by Marie Nizet
“Bah!” said Bogomil Tchestakoff, “Liatoukine, who has exceedingly beautiful relatives here, will find us some palace where the cellars are well-stocked and the girls pretty. He’s an invaluable man!”
“So where is Liatoukine, then?” they exclaimed, in chorus.
The emphasis with which they pronounced the name allowed the inference that Liatoukine was, at the least, a sufficiently important person not to cause well-born men to blush.
“You know very well that Liatoukine is everywhere,” said Yuri Levine. “He has the gift of ubiquity, just like the good God of Archimandrite Samourkassoff.”
“Bah! Since I’ve been with the regiment I’ve heard no stories of any other sort,” said Bogomil. “I’ve grown tired of it. Do you believe such tales, the rest of you?”
No,” said Sokolich, whose Mephistophelean profile advertised his skepticism. “Despite his funereal aspect, I take Boris Liatoukine for an honest fellow, no more stained by Diabolism than this stout Pole here. Except that this is what a trustworthy old officer told me:
“It was in the Crimea. Remember that Liatoukine is older than us, and over 45. Liatoukine was in command of a Cossack regiment. You know that he doesn’t have a soft heart. All Cossacks are thick-skinned, it’s true, but Liatoukine plied the knout so often and hard that one day, when he found himself in an out-of-the way spot with his men, they stripped him naked, intending to freeze him to death–yes, freeze him to death! The funny thing is that Liatoukine didn’t make a move to defend himself. On the contrary, he smiled. Water cascaded down on him, and when he had the appearance of a pretty crystal statue, the Cossacks, glad to be rid of their Lieutenant, got back on their horses. When they arrived back at camp, the first person they saw was Liatoukine, fully dressed and not even chilly. One of the Cossacks went mad, and Liatoukine had the rest–who would surely have died of fright without his intervention–executed by a firing-squad. Ever since then, he’s been known in the army as Captain Vampire–a nickname he’s kept even though he’s now a Colonel.”
Bogomil and the Pole burst out laughing.
“That’s not all,” Sokolich went on. “You know that Liatoukine has the reputation of being a lucky man. One evening–it was last winter, I believe–little Count M*** went back to his estate. A charitable friend was waiting at the railway station to tell him that Countess Malgorzata had gone to the theater with Liatoukine. Bad news! The Count ran to the Opera House; Malgorzata was there, in the flesh, with Captain Vampire at her side! M***, afraid of a scandal, swallowed his rage with his supper, but first thing the next morning, he presented himself at Boris’s lodgings–where he was astonished to discover a companion in misfortune! Prince S***, whom you all know, was saying: ‘Don’t try to excuse yourself, sir! Yesterday, as Saint Isaac’s chimed midnight, you were found in intimate company with the Princess!’
“ ‘You’re mistaken, my Prince!’ cried the bewildered M***. ‘It was my wife that the gentleman took to the Opera; I saw them, as midnight sounded at the station.’ And they started bickering. ‘It’s me!–no, it’s me!–it’s me!’ A fine subject for discussion! Liatoukine, profiting from this altercation, refrained from clarifying the issue, and do you know how it finished? The two husbands fought a duel against one another!”
This Rabelaisian anecdote excited a general hilarity. The officers let loose that good Homeric laughter, which has suffered so much abuse from romancers, and which never sounds so well as when it bursts out at someone else’s expense.
“Isn’t it said that he’s been married?” asked Boleslas Brzeminski.
“Twice over!” said Stenka Sokolich, who could have compiled the chronicles of St Petersburg’s scandals. “His first wife was a tall, stiff Pole–one week of marriage and crack!–no more Princess Liatoukine.”
“She died?” asked Brzeminski, who was not quick on the uptake.
“Absolutely. The second was more durable–that one lasted a month. One fine morning, all St Petersburg learned that Liatoukine was a widower once again. It was whispered abroad that the two women had been strangled and that they both bore a little red mark on the neck–the vampire’s teeth, you know...”
“Damn! That makes the blood run cold!” said the Pole, only half-jokingly.
It is unnecessary to add that several more bottles had been drained to the last drop during Sokolich’s story.
“So he isn’t coming, then, dear Boris!” cried Bogomil, yanking the cord of a bell despairingly.
A waiter appeared. “What do your lordships desire?” he said, speaking French with a Hungarian accent.
“Liatoukine, my friend! Yes, we’ve lost him, and we’d dearly like to find him again,” said Bogomil, shifting in his chair.
“But...”
“No buts, my lad! We need Liatoukine–he’s a Russian boyar. Find him!”
“It’s just that there are a great many Russian boyars here now,” the waiter replied, with a tentative smile.
“Ah!” said Sokolic, smoothing down his moustache with his thumb. “Does that displease you, perchance?”
And they repeated, in various tones: “Liatoukine–we want Liatoukine!”
“Here he is, gentlemen!” said a voice that caused them all to start, as if impelled by a spring.
Liatoukine was standing in front of them.
As Sokolich had said, the newcomer had a funereal aspect. He realized, with surprising exactitude, the legendary type-specimen of the Slavic vampire. His figure, unusually long and thin, projected an enormous shadow behind him, which merged with the darkness of the ceiling. With a gesture redolent with a slightly cold dignity, he offered a fleshless hand charged with rings to the young officers, and deigned to take the seat that was respectfully offered to him. His hair and beard, which were intensely black, made the livid pallor of his long face stand out, its stern and glacial lines seeming more reminiscent of a marble monument than any human physiognomy. The soldiers had nicknamed him “Captain Vampire;” a stronger mind might have labeled him a perfect gentleman. The eyes, which seemed the only living things in that impassive face, displayed a singular feature: each eyeball, iridescent as a topaz, had a vertically slit pupil, such as one observes in animals of the feline family. The power of that gaze was such that no one could sustain it.
The ladies of Petersburg said that Liatoukine had the evil eye, and hastened to touch iron when he approached.
Liatoukine spoke sparingly. His voice had a metallic quality, which served him marvelously well in battle, but which resonated strangely in a drawing-room. No one had ever seen him laugh, and when he smiled, his features took on an expression of ferocity to which his oldest friends had not yet become accustomed. He had received a precious gift of nature, which his comrades envied him: that of drinking wine as others drank water. A large amethyst which he wore on his finger prevented him, they were convinced, from getting drunk. Having a great deal of influence, he had few declared enemies; his town house in St Petersburg was a customary meeting-place for Ministers and Ambassadors. He had published a highly-esteemed treatise on strategy, and the Tsar sometimes sent him on missions to Vienna, London or Berlin. To sum up, Captain Vampire was an officer of great valor; he had distinguished himself in the Crimea and Khiva, and Archduke Nicolas’s staff officers whispered that he would be a General before the campaign ended.
As to the rest, his life was shrouded in mystery, and no one knew any more than Stenka Sokolich.
A witness would have been struck by the change that Liatoukine’s presence had brought to the manner in which these young hotheads expressed themselves. That dear Boris had become Colonel; familiarity had been transformed into deference.
Liatoukine slowly drained a large glass of Cotnar wine, and surveyed his companions with his mesmeric gaze. “Gentlemen,” he said, in his sonorous voice, “the boyar Androcles Comanescu has done us the honor of inviting us to the party that he is giving at 11 p.m. in his palace in the Strada Mogosoi. Ten o’clock has just sounded; we have time enough.”
/> Liatoukine got to his feet, as stiffly as an automaton. The young men bowed and followed the Colonel, very happy to be able, at last, to parade their graces before the eyes of Rumanian ladies, which they promised themselves to dazzle.
Yuri Levine and the Pole formed the rearguard.
“He’s very generous, this Cococescu!” muttered Boleslas, starting off by mangling the name of his Amphitryon.
“Shut up!” said Yuri. And, taking Brzeminski by the arm, he picked up Liatoukine’s glass in his gloved fingertips. “Look!” he said holding the glass up to the lamplight.
“Pooh!” said the Pole.
And Yuri threw the glass out of the window.
III. Mariora
Four or five miles from Bucharest, on the far side of the Baniassa Woods, a little white house stood in the middle of a tiny garden. The garden, where various plants vied to outgrow one another, was very narrow. The tile-roofed house seemed to be smiling through its small white-curtained windows. It all had an air of cleanliness and grace–which is not rare in Rumania, whatever people might say. Travelers halted instinctively in front of this cheerful habitation, and those who asked about the owners were informed: “They’re the children of the late parish priest: the Slobozianus, Mitica and Mariora.” And if the superb maize-fields round about caught their eyes: “Those are the Slobozianus’ too–for as far as the eye can see, everything belongs to the Slobozianus.”
While the Russians whom we have just left were drinking strong Cotnar wine and painting their friend Liatoukine in the darkest of colors, five or six young Rumanian women were gathered in the garden of the children of the parish priest. Some among them qualified as beauties, and none was straightforwardly ugly. They all wore the magnificent national costume, which retains echoes of Italy. Their double aprons of multicolored wool, the Byzantine embroideries that decorated their silken sleeves and the gold Turkish coins that shone in their brunette hair–invariably gathered into a thick plait–testified that they belonged to the families of wealthy peasants.
A joyful babble emerged from this pretty company. To tell the truth, they were gossiping about their neighbors, as people do in every village in the world when evening approaches–and God knows how Moldo-Walachian tongues wag!
“These Russians!” said a tall young woman of 20. “They think we’re their slaves and they have a right to offend us.”
“Zinca got married yesterday,” said another. “They tried to carry off the husband.”
“Bah! They couldn’t carry off anything large.” A loud burst of laughter greeted these words. Addressing a young woman whose clothes seemed slightly coarser than those of her companions and whose jet-black hair only bore red ribbons faded with wear, the speaker went on: “What did you say to the bold stranger?”
“Me? Nothing,” said the young woman in red ribbons. “I didn’t even understand what he said. I walked faster, that’s all. In any case, I had my dog, which would have defended me.”
“She’s a savage, that Zamfira!” exclaimed Ralitza, a brunette.
“I hate the Russians!” murmured the one who had just been addressed as Zamfira.
“No,” said the daughter of a wealthy farmer. “Zamfira’s just faithful.”
“Oh, faithful! Has the little one got a fiancé, then? Is it Stanciù the blacksmith or Stroïtza with the dancing bear?”
Zamfira blushed and made no reply, but a tear trembled on her eyelashes.
“One can’t put on a show of being difficult when one has gypsy blood in one’s veins,” Ralitza put in. “Who wants a gypsy for a wife?”
“I know someone,” said the oldest of the group, “and I forbid you to tease poor Zamfira–who’s as good as you or me–any more.”
Zamfira smiled and looked up, her eyes full of gratitude for her protector, who squeezed her hand gently.
“Was he handsome, at least, your Russian?” said Katinka, the farmer’s wife.
“I don’t know,” Zamfira said. “I barely glanced at him.”
“Ah! I would have known, myself,” her interlocutor riposted. “Did he have black hair?”
“And yellow eyes?” said a soft and melodious voice from behind the young women.
The owner of the cottage, Mariora Slobozianu, had just appeared on the threshold.
Where are you, Rumanian poets too little known in the West–Heliade, Bolliaco, Alecsandri 11–that you might tell us what a pretty thing this Mariora was?
Alecsandri would have cried, on seeing her: “Her hair is like the silvery rays of the Moon in summer, and her eyes recall the limpid mirror of a mountain lake!” Which, translated into vulgar language, signifies that Mariora had blonde hair and blue eyes.
She seemed, among her dark-complexioned companions, to be a daughter of the North astray beneath the serene skies of these southern climes–but her dainty feet, ever-ready to dance the hora,12 her extravagant gaiety, bursting out on the slightest pretext, made her recognizable as an authentic Danubian. Her gaze had the calm profundity of the eyes of infants, and her smile was so sweet that it had finally captivated the heart of the wildest man in the neighborhood: Ioan Isacescu.
Mariora was leaning against the vine-clad wall, in a picturesque and slightly studied pose, the rays of the setting Sun brightening the vivid colors of her clothes, whose weave contained more threads of silk than strands of wool. Alas, the pretty Walachian had more than one fault. In all her life, not one serious thought had ever crossed her foolish mind, which was entirely occupied with the thousand trifles that have the privilege of delighting the sophisticated women of Paris and the female savages of Guinea to an equal extent.
Mariora was a coquette.
Her coquetry was fundamentally and entirely innocent; Mariora never dreamed of doing any harm and sought only to please Isacescu, whom she adored. She was considered by other young people to be a being of a superior kind; light conversation ceased when she approached, and she was held in respect as much on account of being the daughter of the late parish priest as the fiancée of the dreaded dorobantz.
Mariora was well-protected. She never went to Bucharest without the accompaniment of Baba Sophia, an aged female relative the priest had taken in, and the young boyars “returning from Paris” knew that anyone leaving the house of the sister risked meeting the brother’s dagger or the fiancé’s revolver at the corner. Only Lord Relia Comanescu, Mitica’s foster-brother,13 was admitted to the intimacy of the Slobozianu household; his mind was imbued with the caste prejudices of the previous century, and never even suspected that Mariora was pretty.
For her part, Mariora admired no one but Ioan Isacescu. He was poor, or nearly so, while she was rich; he possessed six miserable pogones 14 of land, while the Slobozianu estate covered an area of more than 50 hectares, all of which Mariora, an unconscious egoist, considered as her own property–a notion of which her brother, Mitica, did not think it necessary to disabuse her. Imperious and willful as she was, though, with regard to all those who surrounded her, a slight movement of the poor dorobantz’s eyebrows was sufficient to render her docile. Their wedding was to be celebrated within the year, although all the gossips in Baniassa were shaking their heads and muttering that, marriage or no, it would all end badly, and that Mariora was not the wife that Ioan Isacescu needed.
Perhaps that was true, alas. Mariora had the charming faults and caprices of a noble lady of Bucharest, which might prove rather embarrassing baggage beneath the roof of a simple peasant like Ioan. The wife of the parish priest–who had, incidentally, married beneath her–had devoted herself to educating her daughter in a plethora of small superfluous perfections, while neglecting to cultivate the solid qualities by means of which the young woman would easily have found employment in the position that she occupied. The end-result of this was that she had pretty pink fingers that did not know how to make cheese, and that she sang doïne 15 divinely, although it required more than courage to consume mamaliga that she had prepared. She seemed far less suitable for Isacescu’s humble
hearth than the sumptuous drawing-rooms of some boyar; she had long since confided the duties of her own household to Baba Sophia and Zamfira.
What was Zamfira? Oh, almost nothing. She and her father lived together in little hut they owed to the generosity of the Slobozianus. The father labored, sowed crops, weeded the garden and gathered the harvest on Mitica’s behalf; he daughter helped–or, rather, replaced–Mariora, and still found the time to weave nets and mats, which she sold in Bucharest. She was honest, according to supposition, although the question had scarcely been tested. She had had the misfortune to be born to a gypsy mother, thus suffering from a kind of proscription that may have struck her as unjust, but she never complained. She was very gentle, and when she wept, she was so quiet as to be scarcely audible. If Mariora was reckoned a pearl, Zamfira might have been called an angel.
Zamfira was devoted to Mariora; Mariora might have loved Zamfira if the gypsy had not had those poor frayed ribbons in her hair. There was a story attached to those ribbons, and they were the cause of Mariora frequently subjecting Zamfira to unmerited reproaches and wounding jeers. One day–it was about a year previously–Mitica had brought them back from the Mosilor fair, which is held in Bucharest during the week before Pentecost.
“Red!” the discontented Mariora had cried. “Why red, given that I’m blonde?”
Mitica smiled and did not reply. The following day, Zamfira appeared at the hora with the famous ribbons in her hair, to the great annoyance of Mademoiselle Slobozianu, who would not speak to her brother for a week, while complaining loudly that she did not want a Bohemian in the family. The continued sight of these ribbons exasperated Mariora, who set about making Zamfira into Danubian Cinderella; they had faded now, and Mariora had sworn that Mitica would not replace them.