by Mór Jókai
CHAPTER XVI
SOLDIERING
The idyll did not last very long, and was quickly followed by the epic.
War broke out, not among the young married folks, but among the EuropeanPowers. This only so far concerned my ward as Kvatopil was alsomobilized; with his dragoon regiment he went towards the easternfrontier. Bessy, naturally, went with him.
We parted abruptly. They both came to me to say good-bye. Kvatopil'sface was radiant with joy, and the reflection of it was visible in thesmiling face of the lady. There will be war. The soldier's harvest willnow ripen.
For the purpose of sending her her quarterly allowance it was absolutelyindispensable that I should know their place of sojourning.
"Our title for the present will be--'An Ihre hochwohlgeboren FrauOberlieutenantin Elisabeth von Kvatopil!' For the present, I say. Lateron we shall no doubt advance _farther_ and _higher_."
"_Farther_ towards the frontier, and _higher_ in the scale of rank, Isuppose?" said I, by way of solving the rebus.
My ward (she was four years younger than I) was very pleased with mypolite elucidation, and the pair of them parted from me in the besthumour in the world.
After that I received a letter from my ward every week. There isabsolutely nothing in the most intricately combined knights' moves ofthe severest chess problems which can be compared with their peripateticzigzagings. Now towards the south, a week afterwards towards the west,then up again towards the north, retreating, advancing, then back again;knocking about in such utterly unknown hamlets, that one could onlydiscover them on the best charts by means of microscopes. Finally, thewar took a flying leap into Wallachia and Moldavia, skipped about Jassyand Bucharest, and then leaped across and all along the Pruth, and atlast settled down in Czernovicz, till it had to move on farther toPrzemysl, whence again it happily doubled back by way of Stry, Munkacs,Tokaj, Miskolcz, Kecskemet, and through Kalocsa again to Buda-Pest.
Bessy accompanied her husband everywhere. All the vicissitudes of theseasons which naturally abounded in such a martial pleasure trip shepatiently endured with him. The letters which she sent to me during thisperiod would make a very interesting chapter in a history of camp life._Opportunist_ reasons restrain me from making them public--they mightdeter our young persons (I allude, of course, to the female sex) fromfollowing Bessy's example.
Often and often I thought how accurately this young woman had foretoldall these things of herself when we sat beside each other in my littlewooden hut on the Comorn islet. In a straw-hut, in a cow-stall, in abesieged fortress, in a bare barrack, in the tent of an itinerantplayer, at the bivouac of an out-camping soldier--anywhere andeverywhere, it is Love that makes us happy, and its sweet illusion canconjure up fairy palaces out of these wretched surroundings. Andremember, too, that an officer in the field is by no means an amiablehusband. Plagued, worried, chicaned by his official superiors; floutedby the weather; looking at the enemy with wolf's eyes, and kept backfrom falling upon him; eternally bickering with an unfriendlypopulation; a guest beheld with evil eyes; and his wife (if he have one)like an iron chain hanging to his neck--it requires no small amount oflove on the lady's part for her to follow him everywhere, and put upwith his ill-humour.
And she had prophesied all this beforehand. What was to be the end of itall?
But there had been no advance whatever up the ladder of rank. My lastletter was still addressed to a lieutenant's lady.
When the great universal war was over, which left behind it so muchbitter disillusion, Lieutenant Wenceslaus Kvatopil again came tapping atmy door.
Clerk Coloman was no longer with me. The _Delibab_ had come to grief. Inow edited the _Vasarnapi Ujsag_, in the place of the publiclyadvertised and responsible editor Albert Pakh, who was lying ill atGraefenberg. My new name was "Kakas Martin."[101] Eh, what a popular manI was then! There were Kakas Martin meerschaum pipes and Kakas Martinclays, with bowls in the shape of cock-headed men. I really was in themouth of the nation in those days. _O tempi passati!_
[Footnote 101: Martin Cock.]
"Ah! 'tis you, brother, eh?" said I.
"So you still recognise me, then?"
I must admit that his physiognomy had considerably changed. During thecampaign the officers were permitted to grow absolutelycounter-regulationary beard-pieces. Wenceslaus was now bearded _a laHaynau_, that is to say, the beard was shaved so as to run into themoustache, till the two seemed one, which contributed not a little tothe formidability of the whole face. But a still more notable correctionof the features was due to his nose, which had grown quite red,--a pieceof ruby.
He began by laying his index finger on the bridge of his nose.
"Do you see that? My sole booty from the Russo-Turkish war is this rednose. Last winter, while we were encamping on the Galician frontier, Ihappened to be out in the open field the whole of one night, and got inthe way of a villainous Russian blast. The wind drove the powdered snowinto my face, and each flake stung me like a red-hot needle-point. Iwas not even able to turn my back upon it. In the morning my nose wasjust as you see it now. That same week twenty of my men were frozen todeath in their saddles, half of my regiment was down in the hospitalwith inflammation of the lungs, scurvy, and hunger-typhus. Of my wholesquadron I only brought forty men home--and this blood-red nose as atrophy."
At this I did not know whether to condole with or congratulate him.
"I shouldn't have minded so much if only we had been able to fight withsome one; but to go through a six-months' campaign without havinganything else to do with one's sword than lay the flat of the bladeabout the shoulders of stubborn peasants during our requisitions forhay, that I _do_ call hard. Sometimes our foreposts were so close to theenemy that we could _see_ each other's breath, and yet we were notallowed to attack. At one time we were face to face with the Turks, atanother time with the Muscovites. It would have been all one to me whomI pitched into, so long as I could pitch into some one. No such luck!Just when I was fancying that now we really were going to begin thebattle, the order came again, 'Sheathe your swords!' and we marchedsomewhere else. I would have preferred storming trenches with cavalry tothis sort of thing. And then that cursed maize-bread! Nothing butmaize-bread, and not always enough of that. Half-roasted horse-flesh,too! Thank you for nothing!"
"But, thank Heaven, it is all over now!" said I encouragingly.
"It is over, certainly. But what have I gained by it?"
He pointed to his collar. There certainly were only two stars therestill.
"No promotion. I am just where I was before. And yet our major hasretired. He was obliged to go, poor fellow; every limb was full ofrheumatism. Our senior captain was promoted to his place, our secondcaptain into the first captain's place. His place is now empty. I am thesenior lieutenant, but there's not a word said about me. It is enough tomake a fellow blow his brains out!"
I earnestly begged him not to think of such a thing. He had otherduties. With such an amiable consort too!
"True, brother! She really is an angel. I dare not think what that womanhas gone through during these bitter times. She was with me everywhere;but for her, perhaps, I should have gone to the bad. Ah, my friend, youdon't know what bliss it is when, after going one's rounds through abiting snowstorm, one returns to one's quarters to find there an angelawaiting you with a bowl of steaming-hot punch."
"I do know, for I've tried it."
"The punch never failed. If rum was to be had for money, she got it fromsomewhere. I have known her, sir, get into her sledge and drive a day'sjourney into town to get rum for me. A diamond-hearted woman, I say! Andthen her love, too! Despite this ruby nose of mine, she loves me. Shesays it suits me very well. Nay, she is not even hurt at remainingsimply the wife of a senior lieutenant. But for her I should have sent abullet through my head long ago."
I tried to comfort him with the assurance that a senior lieutenant inactive service was worth ever so much more in the world's estimationthan a general on the retired list.
He
wound up by inviting me to have a glass of punch with him in theevening as soon as his lodgings were ready to receive me.
I didn't go.
Frequently did he invite me, by letter in his wife's name even, and yetI never went to drink punch with them. When we met together afterwards,I always invented some excuse. On the first occasion I said my headached; on the second occasion I said I was too busy; on the thirdoccasion unexpected country cousins had looked in upon me, and so on.
Every time I met him, however, friend Wenceslaus always wound up withthe bitter exclamation: "I shall have to blow my brains out. Still nopromotion!"
At last I was tired of telling so many lies, so I told my friend thetruth.
Now, there are three sorts of truths in the world.
The first sort of truth is that which pleases my friend, but doesn'tplease me.
The second sort of truth is that which pleases me, but doesn't please myfriend.
The third sort of truth is that which pleases neither my friend normyself, and which brings us to loggerheads at once. Let me illustratewhat I mean.
To take number one first, I might have said to friend Kvatopil: "My dearcomrade, a constitutional regime prevails in my house: my wife reigns,but I am _responsible_, and I could never obtain her majesty's consentto a bill authorizing me to go and have tea once a week with your prettywife."
But this truth I did _not_ tell him.
But supposing I had said to him: "My dear lieutenant, I move in acompletely different sphere to you. I should be infinitely honoured byyour society, but I should not know what to talk to your colleaguesabout," that would have been the second sort of truth.
But I did not tell him that.
I told him the third sort of truth. I said: "My dear Kvatopil, if youwant to know the reason why you don't get promotion, I'll tell you. Itis because you are so friendly with me. I am a _persona ingrata_ in theeyes of the authorities. Only yesterday the police paid me a visit,packed up every scrap of paper they could lay their hands on, andcarried it off; they even took my pictures out of the frames. ThenPolice-inspector Prottman came and worried me for half a day by askingme what I knew about Kossuth's proclamation and the dollar notes. If youkeep on visiting me and writing to me, and if I were to go and amusemyself among your brother officers, they would think it gospel truththat you were also concerned in the conspiracy. Fortunately, I alwaysburn your letters of invitation, or Prottman would now be engaged indocketting them."
My friend was startled.
"I only invited you to a glass of punch!" he cried.
"Punch here and punch there! The police would be sure to read it'_putsch_.'[102] And look ye, comrade, to be perfectly candid with you,I think it would be better for you if you left off all thispunch-drinking, for 'tis that which makes your nose so red."
[Footnote 102: A riot or sedition.]
Now _that_ was the truth which pleased neither of us.
"You think so, eh? By Jove, you're right! It has often seemed to me whenI swallow down a glass of punch as if my nose were assuming enormousdimensions and diffusing a radiance all about me. From this day forthI'll drink no more punch. My word upon it! What's to-day? January 23rd?Note it in your diary: 'On January 23rd, Lieutenant Wenceslaus Kvatopilgave me his word of honour as a gentleman that he would never drinkpunch again.'"--And he left me no peace till I had entered it in mydiary.
"Nay, more than that, no kind of brandy, or schnaps, or wine, or beer;in a word, no sort of spirituous liquor whatever."
All this I had to make a note of.
"And now for a whole year and a day we'll watch the result. Nothing elsenow but pure water."
For a whole year after that I saw nothing of Kvatopil, nor did I hearanything of Bessy.
One day, however, my lieutenant suddenly invaded me again; he was stillthe wearer of two stars only.
"Now, if it isn't really enough to make a fellow blow his brains out!Again they have passed me over. I went straight to the Colonel. 'YourExcellency,' I said, 'here have I been in the service for the lasttwelve years. I have faithfully performed my duties. I have never usedbad language. I know the regulations. I am at the head of the ridingschool--and still I am set aside. I want to know what objection theyhave against me.'"
"Manly conduct on your part, comrade," I cried.
"And do you know what answer I got? You were quite right, after all."
"Your suspicious intimacy with me, I suppose?"
"Oh dear, no! Who the devil cares for your chatter about the police? Notyou it is, but this red nose! Here it is still, and it stands in myway." And he viciously tugged at the object that stood in his way as ifit were some stubborn remount.
"I don't understand."
"Then I'll make you. The Colonel replied to my interpellation withperfect candour. 'My dear Kvatopil,' said he, 'you have indeed the verybest good-conduct report. There's but one fault which weighs heavily inthe scale against you: you are too much devoted to drink.' 'What? I?Given to drink? Why, for more than a year I have been drinking nothingbut water.' 'Impossible!' cried the Colonel--'just look at your rednose!' 'I acquired that while campaigning out.' The Colonel shook hishead incredulously. 'But I assure your Excellency that I am speaking thetruth, I have written testimony to the fact.' 'Then I should very muchlike to see it.' So that is why I have come straight to you. My dearfriend, I adjure you by your hope of heavenly bliss, if you love me, ifyou ever loved Bessy, if you would save the life of a human creature, togive me that note-book in which, a year ago, you entered the vow that Imade on my honour as a gentleman, that I may show it to the Colonel."
I energetically resisted this proposal.
"My dear friend, all sorts of ticklish items have been entered in thisnote-book of mine which absolutely cannot be read by anybody butmyself."
But he solemnly assured me that he would never while he was alive sufferthe little book to leave his hands, and would only show to his superiorthat one page relating to his solemn engagement, so that at last I wasobliged to submit to his discretion. He promised to return in an hour'stime.
And he kept his word. In an hour he returned, gave me back my littlebook, embraced me and pressed me to his breast.
"My friend, you have made me a happy man. I have obtained my object. HisExcellency, on reading the oath recorded in your note-book, laughed tosuch an extent that I could count at least four of his teeth that werestopped with gold. Great Heaven! he eats gold with gold, while I have tognaw bones with bone! When he had somewhat recovered from his outburstof hilarity, he smacked me on the shoulder, and said: 'Mr. Lieutenant, agreat injustice has been done you. You are not a drunkard. There hasbeen a mistake. This must be seen to. And I promise you that at the veryfirst vacancy you shall obtain your third star.'"
This promise raised my friend into the seventh heaven of delight. Hopegave him back the desire of life.
This now is the speciality of a soldier's life. We poor civilians canhave no idea of the joy he felt, especially if we be nothing butsimple-minded authors. For an author has only one star, and that is highabove his head. If he can get it, he may keep it, 'tis his. If he cannotget it himself, nobody in the world can get it for him.