Joseph Roth - Tarabas

“Yes, that’s you, the real Tarabas!” he would say then to himself. “Years ago when you associated with the revolutionists, the mark was on your forehead already. Later, when you were a loafer about the New York streets you were a good-for-nothing. Your father saw through you, Nicholas Tarabas! You spat at him — that was your farewell to your father! The red-haired soldier that had no God, he knew you for what you were, so did the clever Lakubeit. Many people, Tarabas, have known that you deceived others and yourself as well. It wasn’t your real rank that you paraded with all that mightiness; no, your uniform was a masquerade, and nothing else. I like you as you are now, Tarabas!”

In this wise Tarabas spoke to himself now and then, in the crowded, narrow streets of some town, and the people laughed at him. They took him for one not altogether in his right senses. He would then hurry away, lest they call the police. He remembered the three policemen in New York whom he had let go by, when he was still the superstitious coward Tarabas. I am atoning for that as well, he told himself with quiet joy. I should like to stop them myself and let them take me away with all the street-urchins looking on. But they would find out who I am.

Always, when he held such soliloquies as these, and when old memories raced through his brain and away from him, try as he might to detain them, he felt himself burning and freezing in turns. It was fever. Often this fever caught him and put him in an ague. It began to consume his powerful body. It established itself in his face. It dug hollows in his bearded cheeks. Sometimes his feet swelled up, so that he could hardly walk. Many a night when he found a shelter where one might undress, he found that he could remove his boots only with a great effort. His brethren of the road, watching him, inspected his swollen limbs with expert eyes and prescribed all kinds of remedies: hayflower baths and ribwort-tea; diuretic herbs of all kinds, goat’s beard and wild masterwort and wild hart’s wort. They praised the virtues of bog-bean, rosemary, and wild succory. His ailments inspired many nightly debates. There were always some who, in the course of their chequered lives, had had exactly the same complaints. But no sooner had he fallen asleep than they nudged one another and showed by signs that they did not give him much longer to live. They made a sign of the cross over the sleeper, and then composed themselves to sleep, contented with their lot. For even the sons of wretchedness loved their lives, and clung with ardour to this earth which they knew so well, its beauty and its cruelty; and they rejoiced in their good health when they saw another limping towards death. As for Tarabas, he worried more over his torn boots than over his swollen feet. Never mind if clothes hang in rags, boots must be whole! They are the wanderer’s tools. There may be long, long roads before you, Tarabas!

Sometimes he had to stop in the middle of the road and sit down. His heart raced violently. His hands shook. Before his eyes a grey mist formed, making even the nearest objects impossible to distinguish. The single trees on the opposite side of the road dissolved into a dense and endless procession of trunks and branches, an indistinct but impenetrable wall of trees. They hid the sky. One sat in the midst of open country and it was as though one were imprisoned in an airless room. Heavy weights pressed upon one’s chest and shoulders. Tarabas coughed and spat. Slowly then the cloud before his eyes dispersed. The trees along the roadside opposite parted and grew distinct again. The world resumed its normal aspect. Tarabas could go on.

The capital was still two hours’ walk away. A peasant driving his milk to town stopped and beckoned to him to get up beside him into the cart.

“I’ve got milk enough and to spare, praise be to God,” the man said as they drove along. “Have some, if you’re thirsty.”

Since his childhood Tarabas had not tasted milk. Now, as he lifted a snow-white bottle to his lips, surrounded by full and rattling cans in which the milk could be heard splashing richly, his heart was deeply stirred. He seemed to realize all at once the blessing, yes, the miracle, of milk, so white, so full of goodness, the most innocent fluid in all the world. Milk — such an everyday and obvious thing! Nobody stops to think that it is wonderful. It has its source in mothers; in them the warm, red blood is transformed into cool, white milk, the first sustenance of men and animals, the white and flowing greeting of the earth to all its new-born children.

“You know,” said Tarabas to the dairy-farmer, “it’s a wonderful thing this, that you’re driving in your cart.”

“Yes, yes,” said the peasant, “it’s splendid milk, is mine. In all Kurki — that’s my village — you’ll not find any like it. I’ve got five cows; their names are Terepa, Lala, Korova, Dusha, and Luna. Dusha’s the best. She’s a sweet one, she is! You ought to see her, only. You’d love her at once. She gives the best milk of all. There’s a brown patch on her forehead — the others are all white. But she wouldn’t need her brown patch for me to recognize her anywhere. It’s her eyes, you know, and her tail — she’s got a pretty little tail — and her voice, too. She’s like a human being. Just exactly like a human being. We get on fine together, me and Dusha.”

Now they had come into the town, and Tarabas got down. He went to the post-office. It was the general post-office, a new and splendid building. There was a young lady presiding over a little stationery stall outside the magnificent entrance; Tarabas bought paper, an envelope, and a pen of her. Then he entered the great hall and wrote at a desk to General Lakubeit.

“Your Excellency,” he wrote. “This is the day on which you told me to report. I do so respectfully here-with. I take the liberty of submitting two requests to your kind attention: first, that you would be so kind as to give instructions for my pension to be paid me in gold or silver, if this is convenient; secondly, that you will permit me to fetch the money at an hour when nobody will see me. With your kind permission I shall receive the answer to this letter here, poste restante. I remain Your Excellency’s most grateful and humble servant, Nicholas Tarabas, Colonel. Poste restante.”

He dispatched the letter. He went on his crippled feet to the hostel for vagrants, spotless and new and equipped with all the improvements of its western models. Here, with many others, he was deloused, bathed, cleansed, and presented with a bowl of soup. He was given a number on a tin disk, and a hard straw mattress chemically cleaned.

Upon this he slept until the following morning.

At the poste restante counter there was a letter for Nicholas Tarabas addressed in Lakubeit’s own hand.

“Dear Colonel Tarabas,” he had written. “If you will go today or tomorrow about twelve o’clock midday to the post-office, a young man will meet you there and hand you your pension. You need not fear any indiscretion; for our new army, your old father, and the world you are dead and forgotten. Lakubeit, General.”

At twelve o’clock, as most of the counters were closing, the clerks going home and the people leaving the great hall, a young man accosted Tarabas.

“Colonel,” said the young man, “please sign this receipt.”

Tarabas received eighty golden five-franc pieces.

“I hope you will excuse it,” said the young gentleman, “but we could not get it all in gold this time. We hope to do better next month. At this time a month from now, will you please meet me again at this same spot?”

Tarabas went to the city gates, stood there for a moment — and then turned back at once towards the massive entrance of the post-office. In the wide square a few carriages were waiting, a horse or two tied up to the lamp-posts, a few motor-cars. It was the first warm day that spring. The noonday sun flooded the wide, stone, unshaded square with its good warmth. The horses had their heads deep in their nose-bags, eating with happy appetite, and seemed blissfully conscious of the sunshine. Suddenly one of them, harnessed to a light, two-wheeled trap, lifted its head out of the nosebag and whinnied joyfully. It was a handsome creature. Its coat was silver grey, with big, regular brown patches. Tarabas recognized it instantly, by its neck, by its whinnying call, by the brown patches.