No one contradicted or showed surprise, so this too was recorded.
Ustimovich did not even try to look as if he ever visited an observation post. He stood as if standing in silent submission to his fate was hard labor in itself.
The professorial general squinted at gangling, doomed Ustimovich, at Chernega’s smooth round face with its crafty white mustache, and again at bashful Sanya, then gave his questioning another twist.
“Now, Lieutenant, how would you estimate this systematic shortfall as a percentage of the total distance? What, very roughly, would it amount to?”
Sanya could not have been more eager to answer. He found it very interesting himself. But it required thought. He needed to picture to himself certain memorable occasions, remember where he had aimed and where the explosion had actually occurred. Then get out his maps and measure distances. That way he could calculate the percentage.
But his pause for thought made it look as though he was unable to answer, and the Corps Inspector of Artillery condescendingly made excuses for him to the Petersburg general.
“Unfortunately, Your Excellency, none of the junior officers you see here are regulars, nor is the battery commander, and it requires great skill to draw conclusions from such observations. And you must be used to observing every explosion very carefully.”
He pursed his lips regretfully.
The two-bearded one acquiesced. “So let’s go where we can find some regulars!”
The professorial general would still have liked to ask more questions, but the others were poised to leave. They turned on their heels. The notebook was closed.
Sanya could not see Chernega behind him. He saw one thing only: that the nice, tired professor gave the flunked student the faintest of smiles, but could do nothing to improve his marks—he was forced to leave with the others. As they walked away, the restive staff captain was urgently trying to prove some point to the double-bearded colonel, with the brigade’s technical officer raising objections. For three minutes a whiff of the lecture room hung over the scarred and cannon-studded scorched earth of Dryagovets—a forgotten aroma, so unlike that of warfare, quickly dispersed in the cold autumn air.
But this incursion, this inquisition must have some object, there must be some idea behind it! No. 3 Battery of the Grenadier Brigade had been innocently fighting, never imagining that their activities had some arcane significance that people racked their brains over at GHQ and in Petersburg.
Sanya found himself trying to catch up with the professorial general before he left. Chernega—probably—gripped him by the elbow to stop him, but Sanya broke loose without looking around and reached his objective.
“Your Excellency, please excuse me! But couldn’t I be of some use? I could carry out observations … If you would kindly tell me what you’re looking for.”
The professor did not mind being detained, and the two of them walked side by side, letting the quicker ones go on ahead. The professor, shoulders hunched, explained: “It’s like this. Excessive use of rapid fire wears out the barrel and makes the gun unusable before its time. In theory the permissible firing rate of our guns is, as you know, up to ten rounds per minute. This, however, is as a last resort in an emergency. If you want a gun to last, the optimum firing rate is one or two a minute—that way the gun will bear up under as many as ten thousand rounds. But some senior commanders who don’t know much about artillery make unreasonable demands—continuous intensive fire for hours on end, just for the sound effects, the roar of cannons is meant to put heart into the advancing infantry, and they don’t care if the guns get red-hot and wear out twice as quickly. What’s more, the qualifications of officer personnel have gone down a lot since the war began”—the professor gently touched this particular second lieutenant’s arm to show that he was not included—"and they don’t notice the loss of distance and accuracy. So not only are shells foolishly wasted but the guns themselves have to be taken out for reboring after four thousand rounds. And the fact is, we don’t have any reserve supply of guns.”
Sanya saw it all now! Evidently staff officers up at the top didn’t waste all their time on bureaucratic nonsense.
The Corps Inspector of Artillery and the brigade adjutant were already in their saddles, the others had taken their seats in the car, its door was open, with Captain Sokhatsky beside it, and they were only waiting for the general—but he paused to speak to the second lieutenant.
“So does all that mean that even if you have a lot of shells you should use them sparingly?” Sanya asked.
“You should never economize if using them saves lives. But you should never fire just to deafen somebody. ‘Drumfire’ means loss of self-control, excessive anxiety among the artillery officers.”
With this the general held out his soft, strengthless hand for the second lieutenant to shake.
Sanya walked back deep in thought and did not notice that Chernega had taken it upon himself to dismiss the whole battery, and was stumping over the hard frosty ground toward him. They drew level.
“Eh, Sanya, you silly son of a gun,” Chernega said, digging him in the ribs. “Why do you talk such nonsense? If you’d looked around at me you’d have known what to say.”
“What d’you mean?” Sanya said, surprised. “It really is like that, the range does decrease.”
“What do I mean?” Chernega said, pushing his barrel of a chest at Sanya. “I mean they’ll take our guns away from us, give us rifles instead and put us in the infantry, while they’re fixing them. Where would we be going without our guns? Have you thought of that?”
Amazing. Chernega hadn’t heard what the professor had said, hadn’t heard him saying that there were no replacements for the guns—but he knew without being told.
“How did you guess?”
Chernega smiled from under his pudgy cheeks—the smile of a man bursting with health, strength, know-how, and regret that these were not granted to everyone.
“With top brass around, it’s better to watch out, keep to your side of the line—then everything’s fine.”
Document No. 3
Leaflet in Moscow University
November 1916
Comrade Students!
Faith in truth and reason is perishing. Hopes of a splendid free life are perishing. And oh, horror! In this triumphal celebration of death the intelligentsia occupy the place of honor, like the betrothed at a banquet.
How Russia’s reactionaries rejoiced when clever heads laid all their sins at Germany’s door. They have converted the war “for the welfare of the people” to an unprecedented drive to dupe the people and strip them bare. Comrade students! Why are you silent? You have deluded yourselves too long with the thought that you are the people’s brightest hope. At this fateful moment it is shameful for you, the leaders and teachers of the people, to cherish the comfortable delusion that you are performing a great service to the people. The people has been waiting for centuries for those who will set it free from its heavy shackles, help it to straighten its numbed limbs, and point the way to a bright and joyful life. And behold, the liberators have arrived at a tragic moment, have bent their backs to carry firewood, and by doing so condemned the slaves of a thousand years to be butchered. They have arrived—and enthusiastically adopted the slogan “Everything for Victory!” And nothing for freedom.
But the people does not need a victory that turns the people’s teachers into beasts of burden. Comrade students! You have studied so that you can teach the people. Show it the path of salvation: peace and the convocation of a Constituent Assembly. Organize the people, lead it from the darkness of the grave into the sunshine!
[57]
The next morning the atmosphere in the two-windowed corner room was oppressive. The air itself seemed heavier. Through one window they could see the dense, dark spruce forest struggling with the wind, through the other a gloomy autumn scene, bare branches swaying, and the pool swollen by the heavy rainfall overnight.
Alina’s eyes had changed
completely. It was difficult to face their hard brilliance. She rose looking not fragile and defeated, but proudly self-sufficient, asking nothing from him. Austere and remote, she sat silently before the mirror, interminably brushing her hair.
Georgi was now completely out of his depth. How ought he to behave, to look, to address her? For two days they had been under a spell. Now it was broken, and what came next was uncertain. The simplest plan would be to leave for Moscow as quickly as possible—and then on to Mogilev. And gradually … it would take time, of course … everything would turn out all right. That still left some hours to get through before the train was due.
But Alina announced from before the mirror that they would stay on for one more day.
Didn’t just suggest it. Announced it.
Weird! There was nothing at all to stay on for, absolutely nothing to do, they couldn’t even go for a walk in such weather. Talk? They had said, over and over, all that there was to say. With relations between them as they were, Georgi would have found further delay intolerable even in Moscow. So much time had elapsed already—this was his eighteenth day of absence from his regiment, and now …
He must, somehow, steel himself to tell her about Mogilev.
But Alina had made her declaration with such calm assurance, such a bright, austere look that Georgi, guilty as he was, criminal that he was, the Georgi who had not stopped to count the days squandered with Olda, had to give way. The woman sitting before him was suffering incarnate, and it was because of him, because she loved him. How could he feebly hint that “duty calls”?
He had no choice, then. Another long, empty, pointless day to be faced.
He lit a cigarette, and they went down to breakfast.
Vorotyntsev never drank wine at breakfast time, but now he did. Alina never took wine at all, but this was where she started. The day before the day before yesterday—was it?—she had gulped down her birthday drink with a grimace, but now she tossed her wine back with an unpleasant gleam in her eyes.
“If we must die, let’s die to music.”
His eyebrows shot up. It was only a vulgar catchphrase, of course. She couldn’t mean it literally. Could she? No, she just wanted to hear how it sounded. But she went on.
“The thought of death no longer disturbs me. You said something like that in one of your letters from the front.”
Oh, no! A chill ran down Georgi’s spine.
She poured herself a second glass from the decanter and drank it down.
Then, like a wasp homing in to sting—but lightly, teasingly—she said, “Maybe I should commit suicide. What do you think? You wouldn’t mind, would you? You’d be all right.”
This was brazen provocation, of course. But Georgi, sighing heavily, said, “Alina, don’t …”
Yes, their misunderstanding had swollen overnight like the waters of that pool, and threatened to submerge them. He had thought it was all over but things were not to be so simple.
She reached for the decanter again. He covered her glass with his hand. She took another, empty one, and filled it, splashing wine onto the floor.
“Right now—I have to!” she said with a stubborn gleam in her eyes. “And I’m going to!”
The omelette she left untouched.
“Lively—was that the word you used?”
He did not understand at first.
She squinted at him. “Come on, tell me, explain to me. How exactly did she cast such a spell over you that in just a few days you were head over heels? What made her so irresistible?”
He looked into the alarming brilliance of her gaze and lowered his eyes.
“Complicated. Highly charged,” Alina repeated thoughtfully, word-perfect. “Doesn’t give way too easily to prevailing opinion. Well, that’s easy to see. What else, though? Tell me more.”
There was so much more he could have told her. But he was silent, head bowed.
“She’s a prodigy, that’s what! But who is she?”
He was painstakingly gleaning the last elusive specks of his omelette.
“Tut-tut, why are you so afraid to mention her name? Why are you such a coward? Is she the same?”
The wine was taking effect quickly. Alina was gradually losing her self-control, speaking louder than necessary, so that almost the whole dining room could hear her.
Georgi gently urged her to come back upstairs.
“No!” she rapped out, louder still. “This is too much! You enjoy singing her praises! You go into raptures over her! I want to see her, I want to know her, so that I can share your enjoyment!”
He gripped her elbow firmly and with some difficulty steered her out of the dining room.
“So I’m no longer wanted?” she said loudly on the stairs. “Henceforward surplus goods? Couldn’t wait to get rid of the poor silly creature?”
Then, in the upstairs corridor: “Is this what I get for all my sacrifices? For my loyalty? Just like that?”
He guided her into the room, released her arm, and sat down. She flung herself backward, planted her back against the door and looked down on him, beautiful in her wrath.
“What have you ever given me? In all your life? What, I ask you? When I could have”—she waved a supple pianist’s hand—"could have become …” She let her hand fall in a gesture of regret for what might have been.
Whatever she said now, however loudly she shouted, he had started it all. Served him right. She was the one who was hurt.
She had calmed down a little. Suddenly seemed quite sober. Her eyes pierced, her words probed him.
“Tell me what you intend to do. Look at me, please. What did you mean by praising her like that? Did you mean you won’t give her up? Is that it? Do you want a ménage à trois? Or what?”
He was lost for an answer. He had meant no more than he had said. He was quite unprepared for this. He had praised Olda because … Because he was hoping that …
“How can I put it? The two of you belong to different spheres of life … they don’t overlap.”
She finished the sentence for him. “So they can be combined?”
No, of course not, what he meant was … But why should he be expected to have his explanation down pat?
He felt sick at heart, and no longer understood what was happening to him. Yesterday and the day before things had looked so much brighter—now suddenly everything was hopeless.
And then … he still had the war to get through … and there was no knowing whether he would come out of it alive.
But Alina’s outburst had exhausted itself. She had barely strength enough to reach a chair and sink into it, sideways, with one arm dangling loosely over its back, and her head sunk onto the other shoulder.
In the look she turned on him, there was more sorrow than anger.
A long, long look.
Then she said, in a quiet, clear, placatory voice, “Yes, that’s it. It has to be taught. Instead of mathematics if necessary.” And sadly, tenderly: “You needed teaching more than anybody.”
Was she giving the story a new twist? Making it look as if the wrong he had done her dated not from his recent trip, but from long, long ago? He found this hard to understand and felt indignant.
“What makes you say so? You’ve had some good years since then.”
“You mean you have!”
Her reasoning was becoming too subtle for the ordinary male mind. But at least the storm was over. Who could say who was to blame and who wasn’t…? He sighed.
“Love is something for women to think about.” He lit a cigarette and inhaled. “You have more insight into these things, you can make sense of them. We’re here to fight and to work, it’s you who must analyze.”
A wryly superior smile expressed her pity for him, for herself, for the world at large.
And all the time he felt sorry for her, so very sorry!
But also tense, breathless. His world had become narrower, shallower. He could not go on sitting there, pointlessly bickering, quibbling.
One th
ing was clear: they would not be traveling today either.
“Look, I think I’ll go out for half an hour, take a walk. By myself, don’t you come, there’s a sharp wind, you’ll catch cold. I just want to blow the cobwebs away.”
She made no objection. So without the usual ritual (a peck on the cheek or forehead, even if he was only going to be away for an hour or so) he left.
Buffeted by the wind’s fitful fury, muffled up in his trusty overcoat, steadying his trusty sword with one hand, Vorotyntsev at once felt easier. Buffeting him, hugging him, the wind blew away all the sticky nonsense for which he himself was responsible. Vorotyntsev walked in the piercing cold as though doomed to do it by orders from above and felt no chill. He marched with a light step along the little path around the pool and uphill into the spruce forest. Though things had gone so miserably awry in Romania lately, he would much rather have been back there, in that muddy, flea-ridden hole at Kimpolung, stepping out like this, under orders to choose a line to defend and work out a battle plan.
If Georgi could have foreseen that confessing to Alina would cause such an upset and that he would be so hopelessly, helplessly bogged down in this place, nothing in the world would have induced him to speak.
He was not used to solving problems of this sort, or to self-examination. His life and his activities until then had never given rise to self-doubt or inner conflict: all the conflict, all the uncertainties, had always been with or about the world outside, and he could bring his big guns to bear on them.
That Zinaida—what was she thinking of when she made her engineer confess? Would that come as less of a shock to the engineer’s wife? Perhaps Zinaida was just cutting off his retreat, to keep him for herself?
Women! When they start bothering your head with their trifling problems it’s time to pull stakes, move out! Stepping briskly, left, right, left, right in the cold, against the wind, you feel stronger, start thinking straight again, begin to make sense.
November 1916 Page 111