Joseph Roth - Tarabas

Fresh misfortune awaited him in his office. He was an educated man, a university man even. At one time, years ago, he had been able to understand the most confounded formulæ he had passed examinations. Ah, he had had a pretty good head on his shoulders, had Tarabas! Today he had appointed two captains to help him; four clerks in charge of a non-commissioned officer experienced in that line of work sat there and wrote — like devils too. All of these people together made still further complications of the innumerable decrees arriving from the capital; they solved none of the many enigmas, but only thickened the fog which seemed to rise out of the papers. They appeared before Tarabas with unintelligible reports, asked him if they should do this and that, and when he told them kindly to leave him in peace they vanished like ghosts, the earth swallowed them up, and there he was, left alone with all the torment of responsibility! Ah, he longed for war, the mighty Tarabas! The random horde which composed this new army of his were not his soldiers of the old days. Hunger had driven them to Tarabas, nothing else. Every day new desertions were reported. Every day he came into the drill ground he noticed fresh gaps in the lines. The drilling was slatternly and no more than half awake. Yes, some of his officers had not a notion even how to drill a company. What a horror for a Tarabas! He could rely on no one but the few faithful men of his old guard whom he had brought there with him to this Koropta. The others feared him still, that was certain; but already he had begun to feel that that fear might bring forth treachery and even assassination. Were his commands still carried out? They were merely received without demur. Resistance would have pleased him better. And Tarabas called back to mind the fatal Sunday when the red stranger had appeared before him for the first time, and the great havoc had begun. Now and then a bitter hatred of his subordinates overwhelmed him, as it never had against the enemy. And in the evenings when he was sure that all these enemies were long since asleep, he would get up from the peaceful table in the inn, leave his drinking comrades without a greeting, and hurry off to the barracks, striding fiercely and thirsting for revenge. He inspected the guard, left the dormitories open, pulled the covers form the sleepers’ naked bodies, searched beds and straw mattresses, ruck-sacks and bundles, pockets and pillows, even the water-closets, threatened to shoot all and sundry, demanded to see their military papers and passports, questioned this one and that as to the battles he had fought in, was suddenly touched and within a hair’s breadth of apologizing, then filled again with new fury, this time against himself, followed by pity and sadness. Profoundly ashamed, but hiding the shame behind his clattering frightfulness, he would depart stamping — how gladly would he have made his steps inaudible — and return to the inn.

So far no pay had been sent him for his men, nor for himself and his officers either. His old guard stole and pilfered what they required, in houses and farm-yards, as they had always done. In accordance with the custom prevailing in conquered territory, he had ordered the inhabitants to deliver foodstuffs to the regiment every afternoon until further orders. Every day on the stroke of four o’clock the townsfolk of Koropta stood in the barracks yard with bundles and baskets. For the meat, eggs, butter, and cheese they brought they received so-called receipts, tiny scraps of paper, bits of discoloured waste stationery from the offices, written on in Kontsev’s unschooled hand and signed by Tarabas with an energetic “T.” One day, according to Tarabas’s announcement, proclaimed with a loud flourish of drums by three of his own men in the streets of Koropta, these receipts would be honoured and paid out against in cash. But the people did not believe the drummers. How often in the course of this war had drummers said the same to the Koropta folk! But frightened now, as then, they brought what they could spare to the barracks, either from their own stores or else bought for the purpose — and even the poorest contributed their mite, a pot of dripping, a slice of bread, potatoes, turnips, radishes, or baked apples.

The Jew Kristianpoller boarded the insatiable officers. The ancient, helpful, cruel God sent to the Jew Kristianpoller each new day a new gift. From the hamlet of Hupki came his good brother-in-law, Leib, with half an ox. And on the next day the slaughterer Kuropkin put in an unlooked-for appearance, hoping to exchange a stolen pig for a quart of brandy. He had not hoped in vain. Two quarts Kristianpoller gave him for it. For this Kuropkin slew the pig with his own hands and roasted it on a fire in the open yard. With money only the terrible Tarabas had paid so far; from the others Kristianpoller had not had even receipts. But what was the use of this new money which the new state was circulating, these hastily printed paper notes? Would they ever be exchanged for honest cash in Kristianpoller’s lifetime? Hard gold, five rolls of ten-ruble pieces, each a yard high — Kristianpoller had them stored in the second subterranean story of his cellar. He was envisaging the time when, if he must go on satisfying the greed of his hated guests, he would have to go down there and take something away from one of the rolls. But he prayed that that time might not come by many a long day yet.

Tarabas had already sent word to the capital that money was needed, and that, if it did not come soon, unrest and mutiny might be expected. A very few days after this an elegant lieutenant in the new uniform of the country appeared in Koropta, just at the hour when Colonel Tarabas was in the habit of spending a convivial hour with his brother-officers. The lieutenant announced that on the following day His Excellency, General Lakubeit, would inspect the garrison. Tarabas rose.

“Is the general bringing money?” he asked.

“Certainly, sir!” answered the lieutenant.

“Sit down and have a drink!” commanded Tarabas.

The lieutenant obediently sat down. He drank very little. He was the adjutant of an abstinent general.

THE next morning General Lakubeit arrived. Tarabas received him at the station. The sight of the general, a small and weakly man, was a surprise to Tarabas; the general’s diminutive stature seemed somehow deliberately designed to put Tarabas at a disadvantage. Something about His Excellency’s feeble frame seemed to bode ill for Tarabas’s robust one. From the step of the train the general was holding out his hand. But it seemed as though he did so for the support of Tarabas’s mighty grip in alighting rather than in cordial greeting. For a moment Tarabas felt the brittle, dried-up hand in his huge palm, like a little warm and helpless bird. The colonel had counted on meeting a general like the many others he had known, powerful and masculine figures for the most part, bearded, at the least mustachioed, men with direct and soldierly eyes, hard hands and a firm walk. This was the kind of general Tarabas had prepared himself to meet. Lakubeit, however, was by all odds one of the strangest generals in the world. His clean-shaven, sallow, wizened little face grew like some strange old shrivelled fruit out of the high scarlet collar, and hid itself in the shadow of the immense black roof formed by the peak of the grey, gold-braided cap, which seemed to have been equipped with it for no other reason than to shelter the little aged head from withering further. The thin legs vanished into tall riding-boots which hardly differed from the kind the peasants wore, and had no spurs. A loose jacket flapped around His Excellency’s scraggy torso. This was a scarecrow, never a general. …

Tarabas took so wretched an appearance as this for a piece of the most subtle malice. He liked his own kind. He loved men in his own likeness. Deep down, in his heart’s secret depths, there lurked a presentiment, asleep still but muttering and warning sometimes in that sleep, that there would come a day when the mighty Tarabas would have a decisive, a fateful meeting with one of the many puny ones who go up and down upon the earth, superfluous and sly, and useless for all decent purposes. As he stepped to the general’s side to accompany him towards the exit, he noticed that Lakubeit was but elbow-high to him. Discipline and courtesy impelled Colonel Tarabas to do what he could, therefore, to diminish himself by bending his back, curtailing his long stride, lowering his voice. His spurs jingled. But the general’s boots made no sound.