LEONID ANDREEV (continued 2)

They surrounded the house as though they had come to take not one sleeper but a host in ambush. Then some of them crept along the dark corridor on tiptoe to the fearsome door.

A desperate knock—a shout—threats to shoot through the door. And when, almost knocking Liuba, half naked, off her feet, they burst into the little room in close formation and filled it with their boots and cloaks and rifles—then they saw him—sitting on the bed in his shirt, with his bare hairy legs hanging down—sitting there silent. No bomb—nothing terrible—nothing but the ordinary room of a prostitute, filthy and repulsive in the early morning light, with its stretch of tattered carpet and scattered clothes, the table smeared and stained with liquor—and sitting on the bed a man, clean shaven and with drowsy eyes, high cheekbones, a swollen face, hairy legs—silent.

»Hands up!« shouted the superintendent, holding his revolver tighter in his damp hand.

But the man neither raised his arms nor made any answer.

»Search him!« the superintendent ordered.

»There's nothing to search! I took his revolver away. Oh, my God!« Liuba cried, her teeth chattering with fear. She had nothing on but a crumpled chemise; among the others, all wrapped in their cloaks, the two, man and woman, both half naked, roused feelings of shame, disgust, and contempt.

They searched his clothing, ransacked the carpet, peered into the corners, into the cupboard, and found nothing.

»I took his revolver from him,« Liuba thoughtlessly insisted.

»Silence Liubka!« the superintendent shouted. He knew the girl well, had spent two or three nights with her. He believed her; but his relief was so unexpected that out of sheer pleasure he wanted to shout and command and show his authority.

»Your name?«

»I shall not say. I shall not answer any questions at all.«

»All right, sir, all right,« the superintendent replied ironically, but somewhat abashed. Then he looked again at the naked hairy feet and at the girl shuddering in the corner, and suddenly became suspicious.

»Is this the right man?« he said, taking a detective aside. »Something seems....«

The detective went and stared closely in the man's face, then nodded his head decisively.

»Yes. It's he. He's only shaved his beard. You can recognise him by his cheekbones.«

»A brigand's cheekbones, sure enough.«

»And look at the eyes, too. I could pick him out of a thousand by his eyes.«

»His eyes? Let me see the photograph.«

He took a long look at the unfinished proof photograph of a man, very handsome, wonderfully pure and young, with a long bushy Russian beard. The expression on the face was the same. Not grim, but very calm and bright. The cheekbones were not markedly prominent.

»You see! His cheekbones don't stand out like....«

»They are concealed by the beard, but if you feel under it with the eye....«

»It may be, but.... Is he a hard drinker?«

The detective, tall and thin, with a yellow face and sparse beard, himself a hard drinker, smiled patronizingly.

»There's no drinking among them.«

»I know there isn't but still....« The superintendent approached the man. »Listen! Were you an accomplice in the murder of N——?« It was a very important and well known name.

But the man remained silent and only smiled and fidgeted with one hairy leg; the toes were bent and distorted by boots.

»You are being examined!«

»You may as well leave him alone. He won't reply. We'd better wait for the captain and prosecutor. They'll make him talk.«

The superintendent smiled, but in his heart for some reason he felt the shrinking again.

They had been tearing up the carpet; they had upset something, and there was a very unpleasant smell in the ill-ventilated room.

»What filth!« thought the superintendent, though in the matter of cleanliness he was by no means nice. And he looked with disgust at that naked swinging foot. »So he is still fidgeting with his foot,« he thought.

He turned round; a young policeman, with pure white eye-lashes and eyebrows, was sneering at Liuba, holding his rifle with both hands as a village night watchman holds his staff.

»Well, Liubka,« the superintendent cried, approaching her. »Why didn't you report at once who you had with you, you bitch?«

»Oh, I was....«

The superintendent smacked her face twice, quite neatly, first on one cheek then on the other.

»Take that then! I'll show you!«

The man's brows went up and the foot ceased swinging.

»So you don't like that, young fellow?« The contempt of the superintendent was growing apace. »What are you going to do about it? You kissed this face, didn't you, and we'll do what we damn well....«

He laughed, and the policeman smiled in some agitation. And what was more surprising, even the downtrodden Liuba laughed. She looked at the old superintendent in a friendly way, as though she enjoyed his jokes and jollity.

From the moment of the arrival of the police she had never looked at the man, betraying him naturally and openly; and this he saw, and was silent and smiled half scoffingly, a strange smile—as a gray stone in the forest, sunk into the ground and mossgrown, might smile.

Half dressed women were crowding about the door, amongst them some of those who had visited them. But they looked at him indifferently, with a dull curiosity, as though this was the first time they had seen him. Apparently they remembered nothing of the night. They were soon hustled away.

It was now daylight, and the room was more bleak and repulsive than ever. Two officers who evidently had not had their full sleep came in, their faces ruffled, but properly dressed and clean.

»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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