Tarabas had already sent word to the capital that money was needed, and that, if it did not come soon, unrest and mutiny might be expected. A very few days after this an elegant lieutenant in the new uniform of the country appeared in Koropta, just at the hour when Colonel Tarabas was in the habit of spending a convivial hour with his brother-officers. The lieutenant announced that on the following day His Excellency, General Lakubeit, would inspect the garrison. Tarabas rose.
“Is the general bringing money?” he asked.
“Certainly, sir!” answered the lieutenant.
“Sit down and have a drink!” commanded Tarabas.
The lieutenant obediently sat down. He drank very little. He was the adjutant of an abstinent general.
12
THE next morning General Lakubeit arrived. Tarabas received him at the station. The sight of the general, a small and weakly man, was a surprise to Tarabas; the general’s diminutive stature seemed somehow deliberately designed to put Tarabas at a disadvantage. Something about His Excellency’s feeble frame seemed to bode ill for Tarabas’s robust one. From the step of the train the general was holding out his hand. But it seemed as though he did so for the support of Tarabas’s mighty grip in alighting rather than in cordial greeting. For a moment Tarabas felt the brittle, dried-up hand in his huge palm, like a little warm and helpless bird. The colonel had counted on meeting a general like the many others he had known, powerful and masculine figures for the most part, bearded, at the least mustachioed, men with direct and soldierly eyes, hard hands and a firm walk. This was the kind of general Tarabas had prepared himself to meet. Lakubeit, however, was by all odds one of the strangest generals in the world. His clean-shaven, sallow, wizened little face grew like some strange old shrivelled fruit out of the high scarlet collar, and hid itself in the shadow of the immense black roof formed by the peak of the grey, gold-braided cap, which seemed to have been equipped with it for no other reason than to shelter the little aged head from withering further. The thin legs vanished into tall riding-boots which hardly differed from the kind the peasants wore, and had no spurs. A loose jacket flapped around His Excellency’s scraggy torso. This was a scarecrow, never a general. …
Tarabas took so wretched an appearance as this for a piece of the most subtle malice. He liked his own kind. He loved men in his own likeness. Deep down, in his heart’s secret depths, there lurked a presentiment, asleep still but muttering and warning sometimes in that sleep, that there would come a day when the mighty Tarabas would have a decisive, a fateful meeting with one of the many puny ones who go up and down upon the earth, superfluous and sly, and useless for all decent purposes. As he stepped to the general’s side to accompany him towards the exit, he noticed that Lakubeit was but elbow-high to him. Discipline and courtesy impelled Colonel Tarabas to do what he could, therefore, to diminish himself by bending his back, curtailing his long stride, lowering his voice. His spurs jingled. But the general’s boots made no sound.
“My dear fellow,” said the general in a very gentle voice. Tarabas bent his back still lower to hear better.
“My dear fellow,” said General Lakubeit, “I thank you for this kind welcome. I know a lot about you. I’ve known you by name a long time. I’m delighted to meet you, you know.” Was this the way for a general to speak? Tarabas had no suitable answer ready.
On the way from the station, side by side in the carriage — Kristianpoller’s carriage driven by one of Tarabas’s own men — General Lakubeit said nothing at all. Huddled up like a very small child, he sat there beside Tarabas and let his clear, dark eyes dart with their swift glance over the view. You saw them when he took off his big, gold-braided cap, which he did a few times during the drive, although the day was anything but hot. Once or twice Tarabas tried to set a conversation going. But, hardly begun, it seemed to him as though the general had drawn miles and miles away from him. Forebodings of evil crossed the heart of the mighty Tarabas, dark forebodings! When they came into the little town where the inhabitants, well trained in servility, were lined up on the wooden sidewalks right and left to hail the great visitor, General Lakubeit began to turn from side to side and smile at them as he returned their greeting, nodding his yellowish, bald head at them; he held his cap on his knees. The thin lips parted and revealed a toothless mouth. If Tarabas had doubted before, he was certain now — the topmost of all the havoc-wreaking paper devils was this one, Lakubeit.
At Kristianpoller’s place they stopped; the general jumped out nimbly, paying no attention to Tarabas. He nodded pleasantly at the inn-keeper, made haste to replace his cap upon his little head, and fairly darted into the house. He ordered tea and a hard-boiled egg. And Tarabas did not touch the glass of brandy which Kristianpoller had placed before him as usual without waiting to be told. The general was knocking the egg gently against the edge of his saucer as the elegant lieutenant, his adjutant, entered and drew himself up smartly beside the table.
“Sit down,” murmured the general, and peeled the egg clean with his bony first finger.
When the egg had been eaten and the tea drunk in utter silence, General Lakubeit said: “Now we’ll go and have a look at the regiment!”
By all means, Colonel Tarabas had seen to everything. Since early morning the regiment had been waiting outside the barracks for the general to arrive. And inside also everything was in the best of order. Notwithstanding Colonel Tarabas said:
“I can’t guarantee that you’ll find it much to look at. I’d no pay for the men, no uniforms; even the barracks were uninhabitable when I got here. Nor can I answer for all the men. A lot of them have deserted. There’s a good deal of riff-raff among them, I’m afraid.”
“Have your drink first,” said the general.
Tarabas had it.
“You have one too,” said the general to the lieutenant.
“Two chests of money will be here later on today,” he went on. “That ought to settle the chief difficulties. You’ll have officers’ and men’s pay for two months. Also something over for beer and spirits. Good humour’s the principal thing. You know that, don’t you, Colonel Tarabas?”
Yes, Colonel Tarabas knew that.
In silence they re-entered the carriage and bowled along to the barracks.
With hasty little steps General Lakubeit pattered past the ranks drawn up on parade. He took his cap off often; it seemed to be a habit of his. Without it, bareheaded, his nude little skull was just level with the shouldered rifle-butts, and one could not but think that his quick eyes took in nothing but the belts and boots of the regiment he was reviewing. The men performed the usual head-turns, but their eyes looked out in front of them, far above Lakubeit’s head. But now and then, with startling suddenness, his head came up, he stopped, his swift eyes set hard and bored into the face, the body, the harness of a man or officer at random.
Unlike all other generals in the world, General Lakubeit did not seem to judge the military qualities of the men he inspected. They were well used to being tested on that score. They were versed in war and in imprisonment, in giving battle and receiving wounds, even in dying — what fault had the general to find with them?
This tiny Lakubeit, however, when he stopped and jerked his head up with such suddenness, seemed trying to probe the soul, the inmost, of a man. They, to conceal this from him, armoured themselves with military stiffness, wrapped themselves round in discipline, stood absolutely rigid as in their earliest recruiting days, and with it all the feeling still tormented them that it was waste of effort. Most of them believed in the existence of the devil. And, like their colonel, they too believed that they could see the little flames of hell flickering in Lakubeit’s small eyes.