The Dark Forest Part 7

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...."

"Waited!" she caught me up. "Waited! How can one wait when one isn't allowed to wait? It must be finished here, at once, and I'm not going to finish alone. I'm frightened, Mr. Durward, but also I must see it right through. He makes me brave. He's afraid of nothing. I couldn't leave this, and yet I was frightened to go on alone. With him beside me I'm not afraid."

Anna Petrovna interrupted us.

"It's Goga's stomach again," she said placidly. "He's had great pain all night. It was those sweets yesterday. Just give me that gla.s.s, my dear. Weak tea's the only thing he can have."

Well, I had said nothing to Marie Ivanovna. What was there I could have said?

And the next thing about Trenchard was that he had got his wish, and was lying on his back once more, in one of our nice, simple, uncomfortable haycarts, looking up at the evening sky. This was the evening after his conversation with Semyonov. Quite suddenly the battle had caught us into its arms again. It was raging now in the woods to the right of us, woods on the further side of the Nestor, situated on a tributary. I will quote now directly from his diary: As our line of carts crossed the great river I could hear the m.u.f.fled "brum-brum" of the cannons and "tap-tap-tap" of the machine-guns now so conventionally familiar. Nikitin was lying in silence at my side. Behind us came twenty wagons with the sanitars; the evening was very still, plum-colour in the woods, misty over the river; the creaking of our carts was the only sound, save the "brum-brum" and the "tap-tap-tap"....

I lay on my back and thought of Semyonov and myself. I had in my mind two pictures. One was of Semyonov sitting on the stone under the cross, looking up at me with comfortable and ironical insolence, Semyonov so strong and resolute and successful. Semyonov who got what he wanted, did what he wanted, said what he wanted.

The other picture was of myself, as I had been the other night when I had gone with the wagons to Nijnieff to fetch the wounded. I saw myself standing in a muddy little lane just outside the town, under pouring rain. The wagons waited there, the horses stamping now and then, and the wounded men on the only wagon that was filled, moaned and cried. Shrapnel whizzed overhead--sometimes crying, like an echo, in the far distance, sometimes screaming with the rage of a hurt animal close at hand. Groups of soldiers ran swiftly past me, quite silent, their heads bent. Somewhere on the high road I could hear motor-cars spluttering and humming. At irregular intervals Red Cross men would arrive with wounded, would ask in a whisper that was inhuman and isolating whether there were room on my carts. Then the body would be lifted up; there would be muttered directions, the wounded man would cry, then the other wounded would also cry--after that, there would be the dismal silence again, silence broken only by the shrapnel and the heavy plopping smothers of the rain. But it was myself upon whom my eyes were fixed, myself, a miserable figure, the rain dripping from me, slipping down my neck, squelching under my boots. And as I stood there I was afraid. That was what I now saw. I had been terribly afraid for the first time since I had come to the war. I had worked all day in the bandaging room, and perhaps my physical weariness was responsible; but whatever it might be there I was, a coward. At the threat of every shrapnel I bent my head and shrugged my shoulders, at every cry of the wounded men--one man was delirious and sang a little song--a shudder trembled all down my body. I thought of the bridge between myself and the Otriad--how easily it might be blown up! and then, if the Division were beaten back what ma.s.sacre there would be! I wanted to go home, to sleep, to be safe and warm--above all, to be safe! I saw before me some of the wounded whom I had bandaged to-day--men without faces or with hanging jaws that must be held up with the hand whilst the bandage was tied. One man blind, one man mad (he thought he was drowning in hot water), one man holding his stomach together with his hands. I saw all these figures crowding round me in the lane--I also saw the dead men in the forest, the skull, the flies, the strong blue-grey trousers.... I shook so that my teeth chattered--a very pitiful figure.

Well, that was the other night. It was true that to-night I did not feel frightened--at least not as yet. But then it was a beautiful evening, very peaceful, still and warm--and there was Nikitin. In any case there were those two figures whom I must consider--Semyonov and myself. That brief conversation last night had brought us quite sharply face to face. I found to my own surprise that Semyonov's declaration of his engagement had not been a great shock to me, had not indeed altered very greatly the earlier situation. But it had shown me quite clearly that my own love for Marie Ivanovna was in no way diminished, that I must protect her from a man who was, I felt, quite simply a "beastly" man.

Well, then if Semyonov and I were to fight it out, I would need to be at my best. Did that little picture of the other evening show me at my best? This business presented a bigger fight than the simple one with Semyonov. I knew, quite clearly, as I lay on my back in the cart, that the fight against Semyonov and the fight against ... was mingled together, depended for their issue one upon the other--that the dead men in the forest had no merely accidental connexion with Marie Ivanovna's safety and Semyonov's scornful piracies.

Well, then ... Semyonov and I, I and my old dead uncle, myself shaking in the road the other night under the rain! What was to be the issue of all of it?

I, on this lovely evening, saw quite clearly the progress of events that had brought me to this point. One: that drive with Durward on the first day when we had stopped at the trench and heard the frogs. Two: the evening at O----, when Marie Ivanovna had been angry and we had first heard the cannon. Three: the day at S---- and Marie kneeling on the cart with her hand on Semyonov's shoulder. Four: her refusal of me, the bodies in the forest, the Retreat, that night Nikitin (getting well into the thick of it now). Five: the talk with Marie in the park. Six: the wet night at Nijnieff. Seven: last night's little talk with Semyonov.... Yes, I could see now that I had been advancing always forward into the forest, growing ever nearer and nearer, perceiving now the tactics of the enemy, beaten here, frightened there, but still penetrating--not, as yet, retreating ... and always, my private little history marching with me, confused with the private little histories of all of the others, all of them penetrating more deeply and more deeply....

And if I lost my nerve I was beaten! If I had lost my nerve no protecting of Marie, no defiance of Semyonov--and, far beyond these, abject submission to my enemy in the forest. If I had lost my nerve!... Had I? Was it only weariness the other night? But twice now I had been properly beaten, and why, after all, should I imagine that I would be able to put up a fight--I who had never in all my life fought anything successfully? I lay on my back, looked at the sky. I sat up, looked at the country, I set my teeth, looked at Nikitin.

Nikitin grunted. "I've had a good nap," he said. "You should have had one. There'll be plenty of work for us to-night by the sound of it." We turned a corner of the road through the wood and one of our own batteries jumped upon us.

"I'm glad it's not raining," I said.

"We've still some way to go," said Nikitin, sitting up. "What a lovely evening!" Then he added, quite without apparent connexion, "Well, you're more at home amongst us all now, aren't you?"

"Yes," said I.

"I'm glad of that. And what do you think of Andrey Va.s.silievitch?"

I answered: "Oh! I like him! ... but I don't think he's happy at the war," I added.

"I want you to like him," Nikitin said. "He's a splendid man ... I have known him many years. He is merry and simple and it is easy to laugh at him, but it is always easy to laugh at the best people. You must like him, 'Mr.'... He likes you very much."

I felt as though Nikitin were here forming an alliance between the three of us. Well, I liked Nikitin, I liked Andrey Va.s.silievitch. I listened to the battery, now some way behind us, then said: "Of course, I am his friend if he wishes."

Nikitin repeated solemnly: "Andrey Va.s.silievitch is a splendid fellow."

Then we arrived. Here, beside the broad path of the forest there was a clearing and above the clearing a thick pattern of s.h.i.+ning stars curved like the top of a sh.e.l.l. Here, in the open, the doctors had made a temporary hospital, fastening candles on the trees, arranging two tables on trestles, all very white and clean under a brilliant full moon. There were here two Sisters whom I did not know, several doctors, one of them a fat little army doctor who had often been a visitor to our Otriad. The latter greeted Nikitin warmly, nodded to me. He was a gay, merry little man with twinkling eyes. "Noo tak. Fine, our hospital, don't you think? Plenty to do this night, my friend. Here, golubchik, this way.... Finger, is it? Oh! that's nothing. Here, courage a moment. Where are the scissors?... scissors, some one. One moment.... One ... moment. Ah! there you are!" The finger that had been hanging by a shred fell into the basin. The soldier muttered something, slipped on to his knees, his face grey under the moon, then huddled into nothing, like a bundle of old clothes, fainted helplessly away.

"Here, water!... No, take him over there! That's right. Well, 'Mr.'--how are you? Lovely night.... Plenty of work there'll be, too. Oh! you're going down to the Vengerovsky Polk? Yes, they're down to the right there somewhere--across the fields.... Warm over there."

The noise just then of the batteries was terrific. We were compelled to shout at one another. A battery behind us bellowed like a young bull and the shrapnel falling at some distance amongst the trees had a strange splas.h.i.+ng sound as of a stone falling into water.[A] The candles twinkled in the breeze and the place had the air of a Christmas-tree celebration, the wounded soldiers waiting their turn as children wait for their presents. The starlight gave the effect of a blue-frosted crispness to the pine-strewn ground. We arranged our wagons safely, then, followed by the sanitars, walked off, Nikitin almost fantastically tall under the starlight as he strode along. The forest-path stopped and we came to open country. Fields with waving corn stretched before us to be lost in the farther distance in the dark shadows of the forest.

[Footnote A: It must be remembered that this account is Trenchard's--taken from his diary. In my own experience I have never known the bursting of sh.e.l.l to sound in the least like a stone in water. But he insists on the accuracy of this. Throughout this and the succeeding chapters there are many statements for which I have only his authority.--P.D.]

A little bunch of soldiers crouched here, watching, Nikitin spoke to them.

"Here, golubchik ... tell me! what polk?"

"Moskovsky, your Honour."

"And the Vengerovsky ... they're to the right, are they?"

"Yes, your Honour. By the high road, when it comes into the forest."

"What? There where the road turns?"

"Tak totchno."

"How are things down there just now? Wounded, do you think?"

"Ne mogoo znat. I'm unable to say, your Honour ... but there's been an attack there an hour ago."

"Are those ours?"--listening to a battery across the fields.

"Ours, your Honour."

"Well, we'll go on and see."

I had listened to this conversation with the sensation of a man who has stopped himself on the very edge of a precipice. I thought in those few moments with a marvellous and penetrating clarity. I had, after all, been always until now at the battle of S----, or when I had gone with the wagons to Nijnieff, on the outskirts of the thing. I knew that to-night, in another ten minutes, I would be in the middle--the "very middle." As I waited there I recalled the pages of the diary of some officer, a diary that had been shown me quite casually by its owner. It had been a miracle of laconic brevity: "6.30 A. M., down to the battery. All quiet. 8.0, three of their sh.e.l.ls. One of ours killed, two wounded. Five yards' distance. 8.30, breakfasted; K. arrived from the 'Doll's House'--all quiet there," and so on. This, I knew, was the proper way to look at the affair: "6.0 A. M., down to the battery. 7.0 A. M., breakfasted. 8.0 A. M., dead...." For the life of me now I could not look at it like that. I saw a thousand things that were, perhaps, not really there, but were there at any rate for me. If I was beaten to-night I was beaten once and for all.... I saw the s.h.i.+ning road under the starlight and shadows of wounded men, groaning and stumbling, whispering their way along.

"Let's go," said Nikitin.

I drew a breath and stepped out into the moonlight. A sh.e.l.l burst with a delicate splash of fire amongst the stars. The road looked very long and very, very lonely.

However, soon I found myself walking along it quite casually and talking about unimportant peaceful things. "Come," I thought to myself. "This really isn't so bad."

"It's a great pity," Nikitin said, "that I can't read English. Have to take your novelists as they choose to give them us. Who is there now in England?"

"Well," said I as one talks in a dream, "there's Hardy, and Henry James, and Conrad. I've seen translations of Conrad in Petrograd. And then there's Wells--"

"Yes, Wells I know. But he writes stories for boys.... There's Jack London, but his are American. I like to read an English novel sometimes. Your English life is so cosy. You have tea before the fire and everything is comfortable. We don't know what comfort is in Russia."

A machine gun "rat-tat-tat-tated" close to us, and three rockets, like a flight of startled birds, rose suddenly together on the far horizon.

"No, we have no comfort in Russia," repeated Nikitin. "Now I fancy that an English country-house...."

We had reached the further wood; the moonlight fell away from us and the shadows s.h.i.+fted and trembled under the reflection of rockets and a projector that swung lazily and unsteadily, like something nodding in its sleep.

On the left of the road there was a house standing back in its own garden. I could see dimly that this was a row of country villas.