VI

“‘Love—love.What is love?Something celestialThat 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 themotifof 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 isnottrue!” 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 beshe? 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 withoutseeing 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 whichhe 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 Ishall 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 ofthings 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 thehot 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 anythingtherewith 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 IWho 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 importancenowin that.R. P.

A Caucasian woman am IWho knows how to handle a knife.—Once yours, now nobody’s,

A Caucasian woman am IWho 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 importancenowin 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 disgustingliaison, scarcely of six months’ standing, with a woman hehad 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.

WITHthe 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-commissionedofficers 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-manœuvres. During their long freedom from duty they used to sit continually in their mess-room, eagerly studying theRusski 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 withthe 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, drankhis 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 richabundance, 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 atone’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.Isit here;Iand nobody else. Some one has ordered me to sit here, and I shall sit here; but who has authorized him to order this? Certainly notI.

“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 abyssof 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—thisis 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 thingin 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! whenI 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 withmy 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 onlymy ownEgo, 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 ‘Iwill 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 apolevói.”[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 theinfants’ 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 astream 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 splendidkalátschand 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. Hefrowned, 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.”

AT3.30 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 commoncalèche, 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 shallfail 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, andyourplace henceforward will certainly not be in the regiment, but you yourself best knowwhere.” 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 addressedRomashov 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 powerin the world, thought he, should induce him to look at the Colonel straight in his basilisk face.

“Where’s myEgonow?” 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 inthe 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 andmortification. 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 herpince-nezand 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 thesakuska,[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 withkascha,[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 whatwe 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—onlythought, 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.

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