BARRACKShad 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 candelabraon 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 acancanround 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 astroke,” 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 deliciousconfusion, 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 thefrou-frouof 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 theRusski 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. Hewas 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 thejeunesse doréeof 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 ablaséman 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 certainensign—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—most interesting,” he began in a gruff, rolling bass that reminded one of a lion’s roar, and immediately drowned every murmur in the room. “I have the honour, Lieutenant-Colonel. Good-evening, gentlemen.”
“Ah! what do I see—the Colossus of Rhodes? Come and sit down,” replied Liech affably. “Come and have a glass with me, you prince of giants.”
“All right,” answered Osadchi in an octave lower.
This officer always had a curiously unnerving effect on Romashov, and at the same time aroused in him a mingled feeling of fear and curiosity. Osadchi was no less famous than Shulgovich, not only in the regiment but also in the whole division, for his deafening voice when giving the word of command, his gigantic build, and tremendous physical strength. He was also renowned for his remarkable knowledge of the service and its requirements. Now and then it even happened that Osadchi was, in the interests of the service, removed from his own regiment to another, and he usually succeeded, in the course of half a year, in turning the most backward, good-for-nothing troops into exemplary war-machines. His magic power seemed much more incomprehensible to his brother officers inasmuch as he never—or at least in very rare instances—had recourse to blows or insults. Romashov always thought he could perceive, behind those handsome, gloomy, set features, the extreme paleness of which was thrown into stronger relief by the bluish-blackhair, something strained, masterly, alluring, and cruel—a gigantic, bloodthirsty wild beast. Often whilst observing Osadchi unseen from a distance, Romashov would try to imagine what the man would be like if he were in a rage, and, at the very thought of it, his limbs froze with fear. And now, without a thought of protesting, he saw how Osadchi, with the careless calm that enormous physical strength always lends, coolly sat down on the seat intended for himself.
Osadchi drained his glass, nibbled a crisp radish, and said in a tone of indifference—
“Well, what is the verdict?”
“That story, my dear friend,” Liech put in, “I will tell you at once. It was at the time when I was serving in the Temriukski Regiment, a Lieutenant von Zoon—the soldiers called him ‘Pod-Zvoon’—who, on a certain occasion, happened to be at mess——”
Here, however, Liech was interrupted by Lipski, a red-faced, thick-set staff captain who, in spite of his good forty years, did not think it beneath him to be the Jack-pudding in ordinary and butt of the men, and by virtue thereof had assumed the insolent, jocular tone of a spoilt favourite.
“Allow me, Captain, to put the matter in a nutshell. Lieutenant Artschakovski says that duels are nothing but madness and folly. For such heresy he ought to be sent with a bursary to a seminary for priests—but enough of that. But to get on with the story, Lieutenant Bobetinski took up the debate and demandedblood. Then came Lieutenant-Colonel Liech with his hoary chestnuts, which, on that occasion, by a wonderful dispensation of Providence, we managed to escape. After that, Sub-lieutenant Michin tried, in the midst of the general noise, toexpound his views, which were more and more undistinguishable both from the speaker’s insufficient strength of lungs and his well-known bashfulness.”
Sub-lieutenant Michin—an undersized youth with sunken chest, dark, pock-marked, freckled face and two timid, almost frightened eyes—blushed till the tears came into his eyes.
“Gentlemen, I only—gentlemen, I may be mistaken,” he said, “but, in my opinion—I mean in other words, as I look at the matter, every particular case ought necessarily to be considered by itself.” He now began to bow and stammer worse and worse, at the same time grabbing nervously with the tips of his fingers at his invisible moustaches. “A duel may occasionally be useful, even necessary, nobody can deny, and I suppose there is no one among us who will not approach the lists—when honour demands it. That is, as I have said, indisputable; but, gentlemen, sometimes the highest honour might also be found in—in holding out the hand of reconciliation. Well, of course, I cannot now say on what occasions this——”
“Ugh! you wretched Ivanovich,” exclaimed Artschakovski, interrupting him in a rude and contemptuous tone, “don’t stand here mumbling. Go home to your dear mamma and the feeding-bottle.”
“Gentlemen, won’t you allow me to finish what I was going to say?”
But Osadchi with his powerful bass voice put a stop to the dispute. In a second there was silence in the room.
“Every duel, gentlemen, must, above all, end in death for at least one of the parties, otherwise it isabsurd. Directly coddling or humanity, so-called, comes in, the whole thing is turned into a farce.‘Fifteen paces distance and only one shot.’ How damnably pitiful! Such a deplorable event only happens in such tomfooleries as are called French duels, which one reads about, now and then, in our papers. They meet, each fires a bullet out of a toy pistol, and the thing is over. Then come the cursed newspaper hacks with their report on the duel, which invariably winds up thus: ‘The duel went off satisfactorily. Both adversaries exchanged shots without inflicting any injury on either party, and both displayed the greatest courage during the whole time. At the breakfast, after the champagne, both the former mortal enemies fell into each other’s arms, etc.’ A duel like that, gentlemen, is nothing but a scandal, and does nothing to raise the tone of our society.”
Several of the company tried to speak at once. Liech, in particular, made a last despairing attack on those present to finish his story:
“Well, well, my friends, it was like this—but listen, you puppies.”
Nobody, however, did listen to his adjurations, and his supplicating glances wandered in vain over the gathering, seeking for a deliverer and ally. All turned disrespectfully away, eagerly engrossed in that interesting subject, and Liech shook his head sorrowfully. At last he caught sight of Romashov. The young officer had the same miserable experience as his comrades with regard to the old Lieutenant-Colonel’s talents as a story-teller, but his heart grew soft, and he determined to sacrifice himself. Liech dragged his prey away with him to the table.
“This—well—come and listen to me, Ensign. Ah, sit here and drink a glass with me. All the others are mere asses and loons.” Liech, with considerabledifficulty, raised his languid arm and made a contemptuous gesture towards the group of officers. “Buzz, buzz, buzz! What understanding or experience is there amongst such things? But wait a bit, you shall hear.”
Glass in one hand, the other waving in the air as if he were the conductor of a big orchestra, Liech began one of his interminable stories with which he was larded—like sausages with liver—and which he never brought to a conclusion because of an endless number of divagations from the subject, parentheses, embroideries, and analogues. The anecdote in question was about an American duel, Heaven only knows how many years ago, between two officers who, playing for their lives, guessed odd and even on the last figure of a date on a rouble-note. But one of them—it was never quite cleared up as to whether it was a certain Pod-Zvoon or his friend Solúcha—was blackguard enough to paste together two rouble-notes of different dates of issue, whereby the front had always an even date, but the back an odd one—“or perhaps it was the other way about,” pondered Liech long and conscientiously. “You see, my dear fellow, they of course then began to dispute. One of them said——”
Alas, however, Liech did not even this time get to the end of his story. Madame Raisa Alexandrovna Peterson had glided into the buffet. Standing at the door, but not entering, which was, moreover, not permitted to ladies, she shouted with the roguishness and audacity of a privileged young lady:
“Gentlemen, what do I see? The ladies have arrived long ago, and here you are sitting and having a good old time. We want to dance.”
Two or three young officers arose to go into theballroom. The rest coolly remained sitting where they were, chatting, drinking, and smoking, without taking the slightest notice of the coquettish lady. Only Liech, the chivalrous old professional flirt, strutted up with bandy, uncertain legs to Raisa, with hands crossed over his chest—and pouring the contents of his glass over his uniform, cried with a drunken emotion:
“Most divine among women, how can any one forget his duties to a queen of beauty? Your hand, my charmer; just one kiss——”
“Yuri Alexievich,” Raisa babbled, “it’s your turn to-day to arrange the dancing. You are a nice one to do that.”
“Mille pardons, madame. C’est ma faute.This is my fault,” cried Bobetinski, as he flew off to her. On the way he improvised a sort of ballet with scrapes, bounds, genuflections, and a lot of wonderful attitudes and gestures. “Your hand.Votre main, madame.Gentlemen, to the ballroom, to the ballroom!”
He offered his arm to Raisa Alexandrovna, and walked out of the room as proud as a peacock. Directly afterwards he was heard shouting in his well-known, affected tone:
“Messieurs, take partners for a waltz. Band! a waltz!”
“Excuse me, Colonel, I am obliged to go now. Duty calls me,” said Romashov.
“Ah, my dear fellow,” replied Liech, as his head drooped with a dejected look—“are you, too, such a coxcomb as the others? But wait just a moment, Ensign; have you heard the story of Moltke—about the great Field-Marshal Moltke, the strategist?”
“Colonel, on my honour, I must really go—I——”
“Well, well, don’t get excited. I won’t be long. You see, it was like this: the great Man of Silence used to take his meals in the officers’ mess, and every day he laid in front of him on the table a purse full of gold with the intention of bestowing it on the first officer from whose lips he heard a single intelligent word. Well, at last, you know, the old man died after having borne with this world for ninety years, but—you see—the purse had always been in safe keeping. Now run along, my boy. Go and hop about like a sparrow.”
INthe ballroom, the walls of which seemed to vibrate in the same rhythm as the deafening music, two couples were dancing. Bobetinski, whose elbows flapped like a pair of wings, pirouetted with short, quick steps around his partner, Madame Taliman, who was dancing with the stately composure of a stone monument. The gigantic Artschakovski of the fair locks made the youngest of the Lykatschev girls, a little thing with rosy cheeks, rotate round him, whereas he, leaning forward, and closely observing his partner’s hair and shoulders, moved his legs as if he were dancing with a child. Fifteen ladies lined the walls quite deserted, and trying to look as if they did not mind it. As, which was always the case at these soirées, the gentlemen numbered less than a quarter of the ladies, the prospect of a lively and enjoyable evening was not particularly promising.
Raisa Alexandrovna, who had just opened the ball, and was, therefore, the object of the other ladies’ envy, was now dancing with the slender, ceremonious Olisár. He held one of her hands as if it had been fixed to his left side. She supported her chin in a languishing way against her other hand, which rested on his right shoulder. She kept her head far thrown back in an affected and unnatural attitude. When the dance was overshe sat purposely near Romashov, who was leaning against the doorpost of the ladies’ dressing-room. She fanned herself violently, and looking up to Olisár, who was leaning over her, lisped in a softdolcissimo:
“Tell me, Count, tell me, please, why do I always feel so hot? Do tell me.”
Olisár made a slight bow, clicked his spurs, stroked his moustache several times.
“Dear lady, that is a question which I don’t think even Martin Sadek could answer.”
When Olisár cast a scrutinizing glance at the fair Raisa’sdécolletébosom, pitiable and bare as the desert itself, she began at once to breathe quickly and deeply.
“Ah, I have always an abnormally high temperature,” Raisa Alexandrovna went on to say with a significant expression, insinuating by her smile that her words had a double meaning. “I suffer, too, from an unusually fiery temperament.”
Olisár gave vent to a short, soft chuckle.
Romashov stood looking sideways at Raisa, thinking with disgust, “Oh, how loathsome she is.” And at the thought that he had once enjoyed her favours, he experienced the sensation as if he had not changed his linen for months.
“Well, well, Count, don’t laugh. Perhaps you do not know that my mother was a Greek?”
“And how horribly she speaks, too,” thought Romashov. “Curious that I never noticed this before. It sounds as if she had a chronic cold or a polypus in her nose—‘by buther was a Greek.’”
Now Raisa turned to Romashov and threw him a challenging glance.
Romashov mentally said, “His face became impassive like a mask.”
“How do you do, Yuri Alexievich? Why don’t you come and speak to me?” Romashov went up to her. With a venomous glance from her small, sharp eyes she pressed his hand. The pupils of her eyes stood motionless.
“At your desire I have kept the third quadrille for you. I hope you have not forgotten that.”
Romashov bowed.
“You are very polite! At least you might sayEnchanté, madame!” (“Edchadté, badabe” was what Romashov heard.) “Isn’t he a blockhead, Count?”
“Of course, I remember,” mumbled Romashov insincerely. “I thank you for the great honour.”
Bobetinski did nothing to liven up the evening. He conducted the ball with an apathetic, condescending look, just as if he was performing, from a strict sense of duty, something very distasteful and uninteresting to himself, but of infinite importance to the rest of mankind. When, however, the third quadrille was about to begin, he got, as it were, a little new life, and, as he hurried across the room with the long gliding steps of a skater, he shouted in a loud voice:
“Quadrille monstre! Cavaliers, engagez vos dames!”
Romashov and Raisa Alexandrovna took up a position close to the window of the music gallery, with Michin and Madame Lieschtschenko for theirvis-à-vis. The latter hardly reached up to her partner’s shoulders. The number of dancers had now very noticeably increased, and the couples stood up for the third quadrille. Every dance had therefore to be repeated twice.
“There must be an explanation; this must be put a stop to,” thought Romashov, almost deafenedby the noise of the big drums and the braying brass instruments in his immediate proximity. “I have had enough! ‘And in his countenance you could read fixed resolution.’”
The “dancing-masters” and those who arranged the regimental balls had preserved by tradition certain fairly innocent frolics and jokes for such soirées, which were greatly appreciated by the younger dancers. For instance, at the third quadrille it was customary, as it were accidentally, by changing the dances, to cause confusion among the dancers, who with uproar and laughter did their part in increasing the general disorder. Bobetinski’s device that evening consisted in the gentlemen pretending to forget their partners and dancing the figure by themselves. Suddenly a “galop all round” was ordered, the result of which was a chaos of ladies and gentlemen rushing about in fruitless search for their respective partners.
“Mesdames, avancez—pardon, reculez.Gentlemen, alone.Pardon—balancez avec vos dames!”
Raisa Alexandrovna kept talking to Romashov in the most virulent tone and panting with fury, but smiling all the while as if her conversation was wholly confined to pleasant and joyous subjects.
“I will not allow any one to treat me in such a manner, do you hear? I am not a good-for-nothing girl you can do as you like with. Besides, decent people don’t behave as you are behaving.”
“Raisa Alexandrovna, for goodness’ sake try to curb your temper,” begged Romashov in a low, imploring tone.
“Angry with you? No, sir, that would be to pay you too high a compliment. I despise you, do you hear? Despise you; but woe to him who daresto play with my feelings! You left my letter unanswered. How dare you?”
“But your letter did not reach me, I assure you.”
“Ha! don’t try to humbug me. I know your lies, and I also know where you spend your time. Don’t make any mistake about that.
“Do you think I don’t know this woman, this Lilliput queen, and her intrigues? Rather, you may be sure of that,” Raisa went on to say. “She fondly imagines she’s a somebody; yes, she does! Her father was a thieving notary.”
“I must beg you, in my presence, to express yourself in a more decent manner in regard to my friends,” interrupted Romashov sharply.
Then and there a painful scene occurred. Raisa stormed and broke out in a torrent of aspersions on Shurochka. The fury within her had now the mastery; her artificial smiles were banished, and she even tried to drown the music by her snuffly voice. Romashov, conscious of his impotence to try to put in a word in defence of the grossly insulted Shurochka, was distracted with shame and wrath. In addition to this were the intolerable din of the band and the disagreeable attention of the bystanders, which his partner’s unbridled fury was beginning to attract.
“Yes, her father was a common thief; she has nothing to stick her nose in the air about and she ought, to be sure, to be very careful not to give herself airs!” shrieked Raisa. “And for a thing like that to dare to look down on us! We know something else about her, too!”
“I implore you!” whispered Romashov.
“Don’t make any mistake about it; both you and she shall feel my claws. In the first place, Ishall open her husband’s eyes—the eyes of that fool Nikoläiev, who has, for the third time, been ‘ploughed’ in his exam. But what else can one expect from a fool like that, who does not know what is going on under his nose? And it is certainly no longer any secret who the lover is.”
“Mazurka générale! Promenade!” howled Bobetinski, who at that moment was strutting through the room with the pomp of an archangel.
The floor rocked under the heavy tramping of the dancers, and the muslin curtains and coloured lamps moved in unison with the notes of the mazurka.
“Why cannot we part as friends?” Romashov asked in a shy tone. He felt within himself that this woman not only caused him indescribable disgust, but also aroused in his heart a cowardice he could not subdue, and which filled him with self-contempt. “You no longer love me; let us part good friends.”
“Ha! ha! You’re frightened; you’re trying to cut my claws. No, my fine fellow. I am not one of those who are thrown aside with impunity. It is I, mind you, who throw aside one who causes me disgust and loathing—not the other way about. And as for your baseness——”
“That’s enough; let’s end all this talk,” said Romashov, interrupting her in a hollow voice and with clenched teeth.
“Five minutes’entr’acte.Cavaliers, occupez vos dames!” shouted Bobetinski.
“I’ll end it when I think fit. You have deceived me shamefully. For you I have sacrificed all that a virtuous woman can bestow. It is your fault that I dare not look my husband in the face—my husband, the best and noblest man on earth. It’s you who made me forget my duties as wifeand mother. Oh, why, why did I not remain true to him!”
Romashov could not, however, now refrain from a smile. Raisa Alexandrovna’s innumerable amours with all the young, new-fledged officers in the regiment were an open secret, and both by word of mouth and in her letters to Romashov she was in the habit of referring to her “beloved husband” in the following terms: “my fool,” or “that despicable creature,” or “this booby who is always in the way,” etc., etc.
“Ah, you have even the impudence to laugh,” she hissed; “but look out now, sir, it is my turn.”
With these words she took her partner’s arm and tripped along, with swaying hips and smiling a vinegary smile on all sides. When the dance was over her face resumed its former expression of hatred. Again she began to buzz savagely—“like an angry wasp,” thought Romashov.
“I shall never forgive you this, do you hear?Never.I know the reason why you have thrown me over so shamelessly and in such a blackguardly fashion; but don’t fondly imagine that a new love-intrigue will be successful. No; never, as long as I live, shall that be the case. Instead of acknowledging in a straightforward and honourable way that you no longer love me, you have preferred to cloak your treachery and treat me like a vulgar harlot, reasoning, I suppose, like this: ‘If it does not come off with the other, I always have her, you know.’ Ha! ha! ha!”
“All right, you may perhaps allow me to speak decently,” began Romashov, with restrained wrath. His face grew paler and paler, and he bit his lips nervously. “You have asked for it, and now I tell you straight. I donotlove you.”
“Oh, what an insult!”
“I have never loved you; nor did you love me. We have both played an unworthy and false game, a miserable, vulgar farce with a nauseous plot and disgustingrôles. Raisa Alexandrovna, I have studied you, and I know you, very likely, better than you do yourself. You lack every requisite of love, tenderness, nay, even common affection. The cause of it is your absolutely superficial character, your narrow, petty outlook on life. And, besides” (Romashov happened to remember at this point Nasanski’s words), “only elect, refined natures can know what a great or real love is.”
“Such elect, refined natures, for instance, as your own.”
Once more the band thundered forth. Romashov looked almost with hatred at the trombone’s wide, shining mouth, that, with the most cynical indifference, flung out its hoarse, howling notes over the whole of the room. And its fellow-culprit—the poor soldier who, with the full force of his lungs, gave life to the instrument—was with his bulging eyes and blue, swollen cheeks, no less an object of his dislike and disgust.
“Don’t let us quarrel about it. It is likely enough that I am not worthy of a great and real love, but we are not discussing that now. The fact is that you, with your narrow, provincial views and silly vanity, must needs always be surrounded by men dancing attendance on you, so that you may be able to boast about it to your lady friends in what you are pleased to call ‘Society.’ And possibly you think I have not understood the purpose of your ostentatiously familiar manner with me at the regimental soirées, your tender glances, etc., the intimately dictatorial tone you always assume whenwe are seen together. Yes, precisely the chief object was that people should notice the free-and-easy way in which you treated me. Except for this all your game would not have had the slightest meaning, for no real love or affection on my part has ever formed part of your—programme.”
“Even if such had been the case I might well have chosen a better and more worthy object than you,” replied Raisa, in a haughty and scornful tone.
“Such an answer fromyouis too ridiculous to insult me; for, listen, I repeat once more, your absurd vanity demands that some slave should always be dancing attendance on you. But the years come and go, and the number of your slaves diminishes. Finally, in order not to be entirely without admirers, you are forced to sacrifice your plighted troth, your duties as wife and mother.”
“No; but that’s quite sufficient. You shall most certainly hear from me,” whispered Raisa, in a significant tone and with glittering eyes.
At that moment, Captain Peterson came across the room with many absurd skips and shuffles in order to avoid colliding with the dancers. He was a thin, consumptive man with a yellow complexion, bald head, and black eyes, in the warm and moist glance of which lurked treachery and malice. It was said of him that, curiously enough, he was to such an extent infatuated with his wife that he played the part of intimate friend, in an unctuous and sickening way, with all her lovers. It was likewise common knowledge that he had tried by means of acrimonious perfidy and the most vulgar intrigues to be revenged on every single person who had, with joy and relief, turned his back on the fair Raisa’s withered charms.
He smiled from a distance at his wife and Romashov with his bluish, pursed lips.
“Are you dancing, Romashov? Well, how are you, my dear Georgi? Where have you been all this time? My wife and I were so used to your company that we have been quite dull without you.”
“Been awfully busy,” mumbled Romashov.
“Ah, yes, we all know about those military duties,” replied Captain Peterson, with a little insinuating whistle that was directly changed into an amicable smile. His black eyes with their yellow pupils wandered, however, from Raisa to Romashov inquisitively.
“I have an idea that you two have been quarrelling. Why do you both look so cross? What has happened?”
Romashov stood silent whilst he gazed, worried and embarrassed, at Raisa’s skinny, dark, sinewy neck. Raisa answered promptly, with the easy insolence she invariably displayed when lying:
“Yuri Alexievich is playing the philosopher. He declares that dancing is both stupid and ridiculous, and that he has seen his best days.”
“And yet he dances?” replied the Captain, with a quick, snake-like glance at Romashov. “Dance away, my children, and don’t let me disturb you.”
He had scarcely got out of earshot before Raisa Alexandrovna, in a hypocritical, pathetic tone, burst out with, “And I have deceived this saint, this noblest of husbands. And for whom?—Oh, if he knew all, if he only knew!”
“Mazurka générale,” shrieked Bobetinski. “Gentlemen, resume your partners.”
The violently perspiring bodies of the dancers and the dust arising from the parquet floor madethe air of the ballroom close, and the lights in the lamps and candelabra took a dull yellow tint. The dancing was now in full swing, but as the space was insufficient, each couple, who every moment squeezed and pushed against one another, was obliged to tramp on the very same spot. This figure—the last in the quadrille—consisted in a gentleman, who was without a partner, pursuing a couple who were dancing. If he managed to come face to face with a lady he clapped her on the hand, which meant that the lady was now his booty. The lady’s usual partner tried, of course, to prevent this, but by this arose a disorder and uproar which often resulted in some very brutal incidents.
“Actress,” whispered Romashov hoarsely, as he bent nearer to Raisa. “You’re as pitiable as you are ridiculous.”
“And you are drunk,” the worthy lady almost shrieked, giving Romashov at the same time a glance resembling that with which the heroine on the stage measures the villain of the piece from head to foot.
“It only remains for me to find out,” pursued Romashov mercilessly, “the exact reason why I was chosen by you. But this, however, is a question which I can answer myself. You gave yourself to me in order to get a hold on me. Oh, if this had been done out of love or from sentiment merely! But you were actuated by a base vanity. Are you not frightened at the mere thought of the depths into which we have both sunk, without even a spark of love that might redeem the crime? You must understand that this is even more wretched than when a woman sells herself for money. Then dire necessity is frequently the tempter. But in this case—the memory of this senseless, unpardonable crime will always be to me a source of shame and loathing.”
With cold perspiration on his forehead and distraction in his weary eyes, he gazed on the couples dancing. Past him—hardly lifting her feet and without looking at her partner—sailed the majestic Madame Taliman, with motionless shoulders and an ironical, menacing countenance, as if she meant to protect herself against the slightest liberty or insult. Epifanov skipped round her like a little frisky goat. Then glided little Miss Lykatschev, flushed of face, with gleaming eyes, and bare, white, virginal bosom. Then came Olisár with his slender, elegant legs, straight and stiff as a sparrow’s. Romashov felt a burning headache and a strong, almost uncontrollable desire to weep; but beside him still stood Raisa, pale with suppressed rage. With an exaggerated theatrical gesture she fired at him the following sarcasm—
“Did any one ever hear such a thing before? A Russian Infantry lieutenant playing the part of the chaste Joseph? Ha, ha, ha!”
“Yes, quite so, my lady. Precisely that part,” replied Romashov, glaring with wrath. “I know too well that it is humiliating and ridiculous. Nevertheless, I am not ashamed to express my sorrow that I should have so degraded myself. With our eyes open we have both flung ourselves into a cesspool, and I know that I shall never again deserve a pure and noble woman’s love. Who is to blame for this? Well, you. Bear this well in mind—you, you, you—for you were the older and more experienced of us two, especially in affairs of that sort.”
Raisa Alexandrovna got up hurriedly from her chair. “That will do,” she replied in a dramatictone. “You have got what you wanted.I hate you.I hope henceforward you will cease to visit a home where you were received as a friend and relation, where you were entertained and fed, and where, too, you were found out to be the scoundrel you are. Oh, that I had the courage to reveal everything to my husband—that incomparable creature, that saint whom I venerate. Were he only convinced of what has happened he would, I think, know how to avenge the wounded honour of a helpless, insulted woman. He would kill you.”
Romashov looked through his eyeglass at her big, faded mouth, her features distorted by hate and rage. The infernal music from the open windows of the gallery continued with unimpaired strength; the intolerable bassoon howled worse than ever, and, thought Romashov, the bass drum had now come into immediate contact with his brain.
Raisa shut her fan with a snap that echoed through the ballroom. “Oh, you—lowest of all blackguards on earth,” whispered she, with a theatrical gesture, and then disappeared into the ladies’ retiring-room.
All was now over and done with, but Romashov did not experience the relief he expected. This long-nourished hope to feel his soul freed from a heavy, unclean burthen was not fulfilled. His strict, avenging conscience told him that he had acted in a cowardly, low, and boorish way when he cast all the blame on a weak, narrow, wretched woman who, most certainly at that moment, in the ladies’-room, was, through him, shedding bitter, hysterical tears of sorrow, shame, and impotent rage.
“I am sinking more and more deeply,” thought he, in disgust at himself. What had his life been?what had it consisted of? An odious and wantonliaison, gambling, drinking, soul-killing, monotonous regimental routine, with never a single inspiriting word, never a ray of light in this black, hopeless darkness. Salutary, useful work, music, art, science, where were they?
He returned to the dining-room. There he met Osadchi and his friend Viätkin, who with much trouble was making his way in the direction of the street door. Liech, now quite drunk, was helplessly wobbling in different directions, whilst in a fuddled voice he kept asserting that he was—an archbishop. Osadchi intoned in reply with the most serious countenance and a low, rolling bass, whilst carefully following the ecclesiastical ritual—
“Your high, refulgent Excellency, the hour of burial has struck. Give us your blessing, etc.”
As the soirée approached its end, the gathering in the dining-room grew more noisy and lively. The room was already so full of tobacco smoke that those sitting at opposite sides of the table could not recognize each other. Cards were being played in one corner; by the window a small but select set had assembled to edify one another by racy stories—the spice most appreciated at officers’ dinners and suppers.
“No, no, no, gentlemen,” shrieked Artschakovski, “allow me to put in a word. You see it was this way: a soldier was quartered at the house of akhokhol[14]who had a pretty wife. Ho, ho, thought the soldier, that is something for me.”
Then, however, he was interrupted by Vasili Vasilievich, who had been waiting long and impatiently—
“Shut up with your old stories, Artschakovski. You shall hear this. Once upon a time in Odessa there——”
But even he was not allowed to speak very long. The generality of the stories were rather poor and devoid of wit, but, to make up for that, they were interspersed with coarse and repulsive cynicisms. Viätkin, who had now returned from the street, where he had been paying his respects to Liech’s “interment” and holy “departure,” invited Romashov to sit down at the table.
“Sit you here, my dear Georginka.[15]We will watch them. To-day I am as rich as a Jew. I won yesterday, and to-day I shall take the bank again.”
Romashov only longed to lighten his heart, for a friend to whom he might tell his sorrow and his disgust at life. After draining his glass he looked at Viätkin with beseeching eyes, and began to talk in a voice quivering with deep, inward emotion.
“Pavel Pavlich, we all seem to have completely forgotten the existence of another life.Whereit is I cannot say; I only know that it exists. Even in that men must struggle, suffer, and love, but that life is rich—rich in great thoughts and noble deeds. For here, my friend, what do you suppose our life is, and how will such a miserable existence as ours end some day?”
“Well, yes, old fellow—but it’s life,” replied Viätkin in a sleepy way. “Life after all is—only natural philosophy and energy. And what is energy?”
“Oh, what a wretched existence,” Romashov went on to say with increasing emotion, and withoutlistening to Viätkin. “To-day we booze at mess till we are drunk; to-morrow we meet at drill—’one, two, left, right’—in the evening we again assemble round the bottle. Just the same, year in, year out. That’s what makes up our life. How disgusting!”
Viätkin peered at him with sleepy eyes, hiccoughed, and then suddenly started singing in a weak falsetto:—