Part 20
Suddenly the horses made a sharp swerve to the right, and at once the noise of the carriage and the squeaking of the wheel-tyres ceased. The carriage rocked here and there in the shallow cavities of the deep, sandy road. Romashov opened his eyes. Far beneath him and on a wide stretch of land, a multitude of small lights or lamps here and there cast their faint, uncertain glimmer. Now they disappeared behind invisible trees and houses, now they bobbed up before his eyes, and it looked as if a huge, fantastic, disordered crowd of people or a procession with torches and lanterns was moving forward down the road. An acrid smell of wormwood, a big dark branch slowly waved up and down over the heads of the parties who were being driven along, and, at the same time, they found themselves suddenly environed by a new atmosphere--cold, raw, and moist, as if it had arisen from a vault.
"Where are we?" asked Romashov.
"At Savalie," shrieked in reply the dark figure sitting on the box-seat, in whom Romashov now recognized Lieutenant Epifanov. "We're at Schleyfer's, you know. Haven't you ever been here before?"
"Go to hell," grumbled Romashov. Epifanov kept on laughing.
"Hark you, Yuri Alexievich, shall we tell the little darlings in a whisper what an innocent you are? Later on, you'll put all our noses out of joint."
Again Romashov felt, half-unconsciously, that he had sunk back into impenetrable darkness, until he, as suddenly, found himself standing in a large room with parqueted floor and Vienna chairs along the walls. Over the entrance to the room, and over three other doors leading to small, dark chambers, lay hangings of red and yellow flowered cotton. Curtains of the same stuff and colour flickered in the draught from the windows opened on a gloomy backyard. Lamps were burning on the walls, but the great room was filled with smoke and the smell of meat from the adjacent kitchen; and the fumes were only dispersed occasionally by the balmy spring air entering through the window, and by the fresh scent of the white acacias that bloomed outside the house.
About ten officers took part in this excursion. All seemed bent on solving the delicate problem of contriving to shriek, laugh, and bawl at the same time. Romashov strolled about the room with a feeling of naïve, unreflecting enjoyment, and, with a certain astonishment and delight, gradually recognized all his boon-companions--Biek-Agamalov, Lbov, Viätkin, Epifanov, Artschakovski, Olisár, etc. Even Staff-Captain Lieschtschenko was discovered there. He sat huddled up in a window with his usual, eternal, resigned _Weltschmerz_ grin. On a table stood a respectable row of bottles containing ale and a dark, thick, syrupy cherry-cordial. No one knew who had ordered all these bottles. They were thought--like so much else that night--to have come of their own accord. Romashov drank, proposed healths, and embraced every one he met, and began to feel sticky and messy about his lips and fingers.
There were five or six women in the room. One of them--a girl of fourteen dressed as a page, with rose-coloured stockings--sat on Biek-Agamalov's knee and played with his epaulettes. Another--a big, coarse blonde in a red silk _basquine_ and dark skirt, and with powdered face, and broad, black, painted eyebrows--went straight up to Romashov.
"Gracious, my good sir, why do you look so miserable? Come with me into that room," she added in a whisper.
She threw herself carelessly on a table, and there sat with one leg over the other. Romashov noticed how the strong outlines of her well-formed knee were shown off by the thin skirt. A shudder thrilled him, and his hands trembled.
"What's your name?"
"Mine? Malvina." She turned away with an air of indifference, and began swinging her legs. "Order me a cigarette."
Two Jewish musicians came on the scene, one with a violin, the other with a tambourine. Soon a vulgar, hackneyed, screeching polka tune was heard in the room, whereupon Olisár and Artschakovski at once began to dance the _cancan_. They hopped round the room first on one leg, then on the other, snapped their fingers, wagged their hips, and bent backwards and forwards with vulgar, cynical gestures. This unattractive ballet was suddenly interrupted by Biek-Agamalov, who jumped off the table, shrieking in his sharp, penetrating voice--
"To hell with the _starar_! Out with the ragtag and bobtail!"
Down by the door stood two young exquisites, both of whom had many acquaintances among officers, and had even been guests at the regimental soirées. One of them was a Treasury official, the other a landed proprietor and brother of the police magistrate of the town. They both belonged to the so-called "cream" of Society.
The Treasury official turned white, but forced a smile, and answered in an affable tone--
"Excuse me, gentlemen, but can't we join? We are old acquaintances, you know. My name is Dubiezki. We should not interfere with you at all."
"Possibly in making love, but not when the fight begins," added the magistrate's brother, who tried to adopt a good-humoured tone.
"Out of this!" screamed Biek-Agamalov. "March to the door!"
"Gentlemen, by all means, put the _starar_ out," sneered Artschakovski.
A horrible confusion arose in the room. Tables and chairs were thrown over; the men shrieked, laughed, and stamped with all their might. The flames of the lamps rose like fiery tongues on high. The cold night air penetrated through the open windows, but without any cooling or calming effect on all these half-demented fighting-cocks. The two civilians had already been thrown into the backyard, where they were heard fiercely screeching and threatening with tears in their voices--
"_Opritschniker_,[20] brigands! This affair will cost you dear. We shall lodge a complaint with your commander, with the Governor."
"Oo-oo-oo-oo-oo," Viätkin sneered in mockery, whilst stretching out of the window. "Go to blazes!"
It seemed to Romashov as if all the events of the day had followed one another without a break, but also without the least intelligible connection, just as if a series of wild pictures in loud and motley colours had been unrolled before his eyes. Again were heard the scraping of the violin and the tambourine's blustering noise. One of the "partners" had now gone so far as to pirouette on the floor with nothing but his shirt on. A pretty, slender woman, who had up to then escaped Romashov's notice, with dishevelled hair over her bare neck, and sharp, prominent shoulder-blades, wound her arms round poor Lieschtschenko's neck and sang in his ear in her shrill soprano, and in unison with the violin's awful melody:
"When consumption sets its mark, And you're lying pale and stark, And doctors are seen fumbling round your couch."
Bobetinski slung a glass of ale between the curtains of one of the little, dark _cabinets_, whence very soon proceeded an angry, but sleepy, thick voice--
"Aren't you ashamed, sir? Who dares ...? Such a low swine!"
"I say! how long have you been here?" asked Romashov of the lady in the red _basquine_, whilst, as it were, in an absent-minded way, he rested his hand on her strong, warm knee.
She made some answer, but he did not hear it. A fresh scene of savagery had absorbed all his attention. Sub-lieutenant Lbov was driving before him one of the musicians, and banging him on the head all the time with the tambourine. The poor Jew, terrified out of his wits, ran from corner to corner, screaming and babbling his unintelligible jargon, with wholly ineffectual attempts to catch his long, fluttering coat-tails, and incessantly glancing behind him from the corners of his eyes at his unmerciful persecutor. Everybody was laughing. Artschakovski fell flat on the floor, and wriggled with tears in his eyes and in alarming convulsions of laughter. Directly afterwards the other Jew's piercing yells were audible. Another of the company had snatched the violin, and thrown it down with fearful violence. With a crashing sound that harmonized, in an almost touching way, with the musician's desperate cries for help, the instrument broke into a thousand fragments. What followed this Romashov never perceived, inasmuch as, for several minutes, he was in a sort of dark "nirvana." When he had somewhat regained the use of his reason, he saw, as though in a fever-dream, that all in the room were running round each other with wild shrieks and gestures of despair. For an instant the whole swarm gathered round Biek-Agamalov, only in the next instant to be scattered like chaff in all directions. The majority sought safety in the little, dark _cabinets_.
"Out of it! I won't stand a single one!" shrieked Biek-Agamalov in Berserker fury. He ground his teeth, stamped on the floor, and struck about him with his clenched fists. His face was crimson; the veins in his forehead from the roots of his hair to his nose stood like strained ropes; his head was lowered like a bull's, and his unnaturally prominent eyes with their bloodshot whites were terrifying. He was unable to utter any human sounds, but groaned, like a wild beast, in a vibrating voice--
"Ah-ah-ah-ah!"
Suddenly, whilst bending the upper part of his body to the left with the suppleness of a panther, he drew his sabre, as quick as lightning, from its sheath. The broad, sharp blade described, with a whistling sound, several rapid circles over his head.
In frantic terror every living creature fled helter-skelter from the room through doors and windows, the women screaming hysterically, the men trampling down all that lay in their way. Romashov was carried by the current irresistibly towards the door, where an officer rushing past caused him, by the sharp facet of his uniform-button, a long, bleeding scratch on his face. The next moment all stood whooping and yelling in the yard, except Romashov, who alone remained by the door of the room. He felt his heart beating with increased force and quickness; but the murderous, unbridled scene filled him not only with terror, but also with an intoxicating feeling of savage, exulting defiance.
"I will have blood!" screamed Biek-Agamalov, with gnashing teeth. The sight of the terror he inspired deprived him of the last remains of understanding and reflection. With frantic strength and rage he smashed, with a few strokes, all the furniture nearest to him, and, after that, hurled his sabre with such force at a large mirror that the glass splinters hailed on all sides. With another blow he laid waste the table, which was crowded with a number of bottles and glasses, the fragments and contents of which were thrown all over the floor.
But just at that moment cried a piercing voice of indescribable fury and boldness--
"Fool! Cad!"
This insult was hurled by the same bare-headed woman with naked arms as had just embraced Lieschtschenko. This was the first time that Romashov had noticed her. She was standing in a recess behind the stove, leaning forward with clenched hands tightly pressed against her hips, and pouring out an uninterrupted flow of "Billingsgate" with a rapidity and readiness which the vilest market-woman might have envied.
"Fool! Cad! Scum! I am not afraid of you! Fool! Fool! Fool!"
Biek-Agamalov lowered his sabre, and seemed, for a moment, to lose all power over himself. Romashov saw how his face grew whiter and whiter, how his eyebrows puckered, and how the yellow pupils first darkened and then hurled a blinding flash of diabolical hatred and rage which no longer knew bounds. His knees gave way, and his head fell on his chest. At that moment, Biek-Agamalov was no longer a human being. He was transformed into a bloodthirsty wild beast straining every nerve for the fatal leap.
"Silence!" It sounded as if he had spat out the word. Speak he could not.
"Scoundrel, brute, beast, I shall not be silent!" shrieked the fury in the stove corner, her body trembling all over at every word she hurled.
Romashov felt himself getting whiter and whiter every moment. He felt a sensation of void in his brain, a sensation of release from every oppressive act of thought or reflection. A curious mixture of joy and terror arose in his soul, just as the bubbles of sparkling wine ascend to the edge of a goblet. He saw Biek-Agamalov, whilst continually following the woman with his eyes, slowly raise his sabre above his head. An irresistible flow of frantic jubilation, fear, inconsiderate boldness, carried Romashov away. He rushed forward so rapidly that he did not even hear Biek-Agamalov hiss his last question--
"Will you be silent? For the last time----"
Romashov, with a force he never thought he was capable of, gripped Agamalov's wrist. During the course of a few seconds and at a distance of a couple of inches between their faces, the two officers eyed one another without moving, stiff as if carved out of stone. Romashov heard his comrade's quick, panting breath; he saw his eyes glitter with hate and a thirst for revenge, and his lips foam with the spasmodic movements of his lower jaw; but he felt that the fire of wrath would, in a few minutes, be extinguished in this man who had never yet sought, of his own accord, to curb his passions. But to Romashov this feeling of proud triumph in a game of life and death, from which he now knew he should come out the victor, was almost intolerable. He knew that all those who were anxiously watching this scene from outside also realized in what deadly danger he stood. Out in the yard and by the open windows there brooded such a hush and quiet that, all of a sudden, a nightingale a few paces off began to trill her joyous lay.
"Let me go," came at last like a hoarse whisper from Biek-Agamalov's bitten lips.
"Biek, you must never strike a woman," replied Romashov calmly. "You would blush for it as long as you lived."
The last sparks of rage and madness now died out in Agamalov's eyes. Romashov drew a deep breath as if from a long swoon. His heart beat irregularly and quick, and his head was again heavy and feverishly hot.
"Let me go!" shrieked Biek-Agamalov once more in a fierce tone, and tried to release himself. Romashov felt he would no longer be able to keep his hold of him; but he had no further dread of his wrath. He said in a caressing brotherly tone, as he laid his hand on his comrade's shoulder--
"Forgive me, Biek, but I know that a day will come when you will thank me for this."
Biek-Agamalov with a loud snap stuck his sabre into its sheath.
"All right, confound you!" he screamed in an angry tone, in which, however, there was a note of shame and confusion. "We'll settle this matter afterwards. But what right have you----?"
The valiant crowd in the yard now understood that all danger was over for the present. With loud, but not quite natural, peals of laughter, the lot now rushed into the room. But he now seemed extinguished, his strength exhausted, and there was something apathetic and ironically contemptuous about him.
Now Madame Schleyfer herself--a massive lady with a hard look, small dark pouches under her eyes, disappearing eyelashes, and great layers of fat on her neck and bosom--entered the room. She attacked first one and then the other of the officers; took tight hold of one by a button, of another by a sleeve, and howled to each of them who could stand and listen her everlasting song--
"Gentlemen, gentlemen, who will make good all this? Who will pay for the mirror, the furniture, the bottles, the girls?"
All this meanwhile was settled to the satisfaction of the authorities by the same mysterious "benefactor" who had provided for everything else in the course of this memorable excursion. The officers left the room in groups. Every one of them inhaled with delight the mild, pure air of the May night. Romashov felt all his being thrilled with a certain joyous agitation. It seemed to him as if all traces of the day's orgies had vanished from his brain, as if a pair of innocent fresh lips had repurified and refreshed him by a soft kiss on his brow.
Biek-Agamalov came up to him, took his hand, and said--
"Romashov, come and ride in my carriage. I wish you to do so."
And when Romashov, on one occasion during the journey home, turned towards the right to observe the awkward gallop of the horses, Biek-Agamalov seized his hand and pressed it for a long time warmly--nay, so hard that it almost caused pain. Not a word, however, passed between the two officers during the whole way.
XIX
The violent emotion felt by every member of the company during the wild scene we have just depicted found expression in a nervous irritability which, on their return to the mess-room, took the form of reckless arrogance and gross misbehaviour to all who happened to come across the officers on their way home. A poor Jew coming along was stopped and deprived of his cap. Olisár got up in the carriage, and insulted, in the outskirts of the town, in the middle of the street, all passers-by in a manner which cannot be decently described. Bobetinski whipped his coachman for no reason whatever. The others sang and bawled with all their might; only Biek-Agamalov, who rode beside Romashov, sat all the time angry, silent, and taciturn.
Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, the mess-rooms were brilliantly illuminated and full of people. In the card and billiard-rooms and at the buffet creatures with unbuttoned coats, flaming faces, vacantly staring eyes and of uncertain gait, helplessly collided with each other, heavily fuddled by the fumes of wine and tobacco smoke. Romashov, who was walking about and nodding to several of the officers, also found among them, to his great astonishment, Nikoläiev. He was sitting by Osadchi, red in face and intoxicated, but holding himself upright. On seeing Romashov approaching he eyed him sharply for a few seconds, but afterwards turned abruptly aside, so as to avoid holding out his hand to the latter, meanwhile conversing with his neighbour with increased interest.
"Viätkin, come here and sing," bellowed Osadchi over the heads of the rest.
"Yes, come let us sing," chanted Viätkin, in reply, parodying, imitating, and caricaturing a melody from the Church ritual--
"Three small boys found lurching Got an awful birching At the parson's stile."
Viätkin imitated in quick succession and in the same tone the strophes recited in the remainder of the antiphon at Mass--
"Sexton, parson, and his clerk Thought the smacking quite a lark. Then the beadle said, 'By hell, Nikifor, you smack right well.'"
"Nikifor, you smack right well!"
answered _pianissimo_ in complete harmony the hastily improvised choir of drunken officers, seconded by Osadchi's softly rumbling bass voice.
Viätkin conducted the singing, standing on a table in the middle of the room, whilst stretching his arms in an attitude of benediction over the heads of the "congregation." Now his eyes flashed terrifying glances of threat and condemnation; at another time they were raised to heaven with a languishing expression of infinite beatitude; then he hissed with rage at those who sang out of tune; again he stopped in time by a scarcely perceptible _tremolo_ of the palm of his hand a run to a misplaced _crescendo_.
"Staff-Captain Lieschtschenko, you're singing damnably. Damn it, what a wretched ear!" roared Osadchi. "Keep quiet in the room, gentlemen. No noise, please, when there's singing."
"Once on a time a farmer so rich-- Who used to like iced punch"--
continued Viätkin, in his improvised service of the Church. His eyes, however, now began to smart dreadfully from the dense tobacco smoke. Romashov was reminded by the wet and sticky tablecloth that he had not washed his hands since dinner. He went out and made his way across the yard to a side room called the "Officers' Shelter," which served as a sort of lavatory. It was a cold, dismal little crib with only one window. Several common cupboards stood along the wall, and between them, in hospital fashion, were placed two beds, the sheets, etc., of which were never changed. Not a man in the entire regiment could recollect when this room was swept and cleaned. There was an intolerable stench there, the main ingredients of which were rotting bedclothes, stinking boots, and bad tobacco. The room was originally intended for officers of other regiments who happened to be visiting the garrison town, but it gradually became converted into a sort of _morgue_ for those who got dead drunk at mess. It was almost officially designated as "the mortuary," which name, by a dreadful irony of fate, received its full justification from the fact that no less than two officers and one soldier had committed suicide in it during the few years the regiment had been garrisoned in the town. Moreover, not a year elapsed without one suicide taking place among the officers of this regiment.
When Romashov entered "the mortuary" he found two men sitting there on a bed near the window. The room was dark, and it was some time before Romashov recognized in one of the "guests" ex-Staff-Captain Klodt, alcoholist and thief, and on those grounds expelled from the command of his company. The other was a certain Ensign Solotuchin--a tall, lean, bald-headed, worn-out rake and gambler, feared and despised wherever he went for his evil, lying tongue and his conversation interlarded with coarse cynicisms and improprieties--a veritable type of the ensigns of the storybooks.
Between these two worthy "birds of a feather" might be seen on the table the dim outline of a schnapps bottle, an empty plate, and two full glasses. The pair of boon companions were silent when Romashov entered the room, and tried, as it were, to hide themselves in the darkness; but when he leaned over them, they looked at him with a sly smile.
"What, in the name of goodness, are you two doing here?" asked Romashov, in alarm.
"Hush!" Solotuchin made a mysterious warning gesture with his forefinger. "Wait here, and don't disturb us."
"Hold your jaw!" ordered Klodt in a whisper.
At the same moment the rattling noise of a _telega_ was heard somewhere in the distance. Then the two strangers raised their glasses, clicked them together, and drained the contents.
"But answer me. What is the meaning of it all?" repeated Romashov in the same anxious tone.
"My little greenhorn," replied Klodt in a significant whisper, "if you must know, it's only our usual little morning repast; but now I hear the _telega_, Ensign," Klodt went on to say as he turned to Solotuchin. "It's time then to finish our drink and be off. What do you think of the moonlight? Will it suit?"
"My glass is empty already," replied Solotuchin, glancing out of the window at the moon's slender, pointed sickle that stood drowsy and sleepy in the sky, and hung down over the little slumbering town. "But let's just wait a wee bit. S-sh! I thought I heard a dog barking."
And again they bent towards one another to resume their mysterious conversation, carried on in a low voice; the spluttering tone and evident lack of coherence witnessed clearly enough that the schnapps had begun to take effect. From the _salle-à-manger_ hard by came now and then the melancholy, hollow tones of Viätkin's and Osadchi's improvised Mass for the Dead, which had a weird and threatening ring about it in the silent night.
Romashov seized his head with both hands.
"I beseech you, gentlemen, to stop this. I can't stand it any longer."