Long after midnight they were coming out of a suburban café chantant
accompanied by the well-known musical comedy actor Zhenin-Lirsky, the
young assistant Crown-Prosecutor Sashka Strahlmann, who was famous all
over Petersburg for his incomparable skill in telling amusing stories
about the topic of the day, and Karyukov, the merchant’s son, a patron
of the arts.
It was neither bright nor dark. It was a warm, white, transparent
night, with soft _chatoyant_ colours and water like mother-of-pearl in
the calm canals, which plainly reflected the grey stone of the quay and
the motionless foliage of the trees. The sky was pale as though tired
and sleepless, and there were sleepy clouds in the sky, long, thin and
woolly like clews of ravelled cotton-wool.
‘Where shall we go, now?’ said Schavinsky, stopping at the gate of the
gardens. ‘Field-Marshal Oyama! Give us your enlightened opinion.’
All five lingered on the pavement for a while, caught by a moment
of the usual early morning indecision, when the physical fatigue of
the reveller struggles with the irresistible and irritating yearning
after new and piquant sensations. From the garden continually came
patrons, laughing, whistling, noisily shuffling their feet over the
dry, white cobble-stones. Walking hurriedly, boldly rustling the silk
of their petticoats emerged the _artistes_ wearing huge hats, with
diamonds trembling in their ears, escorted by dashing gentlemen,
smartly dressed, with flowers in their buttonholes. With the porters’
respectful assistance these ladies fluttered into carriages and panting
automobiles, freely arranging their dresses round their legs, and flew
away holding the brims of their hats in their hands. The chorus-girls
and the _filles du jardin_ of the higher class drove off alone or two
together in ordinary cabs with a man beside them. The ordinary women of
the street appeared everywhere at once, going round the wooden fence,
following close on the men who left on foot, giving special attention
to the drunken. They ran beside the men for a long while, offering
themselves in a whisper with impudent submissiveness, naming that which
was their profession with blunt, coarse, terrible words. In the bright,
white twilight of May, their faces seemed like coarse masks, blue from
the white of their complexions, red with crimson colour, and one’s eyes
were struck with the blackness, the thickness and the extraordinary
curve of their eyebrows. These naïvely bright colours made the yellow
of their wrinkled temples appear all the more pitiable, their thin,
scraggy necks, and flabby, feeble chins. A couple of mounted policemen,
obscenely swearing, rode them down now and then with their horses’
mouths afoam. The girls screamed, ran away, and clutched at the sleeves
of the passers-by. Near the railing of the canal was gathered a group
of about twenty men--it was the usual early morning scandal. A short,
beardless boy of an officer was dead-drunk and making a fuss, looking
as though he wanted to draw his sword; a policeman was assuring him of
something in a convincing falsetto with his hand on his heart.
A sharp, suspicious-looking type, drunk, in a cap with a ragged peak,
spoke in a sugary, obsequious voice: ‘Spit on ’em, yer honour. They
ain’t worth looking at. Give me one in the jaw, if you like. Allow me
to kiss yer ‘and.’
A thin, stern gentleman at the back, whose thick, black whiskers could
alone be seen, because his bowler was tilted over his face, drawled in
a low, indistinct voice: ‘What do you stand about talking for? Pitch
him into the water and have done with it!’
‘But really, Major Fukushima,’ said the actor, ‘we must put a decent
finish to the day of our pleasant acquaintance. Let’s go off with the
little ladies. Where shall it be, Sashka?’
‘Bertha?’ Strahlmann asked in reply.
Ribnikov giggled and rubbed his hands in joyful agitation.
‘Women? “Even a Jew hanged himself for company’s sake,” as the Russian
proverb says. Where the world goes there go we. Eh, what? “If we’re
going, let’s go,” as the parrot said. What? Ha, ha, ha!’
Schavinsky had introduced him to the young men, and they had all
had supper in the café chantant, listened to the Roumanian singers,
drinking champagne and liqueurs. At one time they found it amusing to
call Ribnikov by the names of different Japanese generals, particularly
because the captain’s good nature was evidently unlimited. Schavinsky
it was who began this rude, familiar game. True he felt at times that
he was behaving in an ugly, perhaps even treacherous, way to Ribnikov,
but he calmed his conscience by the fact that he had not breathed a
word of his suspicions, which never entered his friends’ heads at all.
At the beginning of the evening he was watching Ribnikov. The captain
was noisier and more talkative than anybody: he was incessantly
drinking healths, jumping up, sitting down, pouring the wine over
the tablecloth, lighting his cigarette the wrong end. Nevertheless,
Schavinsky noticed that he was drinking very little.
Ribnikov had to sit next the journalist again in the cab. Schavinsky
was almost sober. He was generally distinguished for a hard head in
a spree, but it was light and noisy now, as though the foam of the
champagne was bubbling in it. He gave the captain a side-glance. In the
uncertain, drowsy light of the white night Ribnikov’s face wore a dark,
earthy complexion. All the hollows were sharp and black, the little
wrinkles on his forehead and the lines round his nose and mouth were
deepened. The captain himself sat with a weary stoop, his hands tucked
into the sleeves of his uniform, breathing heavily through his open
mouth. Altogether it gave him a worn, suffering look. Schavinsky could
even smell his breath, and thought that gamblers after several nights
at cards have just the same stale, sour breath as men tired out with
insomnia or the strain of long brain work. A wave of kindly emotion and
pity welled up in Schavinsky’s heart. The captain suddenly appeared to
him very small, utterly worn out, affecting and pitiable. He embraced
Ribnikov, drew him close, and said affably: ‘Very well, Captain, I
surrender. I can’t do anything with you, and I apologise if I’ve given
you some uncomfortable minutes. Give me your hand.’
He unfastened the rose he wore in his coat which a girl in the garden
had made him buy, and fixed it in the buttonhole of the captain’s
great-coat.
‘This is my peace-offering, Captain. We won’t tease each other any
more.’
The cab drew up at a two-storied stone house standing apart in a
pleasant approach. All the windows were shuttered. The others had gone
in advance and were waiting for them. A square grille, a handsbreadth
wide, set in the heavy door, was opened from inside, and a pair of
cold, searching grey eyes appeared in it for a few seconds. Then the
door was opened.
This establishment was something between an expensive brothel and a
luxurious club. There was an elegant entrance, a stuffed bear in the
hall, carpets, silk curtains and lustre-chandeliers, and lackeys in
evening dress and white gloves. Men came here to finish the night after
the restaurants were shut. Cards were played, expensive wines kept,
and there was always a generous supply of fresh, pretty women who were
often changed.
They had to go up to the first floor, where was a wide landing adorned
by palms in tubs and separated from the stairs by a balustrade.
Schavinsky went upstairs arm-in-arm with Ribnikov. Though he had
promised himself that he would not tease him any more, he could not
restrain himself: ‘Let’s mount the scaffold, Captain!’
‘I’m not afraid,’ said he lazily. ‘I walk up to death every day of my
life.’
Ribnikov waved his hand feebly and smiled with constraint. The smile
made his face suddenly weary, grey and old.
Schavinsky gave him a look of silent surprise. He was ashamed of his
importunity. But Ribnikov passed it off immediately.
‘Yes, to death.... A soldier’s always ready for it. There’s nothing
to be done. Death is the trifling inconvenience attached to our
profession.’
Schavinsky and Karyukov the art-patron were assiduous guests and
honoured _habitués_ of the house. They were greeted with pleasant
smiles and low bows.
A big, warm _cabinet_ was given them, in red and gold with a thick,
bright green carpet on the floor, with sconces in the corners and
on the table. They were brought champagne, fruit and bonbons. Women
came--three at first, then two more--then they were passing in and
out continually. Without exception they were pretty, well provided
with bare, white arms, neck, bosom, in bright, expensive, glittering
dresses. Some wore ballet skirts; one was in a schoolgirl’s brown
uniform, another in tight riding-breeches and a jockey’s cap. A
stout elderly lady in black also came, rather like a landlady or a
housekeeper. Her appearance was decent; her face flabby and yellow.
She laughed continually the pleasant laugh of an elderly woman,
coughed continually and smoked incessantly. She behaved to Schavinsky,
the actor, and the art-patron with the unconstrained _coquetterie_
of a lady old enough to be their mother, flicking their hands with
her handkerchief, and she called Strahlmann, who was evidently her
favourite, Sashka.
‘General Kuroki, let’s drink to the success of the grand Manchurian
army. You’ll be getting mildewy, sitting in your corner,’ said Karyukov.
Schavinsky interrupted him with a yawn: ‘Steady, gentlemen. I think you
ought to be bored with it by now. You’re just abusing the captain’s
good nature.’
‘I’m not offended,’ replied Ribnikov. ‘Gentlemen! Let us drink the
health of our charming ladies.’
‘Sing us something, Lirsky!’ Schavinsky asked.
The actor cheerfully sat down to the piano and began a gipsy song. It
was more recitation than singing. He never moved the cigar from his
lips, stared at the ceiling, with a parade of swinging to and fro on
his chair. The women joined in, loud and out of tune. Each one tried
to race the others with the words. Then Sashka Strahlmann gave an
admirable imitation of a gramophone, impersonated an Italian opera,
and mimicked animals. Karyukov danced a fandango and called for bottle
after bottle.
He was the first to disappear from the room, with a red-haired Polish
girl. After him followed Strahlmann and the actor. Only Schavinsky
remained, with a swarthy, white-toothed Hungarian girl on his knees,
and Ribnikov, by the side of a tall blonde in a blue satin blouse, cut
square and open half-way down her breast.
‘Well, Captain, let’s say good-bye for a little while,’ said
Schavinsky, getting up and stretching himself. ‘It’s late--we’d better
say early. Come and have breakfast with me at one o’clock, Captain.
Put the wine down to Karyukov, Madame. If he loves sacred art, then
he can pay for the honour of having supper with its priests. _Mes
compliments!_’
The blonde put her bare arm round the captain’s neck and kissed him,
and said simply: ‘Let us go too, darling. It really is late.’
V
She had a little gay room with a bright blue paper, a pale blue hanging
lamp. On the toilet-table stood a round mirror in a frame of light
blue satin. There were two oleographs on one wall, ‘Girls Bathing’ and
‘The Royal Bridegroom,’ on the other a hanging, with a wide brass bed
alongside.
The woman undressed, and with a sense of pleasant relief passed her
hands over her body, where her chemise had been folded under her
corset. Then she turned the lamp down and sat on the bed, and began
calmly to unlace her boots.
Ribnikov sat by the table with his elbows apart and his head resting in
his hands. He could not tear his eyes from her big, handsome legs and
plump calves, which her black, transparent stockings so closely fitted.
‘Why don’t you undress, officer?’ the woman asked. ‘Tell me, darling,
why do they call you Japanese General?’
Ribnikov gave a laugh, with his eyes still fixed upon her legs.
‘Oh, it’s just nonsense. Only a joke. Do you know the verses:
“It hardly can be called a sin,
If something’s funny and you grin!...”’
‘Will you stand me some champagne, darling.... Since you’re so stingy,
oranges will do. Are you going soon or staying the night?’
‘Staying the night. Come to me.’
She lay down with him, hastily threw her cigarette over on to the floor
and wriggled beneath the blanket.
‘Do you like to be next to the wall?’ she asked. ‘Do if you want to.
O-oh, how cold your legs are! You know I love army men. What’s your
name?’
‘Mine?’ He coughed and answered in an uncertain tone: ‘I am Captain
Ribnikov. Vassily Alexandrovich Ribnikov!’
‘Ah, Vasya! I have a friend called Vasya, a little chap from the Lycée.
Oh, what a darling he is!’
She began to sing, pretending to shiver under the bedclothes, laughing
and half-closing her eyes:
‘“Vasya, Vasya, Vasinke,
It’s a tale you’re telling me.”
‘You _are_ like a Japanese, you know, by Jove. Do you know who? The
Mikado. We take in the _Niva_ and there’s a picture of him there. It’s
late now--else I’d get it to show you. You’re as like as two peas.’
‘I’m very glad,’ said Ribnikov, quietly kissing her smooth, round
shoulder.
‘Perhaps you’re really a Japanese? They say you’ve been at the war. Is
it true? O-oh, darling, I’m afraid of being tickled--Is it dreadful at
the war?’
‘Dreadful ... no, not particularly.... Don’t let’s talk about it,’ he
said wearily. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Clotilde.... No, I’ll tell you a secret. My name’s Nastya. They
only called me Clotilde here because my name’s so ugly. Nastya,
Nastasya--sounds like a cook.’
‘Nastya,’ he repeated musingly, and cautiously kissed her breast. ‘No,
it’s a nice name. Na--stya,’ he repeated slowly.
‘What is there nice about it? Malvina, Wanda, Zhenia, they’re nice
names--especially Irma.... Oh, darling,’ and she pressed close to him.
‘You are a dear ... so dark. I love dark men. You’re married, surely?’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Oh, tell us another. Every one here says he’s a bachelor. You’ve got
six children for sure!’
It was dark in the room, for the windows were shuttered and the lamp
hardly burned. Her face was quite close to his head, and showed
fantastic and changing on the dim whiteness of the pillow. Already it
was different from the simple, handsome, round grey-eyed, Russian face
of before. It seemed to have grown thinner, and, strangely changing
its expression every minute, seemed now tender, kind, mysterious.
It reminded Ribnikov of some one infinitely familiar, long beloved,
beautiful and fascinating.
‘How beautiful you are!’ he murmured. ‘I love you.... I love you....’
He suddenly uttered an unintelligible word, completely foreign to the
woman’s ear.
‘What did you say?’ she asked in surprise.
‘Nothing.... Nothing.... Nothing at all.... My dear! Dear woman ... you
are a woman ... I love you....’
He kissed her arms, her neck, trembling with impatience, which it
gave him wonderful delight to suppress. He was possessed by a tender
and tempestuous passion for the well-fed, childless woman, for her
big young body, so cared for and beautiful. His longing for woman had
been till now suppressed by his austere, ascetic life, his constant
weariness, by the intense exertion of his mind and will: now it
devoured him suddenly with an intolerable, intoxicating flame.
‘Your hands are cold,’ she said, awkward and shy. In this man was
something strange and alarming which she could in no way understand.
‘Cold hands and a warm heart.’
‘Yes, yes, yes.... My heart,’ he repeated it like a madman, ‘My heart
is warm, my heart....’
Long ago she had grown used to the outward rites and the
shameful details of love; she performed them several times every
day--mechanically, indifferently, and often with silent disgust.
Hundreds of men, from the aged and old, who put their teeth in a glass
of water for the night, to youngsters whose voice was only beginning to
break and was bass and soprano at once, civilians, army men, priests
in mufti, baldheads and men overgrown with hair from head to foot
like monkeys, excited and impotent, morphomaniacs who did not conceal
their vice from her, beaux, cripples, rakes, who sometimes nauseated
her, boys who cried for the bitterness of their first fall--they
all embraced her with shameful words, with long kisses, breathed
into her face, moaned in the paroxysm of animal passion, which, she
knew beforehand, would then and there be changed to unconcealed and
insuperable disgust. Long ago all men’s faces had in her eyes lost
every individual trait--as though they had united into one lascivious,
inevitable face, eternally bent over her, the face of a he-goat with
stubbly, slobbering lips, clouded eyes, dimmed like frosted glass,
distorted and disfigured by a voluptuous grimace, which sickened her
because she never shared it.
Besides, they were all rude, exacting and devoid of the elements of
shame. They were ludicrously ugly, as only the modern man can be in his
underclothes. But this elderly little officer made a new, peculiar,
attractive impression on her. His every movement was distinguished by
a gentle, insinuating discretion. His kiss, his caress, and his touch
were strangely gentle. At the same time he surrounded her imperceptibly
with the nervous atmosphere of real and intense passion which even from
a distance and against her will arouses a woman’s sensuality, makes her
docile, and subject to the male’s desire. But her poor little mind had
never passed beyond the round of everyday life in the house, and could
not perceive this strange and agitating spell. She could only whisper
shyly, happy and surprised, the usual trivial words: ‘What a nice man
you are! You’re my sweet, aren’t you?’
She got up, put the lamp out, and lay beside him again. Through the
chinks between the shutters and the wall showed thin threads of the
whitening dawn, which filled the room with a misty blue half-light.
Behind the partition, somewhere an alarm-clock hurriedly rang. Far away
some one was singing sadly in the distance.
‘When will you come again?’ the woman asked.
‘What?’ Ribnikov asked sleepily, opening his eyes. ‘When am I coming?
Soon--to-morrow....’
‘I know all about that. Tell me the truth. When are you coming? I’ll be
lonely without you.’
‘M’m.... We will come and be alone.... We will write to them. They will
stay in the mountains ...’ he murmured incoherently.
A heavy slumber enlocked his body; but, as always with men who have
long deprived themselves of sleep, he could not sleep at once. No
sooner was his consciousness overcast with the soft, dark, delightful
cloud of oblivion than his body was shaken by a terrible inward shock.
He moaned and shuddered, opened his eyes wide in wild terror, and
straightway plunged into an irritating, transitory state between sleep
and wakefulness, like a delirium crowded with threatening and confused
visions.
The woman had no desire to sleep. She sat up in bed in her chemise,
clasping her bended knees with her bare arms, and looked at Ribnikov
with timid curiosity. In the bluish half-light his face grew sharper
still and yellower, like the face of a dead man. His mouth stood open,
but she could not hear his breathing. All over his face, especially
about the eyes and mouth, was an expression of such utter weariness
and profound human suffering as she had never seen in her life before.
She gently passed her hand back over his stiff hair and forehead. The
skin was cold and covered all over with clammy sweat. Ribnikov trembled
at the touch, cried out in terror, and with a quick movement raised
himself from the pillow.
‘Ah! Who’s that, who?’ he cried abruptly, wiping his face with his
shirt-sleeve.
‘What’s the matter, darling?’ the woman asked with sympathy. ‘You’re
not well? Shall I get you some water?’
But Ribnikov had mastered himself, and lay down once more.
‘Thanks. It’s all right now. I was dreaming.... Go to sleep, dear, do.’
‘When do you want me to wake you, darling?’ she asked.
‘Wake.... In the morning.... The sun will rise early.... And the
horsemen will come.... We will go in a boat.... And sail over the
river....’ He was silent and lay quiet for some minutes. Suddenly his
still, dead face was distorted with terrible pain. He turned on his
back with a moan, and there came in a stream from his lips mysterious,
wild-sounding words of a strange language.
The woman held her breath and listened, possessed by the superstitious
terror which always comes from a sleeper’s delirium. His face was only
a couple of inches from hers, and she could not tear her eyes away.
He was silent for a while and then began to speak again, many words
and unintelligible. Then he was silent again, as though listening
attentively to some one’s speech. Suddenly the woman heard the only
Japanese word she knew, from the newspapers, pronounced aloud with a
firm, clear voice:
‘Banzai!’
Her heart beat so violently that the velvet coverlet lifted again and
again with the throbbing. She remembered how they had called Ribnikov
by the names of Japanese generals in the red _cabinet_ that day, and a
far faint suspicion began to stir in the obscurity of her mind.
Some one lightly tapped on the door. She got up and opened.
‘Clotilde dear, is that you?’ a woman’s gentle whisper was heard.
‘Aren’t you asleep? Come in to me for a moment. Leonka’s with me, and
he’s standing some apricot wine. Come on, dear!’
It was Sonya, the Karaim,[1] Clotilde’s neighbour, bound to her by the
cloying, hysterical affection which always pairs off the women in these
establishments.
[1] The Karaim are Jews of the pure original stock who entered
Russia long before the main immigration and settled in the
Crimea. They are free from the ordinary Jewish restrictions.
‘All right. I’ll come now. Oh, I’ve something very interesting to tell
you. Wait a second. I’ll dress.’
‘Nonsense. Don’t. Who are you nervous about? Leonka? Come, just as you
are!’
She began to put on her petticoat.
Ribnikov roused out of sleep.
‘Where are you going to?’ he asked drowsily.
‘Only a minute.... Back immediately ... I must ...’ she answered,
hurriedly tying the tape round her waist. ‘You go to sleep. I’ll be
back in a second.’
He had not heard her last words. A dark heavy sleep had instantly
engulfed him.