AT eight o'clock on the evening of the twentieth of May all the six
batteries of the N---- Reserve Artillery Brigade halted for the
night in the village of Myestetchki on their way to camp. When the
general commotion was at its height, while some officers were busily
occupied around the guns, while others, gathered together in the
square near the church enclosure, were listening to the quartermasters,
a man in civilian dress, riding a strange horse, came into sight
round the church. The little dun-coloured horse with a good neck
and a short tail came, moving not straight forward, but as it were
sideways, with a sort of dance step, as though it were being lashed
about the legs. When he reached the officers the man on the horse
took off his hat and said:
"His Excellency Lieutenant-General von Rabbek invites the gentlemen
to drink tea with him this minute. . . ."
The horse turned, danced, and retired sideways; the messenger raised
his hat once more, and in an instant disappeared with his strange
horse behind the church.
"What the devil does it mean?" grumbled some of the officers,
dispersing to their quarters. "One is sleepy, and here this Von
Rabbek with his tea! We know what tea means."
The officers of all the six batteries remembered vividly an incident
of the previous year, when during manoeuvres they, together with
the officers of a Cossack regiment, were in the same way invited
to tea by a count who had an estate in the neighbourhood and was a
retired army officer: the hospitable and genial count made much of
them, fed them, and gave them drink, refused to let them go to their
quarters in the village and made them stay the night. All that, of
course, was very nice--nothing better could be desired, but the
worst of it was, the old army officer was so carried away by the
pleasure of the young men's company that till sunrise he was telling
the officers anecdotes of his glorious past, taking them over the
house, showing them expensive pictures, old engravings, rare guns,
reading them autograph letters from great people, while the weary
and exhausted officers looked and listened, longing for their beds
and yawning in their sleeves; when at last their host let them go,
it was too late for sleep.
Might not this Von Rabbek be just such another? Whether he were or
not, there was no help for it. The officers changed their uniforms,
brushed themselves, and went all together in search of the gentleman's
house. In the square by the church they were told they could get
to His Excellency's by the lower path--going down behind the
church to the river, going along the bank to the garden, and there
an avenue would taken them to the house; or by the upper way--
straight from the church by the road which, half a mile from the
village, led right up to His Excellency's granaries. The officers
decided to go by the upper way.
"What Von Rabbek is it?" they wondered on the way. "Surely not the
one who was in command of the N---- cavalry division at Plevna?"
"No, that was not Von Rabbek, but simply Rabbe and no 'von.'"
"What lovely weather!"
At the first of the granaries the road divided in two: one branch
went straight on and vanished in the evening darkness, the other
led to the owner's house on the right. The officers turned to the
right and began to speak more softly. . . . On both sides of the
road stretched stone granaries with red roofs, heavy and sullen-looking,
very much like barracks of a district town. Ahead of them gleamed
the windows of the manor-house.
"A good omen, gentlemen," said one of the officers. "Our setter is
the foremost of all; no doubt he scents game ahead of us! . . ."
Lieutenant Lobytko, who was walking in front, a tall and stalwart
fellow, though entirely without moustache (he was over five-and-twenty,
yet for some reason there was no sign of hair on his round, well-fed
face), renowned in the brigade for his peculiar faculty for divining
the presence of women at a distance, turned round and said:
"Yes, there must be women here; I feel that by instinct."
On the threshold the officers were met by Von Rabbek himself, a
comely-looking man of sixty in civilian dress. Shaking hands with
his guests, he said that he was very glad and happy to see them,
but begged them earnestly for God's sake to excuse him for not
asking them to stay the night; two sisters with their children,
some brothers, and some neighbours, had come on a visit to him, so
that he had not one spare room left.
The General shook hands with every one, made his apologies, and
smiled, but it was evident by his face that he was by no means so
delighted as their last year's count, and that he had invited the
officers simply because, in his opinion, it was a social obligation
to do so. And the officers themselves, as they walked up the softly
carpeted stairs, as they listened to him, felt that they had been
invited to this house simply because it would have been awkward not
to invite them; and at the sight of the footmen, who hastened to
light the lamps in the entrance below and in the anteroom above,
they began to feel as though they had brought uneasiness and
discomfort into the house with them. In a house in which two sisters
and their children, brothers, and neighbours were gathered together,
probably on account of some family festivity, or event, how could
the presence of nineteen unknown officers possibly be welcome?
At the entrance to the drawing-room the officers were met by a tall,
graceful old lady with black eyebrows and a long face, very much
like the Empress Eugénie. Smiling graciously and majestically, she
said she was glad and happy to see her guests, and apologized that
her husband and she were on this occasion unable to invite _messieurs
les officiers_ to stay the night. From her beautiful majestic smile,
which instantly vanished from her face every time she turned away
from her guests, it was evident that she had seen numbers of officers
in her day, that she was in no humour for them now, and if she
invited them to her house and apologized for not doing more, it was
only because her breeding and position in society required it of
her.
When the officers went into the big dining-room, there were about
a dozen people, men and ladies, young and old, sitting at tea at
the end of a long table. A group of men was dimly visible behind
their chairs, wrapped in a haze of cigar smoke; and in the midst
of them stood a lanky young man with red whiskers, talking loudly,
with a lisp, in English. Through a door beyond the group could be
seen a light room with pale blue furniture.
"Gentlemen, there are so many of you that it is impossible to
introduce you all!" said the General in a loud voice, trying to
sound very cheerful. "Make each other's acquaintance, gentlemen,
without any ceremony!"
The officers--some with very serious and even stern faces, others
with forced smiles, and all feeling extremely awkward--somehow
made their bows and sat down to tea.
The most ill at ease of them all was Ryabovitch--a little officer
in spectacles, with sloping shoulders, and whiskers like a lynx's.
While some of his comrades assumed a serious expression, while
others wore forced smiles, his face, his lynx-like whiskers, and
spectacles seemed to say: "I am the shyest, most modest, and most
undistinguished officer in the whole brigade!" At first, on going
into the room and sitting down to the table, he could not fix his
attention on any one face or object. The faces, the dresses, the
cut-glass decanters of brandy, the steam from the glasses, the
moulded cornices--all blended in one general impression that
inspired in Ryabovitch alarm and a desire to hide his head. Like a
lecturer making his first appearance before the public, he saw
everything that was before his eyes, but apparently only had a dim
understanding of it (among physiologists this condition, when the
subject sees but does not understand, is called psychical blindness).
After a little while, growing accustomed to his surroundings,
Ryabovitch saw clearly and began to observe. As a shy man, unused
to society, what struck him first was that in which he had always
been deficient--namely, the extraordinary boldness of his new
acquaintances. Von Rabbek, his wife, two elderly ladies, a young
lady in a lilac dress, and the young man with the red whiskers, who
was, it appeared, a younger son of Von Rabbek, very cleverly, as
though they had rehearsed it beforehand, took seats between the
officers, and at once got up a heated discussion in which the
visitors could not help taking part. The lilac young lady hotly
asserted that the artillery had a much better time than the cavalry
and the infantry, while Von Rabbek and the elderly ladies maintained
the opposite. A brisk interchange of talk followed. Ryabovitch
watched the lilac young lady who argued so hotly about what was
unfamiliar and utterly uninteresting to her, and watched artificial
smiles come and go on her face.
Von Rabbek and his family skilfully drew the officers into the
discussion, and meanwhile kept a sharp lookout over their glasses
and mouths, to see whether all of them were drinking, whether all
had enough sugar, why some one was not eating cakes or not drinking
brandy. And the longer Ryabovitch watched and listened, the more
he was attracted by this insincere but splendidly disciplined family.
After tea the officers went into the drawing-room. Lieutenant
Lobytko's instinct had not deceived him. There were a great number
of girls and young married ladies. The "setter" lieutenant was soon
standing by a very young, fair girl in a black dress, and, bending
down to her jauntily, as though leaning on an unseen sword, smiled
and shrugged his shoulders coquettishly. He probably talked very
interesting nonsense, for the fair girl looked at his well-fed face
condescendingly and asked indifferently, "Really?" And from that
uninterested "Really?" the setter, had he been intelligent, might
have concluded that she would never call him to heel.
The piano struck up; the melancholy strains of a valse floated out
of the wide open windows, and every one, for some reason, remembered
that it was spring, a May evening. Every one was conscious of the
fragrance of roses, of lilac, and of the young leaves of the poplar.
Ryabovitch, in whom the brandy he had drunk made itself felt, under
the influence of the music stole a glance towards the window, smiled,
and began watching the movements of the women, and it seemed to him
that the smell of roses, of poplars, and lilac came not from the
garden, but from the ladies' faces and dresses.
Von Rabbek's son invited a scraggy-looking young lady to dance, and
waltzed round the room twice with her. Lobytko, gliding over the
parquet floor, flew up to the lilac young lady and whirled her away.
Dancing began. . . . Ryabovitch stood near the door among those who
were not dancing and looked on. He had never once danced in his
whole life, and he had never once in his life put his arm round the
waist of a respectable woman. He was highly delighted that a man
should in the sight of all take a girl he did not know round the
waist and offer her his shoulder to put her hand on, but he could
not imagine himself in the position of such a man. There were times
when he envied the boldness and swagger of his companions and was
inwardly wretched; the consciousness that he was timid, that he was
round-shouldered and uninteresting, that he had a long waist and
lynx-like whiskers, had deeply mortified him, but with years he had
grown used to this feeling, and now, looking at his comrades dancing
or loudly talking, he no longer envied them, but only felt touched
and mournful.
When the quadrille began, young Von Rabbek came up to those who
were not dancing and invited two officers to have a game at billiards.
The officers accepted and went with him out of the drawing-room.
Ryabovitch, having nothing to do and wishing to take part in the
general movement, slouched after them. From the big drawing-room
they went into the little drawing-room, then into a narrow corridor
with a glass roof, and thence into a room in which on their entrance
three sleepy-looking footmen jumped up quickly from the sofa. At
last, after passing through a long succession of rooms, young Von
Rabbek and the officers came into a small room where there was a
billiard-table. They began to play.
Ryabovitch, who had never played any game but cards, stood near the
billiard-table and looked indifferently at the players, while they
in unbuttoned coats, with cues in their hands, stepped about, made
puns, and kept shouting out unintelligible words.
The players took no notice of him, and only now and then one of
them, shoving him with his elbow or accidentally touching him with
the end of his cue, would turn round and say "Pardon!" Before the
first game was over he was weary of it, and began to feel he was
not wanted and in the way. . . . He felt disposed to return to the
drawing-room, and he went out.
On his way back he met with a little adventure. When he had gone
half-way he noticed he had taken a wrong turning. He distinctly
remembered that he ought to meet three sleepy footmen on his way,
but he had passed five or six rooms, and those sleepy figures seemed
to have vanished into the earth. Noticing his mistake, he walked
back a little way and turned to the right; he found himself in a
little dark room which he had not seen on his way to the billiard-room.
After standing there a little while, he resolutely opened the first
door that met his eyes and walked into an absolutely dark room.
Straight in front could be seen the crack in the doorway through
which there was a gleam of vivid light; from the other side of the
door came the muffled sound of a melancholy mazurka. Here, too, as
in the drawing-room, the windows were wide open and there was a
smell of poplars, lilac and roses. . . .
Ryabovitch stood still in hesitation. . . . At that moment, to his
surprise, he heard hurried footsteps and the rustling of a dress,
a breathless feminine voice whispered "At last!" And two soft,
fragrant, unmistakably feminine arms were clasped about his neck;
a warm cheek was pressed to his cheek, and simultaneously there was
the sound of a kiss. But at once the bestower of the kiss uttered
a faint shriek and skipped back from him, as it seemed to Ryabovitch,
with aversion. He, too, almost shrieked and rushed towards the gleam
of light at the door. . . .
When he went back into the drawing-room his heart was beating and
his hands were trembling so noticeably that he made haste to hide
them behind his back. At first he was tormented by shame and dread
that the whole drawing-room knew that he had just been kissed and
embraced by a woman. He shrank into himself and looked uneasily
about him, but as he became convinced that people were dancing and
talking as calmly as ever, he gave himself up entirely to the new
sensation which he had never experienced before in his life. Something
strange was happening to him. . . . His neck, round which soft,
fragrant arms had so lately been clasped, seemed to him to be
anointed with oil; on his left cheek near his moustache where the
unknown had kissed him there was a faint chilly tingling sensation
as from peppermint drops, and the more he rubbed the place the more
distinct was the chilly sensation; all over, from head to foot, he
was full of a strange new feeling which grew stronger and stronger
. . . . He wanted to dance, to talk, to run into the garden, to laugh
aloud. . . . He quite forgot that he was round-shouldered and
uninteresting, that he had lynx-like whiskers and an "undistinguished
appearance" (that was how his appearance had been described by some
ladies whose conversation he had accidentally overheard). When Von
Rabbek's wife happened to pass by him, he gave her such a broad and
friendly smile that she stood still and looked at him inquiringly.
"I like your house immensely!" he said, setting his spectacles
straight.
The General's wife smiled and said that the house had belonged to
her father; then she asked whether his parents were living, whether
he had long been in the army, why he was so thin, and so on. . . .
After receiving answers to her questions, she went on, and after
his conversation with her his smiles were more friendly than ever,
and he thought he was surrounded by splendid people. . . .
At supper Ryabovitch ate mechanically everything offered him, drank,
and without listening to anything, tried to understand what had
just happened to him. . . . The adventure was of a mysterious and
romantic character, but it was not difficult to explain it. No doubt
some girl or young married lady had arranged a tryst with some one
in the dark room; had waited a long time, and being nervous and
excited had taken Ryabovitch for her hero; this was the more probable
as Ryabovitch had stood still hesitating in the dark room, so that
he, too, had seemed like a person expecting something. . . . This
was how Ryabovitch explained to himself the kiss he had received.
"And who is she?" he wondered, looking round at the women's faces.
"She must be young, for elderly ladies don't give rendezvous. That
she was a lady, one could tell by the rustle of her dress, her
perfume, her voice. . . ."
His eyes rested on the lilac young lady, and he thought her very
attractive; she had beautiful shoulders and arms, a clever face,
and a delightful voice. Ryabovitch, looking at her, hoped that she
and no one else was his unknown. . . . But she laughed somehow
artificially and wrinkled up her long nose, which seemed to him to
make her look old. Then he turned his eyes upon the fair girl in a
black dress. She was younger, simpler, and more genuine, had a
charming brow, and drank very daintily out of her wineglass.
Ryabovitch now hoped that it was she. But soon he began to think
her face flat, and fixed his eyes upon the one next her.
"It's difficult to guess," he thought, musing. "If one takes the
shoulders and arms of the lilac one only, adds the brow of the fair
one and the eyes of the one on the left of Lobytko, then . . ."
He made a combination of these things in his mind and so formed the
image of the girl who had kissed him, the image that he wanted her
to have, but could not find at the table. . . .
After supper, replete and exhilarated, the officers began to take
leave and say thank you. Von Rabbek and his wife began again
apologizing that they could not ask them to stay the night.
"Very, very glad to have met you, gentlemen," said Von Rabbek, and
this time sincerely (probably because people are far more sincere
and good-humoured at speeding their parting guests than on meeting
them). "Delighted. I hope you will come on your way back! Don't
stand on ceremony! Where are you going? Do you want to go by the
upper way? No, go across the garden; it's nearer here by the lower
way."
The officers went out into the garden. After the bright light and
the noise the garden seemed very dark and quiet. They walked in
silence all the way to the gate. They were a little drunk, pleased,
and in good spirits, but the darkness and silence made them thoughtful
for a minute. Probably the same idea occurred to each one of them
as to Ryabovitch: would there ever come a time for them when, like
Von Rabbek, they would have a large house, a family, a garden--
when they, too, would be able to welcome people, even though
insincerely, feed them, make them drunk and contented?
Going out of the garden gate, they all began talking at once and
laughing loudly about nothing. They were walking now along the
little path that led down to the river, and then ran along the
water's edge, winding round the bushes on the bank, the pools, and
the willows that overhung the water. The bank and the path were
scarcely visible, and the other bank was entirely plunged in darkness.
Stars were reflected here and there on the dark water; they quivered
and were broken up on the surface--and from that alone it could
be seen that the river was flowing rapidly. It was still. Drowsy
curlews cried plaintively on the further bank, and in one of the
bushes on the nearest side a nightingale was trilling loudly, taking
no notice of the crowd of officers. The officers stood round the
bush, touched it, but the nightingale went on singing.
"What a fellow!" they exclaimed approvingly. "We stand beside him
and he takes not a bit of notice! What a rascal!"
At the end of the way the path went uphill, and, skirting the church
enclosure, turned into the road. Here the officers, tired with
walking uphill, sat down and lighted their cigarettes. On the other
side of the river a murky red fire came into sight, and having
nothing better to do, they spent a long time in discussing whether
it was a camp fire or a light in a window, or something else. . . .
Ryabovitch, too, looked at the light, and he fancied that the
light looked and winked at him, as though it knew about the kiss.
On reaching his quarters, Ryabovitch undressed as quickly as possible
and got into bed. Lobytko and Lieutenant Merzlyakov--a peaceable,
silent fellow, who was considered in his own circle a highly educated
officer, and was always, whenever it was possible, reading the
"Vyestnik Evropi," which he carried about with him everywhere--
were quartered in the same hut with Ryabovitch. Lobytko undressed,
walked up and down the room for a long while with the air of a man
who has not been satisfied, and sent his orderly for beer. Merzlyakov
got into bed, put a candle by his pillow and plunged into reading
the "Vyestnik Evropi."
"Who was she?" Ryabovitch wondered, looking at the smoky ceiling.
His neck still felt as though he had been anointed with oil, and
there was still the chilly sensation near his mouth as though from
peppermint drops. The shoulders and arms of the young lady in lilac,
the brow and the truthful eyes of the fair girl in black, waists,
dresses, and brooches, floated through his imagination. He tried
to fix his attention on these images, but they danced about, broke
up and flickered. When these images vanished altogether from the
broad dark background which every man sees when he closes his eyes,
he began to hear hurried footsteps, the rustle of skirts, the sound
of a kiss and--an intense groundless joy took possession of him
. . . . Abandoning himself to this joy, he heard the orderly return
and announce that there was no beer. Lobytko was terribly indignant,
and began pacing up and down again.
"Well, isn't he an idiot?" he kept saying, stopping first before
Ryabovitch and then before Merzlyakov. "What a fool and a dummy a
man must be not to get hold of any beer! Eh? Isn't he a scoundrel?"
"Of course you can't get beer here," said Merzlyakov, not removing
his eyes from the "Vyestnik Evropi."
"Oh! Is that your opinion?" Lobytko persisted. "Lord have mercy
upon us, if you dropped me on the moon I'd find you beer and women
directly! I'll go and find some at once. . . . You may call me an
impostor if I don't!"
He spent a long time in dressing and pulling on his high boots,
then finished smoking his cigarette in silence and went out.
"Rabbek, Grabbek, Labbek," he muttered, stopping in the outer room.
"I don't care to go alone, damn it all! Ryabovitch, wouldn't you
like to go for a walk? Eh?"
Receiving no answer, he returned, slowly undressed and got into
bed. Merzlyakov sighed, put the "Vyestnik Evropi" away, and put out
the light.
"H'm! . . ." muttered Lobytko, lighting a cigarette in the dark.
Ryabovitch pulled the bed-clothes over his head, curled himself up
in bed, and tried to gather together the floating images in his
mind and to combine them into one whole. But nothing came of it.
He soon fell asleep, and his last thought was that some one had
caressed him and made him happy--that something extraordinary,
foolish, but joyful and delightful, had come into his life. The
thought did not leave him even in his sleep.
When he woke up the sensations of oil on his neck and the chill of
peppermint about his lips had gone, but joy flooded his heart just
as the day before. He looked enthusiastically at the window-frames,
gilded by the light of the rising sun, and listened to the movement
of the passers-by in the street. People were talking loudly close
to the window. Lebedetsky, the commander of Ryabovitch's battery,
who had only just overtaken the brigade, was talking to his sergeant
at the top of his voice, being always accustomed to shout.
"What else?" shouted the commander.
"When they were shoeing yesterday, your high nobility, they drove
a nail into Pigeon's hoof. The vet. put on clay and vinegar; they
are leading him apart now. And also, your honour, Artemyev got drunk
yesterday, and the lieutenant ordered him to be put in the limber
of a spare gun-carriage."
The sergeant reported that Karpov had forgotten the new cords for
the trumpets and the rings for the tents, and that their honours,
the officers, had spent the previous evening visiting General Von
Rabbek. In the middle of this conversation the red-bearded face of
Lebedetsky appeared in the window. He screwed up his short-sighted
eyes, looking at the sleepy faces of the officers, and said
good-morning to them.
"Is everything all right?" he asked.
"One of the horses has a sore neck from the new collar," answered
Lobytko, yawning.
The commander sighed, thought a moment, and said in a loud voice:
"I am thinking of going to see Alexandra Yevgrafovna. I must call
on her. Well, good-bye. I shall catch you up in the evening."
A quarter of an hour later the brigade set off on its way. When it
was moving along the road by the granaries, Ryabovitch looked at
the house on the right. The blinds were down in all the windows.
Evidently the household was still asleep. The one who had kissed
Ryabovitch the day before was asleep, too. He tried to imagine her
asleep. The wide-open windows of the bedroom, the green branches
peeping in, the morning freshness, the scent of the poplars, lilac,
and roses, the bed, a chair, and on it the skirts that had rustled
the day before, the little slippers, the little watch on the table
--all this he pictured to himself clearly and distinctly, but the
features of the face, the sweet sleepy smile, just what was
characteristic and important, slipped through his imagination like
quicksilver through the fingers. When he had ridden on half a mile,
he looked back: the yellow church, the house, and the river, were
all bathed in light; the river with its bright green banks, with
the blue sky reflected in it and glints of silver in the sunshine
here and there, was very beautiful. Ryabovitch gazed for the last
time at Myestetchki, and he felt as sad as though he were parting
with something very near and dear to him.
And before him on the road lay nothing but long familiar, uninteresting
pictures. . . . To right and to left, fields of young rye and
buckwheat with rooks hopping about in them. If one looked ahead,
one saw dust and the backs of men's heads; if one looked back, one
saw the same dust and faces. . . . Foremost of all marched four men
with sabres--this was the vanguard. Next, behind, the crowd of
singers, and behind them the trumpeters on horseback. The vanguard
and the chorus of singers, like torch-bearers in a funeral procession,
often forgot to keep the regulation distance and pushed a long way
ahead. . . . Ryabovitch was with the first cannon of the fifth
battery. He could see all the four batteries moving in front of
him. For any one not a military man this long tedious procession
of a moving brigade seems an intricate and unintelligible muddle;
one cannot understand why there are so many people round one cannon,
and why it is drawn by so many horses in such a strange network of
harness, as though it really were so terrible and heavy. To Ryabovitch
it was all perfectly comprehensible and therefore uninteresting.
He had known for ever so long why at the head of each battery there
rode a stalwart bombardier, and why he was called a bombardier;
immediately behind this bombardier could be seen the horsemen of
the first and then of the middle units. Ryabovitch knew that the
horses on which they rode, those on the left, were called one name,
while those on the right were called another--it was extremely
uninteresting. Behind the horsemen came two shaft-horses. On one
of them sat a rider with the dust of yesterday on his back and a
clumsy and funny-looking piece of wood on his leg. Ryabovitch knew
the object of this piece of wood, and did not think it funny. All
the riders waved their whips mechanically and shouted from time to
time. The cannon itself was ugly. On the fore part lay sacks of
oats covered with canvas, and the cannon itself was hung all over
with kettles, soldiers' knapsacks, bags, and looked like some small
harmless animal surrounded for some unknown reason by men and horses.
To the leeward of it marched six men, the gunners, swinging their
arms. After the cannon there came again more bombardiers, riders,
shaft-horses, and behind them another cannon, as ugly and unimpressive
as the first. After the second followed a third, a fourth; near the
fourth an officer, and so on. There were six batteries in all in
the brigade, and four cannons in each battery. The procession covered
half a mile; it ended in a string of wagons near which an extremely
attractive creature--the ass, Magar, brought by a battery commander
from Turkey--paced pensively with his long-eared head drooping.
Ryabovitch looked indifferently before and behind, at the backs of
heads and at faces; at any other time he would have been half asleep,
but now he was entirely absorbed in his new agreeable thoughts. At
first when the brigade was setting off on the march he tried to
persuade himself that the incident of the kiss could only be
interesting as a mysterious little adventure, that it was in reality
trivial, and to think of it seriously, to say the least of it, was
stupid; but now he bade farewell to logic and gave himself up to
dreams. . . . At one moment he imagined himself in Von Rabbek's
drawing-room beside a girl who was like the young lady in lilac and
the fair girl in black; then he would close his eyes and see himself
with another, entirely unknown girl, whose features were very vague.
In his imagination he talked, caressed her, leaned on her shoulder,
pictured war, separation, then meeting again, supper with his wife,
children. . . .
"Brakes on!" the word of command rang out every time they went
downhill.
He, too, shouted "Brakes on!" and was afraid this shout would disturb
his reverie and bring him back to reality. . . .
As they passed by some landowner's estate Ryabovitch looked over
the fence into the garden. A long avenue, straight as a ruler,
strewn with yellow sand and bordered with young birch-trees, met
his eyes. . . . With the eagerness of a man given up to dreaming,
he pictured to himself little feminine feet tripping along yellow
sand, and quite unexpectedly had a clear vision in his imagination
of the girl who had kissed him and whom he had succeeded in picturing
to himself the evening before at supper. This image remained in his
brain and did not desert him again.
At midday there was a shout in the rear near the string of wagons:
"Easy! Eyes to the left! Officers!"
The general of the brigade drove by in a carriage with a pair of
white horses. He stopped near the second battery, and shouted
something which no one understood. Several officers, among them
Ryabovitch, galloped up to them.
"Well?" asked the general, blinking his red eyes. "Are there any
sick?"
Receiving an answer, the general, a little skinny man, chewed,
thought for a moment and said, addressing one of the officers:
"One of your drivers of the third cannon has taken off his leg-guard
and hung it on the fore part of the cannon, the rascal. Reprimand
him."
He raised his eyes to Ryabovitch and went on:
"It seems to me your front strap is too long."
Making a few other tedious remarks, the general looked at Lobytko
and grinned.
"You look very melancholy today, Lieutenant Lobytko," he said. "Are
you pining for Madame Lopuhov? Eh? Gentlemen, he is pining for
Madame Lopuhov."
The lady in question was a very stout and tall person who had long
passed her fortieth year. The general, who had a predilection for
solid ladies, whatever their ages, suspected a similar taste in his
officers. The officers smiled respectfully. The general, delighted
at having said something very amusing and biting, laughed loudly,
touched his coachman's back, and saluted. The carriage rolled on. . . .
"All I am dreaming about now which seems to me so impossible and
unearthly is really quite an ordinary thing," thought Ryabovitch,
looking at the clouds of dust racing after the general's carriage.
"It's all very ordinary, and every one goes through it. . . . That
general, for instance, has once been in love; now he is married and
has children. Captain Vahter, too, is married and beloved, though
the nape of his neck is very red and ugly and he has no waist. . . .
Salrnanov is coarse and very Tatar, but he has had a love affair
that has ended in marriage. . . . I am the same as every one else,
and I, too, shall have the same experience as every one else, sooner
or later. . . ."
And the thought that he was an ordinary person, and that his life
was ordinary, delighted him and gave him courage. He pictured her
and his happiness as he pleased, and put no rein on his imagination.
When the brigade reached their halting-place in the evening, and
the officers were resting in their tents, Ryabovitch, Merzlyakov,
and Lobytko were sitting round a box having supper. Merzlyakov ate
without haste, and, as he munched deliberately, read the "Vyestnik
Evropi," which he held on his knees. Lobytko talked incessantly and
kept filling up his glass with beer, and Ryabovitch, whose head was
confused from dreaming all day long, drank and said nothing. After
three glasses he got a little drunk, felt weak, and had an irresistible
desire to impart his new sensations to his comrades.
"A strange thing happened to me at those Von Rabbeks'," he began,
trying to put an indifferent and ironical tone into his voice. "You
know I went into the billiard-room. . . ."
He began describing very minutely the incident of the kiss, and a
moment later relapsed into silence. . . . In the course of that
moment he had told everything, and it surprised him dreadfully to
find how short a time it took him to tell it. He had imagined that
he could have been telling the story of the kiss till next morning.
Listening to him, Lobytko, who was a great liar and consequently
believed no one, looked at him sceptically and laughed. Merzlyakov
twitched his eyebrows and, without removing his eyes from the
"Vyestnik Evropi," said:
"That's an odd thing! How strange! . . . throws herself on a man's
neck, without addressing him by name. .. . She must be some sort
of hysterical neurotic."
"Yes, she must," Ryabovitch agreed.
"A similar thing once happened to me," said Lobytko, assuming a
scared expression. "I was going last year to Kovno. . . . I took a
second-class ticket. The train was crammed, and it was impossible
to sleep. I gave the guard half a rouble; he took my luggage and
led me to another compartment. . . . I lay down and covered myself
with a rug. . . . It was dark, you understand. Suddenly I felt some
one touch me on the shoulder and breathe in my face. I made a
movement with my hand and felt somebody's elbow. . . . I opened my
eyes and only imagine--a woman. Black eyes, lips red as a prime
salmon, nostrils breathing passionately--a bosom like a buffer. . . ."
"Excuse me," Merzlyakov interrupted calmly, "I understand about the
bosom, but how could you see the lips if it was dark?"
Lobytko began trying to put himself right and laughing at Merzlyakov's
unimaginativeness. It made Ryabovitch wince. He walked away from
the box, got into bed, and vowed never to confide again.
Camp life began. . . . The days flowed by, one very much like
another. All those days Ryabovitch felt, thought, and behaved as
though he were in love. Every morning when his orderly handed him
water to wash with, and he sluiced his head with cold water, he
thought there was something warm and delightful in his life.
In the evenings when his comrades began talking of love and women,
he would listen, and draw up closer; and he wore the expression of
a soldier when he hears the description of a battle in which he has
taken part. And on the evenings when the officers, out on the spree
with the setter--Lobytko--at their head, made Don Juan excursions
to the "suburb," and Ryabovitch took part in such excursions, he
always was sad, felt profoundly guilty, and inwardly begged _her_
forgiveness. . . . In hours of leisure or on sleepless nights, when
he felt moved to recall his childhood, his father and mother--
everything near and dear, in fact, he invariably thought of
Myestetchki, the strange horse, Von Rabbek, his wife who was like
the Empress Eugénie, the dark room, the crack of light at the
door. . . .
On the thirty-first of August he went back from the camp, not with
the whole brigade, but with only two batteries of it. He was dreaming
and excited all the way, as though he were going back to his native
place. He had an intense longing to see again the strange horse,
the church, the insincere family of the Von Rabbeks, the dark room.
The "inner voice," which so often deceives lovers, whispered to him
for some reason that he would be sure to see her . . . and he was
tortured by the questions, How he should meet her? What he would
talk to her about? Whether she had forgotten the kiss? If the worst
came to the worst, he thought, even if he did not meet her, it would
be a pleasure to him merely to go through the dark room and recall
the past. . . .
Towards evening there appeared on the horizon the familiar church
and white granaries. Ryabovitch's heart beat. . . . He did not hear
the officer who was riding beside him and saying something to him,
he forgot everything, and looked eagerly at the river shining in
the distance, at the roof of the house, at the dovecote round which
the pigeons were circling in the light of the setting sun.
When they reached the church and were listening to the billeting
orders, he expected every second that a man on horseback would come
round the church enclosure and invite the officers to tea, but . . .
the billeting orders were read, the officers were in haste to go
on to the village, and the man on horseback did not appear.
"Von Rabbek will hear at once from the peasants that we have come
and will send for us," thought Ryabovitch, as he went into the hut,
unable to understand why a comrade was lighting a candle and why
the orderlies were hurriedly setting samovars. . . .
A painful uneasiness took possession of him. He lay down, then got
up and looked out of the window to see whether the messenger were
coming. But there was no sign of him.
He lay down again, but half an hour later he got up, and, unable
to restrain his uneasiness, went into the street and strode towards
the church. It was dark and deserted in the square near the church
. . . . Three soldiers were standing silent in a row where the road
began to go downhill. Seeing Ryabovitch, they roused themselves and
saluted. He returned the salute and began to go down the familiar
path.
On the further side of the river the whole sky was flooded with
crimson: the moon was rising; two peasant women, talking loudly,
were picking cabbage in the kitchen garden; behind the kitchen
garden there were some dark huts. . . . And everything on the near
side of the river was just as it had been in May: the path, the
bushes, the willows overhanging the water . . . but there was no
sound of the brave nightingale, and no scent of poplar and fresh
grass.
Reaching the garden, Ryabovitch looked in at the gate. The garden
was dark and still. . . . He could see nothing but the white stems
of the nearest birch-trees and a little bit of the avenue; all the
rest melted together into a dark blur. Ryabovitch looked and listened
eagerly, but after waiting for a quarter of an hour without hearing
a sound or catching a glimpse of a light, he trudged back. . . .
He went down to the river. The General's bath-house and the bath-sheets
on the rail of the little bridge showed white before him. . . . He
went on to the bridge, stood a little, and, quite unnecessarily,
touched the sheets. They felt rough and cold. He looked down at the
water. . . . The river ran rapidly and with a faintly audible gurgle
round the piles of the bath-house. The red moon was reflected near
the left bank; little ripples ran over the reflection, stretching
it out, breaking it into bits, and seemed trying to carry it away.
"How stupid, how stupid!" thought Ryabovitch, looking at the running
water. "How unintelligent it all is!"
Now that he expected nothing, the incident of the kiss, his impatience,
his vague hopes and disappointment, presented themselves in a clear
light. It no longer seemed to him strange that he had not seen the
General's messenger, and that he would never see the girl who had
accidentally kissed him instead of some one else; on the contrary,
it would have been strange if he had seen her. . . .
The water was running, he knew not where or why, just as it did in
May. In May it had flowed into the great river, from the great river
into the sea; then it had risen in vapour, turned into rain, and
perhaps the very same water was running now before Ryabovitch's
eyes again. . . . What for? Why?
And the whole world, the whole of life, seemed to Ryabovitch an
unintelligible, aimless jest. . . . And turning his eyes from the
water and looking at the sky, he remembered again how fate in the
person of an unknown woman had by chance caressed him, he remembered
his summer dreams and fancies, and his life struck him as extraordinarily
meagre, poverty-stricken, and colourless. . . .
When he went back to his hut he did not find one of his comrades.
The orderly informed him that they had all gone to "General von
Rabbek's, who had sent a messenger on horseback to invite them. . . ."
For an instant there was a flash of joy in Ryabovitch's heart, but
he quenched it at once, got into bed, and in his wrath with his
fate, as though to spite it, did not go to the General's.
'ANNA ON THE NECK'
I
AFTER the wedding they had not even light refreshments; the happy
pair simply drank a glass of champagne, changed into their travelling
things, and drove to the station. Instead of a gay wedding ball and
supper, instead of music and dancing, they went on a journey to
pray at a shrine a hundred and fifty miles away. Many people commended
this, saying that Modest Alexeitch was a man high up in the service
and no longer young, and that a noisy wedding might not have seemed
quite suitable; and music is apt to sound dreary when a government
official of fifty-two marries a girl who is only just eighteen.
People said, too, that Modest Alexeitch, being a man of principle,
had arranged this visit to the monastery expressly in order to make
his young bride realize that even in marriage he put religion and
morality above everything.
The happy pair were seen off at the station. The crowd of relations
and colleagues in the service stood, with glasses in their hands,
waiting for the train to start to shout "Hurrah!" and the bride's
father, Pyotr Leontyitch, wearing a top-hat and the uniform of a
teacher, already drunk and very pale, kept craning towards the
window, glass in hand and saying in an imploring voice:
"Anyuta! Anya, Anya! one word!"
Anna bent out of the window to him, and he whispered something to
her, enveloping her in a stale smell of alcohol, blew into her ear
--she could make out nothing--and made the sign of the cross
over her face, her bosom, and her hands; meanwhile he was breathing
in gasps and tears were shining in his eyes. And the schoolboys,
Anna's brothers, Petya and Andrusha, pulled at his coat from behind,
whispering in confusion:
"Father, hush! . . . Father, that's enough. . . ."
When the train started, Anna saw her father run a little way after
the train, staggering and spilling his wine, and what a kind, guilty,
pitiful face he had:
"Hurra--ah!" he shouted.
The happy pair were left alone. Modest Alexeitch looked about the
compartment, arranged their things on the shelves, and sat down,
smiling, opposite his young wife. He was an official of medium
height, rather stout and puffy, who looked exceedingly well nourished,
with long whiskers and no moustache. His clean-shaven, round, sharply
defined chin looked like the heel of a foot. The most characteristic
point in his face was the absence of moustache, the bare, freshly
shaven place, which gradually passed into the fat cheeks, quivering
like jelly. His deportment was dignified, his movements were
deliberate, his manner was soft.
"I cannot help remembering now one circumstance," he said, smiling.
"When, five years ago, Kosorotov received the order of St. Anna of
the second grade, and went to thank His Excellency, His Excellency
expressed himself as follows: 'So now you have three Annas: one in
your buttonhole and two on your neck.' And it must be explained
that at that time Kosorotov's wife, a quarrelsome and frivolous
person, had just returned to him, and that her name was Anna. I
trust that when I receive the Anna of the second grade His Excellency
will not have occasion to say the same thing to me."
He smiled with his little eyes. And she, too, smiled, troubled at
the thought that at any moment this man might kiss her with his
thick damp lips, and that she had no right to prevent his doing so.
The soft movements of his fat person frightened her; she felt both
fear and disgust. He got up, without haste took off the order from
his neck, took off his coat and waistcoat, and put on his dressing-gown.
"That's better," he said, sitting down beside Anna.
Anna remembered what agony the wedding had been, when it had seemed
to her that the priest, and the guests, and every one in church had
been looking at her sorrowfully and asking why, why was she, such
a sweet, nice girl, marrying such an elderly, uninteresting gentleman.
Only that morning she was delighted that everything had been
satisfactorily arranged, but at the time of the wedding, and now
in the railway carriage, she felt cheated, guilty, and ridiculous.
Here she had married a rich man and yet she had no money, her
wedding-dress had been bought on credit, and when her father and
brothers had been saying good-bye, she could see from their faces
that they had not a farthing. Would they have any supper that day?
And tomorrow? And for some reason it seemed to her that her father
and the boys were sitting tonight hungry without her, and feeling
the same misery as they had the day after their mother's funeral.
"Oh, how unhappy I am!" she thought. "Why am I so unhappy?"
With the awkwardness of a man with settled habits, unaccustomed to
deal with women, Modest Alexeitch touched her on the waist and
patted her on the shoulder, while she went on thinking about money,
about her mother and her mother's death. When her mother died, her
father, Pyotr Leontyitch, a teacher of drawing and writing in the
high school, had taken to drink, impoverishment had followed, the
boys had not had boots or goloshes, their father had been hauled
up before the magistrate, the warrant officer had come and made an
inventory of the furniture. . . . What a disgrace! Anna had had to
look after her drunken father, darn her brothers' stockings, go to
market, and when she was complimented on her youth, her beauty, and
her elegant manners, it seemed to her that every one was looking
at her cheap hat and the holes in her boots that were inked over.
And at night there had been tears and a haunting dread that her
father would soon, very soon, be dismissed from the school for his
weakness, and that he would not survive it, but would die, too,
like their mother. But ladies of their acquaintance had taken the
matter in hand and looked about for a good match for Anna. This
Modest Alexevitch, who was neither young nor good-looking but had
money, was soon found. He had a hundred thousand in the bank and
the family estate, which he had let on lease. He was a man of
principle and stood well with His Excellency; it would be nothing
to him, so they told Anna, to get a note from His Excellency to the
directors of the high school, or even to the Education Commissioner,
to prevent Pyotr Leontyitch from being dismissed.
While she was recalling these details, she suddenly heard strains
of music which floated in at the window, together with the sound
of voices. The train was stopping at a station. In the crowd beyond
the platform an accordion and a cheap squeaky fiddle were being
briskly played, and the sound of a military band came from beyond
the villas and the tall birches and poplars that lay bathed in the
moonlight; there must have been a dance in the place. Summer visitors
and townspeople, who used to come out here by train in fine weather
for a breath of fresh air, were parading up and down on the platform.
Among them was the wealthy owner of all the summer villas--a tall,
stout, dark man called Artynov. He had prominent eyes and looked
like an Armenian. He wore a strange costume; his shirt was unbuttoned,
showing his chest; he wore high boots with spurs, and a black cloak
hung from his shoulders and dragged on the ground like a train. Two
boar-hounds followed him with their sharp noses to the ground.
Tears were still shining in Anna's eyes, but she was not thinking
now of her mother, nor of money, nor of her marriage; but shaking
hands with schoolboys and officers she knew, she laughed gaily and
said quickly:
"How do you do? How are you?"
She went out on to the platform between the carriages into the
moonlight, and stood so that they could all see her in her new
splendid dress and hat.
"Why are we stopping here?" she asked.
"This is a junction. They are waiting for the mail train to pass."
Seeing that Artynov was looking at her, she screwed up her eyes
coquettishly and began talking aloud in French; and because her
voice sounded so pleasant, and because she heard music and the moon
was reflected in the pond, and because Artynov, the notorious Don
Juan and spoiled child of fortune, was looking at her eagerly and
with curiosity, and because every one was in good spirits--she
suddenly felt joyful, and when the train started and the officers
of her acquaintance saluted her, she was humming the polka the
strains of which reached her from the military band playing beyond
the trees; and she returned to her compartment feeling as though
it had been proved to her at the station that she would certainly
be happy in spite of everything.
The happy pair spent two days at the monastery, then went back to
town. They lived in a rent-free flat. When Modest Alexevitch had
gone to the office, Anna played the piano, or shed tears of depression,
or lay down on a couch and read novels or looked through fashion
papers. At dinner Modest Alexevitch ate a great deal and talked
about politics, about appointments, transfers, and promotions in
the service, about the necessity of hard work, and said that, family
life not being a pleasure but a duty, if you took care of the kopecks
the roubles would take care of themselves, and that he put religion
and morality before everything else in the world. And holding his
knife in his fist as though it were a sword, he would say:
"Every one ought to have his duties!"
And Anna listened to him, was frightened, and could not eat, and
she usually got up from the table hungry. After dinner her husband
lay down for a nap and snored loudly, while Anna went to see her
own people. Her father and the boys looked at her in a peculiar
way, as though just before she came in they had been blaming her
for having married for money a tedious, wearisome man she did not
love; her rustling skirts, her bracelets, and her general air of a
married lady, offended them and made them uncomfortable. In her
presence they felt a little embarrassed and did not know what to
talk to her about; but yet they still loved her as before, and were
not used to having dinner without her. She sat down with them to
cabbage soup, porridge, and fried potatoes, smelling of mutton
dripping. Pyotr Leontyitch filled his glass from the decanter with
a trembling hand and drank it off hurriedly, greedily, with repulsion,
then poured out a second glass and then a third. Petya and Andrusha,
thin, pale boys with big eyes, would take the decanter and say
desperately:
"You mustn't, father. . . . Enough, father. . . ."
And Anna, too, was troubled and entreated him to drink no more; and
he would suddenly fly into a rage and beat the table with his fists:
"I won't allow any one to dictate to me!" he would shout. "Wretched
boys! wretched girl! I'll turn you all out!"
But there was a note of weakness, of good-nature in his voice, and
no one was afraid of him. After dinner he usually dressed in his
best. Pale, with a cut on his chin from shaving, craning his thin
neck, he would stand for half an hour before the glass, prinking,
combing his hair, twisting his black moustache, sprinkling himself
with scent, tying his cravat in a bow; then he would put on his
gloves and his top-hat, and go off to give his private lessons. Or
if it was a holiday he would stay at home and paint, or play the
harmonium, which wheezed and growled; he would try to wrest from
it pure harmonious sounds and would sing to it; or would storm at
the boys:
"Wretches! Good-for-nothing boys! You have spoiled the instrument!"
In the evening Anna's husband played cards with his colleagues, who
lived under the same roof in the government quarters. The wives of
these gentlemen would come in--ugly, tastelessly dressed women,
as coarse as cooks--and gossip would begin in the flat as tasteless
and unattractive as the ladies themselves. Sometimes Modest Alexevitch
would take Anna to the theatre. In the intervals he would never let
her stir a step from his side, but walked about arm in arm with her
through the corridors and the foyer. When he bowed to some one, he
immediately whispered to Anna: "A civil councillor . . . visits at
His Excellency's"; or, "A man of means . . . has a house of his
own." When they passed the buffet Anna had a great longing for
something sweet; she was fond of chocolate and apple cakes, but she
had no money, and she did not like to ask her husband. He would
take a pear, pinch it with his fingers, and ask uncertainly:
"How much?"
"Twenty-five kopecks!"
"I say!" he would reply, and put it down; but as it was awkward to
leave the buffet without buying anything, he would order some
seltzer-water and drink the whole bottle himself, and tears would
come into his eyes. And Anna hated him at such times.
And suddenly flushing crimson, he would say to her rapidly:
"Bow to that old lady!"
"But I don't know her."
"No matter. That's the wife of the director of the local treasury!
Bow, I tell you," he would grumble insistently. "Your head won't
drop off."
Anna bowed and her head certainly did not drop off, but it was
agonizing. She did everything her husband wanted her to, and was
furious with herself for having let him deceive her like the veriest
idiot. She had only married him for his money, and yet she had less
money now than before her marriage. In old days her father would
sometimes give her twenty kopecks, but now she had not a farthing.
To take money by stealth or ask for it, she could not; she was
afraid of her husband, she trembled before him. She felt as though
she had been afraid of him for years. In her childhood the director
of the high school had always seemed the most impressive and
terrifying force in the world, sweeping down like a thunderstorm
or a steam-engine ready to crush her; another similar force of which
the whole family talked, and of which they were for some reason
afraid, was His Excellency; then there were a dozen others, less
formidable, and among them the teachers at the high school, with
shaven upper lips, stern, implacable; and now finally, there was
Modest Alexeitch, a man of principle, who even resembled the director
in the face. And in Anna's imagination all these forces blended
together into one, and, in the form of a terrible, huge white bear,
menaced the weak and erring such as her father. And she was afraid
to say anything in opposition to her husband, and gave a forced
smile, and tried to make a show of pleasure when she was coarsely
caressed and defiled by embraces that excited her terror. Only once
Pyotr Leontyitch had the temerity to ask for a loan of fifty roubles
in order to pay some very irksome debt, but what an agony it had
been!
"Very good; I'll give it to you," said Modest Alexeitch after a
moment's thought; "but I warn you I won't help you again till you
give up drinking. Such a failing is disgraceful in a man in the
government service! I must remind you of the well-known fact that
many capable people have been ruined by that passion, though they
might possibly, with temperance, have risen in time to a very high
position."
And long-winded phrases followed: "inasmuch as . . .", "following
upon which proposition . . .", "in view of the aforesaid contention
. . ."; and Pyotr Leontyitch was in agonies of humiliation and felt
an intense craving for alcohol.
And when the boys came to visit Anna, generally in broken boots and
threadbare trousers, they, too, had to listen to sermons.
"Every man ought to have his duties!" Modest Alexeitch would say
to them.
And he did not give them money. But he did give Anna bracelets,
rings, and brooches, saying that these things would come in useful
for a rainy day. And he often unlocked her drawer and made an
inspection to see whether they were all safe.