Chapter 9

"Very well.... I won't say a word. Only you ought to give me a kiss for that."

"No, afterwards ... when you are gone."

"That's a fine idea!" Kuzma Vassilyevitch was bending down to her but she slowly drew herself back and stood stiffly erect like a snake startled in the grass. Kuzma Vassilyevitch stared at her. "Well!" he said at last, "you are a spiteful thing! All right, then."

Colibri pondered and turned to the lieutenant.... All at once there was the muffled sound of tapping repeated three times at even intervals somewhere in the house. Colibri laughed, almost snorted.

"To-day--no, to-morrow--yes. Come to-morrow."

"At what time?"

"Seven ... in the evening."

"And what about Emilie?"

"Emilie ... no; will not be here."

"You think so? Very well. Only, to-morrow you will tell me?"

"What?" (Colibri's face assumed a childish expression every time she asked a question.)

"Why you have been hiding away from me all this time?"

"Yes ... yes; everything shall be to-morrow; the end shall be."

"Mind now! And I'll bring you a present."

"No ... no need."

"Why not? I see you like fine clothes."

"No need. This ... this ... this ..." she pointed to her dress, her rings, her bracelets, and everything about her, "it is all my own. Not a present. I do not take."

"As you like. And now must I go?"

"Oh, yes."

Kuzma Vassilyevitch got up. Colibri got up, too.

"Good-bye, pretty little doll! And when will you give me a kiss?"

Colibri suddenly gave a little jump and swiftly flinging both arms round his neck, gave him not precisely a kiss but a peck at his lips. He tried in his turn to kiss her but she instantly darted back and stood behind the sofa.

"To-morrow at seven o'clock, then?" he said with some confusion.

She nodded and taking a tress of her long hair with her two fingers, bit it with her sharp teeth.

Kuzma Vassilyevitch kissed his hand to her, went out and shut the door after him. He heard Colibri run up to it at once.... The key clicked in the lock.

XVII

There was no one in Madame Fritsche's drawing-room. Kuzma Vassilyevitch made his way to the passage at once. He did not want to meet Emilie. Madame Fritsche met him on the steps.

"Ah, you are going, Mr. Lieutenant?" she said, with the same affected and sinister smile. "You won't wait for Emilie?"

Kuzma Vassilyevitch put on his cap.

"I haven't time to wait any longer, madam. I may not come to-morrow, either. Please tell her so."

"Very good, I'll tell her. But I hope you haven't been dull, Mr. Lieutenant?"

"No, I have not been dull."

"I thought not. Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

Kuzma Vassilyevitch returned home and stretching himself on his bed sank into meditation. He was unutterably perplexed. "What marvel is this?" he cried more than once. And why did Emilie write to him? She had made an appointment and not come! He took out her letter, turned it over in his hands, sniffed it: it smelt of tobacco and in one place he noticed a correction. But what could he deduce from that? And was it possible that Madame Fritsche knew nothing about it? And _she_.... Who was she? Yes, who was she? The fascinating Colibri, that "pretty doll," that "little image," was always before him and he looked forward with impatience to the following evening, though secretly he was almost afraid of this "pretty doll" and "little image."

XVIII

Next day Kuzma Vassilyevitch went shopping before dinner, and, after persistent haggling, bought a tiny gold cross on a little velvet ribbon. "Though she declares," he thought, "that she never takes presents, we all know what such sayings mean; and if she really is so disinterested, Emilie won't be so squeamish." So argued this Don Juan of Nikolaev, who had probably never heard of the original Don Juan and knew nothing about him. At six o'clock in the evening Kuzma Vassilyevitch shaved carefully and sending for a hairdresser he knew, told him to pomade and curl his topknot, which the latter did with peculiar zeal, not sparing the government note paper for curlpapers; then Kuzma Vassilyevitch put on a smart new uniform, took into his right hand a pair of new wash-leather gloves, and, sprinkling himself with lavender water, set off. Kuzma Vassilyevitch took a great deal more trouble over his personal appearance on this occasion than when he went to see his "Zuckerpüppchen", not because he liked Colibri better than Emilie but in the "pretty little doll" there was something enigmatic, something which stirred even the sluggish imagination of the young lieutenant.

XIX

Madame Fritsche greeted him as she had done the day before and as though she had conspired with him in a plan of deception, informed him again that Emilie had gone out for a short time and asked him to wait. Kuzma Vassilyevitch nodded in token of assent and sat down on a chair. Madame Fritsche smiled again, that is, showed her yellow tusks and withdrew without offering him any chocolate.

Kuzma Vassilyevitch instantly fixed his eyes on the mysterious door. It remained closed. He coughed loudly once or twice so as to make known his presence.... The door did not stir. He held his breath, strained his ears.... He heard not the faintest sound or rustle; everything was still as death. Kuzma Vassilyevitch got up, approached the door on tiptoe and, fumbling in vain with his fingers, pressed his knee against it. It was no use. Then he bent down and once or twice articulated in a loud whisper, "Colibri! Colibri! Little doll!" No one responded. Kuzma Vassilyevitch drew himself up, straightened his uniform--and, after standing still a little while, walked with more resolute steps to the window and began drumming on the pane. He began to feel vexed, indignant; his dignity as an officer began to assert itself. "What nonsense is this?" he thought at last; "whom do they take me for? If they go on like this, I'll knock with my fists. She will be forced to answer! The old woman will hear.... What of it? That's not my fault." He turned swiftly on his heel ... the door stood half open.

XX

Kuzma Vassilyevitch immediately hastened into the secret room again on tiptoe. Colibri was lying on the sofa in a white dress with a broad red sash. Covering the lower part of her face with a handkerchief, she was laughing, a noiseless but genuine laugh. She had done up her hair, this time plaiting it into two long, thick plaits intertwined with red ribbon; the same slippers adorned her tiny, crossed feet but the feet themselves were bare and looking at them one might fancy that she had on dark, silky stockings. The sofa stood in a different position, nearer the wall; and on the table he saw on a Chinese tray a bright-coloured, round-bellied coffee pot beside a cut glass sugar bowl and two blue China cups. The guitar was lying there, too, and blue-grey smoke rose in a thin coil from a big, aromatic candle.

Kuzma Vassilyevitch went up to the sofa and bent over Colibri, but before he had time to utter a word she held out her hand and, still laughing in her handkerchief, put her little, rough fingers into his hair and instantly ruffled the well-arranged curls on the top of his head.

"What next?" exclaimed Kuzma Vassilyevitch, not altogether pleased by such unceremoniousness. "Oh, you naughty girl!"

Colibri took the handkerchief from her face.

"Not nice so; better now." She moved away to the further end of the sofa and drew her feet up under her. "Sit down ... there."

Kuzma Vassilyevitch sat down on the spot indicated.

"Why do you move away?" he said, after a brief silence. "Surely you are not afraid of me?"

Colibri curled herself up and looked at him sideways.

"I am not afraid ... no."

"You must not be shy with me," Kuzma Vassilyevitch said in an admonishing tone. "Do you remember your promise yesterday to give me a kiss?"

Colibri put her arms round her knees, laid her head on them and looked at him again.

"I remember."

"I should hope so. And you must keep your word."

"Yes ... I must."

"In that case," Kuzma Vassilyevitch was beginning, and he moved nearer.

Colibri freed her plaits which she was holding tight with her knees and with one of them gave him a flick on his hand.

"Not so fast, sir!"

Kuzma Vassilyevitch was embarrassed.

"What eyes she has, the rogue!" he muttered, as though to himself. "But," he went on, raising his voice, "why did you call me ... if that is how it is?"

Colibri craned her neck like a bird ... she listened. Kuzma Vassilyevitch was alarmed.

"Emilie?" he asked.

"No."

"Someone else?"

Colibri shrugged her shoulder.

"Do you hear something?"

"Nothing." With a birdlike movement, again Colibri drew back her little oval-shaped head with its pretty parting and the short growth of tiny curls on the nape of her neck where her plaits began, and again curled herself up into a ball. "Nothing."

"Nothing! Then now I'll ..." Kuzma Vassilyevitch craned forward towards Colibri but at once pulled back his hand. There was a drop of blood on his finger. "What foolishness is this!" he cried, shaking his finger. "Your everlasting pins! And the devil of a pin it is!" he added, looking at the long, golden pin which Colibri slowly thrust into her sash. "It's a regular dagger, it's a sting.... Yes, yes, it's your sting, and you are a wasp, that's what you are, a wasp, do you hear?"

Apparently Colibri was much pleased at Kuzma Vasselyevitch's comparison; she went off into a thin laugh and repeated several times over:

"Yes, I will sting ... I will sting."

Kuzma Vassilyevitch looked at her and thought: "She is laughing but her face is melancholy.

"Look what I am going to show you," he said aloud.

"_Tso?_"

"Why do you say _tso?_ Are you a Pole?"

"_Nee_."

"Now you say _nee!_ But there, it's no matter." Kuzma Vassilyevitch got out his present and waved it in the air. "Look at it.... Isn't it nice?"

Colibri raised her eyes indifferently.

"Ah! A cross! We don't wear."

"What? You don't wear a cross? Are you a Jewess then, or what?"

"We don't wear," repeated Colibri, and, suddenly starting, looked back over her shoulder. "Would you like me to sing?" she asked hurriedly.

Kuzma Vassilyevitch put the cross in the pocket of his uniform and he, too, looked round.

"What is it?" he muttered.

"A mouse ... a mouse," Colibri said hurriedly, and suddenly to Kuzma Vassilyevitch's complete surprise, flung her smooth, supple arms round his neck and a rapid kiss burned his cheek ... as though a red-hot ember had been pressed against it.

He pressed Colibri in his arms but she slipped away like a snake--her waist was hardly thicker than the body of a snake--and leapt to her feet.

"Wait," she whispered, "you must have some coffee first."

"Nonsense! Coffee, indeed! Afterwards."

"No, now. Now hot, after cold." She took hold of the coffee pot by the handle and, lifting it high, began pouring out two cups. The coffee fell in a thin, as it were, twirling stream; Colibri leaned her head on her shoulder and watched it fall. "There, put in the sugar ... drink ... and I'll drink."

Kuzma Vassilyevitch put a lump of sugar in the cup and drank it off at one draught. The coffee struck him as very strong and bitter. Colibri looked at him, smiling, and faintly dilated her nostrils over the edge of her cup. She slowly put it down on the table.

"Why don't you drink it?" asked Kuzma Vassilyevitch.

"Not all, now."

Kuzma Vassilyevitch got excited.

"Do sit down beside me, at least."

"In a minute." She bent her head and, still keeping her eyes fixed on Kuzma Vassilyevitch, picked up the guitar. "Only I will sing first."

"Yes, yes, only sit down."

"And I will dance. Shall I?"

"You dance? Well, I should like to see that. But can't that be afterwards?"

"No, now.... But I love you very much."

"You love? Mind now ... dance away, then, you queer creature."

XXI

Colibri stood on the further side of the table and running her fingers several times over the strings of the guitar and to the surprise of Kuzma Vassilyevitch, who was expecting a lively, merry song, began singing a slow, monotonous air, accompanying each separate sound, which seemed as though it were wrung out of her by force, with a rhythmical swaying of her body to right and left. She did not smile, and indeed knitted her brows, her delicate, high, rounded eyebrows, between which a dark blue mark, probably burnt in with gunpowder, stood out sharply, looking like some letter of an oriental alphabet. She almost closed her eyes but their pupils glimmered dimly under the drooping lids, fastened as before on Kuzma Vassilyevitch. And he, too, could not look away from those marvellous, menacing eyes, from that dark-skinned face that gradually began to glow, from the half-closed and motionless lips, from the two black snakes rhythmically moving on both sides of her graceful head. Colibri went on swaying without moving from the spot and only her feet were working; she kept lightly shifting them, lifting first the toe and then the heel. Once she rotated rapidly and uttered a piercing shriek, waving the guitar high in the air.... Then the same monotonous movement accompanied by the same monotonous singing, began again. Kuzma Vassilyevitch sat meanwhile very quietly on the sofa and went on looking at Colibri; he felt something strange and unusual in himself: he was conscious of great lightness and freedom, too great lightness, in fact; he seemed, as it were, unconscious of his body, as though he were floating and at the same time shudders ran down him, a sort of agreeable weakness crept over his legs, and his lips and eyelids tingled with drowsiness. He had no desire now, no thought of anything ... only he was wonderfully at ease, as though someone were lulling him, "singing him to bye-bye," as Emilie had expressed it, and he whispered to himself, "little doll!" At times the face of the "little doll" grew misty. "Why is that?" Kuzma Vassilyevitch wondered. "From the smoke," he reassured himself. "There is such a blue smoke here." And again someone was lulling him and even whispering in his ear something so sweet ... only for some reason it was always unfinished. But then all of a sudden in the little doll's face the eyes opened till they were immense, incredibly big, like the arches of a bridge.... The guitar dropped, and striking against the floor, clanged somewhere at the other end of the earth.... Some very near and dear friend of Kuzma Vassilyevitch's embraced him firmly and tenderly from behind and set his cravat straight. Kuzma Vassilyevitch saw just before his own face the hooked nose, the thick moustache and the piercing eyes of the stranger with the three buttons on his cuff ... and although the eyes were in the place of the moustache and the nose itself seemed upside down, Kuzma Vassilyevitch was not in the least surprised, but, on the contrary, thought that this was how it ought to be; he was even on the point of saying to the nose, "Hullo, brother Grigory," but he changed his mind and preferred ... preferred to set off with Colibri to Constantinople at once for their forthcoming wedding, as she was a Turk and the Tsar promoted him to be an actual Turk.

XXII

And opportunely a little boat appeared: he lifted his foot to get into it and though through clumsiness he stumbled and hurt himself rather badly, so that for some time he did not know where anything was, yet he managed it and getting into the boat, floated on the big river, which, as the River of Time, flows to Constantinople in the map on the walls of the Nikolaevsky High School. With great satisfaction he floated down the river and watched a number of red ducks which continually met him; they would not let him come near them, however, and, diving, changed into round, pink spots. And Colibri was going with him, too, but to escape the sultry heat she hid, under the boat and from time to time knocked on the bottom of it.... And here at last was Constantinople. The houses, as houses should, looked like Tyrolese hats; and the Turks had all big, sedate faces; only it did not do to look at them too long: they began wriggling, making faces and at last melted away altogether like thawing snow. And here was the palace in which he would live with Colibri.... And how well everything was arranged in it! Walls with generals' gold lace on it, everywhere epaulettes, people blowing trumpets in the corners and one could float into the drawing-room in the boat. Of course, there was a portrait of Mahomet.... Only Colibri kept running ahead through the rooms and her plaits trailed after her on the floor and she would not turn round, and she kept growing smaller and smaller.... And now it was not Colibri but a boy in a jacket and he was the boy's tutor and he had to climb after the boy into a telescope, and the telescope got narrower and narrower, till at last he could not move ... neither backwards nor forwards, and something fell on his back ... there was earth in his mouth.

XXIII

Kuzma Vassilyevitch opened his eyes. It was daylight and everything was still ... there was a smell of vinegar and mint. Above him and at his sides there was something white; he looked more intently: it was the canopy of a bed. He wanted to raise his head ... he could not; his hand ... he could not do that, either. What was the meaning of it? He dropped his eyes.... A long body lay stretched before him and over it a yellow blanket with a brown edge. The body proved to be his, Kuzma Vassilyevitch's. He tried to cry out ... no sound came. He tried again, did his very utmost ... there was the sound of a feeble moan quavering under his nose. He heard heavy footsteps and a sinewy hand parted the bed curtains. A grey-headed pensioner in a patched military overcoat stood gazing at him.... And he gazed at the pensioner. A big tin mug was put to Kuzma Vassilyevitch's lips. He greedily drank some cold water. His tongue was loosened. "Where am I?" The pensioner glanced at him once more, went away and came back with another man in a dark uniform. "Where am I?" repeated Kuzma Vassilyevitch. "Well, he will live now," said the man in the dark uniform. "You are in the hospital," he added aloud, "but you must go to sleep. It is bad for you to talk." Kuzma Vassilyevitch began to feel surprised, but sank into forgetfulness again....

Next morning the doctor appeared. Kuzma Vassilyevitch came to himself. The doctor congratulated him on his recovery and ordered the bandages round his head to be changed.

"What? My head? Why, am I ..."

"You mustn't talk, you mustn't excite yourself," the doctor interrupted. "Lie still and thank the Almighty. Where are the compresses, Poplyovkin?"

"But where is the money ... the government money ..."

"There! He is lightheaded again. Some more ice, Poplyovkin."

XXIV

Another week passed. Kuzma Vassilyevitch was so much better that the doctors found it possible to tell him what had happened to him. This is what he learned.

At seven o'clock in the evening on the 16th of June he had visited the house of Madame Fritsche for the last time and on the 17th of June at dinner time, that is, nearly twenty-four hours later, a shepherd had found him in a ravine near the Herson high road, a mile and a half from Nikolaev, with a broken head and crimson bruises on his neck. His uniform and waistcoat had been unbuttoned, all his pockets turned inside out, his cap and cutlass were not to be found, nor his leather money belt. From the trampled grass, from the broad track upon the grass and the clay, it could be inferred that the luckless lieutenant had been dragged to the bottom of the ravine and only there had been gashed on his head, not with an axe but with a sabre--probably his own cutlass: there were no traces of blood on his track from the high road while there was a perfect pool of blood round his head. There could be no doubt that his assailants had first drugged him, then tried to strangle him and, taking him out of the town by night, had dragged him to the ravine and there given him the final blow. It was only thanks to his truly iron constitution that Kuzma Vassilyevitch had not died. He had returned to consciousness on July 22nd, that is, five weeks later.

XXV

Kuzma Vassilyevitch immediately informed the authorities of the misfortune that had happened to him; he stated all the circumstances of the case verbally and in writing and gave the address of Madame Fritsche. The police raided the house but they found no one there; the birds had flown. They got hold of the owner of the house. But they could not get much sense out of the latter, a very old and deaf workman. He lived in a different part of the town and all he knew was that four months before he had let his house to a Jewess with a passport, whose name was Schmul or Schmulke, which he had immediately registered at the police station. She had been joined by another woman, so he stated, who also had a passport, but what was their calling did not know; and whether they had other people living with them had not heard and did not know; the lad whom he used to keep as porter or watchman in the house had gone away to Odessa or Petersburg, and the new porter had only lately come, on the 1st of July.

Inquiries were made at the police station and in the neighbourhood; it appeared that Madame Schmulke, together with her companion, whose real name was Frederika Bengel, had left Nikolaev about the 20th of June, but where they had gone was unknown. The mysterious man with a gipsy face and three buttons on his cuff and the dark-skinned foreign girl with an immense mass of hair, no one had seen. As soon as Kuzma Vassilyevitch was discharged from the hospital, he visited the house that had been so fateful for him. In the little room where he had talked to Colibri and where there was still a smell of musk, there was a second secret door; the sofa had been moved in front of it on his second visit and through it no doubt the murderer had come and seized him from behind. Kuzma Vassilyevitch lodged a formal complaint; proceedings were taken. Several numbered reports and instructions were dispatched in various directions; the appropriate acknowledgments and replies followed in due course.... There the incident closed. The suspicious characters had disappeared completely and with them the stolen government money had vanished, too, one thousand, nine hundred and seventeen roubles and some kopecks, in paper and gold. Not an inconsiderable sum in those days! Kuzma Vassilyevitch was paying back instalments for ten years, when, fortunately for him, an act of clemency from the Throne cancelled the debt.

XXVI