?’

‘Mine?’ He coughed and answered in an uncertain tone: ‘I am Captain Ribnikov. Vassily Alexandrovich Ribnikov!’

‘Ah, Vasya! I have a friend called Vasya, a little chap from the Lycée. Oh, what a darling he is!’

She began to sing, pretending to shiver under the bedclothes, laughing and half-closing her eyes:

‘“Vasya, Vasya, Vasinke,It’s a tale you’re telling me.”

‘Youarelike a Japanese, you know, by Jove. Do you know who? The Mikado. We take in theNivaand there’s a picture of him there. It’s late now—else I’d get it to show you. You’re as like as two peas.’

‘I’m very glad,’ said Ribnikov, quietly kissing her smooth, round shoulder.

‘Perhaps you’re really a Japanese? They say you’ve been at the war. Is it true? O-oh, darling, I’m afraid of being tickled—Is it dreadful at the war?’

‘Dreadful ... no, not particularly.... Don’t let’s talk about it,’ he said wearily. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Clotilde.... No, I’ll tell you a secret. My name’s Nastya. They only called me Clotilde here because my name’s so ugly. Nastya, Nastasya—sounds like a cook.’

‘Nastya,’ he repeated musingly, and cautiously kissed her breast. ‘No, it’s a nice name. Na—stya,’ he repeated slowly.

‘What is there nice about it? Malvina, Wanda, Zhenia, they’re nice names—especially Irma.... Oh, darling,’ and she pressed close to him. ‘You are a dear ... so dark. I love dark men. You’re married, surely?’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘Oh, tell us another. Every one here says he’s a bachelor. You’ve got six children for sure!’

It was dark in the room, for the windows were shuttered and the lamp hardly burned. Her face was quite close to his head, and showed fantastic and changing on the dim whiteness of the pillow. Already it was different from the simple, handsome, round grey-eyed, Russian face of before. It seemed to have grown thinner, and, strangely changing its expression every minute, seemed now tender, kind, mysterious. It reminded Ribnikov of some one infinitely familiar, long beloved, beautiful and fascinating.

‘How beautiful you are!’ he murmured. ‘I love you.... I love you....’

He suddenly uttered an unintelligible word, completely foreign to the woman’s ear.

‘What did you say?’ she asked in surprise.

‘Nothing.... Nothing.... Nothing at all.... My dear! Dear woman ... you are a woman ... I love you....’

He kissed her arms, her neck, trembling with impatience, which it gave him wonderful delight to suppress. He was possessed by a tender and tempestuous passion for the well-fed, childless woman, for her big young body, so cared for and beautiful. His longing for woman had been till now suppressed by his austere, ascetic life, his constant weariness, by the intense exertion of his mind and will: now it devoured him suddenly with an intolerable, intoxicating flame.

‘Your hands are cold,’ she said, awkward and shy. In this man was something strange and alarming which she could in no way understand. ‘Cold hands and a warm heart.’

‘Yes, yes, yes.... My heart,’ he repeated it like a madman, ‘My heart is warm, my heart....’

Long ago she had grown used to the outward rites and the shameful details of love; she performed them several times every day—mechanically, indifferently, and often with silent disgust. Hundreds of men, from the aged and old, who put their teeth in a glass of water for the night, to youngsters whose voice was only beginning to break and was bass and soprano at once, civilians, army men, priests in mufti, baldheads and men overgrown with hair from head to foot like monkeys, excited and impotent, morphomaniacs who did not conceal their vice from her,beaux, cripples, rakes, who sometimes nauseated her, boys who cried for the bitterness of their first fall—they all embraced her with shameful words, with long kisses, breathed into her face, moaned in the paroxysm of animal passion, which, she knew beforehand, would then and there be changed to unconcealed and insuperable disgust. Long ago all men’s faces had in her eyes lost every individual trait—as though they had united into one lascivious, inevitable face, eternally bent over her, the face of a he-goat with stubbly, slobbering lips, clouded eyes, dimmed like frosted glass, distorted and disfigured by a voluptuous grimace, which sickened her because she never shared it.

Besides, they were all rude, exacting and devoid of the elements of shame. They were ludicrously ugly, as only the modern man can be in his underclothes. But this elderly little officer made a new, peculiar, attractive impression on her. His every movement was distinguished by a gentle, insinuating discretion. His kiss, his caress, and his touch were strangely gentle. At the same time he surrounded her imperceptibly with the nervous atmosphere of real and intense passion which even from a distance and against her will arouses a woman’s sensuality, makes her docile, and subject to the male’s desire. But her poor little mind had never passed beyond the round of everyday life in the house, and could not perceive this strange and agitating spell. She could only whisper shyly, happy and surprised, the usual trivial words:‘What a nice man you are! You’re my sweet, aren’t you?’

She got up, put the lamp out, and lay beside him again. Through the chinks between the shutters and the wall showed thin threads of the whitening dawn, which filled the room with a misty blue half-light. Behind the partition, somewhere an alarm-clock hurriedly rang. Far away some one was singing sadly in the distance.

‘When will you come again?’ the woman asked.

‘What?’ Ribnikov asked sleepily, opening his eyes. ‘When am I coming? Soon—to-morrow....’

‘I know all about that. Tell me the truth. When are you coming? I’ll be lonely without you.’

‘M’m.... We will come and be alone.... We will write to them. They will stay in the mountains ...’ he murmured incoherently.

A heavy slumber enlocked his body; but, as always with men who have long deprived themselves of sleep, he could not sleep at once. No sooner was his consciousness overcast with the soft, dark, delightful cloud of oblivion than his body was shaken by a terrible inward shock. He moaned and shuddered, opened his eyes wide in wild terror, and straightway plunged into an irritating, transitory state between sleep and wakefulness, like a delirium crowded with threatening and confused visions.

The woman had no desire to sleep. She sat up in bed in her chemise, clasping her bendedknees with her bare arms, and looked at Ribnikov with timid curiosity. In the bluish half-light his face grew sharper still and yellower, like the face of a dead man. His mouth stood open, but she could not hear his breathing. All over his face, especially about the eyes and mouth, was an expression of such utter weariness and profound human suffering as she had never seen in her life before. She gently passed her hand back over his stiff hair and forehead. The skin was cold and covered all over with clammy sweat. Ribnikov trembled at the touch, cried out in terror, and with a quick movement raised himself from the pillow.

‘Ah! Who’s that, who?’ he cried abruptly, wiping his face with his shirt-sleeve.

‘What’s the matter, darling?’ the woman asked with sympathy. ‘You’re not well? Shall I get you some water?’

But Ribnikov had mastered himself, and lay down once more.

‘Thanks. It’s all right now. I was dreaming.... Go to sleep, dear, do.’

‘When do you want me to wake you, darling?’ she asked.

‘Wake.... In the morning.... The sun will rise early.... And the horsemen will come.... We will go in a boat.... And sail over the river....’ He was silent and lay quiet for some minutes. Suddenly his still, dead face was distorted with terrible pain. He turned on his back with a moan, and there came in a stream from his lips mysterious,wild-sounding words of a strange language.

The woman held her breath and listened, possessed by the superstitious terror which always comes from a sleeper’s delirium. His face was only a couple of inches from hers, and she could not tear her eyes away. He was silent for a while and then began to speak again, many words and unintelligible. Then he was silent again, as though listening attentively to some one’s speech. Suddenly the woman heard the only Japanese word she knew, from the newspapers, pronounced aloud with a firm, clear voice:

‘Banzai!’

Her heart beat so violently that the velvet coverlet lifted again and again with the throbbing. She remembered how they had called Ribnikov by the names of Japanese generals in the redcabinetthat day, and a far faint suspicion began to stir in the obscurity of her mind.

Some one lightly tapped on the door. She got up and opened.

‘Clotilde dear, is that you?’ a woman’s gentle whisper was heard. ‘Aren’t you asleep? Come in to me for a moment. Leonka’s with me, and he’s standing some apricot wine. Come on, dear!’

It was Sonya, the Karaim,1Clotilde’s neighbour,bound to her by the cloying, hysterical affection which always pairs off the women in these establishments.

1The Karaim are Jews of the pure original stock who entered Russia long before the main immigration and settled in the Crimea. They are free from the ordinary Jewish restrictions.

‘All right. I’ll come now. Oh, I’ve something very interesting to tell you. Wait a second. I’ll dress.’

‘Nonsense. Don’t. Who are you nervous about? Leonka? Come, just as you are!’

She began to put on her petticoat.

Ribnikov roused out of sleep.

‘Where are you going to?’ he asked drowsily.

‘Only a minute.... Back immediately ... I must ...’ she answered, hurriedly tying the tape round her waist. ‘You go to sleep. I’ll be back in a second.’

He had not heard her last words. A dark heavy sleep had instantly engulfed him.

Leonkawas the idol of the whole establishment, beginning with Madame, and descending to the tiniest servant. In these places where boredom, indolence, and cheap literature produce feverishly romantic tastes, the extreme of adoration is lavished on thieves and detectives, because of their heroic lives, which are full of fascinating risks, dangers and adventures. Leonka used to appear in the most varied costumes, at times almost made up. Sometimes he kept a meaning and mysterious silence. Above all every one remembered very well that he often proclaimed that the local police had an unbounded respect for him and fulfilled his orders blindly. In one case he had said three or four words in a mysterious jargon, and that was enough to send a few thieves who were behaving rowdily in the house crawling into the street. Besides there were times when he had a great deal of money. It is easy to understand that Henrietta, whom he called Genka and with whom he had an assiduous affair, was treated with a jealous respect.

He was a young man with a swarthy, freckled face, with black moustaches that pointed up to his very eyes. His chin was short, firm and broad; his eyes were dark, handsome and impudent.He was sitting on the sofa in his shirt-sleeves, his waistcoat unbuttoned and his necktie loose. He was small but well proportioned. His broad chest and his muscles, so big that his shirt seemed ready to tear at the shoulder, were eloquent of his strength. Genka sat close to him with her feet on the sofa; Clotilde was opposite. Sipping his liqueur slowly with his red lips, in an artificially elegant voice he told his tale unconcernedly:

‘They brought him to the station. His passport—Korney Sapietov, resident in Kolpin or something of the kind. Of course the devil was drunk, absolutely. “Put him into a cold cell and sober him down.” General rule. That very moment I happened to drop into the inspector’s office. I had a look. By Jove, an old friend: Sanka the Butcher—triple murder and sacrilege. Instantly I gave the constable on duty a wink, and went out into the corridor as though nothing had happened. The constable came out to me. “What’s the matter, Leonti Spiridonovich?” “Just send that gentleman round to the Detective Bureau for a minute.” They brought him. Not a muscle in his face moved. I just looked him in the eyes and said’:—Leonka rapped his knuckles meaningly on the table—‘“Is it a long time, Sanka, since you left Odessa and decided to honour us here?” Of course he’s quite indifferent—playing the fool. Not a word. Oh, he’s a bright one, too. “I haven’t any idea who Sanka the Butcher is. I am ... so and so.” So I come up to him,catch hold of him by the beard—hey, presto—the beard’s left in my hand. False!... “Will you own up now, you son of a bitch?” “I haven’t any idea.” Then I let fly straight at his nose—once, twice—a bloody mess. “Will you own up?” “I haven’t any idea.” “Ah, that’s your game, is it? I gave you a decent chance before. Now, you’ve got yourself to thank. Bring Arsenti the Flea here.” We had a prisoner of that name. He hated Sanka to death. Of course, my dear, I knew how they stood. They brought the Flea. “Well, Flea, who’s this gentleman?” The Flea laughs. “Why Sanka the Butcher, of course? How do you do, Sanichka? Have you been honouring us a long while? How did you get on in Odessa?” Then the Butcher gave in. “All right, Leonti Spiridonovich. I give in. Nothing can get away from you. Give us a cigarette.” Of course I gave him one. I never refuse them, out of charity. The servant of God was taken away. He just looked at the Flea, no more. I thought, well, the Flea will have to pay for that. The Butcher will do him in for sure.’

‘Do him in?’ Genka asked with servile confidence, in a terrified whisper.

‘Absolutely. Do him in. That’s the kind of man he is!’

He sipped his glass complacently. Genka looked at him with fixed, frightened eyes, so intently that her mouth even opened and watered. She smacked her hands on her lips.

‘My God, how awful! Just think,Clotilduchka! And you weren’t afraid, Leonya?’

‘Well, am I to be frightened of every vagabond?’

The rapt attention of the woman excited him, and he began to invent a story that students had been making bombs somewhere on Vassiliev Island, and that the Government had instructed him to arrest the conspirators. Bombs there were—it was proved afterwards—twelve thousand of them. If they’d all exploded then not only the house they were in, but half Petersburg, perhaps, would have been blown to atoms.... Next came a thrilling story of Leonka’s extraordinary heroism, when he disguised himself as a student, entered the ‘devil’s workshop,’ gave a sign to some one outside the window, and disarmed the villains in a second. He caught one of them by the sleeve at the very moment when he was going to explode a lot of bombs.

Genka groaned, was terror-stricken, slapped her legs, and continually turned to Clotilde with exclamations:

‘Ah! what do you think of all that? Just think what scoundrels these students are, Clotilduchka! I never liked them.’

At last, stirred to her very depths by her lover, she hung on his neck and began to kiss him loudly.

‘Leonichka, my darling! It’s terrible to listen to, even! And you aren’t frightened of anything!’

He complacently twisted his left moustache upwards, and let drop carelessly: ‘Why be afraid? You can only die once. That’s what I’m paid for.’

Clotilde was tormented all the while by jealous envy of her friend’s magnificent lover. She vaguely suspected that there was a great deal of lying in Leonka’s stories; while she now had something utterly extraordinary in her hands, such as no one had ever had before, something that would immediately take all the shine out of Leonka’s exploits. For some minutes she hesitated. A faint echo of the tender pity for Ribnikov still restrained her. But a hysterical yearning to shine took hold of her, and she said in a dull, quiet voice: ‘Do you know what I wanted to tell you, Leonya? I’ve got such a queer visitor to-day.’

‘H’m. You think he’s a sharper?’ he asked condescendingly. Genka was offended.

‘A sharper, you say! That’s your story. Some drunken officer.’

‘No, you mustn’t say that,’ Leonka pompously interrupted. ‘It happens that sharpers get themselves up as officers. What was it you were going to say, Clotilde?’

Then she told the story of Ribnikov with every detail, displaying a petty and utterly feminine talent for observation: she told how they called him General Kuroki, his Japanese face, his strange tenderness and passion, his delirium, and finally now he said ‘Banzai!’

‘You’re not lying?’ Leonka said quickly. Keen points of fire lit in his eyes.

‘I swear it’s true! May I be rooted to the ground if it’s a lie! You look through the keyhole, I’ll go in and open the shutter. He’s as like a Japanese as two peas.’

Leonka rose. Without haste, with a serious look, he put on his overcoat, carefully feeling his left inside pocket.

‘Come on,’ he said resolutely. ‘Who did he arrive with?’

Only Karyukov and Strahlmann remained of the all-night party. Karyukov could not be awakened, and Strahlmann muttered something indistinctly. He was still half drunk and his eyes were heavy and red.

‘What officer? Blast him to hell! He came up to us when we were in the “Buff,” but where he came from nobody knows.’

He began to dress immediately, snorting angrily. Leonka apologised and went out. He had already managed to get a glimpse of Ribnikov’s face through the keyhole, and though he had some doubts remaining, he was a good patriot, distinguished for impertinence and not devoid of imagination. He decided to act on his own responsibility. In a moment he was on the balcony whistling for help.

Ribnikovwoke suddenly as though an imperative voice within him had said ‘Wake up.’ An hour and a half of sleep had completely refreshed him. First of all he stared suspiciously at the door: it seemed to him that some one was watching him from there with a fixed stare. Then he looked round. The shutter was half open so that every little thing in the room could be seen. The woman was sitting by the table opposite the bed, silent and pale, regarding him with big, bright eyes.

‘What’s happened?’ Ribnikov asked in alarm. ‘Tell me, what’s been happening here?’

She did not answer, but her chin began to tremble and her teeth chattered.

A suspicious, cruel light came into the officer’s eyes. He bent his whole body from the bed with his ear to the door. The noise of many feet, of men evidently unused to moving cautiously, approached along the corridor, and suddenly was quiet before the door.

Ribnikov with a quick, soft movement leapt from the bed and twice turned the key. There was an instant knock at the door. With a cry the woman turned her face to the table and buried her head in her hands.

In a few seconds the captain was dressed. Again they knocked at the door. He had only his cap with him; he had left his sword and overcoat below. He was pale but perfectly calm. Even his hands did not tremble while he dressed himself, and all his movements were quite unhurried and adroit. Doing up the last button of his tunic, he went over to the woman, and suddenly squeezed her arm above the wrist with such terrible strength that her face purpled with the blood that rushed to her head.

‘You!’ he said quietly, in an angry whisper, without moving his jaws. ‘If you move or make a sound, I’ll kill you....’

Again they knocked at the door, and a dull voice came: ‘Open the door, if you please.’

The captain now no longer limped. Quickly and silently he ran to the window, jumped on to the window-ledge with the soft spring of a cat, opened the shutters and with one sweep flung wide the window frames. Below him the paved yard showed white with scanty grass between the stones, and the branches of a few thin trees pointed upwards. He did not hesitate for a second; but at the very moment that he sat sideways on the iron frame of the window-sill, resting on it with his left hand, with one foot already hanging down, and prepared to leap with his whole body, the woman threw herself upon him with a piercing cry and caught him by the left arm. Tearing himself away, he made a false movement and suddenly, with afaint cry as though of surprise, fell in an awkward heap straight down on the stones.

Almost at the very second the old door fell flat into the room. First Leonka ran in, out of breath, showing his teeth; his eyes were aflame. After him came huge policemen, stamping and holding their swords in their left hands. When he saw the open window and the woman holding on the frame and screaming without pause, Leonka quickly understood what had happened. He was really a brave man, and without a thought or a word, as though he had already planned it, he took a running leap through the window.

He landed two steps away from Ribnikov, who lay motionless on his side. In spite of the drumming in his head, and the intense pain in his belly and his heels from the fall, he kept his head, and instantly threw himself heavily with the full weight of his body on the captain.

‘A-ah. I’ve got you now,’ he uttered hoarsely, crushing his victim in mad exasperation.

The captain did not resist. His eyes burned with an implacable hatred. But he was pale as death, and a pink froth stood in bubbles on his lips.

‘Don’t crush me,’ he whispered. ‘My leg’s broken.’

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