Through Russia Read online

  "'A doctor-comedian is the sort of man that you are.'

  "Now, at the period of which I am speaking I was as straight as a dart, and had a shock of luxuriant hair over a set of ruddy features. Also, I was living a life clean in every way, and maintaining a cautious attitude towards womenfolk, and holding prostitutes in a contempt born of the fact that I had higher views with regard to my life's destiny. Lastly, I never indulged in liquor, for I actually disliked it, and gave way to its influence only in days subsequent to the episode which I am narrating. Yes, and, last of all, I was in the habit of taking a bath every Saturday.

  "The same evening Kliachka and the rest of the party went out to the theatre (for, naturally, the General had horses and a carriage of his own), and I, for my part, went to inform Lukianov of what had happened.

  "He said: 'I must congratulate you, and am ready to wager you two bottles of beer that your affair is as good as settled. In a few seconds a fresh lot of verses shall be turned out, for poetry constitutes a species of talisman or charm.'

  "And, sure enough, he then and there composed the piece about 'the wondrous Valentina.' What a tender thing it is, and how full of understanding! My God, my God!"

  And, with a thoughtful shake of his bead, Kalinin raised his boyish eyes towards the blue patches in the rain-washed sky.

  "Duly she found the verses," he continued after a while, and with a vehemence that seemed wholly independent of his will. "And thereupon she summoned me to her room.

  "'What are we to do about it all?' she inquired.

  "She was but half-dressed, and practically the whole of her bosom was visible to my sight. Also, her naked feet had on them only slippers, and as she sat in her chair she kept rocking one foot to and fro in a maddening way.

  "'What are we to do about it all?' she repeated.

  "'What am I to say about it, at length I replied, 'save that I feel as though I were not really existing on earth?'

  "'Are you one who can hold your tongue?' was her next question.

  "I nodded—nothing else could I compass, for further speech had become impossible. Whereupon, rising with brows puckered, she fetched a couple of small phials, and, with the aid of ingredients thence, mixed a powder which she wrapped in paper, and handed me with the words:

  "'Only one way of escape offers from the Plagues of Egypt. Here I have a certain powder. Tonight the doctor is to dine with us. Place the powder in his soup, and within a few days I shall be free!—yes, free for you!'

  "I crossed myself, and duly took from her the paper, whilst a mist rose, and swam before my eyes, as I did so, and my legs became perfectly numb. What I next did I hardly know, for inwardly I was swooning. Indeed, until Kliachka's arrival the same evening I remained practically in a state of coma."

  Here Kalinin shuddered—then glanced at me with drawn features and chattering teeth, and stirred uneasily.

  "Suppose we light a fire?" he ventured. "I am growing shivery all over. But first we must move outside."

  The torn clouds were casting their shadows wearily athwart the sodden earth and glittering stones and silver-dusted herbage. Only on a single mountain top had a blur of mist settled like an arrested avalanche, and was resting there with its edges steaming. The sea too had grown calmer under the rain, and was splashing with more gentle mournfulness, even as the blue patches in the firmament had taken on a softer, warmer look, and stray sunbeams were touching upon land and sea in turn, and, where they chanced to fall upon herbage, causing pearls and emeralds to sparkle on every leaf, and kaleidoscopic tints to glow where the dark-blue sea reflected their generous radiance. Indeed, so goodly, so full of promise, was the scene that one might have supposed autumn to have fled away for ever before the wind and the rain, and beneficent summer to have been restored.

  Presently through the moist, squelching sound of our footsteps, and the cheerful patter of the rain-drippings, Kalinin's narrative resumed its languid, querulous course:

  "When, that evening, I opened the door to the doctor I could not bring myself to look him in the face—I could merely hang my head; whereupon, taking me by the chin, and raising it, he inquired:

  "Why is your face so yellow? What is the matter with you?'

  "Yes, a kind-hearted man was he, and one who had never failed to tip me well, and to speak to me with as much consideration as though I had not been a footman at all.

  "'I am not in very good health,' I replied. 'I, I—'

  "'Come, come!' was his interjection. 'After dinner I must look you over, and in the meanwhile, do keep up your spirits.'

  "Then I realised that poison him I could not, but that the powder must be swallowed by myself—yes, by myself! Aye, over my heart a flash of lightning had gleamed, and shown me that now I was no longer following the road properly assigned me by fate.

  "Rushing away to my room, I poured out a glass of water, and emptied into it the powder; whereupon the water thickened, fizzed, and became topped with foam. Oh, a terrible moment it was!... Then I drank the mixture. Yet no burning sensation ensued, and though I listened to my vitals, nothing was to be heard in that quarter, but, on the contrary, my head began to lighten, and I found myself losing the sense of self-pity which had brought me almost to the point of tears.... Shall we settle ourselves here?"

  Before us a large stone, capped with green moss and climbing plants, was good-humouredly thrusting upwards a broad, flat face beneath which the body had, like that of the hero Sviatogov, sunken into the earth through its own weight until only the face, a visage worn with aeons of meditation, was now visible. On every side, also, had oak-trees overgrown and encompassed the bulk of the projection, as though they too had been made of stone, with their branches drooping sufficiently low to brush the wrinkles of the ancient monolith. Kalinin seated himself on his haunches under the overhanging rim of the stone, and said as he snapped some twigs in half:

  "This is where we ought to have been sitting whilst the rain was coming down."

  "And so say I," I rejoined. "But pray continue your story."

  "Yes, when you have put a match to the fire."

  Whereafter, further withdrawing his spare frame under the stone, so that he might stretch himself at full length, Kalinin continued:

  "I walked to the pantry quietly enough, though my legs were tottering beneath me, and I had a cold sensation in my breast. Suddenly I heard the dining-room echo to a merry peal of laughter from Valentina Ignatievna, and the General reply to that outburst:

  "'Ah, that man! Ah, these servants of ours! Why, the fellow would do ANYTHING for a piatak '[A silver five-kopeck piece, equal in value to 2 1/4 pence.]

  "To this my beloved one retorted:

  "'Oh, uncle, uncle! Is it only a piatak that I am worth?

  And then I heard the doctor put in:

  "'What was it you gave him?'

  "'Merely some soda and tartaric acid. To think of the fun that we shall have!'"

  Here, closing his eyes, Kalinin remained silent for a moment, whilst the moist breeze sighed as it drove dense, wet mist against the black branches of the trees.

  "At first my feeling was one of overwhelming joy at the thought that at least not DEATH was to be my fate. For I may tell you that, so far from being harmful, soda and tartaric acid are frequently taken as a remedy against drunken headache. Then the thought occurred to me: 'But, since I am not a tippler, why should such a joke have been played upon ME?' However, from that moment I began to feel easier, and when the company had sat down to dinner, and, amid a general silence, I was handing round the soup, the doctor tasted his portion, and, raising his head with a frown, inquired:

  "'Forgive me, but what soup is this?'

  "'Ah!' I inwardly reflected. 'Soon, good gentlefolk, you will see how your jest has miscarried.'

  "Aloud I replied—replied with complete boldness:

  "'Do not fear, sir. I have taken the powder myself.'

  Upon this the General and his wife, who were still in ignorance that the jest had gone amiss,
began to titter, but the others said nothing, though Valentina Ignatievna's eyes grew rounder and rounder, until in an undertone she murmured:

  "'Did you KNOW that the stuff was harmless?'

  "'I did not,' I replied. 'At least, not at the moment of my drinking it.'

  "Whereafter falling headlong to the floor, I lost consciousness."

  Kalinin's small face had become painfully contracted, and grown old and haggard-looking. Rolling over on to his breast before the languishing fire, he waved a hand to dissipate the smoke which was lazily drifting slant-wise.

  "For seventeen days did I remain stretched on a sick-bed, and was attended by the doctor in person. One day, when sitting by my side, he inquired:

  "'I presume your intention was to poison yourself, you foolish fellow?'

  "Yes, merely THAT was what he called me—a 'foolish fellow.' Yet indeed, what was I to him? Only an entity which might become food for dogs, for all he cared. Nor did Valentina Ignatievna herself pay me a single visit, and my eyes never again beheld her. Before long she and Dr. Kliachka were duly married, and departed to Kharkov, where he was assigned a post in the Tchuguerski Camp. Thus only the General remained. Rough and ready, he was, nevertheless, old and sensible, and for that reason, did not matter; wherefore I retained my situation as before. On my recovery, he sent for me, and said in a tone of reproof:

  "'Look here. You are not wholly an idiot. What has happened is that those vile books of yours have corrupted your mind' (as a matter of fact, I had never read a book in my life, since for reading I have no love or inclination). 'Hence you must have seen for yourself that only in tales do clowns marry princesses. You know, life is like a game of chess. Every piece has its proper move on the board, or the game could not be played at all.'"

  Kalinin rubbed his hands over the fire (slender, non-workmanlike hands they were), and winked and smiled.

  "I took the General's words very seriously, and proceeded to ask myself: 'To what do those words amount? To this: that though I may not care actually to take part in the game, I need not waste my whole existence through a disinclination to learn the best use to which that existence can be put.'"

  With a triumphant uplift of tone, Kalinin continued:

  "So, brother, I set myself to WATCH the game in question; with the result that soon I discovered that the majority of men live surrounded with a host of superfluous commodities which do but burden them, and have in themselves no real value. What I refer to is books, pictures, china, and rubbish of the same sort. Thought I to myself: 'Why should I devote my life to tending and dusting such commodities while risking, all the time, their breakage? No more of it for me! Was it for the tending of such articles that my mother bore me amid the agonies of childbirth? Is it an existence of THIS kind that must be passed until the tomb be reached? No, no—a thousand times no! Rather will I, with your good leave, reject altogether the game of life, and subsist as may be best for me, and as may happen to be my pleasure.'"

  Now, as Kalinin spoke, his eyes emitted green sparks, and as he waved his hands over the fire, as though to lop off the red tongues of flame, his fingers twisted convulsively.

  "Of course, not all at a stroke did I arrive at this conclusion; I did so but gradually. The person who finally confirmed me in my opinion was a friar of Baku, a sage of pre-eminent wisdom, through his saying to me: 'With nothing at all ought a man to fetter his soul. Neither with bond-service, nor with property, nor with womankind, nor with any other concession to the temptations of this world ought he to constrain its action. Rather ought he to live alone, and to love none but Christ. Only this is true. Only this will be for ever lasting.'

  "And," added Kalinin with animation and inflated cheeks and flushed, suppressed enthusiasm, "many lands and many peoples have I seen, and always have I found (particularly in Russia) that many folk already have reached an understanding of themselves, and, consequently, refused any longer to render obeisance to absurdities. 'Shun evil, and you will evolve good.' That is what the friar said to me as a parting word—though long before our encounter had I grasped the meaning of the axiom. And that axiom I myself have since passed on to other folk, as I hope to do yet many times in the future."

  At this point the speaker's tone reverted to one of querulous anxiety.

  "Look how low the sun has sunk!" he exclaimed.

  True enough, that luminary, large and round, was declining into—rather, towards—the sea, while suspended between him and the water were low, dark, white-topped cumuli.

  "Soon nightfall will be overtaking us," continued Kalinin as he fumbled in his kaftan. "And in these parts jackals howl when darkness is come."

  In particular did I notice three clouds that looked like Turks in white turbans and robes of a dusky red colour. And as these cloud Turks bent their heads together in private converse, suddenly there swelled up on the back of one of the figures a hump, while on the turban of a second there sprouted forth a pale pink feather which, becoming detached from its base, went floating upwards towards the zenith and the now rayless, despondent, moonlike sun. Lastly the third Turk stooped forward over the sea to screen his companions, and as he did so, developed a huge red nose which comically seemed to dip towards, and sniff at, the waters.

  "Sometimes," continued Kalinin's even voice through the crackling and hissing of the wood fire, "a man who is old and blind may cobble a shoe better than cleverer men than he, can order their whole lives."

  But no longer did I desire to listen to Kalinin, for the threads which had drawn me, bound me, to his personality had now parted. All that I desired to do was to contemplate in silence the sea, while thinking of some of those subjects which at eventide never fail to stir the soul to gentle, kindly emotion. Bombers, Kalinin's words continued dripping into my ear like belated raindrops.

  "Nowadays everybody is a busybody. Nowadays everyone inquires of his fellow-man, 'How is your life ordered?' To which always there is added didactically, 'But you ought not to live as you are doing. Let me show you the way.' As though anyone can tell me how best my life may attain full development, seeing that no one can possibly have such a matter within his knowledge! Nay, let every man live as best he pleases, without compulsion. For instance, I have no need of you. In return, it is not your business either to require or to expect aught of me. And this I say though Father Vitali says the contrary, and avers that throughout should man war with the evils of the world."

  In the vague, wide firmament a blood-red cluster of clouds was hanging, and as I contemplated it there occurred to me the thought, "May not those clouds be erstwhile righteous world-folk who are following an unseen path across that expanse, and dyeing it red with their good blood as they go, in order that the earth may be fertilised?"

  To right and left of that strip of living flame the sea was of a curious wine tint, while further off, rather, it was as soft and black as velvet, and in the remote east sheet-lightning was flashing even as though some giant hand were fruitlessly endeavouring to strike a match against the sodden firmament.

  Meanwhile Kalinin continued to discourse with enthusiasm on the subject of Father Vitali, the Labour Superintendent of the monastery of New Athos, while describing in detail the monk's jovial, clever features with their pearly teeth and contrasting black and silver beard. In particular he related how once Vitali had knitted his fine, almost womanlike eyes, and said in a bass which stressed its "o's":

  "On our first arrival here, we found in possession only prehistoric chaos and demoniacal influence. Everywhere had clinging weeds grown to rankness; everywhere one found one's feet entangled among bindweed and other vegetation of the sort. And now see what beauty and joy and comfort the hand of man has wrought!"

  And, having thus spoken, the monk had traced a great circle with his eye and doughty hand, a circle which had embraced as in a frame the mount, and the gardens fashioned and developed by ridgings of the rock, and the downy soil which had been beaten into those ridgings, and the silver streak of waterfall playing almost a
t Vitali's feet, and the stone-hewn staircase leading to the cave of Simeon the Canaanite, and the gilded cupolas of the new church where they had stood flashing in the noontide sun, and the snow-white, shimmering blocks of the guesthouse and the servants' quarters, and the glittering fishponds, and the trees of uniform trimness, yet a uniformly regal dignity.

  "Brethren," the monk had said in triumphant conclusion, "wheresoever man may be, he will, as he so desires, be given power to overcome the desolation of the wilds."

  "And then I pressed him further," Kalinin added. "Yes, I said to him: 'Nevertheless Christ, our Lord, was not like you, for He was homeless and a wanderer. He was one who utterly rejected your life of intensive cultivation of the soil'" (as he related the incident Kalinin gave his head sundry jerks from side to side which made his ears flap, to and fro). "'Also neither for the lowly alone nor for the exalted alone did Christ exist. Rather, He, like all great benefactors, was one who had no particular leaning. Nay, even when He was roaming the Russian Land in company with Saints Yuri and Nikolai, He always forbore to intrude Himself into the villages' affairs, just as, whenever His companions engaged in disputes concerning mankind, He never failed to maintain silence on the subject.' Yes, thus I plagued Vitali until he shouted at my head, 'Ah, impudence, you are a heretic!'"

  By this time, the air under the lee of the stone was growing smoky and oppressive, for the fire, with its flames looking like a bouquet compounded of red poppies or azaleas and blooms of an aureate tint, had begun fairly to live its beautiful existence, and was blazing, and diffusing warmth, and laughing its bright, cheerful, intelligent laugh. Yet from the mountains and the cloud-masses evening was descending, as the earth emitted profound gasps of humidity, and the sea intoned its vague, thoughtful, resonant song.

  "I presume we are going to pass the night here?" Kalinin at length queried.

  "No, for my intention is, rather, to continue my journey."

  "Then let us make an immediate start."

  "But my direction will not be the same as yours, I think?"