The Dark Forest Part 10

Near the town-hall we found a company of fantastic creatures awaiting us. They were pressed together in a dense crowd as though they were afraid of some one attacking them. There were many old men, like the clowns in Shakespeare, dirty beyond belief in tattered garments, wide-brimmed hats, broad skirts and baggy trousers; old men with long tangled hair, bare bony b.r.e.a.s.t.s and s...o...b..ring chins. Many of the women seemed strong and young; their faces were on the whole cheerful--a brazen indifference to anything and everything was their att.i.tude. There were many children. Two gendarmes guarded them with rough friendly discipline. I thought that I had seen nothing more terrible at the war than the eager pitiful docility with which they moved to and fro in obedience to the gendarmes' orders. A dreadful, broken, creeping submission....

But it was their fantasy, their coloured incredible unreality that overwhelmed me. The building, black and twisted against the hard blue sky, raised its head behind us like a malicious monster. Before us this crowd, all tattered faded pieces of scarlet and yellow and blue, men with huge noses, sunken eyes, sharp chins, long skinny hands, women with hard, bright, dead faces, little children with eyes that were afraid and indifferent, hungry and mad, all this crowd swaying before us, with the cannon muttering beyond the walls, and the thin miserable thread of the funeral hymn trickling like water under our feet.... I looked from these to Semyonov and Marie Ivanovna, they in their white overalls working at the meat kitchen and the huge bread-baskets, radiant in their love, their success, their struggle, confident, both of them, this morning that they had the fire of life in their hands to do with it as they pleased.

I have not wished during the progress of this book, which is the history of the experiences of others rather than of myself, to lay any stress on my personal history, and here I would only say that any one who is burdened with a physical disease or enc.u.mbrance that will remain to the end of life must know that there are certain moments when this hindrance leaps up at him like the grinning face of a devil--despairing hideous moments they are! I have said that during our drive I had felt a confident happy partic.i.p.ation in the joy of those others who were with me ... now as we stood there feeding that company of scarecrows, a sudden horror of my own lameness, a sudden consciousness that I belonged rather to that band of miserable diseased hungry fugitives than to the two triumphant figures on the other side of me, overwhelmed and defeated me. I bent my head; I felt a shame, a degradation as though I should have crept into some shadow and hidden.... I would not mention this were it not that afterwards, in retrospect, the moment seemed to me an omen. After all, life is not always to the victorious!...

Our scarecrows wanted, horribly, their food. It was dreadful to see the anxiety with which they watched the portioning of the thick heavy hunks of black bread. They had to show Marie Ivanovna their dirty little sc.r.a.ps of paper which described the portions to which they were ent.i.tled. How their bony fingers clutched the paper afterwards as they pressed it back into their skinny bosoms! Sometimes they could not wait to return home, but would squat down on the ground and lap their soup like dogs. The day grew hotter and hotter, the world smelt of disease and dirt, waste and desolation. Marie Ivanovna's face was soft with tenderness as she watched them. Semyonov had always his eye upon her, seeing that she did not touch them, sometimes calling out sharply: "Now! Marie! ... take care! Take care!" but this morning he also seemed kind and gentle to them, leading a small girl back to her haggard bony old guardian, carrying her heavy can of soup for her, or joking with some of the old men.... "Now, uncle ... you ought to be at the war! What have they done, leaving you? So young and so vigorous! They'll take you yet!" and the old man, a toothless trembling creature, clutching his hunk of bread with shaking hands, would grin like the head of Death himself! How close to death they all seemed! How alive were my friends, strong in the sun, compa.s.sionate but also perhaps a little despising this poor gathering of wastrels.

The work went on; then at last the final sc.r.a.ps of meat and bread had been shared, the kitchen closed its oven, we took off our overalls, shook ourselves, and bade farewell to the scarecrows. The kitchen was then sent home and we moved forward with the tea boiler and two sanitars further into the forest. Our destination was a large empty house behind the trenches. From here we were to take tea in the boiler to certain regiments, tea with wine in it as preventative against cholera. It was the early afternoon now, and we moved very slowly. The heat was intense and although the trees were thick on every side of us there seemed to be no shade nor coolness, as though the leaves had been made of paper.

"This is a strange forest," I said. "Although there are trees there's no shade. It burns like a furnace."

No one replied. We pa.s.sed as though in a dream, meeting no one, hearing no sound, the light dancing and flickering on our path. I nodded on my seat. I was half asleep when we arrived at our destination. This was the accustomed white deserted house standing in a desolate tangled garden. There was no one there on our arrival. All the doors were open, the sun blazing along the dusty pa.s.sages. It was inhabited, just then, I believe, by some artillery officers, but I saw none of them. Semyonov went off to find the Colonel of the regiment to whom we were to give tea; Marie Ivanovna and I remained in one of the empty rooms, the only sound the buzzing flies. Every detail of that room will remain in my heart and brain until I die. Marie Ivanovna, looking very white and cool, with the happiness shining in her large clear eyes, sat on an old worn sofa near the window. In the gla.s.s of the window there were bullet holes, and beyond the window a piece of blazing golden garden. The room was very dirty, dust lay thick upon everything. Some one had eaten a meal there, and there was a plate, a knife, also egg-sh.e.l.ls, an empty sardine-tin, and a hunk of black bread. There was a book which I picked up, attracted by the English lettering on the faded red cover. It was a "Report on the Condition of New Mexico in 1904"--a heavy fat volume with the usual photographs of water-falls, cornfields and enormous sheep. On the walls there was only one picture, a torn supplement from some German magazine showing father returning to his family after a long absence--welcomed, of course, by child (fat and ugly), wife (fatter and uglier), and dog (a mongrel). There was the usual pile of fiction in Polish, translations I suspect of Conan Doyle and Jerome; there was a desolate palm in a corner and a chipped blue washing stand. A hideous place: the sun did not penetrate and it should have been cool, but for some reason the air was heavy and hot as though we were enclosed in a biscuit-tin.

I leaned against the table and looked at Marie Ivanovna.

"Isn't it strange?" I said, "we're only a verst or two from the Austrians and not a sound to be heard. But the gendarme told me that we must be careful here. A good many bullets flying about, I believe."

"Ah!" she said laughing. "I don't feel as though anything could touch me to-day. I never loved life before as I love it now. Is it right to be so happy at such a time as this and in such a place?... And how strange it is that through all the tragedy one can only truly see one's own little affairs, and only feel one's own little troubles and joys. That's bad ... one should be punished for that!"

I loved her at that moment; I felt bitterly, I remember, that I, because I was plain and a cripple, silent and uninteresting, would never win the love of such women. I remembered little Andrey Va.s.silievitch's words about his wife: "For me she cared as good women care for the poor." In that way for me too women would care--when they cared at all. And always, all my life, it would be like that. How unfair that everything should be given to the Semyonovs and the Nikitins of this world, everything denied to such men as Trenchard, Andrey Va.s.silievitch and I!...

But my little grumble pa.s.sed as I looked at her.

How honest and straight and true with her impulses, her enthusiasms, her rebellions and ignorances she was! Yes, I loved her and had always loved her. That was why I had cared for Trenchard, why now I was attracted by Semyonov, because, shadow of a man as I was, not man enough to be jealous, I could see with her eyes, stand beside her and share her emotion.... But G.o.d! how that day I despised myself!

"You're tired!" she said, looking at me. "Is your leg hurting you?"

"Not much," I answered.

"Sit down here beside me." She made way for me on the sofa. "Ivan Andreievitch, you will always be my friend?"

"Always," I answered.

"I believe you will. I'm a little afraid of you, but I think that I would rather have you as a friend than any one--except John. How fortunate I am! Two Englishmen for my friends! You do not change as R-russians do! You will be angry with me when you think that I am wrong, but then I can believe you. I know that you will tell me the truth."

"Perhaps," I said slowly, "Alexei Petrovitch will not wish that I should be your friend!"

"Alexei?" she said, laughing. "Oh, thank you very much, I shall choose my own friends. That will always be my affair."

I had an uneasy suspicion that perhaps she knew as little about Semyonov as she had once known about Trenchard. It might be that all her life she might never learn wisdom. I do not know that I wished her to learn it.

"No," she continued. "But you forgive me now? Forgive me for all my mistakes, for thinking that I loved John when I did not and treating him so badly. Ah! but how unhappy I was! I wished to be honourable and honest--I wished it pa.s.sionately--and I seemed only to make mistakes. And then because I was ashamed of myself I was angry with every one--at least it seemed that it was with every one, but it was really with myself."

"I did you injustice," I said. "And I did Alexei Petrovitch an injustice also. I know now that he truly and deeply loves you.... I believe that you will be very happy ... yes, it is better, much better, than that you should have married Trenchard."

Her face flushed with happiness, that strange flush of colour behind her pale cheeks, coming and going with the beats of her heart.

She continued happily, confidently: "When I was growing up I was always restless. My mother allowed me to do as I pleased and I had no one in authority over me. I was restless because I knew nothing and no one could tell me anything that seemed to me true. I would have, like other girls, sudden enthusiasms for some one who seemed strong and wonderful--and then they were never wonderful--only like every one else. I would be angry, impatient, miserable. Russian girls begin life so early.... After a time, mother began to treat me as though I was grown up. We went to Petrograd and I thought about clothes and theatres. But I never forgot--I always waited for the man or the work or the friend that was to make life real. Then suddenly the war came and I thought that I had found what I wanted. But there too there were disappointments. John was not John, the war was not the war ... and it's only to-day now that I feel as though I were r-right inside. I've been so stupid--I've made so many mistakes." She dropped her voice: "I've always been afraid, Ivan Andreievitch, that is the truth. You remember that morning before S----?"

"Yes," I said. "I remember it."

"Well, it has been often, often like that. I've been afraid of myself and--of something else--of dying. I found that I didn't want to die, that the thought of death was too horrible to me. That day of the Retreat how afraid I was! John could not protect me, no one could. And I was ashamed of myself! How ashamed, how miserable. And I was afraid because I thought of myself more than of any one else--always. I had fine ideals but--in practice--it was only that--that I always was selfish. Now, for the first time ever, I care for some one more than myself and suddenly I am afraid of death no longer. It is true, Ivan Andreievitch, I do not believe that death can separate Alexei from me; I have more reason now to wish to live than I have ever had, but now I am not afraid. Wherever I am, Alexei will come--wherever he is, I will go...."

She broke off--then laughed. "You think it silly in England to talk about such things. No English girl would, would she? In Russia we are silly if we like. But oh! how happy it is, after all these weeks, not to be afraid--not to wake up early and lie there and think--think and shudder. They used to say I was brave about the wounded, brave at S----, brave at operations ... if they only knew! You only, Ivan Andreievitch, have seen me afraid, you only!..." She looked at me, her eyes searching my face: "Isn't it strange that you who do not love me know me, perhaps, better than John--and yes, better than Alexei. That's why I tell you--I can talk to you. I never could talk to women--I never cared for women. You and John for my friends--yes, I am indeed happy!"

She got up from the old sofa, walked a little about the room, looked at the remains of the meal, at the book, then turned round to me: "Don't ever tell any one, Ivan Andreievitch, that I have been afraid.... I'm never to be afraid again. And I'm not going to die. I know now that life is wonderful--at last all that when I was young I expected it to be.... Do you know, Ivan Andreievitch, I feel to-day as though I would live for ever!..."

Semyonov came in. He was in splendid spirits; I had never seen him so gay, so carelessly happy.

"Well," he cried to me, "we're to go now--at once ... and the next time at eight. We'll leave you this time. We'll be back by half-past six. We'll do the Third and Fourth Roti now. The Eighth and Ninth afterwards. Can you wait for tea until we return? Good.... Half-past six, then!"

They departed. As she went out of the door she turned and gave me a little happy smile as though to bind me to an intimate enduring confidence. I smiled back at her and she was gone.

After they had left me I felt very lonely. The house was still and desolate, and I took a book that I had brought with me--the "Le Deuil des Primeveres" of Francois Jammes. I had learnt the habit during my first visit to the war of always taking a book in my pocket when engaged upon any business; there were so many long weary hours of waiting when the nerves were stretched, and a book--quiet and real and something apart from all wars and all rumours of wars--was a most serious necessity. What "Tristram Shandy" was to me once under fire near Nijnieff, and "Red-gauntlet" on an awful morning when our whole Otriad meditated on the possibility of imprisonment before the evening--with nothing to be done but sit and wait! I went into the garden with M. Jammes.

As I walked along the little paths through a tangle of wood and green that might very well have presented the garden of the Sleeping Beauty, I heard now and then a sound that resembled the swift flight of a bird or the sudden "ting" of a telegraph-wire. The Austrians were amusing themselves; sometimes a bullet would clip a tree in its pa.s.sing or one would see a leaf, quite suddenly detached, hover for a moment idly in the air and then circle slowly to the ground. Except for this sound the garden was fast held in the warm peace of a summer afternoon. I found a most happy little neglected orchard with old gnarled apple-trees and thick waving gra.s.s. Here I lay on my back, watching the gold through the leaves, soaked in the apathy and somnolence of the day, sinking idly into sleep, rising, sinking again, as though rocked in a hammock. I was in England once more--at intervals there came a sharp click that exactly resembled the sound that one hears in an English village on a summer afternoon when they are playing cricket in the field near by--oneself at one's ease in the garden, half sleeping, half building castles in the air, the crack of the ball on the bat, the cooing of some pigeons on the roof.... Once again that sharp pleasant sound, again the flight of the bird above one's head, again the rustle of some leaves behind one's head ... soon there will be tea, strawberries and cream, a demand that one shall play tennis, that saunter through the cool dark house, up old stairs, along narrow pa.s.sages to one's room where one will slowly, happily change into flannels--hearing still through the open window the crack of the bat upon the ball from the distant field....

But as I lay there I was unhappy, rebellious. The confidence and splendour of Marie Ivanovna and Semyonov had driven me into exile. I hated myself that afternoon. That pursuit--the excitement of the penetration into the dark forest--the thrill of the chase--those things were for the strong men, the brave women--not for the halt and maimed ... not love nor glory, neither hate nor fierce rebellion were for such men as I.... I cursed my fate, my life, because I loved, not for the first time, a woman who was glad that I did not love her and was so sure that I did not and could not, that she could proclaim her satisfaction openly to me!

I had an hour of bitterness--then, as I had so often done before, I laughed, drove the little devil into his cage, locked it, dropped the thick curtain in front of it.

I claimed the company of M. Francois Jammes.

He has a delightful poem about donkeys and as I read it I regained my tranquillity. It begins: Lorsqu'il faudra aller vers Vous, o mon Dieu, faites Que ce soit par un jour ou la campagne en fete Poudroiera. Je desire, ainsi que je fis ici-bas, Choisir un chemin pour aller, comme il me plaira, Au Paradis, ou sont en plein jour les etoiles. Je prendrai mon baton et sur la grande route J'irai et je dirai aux anes, mes amis: Je suis Francois Jammes et je vais au Paradis, Car il n'y a pas d'enfer au pays du Bon Dieu. Je leur dirai: Venez, doux amis du ciel bleu, Pauvres betes cheries qui d'un brusque mouvement d'oreilles, Cha.s.sez les mouches plates, les coups et les abeilles....

That brought tranquillity back to me. I found another poem--his "Amsterdam."

Les maisons pointues ont l'air de pencher. On dirait Qu'elles tombent. Les mats des vaisseaux qui s'embrouillent Dans le ciel sont penches comme des branches seches Au milieu de verdure, de raye, de rouille, De harengs saurs, de peaux de moutons et de bouille.

Robinson Crusoe pa.s.sa par Amsterdam (Je crois du moins qu'il y pa.s.sa) en revenant De l'ile ombreuse et verte aux noix de coco fraiches. Quelle emotion il dut avoir quand il vit luire Les portes enormes, aux lourds marteaux, de cette ville!...

Regardait-il curieus.e.m.e.nt les entresols Ou les commis ecrivent les livres de comptes? Eut-il envie de pleurer en resongeant A son cher perroquet, a son lourd parasol, Qui l'abritait dans l'ile attristee et clemente?...

I was asleep; my eyes closed; the book fell from my hand. Some one near me seemed to repeat in the air the words: Robinson Crusoe pa.s.sa par Amsterdam (Je crois, du moins, qu'il y pa.s.sa) en revenant De l'ile ombreuse.... "De l'ile ombreuse" ... "Robinson Crusoe pa.s.sa" ...

I was rocked in the hot golden air. I slept heavily, deeply, without dreams....

I was awakened by a cold fierce apprehension of terror. I sat up, stared slowly around me with the sure, certain conviction that some dreadful thing had occurred. The orchard was as it had been--the sun, lower now, shone through the green branches. All was still and even, as I listened I heard the sharp crack of the ball upon the bat breaking the evening air. My heart had simply ceased to beat. I remember that with a hand that trembled I picked up the book that was lying open on the gra.s.s and read, without understanding them, the words. I remember that I said, out aloud: "Something's happened," then turning saw Semyonov's face.

I realised nothing save his face with its pale square beard and red lips, framed there by the shining green and blue. He stood there, without moving, staring at me, and the memory of his eyes even now as I write of it hurts me physically so that my own eyes close.

That was perhaps the worst moment of my life, that confrontation of Semyonov. He stood there as though carved in stone (his figure had always the stiff clear outline of stone or wood). I realised nothing of his body--I simply saw his eyes, that were staring straight in front of him, that were blazing with pain, and yet were blind. He looked past me and, if one had not seen the live agony of his eyes, one would have thought that he was absorbed in watching something that was so distant that he must concentrate all his attention upon it.

I got upon my feet and as my eyes met his I knew without any question at all that Marie Ivanovna was dead.

When I had risen we stood for a moment facing one another, then without a word he turned towards the house. I followed him, leaving my book upon the gra.s.s. He walking slowly in front of me with his usual a.s.sured step, except that once he walked into a bush that was to his right; he afterwards came away from it, as a man walking in his sleep might do, without lowering his eyes to look at it. We entered by a side-door. I, myself, had no thoughts at all at this time. I felt only the cold, heavy oppression at my heart, and I had, I remember, no curiosity as to what had occurred. We pa.s.sed through pa.s.sages that were strangely dark, in a silence that was weighted and mysterious. We entered the room where we had been earlier in the afternoon; it seemed now to be full of people, I saw now quite clearly, although just before the whole world had seemed to be dark. I saw our two soldiers standing back by the door; a doctor, whose face I did not know, a very corpulent man, was on his knees on the floor--some sanitars were in a group by the window. In the middle of the room lay Marie Ivanovna on a stretcher. Even as I entered the stout doctor rose, shaking his head. I had only that one glimpse of her face on my entry, because, at the shake of the doctor's head, a sanitar stepped forward and covered her with a cloth. But I shall see her face as it was until I die. Her eyes were closed, she seemed very peaceful.... But I cannot write of it, even now....

My business here is simply with facts, and I must be forgiven if now I am brief in my account.

The room was just as it had been earlier in the afternoon; I saw the sardine-tin, the dirty plate that had a little cloud of flies upon it; the room seemed under the evening sun full of gold dust. I crossed over to our soldiers and asked them how it had been. One of them told me that they had gone with the boiler to the trenches. Everything had been very quiet. They had taken their stand behind a small ruined house. Semyonov had just returned from telling the officers of the Rota that the tea was ready when, quite suddenly, the Austrians had begun to fire. Bullets had pa.s.sed thickly overhead. Marie Ivanovna had seemed quite fearless, and laughing, had stepped, for a moment, from behind the shelter to see whether the soldiers were coming for their tea. She was struck instantly; she gave a sharp little cry and fell. They rushed to her side, but death had been instantaneous. She had been struck in the heart.... There was nothing to be done.... The soldiers seemed to feel it very deeply, and one of them, a little round fellow with a merry face whom I knew well, turned away from me and began to cry, with his hand to his eyes.

Semyonov was standing in the room with exactly that same dead burning expression in his eyes. His mouth was set severely, his legs apart, his hands at his sides.

"A terrible misfortune," I heard the stout doctor say.

Semyonov looked at him gravely.

"Thank you very much for your kindness," he said courteously. Then, by a common instinct, without any spoken word between us, we all went from the room, leaving Semyonov alone there.

I remember very little of our return to Mittovo. We borrowed a cart upon which we laid the body. I sat in the trap with Semyonov. I was, I remember, afraid lest he should suddenly go off his head. It seemed quite a possible thing then, he was so quiet, so motionless, scarcely breathing. I concentrated all my thought upon this. I had my hand upon his arm and I remember that it relieved me in some way to feel it so thick and strong beneath his sleeve. He did not look at me once.

I do not know what my thoughts were, a confused incoherent medley of nonsense. I did not think of Marie Ivanovna at all. I repeated again and again to myself, in the silly, insane way that one does under the shock of some trouble, the words of the poem that I had read that afternoon: Robinson Crusoe pa.s.sa par Amsterdam (Je crois du moins qu'il y pa.s.sa) en revenant De l'ile ombreuse et verte--ombreuse et verte--ombreuse et verte....

It was dark, or at any rate, it seemed to me dark. The weather was still and close; every sound echoed abominably through the silence. When we arrived at Mittovo I suddenly thought of Trenchard. I had utterly forgotten him until that moment. I got out of the trap and when Semyonov climbed out he put his hand on my arm. I don't know why but that touched me so deeply and sharply that I felt, suddenly, as though in another instant I should lose my self-control. It was so unlike him, so utterly unlike him, to do that. I trembled a little, then steadied myself, and we walked together into the house. They must all instantly have known what had occurred because I heard running steps and sharp anxious voices.

I felt desperately, as a man runs when he is afraid, that I must be alone. I slipped away into the pa.s.sage that leads from the hall. This pa.s.sage was quite dark and I was feeling my direction with my hands when some one, carrying a candle, turned the corner. It was Trenchard. He raised the candle high to look at me.

"Hallo, Durward," he cried. "You're back. What sort of a time?..."

I told him at once what had occurred. The candle dropped from his hand, falling with a sharp clatter. There was a horrible pause, both of us standing there close to one another in the sudden blackness. I could hear his fast nervous breathing. I was myself unstrung I suppose, because I remember that I was dreadfully afraid lest Trenchard should do something to me, there, as we stood.

I felt his hand groping on my clothes. But he was only feeling his way. I heard his steps, creeping, stumbling down the pa.s.sage. Once I thought that he had fallen.

Then there was silence, and at last I was alone.

CHAPTER III.

THE FOREST.

And now I am confronted with a very serious difficulty. There is nothing stranger in this whole business of the life and character of war than the fashion in which an atmosphere that has been of the intensest character can, by the mere advance or retreat of a pace or two, disappear, close in upon itself, present the blindest front to the soul that has, a moment before, penetrated it. It is as though one had visited a house for the first time. The interior is of the most absorbing and unique interest. There are revealed in it beauties, terrors, of so sharp a reality that one believes that one's life is changed for ever by the sight of them. One pa.s.ses the door, closes it behind one, steps into the outer world, looks back, and there is only before one's view a thick cold wall--the windows are dead, there is no sound, only bland, dull, expressionless s.p.a.ce. Moreover this dull wall, almost instantly, persuades one of the incredibility of what one has seen. There were no beauties, there were no terrors.... Ordinary life closes round one, trivial things rea.s.sume their old importance, one disbelieves in fantastic dreams.

I believe that every one who has had experience of war will admit the truth of this. I had myself already known something of the kind and had wondered at the fashion in which the crossing of a mere verst or two can bring the old life about one. I had known it during the battle of S----, in the days that followed the battle, in moments of the Retreat, when for half an hour we would suddenly be laughing and careless as though we were in Petrograd.

And so when I look back to the weeks of whose history I wish now to give a truthful account, I am afraid of myself. I wish to give nothing more than the facts, and yet that something that is more than the facts is of the first, and indeed the only, importance. Moreover the last impression that I wish to convey is that war is a hysterical business. I believe that that succession of days in the forest of S----, the experience of Nikitin, Semyonov, Andrey Va.s.silievitch, Trenchard and myself--might have occurred to any one, must have occurred to many other persons, but from the cool safe foundation on which now I stand it cannot but seem exceptional, even exaggerated. Exaggerated, in very truth, I know that it is not. And yet this life--so ordered, so disciplined, so rational, and THAT life--where do they join?... I penetrated but a little way; my friends penetrated into the very heart ... and, because I was left outside, I remain the only possible recorder: but a recorder who can offer only signs, moments, glimpses through a closing door....

I am waiting now for the return of my opportunity.

On the night of the death of Marie Ivanovna I slept a heavy, dreamless sleep. I was wakened between six and seven the next morning by Nikitin, who told me that he, Trenchard, Andrey Va.s.silievitch and I were to return at once to the forest. I realised at once that indescribable quiver in the air of momentous events. The house was quite still, the summer morning very fresh and clear, but the air was weighted with some crisis. It was not only the death of Marie Ivanovna that was present with us, it was rather something that told us that now no individual life or death counted ... individualities, personalities, were swallowed up in the sweeping urgency of a great climax. Nikitin simply told me that a furious battle was raging some ten versts on the other side of the river, that we were to go at once to form a temporary hospital behind the lines in the Forest; that the nurses and the rest of the Otriad would remain in Mittovo to wait for the main tide of the wounded, but that we were to go forward to help the army doctors. He spoke very quietly. We said nothing of Marie Ivanovna.

I dressed quickly and on going out found the wagons waiting, some fifteen or twenty sanitars and Trenchard and Andrey Va.s.silievitch. The four of us climbed into one of the wagons and set off. I did not see Semyonov. Trenchard was pale, there were heavy black lines under his eyes--but he seemed calm, and he stared in front of him as though he were absorbed by some concentrated self-control. For the first time in my experience of him he seemed to me a strong independent character.

We did not speak at all. I could see that Andrey Va.s.silievitch was nervous: his eyes were anxious and now and then he moistened his lips with his tongue. When we had crossed the river and began to climb the hill I knew that I hated the Forest. It was looking beautiful under the early morning sun, its green so delicate and clear, its soft shadows so cool, its birds singing so carelessly, the silver birches, lines of light against the dark s.p.a.ces; but this was all to me now as though it had been arranged by some ironic hand. It knew well enough who had died there yesterday and it was preparing now, behind its black recesses, a rich harvest for its malicious spirit. We pa.s.sed through the cholera village and reached the white house of yesterday at about ten o'clock. As we clattered up to the door I for a moment closed my eyes. I felt as though I could not face the horrible place, then summoning my control I boldly challenged it, surveying its long broken windows, its high doorway, its sunny, insulting garden. We were met by the stout doctor, whom I had seen before. As he is of some importance in the events that followed I will mention his name--Konstantine Feodorovitch Krylov. He was large and stout, a true Russian type, with a merry laughing face. He had the true Russian spirit of unconquerable irrational merriment. He laughed at everything with the gaiety of a man who finds life too preposterous for words. He had all the Russian untidyness, kindness of heart, gay, ironical pessimism. "To-morrow" was a word unknown to him: nothing was sacred to him, and yet at times it seemed as though life were so holy, so mysterious, that the only way to keep it from careless eyes was by laughing at it. He had no principles, no plans, no prejudices, no reverences. If he wished to sleep for a week he would do so, if he wished to eat for a week he would do so. If he died to-morrow he did not care ... it was all so absurd that it was not worth while to give it any attention. He would grow very fat, he would die--he would love women, play cards, drink, quarrel, give his life for a sentimental moment, pour every farthing of his possessions into the lap of a friend, incur debts which he would not pay, quarrel wildly with a man about a rouble, remember things that you would expect him to forget, forget everything that he should remember--a pagan, a saint, a blackguard, a hero--anything you please so long as you do not take it seriously.

This morning he was dirty and looked as though he had slept for many nights without taking off his clothes--unshaven, his shirt open showing his hairy chest, his eyes blinking in the light.

"That's good," he said, seeing us. "I've got to be off, leaving the place to you.... Fearful time they're having over there," pointing across the garden. "Yes, five versts away. Plenty of work in a minute. Brought food with you? Very little here." Then I heard him begin, as he walked into the house with Nikitin, "Terrible thing, Doctor, about your Sister yesterday.... Terrible.... I--"

I remember that my great desire was that I should not be left alone with Trenchard. I clung to Andrey Va.s.silievitch, and a poor resource he was, watching with nervous eyes the building and the glimmering forest, dusting his clothes and beginning sentences which he did not finish, Trenchard was quite silent. We entered the horrible room of yesterday. The dirty plate and the sardine-tin were still there with the flies about them: the highly coloured German supplement watched us from its rakish position on the wall, the treatise on New Mexico was lying on the table. I picked up the book and it opened naturally at a place where the last reader had turned down the corner of the page. The same page happens to be quoted exactly in Trenchard's diary on an occasion about which afterwards I shall have to speak. There is an account of the year's work of some New Mexican school and it runs: "Besides the regular cla.s.s work there have been other features of special merit, programmes of which we append: "Lectures: Rev. H. W. Ruffner, t.i.tles and Degrees; Mr. Fred A. Bush, What the Community owes the Newspaper and what the Newspaper owes the Community; Dr. E. H. Woods, Tuberculosis; Rev. I. R. Gla.s.s, Fools; Mr. Eugene Warren, Blood of the Nation; Dr. L. M. Strong, Orthopedics; Hon. S. M. Ashenfelter, Freedom of Effort; Hon. W. T. Cessna, Don't Pay too dearly for the Whistle; Dr. O. S. Westlake, The Physician and the Laity; Prof. Wellington Putman, Rip Van Winkle; Rev. E. S. Hanshaw, The Mind's Picture Gallery; Hon. R. M. Turner, Opportunities.

"Oth.e.l.lo. For the first time the normal students presented for the cla.s.s-day exercise a Shakespearian play, Oth.e.l.lo. Cast of characters: Oth.e.l.lo, E. F. Dunlavey; Iago, Douglas Giffard; Duke of Venice, Charles Harper; Brabantio, Eugene Cosgrove; Ca.s.sio, Arnold Rosenfeld; Roderigo, Erwin Moore; Montano, Wilson Portherfield; Lodovico, Henry Geitz; Gratiano, William Fleming; Desdemona, Carrie Whitehill; Emilia, Gussie Rodgers; Bianca, Florence Otter; senators, officers, messengers and attendants.

"Graduating Programme. Music: the Anglo-Saxon in History, Douglas Giffard; the Anglo-Saxon in Science, Florence Otter; the Anglo-Saxon in Literature, Gussie Rodgers; Music; annual address, Hon. R. M. Turner; Music; presentation of diplomas.

"Doubtless among the most interesting and most profitable events of the inst.i.tution was the annual society contest between the two societies, the Literati and the Lyceum. The Silver City Commercial Club offered a costly cup to the winning society and it was won by the Lyceum. The contest was in oration, elocution, debate, parliamentary usage and athletics.

"The inside adornment of the hall has not been neglected. A number of portraits and a large number of carbon prints of celebrated paintings have been added, the cla.s.s picture being the most important and costing in the neighbourhood of $100; this is the hunting scene of Ruysdael. Some of the others are 'The Parthenon,' 'The Immaculate Conception' by Murillo, and 'The Allegorie du Printemps' by Botticelli. Many valuable specimens have been added to the museum: among these are minerals, animals and vegetable products, and manufactured articles from abroad ill.u.s.trative of the habits and customs of foreigners."

I give this page in full because it was afterwards to have importance, though at the time I glanced at it only carelessly. But I remember that I speculated on the lecture by the Rev. I. R. Gla.s.s about "Fools," that I admired a contest so widely extended as to embrace oration, parliamentary usage and athletics, that I liked very much the "cla.s.s Ruysdael," "costing in the neighbourhood of $100," and the "manufactured articles from abroad, ill.u.s.trative of the habits and customs of foreigners."

Nikitin came up to me. "Will you please set off at once with Mr. to Vulatch?" he said. "Find there Colonel Maximoff and get direct orders from him. Return as soon as possible. They say we're not likely to have wounded until late this afternoon--a good thing as a lot wants doing to this place. Hasten, Ivan Andreievitch. No time to lose."

Vulatch was a little town situated ten versts to our right in the Forest. I had heard of its strange position before, quite a town and yet lying in the very heart of the Forest, as though it had been the settlement of some early colonists. It had running through it a good high road, but otherwise was far removed from the outer world. It had during the war been twice bombarded and was now, I believed, ruined and deserted. For the moment it was the headquarters of the Sixty-Fifth Staff. I was frankly frightened of going alone with Trenchard--frightened both of myself and of him. I told him and without a word he went with me. When we started off in the wagon I looked at him. He was sitting on the straw, very quietly, his hands folded, looking in front of him. He seemed older: the sentimental naivete that had been always in his face seemed now entirely to have left him. He had always looked before as though he wanted some one to help him out of a position that was too difficult for him; now he was alone in a world where no one could reach him. During the whole drive to Vulatch we exchanged no word. The sound of the cannon was distant but incessant, and strangely, as it seemed to me, we were alone. Once and again soldiers pa.s.sed us, sometimes wagons with kitchens or provisions met us on the road, sometimes groups of men were waiting by the roadside, once we saw them setting up telegraph wires, once a desolate band of Austrian prisoners crossed our path, twice wagons with wounded rumbled along--but for the most part we were alone. We were out of the main track of the battle. It was as though the Forest had arranged this that it might the more impress us. Our road, although it was the high road, was rough and uneven and we advanced slowly: with every step that the horses took I was the more conscious of a sinister and malign influence. I know how easily one's nerves can lend atmosphere to something that is in itself innocent and harmless enough, but it must be remembered that (at this time), in spite of what had happened yesterday, neither Trenchard's nerves nor mine were strained. My sensation must, I think, have closely resembled the feelings of a diver who, for the first time, descends below the water. I had never felt anything like this before and there was quite definitely about my eyes, my nose, my mouth, a feeling of suffocation. I can only say that it was exactly as though I were breathing in an atmosphere that was strange to me. This may have been partly the effect of the sun that was beating down very strongly upon us, but it was also, curiously enough, the result of some dimness that obscured the direct path of one's vision. On every side of our rough forest road there were black cavernous s.p.a.ces set here and there like caves between sheets of burning sunlight. Into these caves one's gaze simply could not penetrate, and the light and darkness shifted about one with exactly the effect of stirring, swaying water. Although the way was quite clear and the road broad I felt as though at any moment our advance would be stopped by an impenetrable barrier, a barrier of bristled thickets, of an iron wall, of a sudden, fathomless precipice. Of course to both Trenchard and myself there were, during this drive, thoughts of his dream. We both recognized, although at this time we did not speak of it, that this was the very place that had now grown so vivid to us. "Ah, this is how it looks in sunlight!" I would think to myself, having seen it always in the early morning and cold. Behind me the long white house, the hunters, the dogs.... No, they were not here in the burning suffocating sunlight, but they would come--they would come!

The monotony of the place emphasised its vastness. It was not, I suppose, a great Forest, but to-day it seemed as though we were winding further and further, through labyrinth after labyrinth of clouding obscurity, winding towards some destination from which we could never again escape. "Pum--pum--pum," whispered the cannon; "Whirr--whirr--whirr," the shadowy trembling background echoed. Then with a sudden lifting of the curtain Vulatch was revealed to us. Ruined towns and villages were, by this time, no new sight to me, but this place was different from anything that I had ever seen before. From the bend of the little hill we looked down upon it and the sight of it made me shudder. It was the deadest place, the deadest place in the world--all white under the sun it lay there like the bleached bones of some animal picked clean long ago by the birds.

Not a sound came from it, not a movement could be discerned in it. I could see, standing out straight from the heart of it, what must have been once a fine church. It had had four green turrets perched like little green bubbles on white towers; three of these were still there, and between them stood the white husk of the place; from where we watched we could see little fires of blue light sparkling like jewels between the holes. Over it all was a strange metallic glitter as though we were seeing through gla.s.s, gla.s.s shaded very faintly green. Under this green shadow, which seemed very gently to stain the air, the town was indeed like a lost city beneath the sea. Catching our breaths we plunged down into the fantastic depths....

As we descended the hill we were surprised by the silence--not a soul to be seen. We had expected to find the place filled with the soldiers of the Sixty-Fifth Division. Our driver on this day was the man Nikolai whom I have mentioned before as attaching himself from the very beginning to Trenchard's service. He had been Trenchard's unofficial servant now for a long time, saying very little, always succeeding, in some quiet fashion of his own, in accompanying Trenchard on his expeditions. Nikolai was one of the quietest human beings I have ever known. His charming ugly face was in repose a little gloomy, not thoughtful so much as expectant, dreamy perhaps but also very practical and unidealistic. His smile changed all that; in a moment his face was merry, even good-humouredly malicious, suspicious, and a little ironical. He had the thick stolid body of the Russian peasant who is trained to any endurance, any misfortune that G.o.d might choose to send it. His attachment to Trenchard had been so un.o.btrusive that Molozov had officially permitted it without realising that he had permitted anything. It was so un.o.btrusive that I myself had not, during these last weeks, noticed it. To-day I saw Nikolai glance many times at Trenchard. His eyes were anxious and inquiring; he looked at him rather as a dog may look at his master, although there was here no dumb submission, nor any sentimental weakness.... I should rather say that Nikolai looked at Trenchard as one free man may look at another. "What is the matter with you?" his eyes seemed to say. "But I know ... a terrible thing has happened to you. At any rate I am here to be of any use that I can."

"Nikolai," I said, "why is there no one here?"

"Ne mogoo znat, your Honour."

"Well, the first soldier you see you must ask."

"Tak totchno."

"Who said you were to drive us?"

"Vladimir Stepanovitch, your Honour."

"Are you going to remain with us?"

"Tak totchno."

His eyes rested for a moment on Trenchard, then he turned to his horses.

We were entering the town now and it did, indeed, present to us a scene of desperate desolation. The place had been originally built in rising tiers on the side of the valley, and the princ.i.p.al street had leading out of it, up the hill, steps rising to balconied houses that commanded a view of the opposite hill. Almost every house in this street was in ruins; sometimes the ruins were complete--only an isolated chimney of broken stone wall remaining, sometimes the sh.e.l.l was standing, the windows boarded up with wood, sometimes almost the whole building was there, a gaping s.p.a.ce in the roof the only sign of desolation. And there remained the ironical signs of its earlier life. Many of the buildings had their t.i.tles still upon them. In one place I saw the blackened and almost illegible plate of a lawyer, in another a large still fresh-looking advertis.e.m.e.nt of a dentist, here there was the large lettering "Tobacconist," there upon a trembling wall the tattered remains of an announcement of a sale of furniture. Once, most ironical of all, a gaping and smoke-stained building showed the half-torn remnant of a cinematograph picture, a fat gentleman in a bowler hat entering with a lady on either arm a gaily painted restaurant. Over this, in big letters, the word "FARCE."

Although we saw no soldiers we were not entirely alone. In and out of the sunny caverns, appearing outlined against the darkness, vanishing in a sudden blaze of light, were shadows of the citizens of Vulatch. They seemed to me, without exception, to be Jews. From most of the Galician towns and villages the Jews had been expelled--here they only, apparently, had been left. Of women I saw scarcely any--old men, with long dirty black or grizzled beards, yellow skins, peaked black caps, and filthy black gowns clutched about their thin bodies. They watched us, silently, ominously, maliciously. They crept from door to door, stole up the stone steps and vanished, appeared, as it seemed, right beneath our horses' feet and disappeared. If we caught them with our eyes they bowed with a loathsome, trembling subservience. There were many little Jewish children, with glittering eyes, naked feet, bare scrubby heads and white faces. Nikolai at length caught an old man and asked him where the soldiers were. The old man replied in very tolerable Russian that all the soldiers had gone last night--not one of them remained--but he believed that some more were shortly to arrive. They were always coming and going, he said.

We stayed where we were, under the blazing sun, and held council. In every doorway, in every shadow, there were eyes watching us. The whole town was overweighted, overwhelmed by the brooding Forest. From where we stood I could see it rising on every side of us like a trembling, threatening green wave; in the furious heat of the sun the white ruins seemed to jump and leap.