William Gerhardie - The Polyglots

He made his last stink on a Wednesday, and then left on the Friday. But owing to some misunderstanding regarding his passage, he returned at the end of the week and made stinks on the subsequent Tuesday, Friday, Monday, Thursday, and Saturday.

THE BADGE

CAME THE WEDDING-DAY, EVEN AS THE DREADED day comes to the condemned, as comes the moment for the trembling rabbit when it must jump for dear life — inexorable, relentless day. Somehow we had hoped that such a day was impossible, but the day came on to prove that it was possible, a bleak day — April the 28th. The snow had not yet been cleared in the streets, but it was already warm and the pavements were dry as in summer.

Since I awoke that morning I was on tenterhooks. A dreary day. I stood at the window, my nose against the cold glass: a time when you would kill yourself for a song. A fly at the window — a mosquito in the damp — looked puzzled with life. We are half alive, half asleep, wondering why we are; could we but grope out of this slimy bog, where we had sunk, into the light from which we fell, perchance we’d find our wings.

On the floor lay my kit all spread out, and the Chink boy was packing. I looked down on to the street below — and suddenly I saw a visitor at our door: a bent old lady in a mushroom hat pulled down over a grinning skull. ‘Madame Death.’ And standing on the doorstep, looking at her, was Natàsha. A shiver ran down my back. But Madame Death bent double, and vanished in the backyard.

I resumed my packing. Natàsha knocked at the door, came in, proud and a little confused, put a new shaving-brush on my table — and ran away again. Her gift at my departure!

I called her back.

‘Natàsha, who was that old lady outside?’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘What’s it means a lady? No lady. Some mens outside — a lot of dirty mens, but no lady.’

I took up the shaving-brush and examined it. You drift along in life, I thought, and you drift into some Captain Negodyaev with a Natàsha. Attachments; partings; the keeping up of correspondence; the dropping of it, the drifting out of sight and call. How queer. And when I think of the sights, the people, the opportunities I miss at every turn, will go on missing, my heart stops dead, I gasp for breath, I clutch a chair …

Uncle Emmanuel had donned his uniform for the occasion, and his full medals, and I attached ‘ le sabre de mon père ’, that silly sword of the 1800 pattern long since discarded for its prohibitive length. At one o’clock the service began. There was sun in the church, but bitterness in my heart. I wore my love, a rosary of pangs, on her behalf and on my own. My soul quailed as I met her eyes. If I had been weak, still, was that a reason why she should have tied herself for life to this grotesque individual with a canary moustache? I felt offended — but couldn’t say who had offended me. As the organ soared forth, I felt my soul weep for her. I grieved for my Sylvia; the thought that I had in the past offended her racked my heart: I seemed to be in her soul, to feel myself an inmate of her dolorous being. And when it was all over, and they came up to Aunt Teresa to be blessed and kissed and congratulated and Gustave murmured softly from beneath his soft moustache, ‘She has brought joy into my life’, I could not contain myself, and muttered as I pressed her hand: ‘I wish you joy of it!’ I walked home along the windy icy streets, my two legs jerking forward: two wooden sticks propping up a heavy vase of grief — my heavy heart.

I strayed into the dining-room, where the table was being laid under Vladislav’s direction and watched eagerly by Natàsha.

‘There will be turtle soup, duck and mushrooms and pears with ice-cream!’ Natàsha imparted, with glee in her sea-green eyes. I complimented Vladislav on the appearance of the festal dinner-table.

‘Yes, not bad,’ he agreed. ‘But a long way off the French! Paris — that’s a town, you might say. Streets, shops — in a word, a joy to behold! But here — ach!’ He waved his hand with the air of a thwarted artist. ‘What’s the use?’

At dinner there was turtle- as well as ham-flavoured thick soup; sole with sauce made of champagne and cray-fish; saddle of baby lamb; braised duck stuffed with birds’ liver and mushrooms with salad; celery with Parmesan cheese; Cornice pears with cream ice and black currant jam; ‘petits fours’; and baskets of fruit. The dinner was prefaced with sherry and bitter and monkey-gland cocktails, while throughout there was vodka, Château Lafitte 1900, and champagne of the brand ‘Œil de Perdrix’, the feast being wound up with ‘Fine Champagne 1875’, coffee, benedictine, curaçao and salted almonds. Aunt Teresa was anxious that it should be in the Russian custom, for fear of outraging local society. Dinner, accordingly, was at three o’clock in the afternoon. General ‘Pshe-Pshe’ supplied his batman, his own A.D.C. son, and a quantity of cutlery and china. A brass band (the one that had played at the funeral) had been installed by General ‘Pshe-Pshe’ in the dining-room and played flourishes on every suitable — and unsuitable — occasion during dinner, and the smell of the soldiers’ highly polished boots was no less pronounced throughout the meal. There is in Russia what seemed to me that day an inane custom of bringing in at these nuptial feasts the word ‘bitter’—at which the bride and bridegroom have to kiss.

‘Strange,’ said the General, ‘this bread is bitter, and this wine is bitter.’

‘Bitter! Bitter!’ all the guests shouted exultantly.

Sylvia and Gustave kissed. He just touched her with that absurd canary moustache of his. Imagine my feelings. The General flicked out his thumb at the band, and the band played a flourish.

‘Yes, that’s the real Russian fashion,’ laughed Aunt Teresa.

There were many toasts drunk, and at the end of each toast the band played a flourish. And even when there were no toasts, now and then, when the General flicked out his thumb, the band played a flourish. Afterwards they played flourishes of their own accord: at the stressing in conversation of a sentence, at the emphasis of a word. At the least ostensible noise of any kind, the band played a flourish.

‘Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!’ Sylvia laughed.

The band played a flourish.

I sat there between Captain Negodyaev and Beastly, and listening to the inner voice in me reproaching me for the barter of my happiness, I reflected thus: the difficulty about happiness is that its technique is thoroughly unsatisfactory; that you cannot get it quickly when you want it, or easily enough to be worth having; the sacrifice demanded for its sake is apt to outweigh the motive, and, knowing that, you are loth to take it on. I was loth to take it on; and here I sit — and suffer. Still, I consoled myself that she was to me a white elephant, that on my journey in search of perfection she was a sort of luxurious trunk, a gorgeous globe-trotter for which I had no kit. She was a precious stone, a jewel I could not afford to buy. Yet beneath all these consoling reflections there lurked a truth, unheard but still disturbing, that I had missed my greatest chance of happiness in life as I might miss a train.

‘Bitter! Bitter!’ shouted the General exultantly. Sylvia and Gustave kissed. (Oh, where was my sword!) The band played a flourish.

I was not in pain; I only felt a heavy dullness — a spiritual headache. To-day was Saturday. What would I do now? Tomorrow was Sunday. A day of celebration and repose. A red-letter day — yes, red with anguish! And as for my sailing home — I could have only waved my hand!

As the first course was being removed the General rose and proposed the health of the bride and bridegroom, while the band played a flourish. After that, Captain Negodyaev got up and proposed the health of the bride’s parents. Then speeches were made of a national character, and the General drank to the glory of the Belgian Army, the band playing, somewhat inaccurately, the Belgian national anthem. Whereupon Uncle Emmanuel rose and drank to the revival of Russia, the General, as senior Russian officer present, responding, and including England and the Allies generally in his toast (having in his festal mood forgotten their betrayal of him). ‘Turning to our latest ally the Americans,’ he said, ‘I must observe that although they are a godless people they are nevertheless a deuced clever race. Gramophones, goloshes, footwear, vehicles, inventions, and all sorts of rubbish — they can do all that; or construct a railway, let us say, across the ocean — at that they are past-masters. The Americans! Hurrah!’