Meliton wandered towards the river and could hear the sounds of the pipe slowly dying away behind him. He still felt the urge to complain. Sadly he looked to right and left, and felt unbearably sorry for the sky, the earth, the sun, the forest, and his dog Lady; and when the pipe's top note suddenly pierced the air and hung there trembl- ing, like the voice of a person weeping, he felt full of bitterness and resentment at the disorder manifest in nature. The top note trembled, broke off, and the pipe fell silent.
The Kiss
On thc 20th of May, at 8 p.m., all six battcries of the N. Rcservc Artillcry Brigadc stoppcd for the night at the villagc of Mcstcchki on thcir way to summcr camp. At the very hcight of thc bustle and confusion, whcn some of thc officcrs wcrc busy round the guns and othcrs had assembled hy thc church wall in the villagc squarc to reccivc thcir billeting instructions, a man appcared from bchind thc church wcaring civilian clothcs and riding a strange horse. The horse was a small light bay, with a bcautiful neck and a short tail, and instcad of moving straight, it advanccd in a sideways fashion, taking small dancingstepsas ifit were heing lashed about the legs.The rider went up to thc officers, raiscd his hat and said:
'His Exccllcncy Licutcnant-Gencr.al von Rabbek, thc lord of the manor, requests the pleasure of your company for tca, gentlemcn, as soon as possible . . .'
The horse bobbed its head, danced, and backed sideways; the rider doffcd his hat agam. and a moment later he and his strange horse had disappcared bchind the church.
'That's all we needed!' grumbled some of the officers as they dispcrsed to their billets. 'Slecp's what we want, not an invitation to tea from this von Rabbek! "Tca"! We know what that means.'
Still fresh in the memory of the officers of all six batteries was an incident during manoeuvres the previous year, when they and the officers of a Cossack regiment had received exactly the same kind of invitation to tea from an ex-army Count-cum-landowner. The cor- dial and hospitable Count had treated them with great kindness, had plied them with food and drink, and would not let thcm return to thcir billets in the village, but insisted they stay the night. All that was fine, of course, what more could one ask for, but unfortunately the old soldier's delight in having young company had gone too far. He had stayed up until daybreak recounting to the officers episodes from his glorious past, conducting them round the rooms, showing them valuable pictures, old engravings and rare weapons, and read- ing them the originals of letters from high-ranking people, while the weary and exhausted officers looked on and listened, longed for their beds and yawned carefully to one side; when their host did finally
release them, it was too late to go to bed.
Was this von Rabbek going to be just such another? Whether he was or not, the officers had no choice in the matter. Having cleaned and spruced themselves up, they set off in a group to find the manor-house. In the square by the church they were told that his Excellency's could be approached either by the lower route - by going down hehind the church to the river, walking along the bank as far as the garden, and then taking any of the paths to the house - or by the upper route, straight from the church along a road which half a verst from the village brought you to his Excellency's granaries. The officers opted for the upper route.
'Who is he, this von Rabbek?' they debated on the way. 'Isn't he the one who commanded the N. Cavalry Division at Plevna?'
'No, that wasn't von Rahbek, thatwas j ust Rabbe and without the "von".'
'What a glorious evening!'
At the first of the granaries the road divided: one branch went straight on and disappeared into the evening haze, while the right- hand branch led to the manor-house. The officers turned right and lowered their voices . . . The road was lined on both sides by stone granaries with red roofs: grim, heavy buildings very much like a provincial barracks. Ahead shone the windows of the manor-house.
'A good omen, gentlemen!' said one of the officers. 'Our setter's leading the way. He must sense there'll be game!'
The officer leading the way, Lieutenant Lobytko, a tall, thick-set man, but completely beardless (though over twenty-five, for some reason no sign ofvegetation had yet appeared on his satisfied round face), who was famous in the brigade for his ability to sense the presence of women at a distance, turned round and said:
'Yes, there'll be women here. My instinct tells me so.'
The officers were greeted at the threshold by von Rabbek himself, a fine-looking old man of about sixty, dressed in civilian clothes. As he shook hands with his guests, he told them how happy and delighted he was, but begged the officers most earnestly, on bended knee, to excuse him: unfortunately he could not invite them to stay the night, as his two sisters and their children, his brothers and his neighbours, were visiting him, and he did not have a single spare room left.
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The General shook everyone by the hand, made his apologies and smiled, but it was clear from his face that he was nothing like so
C - 9
pleased to see his guests as last year's Count, and had invited the officers only from a sense of social obligation. And as they walked up the carpeted staircase listening to him, the officers themselves felt that they had been invited to this house only because it would have been awkward not to invite them, and the sight of the footmen hurrying to light the lamps downstairs by the entrance and upstairs in the anteroom gave them the impression that their arrival had brought with it extra worry and inconvenience. How could the presence of nineteen unknown officers be welcome in a place where rwo sisters and their children, the brothers and the neighbours, had probably gathered for some family event or celebration?
Upstairs, at the entrance to the ball-room, the visitors were greeted by a tall, upright old lady with a long face and dark eyebrows, who looked very much like the Empress Eugenie. With a welcoming, regal smile, she told the visitors how happy and delighted she was to see them, and how sorry that on this occasion she and her husband were denied the possibility of inviting the officers to stay the night. From her beautiful, regal smile, which instantly vanished whenever she had to turn away from the visitors for something, it was clear that she had seen a great many officers in her time, that there were other things on her mind now, and that if she had invited these officers to her house and was making apologies to them, this was only from a sense that her upbringing and social position obliged her to do so.
The visitors were shown into a large dining-room, where about a dozen men and women, young and old, were sitting round one end of a long table drinking tea. Behind their chairs stood a dark group of men, wreathed in thin cigar smoke, among whom a lanky young man with ginger sideburns was saying something loudly in English, slur- ring his r's. Beyond this group was an open door leading to a light room furnished in pale blue.
'Gentlemen, there are so many of you, I can't possibly introduce you all!' said the General in a loud voice, trying to sound very jovial. 'Please make your own introductions!'
The officers made their bows as best they could - some looking very serious and even stern, others giving forced smiles, and all of them feeling extremely ill at ease - and sat down to drink tea.
More ill at ease than anyone was Staff-Captain Ryabovich, a short, round-shouldered officer in spectacles and with whiskers like a lynx's. While some of his colleagues were looking serious and others giving forced smiles, his face, his lynx-like whiskers and his spectacles seemed to be saying: 'I'm the shyest, drabbest and most retiring officer in the whole brigade!' Initially, when they went into the dining-room and then sat down to tea, he was quite unable to focus his attention on any one face or object. The faces and dresses, the cut-glass brandy decanters, the steam off the glasses of tea, the moulded cornices: all these merged into one huge overall impression that filled Ryabovich with anxiety and made him want to hide his head. Like a reader giving his fi,rst performance in public, he saw everything in front of him, but what he saw somehow failed to registerproperly (physiologists refer to this condition, when a person sees but fails to comprehend what he isseeing, as 'mental blindness'). A little later on, when he felt more at ease, Ryabovich began to see normally and to look around. Being a timid and unsociable person, what struck him most about his new acquaintances was the quality completely lacking in himself: their unusual boldness. Von Rabbek, his wife, twoelderlyladies, a younggirl in a lilac dress and the young man with ginger sideburns, who turned out to be Rabbek's youngest son, positioned themselves very craftily among the officers, as if they had rehearsed it beforehand, and at once launched into a fierce argument in which the visitors could not help but be involved. The young girl in lilac argued fiercely that the artillery had a much easier life than the cavalry or infantry, while Rabbek and the elderly ladies maintained the opposite. A crossfire conversation developed. Ryabovich looked at the young girl in lilac, who was arguing so fiercely about something that must be quite alien and ofno conceiv- able interest to her, and watched the artificial smiles that came and went on her face.