CHAPTER IV
NIKITIN
But this is not my story. If I have hitherto taken the chief place itis because, in some degree, the impressions of Trenchard, MarieIvanovna, Andrey Vassilievitch must, during those first days, have runwith my own. We had all been brought to the same point--that lastvision from the hill of the battle of S---- and from that day we wereno longer apprentices.
I now then retire. What happened to myself during the succeedingmonths is of no matter. But two warnings may be offered. The first isthat it must not be supposed that the experiences of myself, ofTrenchard, of Nikitin in this business found their parallel in anyother single human being alive. It would be quite possible to selectevery individual member of our Otriad and to prove from their casethat the effect of war upon the human soul--whether Russian orEnglish--was thus and thus. A study, for example, might be made ofAnna Petrovna to show that the effect of war is simply nothing at all,that any one who pretends to extract cases and contrasts from thecontact of war with the soul is simply peddling in melodrama. AnnaPetrovna herself would certainly have been of that opinion. Or onemight select Sister K---- and prove from her case that the effect ofwar was to display the earthly failings and wickedness of mankind,that it was a punishment hurled by an irate God upon an unrepentantpeople and that any one who saw beauty or courage in such a businesswas a sham sentimentalist. Sister K---- would take a gloomy joy insuch a denunciation. Or if one selected the boy Goga it would besimply to state that war was an immensely jolly business, in which onestood the chance of winning the Georgian medal and thus triumphingover one's schoolfellows, in which people were certainly killed but"it couldn't happen to oneself"; meals were plentiful, there werehorses to ride, one was spoken to pleasantly by captains and evengenerals. Moreover one wore a uniform.
Or if Molozov, our chief, were questioned he would most certainly saythat war, as he saw it, was mainly a business of diplomacy, a businessof keeping the people around one in good temper, the soldiers in goodorder, the generals and their staffs in good appetite, the other RedCross organisations in good self-conceit, and himself in good health.All these things he did most admirably and he had, moreover, a heartthat felt as deeply for Russia as any heart in the world; but see thematter psychologically or even dramatically he would not. He had hisown "nerves" and on occasion he displayed them, but war was for him,entirely, a thing of training opposed to training, strategy opposed tostrategy, method and system opposed to method and system. For ourdoctors again, war was half an affair of blood and bones, half anaffair of longing for home and children. The army doctors contemplatedour voluntary efforts with a certain irony. What could we understandof war when we might, if we pleased, return home at any moment? Why,it was simply a picnic to us.... No, they saw in it no drama whatever.
Nevertheless how are we to be assured that these others, AnnaPetrovna, Sister K----, Goga, the Doctors had not their own secretview? The subject here is simply the attitude of certain privatepersons with whom I was allowed some intimacy ... for the rest one hasno right to speak.
There comes then the second difficulty, namely: that of Nikitin,Andrey Vassilievitch, Semyonov and Marie Ivanovna one can only presenta foreign point of view. Of Nikitin and Andrey Vassilievitch, atleast, I was the friend, but however deeply a Russian admits anEnglishman into friendship he can, to the very last, puzzle, confuse,utterly surprise him. The Russian character seems, superficially, withits lack of restraint, its idealism, its impracticality, itsmysticism, its material simplicities, to be so readily grasped thatthe surprise that finally remains is the more dumbfounding. Perhapsafter all it is the very closeness of our resemblance the one to theother that confuses us. It is, perhaps, that in the Russians' soul theEast can never be reconciled to the West. It is perhaps that theRussian never reveals his secret ideal even to himself; far distant isit then from his friend. It may be that towards other men the Russianis indifferent and towards women his relation is so completely sexualthat his true character is hidden from her. Whatever it be thatsurprise remains. For to those whom Russia and her people draw backagain and again, however sternly they may resist, this sure truthstands: that here there is a mystery, a mystery that may never bediscovered. In the very soul of Russia the mystery is stirring; herethe restlessness, the eagerness, the disappointment, the vision of thepursuit is working; and some who are outside her gates she has drawninto that same search.
I am not sure whether I may speak of Nikitin as my friend. I believethat no one in our Otriad save Trenchard could make, with truth, thisclaim. But for his own reasons or, perhaps, for no reason at all, hechose me on two occasions as his confidant, and of these twooccasions I can recall every detail.
We returned that night from S---- to find that the whole Otriad hadsettled in the village of M----, where I myself had been the nightbefore. We were all living in an empty deserted farmhouse, with ayard, a big orchard, wide barns and a wild overrun garden. We were, Ithink, a little disappointed at the very languid interest that thehistory of our adventures roused, but the truth was that the woundedhad begun to arrive in great numbers and there was no time fortravellers' stories.
A dream, I know, yesterday's experiences seemed to me as I settleddown to the business that had filled so much of my earlier period atthe war. Here, with the wounded, I was at home--the bare little room,the table with the bottles and bandages and scissors, the basins anddishes, the air ever thicker and thicker with that smell of driedblood, unwashed bodies, and iodine that is like no other smell in theworld. The room would be crowded, the sanitars supporting legs andarms and heads, nurses dashing to the table for bandages or iodine orscissors, three or four stretchers occupying the floor of the roomwith the soldiers who were too severely wounded to sit or stand, thesesoldiers often utterly quiet, dying perhaps, or watching with eyesthat realised only dreams and shadows, the little window square, thestrip of sky, the changing colours of the day; then the sittingsoldiers, on ordinary of a marvellous and most simple patience,watching the bandaging of their arms and hands and legs, whisperingsometimes "_Boje moi! Boje moi!_" dragging themselves up from theirdesperate struggle for endurance to answer the sanitars who askedtheir name, their regiments, the nature of their wounds. Sometimesthey would talk, telling how the thing had happened to them:
"And there, your Honour, before I could move, she had come--such anoise--eh, eh, a terrible thing--I called out '_Zemliac_. Here it is!'I said, and he...."
But as a rule they were very quiet, starting perhaps at the sting ofthe iodine, asking for a bandage to be tighter or not so tight,sometimes suddenly slipping in a faint to the ground, and thenapologising afterwards. And in their eyes always that look as though,very shortly, they would hear some story so marvellous that it wouldcompensate for all their present pain and distress. There would be thedoctors, generally two at a time--Semyonov, unmoved, rough apparentlyin his handling of the men but always accomplishing his work withmarvellous efficiency, abusing the nurses and sanitars withouthesitation if they did not do as he wished, but never raising his softironic voice, his square body of a solidity and composure that nothingcould ruffle, his fair beard, his blue eyes, his spotless linen allsharing in his self-assured superiority to us all; one of the Divisiondoctors, Alexei Ivanovitch, a man from Little Russia, beloved of usall, whether in the Otriad or the army, a character possessing itseemed none of the Russian moods and sensibilities, of the kindestheart but no sentimentality, utterly free from self-praise,self-interest, self-assertion, humorous, loving passionately hiscountry and, with all his Russian romance and even mysticism, packedwith practical common sense; another Division doctor, a young man,carving for himself a practice out of Moscow merchants, crammed withall the latest inventions and discoveries, caring for nothing save hisown career and frankly saying so, but a lively optimist whose beliefin his own powers was quite refreshing in its sincerity.
In such a place and under such conditions Semyonov had at the earlierperiod been master of us all. The effect of his personality was suchthat we had,
every one of us, believed him invincible. The veryfrankness of his estimate of the world and ourselves as the mostworthless and incompetent bundle of rubbish, caused us to yieldcompletely to him. We believed that he rated himself but little higherthan the rest of us. He _was_ superior but only because he saw soclearly with eyes purged of sentiment and credulity. We, poorcreatures, had still our moments of faith and confidence. I had neverliked him and during these last days had positively hated him. I didnot doubt that he was making the frankest love to Marie Ivanovna and Ithought he was influencing her.... Trenchard was my friend, and whatan infant indeed he seemed against Semyonov's scornful challenge!
But now, behold, Semyonov had his rival! If Semyonov cared nothing forany of us, Nikitin, it was plain enough, cared nothing for Semyonov.From the very first the two men had been opponents. It seemed asthough Nikitin's great stature and fine air, as of a king travellingin disguise from some foreign country, made him the only man in theworld to put out Semyonov's sinister blaze. Nikitin was an idealist, amystic, a dreamer--everything that Semyonov was not. It is true thatif we mattered nothing at all to Semyonov, we also mattered nothing atall to Nikitin, but for Nikitin there were dreams, visions, memoriesand hopes. We were contented to be banished from his attention when wewere aware that happier objects detained him. We might envy him, wecould not dislike him.
Semyonov never sneered at Nikitin. From the first he left himabsolutely alone. The two men simply avoided one another in so far aswas possible in a company so closely confined as ours. From the firstthey treated one another with a high and almost extravagantpoliteness. As Nikitin spoke but seldom, there was little opportunityfor the manifestation of what Semyonov must have considered "hischildishly romantic mind," and Nikitin, on his side, made on no singleoccasion a reply to the challenge of Semyonov's caustic cynicism.
But if Nikitin was an idealist he was also, as was quite evident, adoctor of absolutely first-rate ability and efficiency. I was presentat the first operation that he conducted with us--an easy amputation.Semyonov was assisting and I know that he watched eagerly for someslip or hesitation. It was an operation that any medical student mighthave conducted with success, but the first incision of the knifeshowed Nikitin a surgeon of genius. Semyonov recognised it.... Ifancied that from that moment I could detect in his attitude toNikitin a puzzled wonder that such an artist could be at the same timesuch a fool.
I began to feel in Nikitin a very lively interest. I had from thefirst been conscious of his presence, his distinction, his attitude ofpatient expectation and continuously happy reminiscence; but I feltnow for the first time a closer, more personal interest. From thefirst, as I have said on an earlier page, his relationship to AndreyVassilievitch had puzzled me. If Nikitin were not of the common raceof men, most assuredly was Andrey Vassilievitch of the most ordinaryin the world. He was a little man of a type in no way distinctivelyRussian--a type very common in England, in America, in France, inGermany. He was, one would have said, of the world worldly, a man who,with a sharp business brain, had acquired for himself houses, lands,food, servants, acquaintances. Upon these achievements he would pridehimself, having worked with his own hand to his own advantage, havingbeaten other men who had started the race from the same mark ashimself. He would be a man of a kindly disposition, hospitable,generous at times when needs were put plainly before him, but yet oflittle imagination, conventional in all his standards, readilyinfluenced outside his business by any chance acquaintance, butnevertheless having his eye on worldly advantage and progress; hewould be timid of soul, playing always for safety, taking the easiestway with all emotion, treading always the known road, accepting day byday the creed that was given to him; he would be, outside his brain,of a poor intelligence, accepting the things of art on the standard ofpopular applause, talking with a stupid garrulity about matters ofwhich he had no first-hand knowledge--proud of his position as a manof the world, wise in the character and moods of men of which, inreality, he knew nothing. Had he been an Englishman or a German, thiswould have been all and yet, because he was a Russian, this was noteven the beginning of the matter.
I had, as I have already said, in earlier days known him onlyslightly. I had once stayed for three days in his country-house and itwas here that I had met his wife. Russian houses are open to all theworld and, with such a man as Andrey Vassilievitch, through the doorscrowds of men and women are always coming and going, treating theirhost like the platform of a railway station, eating his meals,sleeping on his beds, making rendezvous with their friends, and yetalmost, on their departure, forgetting his very name.
My visit had been of a date now some five years old. I can onlyremember that his wife did not make any very definite impression uponme, a little quiet woman, of a short figure, with kind, rather sleepyeyes, a soft voice, and the air of one who knows her housewifelybusiness to perfection and has joy in her knowledge. "Notinteresting," I would have judged her, but I had during my stay nopersonal talk with her. It was only after my visit that I was toldthat this quiet woman was the passion of Andrey Vassilievitch's life.He had been over thirty when he had married her; she had been marriedbefore, had been treated, I was informed, with great brutality by herhusband who had left her. She had then divorced him. Praise of her, Idiscovered, was universal. She was apparently a woman who created lovein others, but this by no marked virtues or cleverness; no one said ofher that she was "brilliant," "charming," "fascinating." People spokeof her as though here at least there was some one of whom they weresure, some one too who made them the characters they wished to be,some one finally who had not surrendered herself, who gave them herlove but not her whole soul, keeping always mystery enough to maintainher independence. No scandal was connected with her name. I heard ofNikitin and others as her friends, and that was all. Then, quitesuddenly, two months before the beginning of the war, she died. Theysaid that Andrey Vassilievitch was like a lost dog, wished also atfirst to talk to all who had known her, wearying her friends with hisreminiscences, his laments, his complaints--then suddenly silent,speaking to no one about her, at first burying himself in hisbusiness, then working on some committee in connexion with one of thehospitals, then, as it appeared on the impulse of a moment, departingto the war.
I had expected to find him a changed man and was, perhaps,disappointed that he should appear the same chattering feather-headedlittle character whom I had known of old. Nevertheless I knew wellenough that there was more here than I could see, and that the root ofthe matter was to be found in his connexion with Nikitin. In ourOtriad, friendships were continually springing up and dying down. Someone would confide to one that so-and-so was "wonderfully sympathetic."From the other side one would hear the same. For some days thesefriends would be undivided, would search out from the Otriad theothers who were of their mind, would lose no opportunity of declaringtheir "sympathy," would sit together at table, work together over thebandaging, unite together in the public discussions that were frequentand to a stranger's eye horribly heated. Then very soon there wouldcome a rift. How could that Russian passionate longing for justifiedidealism be realised? Once more there were faults, spots on the sun,selfishness, bad temper, narrowness, what you please. And at everyfresh disappointment would my companions be as surprised as though thesame thing had not happened to them only a fortnight ago.
"But only last week you liked him so much!"
"How could I know that he would hold such opinions? Never in my lifehave I been more surprised."
So upon these little billows sailed the stout bark of Russianidealism, rising, falling, never overwhelmed, always bravelyconfident, never seeking for calm waters, refusing them indeed fortheir very placidity.
But in the midst of these shifting fortunes there were certainalliances and relationships that never changed. Amongst these was thealliance of Nikitin and Andrey Vassilievitch. Friendship it could notbe called. Nikitin, although apparently he was kindly to the littleman, yielded him no intimacy. It seemed to us a very one-sidedbusiness, depending partly upon And
rey Vassilievitch's continualassertions that Nikitin was "his oldest friend and the closest friendof his wife," that "Nikitin was one of the most remarkable men in theworld," that "only his intimate friends could know how remarkable hewas"; partly too upon the dog-like capacity of Andrey Vassilievitch tofetch and carry for his friend, to put himself indeed to the greatestinconvenience. It was pathetic to see the flaming pleasure in theman's eyes when Nikitin permitted him to wait upon him, and howironically, upon such an occasion, would Semyonov watch them both!
In spite of Nikitin's passivity he did, I fancied, more than merelysuffer this unequal alliance. It seemed to me that there was behindhis silence some active wish that the affair should continue. I shouldspeak too strongly if I were to say that he took pleasure in the man'scompany, but he did, I believe, almost in spite of himself, secretlyencourage it. And there was, in spite of the comedy that persistentlyhovered about his figure and habits, some fine spirit in AndreyVassilievitch's championship of his hero. How he hated Semyonov! Howhe lost no single opportunity of trying to bring Nikitin forward inpublic, of proving to the world who was the greater of the two men!Something very single-hearted shone through the colour of his loyalty;nothing, I was convinced, could swerve him from his fidelity. That, atleast, was until death.
There arose then in these days of the wounded at M----a strangerelationship between myself and Nikitin. Friendship, I have said, Imay not call it. Nikitin afterwards told me it was my interest in thestudy of human character that led to his frankness--as though he hadsaid, "Here is a man who likes to play a certain game. I also enjoyit. We will play it together, but when the game is finished weseparate." Although discussions as to the characters of one or anotherof us were continuous and, to an Englishman at any rate, moststrangely public, I do not think that the Russians in our Otriad werereally interested in human psychology. One criticised or praised inorder to justify some personal disappointment or pleasure. There wasnothing that gave our company greater pleasure than to declare in fullvoice that "So-and-so was a dear, most sympathetic, a fine man."Public praise was continuous and the most honest and spontaneousaffair; if criticism sometimes followed with surprising quickness thatwas spontaneous too; all the emotions in our Otriad were spontaneousto the very extreme of spontaneity. But we were not real students ofone another; we were content to call things by their names, to callsilence silence, obstinacy obstinacy, good temper good temper, andleave it at that.
No one, I think, really considered Nikitin at all deeply. They admiredhim for his "quiet" but would have liked him better had he shared someof their frankness--and that was all.
It happened that for several days I worked in the bandaging roomdirectly under Nikitin. The work had a peculiar and reallyunanalysable fascination for me. It was perhaps the directness ofcontact that pleased me. I suppose one felt that here at any rate onewas doing immediate practical good, relieving distress and agony thatmust, by some one, be immediately relieved; and, at any rate, in thefirst days at M---- when the press of wounded was terrific (wetreated, in one day and night, nine hundred wounded soldiers) therecould be no doubt of the real demand for incessant tireless work. Butthere was in my pleasure more than this. It was as though, through thebodies of the wounded soldiers, I was helping to drive home the attackupon our enemy. By our enemy I do not mean anything as concretelycommonplace as the German nation. One scarcely considered Germany as adefinite personality. One was resolved to cripple its power becauseone believed that power to be a menace to the helpless, the innocent,the lovers of truth and beauty; but that resolve, although it neveraltered, seemed (the nearer one approached the citadel) in some way tobe farther and farther removed from the real question. Germany was ofno importance, and the ruin that Germany was wreaking was of noimportance compared with the histories of the individual souls thatwere now in the making. Here were we: Nikitin, Trenchard, SisterK----, Molozov, myself and the others--engaged upon our greatadventure. Across the surface of the world, at this same instant, outupon the same hunt, seeking the same answer to their mystery, weremillions of our fellows. Somewhere in the heart of the deep forest theenemy was hiding. We would defeat him? He would catch us unawares? Hehad some plot, some hidden surprise? What should we find when we methim?... We hated Germany, God knows, with a quiet, unresting,interminable hatred, but it was not Germany that we were fighting.
And these wounded knew something that we did not. In the first momentsof their agony when we met them their souls had not recovered from theshock of their encounter. It was, with many of them, more than themere physical pain. They were still held by some discovery at whosevery doors they had been. The discovery itself had not been made bythem, but they had been so near to it that many of them would never bethe same man again. "No, your Honour," one soldier said to me. "Itisn't my arm.... That is nothing, _Slava Bogu_ ... but life isn't soreal now. It is half gone." He would explain no more.
Since the battle of S----, I had been restless. I wanted to be backthere again and this work was to me like talking to travellers whohad come from some country that one knew and desired.
In the early morning, when the light was so cold and inhuman, when thecandles stuck in bottles on the window-sills shivered and quavered inthe little breeze, when the big basin on the floor seemed to swellever larger and larger, with its burden of bloody rags and soiledbandages and filthy fragments of dirty clothes, when the air wasweighted down with the smell of blood and human flesh, when the sighsand groans and cries kept up a perpetual undercurrent that one did notnotice and yet faltered before, when again and again bodies, tornalmost in half, faces mangled for life, hands battered into pulp, legshanging almost by a thread, rose before one, passed and rose again inendless procession, then, in those early hours, some fantastic worldwas about one. The poplar trees beyond the window, the littlebeechwood on the hill, the pond across the road, a round grey sheet ofruffled water, these things in the half-light seemed to wait for ourdefeat. One instant on our part and it seemed that all the pain andtorture would rise in a flood and overwhelm one ... in those earlymorning hours the enemy crept very close indeed. We could almost hearhis hot breath behind the bars of our fastened doors.
There was a peculiar little headache that I have felt nowhere else,before or since, that attacked one on those early mornings. It was nota headache that afflicted one with definite physical pain. It was likea cold hand pressing upon the brow, a hand that touched the eyes, thenose, the mouth, then remained, a chill weight upon the head; theblood seemed to stop in its course, one's heart beat feebly, andthings were dim before one's eyes. One was stupid and chose one'swords slowly, looking at people closely to see whether one reallyknew them, even unsure about oneself, one's history, one's future;neither hungry, tired, nor thirsty, neither sad nor joyful, neitherexcited nor dull, only with the cold hand upon one's brow, catching(with troubled breath) the beating of one's heart.
In normal times the night-duty was of course taken in rotation, butduring the pressure of these four days we had to snatch our rest whenwe might.
About midnight on the fifth day the procession of wounded suddenlyslackened, and by two o'clock in the morning had ceased entirely. Thetwo nurses went to bed leaving Nikitin, myself, and some sleepysanitars alone. The little room was empty of all wounded, they havingbeen removed to the tent on the farther side of the road. The candleshad sunk deep into the bottles and were spluttering in a sea ofgrease. The room smelt abominably, the blood on the floor had trickledin thin red lines into the cracks between the boards, and the basinswith the soiled bandages overflowed. There was absolute silence. Onesanitar, asleep, had leaned, still standing, over a chair, and hisshadow with his heavy hanging head high above the candle against thewall.
Nikitin, seeming gigantic in the failing candlelight, stood backagainst the window. He did not keep, as did Semyonov, perfectneatness. A night of work left him with his hair on end, his blackbeard rough and disordered; his shirtsleeves were turned up, his armsstained with blood, and in his white apron he looked like some
kinglybutcher. I was tired, the cold headache was upon me. I wished that Icould go, but I knew that both he and I must stay until eight o'clock.While there was work to do nothing mattered, but now in the silencethe whole world seemed as empty and foul as a drained and stinkingtub.
Nikitin looked at me.
"You're tired," he said.
"No, I'm not tired," I answered. "I shouldn't sleep if I went to bed.But I've got a headache that is not a headache, I smell a smell thatisn't a smell, I'm going to be sick--and yet I'm not going to besick."
"Come outside," he said, "and get rid of this air." We went out andsat down on a wooden bench that bordered the yard. Before us was thehigh-road that ran from the town of S---- into the very heart of theCarpathians. As the cold grey faded we could catch the thin outline ofthose mountains, faint, like pencil-lines upon the sky now washed withpink, covered in their nearer reaches by thick forests, insubstantial,although they were close at hand, like water or long clouds. We couldsee the road, white and clear at our feet, melting into shadow beyondus, and catching in the little misty pools the coloured reflection ofthe morning sky.
The air was very fresh; a cock behind me welcomed the sun; the coldband withdrew from my forehead.
Nikitin was silent and I, silent also, sat there, almost asleep, happyand tranquil. It seemed to me very natural to him that he shouldneither move nor speak, but after a time he began to talk. I had inthat early morning a strange impression, as though deep in my dreams Iwas listening to some history. I know that I did not sleep and yeteven now as I recover his quiet voice and, I believe, many of his verywords, in reminiscence those hours are still dreaming hours. I knowthat every word that he told me then was true in actual fact. And yetit seems to me that we were all slumbering, the world at our feet, thesun in the sky, the wounded in their tent, and that through the mistof all that slumber Nikitin's voice, soft, measured, itself like anecho of some other voice miles away, penetrated--but to my heartrather than to my brain. Afterwards this was all strangely parallel inmy mind with that earlier conversation that I had had with Trenchardin the train.... And now as I sit here, in so different a place,amongst men so different, those other two come back to me, happyghosts. Yes, happy I know that one at least of them is!
Like water behind glass, like music behind a screen, Nikitin's voicecomes back to me--dim but so close, mysterious but so intimate. Ah,the questions that I would ask him now if only I might have thosemorning hours over again!
"You're a solemn man altogether, Durward. Perhaps all Englishmen seemso to us, and it may be only your tranquillity, so unlike our moodsand nerves by which we kill ourselves dead before we're half waythrough life.... I had an English tutor for a year when I was a boy.He didn't teach me much: 'all right' and 'Tank you' is the onlyEnglish I've kept, but I think of him now as the very quietest man inall the universe. He never seemed to breathe, so still he was. And howI admired him for that! My father was a very excitable man, his moodsand tempers killed him when he was just over forty.... We have aproverb, 'In the still marshes there are devils,' and we admire andfear quiet men because they have something that we have not. And Ilike the way that you watch us, Durward. Your friend Trenchard doesnot watch us at all and one could be his friend. For you one has quiteanother feeling. It is as though I had something to give you that youreally want. Why should I not give it you? My giving it will do me noharm, it may even yield me pleasure. You will not throw it away. Youare an Englishman and will not for a moment's temper or passion revealsecrets. And there are no secrets. What I tell you you may tell theworld--but I warn you that it will neither interest them nor will theybelieve it.... There is, you see, no climax to my story. I have nostory, indeed; like an old feldscher in my village who hates ourvillage Pope. 'Why, Georg Georgevitch,' I say, 'do you hate him? He isa worthy man.' 'Your Honour,' he says, 'there is nothing there; a fatman, but God has the rest of him--I hate him for his emptiness.' I'min a humour to talk. I have, in a way, fulfilled the purpose that myEnglish tutor created in me. I've grown a sort of quiet skin, youknow, but under that skin the heart pounds away, the veins swell tobursting. I'm a fool behind it all--just a fool as every Russian is afool with more in hand than he knows how to deal with. You don'tunderstand Russia, do you? No, and I don't and no one does. But we canall talk about her--and love her too, if you like, although oursentiment's a bad thing in us, some say. But for us not to talk--forone of us to be silent--do you know how hard that is?... And throughit all how I despise myself for wishing to tell them! What business isit of theirs? Then this war. Can you conceive what it is doing toRussians? If you have loved Russia and dreamed for her and had yourdreams flung again and again to the ground and trampled on--and now,once more, the bubbles are in the sky, glittering, gleaming ... do wenot have to speak, do you think? Must it not be hard, when before wehave not been able to be silent about women and vodka, to be silentnow about the dearest wish of our heart? We have come out here, all ofus, to see what we will find. I have come because I want to get nearerto something--I had brought something in my heart about which I hadlearnt to be silent. 'That is enough!' I thought, 'there can benothing else about which I can wish to talk; but now, suddenly, likethat crucifix on the hillock by the road that the sun has justtouched, there is something more. And now here we are nothing ... twosouls come together out of space for an hour ... and it doesn't matterwhat I say to you, except that it's true and the truth will besomething for you. Here's what I've come to the war with ... my littlebit of possession, if you like, that I've brought with me, as we'veall brought something. Will you understand me? Perhaps not, and itreally doesn't matter. I know what I have, what I want, but not what Iam. So how should you know if I do not? And I love life, I believe inGod. I wish to meet Death. One can be serious without being absurd atan early hour like this, when nothing is real except such things....Andrey Vassilievitch and myself have puzzled you, have we not? I haveseen you watching us very seriously, as though we were figures in anovel, and that has amazed me, because you must not be solemn aboutus. You'll understand nothing about Russian life unless you laugh atit during at least half the week.
"Almost five years ago I met Andrey Vassilievitch at a friend's housein Petrograd. He was an acquaintance of mine of some years' duration,but I had avoided him because he seemed to me the last kind of manwhom I would ever care to know. I had been at this time five years inPetrograd and had now a good practice there as a surgeon. I was asuccessful man and I knew it, but I was also a disappointed manbecause my idealism, that was being for ever wounded by my ownactions, would not die. How I wished for it to die! I thought of theday when I should be without it as the day of liberation, of freedom.That had become my idea, I must tell you, the dominating idea of mylife: that I should kill my idealism, laugh at the belief in God, losefaith in every one and everything, and then simply enjoy myself--mywork which I loved and my pleasure which I should love when myidealism had died.... Sometimes during those years I thought that itwas dying. Women helped to kill it, I believed, and I knew many women,desperately persistently laughing at them, leaving them or being leftby them; and then, in spite of myself, bitterly, deeply disappointed.Something always saying to me: 'I am God and you cannot hide from me.''I am God and I will not be hidden.'
"And on this night, about five years ago, at the house of a friend, Imet Andrey Vassilievitch. We left the house together, and because itwas a fine night, walked down the Nevski. There at the corner of theMorskaia, because he was a nervous man who wished to be well withevery one in the world and because he had nothing especial to say, heasked me to dinner, and I, because it was a fine night and there hadbeen good wine, said that I would go.
"The next day I cursed my folly. I do not know to this day why I didnot break the engagement, it would have been sufficiently easy, butbreak it I did not and a week later, reluctantly, I went. Do you knowhow houses and streets of which you have observed nothing, afterwards,called out by some important event, leap into detail? That night Iswear that I saw nothing of that little
street behind the MariinskyTheatre. It was a fine 'white night' at the end of May and the theatrewas in a bustle of arrivals because it was nearly eight o'clock. Notat all the hour of Russian dinner, as you know, but AndreyVassilievitch always liked to be as English as possible. I tell youthat I saw nothing of the street and yet now I know that at the doorof the little _trakteer_ there were two men and a woman laughing, thatan _isvotchik_ was drawn up in front of a high white block of flats,asleep, his head fallen on his breast, that the wonderful light,faintly blue and misty like gauze hung down from the sky, down overthe houses, but falling not quite on to the pavement which was hardand ugly and grey. The little street was very silent and quiet andhad, like so many Petrograd streets, a decorous intimacy with theeighteenth century ghosts thronging its air....
"Afterwards, how I was to know that street, every stone and corner ofit! It seems wonderful to me now that I trod its pavement that nightso carelessly. My destination was a square little house at the corneron the right. Andrey Vassilievitch boasted a whole house to himself, arare pride in our city, as you know. When I was inside the doors Iknew at once that it was not Andrey Vassilievitch's house at all. Somestronger spirit than his was there. Knowing him, I had expected tofind there many modern things, some imitation of English manners, somebad but expensive pictures, a gramophone, a pianolo, a library ofRussian classics in our hideous modern bindings, a billiard-room--youknow the character. How quiet this little house was. In the littlesquare hall an old faded carpet, a grandfather's clock and twoeighteenth century prints of Petrograd. All the rooms were square, soRussian with their placid family portraits, their old tables andchairs, not beautiful save for their fidelity, and old thumbededitions of Pushkin and Gogol and Lermontov in the bookshelves.Clocks, old slow clocks, all telling different time, all over thehouse. The house was very neat, but in odd corners there were allthose odd family things that Russians collect, china of the worstperiod, brass trays, large candlesticks, musical boxes, anything youplease. Only in the dining-room there was some attempt at modernity.Bad modern furniture, on the walls bad copies of such things asSomoff's 'Blue Lady,' Vrubel's 'Pan' and one of Benoit's 'Peter theGreat' water-colours. Beyond this room the house was of eighty yearsago, muffled in its old furniture, speaking with the voice of its oldclocks, scented with the scent of its musk and lavender, watched bythe contented gaze of the old family portraits.
"Alexandra Pavlovna, Andrey Vassilievitch's wife, was waiting for us.Has it happened to you yet that your life that has been such and sucha life is in the moment of a heart-beat all another life? You havepassed an examination, you are suddenly ill, you break your back by afall, or more simply than all of these, you enter a town, see apicture, hear a bar of music.... The thing's done: all values changed:what you saw before you see no longer, what you needed before you needno longer, what you expected before you expect no longer.... AlexandraPavlovna was not a beautiful woman. Not tall, with hair quite grey,eyes not dark nor light--sad though. When she smiled there was greatcharm but so it is true of many women. Her complexion was always paleand her voice, although it was sweet to those who loved her, wasperhaps too quiet to be greatly remarked by strangers. I have knownmen who thought her an ordinary woman.... She had much humour but didnot show it to every one. She was as still as that cloud there abovethe hill, full of colour; like, that is, to those who loved her; seenfrom another view, as perhaps that cloud may be, there was nothingwonderful.... Nothing wonderful, but so many loved her! There wasnever, I think, a woman so greatly beloved. And you may judge by me. Ihad led a life in which after my work women had always played thechief part, and as the months passed and I had grown proud I had vowedthat women must be exceptional to please me. I had felt the eye of theworld upon me. 'You'll see no ordinary women in Victor Leontievitch'scompany' I heard them say, and I was proud that they should say it.From the first instant of seeing Alexandra Pavlovna I loved her and Iloved her in a new, an utterly new way. For the first time in my lifeI did not think of myself as a traveller who, passing for many yearsthrough countries that did not greatly interest him, feels his achesand pains, his money troubles, his discomforts and little personalirritations. Then suddenly he crosses the border and the new land sopossesses him that he is only a vessel for its beauty, to absorb it,to hold it, to carry the burden of it in safety.... I crossed theborder. For four years after that I pursued that enchanted journey.Why did I love her? Who can say? Andrey Vassilievitch adored her withan utter devotion and had done so since the first moment of meetingher. I have known many others, women and men, who felt that devotion.On that first evening we were very quiet--only another woman, a cousinof hers. After dinner I had half an hour's talk with her. I can seeher--ah! how I can see you, my dear!--sitting back a little in herchair, resting, her hands folded very quietly in her lap, her eyeswatching me gravely. I felt like a boy who has come into the world forthe first time. I could not talk to her--I stammered over the simplestthings. But I was conscious of a deep luxurious delight. I did not, asI had done before, lay plans, say that this-and-this would be so if Idid this-and-this, I did not consciously try to influence or directher. I felt no definite sensual attraction, did not say, as I hadalways done with other women, 'It is the hair, the eyes, the mouth.'If I thought at all it was only 'This is better than anything that Ihave known before; I had never dreamt of anything like this.'
"After I had left her that night I did not walk the streets, nordrink, nor find companions. I went home and slept the soundest sleepof my life. In the morning I knew tranquillity for the first time inall my days. I did not, as I had done after many earlier firstmeetings, hasten to see my friend. I did not know even that she likedme and yet I felt no doubt nor confusion. It was, perhaps, that I wasready to accept this new influence under any conditions, was ready foronce to leave the rules to another. I felt no curiosity, knew nodetermination to discover the conditions of her life that I might bendthem to my own purposes. I was quite passive, untroubled, and of amarvellous, almost selfish happiness.
"Our friendship continued very easily. It soon came to our meetingevery day. In the summer they moved to their house in Finland and Iwent to stay with them. But it was not until her return to Petrogradin September that I told her that I loved her. Upon one of the firstautumn days, upon an evening, when the little green tree outside theirdoor was gold and there was a slip of an apricot moon, when the firstfires were lighted (Andrey Vassilievitch had English fireplaces),sitting alone together in her little faded old-fashioned room, I toldher that I loved her. She listened very quietly as I talked, her eyeson my face, grave, sad perhaps, and yet humorous, secure in her ownsettled life but sharing also in the life of others. She watched merather as a mother watches her child.... I told her that it matterednothing the conditions that she put upon me; that so long as I saw herand knew that she believed me to be her friend I asked for nothing.She answered, still very quietly but putting her hand on mine, thatshe had loved me from the first moment of our meeting. That shewondered that yet once again love should have come into her life whenshe had thought that that was all finished for her. She told me thatlove had been in her life nothing but pain and distress, and then sheasked me, very simply, whether I would try to keep this thing so thatit should be happy and should endure. I said that I would obey her inanything that she should command.... There followed then the strangestlife for me. Lovers in the fullest sense we were and yet it wasdifferent from any love that I had ever known. When I ask myself why,in what, it differed I cannot answer. Two old grey middle-aged peoplewho happened to suit one another.... Not romantic.... But I think inthe end of it all the reason was that she never revealed herself to meentirely. I was always curious about her, always felt that otherpeople knew more of her than I did, always thought that one day Ishould know all. It is 'knowing all' that kills love, and I never knewall. We were always together. She was a woman of very remarkableintelligence, loving music, literature, painting, with a mostexcellently critical love. Her friendship with me gave her, I dobelieve, a new youth
and happiness. We became inseparable, and all myearlier life had passed away from me like worn-out clothes. I washappy--but of course I was not satisfied. I was jealous of that whichAndrey Vassilievitch had--and I lacked. My whole relationship toAndrey Vassilievitch was a curious one. My friendship for his wifemust I am sure have been torture to him. He knew that she had given mea great deal that she had never given to him. And yet, because heloved her so profoundly, he was only anxious that she should be happy.He saw that my friendship gave her new interests, new life even. Heencouraged me, then, in every way, to stay with them, to be with them.He left us alone continually. During the whole of that four years henever once spoke in anger to me nor challenged my fidelity. Myrelationship to him was difficult. We were, quite simply as men, theworst-suited in the world. He had not a trick nor a habit that did notget on my nerves; he was intelligent only in those things that Idespised a man for knowing. This would have been well enough had henot persisted in talking about matters of art and literature, ofwhich, of course, he knew nothing. He did it, I believe, to please hiswife and myself. I despised him for many things and yet, in my heart,I knew that he had much that I had not. He was, and is, a finer manthan I.... And, last and first of all, he possessed part of his wifethat I did not. After all, she did, in her own beautiful way, lovehim. She was a mother to him; she laughed tenderly at his foolishness,cared for him, watched over him, defended him. Me she would never needto defend. Our relationship was built rather on my defence of her.Sometimes I would wish that I were such a _durak_ as AndreyVassilievitch, that I might have her protection.... There were many,many times when I hated him--no times at all when he did not irritateme. I wished.... I wished.... I do not know what I wished. Only Ialways waited for the time when I should have all of her, when Ishould hold her against all the world. Then, after four years of thisnew life, she quite suddenly died. Again in that little house, on a'white night,' just as when I had at first met her, the purplecurtains hanging in the little street, the _isvostchik_ sleeping, theclocks in the house chattering in their haste to keep up with time....Only two months before the outbreak of the war she caught cold, for aweek suffered from pneumonia and died. At the last AndreyVassilievitch and I were alone with her. He had her hand in his buther last cry was 'Victor,' and as she died I felt as though, at last,after that long waiting, she had leapt into my arms for ever....
"After her death for many weeks, she was with me more completely thanshe had been during her lifetime. I knew that she was dead, but Ithought that I also had died. I went into Finland alone, saw no one,talked to no one, saw only her. Then quite suddenly I came to lifeagain. She withdrew from me.... Work seemed the only possible thing;but I was, during all this time, happy not miserable. She was not withme, but she was not very far away. Then Andrey Vassilievitch came backto me. He told me that he knew that she had loved me--that he hadtried to speak of her to others who had known her, but they had, noneof them, had real knowledge of her. Might he speak to me sometimesabout her?
"I found that though he irritated me more than ever I liked to talkabout her to him. As I spoke of her he scarcely was present at all andyet he had known her and loved her, and would listen for ever and everif I wished.
"When the war had lasted some months the fancy came to me that I couldget nearer to her by going into it. I might even die, which would bebest of all. I did not wish to kill myself because I felt that to be acoward's death, and in such a way I thought that I would only separatemyself from her. But in the war, perhaps, I might meet death in such away as to show him that I despised him both for myself and her. Bysuicide I would be paying him reverence.... Some such thought also hadAndrey Vassilievitch. I heard that he thought of attaching himself tosome Red Cross Otriad. I told him my plans. He said no more, butsuddenly, as you know, I found him on the platform of the Warsawstation. Afterwards he apologised to me, said that he must be near me,that he would try not to annoy me, that if sometimes he spoke of herto me he hoped that I would not mind.... And I? What do I feel? I donot know. He has some share in her that I have not. I have some sharein her that he has not, and I think that it has come to both of usthat the one of us who dies first will attain her. It seems to me nowthat she is continually with me, but I believe that this is nothing tothe knowledge I shall have of her one day. Am I right? Is AndreyVassilievitch right? Can it be that such a man--such men, I shouldsay, as either I or he--will ever be given such happiness? I do notknow. I only know that God exists--that Love is more powerful thanman--that Death can fall before us if we believe that it will--thatthe soul of man is Power and Love.... I believe in God...."
The Dark Forest Page 4
