“He likes apricot jam, and eats it from the jar with his fingers. Then he lets some deserving lady lick his fingers while the others look on and envy her.”
“He has such power over women that they flaunt their shame instead of hiding it.”
“They say he’s allowed to bathe the young Grand Duchesses.”
“Protopopov and Stürmer are both Rasputin’s lackeys. They both report to him.”
And off they went around the rectangle again. Protopopov was clinically insane. Stürmer was a German spy. Russia was starving. And Grishka …
Perhaps Vorotyntsev should have been angry with himself and his wife for this waste of an evening in such stupid company. But somehow or other he felt more relaxed, felt his inner tension slackening. Was he slowing down? It no longer galled him that he had so little time. There was time enough ahead of him. For the time being he was absorbing this so unreal Moscow reality. The unbelievably white tablecloth. The cut glass. The two dinner services—where a few mess tins would have sufficed. The body grows limp. If there was an alarm now he wouldn’t be on his feet right away.
“You know the latest mot in Duma circles? We can understand power with a whip, but not power that’s whipped itself.”
They stole glances at Vorotyntsev to see how he was taking it so far, they hadn’t let themselves go on the subject of the Tsar. For fear of shocking him? To spare an officer’s monarchic sentiments?
Right now it left him unmoved. Guiltily, he felt that he was losing his initial impetus. It was enjoyable just sitting there, it was pleasant having women to look at. The gowns differed in color and design, and their wearers were just as different. Muma had her own ways, and Susanna hers.
What the ladies most wanted, it appeared, was to hear from him. They had come together to listen to him, not to music—that they could do at any time. They looked expectant, and began questioning him directly.
Oh no. He couldn’t do it. Sitting there was all right. But tell them about the war? No point. And did they really want to know? Presumably they skimmed the newspaper reports every day.
Somebody said that Guchkov had been arrested in Petrograd a few days earlier for his famous letter to Alekseev.
“No, no!” Vorotyntsev came out of his daze when he heard something that concerned him.
“It isn’t true. I was talking to his brother only this morning.”
Those rumors! Others came to mind: Guchkov dying, poisoned, Nikolai Nikolaevich likewise, the Tsar divorcing the Tsaritsa because of Rasputin.
Then some of them were moved to enthuse over Brusilov’s offensive, echoing the fanfares in the press. Were they just humoring him? He had to cut it short.
“Brusilov’s offensive? It didn’t do much good. Took some of the pressure off the Italians, and the Allies at Verdun, that’s all. But we ourselves didn’t manage to take Lvov or Kovno or even Vladimir Volynsk. Although Brusilov’s forces outnumbered the enemy.”
Really? They were amazed. Was it true, though, that the Germans had burned ten thousand Russians to death with streams of fire?
Muscovites or not, they were ignorant savages. This was what the home front had made out of the rumors that flame throwers had been seen. They were full of martial spirit, though! All for continuing the war to victory!
And very, very eager to hear from him.
But Vorotyntsev begrudged them his knowledge of the true state of affairs at the front. How could he talk about it there to these people? What words could he find? … It’s just a lot of holes in the ground. Fresh holes with a sprinkle of black earth over them. Old ones, buried under snowdrifts as soon as winter came. They stick a cross made of twigs on those they managed to fill in. From an unfilled hole you see what could be a poker sticking out, but it may once have been an arm. A bit of gray cloth torn from a Russian uniform hangs on the enemy’s barbed wire for months, flapping in the wind …
None of this could be fitted into their neat picture.
He might make an effort to talk about it all—but not there.
He would not be ready to talk until he had all his wits about him. Here, among these people, he felt slightly shell-shocked—half seeing, half hearing, half understanding what was going on.
With Susanna Iosifovna, he talked for a while, coherently and sensibly, it seemed to him, but he couldn’t be sure of recalling what they had said, and in what order. He remembered not so much her conversation as her way of sitting down and rising from her chair without using her hands, and the single string of pinkish pearls she wore over her black silk frock, with no other adornment or touch of color, also some sort of emanation from her eyes, or her whole face, turned eagerly toward her companion, or perhaps even from her shoulders, as they seconded her facial expressions. They were talking politics—but the way she narrowed and widened her eyes to show the depth of her understanding and sympathy, the wiry, coffee-black hair smoothly braided around her head, but still bouffant, and the little hairs, golden in contrast, on the faintly freckled skin above her wrist—these were for some reason his lasting memories of their conversation.
*Desyatin: A unit of land area equal to 2.7 acres. [Trans.]
* Zemgor: The Unions of Zemstvos and Towns. [Trans.]
[14]
“All right, let’s see who you’ll be traveling with.” Alina said briskly, carefully maneuvering her broad-brimmed hat through the narrow doorway as she preceded her husband into the carriage.
Vorotyntsev, eyes on the red carpet, followed, carrying a small suitcase. He had been feeling guilty all morning.
She stopped at the compartment they wanted, said good morning too loudly and cordially for comfort in an almost empty first-class carriage, and turned the curling edge of her hat brim toward her husband.
“You’re in for a disappointment! Not a lady in sight!”
The fellow passenger who rose to pay his respects proved to be a man of medium height and modest appearance, not at all what you might expect in an international carriage. His suit was rather common, and his tie clumsily knotted.
Alina sat down and praised the carriage and its comforts, cheerful as could be, then suddenly in mid-sentence, between two inspections of the compartment, there was an abrupt change of mood—so like her, poor thing—and she could not keep up her lively chatter. Georgi, embarrassed by his wife’s loudness just a moment ago, now felt sorry for her. Naturally, she was hurt: why shouldn’t she be traveling with her husband after such a long separation? After all, she didn’t know the reason for his journey. She had taken it hard at home, earlier on, but seeing with her own eyes how cozy the train was, thinking how they could have enjoyed it together, made it all the more hurtful that he was going alone.
Alina’s head drooped on her long, slender neck, and she had no more jokes for her neighbor. Suddenly she rose to her feet and went off without saying goodbye!
Vorotyntsev followed, hanging his head. He felt acutely sorry for her. What had she done to deserve such a life? Did she really need such a husband? Could he really do anything to brighten her existence?
On the platform Alina made no complaints, but urged him to go back and get his suitcase so that they could travel together. He couldn’t wait two days, till the concert? All right, they’d go tomorrow. But together. If he wouldn’t, he was quite heartless.
Georgi was shocked out of the compassion that had been taking hold of him. This other extreme was equally impossible. As it was, he had lost twenty-four hours in Moscow. And if he did take his wife, what would he do with her? He’d be giving in all along the line.
In his automatic recoil he shook off in a flash the temptation to make things easier for her.
But there were still several minutes left. And those last minutes made him nervous. No avoiding the stroll back and forth, the length of the dark brown paneled carriage, peering from time to time at the big clock under the dim station roof, which stretched almost as far as the train.
He kept a steadying hand on the hilt of his sword, with its George me
dal knot, as he walked.
He lit a cigarette. But smoking was not enough to get you through those dragging minutes.
“Alina, my love … I’ve tried to explain … this isn’t leave. It’s official business.”
She was bound to think it heartless, of course. But if on his travels he got involved in something really important she’d be out of place anyway.
Poor little bird. He put an arm around her and drew her close.
She was a child at heart, though, and, like a child, was capable of seeing reason if you talked to her gently. “Look, I’ll be back before your birthday.” “How long before?” “Well, before.” “So can I invite guests?” “Go ahead.” “And will you tell me all about it then?” “Yes.”
That cheered her up a bit.
Especially with time so short, the sensible thing was to promise, make it up with her, and leave with an easy mind. It’s always better to give in where you can, makes life easier.
Luckily, the train was leaving on schedule, giving Alina no time for another abrupt switch. Right on time—three resounding clangs from the station bell, a shrill blast on the chief conductor’s whistle, an answering hoot from the engine, and Vorotyntsev, releasing his wife, apparently reconciled, from his final embrace, blew her a kiss over the conductor’s shoulder as the train was already moving, heard her requests—something about gloves, and please write every day.
His fellow passenger had no one to see him off, no one to wave to him through the window. He had been busy writing in a notebook. He closed it, and gave Vorotyntsev a routine fellow passenger’s smile.
His looks were not obviously those of an educated man. Rather a common face, with its high cheekbones. Very thick, close-cropped black hair, in tufts that refused to be combed in one direction. But he tried to mitigate his somewhat unpolished appearance by painstaking good manners.
Vorotyntsev unbuckled his sword, hung it up, and took off his greatcoat. After that he would have preferred to retire into himself and travel the whole way in silence. But he felt bound to say something.
It was the usual train conversation. When do we get in? There’s no knowing, exactly, the timetable is all over the place. To be as much as an hour overdue surprises nobody nowadays. They blame it all on the war. And it’s true enough that the railways have five masters. How d’you make that out? Just count them: there’s the Ministry of Communications, the Quartermaster General, the Hospitals and Evacuation Service, the Unions of Zemstvos and Towns, and where the front-line areas cut across railway routes: whatever rolling stock, supplies, or freight the commands swallow up, don’t bother asking for them back. The Directorate of Military Communications under the Supreme Commander is a state within a state.
In the first few minutes underway, with the whole journey ahead, you know that it’s entirely up to you, but you aren’t sure yet what to do with yourself. Lie down? Just sit? Read? Look through the window and think?
Outside, the dreary, smoky station approaches were still going by.
His fellow passenger talked away uninhibitedly, in the same vein. A million poods of fish in Uralsk, but no way of shipping it out. Frozen carcasses at one Siberian station, a thaw sets in, the meat starts spoiling, but can’t be sold to the local people because it belongs to army supplies … so it all rots … Grass sprouted on a pile of grain at Kuzyomovka station last year, and still they wouldn’t move it … You couldn’t say Rostov was all that far from Baku, but there’s no kerosene there … Neither the storage sheds nor the stations themselves are geared to big shipments … A lot of locomotives are old and unserviceable.
“Are you on the railroad yourself?”
“Well, no,” his companion said with a smile. He had a charming smile and his unclouded features seemed to belie his alarming words. “But I can’t help noticing things. I travel a lot and keep my eyes open. I enjoy doing that.”
The coat and hat hanging by him were civilian dress. No badge, no official piping.
Whenever he left her hurt, he felt an aching pity, but there was nothing to be done about it. Anyway, that was only at first. It would stop troubling him after a while.
Then again, a lot of railwaymen have been called up, of course. Fuel for locomotives is in short supply. Some trains have had to be equipped as hospitals, others armored. The railway district administrations aren’t allowed to pool their empty freight cars. From the first winter of the war you couldn’t get a freight car without a bribe … Some people can go on begging till they’re fit to burst, others get what they want with their first telegram … And when you do get one you have to keep paying at every single junction or you won’t be hooked up … There’s this swarm of pushers around—they stop at nothing to push their own loads through. Send them from the front to the rear, from north to south … you have to declare what you’re loading, but they just lie. Or name a bogus consignee, to get around the ban.
In those two days in Moscow I’ve let my mind wander, slowed down. It’s time to pull myself together, pick up speed. This is just what I’m going for. I need to know these things.
“Sometimes a freight train is put together by order and produce is rushed to the railhead. But when they get there it’s just the other way around—agent won’t let them load. Or else four hundred freight cars go out empty, sealed by the agent, and nobody has the right to load them en route, they mustn’t be touched. Say there’s an appeal for rusks for the army. Local government offices are overwhelmed with sackfuls of the stuff. But nobody picks it up, and the rats gnaw it. So the locals see how stupid those in charge are.”
She had spoken self-confidently in this man’s presence, pretending to be strong, but really out of weakness.
You can’t keep up with all those instructions, nobody knows what can or what can’t be done, or where to turn for advice. There are plenty of people everywhere giving orders, but there’s no system. Some speak for the government, others for the social organizations. You’d think they were deliberately causing confusion. One circular contradicts another.
Never mind, she’s changed a lot, and for the better. Found something to occupy her, won’t be so reliant on her husband. That’s how it should be.
There are plenipotentiary agents sitting on top of each other, everybody has to have his own on every line, and they all countermand each other’s orders. There are army purchasing agents, and there are agents from the Special Conference on Food Supplies. They’re at war with each other, everyone trying to show he’s more important than the next man. Then again the big towns and the northern provinces have agents of their own to procure grain.
I saw some such person on the Kiev train. They seem to make a point of sitting next to me.
“You aren’t by any chance a procurement agent yourself?”
“Oh dear, no.” His fellow traveler smiled, but somewhat ruefully. As if he would have liked to be one, but had been unlucky. He loosened his tie and opened his high starched collar—he was obviously uncomfortable in them.
If you take a pood of grain from one agent to another you may be caught and jailed. No agent has any guarantee that another with powers still more plenary will not turn up to take his grain from him. Over the merely plenipotentiary there are superplenipotentiaries traveling around. And special plenipotentiaries. In special carriages. Dining on the best.
Rough terrain we’re passing through. Steep drops, high hills. Good defensive position over there, for instance, along that ridge.
“Do you know where some idiots get their grain from? Say a mill or a malthouse has grain in stock. Right—they requisition it and leave the mill idle.”
The roofs of crossing keepers’ huts, and cabins near the tracks, had a damp gleam. Bare copses and withered grass were wet from a recent rain. It’s going to rain again. Sky’s gray, overcast. Warm and dry in this compartment, though. Mahogany, those panels. Walls lined with embossed leather. Coming straight from the front, I can really appreciate this.
“They set traps and lie in ambush at fairs an
d in markets, if for some reason or other they suddenly decide to requisition a particular commodity. You’d think they were deliberately trying to get the countryside out of the habit of feeding the towns.”
Fields and meadows knee deep in mud, but here it’s dry and peaceful. I couldn’t spend every day in this carefree way and not be impatient for tomorrow—but coming from the front and due to return, just for this one day, it’s great, really great! Cross legs, loll back against the seat—it’s great!
Every governor is authorized to prohibit at his own discretion the export of any commodity from his province. It’s as though Russia has broken up into appanage principalities again. The new frontiers have customhouses of their own. And smugglers of their own. Every province has its own official prices, and people naturally try to sell their goods in the dearest market. So you get profiteering.
There was nothing in the whole course of Russia’s historical experience, or in her present, that Vorotyntsev was so ill equipped to understand as trade and industry—these official prices, for instance. Surely he should try to? Maybe if he didn’t understand that, he’d understand nothing? But his traveling companion’s worrying story unfolded so spontaneously, so readily, with such solicitude for his listener and for people in general, that it was not really worrying, was even soothing. Or perhaps the reason was rather his own unflagging confidence, always more powerful in him than any other feeling: though all was black today—in his career, the progress of the war, his personal life, or that of society—a healthy instinct told him, defying all gloomy arguments and misgivings, that if only he stood firm all would end well. This feeling greatly eased the burden of living.
His fellow passenger’s name was Fyodor Dmitrievich. A pleasant, mild-mannered fellow. Lacking, however, in energy and self-assurance. Wouldn’t make a good officer, would be negligent and slapdash, would give orders and go back on them, say one thing one minute and something different the next.
November 1916 Page 24