THE SCHOOL-HOUSE
The greater part of the next day was spent by us in the little town of
S----, a comfortable place very slightly disturbed by the fact that it
had been already the scene of four battles; there was just this
effect, as it seemed to me, that the affairs of the day were carried
on with a kind of somnolent indifference.... "You may order your
veal," the waiter seemed to say, "but whether you will get it or no is
entirely in the hands of God. It is, therefore, of no avail that I
should hurry or that you should show temper should the veal not
appear. At any moment your desire for veal and my ability to bring it
you may have ceased for ever."
For the rest the town billowed with trees of the youngest green; also
birds of the tenderest age, if one may judge by their happiness at the
spring weather. There were many old men in white smocks and white
trousers and women in brightly-coloured kerchiefs. But, except for the
young birds, it was a silent place.
I had much business to carry through and saw the rest of our company
only at luncheon time; it was after luncheon that I had a little
conversation with Marie Ivanovna. She chose me quite deliberately from
the others, moved our chairs to the quieter end of the little balcony
where we were, planted her elbows on the table and stared into my face
with her large round credulous eyes. (I find on looking back, that I
have already used exactly those adjectives. That may stand: I mean
that, emphatically, and beyond every other impression she made, her
gaze declared that she was ready to believe anything that she were
told, and the more in the telling the better.)
She spoke, as always, with that sense of restrained, sharply
disciplined excitement, as though her eager vitality were some
splendid if ferocious animal struggling at its chain.
"You talked to John--Mr. Trenchard--last night," she said.
"Yes," I said, smiling into her eyes.
"I know--all night--he told me. He's splendid, isn't he? Splendid!"
"I like him very much," I answered.
"Ah! you must! you must! You must all like him! You don't know--his
thoughts, his ideals--they are wonderful. He's like some knight of the
Middle Ages.... Ah, but you'll think that silly, Mr. Durward. You're a
practical Englishman. I hate practical Englishmen."
"Thank you," I said, laughing.
"No, but I do. You sneer at everything beautiful. Here in Russia we're
more simple. And John's very like a Russian in many ways. Don't you
think he is?"
"I haven't known him long enough--" I began.
"Ah, you don't like him! I see you don't.... No, it's no use your
saying anything. He isn't English enough for you, that's what it is.
You think him unpractical, unworldly. Well, so he is. Do you think I'd
ever be engaged to an ordinary Englishman? I'd die of ennui in a week.
Oh! yes, I would. But you like John, really, don't you?"
"I tell you that I do," I answered, "but really, after only two
days--"
"Ah! that's so English! So cautious! How I hate your caution! Why
can't you say at once that you haven't made up your mind about
him--because that's the truth, isn't it? I wish he would not sit
there, looking at me, and not talking to the others. He ought to talk
to them, but he's afraid that they'll laugh at his Russian. It's not
very good, his Russian, is it? I can't help laughing myself
sometimes!"
_Her_ English was extremely good. Sometimes she used a word in its
wrong sense; she had one or two charming little phrases of her own:
"What a purpose to?" instead of: "Why?" and sometimes a double
negative. She rolled her r's more than is our habit.
I said, looking straight into her eyes:
"It's a tremendous thing to him, his having you. I can see that
although I've known him so short a time. He's a very lucky man
and--and--if his luck were to go, I think that he'd simply die. There!
That isn't a very English thing to have said, is it?"
"Why did you say it?" she cried sharply. "You don't trust me. You
think--"
"I think nothing," I answered. "Only he's not like ordinary men. He's
so much younger than his age."
She gave me then the strangest look. The light seemed suddenly to die
out of her face; her eyes sought mine as though for help. There were
tears in them.
"Oh! I do want to be good to him!" she whispered. Then got up abruptly
and joined the others.
Late in the afternoon an automobile arrived and carried off most of
our party. I was compelled to remain for several hours, and intended
to drive, looking forward indeed to the long quiet silence of the
spring evening. Moved by some sudden impulse I suggested to Trenchard
that he should wait and drive with me: "The car will be very
crowded," I said, "and I think too that you'd like to see some of the
country properly. It's a lovely evening--only thirty versts.... Will
you wait and come with me?"
He agreed at once; he had been, all day, very quiet, watching, with
that rather clumsy expression of his, the expression of a dog who had
been taught by his master some tricks which he had half-forgotten and
would presently be expected to remember.
When I made my suggestion he flung one look at Marie Ivanovna. She was
busied over some piece of luggage, and half-turned her head, smiling
at him:
"Ah, do go, John--yes? We will be so cr-rowded.... It will be very
nice for you driving."
I fancied that I heard him sigh. He tried to help the ladies with
their luggage, handed them the wrong parcels, dropped delicate
packages, apologised, blushed, was very hot, collected dust from I
know not where.... Once I heard a sharp, angry voice: "John! Oh!..." I
could not believe that it was Marie Ivanovna. Of course she was hot
and tired and had slept, last night, but little. The car, watched by
an inquisitive but strangely apathetic crowd of peasants, snorted its
way down the little streets, the green trees blowing and the starlings
chattering. In a moment the starlings and our two selves seemed to
have the whole dead little town to ourselves.
I saw quite clearly that he was unhappy; he could never disguise his
feelings; as he waited for the trap to appear he had the same lost and
abandoned appearance that he had on my first vision of him at the
Petrograd station. The soldier who was to drive us smiled as he saw
me.
"Only thirty versts, your honour ... or, thank God, even less. It will
take us no time." He was a large clumsy creature, like an eager
overgrown puppy; he was one of the four or five Nikolais in our
Otriad, and he is to be noticed in this history because he attached
himself from the very beginning to Trenchard with that faithful and
utterly unquestioning devotion of which the Russian soldier is so
frequently capable. He must, I think, have seen something helpless and
unhappy in Trenchard's appearance on this evening. Sancho to our Don
Quixote he was from that first moment.
"Yes, he's an English gentleman," I said when he had listened for a
moment to Trenchard's Russian.
"Like yourself," said Nikolai.
"Yes, Nikolai. You must look after him. He'll be strange here at
first."
"_Slushaiu_ (I hear)."
That was all he said. He got up on to his seat, his broad back was
bent over his horses.
"Well, and how have things been, Nikolai, busy?"
"_Nikak nyet_--not at all. Very quiet."
"No wounded?"
"Nothing at all, _Barin_, for two weeks now."
"Have you liked that?"
"_Tak totchno._ Certainly yes."
"No, but have you?"
"_Tak totchno, Barin._"
Then he turned and gave, for one swift instant, a glance at Trenchard,
who was, very clumsily, climbing into the carriage. Nikolai looked at
him gravely. His round, red face was quite expressionless as he turned
back and began to abjure his horses in that half-affectionate,
half-abusive and wholly human whispering exclamation that Russians use
to their animals. We started.
I have mentioned in these pages that I had already spent three months
with our Otriad at the Front. I cannot now define exactly what it was
that made this drive on this first evening something utterly distinct
and apart from all that I had experienced during that earlier period.
It is true that, before, I had been for almost two months in one place
and had seen nothing at all of actual warfare, except the feeding and
bandaging of the wounded. But I had imagined then, nevertheless, that
I was truly "in the thick of things," as indeed, in comparison with my
Moscow or Petrograd life, I was. We had not now driven through the
quiet evening air for ten minutes before I knew, with assured
certainty, that a new phase of life was, on this day, opening before
me; the dark hedges, the thin fine dust on the roads, the deep purple
colour of the air, beat at my heart, as though they themselves were
helping with quiet insistency to draw me into the drama. And yet
nothing could have been more peaceful than was that lovely evening.
The dark plum-colour in the evening sky soaked like wine into the
hills, the fields, the thatched cottages, the streams and the little
woods.
The faint saffron that lingered below the crests and peaks of rosy
cloud showed between the stems of the silver birches like the friendly
smile of a happy day. The only human beings to be seen were the
peasants driving home their cows; far on the horizon the Carpathian
mountains were purple in the dusk, the snow on their highest ridges
faintly silver. There was not a sound in the world except the ring of
our horses' hoofs upon the road. And yet this sinister excitement
hammered, from somewhere, at me as I had never felt it before. It was
as though the lovely evening were a painted scene lowered to hide some
atrocity.
"This is scarcely what you expected a conquered country to look like,
is it?" I said to Trenchard.
He looked about him, then said, hesitating: "No ... that is ... I
don't know what I expected."
A curved moon, dull gold like buried treasure, rose slowly above the
hill; one white star flickered and the scents of the little gardens
that lined the road grew thicker in the air as the day faded.
I was conscious of some restraint with Trenchard: "He's probably
wishing," I thought, "that he'd not been so expansive last night. He
doesn't trust me."
Once he said abruptly:
"They'll give me ... won't they ... work to do? It would be terrible
if there wasn't work. I'm not so ... so stupid at bandaging. I learnt
a lot in the hospital and although I'm clumsy with my hands generally
I'm not so clumsy about that--"
"Why of course," I answered. "When there's work they'll be only too
delighted. But there won't always be work. You must be prepared for
that. Sometimes our Division is in reserve and then we're in reserve
too. Sometimes for so much as a fortnight. When I was out here before
I was in one place for more than two months. You must just take
everything as it comes."
"I want to work," he said. "I _must_."
Once again only he spoke:
"That little fat man who travelled with us...."
"Andrey Vassilievitch," I said.
"Yes.... He interests me. You knew him before?"
"Yes. I've known him slightly for some years."
"What has he come for? He's frightened out of his life."
"Frightened?"
"Yes, he himself told me. He says that he's very nervous but that he
must do everything that every one else does--for a certain reason. He
got very excited when he talked to me and asked me whether I thought
it would all be very terrible."
"He is a nervous fussy little man. Russians are not cowards, but
Andrey Vassilievitch lost his wife last year. He was very devoted to
her--very. He is miserable without her, they say. Perhaps he has come
to the war to forget her."
I was surprised at Trenchard's interest; I had thought him so wrapt in
his own especial affair that nothing outside it could occupy him. But
he continued:
"He knew the tall doctor--Nikitin--before, didn't he?"
"Yes.... Nikitin knew his wife."
"Oh, I see.... Nikitin seems to despise him--I think he despises all
of us."
"Oh no. That's only his manner. Many Russians look as though they were
despising their neighbours when, as a matter of fact, they're really
despising themselves. They're very fond of despising themselves: their
contempt allows them to do what they want to."
"I don't think Nikitin despises himself. He looks too happy--at least,
happy is not the word. Perhaps triumphant is what I mean."
"Ah, if you begin speculating about Russian expression you're lost.
They express so much in their faces that you think you know all their
deepest feelings. But they're not their deep feelings that you see.
Only their quick transient emotions that change every moment." I
fancied, just at that time, that I had studied the Russian character
very intently and it was perhaps agreeable to me to air my knowledge
before an Englishman who had come to Russia for the first time so
recently.
But Trenchard did not seem to be greatly impressed by my cleverness.
He spoke no more. We drove then in silence whilst the moon, rising
high, caught colour into its dim outline, like a scimitar unsheathed;
the trees and hedges grew, with every moment, darker. We left the
valley through which we had been driving, slowly climbing the hill,
and here, on the top of the rising ground, we had our first glimpse of
the outposts of the war. A cottage had been posted on the highest
point of the hill; now all that remained of it was a sheet of iron,
crumpled like paper, propped in the centre by a black and solitary
post, trailing thence on the ground amongst tumbled bricks and refuse.
This sheet of iron was silver in the moonlight and stood out with its
solitary black support against the night sky, which was now breaking
into a million stars. Behind it stretched a flat plain that reached to
the horizon.
"There," I said to Trenchard, "there's your first glimpse of actual
warfare. What do you say to every house in your village at home like
that? It's ghastly enough if you see it as I have done, still smoking,
with the looking-glasses and flower-pots and pictures lying about."
But Trenchard said nothing.
We started across the plain and at once, as with "Childe Roland":
_For mark! no sooner was I fairly found
Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two,
Than, pausing to throw backward a last view
O'er the safe road, 'twas gone! grey plain all round:
Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound.
I might go on; nought else remained to do._
Our "safe road" was a rough and stony track; far in front of us on the
rising hill that bounded the horizon a red light watched us like an
angry eye. There were cornfields that stirred and whispered, but no
hedges, no trees, and not a house to be seen.
Nikolai turned and said: "A very strong battle here, Your Honour, only
three weeks back."
By the side of the road stood a little cluster of wooden crosses and
behind them were two large holes filled now with water upon which the
moon was shining. In these holes the frogs were making a tremendous
noise.
"That was shell," I said to Trenchard, pointing. The frogs drowned my
voice; there was something of a melancholy triumph in their cry and
their voices seemed to be caught up and echoed by thousands upon
thousands of other frogs inhabiting the plain.
We came then upon a trench; the ridge of it stretched like a black
cord straight across the cornfield and here for a moment the road
seemed lost.
I got out. "Here, Trenchard. You must come and look at this. Your
first Austrian trench. You may find treasure."
We walked along in single file for some time and then suddenly I lost
him: the trench, just where we were, divided into two. I waited
thinking that in a moment he would appear. There was nothing very
thrilling about my trench; it was an old one and all that remained now
of any life was the blackened ground where there had been cooking, the
brown soiled cartridge-cases, and many empty tin cans. And then as I
waited, leaning forward with my elbows on the earthwork, the frogs the
only sound in the world, I was conscious that some one was watching
me. In front of me I could see the red light flickering and turning a
little as it seemed--behind me nothing but the starlight. I turned,
looked back, and for my very life could not hold myself from calling
out:
"Who's there?"
I waited, then called more loudly: "Trenchard! Trenchard!" I laughed
at myself, leant again on the trench and puffed at my cigarette. Then
once more I was absolutely assured that some one watched me.
I called again: "Who's there?"
Then quite suddenly and to my own absurd relief Trenchard appeared,
stumbling forward over some roughness in the ground almost into my
arms:
"I say, it's beastly here," he cried. "Let's go on--the frogs...."
He had caught my hand.
"Well," I said, "what did you find?"
"Nothing--only ... I don't know.... It's as though some one were
watching me. It's getting late, isn't it? The frogs...." he said
again--"I hate them. They seem to be triumphing."
We climbed into the trap and drove on in silence.
I was half asleep when at last we left the plain and dropped down into
the valley beyond. I was surprised to discover on looking at my watch
that it was only eleven o'clock; we had been, it seemed to me, hours
crossing that plain. "It's a silly thing," I said to Trenchard, "but
it would take quite a lot to get me to drive back over that again." He
nodded his head. We drove over a bridge, up a little hill and were in
the rough moonlit square of O----, our destination. Almost immediately
we were climbing the dark rickety stairs of our dwelling. There were
lights, shouts of welcome, Molozov our chief, sisters, doctors,
students, the room almost filled with a table covered with food--cold
meat, boiled eggs, sausage, jam, sweets, and of course a huge samovar.
I can only say that never once, during my earlier experience with the
Otriad, had I been so rejoiced to see lights and friendly faces. I
looked round for Trenchard. He had already discovered Marie Ivanovna
and was standing with her at the window.
I learned at breakfast the next morning that we were at once to move
to a house outside the village. The fantastic illusions that my drive
of the evening before had bred in me now in the clear light of morning
entirely deserted me. Moreover fantasy had slender opportunity of
encouragement in the presence of Molozov.
Molozov, I would wish to say once and for all, was the heart and soul
of our enterprise. Without him the whole organisation so admirably
supported by the energetic ladies and gentlemen in Petrograd, would
have tumbled instantly into a thousand pieces. In Molozov they had
discovered exactly the man for their purpose; a large land-owner, a
member of one of the best Russian families, he had, since the
beginning of the war, given himself up to the adventure with the whole
of his energy, with the whole of that great capacity for organisation
that the management of his estates had already taught him. He was in
appearance, short, squarely built, inclined, although he was only
thirty-two or three, to be stout; he wore a dark black moustache and
his hair was already grey. He was a Russian of the purest blood and
yet possessed all the qualities that the absolute Russian is supposed
to lack. He was punctual to the moment, sharply accurate in all his
affairs, a shrewd psychologist but never a great talker and, above
all, a consummate diplomatist. As I watched him dealing with the
widely opposed temperaments and dispositions of all our company,
soothing one, scolding another, listening attentively, cutting
complaints short, comforting, commanding, soliciting, I marvelled at
the good fortune of that Petrograd committee. In spite of his kind
heart--and he was one of the kindest-hearted men I have ever met--he
could be quite ruthless in dismissal or rebuke when occasion arrived.
He had a great gift of the Russian irony and he could be also, like
all Russians, a child at an instant's call, if something pleased him
or if he simply felt that the times were good and the sun was shining.
I only once, in a moment that I shall have, later on, to describe, saw
him depressed and out of heart. He was always a most courteous
gentleman.
I drove now with him in a trap at the head of the _Oboz_, as our long
train, with our tents, provisions, boxes and beds, was called. We were
a fine company now and my heart was proud as I looked back up the
shining road and saw the long winding procession of carts and
"sanitars" and remembered how tiny an affair we had been in the
beginning.
"Well," said Molozov, "and what of your Englishman?"
"Oh, I like him," I said rather hurriedly. "He'll do."
"I'm glad you think so--very glad. I was not sure last night.... He
doesn't speak Russian very well, does he? He was tired last night. I'm
very glad that he should come, of course, but it's unpleasant ... this
engagement ... the Sister told me. It's a little difficult for all of
us."
"They were engaged the evening before they left."
"I know ... nothing to do about it, but it would have been better
otherwise. And Andrey Vassilievitch! Whatever put it into Anna
Mihailovna's head to send him! He's a tiresome little man--I've known
him earlier in Petrograd! He's on my nerves already with his chatter.
No, it's too bad. What can he do with us?"
"He has a very good business head," I said. "And he's not really a bad
little man. And he's very anxious to do everything."
"Ah, I know those people who are 'anxious to do everything.'... Don't
I know? Don't you remember Sister Anna Maria? anxious to do
everything, anything--and then, when it came to it, not even the
simplest bandage.... Nikitin's a good man," he added, "one of the best
doctors in Petrograd. We've no doctors of our own now, you
know--except of course Alexei Petrovitch. The others are all from the
Division--"
"Ah, Semyonov!" I said. "How is he?"
At that moment he rode up to us. Seen on horseback Alexei Petrovitch
Semyonov appeared a large man; he was, in reality, of middle height
but his back was broad, his whole figure thickly-set and muscular. He
wore a thick square-cut beard of so fair a shade that it was almost
white! His whole colour was pale and yet, in some way, expressive of
immense health and vitality. His lips showed through his beard and
moustache red and very thick. His every movement showed great
self-possession and confidence. He had, indeed, far more personality
than any other member of our Otriad.
Although he was an extremely capable doctor his main business in life
seemed to be self-indulgence. He apparently did not know the meaning
of the word "restraint." The serious questions in life to him were
food, drink, women.
He believed in no woman's virtue and no man's sincerity. He hailed any
one as a friend but if he considered some one a fool he said so
immediately. He concealed his opinions from no one.
When he was at work his indulgence seemed for the moment to leave him.
He was a surgeon of the first order and loved his profession. He was a
man now of fifty, but had never married, preferring a long succession
of mistresses--women who had loved him, at whom he had always laughed,
to whom he had been kind in a careless fashion.... He always declared
that no woman had ever touched his heart.
He had come to the war voluntarily, forsaking a very lucrative
practice. This was always a puzzle to me. He had no romantic notions
about the war, no altruistic compulsions, no high conceptions of his
duty ... no one had worked more magnificently in the war than he. He
could not be said to be popular amongst us; we were all of us perhaps
a little afraid of him. He cared, so obviously, for none of us. But we
admired his vitality, his courage, his independence. I myself was
assured that he allowed us to see him only with the most casual
superficiality.
As he rode up to me I wondered how he and Nikitin would fare. These
were two personalities worthy of attention. Also, what would he think
of Trenchard? His opinion of any one had great weight amongst us.
I had not seen him last night and he leant over his horse now and
shook hands with me with a warm friendliness that surprised me. He
laughed, joked, was evidently in excellent spirits. He rode on a
little, then came back to us.
"I like your new Sister," he said. "She's charming."
"She's engaged," I answered, "to the new Englishman."
"Ah! the new Englishman!" He laughed. "Apologies, Ivan Andreievitch
(myself), to your country ... but really ... what's he going to do
with us?"
"He'll work," I said, surprised at the heat that I felt in Trenchard's
defence. "He's a splendid fellow."
"I have no doubt"--again Semyonov laughed. "We all know your
enthusiasms, Ivan Andreievitch, ... but an Englishman! _Ye Bogu_!..."
"Engaged to that girl!" I heard him repeat to himself as again he rode
forward. Trenchard, little Andrey Vassilievitch, Semyonov, Nikitin ... yes,
there was promise of much development here.
We had dropped down into the valley and, at a sudden turn, saw the
school-house in front of us. It is before me now as I write with its
long low whitewashed two-storied front, its dormer-windows, its roof
faintly pink with a dark red bell-tower perched on the top. Behind it
is a long green field stretching to where hills, faintly blue in the
morning light, rose, with very gradual slopes against the sky. To the
right I could see there was a garden hidden now by trees, on the left
a fine old barn, its thatched roof deep brown, the props supporting it
black with age. In front of the pillared porch there was a little
square of white cobble-stones and in the middle of these an old grey
sundial. The whole place was bathed in the absolute peace of the
spring morning.
As we drove up a little old lady with two tiny children clinging to
her skirts came to the porch. I could see, as we came up to her, that
she was trembling with terror; she put up her hand to her white hair,
clutched again desperately the two children, found at last her voice
and hoped that we would be "indulgent."
Molozov assured her that she would suffer in no kind of way, that we
must use her school for a week or so and that any loss or damage that
she incurred would of course be made up to her. She was then, of a
sudden, immensely fluent, explaining that her husband--"a most
excellent husband to me in every way one might say"--had been dead
fifteen years now, that her two sons were both fighting for the
Austrians, that she looked after the school assisted by her daughter.
These were her grandchildren.... Such a terrible year she, in all her
long life, had never remembered. She....
The arrival of the rest of the Oboz silenced her. She remained, with
wide-open staring eyes, her hand at her breast, watching, saying
absent-mindedly to the children: "Now Katya.... Now Anna.... See what
you're about!"
The school was spotlessly clean. In the schoolroom the rough benches
were marked with names and crosses. On the whitewashed walls were
coloured maps of Galicia and tables of the Austrian kings and queens;
on the blackboard still an unfinished arithmetical sum and on the
master's desk a pile of exercise books.
In a moment everything was changed; the sanitars had turned the
schoolroom into a dormitory, another room was to be our dining-room,
another a bedroom for the Sisters. In the high raftered kitchen our
midday meal was already cooking; the little cobbled court was piled
high with luggage. In the field beyond the house the sanitars had
pitched their tents.
I walked out into the little garden--a charming place with yew hedges,
a lichen-covered well and old thick apple-trees, and here I found an
old man in a broad-brimmed straw hat tending the bees. The hives were
open and he was working with a knife whilst the bees hung in a
trembling hovering cloud about him. I spoke to him but he paid no
attention to me at all. I watched him then spoke again; he
straightened himself then looked at me for a moment with eyes full of
scorn. Words of fury, of abuse perhaps, seemed to tremble on his lips,
then shaking his head he turned his back upon me and continued his
work. Behind us I could hear the soldiers breaking the garden-fence to
make stakes for their tents.
Here we were for a fortnight and it was strange to me, in the days of
stress and excitement that followed, to look back to that fortnight
and remember that we had, so many of us, been restless and
discontented at the quiet of it. Oddly enough, of all the many
backgrounds that were, during the next months, to follow in procession
behind me, there only remain to me with enduring vitality: this
school-house at O----, the banks of the River Nestor which I had
indeed good reason to remember, and finally the forest of S----. How
strange a contrast, that school-house with its little garden and white
cobbles and that forest which will, to the end of my life, ever haunt
my dreams.
And yet, by its very contrast, how fitting a background to our
Prologue this school-house made! I wonder whether Nikitin sees it
still in his visions? Trenchard and Semyonov ... does it mean anything
to them, where they now are? First of them all, Marie Ivanovna.... I
see her still, bending over the well looking down, then suddenly
flinging her head back, laughing as we stood behind her, the sunlight
through the apple-trees flashing in her eyes.... That fortnight must
be to many of us of how ironic, of how tragic a tranquillity!
So we settled down and did our best to become happily accustomed to
one another. Our own immediate company numbered twenty or so--Molozov,
two doctors, myself, Trenchard and Andrey Vassilievitch, the two new
Sisters and the three former ones, five or six young Russians,
gentlemen of ease and leisure who had had some "bandaging" practice at
the Petrograd hospitals, and three very young medical students,
directly attached to our two doctors. In addition to these there were
the doctors, Sisters and students belonging to the army itself--the
Sixty-Fifth Division of the Ninth Army. These sometimes lived with us
and sometimes by themselves; they had at their head Colonel Oblonsky,
a military doctor of much experience and wide knowledge. There were
also the regular sanitars, some thirty or forty, men who were often by
profession schoolmasters or small merchants, of a better class for the
most part than the ordinary soldier.
It is not, of course, my intention to describe with any detail the
individuals of this company. I have chosen already those of us who are
especially concerned with my present history, but these others made a
continually fluctuating and variable background, at first confusing
and, to a stranger, almost terrifying. When the army doctors and
Sisters dined with us we numbered from thirty to forty persons:
sometimes also the officers of the Staff of the Sixty-Fifth came to
our table. There were other occasions when every one was engaged on
one business or another and only three or four of us were left at the
central station or "Punkt," as it was called.
And, of all these persons, who now stands out? I can remember a
Sister, short, plain, with red hair, who felt that she was treated
with insufficient dignity, whose voice rising in complaint is with me
now; I can see her small red-rimmed eyes watching for some insult and
then the curl of her lip as she snatched her opportunity.... Or there
was the jolly, fat Sister who had travelled with us, an admirable
worker, but a woman, apparently, with no personal life at all, no
excitements, dreads, angers, dejections. Upon her the war made no
impression at all. She spoke sometimes to us of her husband and her
children. She was not greedy, nor patriotic, neither vain nor humble,
neither egoistic nor unselfish. She was simply reliable.
Or there was the tall gaunt Sister, intensely religious and serious.
She was regarded by all of us as an excellent woman, but of course we
did not like her.
One would say to another: "Sister K----, what an excellent worker!"
"Yes. How she works!"
"Splendid! Splendid!"
When owing to the illness of her old mother she was compelled to
return to Petrograd what relief we all felt! How gay was our supper
the night of her departure! There was something very childish at the
heart of all of us.
Of the young gentlemen from Petrograd I remember only three. The
family name of one was Ivanoff, but he was always known to the Otriad
as Goga, a pet diminutive of George. He was perhaps the youngest
person whom I have ever known. He must have been eighteen years of
age; he looked about eleven, with a round red face and wide-open eyes
that expressed eternal astonishment. Like Mr. Toots', his mind was
continually occupied with his tailor and he told me on several
occasions that he hoped I should visit him in Petrograd because there
in the house of his mother he had many splendid suits, shirts, ties,
that it would give him pleasure to show me. In spite of this little
weakness, he showed a most energetic character, willing to do anything
for anybody, eager to please the whole world. I can hear his voice
now:
"_Yeh Bogu_! Ivan Andreievitch!... Imagine my position! There was
General Polinoff and the whole Staff.... What to do? Only three versts
from the position too and already six o'clock...."
Or there was another serious gentleman, whose mind was continually
occupied with Russia: "It may be difficult for you, Ivan Andreievitch,
to see with our eyes, but for those of us who have Russia in our
hearts ... what rest or peace can there be? I can assure you...."
He wore pince-nez and with his long pear-shaped head, shaven to the
skin, his white cheeks, protruding chin and long heavy white hands he
resembled nothing so much as a large fish hanging on a nail at a
fishmonger's. He worked always in a kind of cold desperate despair,
his pince-nez slipping off his shiny nose, his mouth set grimly. "What
is the use?" he seemed to say, "of helping these poor wounded soldiers
when Russia is in such a desperate condition? Tell me that!"
Or there was a wild rough fellow from some town in Little Russia, a
boy of the most primitive character, no manners at all and a heart of
shining gold. Of life he had the very wildest notions. He loved women
and would sing Southern Russian songs about them. He had a strain of
fantasy that continually surprised one. He liked fairy tales. He would
say to me: "There's a tale? Ivan Andreievitch, about a princess who
lived on a lake of glass. There was a forest, you know, round the lake
and all the trees were of gold. The pond was guarded by three dwarfs.
I myself, Ivan Andreievitch, have seen a dwarf in Kiev no higher than
your leg, and in our town they say there was once a whole family of
dwarfs who lived in a house in the chief street in our town and sold
potatoes.... I don't know.... People tell one such things. But for the
rest of that tale, do you remember how it goes?"
He could ride any horse, carry any man, was never tired nor out of
heart. He had the vaguest ideas about the war. "I knew a German once
in our town," he told me. "I always hated him.... He was going to
Petrograd to make his fortune. I hope he's dead." This fellow was
called Petrov.
My chief interest during this fortnight was to watch the fortunes of
Marie Ivanovna and Trenchard with their new companions. It was
instantly apparent that Marie Ivanovna was a success. On the second
day after our arrival at the school-house there were continual
exclamations: "But how charming the new Sister! How sympathetic!...
Have you talked to the new Sister?"
Even Sister K----, so serious and religious, approved. It was evident
at once that Marie Ivanovna was, on her side, delighted with every
one. I could see that at present she was assured that what she wanted
from life would be granted to her. She gave herself, with complete
confidence, to any one and every one, and, with that triumphing
vitality that one felt in her from the first moment of meeting her,
she carried all before her. In the hospital at Petrograd they had
been, I gathered, "all serious and old," had treated her I fancy with
some sternness. Here, at any rate, "serious and old" she would not
find us. We welcomed, with joy, her youth, her enthusiasm, her
happiness.
Semyonov, who never disguised nor restrained his feelings, was, from
the first instant, strangely attracted to her. She, I could see, liked
him very much, felt in him his strength and capacity and scorn of
others. Molozov also yielded her his instant admiration. He always
avoided any close personal relationship with any of us but I could see
that he was delighted with her vitality and energy. She pleased the
older Sisters by her frank and quite honest desire to be told things
and the younger Sisters by her equally honest admiration of their
gifts and qualities. She was honest and sincere, I do believe, in
every word and thought and action. She had, in many ways, the naive
purity, the unconsidered faith and confidence of a child still in the
nursery. She amazed me sometimes by her ignorance; she delighted me
frequently by her refreshing truth and straightforwardness. She felt a
little, I think, that I did not yield her quite the extravagant
admiration of the others. I was Trenchard's friend....
Yes, I was now Trenchard's friend. What had occurred since that night
in the train, when I had felt, during the greater part of the time,
nothing but irritation? Frankly, I do not know. It may be, partly,
that he was given to me by the rest of the Otriad. He was spoken of
now as "my" Englishman. And then, poor Trenchard!... How, during this
fortnight, he was unhappy! It had begun with him as I had foreseen. In
the first place he had been dismayed and silenced by the garrulity of
his new companions. It had seemed to him that he had understood
nothing of their conversation, that he was in the way, that finally he
was more lonely than he had ever been in his life before. Then,
however strongly he might to himself deny it, he had arrived in Russia
with what Nikitin called "his romantic notions." He had read his
Dostoevski and Turgenev; he had looked at those books of Russian
impressions that deal in nothing but snow, ikons, and the sublime
simplicity of the Russian peasant. He was a man whose circumstances
had led him to believe profoundly in his own incapacity, unpopularity,
ignorance. For a moment his love had given him a new confidence but
now how was that same love deserting him? He had foreseen a glorious
campaign, his lady and himself side by side, death and terror flying
before him. He found himself leading a country life of perfect quiet
and comfort, even as he might have led it in England, with a crowd of
people, strangely unfamiliar to him, driving him, as he had been
driven in the old days, into a host of awkwardnesses, confusions and
foolishnesses. I could not forgive Marie Ivanovna for her
disappointment in him, and yet I could understand how different he
must have appeared to her during those last days in Petrograd, when
alone with her and on fire with love, he had shown his true and
bravest self to her. She was impatient, she had hoped that the others
would see him as she had seen him. She watched them as they expressed
their surprise that he was not the practical, fearless and
unimaginative Englishman who was their typical figure. Whilst he found
them far from the Karamazovs, the Raskolnikoffs, of his imagination,
they in their turn could not create the "sportsman" and "man of
affairs" whom they had expected.
To all of this Semyonov added, beyond question, his personal weight.
He had from the first declared Trenchard "a ridiculous figure." Whilst
the others were unfailingly kind, hospitable and even indulgent to
Trenchard, Semyonov was openly satirical, making no attempt to hide
his sarcastic irony. I do not know how much Trenchard's engagement to
Marie Ivanovna had to do with this, but I know that "my Englishman"
could not to his misfortune have had a more practical, more efficient
figure against whom to be contrasted than Semyonov.
During these weeks I think that I hated Semyonov. There was, however,
one silent observer of all this business upon whose personal
interference I had not reckoned. This was Nikitin, who, at the end of
our first week at the school-house, broke his silence in a
conversation with me.
Nikitin, although he spoke as little as possible to any one, had
already had his effect upon the Otriad. They felt behind his silence a
personality that might indeed be equal to Semyonov's own. By little
Andrey Vassilievitch they were always being assured: "Nikitin! A most
remarkable man! You may believe me. I have known him for many years. A
great friend of my poor wife's and mine...."
They did not appear to be great friends. Nikitin quite obviously
avoided the little man whenever it was possible. But then he avoided
us all.
Upon a lovely afternoon Nikitin and I were alone in the wild little
garden, he lying full length on the grass, I reading a very ancient
English newspaper, with my back against a tree.
He looked up at me with a swift penetrating glance, as though he were
seeing me for the first time and would wish at once to weigh my
character and abilities.
"Your Englishman," he said. "He's not happy, I'm afraid."
"No," I said, feeling the surprise of his question--it had become
almost a tradition with me that he never spoke unless he were first
spoken to. "He feels strange and a little lonely, perhaps ... it's
natural enough!"
"Yes," repeated Nikitin, "it's natural enough. What did he come for?"
"Oh, he'll be all right," I said hastily, "in a day or two."
Nikitin lay on his back looking at the green, layer upon layer, light
and dark, with golden fragments of broken light leaping in the breeze
from branch to branch. "Why did he come? What did he expect to see? I
know what he expected to see--romantic Russia, romantic war. He
expected to find us, our hearts exploding with love, God's smile on
our simple faces, God's simple faith in our souls.... He has been told
by his cleverest writers that Russia is the last stronghold of God.
And war? He thought that he would be plunged into a scene of smoke and
flame, shrapnel, horror upon horror, danger upon danger. He finds
instead a country house, meals long and large, no sounds of cannon,
not even an aeroplane. Are we kind to him? Not at all.... We are not
unkind but we simply have other things to think about, and because we
are primitive people we do what we want to do, feel what we want to
feel, and show quite frankly our feelings. He is not what we expected,
so that we prefer to fill our minds with things that do not give us
trouble. Later, like all Englishmen, he will dismiss us as savages,
or, if he is of the intellectual kind, he will talk about our
confusing subtleties and contradictions. But we are neither savages
nor confusing. We have simply a skin less than you.... We are a very
young people, a real and genuine Democracy, and we care for quite
simple things, women, food, sleep, money, quite simply and without
restraint. We show our eagerness, our disgust, our disappointment, our
amusement simply as the mood moves us. In Moscow they eat all day and
are not ashamed. Why should they be? In Kiev they think always about
women and do not pretend otherwise ... and so on. We have, of course,
no sense of time, nor method, nor system. If we were to think of these
things we would be compelled to use restraint and that would bother
us. We may lose the most important treasure in the world by not
keeping an appointment ... on the other hand we have kept our freedom.
We care for ideas for which you care nothing in England but we have a
sure suspicion of all conclusions. We are pessimists, one and all.
Life cannot be good. We ironically survey those who think that it
can.... We give way always to life but when things are at their worst
then we are relieved and even happy. Here at any rate we are on safe
ground. We have much sentiment, but it may, at any moment, give way to
some other emotion. We are therefore never to be relied upon, as
friends, as enemies, as anything you please. Except this--that in the
heart of every Russian there is a passionate love of goodness. We are
tolerant to all evil, to all weakness because we ourselves are weak.
We confess our weakness to any one because that permits us to indulge
in it--but when we see in another goodness, strength, virtue, we
worship it. You may bind us to you with bands of iron by your
virtues--never, as all foreigners think, by your vices. In this, too,
we are sentimentalists. We may not believe in God but we have an
intense curiosity about Him--a curiosity that with many of us never
leaves us alone, compels us to fill our lives, to fill our lives....
We love Russia.... But that is another thing.... Never forget too that
behind every Russian's simplicity there is always his Ideal--his
secret Ideal, perhaps, that he keeps like an ikon sacred in his heart.
Yes, of every Russian, even of the worst of us, that is true. And it
complicates our lives, delivers us to our enemies, defeats all our
worldly aims, renders us helpless at the moment when we should be most
strong. But it is good, before God, that it should be so...."
He suddenly sprang up and stood before me. "To-morrow I shall think
otherwise--and yet this is part of the truth that I have told you....
And your Englishman? I like him ... I like him. That girl will treat
him badly, of course. How can she do otherwise? He sees her like
Turgenev's Liza. Well, she is not that. No girl in Russia to-day is
like Turgenev's Liza. And it's a good thing." He smiled--that strange,
happy, confident mysterious smile that I had seen first on the
Petrograd platform. Then he turned and walked slowly towards the
house.
What Nikitin had said about Trenchard's expectation of "romantic war"
was perhaps true, in different degrees, of all of us. Even I, in spite
of my earlier experience, felt some irritation at this delay, and to
those of us who had arrived flaming with energy, bravery, resolution
to make their name before Europe, this feasting in a country garden
seemed a deliberate insult. Was this "romantic war?" These long meals
under the trees, deep sleeps in the afternoon when the pigeons cooed
round the little red bell-tower and the pump creaked in the cobbled
courtyard and the bees hummed in the garden? Bees, cold water shining
deep in the well, and the samovar chuckling behind the flower-beds,
and fifteen versts away the Austrians challenging the Russian
nation!... "You know," Andrey Vassilievitch said to me, "it's very
disheartening."
Marie Ivanovna at the end of the first week spoke her mind. I found
her one evening before supper leaning over the fence, gazing across
the long flat field, pale gold in the dusk with the hills like grey
clouds beyond it.
"They tell me," she said, turning to me, "that we may be another
fortnight like this."
"Yes," I said, "it's quite possible, or even longer. We can't provide
wounded and battles for you if there aren't any."
"But there are!" she cried. "Isn't the whole of Europe fighting and
isn't it simply disgusting of us to be sitting down here, eating and
sleeping, just as though we were in a _dacha_ in the country? At least
in the hospital in Petrograd I was working ... here...."
"We've got to stick to our Division," I answered. "They can't have it
in reserve very long. When it goes, we'll go. The whole secret of
leading this life out here is taking exactly what comes as completely
as you can take it. If it's a time for sleeping and eating, sleep and
eat--there'll be days enough when you'll get nothing of either."
She laughed then, swinging round to me, with the dusk round her white
nurse's cap and her eyes dark with her desires and hopes and
disappointments.
"Oh, I've no right to be discontented.... Every one is so good to me.
I love them all--even you, Mr. Durward. But I want to begin, to
begin, to begin! I want to see what it's like, to find what there is
there that frightens them, or makes them happy. We had a young officer
in our hospital who died. He was too ill ... he could tell us nothing,
but he was so excited by something ... something he was in the middle
of.... Who was it? What was it? I _must_ be there, hunt it out, find
that I'm strong enough not to be afraid of _anything_." She suddenly
dropped her voice, changing with sharp abruptness. "And John? He's not
happy here, is he?"
"You should know," I answered, "better than any of us."
"Why should I know?" she replied, flaming out at me. "You always blame
me about him, but you are unfair. I want him to be happy--I would make
him so if I could. But he's so strange, so different from his time at
the hospital. He will scarcely speak to me or to any one. Why can't he
be agreeable to every one? I want them to like him but how can they
when he won't talk to them and runs away if they come near him? He's
disappointed perhaps at its being so quiet here. It isn't what he
expected to find it, but then isn't that the same for all of us? And
_we_ don't sulk all day. He's disappointed with _me_ perhaps but he
won't tell me what he wants. If I ask him he only says 'Oh, it's all
r-right--it's all r-right'--I hate that 'all r-right' of your
language--so stupid! What a purpose not to say if he wants something?"
I said nothing. My silence urged her to a warmer defence.
"And then he makes such mistakes--always everything wrong that he's
asked to do. Doctor Semyonov laughs at him--but of course! He's like a
little boy, a man as old as he is. And Englishmen are always so
practical, capable. Oh! speak to him, Mr. Durward; you can, please. If
_I_ say anything he's at once so miserable.... I don't understand, I
don't understand!" she cried, raising her hands with a little
despairing gesture. "How can he have been like that in Petrograd, and
now like this!"
"Give him time, Marie Ivanovna," I answered her. "This is all new to
him, confusing, alarming. He's led a very quiet life. He's very
sensitive. He cares for you so deeply that the slightest thing wounds
him. He would hide that if he could--it's his tragedy that he can't."
She would have answered had not supper arrived and with it our whole
company. Shall I ever know a more beautiful night? As we sat there the
moon came up, red-gold and full; the stars were clustered so thickly
between the trees that their light lay heavy like smoke upon the air.
The little garden seemed to be never still as our candlelight blew in
the breeze; so it hovered and trembled about us, the trees bending
beneath their precious load of stars, shuddering in their happiness at
so good an evening.
We sat there as though we had known that it was to be our last night
of peace.... Many times the glasses of tea were filled, many times the
little blue tin boxes of sweets were pushed up and down the table,
many times the china teapot on the top of the samovar was fed with
fresh tea, many times spoons were dipped into the strawberry jam and
then plunged into the glasses of tea, such being the Russian pleasure.
There occurred then an unfortunate incident. Some one had said
something about England: there had been a joke then about "sportsmen,"
some allusion was made to some old story connected with myself, and I
had laughingly taken up the challenge. Suddenly Semyonov leaned across
the table and spoke to Trenchard. Trenchard, who had been silent
throughout the meal, misunderstood the Russian, thought that Semyonov
was trying to insult him, and sat there colouring, flaming at last,
silent. We all of us felt the awkwardness of it. There was a general
pause--Semyonov himself drew back with a little laugh.
Suddenly Marie Ivanovna, across the table, in English said softly but
with a strange eager hostility:
"How absurd!... To let them all see ... to let them know...." Perhaps
I, who was sitting next to her, alone heard her words.
The colour left Trenchard's face; he looked at her once, then got up
and left the table. I could see then that she was distressed, but she
talked, laughed more eagerly, more enthusiastically than before.
Sometimes I saw her look towards the school-house.
When there came an opportunity I rose and went to find him. He was
standing near his bed, his back to the door, his hands clenched.
"I say, come out again--just as though nothing had happened. No one
noticed anything, only I...."
He turned to me, his face working and with a passionate gesture, in a
voice that choked over the words, he cried: "She should not have said
it. She should not ... every one there.... She knew how it would wound
me.... Semyonov...."
He positively was silent over that name. The mild expression of his
eyes, the clumsy kindness of his mouth gave a ludicrous expression to
his rage.
"Wait! Wait!" I cried. "Be patient!"
As I spoke I could hear him in the railway carriage:
"I am mad with happiness.... God forgive me, my heart will break."
Breaking from me, despair in his voice, he whispered to the empty
room, the desolate row of white beds watching him: "I always knew
that I was hopeless ... hopeless ... hopeless."
"Look here," I said. "You mustn't take things so hard. You go up and
down.... Your emotions...."
But he only shook his head:
"She shouldn't have said it--like that--before every one," he
repeated.
I left him. Afterwards as I stood in the passage, white and ghostly in
the moonlight, something suddenly told me that this night the prologue
of our drama was concluded.
I waited on the steps of the house, heard the laughing voices in the
distance, while over the rest of the world there was absolute silence;
then abruptly, quite sharply, across the long low fields there came
the rumble of cannon. Three times it sounded. Then hearing no more I
returned into the house.