The letter trembled in Romashov's hands as he read it. For a whole week
he had not once seen Shurochka's saucy, smiling, bewitching face; had
not felt the delicious enchantment he always experienced in her
presence. "To-day," a joyful voice sang exultant in his heart.
"To-day," shouted Romashov, in a ringing voice, as he jumped out of bed.
"Hainán, my bathwater, quick."
Hainán rushed in.
"Your Honour, the servant is waiting for an answer."
"Oh--yes, of course." Romashov dropped, with eyes wide open, on a
chair. "The deuce, he is waiting for a 'tip,' and I haven't a single
copeck." Romashov stared at his trusty servant with a look of absolute
helplessness.
Hainán returned his look with a broad grin of delight.
"No more have I either, your Excellency. You have nothing, and I have
nothing--what's to be done? _Nichevó!_"
At that moment Romashov called to mind that dark spring night when he
stood in the dirty road, leaning against the wet, sticky fence, and
heard Stepan's scornful remark: "That man hangs about here every day."
Now he remembered the intolerable feeling of shame he experienced at
that moment, and what would he not give if only he could conjure up a
single silver coin, a twenty-copeck piece, wherewith to stop the mouth
of Shurochka's messenger.
He pressed his hands convulsively against his temples and almost cried
from annoyance.
"Hainán," he whispered, looking shyly askance at the door, "Hainán, go
and tell him he shall have his 'tip' to-night--for certain, do you hear?
For certain."
Romashov was just then as hard up as it was possible to be. His credit
was gone everywhere--at mess, with the buffet proprietor, at the
regimental treasury, etc. He certainly still drew his dinner and supper
rations, but without sakuska. He had not even tea and sugar in his room;
only a tremendous tin can containing coffee grounds--a dark, awesome
mixture which, when diluted with water, was heroically swallowed every
morning by Romashov and his trusty servant.
With grimaces of the deepest disgust, Romashov sat and absorbed this
bitter, nauseous morning beverage. His brain was working at high
pressure as to how he should find some escape from the present desperate
situation. First, where and how was he to obtain a name-day present for
Shurochka? It would be an impossibility for him to show up at her house
without one. And, besides, what should he give her? Sweets or gloves?
But he did not know what size she wore--sweets, then? But in the town
the sweets were notoriously nasty, therefore something else--scent--a
fan? No, scent would, he thought, be preferable. She liked "Ess
Bouquet," so "Ess Bouquet" it should be. Moreover, the expense of the
evening's picnic. A trap there and back, "tip" to Stepan, incidental
expenses. "Ah, my good Romashov, you won't do it for less than ten
roubles."
After this he reviewed his resources. His month's pay--every copeck of
that was spent and receipted. Advance of pay perhaps. Alas, he had tried
that way quite thirty times, but always with an unhappy result. The
paymaster to the regiment, Staff-Captain Doroshenko, was known far and
wide as the most disobliging "swine," especially to sub-lieutenants. He
had taken part in the Turkish War, and was there, alas! wounded in the
most mortifying and humiliating spot--in his heel. This had not happened
during retreat, but on an occasion when he was turning to his troops to
order an attack. None the less he was, on account of his ill-omened
wound, the object of everlasting flings and sarcasms, with the result
that Doroshenko, who went to the campaign a merry ensign, was now
changed into a jealous, irritable hypochondriac. No, Doroshenko would
not advance a single copeck, least of all to a sub-lieutenant who, with
uncommon eagerness, had long since drawn all the pay that was due to
him.
"But one need not hang oneself, I suppose, for that," Romashov consoled
himself by thinking, after he had finished the foregoing meditation.
"One must try and borrow. Let us now take the victims in turn. Well, the
1st Company, Osadchi?"
Before Romashov's mind's eye appeared Osadchi's peculiar but well-formed
features and his heavy, brutal expression. "No, anybody else in the
world except him. Second Company, Taliman? Ah, that poor devil, who is
borrowing all the year round, even from the ensigns. He won't do. Take
another name--Khutinski?"
But just at that moment a mad boyish idea crossed Romashov's mind.
"Suppose I go and borrow money from the Colonel himself. What then would
be likely to happen? First he would be numbed with horror at such a
piece of impudence; next he would begin trembling with rage, then he
would fire, as if from a mortar, the words: 'Wha-at! Si-lence!'"
Romashov burst out laughing. "How in the world can a day that began so
happily as this ever end sadly and sorrowfully? Yes, I don't know yet
how the problem is to be solved, but an inward voice has told me that
all will go well. Captain Duvernois? No, Duvernois is a skinflint, and,
besides, he can't bear me. I know that."
In this way he went through all the officers of his company, from the
first to the sixteenth, without getting a step nearer his goal. He was
just about to despair altogether when suddenly a new name sprang up in
his head--Lieutenant-Colonel Rafalski.
"Rafalski! What an ass I am! Hainán, my coat, gloves, cap. Make haste!"
Lieutenant-Colonel Rafalski, commander of the 4th Battalion, was an
incorrigible old bachelor, and, in addition, a most eccentric character,
who was called by his comrades "Colonel Brehm." He associated with no
one, was seen among the circle of his brother officers only on occasions
of ceremony, i.e. at Easter and on New Year's Day, and he neglected his
duties to such a degree that at drill he was the constant object of
furious invectives on the part of the higher authorities. All his time,
all his attention, and all his unconsumed funds of love and tenderness,
which he really possessed, were devoted to his idolized _protégés_, his
wild creatures--brutes, birds, and fishes, of which he owned almost an
entire menagerie. The ladies of the regiment, who in the depths of their
hearts were highly incensed with Rafalski for his unconcealed contempt
of women, used to say of him: "Such a dreadful man, and what dreadful
animals he keeps! Such dirtiness in his house, and, pardon the
expression, what a nasty smell he carries with him wherever he goes."
All his savings went to the menagerie. This most eccentric individual
had succeeded in reducing his temporal needs to a minimum. He wore a cap
and uniform that dated from prehistoric times, he slept and dwelt God
knows how, he shared the soldiers' fare, and he ate in the 15th
Company's kitchen, towards the staff of which he displayed a certain
liberality. To his comrades--particularly the younger of them--he seldom
refused a small loan if he was in funds, but to remain in debt to
"Colonel Brehm" was not regarded as _comme il faut_, and he who did so
was inevitably exposed to his comrades' ridicule and contempt.
Frivolous and impudent individuals as, e.g. Lbov, were occasionally not
averse from extracting a few silver roubles from Rafalski, and they
always introduced the business by a request to be allowed to see the
menagerie. This was generally an infallible way to the old hermit's
heart and cash-box. "Good morning, Ivan Antonovich, have you got any
fresh animals? Oh, how interesting! Come and show us them," etc., in the
same style. After this the loan was a simple matter.
Romashov had many times visited Rafalski, but never up to then with an
ulterior motive. He too was particularly fond of animals, and when he
was a cadet at Moscow, nay, even when he was a lad, he much preferred a
circus to a theatre, and the zoological gardens or some menagerie to
either. In his dreams as a child there always hovered a St. Bernard. Now
his secret dream was to be appointed Adjutant to a battalion--so that he
might become the possessor of a horse. But neither of his dreams was
fulfilled.
The poverty of his parents proved an insuperable obstacle to the
realization of the former, and, as far as his adjutancy was concerned,
his prospects were exceedingly small, as Romashov lacked the most
important qualifications for it, viz. a fine figure and carriage.
Romashov went into the street. A warm spring breeze caressed his cheeks,
and the ground that had just dried after the rain gave to his steps,
through its elasticity, a pleasant feeling of buoyancy and power.
Hagberry and lilac pointed and nodded at him with their rich-scented
bunches of blossom over the street fences. A suddenly awakened joy of
life expanded his chest, and he felt as if he was about to fly. After he
had looked round the street and convinced himself that he was alone, he
took Shurochka's letter out of his pocket, read it through once more,
and then pressed her signature passionately to his lips.
"Oh, lovely sky! Beautiful trees!" he whispered with moist eyes.
"Colonel Brehm" lived at the far end of a great enclosure hedged round
by a green lattice-like hedge. Over the gate might be read: "Ring the
bell. Beware of the dogs!"
Romashov pulled the bell. The servant's sallow, sleepy face appeared at
the wicket.
"Is the Colonel at home?"
"Yes. Please step in, your Honour."
"No. Go and take in my name first."
"It is not necessary. Walk in." The servant sleepily scratched his
thigh. "The Colonel does not like standing on ceremony, you know."
Romashov strode on, and followed a sort of path of bricks which led
across the yard to the house. A couple of enormous, mouse-coloured young
bull-dogs ran out of a corner, and one of them greeted him with a rough
but not unfriendly bark. Romashov snapped his fingers at it, which was
answered in delight by awkward, frolicsome leaps and still noisier
barking. The other bull-dog followed closely on Romashov's heels, and
sniffed with curiosity between the folds of his cape. Far away in the
court, where the tender, light green grass had already sprouted up,
stood a little donkey philosophizing, blinking in delight at the sun,
and lazily twitching its long ears. Here and there waddled ducks of
variegated hues, fowls and Chinese geese with large excrescences over
their bills. A bevy of peacocks made their ear-splitting cluck heard,
and a huge turkey-cock with trailing wings and tail-feathers high in
the air was courting the favourite sultana of his harem. A massive pink
sow of genuine Yorkshire breed wallowed majestically in a hole.
"Colonel Brehm," dressed in a Swedish leather jacket, stood at a window
with his back to the door, and he did not notice Romashov as the latter
entered the room. He was very busy with his glass aquarium, into which
he plunged one arm up to the elbow, and he was so absorbed by this
occupation that Romashov was obliged to cough loudly twice before
Rafalski turned round and presented his long, thin, unshaven face and a
pair of old-fashioned spectacles with tortoise-shell rims.
"Ah, ha--what do I see?--Sub-lieutenant Romashov? Very welcome, very
welcome!" rang his friendly greeting. "Excuse my not being able to shake
hands, but, as you see, I am quite wet. I am now testing a new siphon. I
have simplified the apparatus, which will act splendidly. Will you have
some tea?"
"I am very much obliged to you, but I have just breakfasted. I have
come, Colonel, to----"
"Of course you have heard the rumour that our regiment is to be moved to
garrison another town," interrupted Rafalski, in a tone as if he had
only resumed a conversation just dropped. "You may well imagine my
despair. How shall I manage to transport all my fishes? At least half of
them will die on the journey. And this aquarium too; look at it
yourself. Wholly of glass and a yard and a half long. Ah, my dear
fellow" (here he suddenly sprang into a wholly different train of
thought), "what an aquarium they have in Sebastopol! A cistern of
continually flowing seawater, big as this room, and entirely of stone.
And lighted by electricity too. You stand and gaze down on all those
wonderful fishes--sturgeons, sharks, rays, sea-cocks--nay, God forgive
me my sins! sea-cats, I mean. Imagine in your mind a gigantic pancake,
an _arshin_[17] and a half in diameter, which moves and wags--and behind
it a tail shaped like an arrow. My goodness, I stood there staring for a
couple of hours--but what are you laughing at?"
"I beg your pardon, but I just noticed a little white rat sitting on
your shoulder."
"Oh, you little rascal! Who gave you leave?" Rafalski twisted his head
and produced with his lips a whistling but extraordinarily delicate
sound that was remarkably like the cheeping noise of a rat. The little
white, red-eyed beast, trembling all over its body, snuggled up to
Rafalski's cheek, and began groping with its nose after its master's
mouth and chin-tuft.
"How tame your animals are, and how well they know you!" exclaimed
Romashov.
"Yes, they always know me well enough," replied Rafalski. After this he
drew a deep sigh and sorrowfully shook his grey head. "It is unfortunate
that mankind troubles itself and knows so little about animals. We have
trained and tamed for our use or good pleasure the dog, the horse, and
the cat, but how much do we know about the real nature and being of
these animals? Now and then, of course, some professor--a marvel of
learning--comes along--may the devil devour them all!--and talks a lot
of antediluvian rubbish that no sensible person either understands or
has the least profit from. Moreover, he gives the poor innocent beasts a
number of Latin nicknames as idiotic as they are unnecessary, and to
crown it all, he has the impudence to demand to be immortalized for all
this tomfoolery, and pretty nearly venerated as a saint. But what can he
teach us, and what does he know himself, of animals and their inner
life? No! take any dog you like, live together with it for a time, side
by side, and, by the study of this intelligent, reflecting creature, you
will get more matter for your psychology than all the professors and
teachers could dream."
"But perhaps there are works of that nature, though we do not yet know
them?" suggested Romashov shyly.
"Books, did you say? Yes, of course, there are plenty. Just glance over
there. I have a whole library of them."
Rafalski pointed to a long row of shelves standing along the walls.
"Those learned gentlemen write a whole lot of clever things, and show
great profundity in their studies. Yes, their learning is absolutely
overwhelming. What wonderful scientific instruments, and what acuteness
of intellect! But all that is quite different from what I mean. Not one
of all these great celebrities has hit upon the idea of observing
carefully, only for a single day, for instance, a dog or cat in its
private life. And yet how interesting and instructive that is. To watch
closely how a dog lives, thinks, intrigues, makes itself happy or
miserable. Just think, for example, what all those clowns and showmen
can effect. One might sometimes think that one was subjected to an
extraordinary hypnosis. Never in all my life shall I forget a clown I
saw in the hotel at Kiev--a mere clown. What results might have been
attained by a scientifically educated investigator, armed with all the
wonderful apparatus and resources of our time! What interesting things
one might hear about a dog's psychology, his character, docility, etc. A
new world of marvels would be opened to human knowledge. For my part,
you should know that I am quite certain that dogs possess a language
and, moreover, a very rich and developed speech."
"But, Ivan Antonovich, tell me why the learned have never made such an
attempt?" asked Romashov.
Rafalski replied by a sarcastic smile.
"He, he, he! the thing is clear enough. What do you suppose a dog is to
such a learned bigwig? A vertebrate animal, a mammal, a carnivorous
animal, etc, and that's the end of it. Nothing more. How could he
condescend to treat a dog as if it were an intelligent, rational being?
Never. No, these haughty university despots are in reality but a trifle
higher than the peasant who thought that the dog had steam instead of a
soul."
He stopped short and began snorting and splashing angrily whilst he
fussed and fumed with a gutta-percha tube that he was trying to apply to
the bottom of the aquarium. Romashov summoned all his courage, made a
violent effort of will, and succeeded in blurting out--
"Ivan Antonovich, I have come on an important--very important
business----"
"Money?"
"Yes, I am ashamed to trouble you. I don't require much--only ten
roubles--but I can't promise to repay you just yet."
Ivan Antonovich pulled his hands out of the water and began slowly to
dry them on a towel.
"I can manage ten roubles--I have not more, but these I'll lend you with
the greatest pleasure. You're wanting to be off, I suppose, on some
spree or dissipation? Well, well, don't be offended; I'm merely
jesting. Come, let us go."
"Colonel Brehm" took Romashov through his suite of apartments, which
consisted of five or six rooms, in which every trace of furniture and
curtains was lacking. Everywhere one's nose was assailed by the curious,
pungent odour that is always rife in places where small animals are
freely allowed to run riot. The floors were so filthy that one stumbled
at nearly every step. In all the corners, small holes and lairs, formed
of wooden boxes, hollow stubble, empty casks without bottoms, etc.,
etc., were arranged. Trees with bending branches stood in another room.
The one room was intended for birds, the other for squirrels and
martens. All the arrangements witnessed to a love of animals, careful
attention, and a great faculty for observation.
"Look here," Rafalski pointed to a little cage, surrounded by a thick
railing of barbed wire; from the semicircular opening, which was no
larger than the bottom of a drinking-glass, glowed two small, keen black
eyes. "That's a polecat, the cruellest and most bloodthirsty beast in
creation. You may not believe me, but it's none the less true, that, in
comparison with it, the lion and panther are as tame as lambs. When a
lion has eaten his thirty-four pounds or so of flesh, and is resting
after his meal, he looks on good-humouredly at the jackals gorging on
the remains of the banquet. But if that little brute gets into a
hen-house it does not spare a single life. There are no limits to its
murderous instinct, and, besides, it is the wildest beast in the world
and the one hardest to tame. Fie, you little monster."
Rafalski put his hand behind the bars, and at once, in the narrow outlet
to the cage, an open jaw with sharp, white teeth was displayed. The
polecat accompanied its rapid movements backwards and forwards by a
spiteful, cough-like sound.
"Have you ever seen such a nasty brute? And yet I myself have fed it
every day for a whole year."
"Colonel Brehm" had now evidently forgotten Romashov's business. He took
him from cage to cage, and showed him all his favourites, and he spoke
with as much enthusiasm, knowledge, and tenderness of the animals'
tempers and habits, as if the question concerned his oldest and most
intimate friends. Rafalski's collection of animals was really an
extraordinarily large and fine one for a private individual to own, who
was, moreover, compelled to live in an out-of-the-way and wretched
provincial hole. There were rabbits, white rats, otters, hedgehogs,
marmots, several venomous snakes in glass cases, ant-bears, several
sorts of monkeys, a black Australian hare, and an exceedingly fine
specimen of an Angora cat.
"Well, what do you say to this?" asked Rafalski, as he exhibited the
cat. "Isn't he charming? And yet he does not stand high in my favour,
for he is awfully stupid--much more stupid than our ordinary cats."
Rafalski then exclaimed hotly: "Another proof of the little we know and
how wrongly we value our ordinary domestic animals. What do we know
about the cat, horse, cow, and pig? The pig is a remarkably clever
animal. You're laughing, I see, but wait and you shall hear." (Romashov
had not shown the least signs of amusement.) "Last year I had in my
possession a wild boar which invented the following trick. I had got
home from the sugar factory four bushels of waste, intended for my pigs
and hot-beds. Well, my big boar could not, of course, wait patiently.
Whilst the foreman went to find my servant, the boar with his tusks tore
the bung out of the cask, and, in a few seconds, was in his seventh
heaven. What do you say of a chap like that? But listen
further"--Rafalski peered out of one eye, and assumed a crafty
expression--"I am at present engaged in writing a treatise on my
pigs--for God's sake, not a whisper of this to any one. Just fancy if
people got to hear that a Lieutenant-Colonel in the glorious Russian
Army was writing a book, and one about pigs into the bargain; but the
fact is, I managed to obtain a genuine Yorkshire sow. Have you seen her?
Come, let me show you her. Besides, I have down in the yard a young
beagle, the dearest little beast. Come!"
"Pardon me, Ivan Antonovich," stammered Romashov, "I should be only too
pleased to accompany you, but--but I really haven't the time now."
Rafalski struck his forehead with the palm of his hand.
"Oh, yes, what an incorrigible old gossip I am. Excuse me--I'll go and
get it--come along."
They went into a little bare room in which there was literally nothing
but a low tent-bedstead which, with its bottom composed of a sheet
hanging down to the floor, reminded one of a boat; a little night-table,
and a chair without a back. Rafalski pulled out a drawer of the little
table and produced the money.
"I am very glad to be able to help you, ensign, very glad. If you
please, no thanks or such nonsense. It's a pleasure, you know. Look me
up when convenient, and we'll have a chat. Good-bye."
When Romashov reached the street, he ran into Viätkin. Pavel Pavlich's
moustaches were twisted up ferociously, _à la_ Kaiser, and his
regimental cap, stuck on one side in a rakish manner, lay carelessly
thrown on one ear.
"Ha, look at Prince Hamlet," shouted Viätkin, "whence and whither?
You're beaming like a man in luck."
"Yes, that's exactly what I am," replied Romashov smilingly.
"Ah-ah! splendid; come and give me a big hug."
With the enthusiasm of youth, they fell into each other's arms in the
open street.
"Ought we not to celebrate this remarkable event by just a peep into the
mess-room?" proposed Viätkin. "'Come and take a nip in the deepest
loneliness,' as our noble friend Artschakovski is fond of saying."
"Impossible, Pavel Pavlich, I am in a hurry. But what's up with you? You
seem to-day as if you meant kicking over the traces?"
"Yes, rather, that's quite on the cards," Viätkin stuck his chin out
significantly. "To-day I have brought off a 'combination' so ingenious
that it would make our Finance Minister green with envy."
"Really?"
Viätkin's "combination" appeared simple enough, but testified, however,
to a certain ingenuity. The chief _rôle_ in the affair was played by
Khaim, the regimental tailor, who took from Pavel Pavlich a receipt for
a uniform supposed to have been delivered, but, instead of that, handed
over to Viätkin thirty roubles in cash.
"The best of it all is," exclaimed Viätkin, "that both Khaim and I are
equally satisfied with the deal. The Jew gave me thirty roubles and
became entitled through my receipt to draw forty-five from the clothing
department's treasury. I am at last once more in a position to chuck
away a few coppers at mess. A masterstroke, eh?"
"Viätkin, you're a great man, and another time I'll bear in mind your
'patent.' But good-bye for the present. I hope you will have good luck
at cards." They separated, but, after a minute, Viätkin called out to
his comrade again. Romashov stopped and turned round.
"Have you been to the menagerie?" asked Viätkin, with a cunning wink,
making a gesture in the direction of Rafalski's house.
Romashov replied by a nod, and said in a tone of conviction, "Brehm is a
downright good fellow--the best of the lot of us."
"You're right," agreed Viätkin, "bar that frightful smell."