Part 5

»It's no good, gentlemen, really,« the superintendent said with a spiteful glance at the man. The officers approached, looked him up and down from his crown to his naked feet with those bent toes, surveyed Liuba, and casually exchanged observations.

»Yes--he's good looking,« said the young one, the one who had invited them all to the cotillion. He had splendid white teeth and silky whiskers and soft eyes with girlish lashes. He looked at the arrested man with disdainful compassion, and wrinkled his eyes as if he were going to cry. There was a corn on the left little toe ... somehow it was horrible and disgusting to see that little yellow mound. And the legs were dirty. »This is a fine pass for you to come to, sir,« he said, shaking his head and painfully contracting his brows.

»So that's how it is, Mr. Anarchist? You're no better than us sinners with the girls? The flesh was weak, eh?« jeered the other, the elder.

»Why did you give up your revolver? You might at least have had a shot for it. I understand that you found yourself here, as anyone might find himself; but why did you give up your revolver? A poor example to set your comrades!« said the little officer, hotly; and then explained to the elder: »He had a Browning with three cartridge clips. Just think of it! Stupid!«

But the man, smiling contemptuously from the height of his new, unmeasured, and terrible truth, looked on the little excited officer and indifferently kept on swinging his leg. The fact of his being nearly naked, of having dirty hairy legs with bent and crooked toes, gave him no sense of shame. Had they taken him just as he was and planted him in the most populous square of the city, in front of all the men and women and children, he would have gone on dangling that hairy leg with the same equanimity, smiling the same disdainful smile.

»Do they know what comradeship is?« said the superintendent. He was savagely looking askance at that swaying leg, and indolently trying to dissuade the officers. »It's no good talking to him, gentlemen, I swear! No good! You know the kind of thing--instructions!«

Other officers entered quite freely, surveyed the scene and chatted together. One of them, evidently an old acquaintance of the superintendent, shook hands with him. Liuba was already coquetting with the officers.

»Just imagine! A Browning with three clips and, like a fool, he gave it up!« the little officer was relating. »I can't understand that!«

»You, Misha, will never understand this.«

»For, after all, they are no cowards!«

»You, Misha, are an idealist, and the milk has not yet dried on your lips.«

»Samson and Delilah,« one short snuffling officer said ironically; he had a little drooping nose and thin whiskers combed back and upwards.

»Oh Delilah! What a smiler!«

They laughed.

The superintendent, smiling pleasantly and rubbing his flabby red nose downwards, suddenly approached the man and stood as if to screen him from the officers with his own carcase encased in the loose hanging coat; and he murmured under his breath, rolling his eyes wildly:

»Shameful, sir! You might at least have put your drawers on, sir! Shameful! And a hero, too? Involved with a prostitute ... with this carrion-flesh? What will your comrades say of you,--eh, you cur?«

Liuba, stretching her naked neck, heard him. They were together now, side by side, these three plain truths of life, the corrupt old drunkard who yearned for heroes, the dissolute woman into whose soul some scattered seeds of purpose and self-denial had fallen--and the man. After the superintendent's words, he paled slightly, and seemed to wish to say something--but changed his mind and smiled, and went on swinging that hairy leg.

The officers wandered off; the police accommodated themselves to the situation, to the presence of the half naked couple, and stood about sleepily, with that absence of visible thought which renders the faces of all guards alike.

The superintendent put his hands on the table and pondered deeply and sadly--that he would not get a nap today, that he would have to go to the station and set matters on foot. But something else made him even more melancholy and weary.

»May I dress myself?« asked Liuba.

»No!«

»I'm cold.«

»Never mind--sit as you are!«

The superintendent didn't even look at her. So she turned away, and, stretching out her thin neck, whispered something to the man, softly, with her lips only. He raised his brows in enquiry, and she repeated:

»Darling! My Darling!«

He nodded and smiled affectionately. Then seeing him smile to to her so gently, though plainly forgetting nothing--seeing him, who was so handsome and proud, now naked and despised by all, with his dirty bare legs, she was suddenly flushed with a feeling of unbearable love and demoniac blind wrath. She gasped, and flung herself on her knees on that damp floor, and embraced those cold hairy feet.

»Dress yourself, darling!« she murmured in an ecstasy. »Dress yourself!«

»Liubka, stop this!« The superintendent dragged her away. »He's not worth it!«

The girl sprang to her feet.

»Silence, you old profligate! He's better than the whole lot of you put together!«

»He's a swine!«

»You're a swine!«

»What?« The superintendent promptly lost his temper. »Tackle her, my man! Hold her down. Leave your rifle alone, you block-head!«

»Oh, darling, why did you give up your revolver?« the girl moaned, struggling with the policeman. »Why didn't you bring a bomb? We might have ... might have ... them all to....«

»Gag her!«

The panting woman struggled desperately, trying to bite the rough fingers that were holding her. The policeman with the white eye-lashes, disconcerted, not knowing how to fight a woman, was seizing her by her hair, by her breasts, trying to fling her on the ground and sniffing in his desperation.

From the corridor new voices were heard, loud, unconcerned, and the jangle of a police officer's spurs. A sweet, sincere, barytone voice was leading, as though a star was making his entrance and now at last the real and serious opera was about to commence.

The superintendent pulled his coat straight.

* * * * *

THE HOGARTH PRESS

HOGARTH HOUSE, PARADISE ROAD, RICHMOND

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