Sanine by Mikhail Artsybashev (ebook pdf reader for pc .TXT) 📕

“Look here!” said he to the servant as if, for form’s sake, it behoved him to speak, “I am now going. If anything should happen⁠—well⁠ ⁠… you understand⁠ ⁠…”

“Very good, sir,” replied the soldier, looking scared.

“So now you know.⁠ ⁠… And see that the bandage is frequently changed.”

He hurried down the steps, and, after closing the garden-gate, he drew a deep breath when he saw before him the broad, silent street. It was now nearly dark, and Tanaroff was glad that no one could notice his flushed face.

“I may even be mixed up in this horrid affair myself,” he thought, and his heart sank as he approached the boulevard. “After all, what have I got to do with it?”

Thus he sought to pacify himself, endeavouring to forget how Ivanoff had flung him aside with such force that he almost fell down.

“Deuce take it! What a nasty business! It’s all that fool of Sarudine! Why did he ever associate with such canaille?”

The more he brooded over the whole unpleasantness of this incident, the more his commonplace figure, as he strutted along in his tightly-fitting breeches, smart boots, and white tunic, assumed a threatening aspect.

In every passerby he was ready to detect ridicule and scorn; indeed, at the slightest provocation he would have wildly drawn his sword. However, he met but few folk that, like furtive shadows, passed swiftly along the outskirts of the darkening boulevard. On reaching home he became somewhat calmer, and then he thought again of what Ivanoff had done.

“Why didn’t I hit him? I ought to have given him one in the jaw. I might have used my sword. I had my revolver, too, in my pocket. I ought to have shot him like a dog. How came I to forget the revolver? Well, after all, perhaps it’s just as well that I didn’t. Suppose I had killed him? It would have been a matter for the police. One of those other fellows might have had a revolver, too! A pretty state of things, eh? At all events, nobody knows that I had a weapon on me, and by degrees, the whole thing will blow over.”

Tanaroff looked cautiously round before he drew out his revolver and placed it in the table drawer.

“I shall have to go to the colonel at once, and explain to him that I had nothing whatever to do with the matter,” he thought, as he locked the drawer. Then an irresistible impulse seized him to go to the officer’s mess, and, as an eyewitness, describe exactly what took place. The officers had already heard about the affair in the public gardens, and they hurried back to the brilliantly lighted mess-rooms to give vent in heated language to their indignation. They were really rather pleased at Sarudine’s discomfiture, since often enough his smartness and elegance in dress and demeanour had served to put them in the shade.

Tanaroff was hailed with undisguised curiosity. He felt that he was the hero of the hour as he began to give a detailed account of the whole incident. In his narrow black eyes there was a look of hatred for the friend who had always been his superior. He thought of the money incident, and of Sarudine’s condescending attitude towards him, and he revenged himself for past slights by a minute description of his comrade’s defeat.

Meanwhile, forsaken and alone, Sarudine lay there upon his couch.

His soldier-servant, who had learnt the whole truth elsewhere, moved noiselessly about, looking sad and anxious as before. He set the tea-things ready, fetched some wine, and drove the dog out of the room as it leaped about for joy at the sight of its master.

After a while the man came back on tiptoe. “Your Excellency had better have a little wine,” he whispered.

“Eh? What?” exclaimed Sarudine, opening his eyes and shutting them again instantly. In a tone which he thought severe, but which was really piteous, he could just move his swollen lips sufficiently to say: “Bring me the looking-glass.”

The servant sighed, brought the mirror, and held a candle close to it.

“Why does he want to look at himself?” he thought.

When Sarudine looked in the glass he uttered an involuntary cry. In the dark mirror a terribly disfigured face confronted him. One side of it was black and blue, his eye was swollen, and his moustache stuck out like bristles on his puffy check.

“Here! Take it away!” murmured Sarudine, and he sobbed hysterically. “Some water!”

“Your Excellency mustn’t take it so to heart. You’ll soon be all right again,” said the kindly soldier, as he proffered water in a sticky glass which smelt of tea.

Sarudine could not drink; his teeth rattled helplessly against the rim of the glass, and the water was spilt over his coat.

“Go away!” he feebly moaned.

His servant, so he thought, was the only man in the world who sympathized with him, yet that kindlier feeling towards him was speedily extinguished by the intolerable consciousness that his serving-man had cause to pity him.

Almost in tears, the soldier blinked his eyes and, going out, sat down on the steps leading to the garden. Fawning upon him, the dog thrust its pretty nose against his knee and looked up at him gravely with dark, questioning eyes. He gently stroked its soft, wavy coat. Overhead shone the silent stars. A sense of fear came over him, as the presage of some great, inevitable mischance.

“Life’s a sad thing!” he thought bitterly, remembering for a moment his own native village.

Sarudine turned hastily over on the sofa and lay motionless, without noticing that the compress, now grown warm, had slipped off his face.

“Now all is at an end!” he murmured hysterically, “What is at an end? Everything! My whole life⁠—done for! Why? Because I’ve been insulted⁠—struck like a dog! My face struck with the fist! I can never remain in the regiment, never!”

He could clearly see himself there, in the avenue, hobbling on all fours, cowed and ridiculous, as he uttered feeble, senseless threats. Again and again