Part 7 (1/2)

I had known in my earlier experience at the war the troubles that inevitably rise from inaction; the little personal inconveniences, the tyrannies of habits and manners and appearances, when you've got nothing to do but sit and watch your immediate neighbour. But on that earlier occasion our army had been successful; it seemed that the war would soon find its conclusion in the collapse of Germany, and good news from Europe smiled upon us every morning at breakfast. Now we were tired and over-wrought. Good news there was none--indeed every day brought disastrous tidings. We, ourselves, must look back upon a hundred versts of fair smiling country that we had conquered with the sacrifice of many thousands of lives and surrendered without the giving of a blow. And always the force that compelled us to this was sinister and ironical by its invisibility.

It was the Russian temperament to declare exactly what it felt, to give free rein to its moods and dislikes and discomforts. The weather was beginning to be fiercely hot, there were many rumours of cholera and typhus--we, all of us, lost colour and appet.i.te, slept badly and suffered from sudden headaches.

Three days after our arrival at Mittovo we had all discovered private hostilities and resentments. I was as bad as any one. I could not endure the revolutionary student, Ivan Mihailovitch. I thought him most uncleanly in his habits, and I was compelled to sleep in the same room with him. Certainly it was true that was.h.i.+ng was not one of the most important things in the world to him. In the morning he would lurch out of bed, put on a soiled s.h.i.+rt and trousers, dab his face with a decrepit sponge, take a tiny piece of soap from an old tin box, look at it, rub it on his fingers and put it hurriedly away again as though he were ashamed of it. Sometimes, getting out of bed, he would cry: ”Have you heard the latest scandal? About the ammunition in the Tenth Army! They say--” and then he would forget his was.h.i.+ng altogether. He did not shave his head, as most of us had done, but allowed his hair to grow very long, and this, of course, was often a subject of irritation to him. He had also a habit of sitting on his bed in his nightclothes, yawning and scratching his body all over, very slowly, with his long (and I'm afraid dirty) finger-nails, for the s.p.a.ce, perhaps, of a quarter of an hour. This I found difficult to endure. His long white face was always a dirty shade of grey and his jacket was stained with reminiscences of his meals. His habits at table were terrible; he was always so deeply interested in what he was saying that he had not time to close his mouth whilst he was eating, to ask people to pa.s.s him food (he stretched his long dirty hand across the table) or to pa.s.s food to others. He shouted a great deal and was in a furious pa.s.sion every five minutes. I also just at this time found the boy Goga tiresome; the boy had not been taught by his parents the duty that children owe to their elders and I am inclined to believe that this duty is almost universally untaught in Russia. To Goga a General was as nothing, he would contradict our old white-haired General T----, when he came to dine with us, would patronise the Colonel and a.s.sure the General's aide-de-camp that he knew better. He would advance his father as a perpetual and faithful witness to the truth of his statements. ”You may say what you like,” he would cry to myself or a Sister, ”but my father knows better than you do. He has the front seat in the Moscow Opera all through the season and has been to England three times.” Goga also had been once to England for a week (spent entirely on the Brighton Pier) and he told me many things. He would forget, for a moment, that I was an Englishman and would a.s.sure me that he knew better than I did. He was a being with the best heart in the world, but his parents loved him so much that they had neglected his education.

These things may seem trifling enough, but they had, nevertheless, their importance. Among the Sisters, Sister K---- was the unpopular one. I myself must honestly confess that she was a woman ill-suited to company less worthy than herself. She had an upright virtuous character but she was narrow (a rare fault in a Russian), superst.i.tious, dogmatically religious, and entirely without tact. She quite honestly thought us a poor lot and would say to me: ”I hope, Mr. Durward, you don't judge Russia by the specimens you find here,” and was, of course, always overheard. She was a strict moralist, but was also generous with all the warmth of Russian generosity in money matters. She was a marvellous hard worker, quite fearless, accurate, and punctual in all things. She fought incessant battles with Anna Petrovna who hated her as warmly as it was in her quiet, unruffled heart to hate any one. The only thing stranger than the fierceness of their quarrels was the suddenness of their conclusion. I remember that at dinner one day they fought a battle over the question of a clean towel with a heat and vigour that was Homeric. A quarter of an hour later I found them quietly talking together. Anna Petrovna was showing Sister K---- a large and hideous photograph of her children.

”How sympathetic! How beautiful!” said Sister K----.

”But I thought you hated her?” I said afterwards in confusion to Anna Petrovna.

”She was very sympathetic about my children,” said Anna Petrovna placidly.

Then, of course, Sister Sofia Antonovna, the sister with the red eyes, made trouble when she could. She was, as I discovered afterwards, a bitterly disappointed woman, having been deserted by her fiance only a week before her marriage. That had happened three years ago and she still loved him, so that she had her excuse for her view of the world. My friends seemed to me, during those first weeks at Mittovo, simply a company of good-hearted, ill-disciplined children. I had gone directly back to my days in the nursery. Restraint of any kind there was none, discipline as to time or emotions was undreamed of, and with it all a vitality, a warmth of heart, a sincerity and honesty that made that Otriad, perhaps, the most lovable company I have ever known. Russians are fond of sneering at themselves; for him who declares that he likes Russia and Russians they have either polite disbelief or gentle contempt. In England we have qualities of endurance, of reliability, of solidity, to which, often enough, I long to return--but that warmth of heart that I have known here for two long years, a warmth that means love for the neglected, for the defeated, for the helpless, a warmth that lights a fire on every hearth in every house in Russia--that is a greater thing than the possessors of it know.

Through all the little quarrels and disputes of our company there ran the thread of the affair of Trenchard, Marie Ivanovna and Semyonov. Trenchard was lighted now with the pleasure of their affection, and Marie Ivanovna, who had been at first so popular amongst them, was held to be hard and capricious. She, at least, did not make it easy for them to like her. She had seemed in those first days in O---- as though she wished to win all their hearts, but now it was as though she had not time to consider any of us, as though she had something of far greater importance to claim her attention. She was now very continually with Semyonov and yet it seemed to me that it was rather respect for his opinion and admiration of his independence than liking that compelled her. He was, beyond any question, in love with her, if the name of love can be given to the fierce, intolerant pa.s.sion that governed him.

He made no attempt to disguise his feelings, was as rude to the rest of us as he pleased, and, of course, flung his scorn plentifully over Trenchard. But now I seemed to detect in him some shades of restlessness and anxiety that I had never seen in him before. He was not sure of her; he did not, I believe, understand her any more than did the rest of us. With justice, indeed, I was afraid for her. His pa.s.sion, I thought, was as surely and as nakedly a physical one as any other that I had seen precede it, and would as certainly pa.s.s as all purely physical pa.s.sions do. She was as ignorant of the world as on the day when she arrived amongst us; but my feeling about her was that she would receive his love almost as though in a dream, her thoughts fixed on something far from him and in no way depending on him. At any rate she was with him now continually. We judged her proud and hard-hearted, all of us except Trenchard who loved her, Semyonov who wanted her, and Nikitin, who, as I now believe, even then understood her.

Trenchard meanwhile was confused and unsettled: inaction did not suit him any better than it did the rest of us. He had too much time to think about Marie Ivanovna.

He was undoubtedly pleased at his new popularity. He expanded under it and became something of the loquacious and uncalculating person that he had shown himself during his confession to me in the train. To the Russians his loquacity was in no way strange or unpleasant. They were in the habit of unburdening themselves, their hopes, their disappointments, their joys, their tragedies, to the first strangers whom they met. It seemed quite natural to them that Trenchard, puffing his rebellious pipe, should talk to them about Glebes.h.i.+re, Polchester, Rafiel, Millie and Katherine Trenchard.

”I'd like you to meet Katherine, Anna Petrovna,” he would say. ”You would find her delightful. She's married now to a young man she ran away with, which surprised every one--her running away, I mean, because she was always considered such a serious character.”

”I forget whether you've seen my children, 'Mr.'” Anna Petrovna would reply. ”I must show you their photograph.”

And she would produce the large and hideous picture.

He was the same as in those first days, and yet how immensely not the same. He bore himself now with a chivalrous tact towards Marie Ivanovna that was beyond all praise. He always cherished in his heart his memory of their little conversation in the orchard. ”How I wish,” he told me, ”that I had made that conversation longer. It was so very short and I might so easily have lengthened it. There were so many things afterwards that I might have said--and she never gave me another chance.”

She never did--she kept him from her. Kind to him, perhaps, but never allowing him another moment's intimacy. He had almost the air, it seemed to me, of patiently waiting for the moment when she should need him, the air too of a man who was sure, in his heart, that that moment would come.

And the other thing that stiffened him was his hatred for Semyonov. Hatred may seem too fierce a word for the emotion of any one as mild and gentle as Trenchard--and yet hatred at this time it was. He seemed no longer afraid of Semyonov and there was something about him now which surprised the other man. Through all those first days at Mittovo, when we seemed for a moment almost to have slipped out of the war and to be leading the smaller more quarrelsome life of earlier days, Trenchard was occupied with only one question--”What was he feeling about Semyonov?”--”I felt as though I could stand anything if only she didn't love him. Since that awful night of the Retreat I had resigned myself to losing her; any one should marry her who would make her happy--but he--never! But it was the indecision that I could not bear. I didn't know--I couldn't tell, what she felt.”

The indecision was not to last much longer. One evening, when we had been at Mittovo about a week, he was at the Cross watching the sun, like a crimson flower, sink behind the dim grey forest. The Nestor, in the evening mist, was a golden shadow under the hill. This beauty made him melancholy. He was wis.h.i.+ng pa.s.sionately, as he stood there, for work, hard, dangerous, gripping work. He did not know that that was to be the last idle minute of his life. Hearing a step on the path he turned round to find Semyonov at his side.

”Lovely view, isn't it?” said Semyonov, watching him.

”Lovely,” answered Trenchard.

Semyonov sat down on the little stone seat beneath the Cross and looked up at his rival. Trenchard looked down at him, hating his square, stolid composure, his thick thighs, his fair beard, his ironical eyes. ”You're a beastly man!” he thought.

”How long are you going to be with us, do you think?” asked Semyonov.

”Don't know--depends on so many things.”

”Why don't you go back to England? They want soldiers.”

”Wouldn't pa.s.s my eyesight.”

”When are they going to begin doing something on the other Front, do you think?”

”When they're ready, I suppose.”

”They're very slow. Where's all your army we heard so much about?”

”There's a big army going to be ready soon.”

”Yes, but we were told things would begin in May. It's only the Germans who've begun.”

”I don't know; I've seen no English papers for some weeks.”

There was a pause. Semyonov smiled, stood up, looked into Trenchard's eyes.

”I must go to England,” he said slowly, ”after the war. Marie Ivanovna and I will go, I hope, together. She told me to-day that that is one of the things that she hopes we will do together--later on.”

Trenchard returned Semyonov's gaze. After a moment he said: ”Yes--you would enjoy it.” He waited, then added: ”I must be walking back now. I'm late!” And he turned away to the house.

CHAPTER VII.

ONE NIGHT.

Marie Ivanovna herself spoke to me of Semyonov. She found me alone waiting for my morning tea. We were before the others, and could hear, in the next room, Molozov splas.h.i.+ng water about the floor and crying to Michail, his servant, to pour ”Yestsho! Yestsho!” ”Yestsho! Yestsho!”--”Still more! Still more,” over his head.

She stood in the doorway looking as though she hated my presence.

”The others have not arrived,” I said. ”It's late to-day.”

”I can see,” she answered. ”Every one is idle now.”

Then her voice changed. She came across to me. We talked of unimportant things for a while. Then she said: ”I'm very happy, Mr. Durward.... Be kind about it. Alexei Petrovitch and I....” She hesitated.

I looked at her and saw that she was again the young and helpless girl whom I had not seen since that early morning before our first battle. I said, very lamely, ”If you are happy, Marie Ivanovna, I am glad.”

”You think it terrible of me,” she said swiftly. ”And why do you all talk of being happy? What does that matter? But I can trust him. He's strong and afraid of nothing.”

I could say nothing.

”Of course you think me very bad--that I have treated --John--shamefully--yes?... I will not defend myself to you. What is there to defend? John and I could never have lived together, never. You yourself must see that.”

”It does not matter what I think,” I answered. ”I am Trenchard's friend, and he has no knowledge of life nor human nature. He has made a bad start. You must forgive me if I think more of him than of you, Marie Ivanovna.”

”Yes,” she said fiercely. ”It is John--John--John, you all think of. But John would not have loved me if he knew me as I truly am. And now, at last, I can be myself. It does not matter to Alexei Petrovitch what I am.”

”But you have known him so short a time--and you have been so quick. If you had waited....”