Great Russian Short Stories (23 page)

The soldier pulled his right hand out of his pocket, with the sleeve rolled back to the elbow, and held it up for us to see.... He had a strong, white arm covered with shining golden hair.

“The leg, the chest—everything must be firm.... And then a man's got to be properly dressed . . . in shipshape form.... Now, the women just fall for me. Mind you, I don't call 'em or tempt 'em—they hang about my neck five at a time. . . .”

He sat down on a sack of flour and spent a long time in telling us how the women loved him and how dashingly he treated them. Then he took his leave, and when the door closed behind him with a squeak, we sat on in a long silence, meditating over him and his stories. Then suddenly everybody spoke up at once, and it transpired that we had all taken a liking to him. Such a simple, nice fellow, the way he came in, sat down, and chatted. Nobody ever came to see us, nobody talked to us like that, in a friendly way.... And we kept on talking about him and his future success with the seamstresses, who, on meeting us in the yard, either steered clear of us with lips offensively pursed, or bore straight down on us as though we did not stand in their path at all. And we only admired them, in the yard or when they passed our windows, dressed in cute little caps and fur coats in the winter, and in flowery hats with bright colored parasols in the summer. But among ourselves we spoke of these girls in a way that, had they heard us, would have made them mad with shame and insult.

“I hope he doesn't . . . spoil little Tanya!” said the chief baker suddenly in a tone of anxiety.

We were all struck dumb by this statement. We had somehow forgotten Tanya—the soldier seemed to have blotted her out with his large, handsome figure. Then a noisy argument broke out: some said that Tanya would not stand for it, some asserted that she would be unable to resist the soldier's charms, and others proposed to break the fellow's bones in the event of him making love to Tanya. Finally, all decided to keep a watch on the soldier and Tanya, and warn the kid to beware of him. . . . That put a stop to the argument.

 

About a month passed. The soldier baked buns, went out with the seamstresses, frequently dropped in to see us, but never said anything about his victories—all he did was to turn up his moustache and lick his chops.

Tanya came every morning for her pretzels and was invariably gay, sweet and gentle. We tried to broach the subject of the soldier with her—she called him “a pop-eyed dummy” and other funny names and that set our minds at rest. We were proud of our little girl when we saw how the seamstresses clung to the soldier. Tanya's attitude towards him bucked us all up, and under her influence as it were, we ourselves began to evince towards him an attitude of scorn. We loved her more than ever, and greeted her more gladly and kindly in the mornings.

One day, however, the soldier dropped in on us a little the worse for drink, sat down and began to laugh, and when we asked him what he was laughing at, he explained:

“Two of them have had a fight over me. . . . Lida and Grusha. . . . You should have seen what they did to each other! A regular scream, ha-ha! One of 'em grabbed the other by the hair, dragged her all over the floor into the passage, then got on top of her . . . ha-ha-ha! Scratched each other's mugs, tore their clothes.... Wasn't that funny! Now, why can't these females have a straight fight? Why do they scratch, eh?”

He sat on a bench, looking so clean and healthy and cheerful, laughing without a stop. We said nothing. Somehow he was odious to us this time.

“Why am I such a lucky devil with the girls? It's a scream! Why, I just wink my eye and the trick's done!”

He raised his white hands covered with glossy hairs and brought them down on his knees with a slap. He surveyed us with a look of pleased surprise, as though himself genuinely astonished at the lucky turn of his affairs with the ladies. His plump ruddy physiognomy shone with smug pleasure and he repeatedly passed his tongue over his lips.

Our chief baker angrily rattled his shovel on the hearth and suddenly said sarcastically:

“It's no great fun felling little fir trees . . . I'd like to see what you'd do with a pine!”

“Eh, what? Were you talking to me?” asked the soldier.

“Yes, you. . . .”

“What did you say?”

“Never mind.... Let it lay. . . .”

“Here, hold on! What's it all about? What d'you mean—pine?”

Our baker did not reply. His shovel moved swiftly in the oven, tossing in boiled pretzels and discharging the baked ones noisily onto the floor where boys sat threading them on bast strings. He seemed to have forgotten the soldier. But the latter suddenly got excited. He rose to his feet and stepped up to the oven, exposing himself to the imminent danger of being struck in the chest by the shovel handle that whisked spasmodically in the air.

“Now, look the—who d'you mean? That's an insult.... Why, there ain't a girl that could resist me! No fear! And here are you, hinting things against me. . . .”

Indeed, he appeared to be genuinely offended. Evidently the only source of his self-respect was his ability to seduce women: perhaps this ability was the only living attribute he could boast, the only thing that made him feel a human being.

There are some people for whom life holds nothing better or higher than a malady of the soul or flesh. They cherish it throughout life, and it is the sole spring of life to them. While suffering from it they nourish themselves on it. They complain about it to people and in this manner command the interest of their neighbors. They exact a toll of sympathy from people, and this is the only thing in life they have. Deprive them of that malady, cure them of it, and they will be utterly miserable, because they will lose the sole sustenance of their life and become empty husks. Sometimes a man's life is so poor that he is perforce obliged to cultivate a vice and thrive on it. One might say that people are often addicted to vice through sheer boredom.

The soldier was stung to the quick. He bore down on our baker, whining:

“No, you tell me—who is it?”

“Shall I tell you?” said the baker, turning on him suddenly.

“Well?”

“D'you know Tanya?”

“Well?”

“Well, there you are! See what you can do there. . . .”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“Her? Easier'n spitting!”

“We'll see!”

“You'll see! Ha-a!”

“Why, she'll. . . .”

“It won't take a month!”

“You're cocky, soldier, ain't you?”

“A fortnight! I'll show you! Who did you say? Tanya? Pshaw!”

“Come on, get out, you're in the way!”

“A fortnight, and the trick's done! Oh, you! . . .”

“Get out!”

The baker suddenly flew into a rage and brandished his shovel. The soldier fell back in amazement, then regarded us all for a while in silence, muttered grimly “All right!” and went out.

All through this argument we had kept our peace, our interest having been engaged in the conversation. But when the soldier left we all broke out into loud and animated speech.

Somebody cried out to the baker:

“That's a bad business you've started, Pavel!”

“Get on with your work!” snapped the baker.

We realized that the soldier had been put on his high ropes and that Tanya was in danger. Yet, while realizing this, we were all gripped by a tense but thrilling curiosity as to what would be the outcome of it. Would Tanya hold her own against the soldier? We almost unanimously voiced the conviction:

“Tanya? She'll hold her ground! She ain't easy prey!”

We were terribly keen on testing our idol; we assiduously tried to convince each other that our idol was a staunch idol and would come out on top in this engagement. We ended up by expressing our doubts as to whether we had sufficiently goaded the soldier, fearing that he would forget the wager and that we would have to prick his conceit some more. Henceforth a new exciting interest had come into our lives, something we had never known before. We argued among ourselves for days on end; we all somehow seemed to have grown cleverer, spoke better and more. It seemed as though we were playing a sort of game with the devil, and the stake on our side was Tanya. And when we had learned from the bun bakers that the soldier had started to “make a dead set for Tanya” our excitement rose to such a furious pitch and life became such a thrilling experience for us that we did not even notice how the boss had taken advantage of our wrought up feelings to throw in extra work by raising the daily knead to fourteen poods of dough. We didn't even seem to tire of the work. Tanya's name was all day long on our lips. And we awaited her morning visits with a peculiar impatience. At times we fancied that when she came in to see us it would be a different Tanya, not the one we always knew.

We told her nothing, however, about the wager. We never asked her any questions and treated her in the same good-natured loving way. But something new had crept into our attitude, something that was alien to our former feelings for Tanya—and that new element was keen curiosity, keen and cold like a blade of steel....

“Boys! Time's up today!” said the baker one morning as he began work.

We were well aware of it without his reminder. Yet we all started.

“You watch her.... She'll soon come in!” suggested the baker. Some one exclaimed in a tone of regret:

“It's not a thing the eye can catch!”

And again a lively noisy argument sprang up. Today, at length, we would know how clean and incontaminate was the vessel in which we had laid all the treasure that we possessed. That morning we suddenly realized for the first time that we were gambling for high stakes, that this test of our idol might destroy it for us altogether. All these days we had been hearing that the soldier was doggedly pursuing Tanya with his attentions, but for some reason none of us asked her what her attitude was towards him. She continued regularly to call on us every morning for her pretzels and was always her usual self.

On that day, too, we soon heard her voice:

“Jail-birdies! I've come. . . .”

We hastened to let her in, and when she came in we greeted her, contrary to our custom, with silence. We looked hard at her and were at a loss what to say to her, what to ask her. We stood before her in a silent sullen crowd. She was obviously surprised at the unusual reception, and suddenly we saw her turn pale, look anxious and stir restlessly. Then in a choky voice she asked:

“Why are you all so . . . strange!”

“What about you?” threw in the baker in a grim tone, his eyes fixed on her face.

“What about me?”

“Nothing. . . .”

“Well, give me the pretzels, quick. . . .”

“Plenty of time!” retorted the baker without stirring, his eyes still glued on her face.

She suddenly turned and disappeared through the door.

The baker picked up his shovel, and turning to the oven, let fall calmly:

“Well—she's fixed! The soldier's done it . . . the blighter! . . .”

We shambled back to the table like a herd of jostling sheep, sat down in silence and apathetically set to our work. Presently some one said:

“Maybe it isn't. . . .”

“Shut up! Enough of that!” shouted the baker.

We all knew him for a clever man, cleverer than any of us. And that shout of his we understood as meaning that he was convinced of the soldier's victory.... We felt sad and perturbed....

At twelve o'clock—the lunch hour—the soldier came in. He was, as always, clean and spruce and—as always—looked us straight in the eyes. We felt too ill at ease to look at him.

“Well, my dear sirs, d'you want me to show you what a soldier can do?” he said with a proud sneer. “You go out into the passage and peep through the cracks . . . get me?”

We trooped into the passage, and tumbling over each other, pressed our faces to the chinks in the wooden wall looking onto the yard. We did not have to wait long. Soon Tanya came through the yard with a hurried step and anxious look, skipping over puddles of thawed snow and mud. She disappeared through the door of the cellar. Presently the soldier sauntered past whistling, and he went in too. His hands were thrust into his pockets and he twitched his moustache....

It was raining and we saw the drops falling into the puddles which puckered up at the impact. It was a grey wet day—a very bleak day. Snow still lay on the roofs, while on the ground dark patches of slush stood out here and there. On the roofs too the snow was covered with a brownish coating of dirt. It was cold and disagreeable, waiting in that passage....

The first to come out of the cellar was the soldier. He walked leisurely across the yard, twitching his moustache, his hands deep in his pockets—much the same as he always was.

Then Tanya came out. Her eyes . . . her eyes shone with joy and happiness, and her lips smiled. And she walked as though in a dream, swaying, with uncertain gait....

It was more than we could endure. We all made a sudden rush for the door, burst into the yard and began yelling and whistling at her in a fierce, loud, savage uproar.

She started when she saw us and stood stock-still, her feet in a dirty puddle. We surrounded her and cursed her with a sort of malicious glee in a torrent of profanity and shameless taunts.

We did it unhurriedly, quietly, seeing that she had no way of escape from the circle around her and that we could jeer at her to our heart's content. It is strange, but we did not hit her. She stood amid us and turned her head from side to side, listening to our insults. And we never more fiercely, ever more furiously, flung at her the dirt and poison of our wrath.

Her face drained of life. Her blue eyes, which the moment before had looked so happy, were dilated, her breath came in gasps and her lips quivered.

And we, having surrounded her, were wreaking our vengeance on her—for had she not robbed us? She had belonged to us, we had spent our best sentiments on her, and though that best was a mere beggar's pittance, we were twenty-six and she was one, and there was no anguish we could inflict that was fit to meet her guilt! How we insulted her! . . . She said not a word, but simply gazed at us with a look of sheer terror and a long shudder went through her body.