Love!
Can one credit the romanticists that--across the seas and hills and
years--there is so strange a thing as a single-hearted love, an all-
conquering, all-subduing, all-renovating love?
In the train at Budslav--where the staff-officers were billeted--it
was known that Lieutenant Agrenev had such a single, overmastering,
life-long love.
A wife--the woman, the maiden who loves only once--to whom love is
the most beautiful and only thing in life, will do heroic deeds to
get past all the Army ordinances, the enemy's reconnaissance, and
reach her beloved. To her there is but one huge heart in the world
and nothing more.
Lieutenant Agrenev's quarters were in a distant carriage, Number 30-
35.
The Staff Officers' train stood under cover. No one was allowed to
strike a light there. In the evening, after curtaining the windows
with blankets, the officers gathered together in the carriage of the
General Commanding the XXth Corps, to play cards and drink cognac.
Someone cynically remarked that there was a close resemblance between
life at the front and life in a monastery, in as much as in both the
chief topic of conversation was women: there was no reason,
therefore, why monks should not be sent to the front for fasting and
prayer.
While they were playing cards, the guard, Pan Ponyatsky, came in and
spoke to the cavalry-captain Kremnev. He told him of a woman, young
and very beautiful. The captain's knees began to tremble; he sat
helplessly on the step of the carriage, and fumbled in his pocket for
a cigarette. Pan Ponyatsky warned him that he must not strike a
light. In the distance could be heard the roar of cannon, like an
approaching midnight storm. Kremnev had never felt such a throbbing
joy as he felt now, sitting on the carriage step. Pan Ponyatsky
repeated that she was a beauty, and waiting--that the captain must
not delay; and led him through the dark corridor of the train.
The carriage smelt of men and leather; behind the doors of the
compartments echoed a sound of laughter from those who were playing
cards. The two men walked half the length of the train.
As they passed from one waggon to another they saw the flare of a
rocket in the distance, and in its baleful green light the number of
carriage--30-35--loomed in faint outline.
Pan Ponyatsky unlocked the door and whispered:
"Here. Only mind, be quiet."
The Pan closed the door after Kremnev. It was an officer's
compartment; there was a smell of perfume, and on one of the lower
bunks was a woman--sleeping. Kremnev threw off his cloak and sat down
by the sleeping figure.
The door opened; Pan Ponyatsky thrust in his head and whispered:
"Don't worry about her, sir; she is all right, only a little quieter
now." Then the head disappeared.
Love! Love over the seas and hills and years!
It had become known that a woman was to visit Agrenev, and forthwith
he was ordered away for twenty-four hours on Detachment. Who then
would ever know what guard had opened the door, what officer had
wrought the deed? Would a woman dare scream, having come where she
had no right to be? Or would she dare tell ... to a husband or a
lover? No, not to a husband, nor a lover, nor to anyone! And Pan
Ponyatsky? Why should he not earn an odd fifty roubles? Who was he to
know of love across the seas and hills?
Yesterday, the day before, and again to-day, continuous fighting and
retreating. The staff-train moved off, but the officers went on foot.
A wide array of men, wagons, horses, cannon, ordinance. All in a vast
confusion. None could hear the rattling fire of the machine-guns and
rifles. All was lost in a torrential downpour of rain. Towards
evening there was a halt. All were eager to rest. No one noticed the
approaching dawn. Then a Russian battery commenced to thunder. They
were ordered to counter-attack. They trudged back through the rain,
no one knew why--Agrenev, Kremnev, the brethren--three women.