All gaze at one another, and each reads on his neighbour's countenance
the unuttered thought: "We are his murderers." Softly rocks the coffin
covered with gold brocade and carried by eight comrades. The entire
corps of officers takes part in the procession. After the officers comes
the 6th Company. Captain Sliva frowns gloomily. Viätkin's kind face is
disfigured by tears, but now in the street he makes an effort to compose
himself. Lbov--oh, heart of gold!--weeps incessantly without blushing
for his emotion. Like deep, heavy sighs sound the hollow strains of the
Dead March. There stand all the ladies of the regiment, including
Shurochka. "I kissed him," she thinks with despair in her heart. "I
loved him--I might have saved him." "Too late!" thinks Romashov, with a
bitter smile. The officers accompanying their dead comrade to the grave
softly converse with each other. "Ah," thinks each of them to himself,
"how sorry I am for him, poor fellow. What an excellent comrade, what a
handsome and capable officer!--Yes, yes, that is true, but we did not
appreciate him." Loud and more touching sound the strains of the Dead
March. It is Beethoven's immortal music, "By a Hero's Bier." But
Romashov is lying in his coffin, cold and still, with an everlasting
smile on his lips. On his chest rests a modest bouquet of violets, but
no one knows from where they came. He has forgiven all--Shurochka,
Sliva, Federovski, Shulgovich--all. But they waste no tears. He is
better off where he is now; he was too pure, too good for this world.
This gloomy, silent monologue forced tears from Romashov's eyes, but he
did not wipe them away. It was so delicious to imagine himself a martyr,
an innocent victim to the malignity of mankind.
He had now reached the white-beet field, the extensive surface of which
had an almost oppressive influence on Romashov. He climbed on to a
little hillock just beside the ravine in which the railway ran.
There he stood. This side of the ravine lay in deep shadow, but the
opposite one was so powerfully illuminated that one might fancy it
possible to distinguish every blade of grass. The ravine was very
precipitous near the place where Romashov was now standing, and at the
bottom of it the rails, worn bright by traffic, shone. Far away in the
field on the other side of the railway the white, pyramid-like tents
could be seen in even rows.
A little way down the slope of the ravine was a small platform. Romashov
glided down to it and sat on the grass. He felt nearly sick from hunger
and weariness, and his legs shook from exhaustion. The great deserted
field behind him, the air, clear and transparent in spite of the shades
of night, the dew-soaked grass--all was sunk in a deep, insidious,
luminous silence, the intensity of which was felt by Romashov like a
strong buzzing in his ear. Rarely indeed might be heard from a
locomotive manoeuvring at the railway station a shrill whistling
which, in the solemn stillness of the night, brought with it something
impetuous, impatient, and threatening.
Romashov laid himself on his back in the grass. The fleecy white clouds
right above him stood motionless, but over them the round moon glided
rapidly on in the dark firmament which, cold and bare and boundless,
riveted Romashov's gaze. All the illimitable space between earth and
heaven seemed to him fraught with eternal terror and eternal longing.
"There dwells--God," thought Romashov, and suddenly, with a naïve
outburst of sorrow, anger, and self-pity, he whispered passionately and
bitterly--
"God, why hast Thou turned Thy countenance from me? What offence can
I--a miserable worm, a grain of sand--have committed against Thee? Thou
art almighty, Thou art good, Thou seest and hearest everything--why hast
Thou suffered injustice and malice so to triumph over me?"
But instantly afterwards he was filled with alarm at his blasphemous
speech, and he went on to say in fervour and anguish--
"No, no; forgive and forget my sinful words. I know Thou art as wise as
Thou art merciful, and I shall never murmur any more. Do with me what
seems best in Thy sight. I will always submit to Thy will with gratitude
and a meek heart."
Simultaneously with these pious words of penance and reformation there
stirred in the depth of his soul a secret calculating thought that his
solemnly promised submission to our Lord's will would move the
All-seeing God suddenly to work, on his behalf, a miracle whereby all
the bitter sorrows and trials of this day would appear only as a hideous
dream.
"Where are you?" shrieked just then a locomotive down at the station
with a short, angry, impatient whistle. Another engine at once answered,
in a hollow, threatening tone, "I am coming."
From the moonlit crest of the ravine's opposite slope a soft rustle was
heard. In order more easily to detect the cause, Romashov raised his
head from the ground. A grey, shapeless, scarcely human figure was
sliding down to the bottom of the ravine. In spite of the bright
moonlight, it was difficult to distinguish the night-walker in the high
grass, and only by the movements of his shadow was it possible for any
one to follow with the eye his course down the declivity.
Now he was crossing the railway-line. "Judging from everything," guessed
Romashov, "he is a soldier. Anyhow it's a human being; but who can it
be? A drunkard or a sleep-walker?"
The strange figure had already crossed the railway, stepped into the
shade, and was climbing toilsomely up the slope on which Romashov was.
The latter now saw distinctly that the wanderer was a soldier, who,
however, immediately afterwards disappeared from Romashov's sight. Two
or three minutes elapsed before he again became visible. A round-clipped
head without a cap was slowly lifted in Romashov's direction, who now
recognized, without difficulty, the left wing soldier in his own
half-company--the unfortunate Khliabnikov.
Khliabnikov went on his way bareheaded and with his cap in his hand,
looking fixedly before him. It was evident that he was labouring under
the influence of a mysterious inward force. He passed so near Romashov
that the latter's cloak almost grazed his own. The moon's keen rays were
reflected in the motionless pupils beneath the unnaturally wide-open
eyelids.
"Khliabnikov, is it you?" cried Romashov.
"A-ah!" shouted the soldier, who stopped immediately, and began to shake
all over.
Romashov jumped up from the ground. He saw before him a disfigured face,
as pale as a corpse's, with severed, bleeding lips, and one eye almost
closed up by a tremendous bump turning blue. In the uncertain evening
light the traces of the disgusting violence that had been perpetrated
gained a still more horrible appearance. And as Romashov gazed at
Khliabnikov, his thoughts ran thus: "Behold the man who with me brought
shame on the entire regiment to-day. We are both equally to be pitied."
"Where were you going, my friend? what's the matter?" asked Romashov, in
his tenderest tone, and, without thinking, he put both his hands on the
soldier's shoulders. Khliabnikov stared at him out of his uninjured eye
with the wild look of one who had been frightened out of his wits, but
he turned away at once. His bleeding lips, welded together, slowly
opened with a soft, smacking sound, but all he could utter was a hoarse
rattle. Romashov suddenly experienced an intolerable feeling of
sickness, and he thought he felt in his chest and abdomen certain
symptoms which usually precede fainting.
"Has some one beaten you, eh? Tell me! Come and sit down beside me." He
pulled the soldier by the sleeve of his coat down to the ground.
Khliabnikov obediently collapsed, like a dummy fallen in a heap, and
sank noiselessly down on the damp grass beside Romashov.
"Where were you going?" asked the latter. Khliabnikov did not answer a
word where he sat, in a very unnatural and uncomfortable position, with
his legs straddling. Romashov noticed that his head sank slowly, with
scarcely perceptible little nods, on his chest. Again Romashov heard the
same short, hoarse, rattling sound, and his whole soul was filled by an
unspeakable pity. "Do I understand that you wanted to run away? Put on
your cap and listen, Khliabnikov. At this moment I am not your officer
or superior, but, like yourself, only a lonely, unlucky, ruined
creature. I can understand how hard and burdensome it is for you to
live, therefore speak to me frankly, tell me all. Perhaps you meant to
kill yourself?" he added in a hollow, whispering tone.
A gurgling noise was again heard in the soldier's throat, but not a word
passed his lips. At the same moment Romashov noticed that his companion
in misfortune was shaking from head to foot as if from a chill, and he
was himself now attacked by an unconquerable terror. This sleepless
night passed in feverish excitement; this feeling of loneliness and
desertion; the moon's unchangeable, oppressive, cold gleam; the ravine's
black depth beneath his feet; the dumb, cruelly maltreated soldier at
his side--all this seemed to him like a mad, insufferable dream--one of
those dreams that are wont to herald the approach of death. But directly
afterwards he was again seized by the same infinite pity for the
unfortunate victim beside him, and it was clear to him at once how petty
and insignificant was his own sorrow in comparison with Khliabnikov's
cruel fate. With sincere tenderness he threw his arm round the soldier's
neck, drew him forcibly to him, and said, with the warmth that belongs
to conviction--
"Khliabnikov, you find life unsupportable, but, my friend, believe me,
even I am an exceedingly unhappy man. The whole world wherein I live is
to me a puzzle. Everything is so savage, cruel, and senseless. However,
one must be patient, one must learn to suffer."
Khliabnikov's bowed head fell suddenly on Romashov's knee, which he
embraced with both arms. All his being shook with suppressed weeping.
"I can't stand any more," he uttered at last, "I'll bear it no longer.
Oh, my God! They beat me, they mock me; the sergeants shriek for
schnapps and money. Where is a poor devil like me to get money? And then
they beat me again--me, who have suffered from childhood from an
incurable pain--a severe rupture."
Romashov bent down over his head, which shook convulsively backwards and
forwards against Romashov's knee. He perceived the smell of the
soldier's dirty, unhealthy body, and the rank stench of his cloak, which
also served as a counterpane during the cold nights in his tent. An
infinite sorrow for and disgust at himself, his profession, and the
whole world harrowed the young officer's soul. With overflowing heart he
rested his forehead against Khliabnikov's burning head and stubbly hair,
at the same time whispering scarcely audibly--
"My brother!"
Khliabnikov grasped Romashov's hand, on which a few warm tears fell.
Romashov even felt two cold, clammy lips kissing his fingers, but he did
not withdraw his hand, and he spoke simple, calming, touching words,
just as when one talks to a weeping, injured child.
Then he escorted Khliabnikov back to the camp, and then sent for
Shapovalenko, the sergeant on duty that day in the 6th Company. The
latter came out hurriedly, clad in an obviously imperfect costume,
peered for a while with a pair of drowsy eyes, scratched himself both
back and front with an earnestness that was probably more than
justified. After several tremendous yawns he became gradually awake to
the situation.
Romashov ordered him to release Khliabnikov from any duties he might
happen to have just then.
"Your Honour, this may perhaps be a little premature."
"No arguing!" shrieked Romashov in a furious tone. "Tell the Captain
to-morrow that you acted on my instructions." Then turning to
Khliabnikov, he added: "We meet to-morrow, you know, at my house," and
received in reply a long, shy, grateful look.
Romashov slowly turned his steps homewards along the camp. A few words
caught from a whispered conversation in one of the tents caused him to
stop and listen: "You see, comrades," says a subdued voice, "that this
same devil sends the soldier his very chief magician. When the magician
catches sight of the soldier, he roars at him like this: 'What's a
soldier to me? I'll eat him!' 'No,' replies the soldier, 'you can't do
that, old chap, for I myself am a magician----'"
Romashov soon reached the ravine again. Once more that indescribable
feeling of disgust at life and contempt of the inanity and senselessness
of the work of creation. Whilst descending the declivity he stopped
suddenly and raised his eyes to heaven. Again he was met by the same
infinite, icy-cold firmament; again he experienced the same longing,
mingled with fear and anguish, and almost unconsciously he raised his
fists threateningly against heaven, and in the voice of a man foaming
with rage, in words of unspeakable blasphemy, challenged his Maker's
omnipotence, and dared Him, in proof of it, to break off his arms and
legs.
Romashov, deliberately and with his eyes shut, threw himself down the
precipice, and alighted unscathed on the railway bank. With two leaps he
gained the opposite slope, the top of which he reached without stopping
or taking breath. His nostrils were dilated, and his chest heaved
violently under convulsive efforts to regain his breath, but in the
depths of his soul there blazed a proud, triumphant feeling of malicious
joy and defiance.