Biek-Agamalov came up to him, took his hand, and said—
“Romashov, come and ride in my carriage. I wish you to do so.”
And when Romashov, on one occasion during the journey home, turned towards the right to observe the awkward gallop of the horses, Biek-Agamalov seized his hand and pressed it for a long time warmly—nay, so hard that it almost caused pain.
Not a word, however, passed between the two officers during the whole way.
XIX
THE violent emotion felt by every member of the company during the wild scene we have just depicted found expression in a nervous irritability which, on their return to the mess-room, took the form of reckless arrogance and gross misbehaviour to all who happened to come across the officers on their way home.
A poor Jew coming along was stopped and deprived of his cap. Olisar got up in the carriage, and insulted, in the outskirts of the town, in the middle of the street, all passers-by in a manner which cannot be decently described.
Bobetinski whipped his coachman for no reason whatever.
The others sang and bawled with all their might; only Biek-Agamalov, who rode beside Romashov, sat all the time angry, silent, and taciturn.
Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, the mess-rooms were brilliantly illuminated and full of people.
In the card and billiard-rooms and at the buffet creatures with unbuttoned coats, flaming faces, vacantly staring eyes and of uncertain gait, helplessly collided with each other, heavily fuddled by the fumes of wine and tobacco smoke.
Romashov, who was walking about and nodding to several of the officers, also found among them, to his great astonishment, Nikolaiev.
He was sitting by Osadchi, red in face and intoxicated, but holding himself upright.
On seeing Romashov approaching he eyed him sharply for a few seconds, but afterwards turned abruptly aside, so as to avoid holding out his hand to the latter, meanwhile conversing with his neighbour with increased interest.
“Viatkin, come here and sing,” bellowed Osadchi over the heads of the rest.
“Yes, come let us sing,” chanted Viatkin, in reply, parodying, imitating, and caricaturing a melody from the Church ritual—
“Three small boys found lurching Got an awful birching At the parson’s stile.” Viatkin imitated in quick succession and in the same tone the strophes recited in the remainder of the antiphon at Mass— “Sexton, parson, and his clerk Thought the smacking quite a lark. Then the beadle said, ‘By hell, Nikifor, you smack right well.’” “Nikifor, you smack right well!” answered pianissimo in complete harmony the hastily improvised choir of drunken officers, seconded by Osadchi’s softly rumbling bass voice.
Viatkin conducted the singing, standing on a table in the middle of the room, whilst stretching his arms in an attitude of benediction over the heads of the “congregation.”
Now his eyes flashed terrifying glances of threat and condemnation; at another time they were raised to heaven with a languishing expression of infinite beatitude; then he hissed with rage at those who sang out of tune; again he stopped in time by a scarcely perceptible tremolo of the palm of his hand a run to a misplaced crescendo.
“Staff-Captain Lieschtschenko, you’re singing damnably.
Damn it, what a wretched ear!” roared Osadchi. “Keep quiet in the room, gentlemen.
No noise, please, when there’s singing.”
“Once on a time a farmer so rich— Who used to like iced punch”— continued Viatkin, in his improvised service of the Church.
His eyes, however, now began to smart dreadfully from the dense tobacco smoke.
Romashov was reminded by the wet and sticky tablecloth that he had not washed his hands since dinner.
He went out and made his way across the yard to a side room called the “Officers’ Shelter,” which served as a sort of lavatory.
It was a cold, dismal little crib with only one window.
Several common cupboards stood along the wall, and between them, in hospital fashion, were placed two beds, the sheets, etc., of which were never changed. Not a man in the entire regiment could recollect when this room was swept and cleaned.
There was an intolerable stench there, the main ingredients of which were rotting bedclothes, stinking boots, and bad tobacco.
The room was originally intended for officers of other regiments who happened to be visiting the garrison town, but it gradually became converted into a sort of morgue for those who got dead drunk at mess.
It was almost officially designated as “the mortuary,” which name, by a dreadful irony of fate, received its full justification from the fact that no less than two officers and one soldier had committed suicide in it during the few years the regiment had been garrisoned in the town.
Moreover, not a year elapsed without one suicide taking place among the officers of this regiment.
When Romashov entered “the mortuary” he found two men sitting there on a bed near the window.
The room was dark, and it was some time before Romashov recognized in one of the “guests” ex-Staff-Captain Klodt, alcoholist and thief, and on those grounds expelled from the command of his company. The other was a certain Ensign Solotuchin—a tall, lean, bald-headed, worn-out rake and gambler, feared and despised wherever he went for his evil, lying tongue and his conversation interlarded with coarse cynicisms and improprieties—a veritable type of the ensigns of the storybooks.
Between these two worthy “birds of a feather” might be seen on the table the dim outline of a schnapps bottle, an empty plate, and two full glasses.
The pair of boon companions were silent when Romashov entered the room, and tried, as it were, to hide themselves in the darkness; but when he leaned over them, they looked at him with a sly smile.
“What, in the name of goodness, are you two doing here?” asked Romashov, in alarm.
“Hush!”
Solotuchin made a mysterious warning gesture with his forefinger.
“Wait here, and don’t disturb us.”
“Hold your jaw!” ordered Klodt in a whisper.
At the same moment the rattling noise of a telega was heard somewhere in the distance.
Then the two strangers raised their glasses, clicked them together, and drained the contents.
“But answer me. What is the meaning of it all?” repeated Romashov in the same anxious tone.
“My little greenhorn,” replied Klodt in a significant whisper, “if you must know, it’s only our usual little morning repast; but now I hear the telega, Ensign,” Klodt went on to say as he turned to Solotuchin. “It’s time then to finish our drink and be off.
What do you think of the moonlight?
Will it suit?” “My glass is empty already,” replied Solotuchin, glancing out of the window at the moon’s slender, pointed sickle that stood drowsy and sleepy in the sky, and hung down over the little slumbering town.
“But let’s just wait a wee bit.
S-sh! I thought I heard a dog barking.”
And again they bent towards one another to resume their mysterious conversation, carried on in a low voice; the spluttering tone and evident lack of coherence witnessed clearly enough that the schnapps had begun to take effect.