The long road from Tatarsk to the little town of Radzivillovo lay somewhere behind him in a grey, intangible mist. Gregor tried occasionally to recall the road, but could only dimly remember station buildings, the wagon wheels clattering beneath the unstable floor, the scent of horses and hay, endless threads of railway line flowing under the wagons, the smoke that billowed in through the open door, and the bearded face of a gendarme on the station platform either at Voronezh or at Kiev, he was not sure which.
At the place where they detrained were crowds of officers and cleanshaven men in grey overcoats, talking a language he could not understand. It took a long time for the horses to be unloaded, but when this had been accomplished the assistant echelon commander led three hundred or more cossacks to the veterinary hospital. Here followed a long procedure in connexion with the examination of the horses. Then allotment to troops. The first troop was formed of light brown horses, the second of bay and dun, the third of dark brown. Gregor was allotted to the fourth, which consisted of plain brown and golden horses. The fifth was composed entirely of sorrel, and the sixth of black horses.
Their road led them along the macadam highway. The Don horses, which had never seen metalled roads before, at first stepped along gingerly, setting their ears back and snorting; but after a while they grew accustomed to the strange feel of the road. The unfamiliar Polish land was crisscrossed with slices of straggling wood. The day was warm and cloudy, and the sun wandered behind a dense curtain of cloud.
The estate of Radzivillovo was some three miles from the station, and they reached it in half an hour. Stroking his horse’s neck, Gregor stared at the neatly built, two storeyed house, the wooden fence, and the unfamiliar style of the farm buildings. But as they rode past the orchard the bare trees whispered the same language as those in the distant Don country.
Life now showed its tedious, stupefying side to the cossacks. Torn away from their field labour, they quickly tired at first, and spent most of their free time talking. Gregor’s troop was quartered in the great tile-roofed wing of the house, and slept on pallet beds under the windows. Gregor’s bed was by the farthest window. At night the paper pasted over the chinks of the window sounded in the breeze like a distant shepherd’s horn, and as he listened to it he was seized with a well-nigh irresistible desire to get up, go to the stables, saddle his horse and ride and ride until he reached home again.
Reveille was sounded at five o’clock, and the first duty of the day was to clean and groom the horses. During the brief half-hour when the horses were feeding there was opportunity for desultory conversation.
‘This is a hell of a life, boys!’
‘I can’t stick it!’
‘And the sergeant-major! What a swine! He even makes us wash the horses’ hoofs!’
‘They’re cooking pancakes at home now … today is Shrove Tuesday.’
‘I bet my wife is saying: “I wonder what my Michael is doing?”’
During exercise the officers stood smoking at the side of the yard, occasionally intervening. As Gregor glanced at the polished, well-groomed officers in their handsome grey cloaks and closely-fitting uniforms, he felt that there was an impassable wall between him and them. Their very different, well-ordered, far from cossack existence flowed on peacefully, untroubled by mud, fleas, or fear of the sergeant-major’s fists.
An incident which occurred on the third day after their arrival at Radzivillovo made a painful impression on Gregor, and indeed on all the young cossacks. They were being instructed in cavalry drill, and Prokhor Zikov’s horse happened to kick the sergeant-major’s as it passed. The blow was not very hard and it only slightly cut the skin on the horse’s left leg. But the sergeant-major struck Prokhor across the face with his whip, and riding right at him, shouted:
‘Why the hell don’t you look where you’re going, you son of a swine? I’ll show you … You’ll spend the next three days with me!’
The company commander happened to witness the scene, but he turned his back, rubbing the sword-knot of his sabre and yawning boredly. His lips trembling, Prokhor rubbed a streak of blood from his swollen cheek. As Gregor rode past he glanced across at the officers, but they were talking together unconcernedly, as though nothing untoward had happened.
The dreary, monotonous order of existence crushed the life out of the young cossacks. Until sundown they were kept continuously at foot and horse exercises, and in the evening the horses had to be groomed and fed. Only at ten o’clock, after the roll call and stationing of guards, were they drawn up for prayers, and the sergeant-major, his eyes wandering over the ranks before him, intoned a ‘Pater Noster’.
In the morning the same routine began again, and the days were as like one another as peas.
In the whole of the estate there were only two women: the old wife of the steward, and the steward’s comely young kitchen-maid, Frania. Frania was often to be seen in the kitchen where the old, browless army cook was in charge. The various troops watched every movement of the young girl’s skirt as she ran across the yard. Feeling the gaze of the officers and cossacks fixed upon her, she bathed in the streams of lasciviousness that came from three hundred pairs of eyes, and swung her hips provokingly as she ran backward and forward between the kitchen and the house, smiling at each troop in turn, but at the officers in particular. Although all fought for her attentions, rumour had it that only the company commander had won them.
One day in early spring Gregor was on duty all day in the great stables. He spent most of his time at one end, where the officers’ horses were excited by the presence of a mare. He had just walked past the stall containing the company commander’s horse, when he heard a sound of struggling and a muffled cry coming from the dark corner at the far end of the stable. A little astonished by the unusual noise, he hurried past the stalls. His eyes were suddenly blinded as someone slammed the stable door, and he heard a voice calling in a suppressed shout:
‘Hurry up, boys!’
Gregor hastened his steps, and called out:
‘Who is that?’
The next moment he knocked against one of his company sergeants, who was groping his way to the door. ‘That you, Melekhov?’ the sergeant whispered, putting his hand on Gregor’s shoulder.
‘Stop! What’s up?’ Gregor demanded.
The sergeant burst into a guilty snigger and seized Gregor’s sleeve. Tearing his arm away, Gregor ran and threw open the door. The light momentarily blinded him; he shaded his eyes with his hand and turned round, hearing an increasing noise in the dark corner of the stable. He went towards the sound, and was met by Zharkov buttoning up his trousers.
‘What the … what are you doing here?’
‘Hurry up!’ Zharkhov whispered, breathing in Gregor’s face. ‘They’ve dragged the girl Frania in there … undressed her!’ His snigger suddenly broke off as Gregor sent him flying against the stable wall. Running to the corner, Gregor found a crowd of cossacks of the first troop struggling with one another to get to the middle. He silently pushed his way through them, and saw Frania lying motionless on the floor, her head wrapped in a horsecloth, her dress torn and pulled back above her breasts, her white legs flung out shamelessly and horribly. A cossack had just risen from her; holding up his trousers and not looking at his comrades, with a sheepish grin he fell back to make way for the next. Gregor tore his way back through the crowd and ran to the door, shouting for the sergeant-major. But the other cossacks ran after him and caught him at the door, flinging him back and one putting a hand over his mouth. He sent one man flying and gave another a kick in the stomach, but the others flung a horsecloth around his head, tied his hands behind him, and threw him into an empty manger. Choking in the stinking horsecloth, he tried to shout, and kicked lustily at the partition. He heard whispering in the corner, and the door creaking as the cossacks went in and out. He was set free some twenty minutes later. At the door the sergeant-major and two cossacks from another troop were standing.
‘You just keep your mout
h shut!’ the sergeant-major said to him, winking hard but not looking at him.
The two cossacks went in and lifted up the motionless bundle that was Frania, and climbing on to a manger, thrust it through a hole left in the wall by a badly-fitting plank. The wall bordered on the orchard. Above each stall was a tiny, grimy window. Some of the cossacks clambered on to the stall partitions to watch what Frania would do, others hastened out of the stables. Gregor also was possessed by a bestial curiosity, and getting on to a partition he drew himself up to one of the windows and looked down. Dozens of eyes were thus staring through the dirty windows at the girl lying under the wall. She lay on her back, her legs crossing and uncrossing like scissor blades, her fingers scrabbling in the snow by the wall.
She lay there a long time, and at last struggled on to her hands and knees. Gregor could clearly see her arms were trembling, hardly able to bear her. Swaying, she scrambled to her feet, and dishevelled, unfamiliar, hostile, she passed her eyes in a long, slow stare over the windows.
Then she went, one hand clinging to the woodbine bushes, the other resting and groping along the wall.
Gregor jumped down from the partition and rubbed his throat, feeling that he was about to choke. At the door someone, afterwards he could not even remember who, said to him in distinct and unequivocal tones:
‘Breathe a word … and by Christ, we’ll kill you!’
On the parade ground the troop commander noticed that a button had been torn from Gregor’s greatcoat, and asked:
‘Who have you been wrestling with? What style d’you call this?’
Gregor glanced down at the little round hole left by the missing button: overwhelmed by the memory, for the first time for many a day he felt like crying.
Part Two
* * *
WAR
Chapter One
A sultry, sunny July haze lay over the steppe. The ripe floods of wheat smoked with yellow dust. The metal parts of the reapers were too hot to be touched with the hand. It was painful to look up at the bluish-yellow, flaming sky. Where the wheat ended a saffron sweep of clover began.
The entire village of Tatarsk had moved out into the steppe. The horses choked in the heat and the pungent dust, and were restive as they dragged the reapers. The wind blowing from the river raised clouds of dust from the steppe, and the sun was enveloped in a tingling haze.
Since early morning Piotra, who was forking the wheat off the reaper platform, had drunk half a bucketful of water. Within a minute of his drinking the warm, unpleasant liquid his throat was dry again. His shirt was wet through, the sweat streamed from his face, there was a continual trilling ring in his ears. Her face covered with her kerchief, her shirt unbuttoned, Daria was gathering the corn into stooks. A greyish, granular sweat ran down between her urgent breasts. Natalia was leading the horses. Her cheeks were burnt the colour of beetroot, her eyes were filled with tears because of the glaring sun. Pantaleimon was walking up and down the swathes of corn, his wet shirt scalding his body. His beard felt as though it were a stream of melting black cartgrease flowing over his chest.
At last Daria could stand no more. ‘Piotra!’ she called. ‘Let’s stop.’
‘Wait a bit; we’ll finish this row,’ he answered.
‘Let’s put it off till it’s cooler. I’ve had enough.’
Natalia halted the horses; her chest was heaving as though it were she who had been pulling the reaper. Daria went across to them, her bare feet slapping carefully over the cut corn.
‘Piotra, we’re not far from the lake here.’
‘Not far! Only two miles or so!’
‘A bathe would be good!’
‘While you’re getting there and back …’ sighed Natalia.
‘Why the devil should we walk? We’ll unharness the horses and ride.’
Piotra glanced uneasily at his father tying up a sheaf, and waved his hand:
‘All right, unharness the horses.’
Daria unfastened the traces and dexterously jumped on to the mare’s back. Natalia smilingly led her horse to the reaper and tried to mount from the driver’s seat. Piotra went to her aid and hoisted her by her leg on to the horse. They rode off. Daria, sitting her horse cossack fashion, trotted in front, her skirt tucked up above her bare knees, her kerchief pressed tightly over the back of her head.
As they crossed the field track Piotra glanced to his left, and noticed a tiny cloud of dust moving swiftly along the distant high road from the village.
‘Someone riding there!’ he remarked to Natalia, screwing up his eyes.
‘And fast, too! Look at the dust!’ Natalia replied in surprise.
‘Who on earth can it be! Daria!’ Piotra called to his wife. ‘Rein in for a minute, and let’s watch that rider!’
The cloud of dust dropped down into a hollow and disappeared, then came up again on the other side. Now the figure of the rider could be seen through the dust. Piotra sat gazing, his dirty palm set against the edge of his straw summer hat. He frowned and took his hand away; an agitated expression passed across his face.
Now the horseman could be seen quite plainly. He was riding his horse at a furious gallop, his left hand holding on his cap, a dusty red flag fluttering in his right. He rode along the track so close to them that Piotra heard his horse’s panting breath. As he passed the man shouted:
‘Alarm!’
A flake of yellow soapy foam flew from his horse and fell into a hoof-print. Piotra followed the rider with his eyes. The heavy snort of the horse, and, as he stared after the retreating figure, the horse’s croup, wet, and glittering like a steel blade, remained impressed in his memory.
Still not realizing the nature of the misfortune that had come at last upon them, Piotra gazed stupidly at the foam lying in the dust, then glanced around the rolling steppe. From all sides the cossacks were running over the yellow strips of grass towards the village; across the steppe, as far as the distant upland, little clouds of dust betokening horsemen were to be seen. Along the tracks they were riding in a dense mass, and long trails of dust moved along the roads.
‘What is it all about?’ Natalia half-groaned, looking fearfully at Piotra. Her gaze, the gaze of a hare in a trap, startled him. He galloped back to the reaper, jumped off his horse before it had halted, hustled into the trousers he had flung off while working, and waving his hand to his father, tore off to add one more cloud of dust to those which had already blossomed over the sultry steppe.
He found a dense grey crowd assembled on the square. Many were already wearing their army uniform and equipment. The blue military caps of the men belonging to the Ataman’s Regiment rose a head higher than the rest, like swans among geese.
The village tavern was closed. The military commissary had a gloomy and careworn look. The women, attired in their holiday clothes, lined the fences along the streets. One word was on everybody’s lips: ‘Mobilization’. Intoxicated, excited faces. The general anxiety had been communicated to the horses, and they were kicking and plunging and snorting angrily. The square was strewn with empty bottles and the papers of cheap sweets. A low cloud of dust hung in the air.
Piotra led his saddled horse by the rein. Close to the church fence a healthy-looking, swarthy cossack of the Ataman’s Regiment was buttoning up his blue trousers, his mouth gaping with a smile, whilst around him a stocky little woman, his wife or lover, was bustling and nagging. Near to him a red-bearded sergeant-major was arguing with an artilleryman:
‘Nothing will come of it, never fear!’ he was assuring him. ‘We’ll be mobilized for a few days, and then back home again.’
‘But supposing there is a war?’
‘Pah, my friend! What Power could stand on its feet against us?’
In a neighbouring group a handsome, elderly cossack was waxing indignant:
‘It’s nothing to do with us. Let them do their own fighting, we haven’t got our corn in yet.’
‘It’s a shame! Here we are standing here, and on a day like this we cou
ld harvest enough for a whole year.’
‘The cattle will get among the stooks.’
‘And we’d just begun to reap the barley!’
‘But the ataman said they’d called us up only in case anything happened!’
‘Another twelve months and I’d have been out of the third line of reserves,’ an elderly cossack said regretfully.
‘Don’t you worry, as soon as they start killing the men off, they’ll be taking the old ones, too,’ someone reassured him.
Three cossacks led a fourth, completely drunk, and stained with blood, into the village administration. He threw himself back, tore his shirt open, and rolling his eyes, shouted:
‘I’ll show their peasants! I’ll have their blood! They’ll know the Don cossack!’
The circle around him laughed approvingly.
‘That’s right, give it to them!’
‘What have they tied him up for?’
‘He went for some peasant!’
‘Well, they deserve it; we’ll give them some more!’
‘I took a hand when they put them down in 1905. That was a sight worth seeing!’
‘There’s going to be war. They’ll be sending us again to put them down.’
Outside Mokhov’s shop was a surging crowd. In the middle Ivan Tomilin was drunkenly arguing with Sergei Platonovitch. ‘What’s all this?’ Mokhov expostulated. ‘My word, this is an outrage! Boy, run for the ataman!’
Rubbing his sweaty hands on his trousers, Tomilin pressed against the frowning merchant and sneered: ‘You’ve squeezed us and squeezed us with your interest, you swine, and now you’ve got the wind up. I’ll smash your face in, you serpent!’
The village ataman was busily pouring out the oil of soothing words for the benefit of the cossacks surrounding him: ‘War? No, there won’t be any war. Their Excellencies the military commissaries said the mobilization was only against emergency. You needn’t get alarmed.’
‘Good! Back to the fields as soon as we’re home!’ the chorus arose.
And Quiet Flows the Don Page 22