REGINALD IN RUSSIA AND OTHER SKETCHES(里格那得在俄罗斯)

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REGINALD IN RUSSIA AND OTHER SKETCHES

REGINALD IN RUSSIA

AND OTHER

SKETCHES

REGINALD IN RUSSIA AND OTHER SKETCHES

REGINALD IN RUSSIA

Reginald sat in a corner of the Princess's salon and tried to forgive the

furniture, which started out with an obvious intention of being Louis

Quinze, but relapsed at frequent intervals into Wilhelm II.

He classified the Princess with that distinct type of woman that looks

as if it habitually went out to feed hens in the rain.

Her name was Olga; she kept what she hoped and believed to be a fox-

terrier, and professed what she thought were Socialist opinions. It is not

necessary to be called Olga if you are a Russian Princess; in fact, Reginald

knew quite a number who were called Vera; but the fox-terrier and the

Socialism are essential.

"The Countess Lomshen keeps a bull-dog," said the Princess suddenly.

"In England is it more chic to have a bull-dog than a fox-terrier?"

Reginald threw his mind back over the canine fashions of the last ten

years and gave an evasive answer.

"Do you think her handsome, the Countess Lomshen?" asked the

Princess.

Reginald thought the Countess's complexion suggested an exclusive

diet of macaroons and pale sherry. He said so.

"But that cannot be possible," said the Princess triumphantly; "I've

seen her eating fish-soup at Donon's."

The Princess always defended a friend's complexion if it was really

bad. With her, as with a great many of her sex, charity began at

homeliness and did not generally progress much farther.

Reginald withdrew his macaroon and sherry theory, and became

interested in a case of miniatures.

"That?" said the Princess; "that is the old Princess Lorikoff. She

lived in Millionaya Street, near the Winter Palace, and was one of the

Court ladies of the old Russian school. Her knowledge of people and

events was extremely limited; but she used to patronise every one who

came in contact with her. There was a story that when she died and left

the Millionaya for Heaven she addressed St. Peter in her formal staccato

REGINALD IN RUSSIA AND OTHER SKETCHES

French: 'Je suis la Princesse Lor-i-koff. Il me donne grand plaisir a

faire votre connaissance. Je vous en prie me presenter au Bon Dieu.' St.

Peter made the desired introduction, and the Princess addressed le Bon

Dieu: 'Je suis la Princesse Lor- i-koff. Il me donne grand plaisir a faire

votre connaissance. On a souvent parle de vous a l'eglise de la rue

Million.'"

"Only the old and the clergy of Established churches know how to be

flippant gracefully," commented Reginald; "which reminds me that in the

Anglican Church in a certain foreign capital, which shall be nameless, I

was present the other day when one of the junior chaplains was preaching

in aid of distressed somethings or other, and he brought a really eloquent

passage to a close with the remark, 'The tears of the afflicted, to what shall

I liken them--to diamonds?' The other junior chaplain, who had been

dozing out of professional jealousy, awoke with a start and asked hurriedly,

'Shall I play to diamonds, partner?' It didn't improve matters when the

senior chaplain remarked dreamily but with painful distinctness, 'Double

diamonds.' Every one looked at the preacher, half expecting him to

redouble, but he contented himself with scoring what points he could

under the circumstances."

"You English are always so frivolous," said the Princess. "In Russia

we have too many troubles to permit of our being lighthearted."

Reginald gave a delicate shiver, such as an Italian greyhound might

give in contemplating the approach of an ice age of which he personally

disapproved, and resigned himself to the inevitable political discussion.

"Nothing that you hear about us in England is true," was the Princess's

hopeful beginning.

"I always refused to learn Russian geography at school," observed

Reginald; "I was certain some of the names must be wrong."

"Everything is wrong with our system of government," continued the

Princess placidly. "The Bureaucrats think only of their pockets, and the

people are exploited and plundered in every direction, and everything is

mismanaged."

"With us," said Reginald, "a Cabinet usually gets the credit of being

depraved and worthless beyond the bounds of human conception by the

REGINALD IN RUSSIA AND OTHER SKETCHES

time it has been in office about four years."

"But if it is a bad Government you can turn it out at the elections,"

argued the Princess.

"As far as I remember, we generally do," said Reginald.

"But here it is dreadful, every one goes to such extremes. In England

you never go to extremes."

"We go to the Albert Hall," explained Reginald.

"There is always a see-saw with us between repression and violence,"

continued the Princess; "and the pity of it is the people are really not in the

least inclined to be anything but peaceable. Nowhere will you find

people more good-natured, or family circles where there is more

affection."

"There I agree with you," said Reginald. "I know a boy who lives

somewhere on the French Quay who is a case in point. His hair curls

naturally, especially on Sundays, and he plays bridge well, even for a

Russian, which is saying much. I don't think he has any other

accomplishments, but his family affection is really of a very high order.

When his maternal grandmother died he didn't go as far as to give up

bridge altogether, but he declared on nothing but black suits for the next

three months. That, I think, was really beautiful."

The Princess was not impressed.

"I think you must be very self-indulgent and live only for amusement,"

she said, "a life of pleasure-seeking and card-playing and dissipation

brings only dissatisfaction. You will find that out some day."

"Oh, I know it turns out that way sometimes," assented Reginald.

"Forbidden fizz is often the sweetest."

But the remark was wasted on the Princess, who preferred champagne

that had at least a suggestion of dissolved barley-sugar.

"I hope you will come and see me again," she said, in a tone that

prevented the hope from becoming too infectious; adding as a happy

afterthought, "you must come to stay with us in the country."

Her particular part of the country was a few hundred versts the other

side of Tamboff, with some fifteen miles of agrarian disturbance between

her and the nearest neighbour. Reginald felt that there is some privacy

REGINALD IN RUSSIA AND OTHER SKETCHES

which should be sacred from intrusion.

REGINALD IN RUSSIA AND OTHER SKETCHES

THE RETICENCE OF LADY

ANNE

Egbert came into the large, dimly lit drawing-room with the air of a

man who is not certain whether he is entering a dovecote or a bomb

factory, and is prepared for either eventuality. The little domestic quarrel

over the luncheon-table had not been fought to a definite finish, and the

question was how far Lady Anne was in a mood to renew or forgo

hostilities. Her pose in the arm-chair by the tea-table was rather

elaborately rigid; in the gloom of a December afternoon Egbert's pince-

nez did not materially help him to discern the expression of her face.

By way of breaking whatever ice might be floating on the surface he

made a remark about a dim religious light. He or Lady Anne were

accustomed to make that remark between 4.30 and 6 on winter and late

autumn evenings; it was a part of their married life. There was no

recognised rejoinder to it, and Lady Anne made none.

Don Tarquinio lay astretch on the Persian rug, basking in the firelight

with superb indifference to the possible ill-humour of Lady Anne. His

pedigree was as flawlessly Persian as the rug, and his ruff was coming into

the glory of its second winter. The page- boy, who had Renaissance

tendencies, had christened him Don Tarquinio. Left to themselves,

Egbert and Lady Anne would unfailingly have called him Fluff, but they

were not obstinate.

Egbert poured himself out some tea. As the silence gave no sign of

breaking on Lady Anne's initiative, he braced himself for another Yermak

effort. "My remark at lunch had a purely academic application," he

announced; "you seem to put an unnecessarily personal significance into

it."

Lady Anne maintained her defensive barrier of silence. The bullfinch

lazily filled in the interval with an air from Iphigenie en Tauride. Egbert

recognised it immediately, because it was the only air the bullfinch

whistled, and he had come to them with the reputation for whistling it.

REGINALD IN RUSSIA AND OTHER SKETCHES

Both Egbert and Lady Anne would have preferred something from The

Yeomen of the Guard, which was their favourite opera. In matters

artistic they had a similarity of taste. They leaned towards the honest and

explicit in art, a picture, for instance, that told its own story, with generous

assistance from its title. A riderless warhorse with harness in obvious

disarray, staggering into a courtyard full of pale swooning women, and

marginally noted "Bad News", suggested to their minds a distinct

interpretation of some military catastrophe. They could see what it was

meant to convey, and explain it to friends of duller intelligence.

The silence continued. As a rule Lady Anne's displeasure became

articulate and markedly voluble after four minutes of introductory

muteness. Egbert seized the milkjug and poured some of its contents into

Don Tarquinio's saucer; as the saucer was already full to the brim an

unsightly overflow was the result. Don Tarquinio looked on with a

surprised interest that evanesced into elaborate unconsciousness when he

was appealed to by Egbert to come and drink up some of the spilt matter.

Don Tarquinio was prepared to play many roles in life, but a vacuum

carpet-cleaner was not one of them.

"Don't you think we're being rather foolish?" said Egbert cheerfully.

If Lady Anne thought so she didn't say so.

"I dare say the fault has been partly on my side," continued Egbert,

with evaporating cheerfulness. "After all, I'm only human, you know.

You seem to forget that I'm only human."

He insisted on the point, as if there had been unfounded suggestions

that he was built on Satyr lines, with goat continuations where the human

left off.

The bullfinch recommenced its air from Iphigenie en Tauride. Egbert

began to feel depressed. Lady Anne was not drinking her tea. Perhaps

she was feeling unwell. But when Lady Anne felt unwell she was not

wont to be reticent on the subject. "No one knows what I suffer from

indigestion" was one of her favourite statements; but the lack of

knowledge can only have been caused by defective listening; the amount

of information available on the subject would have supplied material for a

monograph.

REGINALD IN RUSSIA AND OTHER SKETCHES

Evidently Lady Anne was not feeling unwell.

Egbert began to think he was being unreasonably dealt with; naturally

he began to make concessions. "I dare say," he observed, taking as

central a position on the hearth-rug as Don Tarquinio could be persuaded

to concede him, "I may have been to blame. I am willing, if I can

thereby restore things to a happier standpoint, to undertake to lead a better

life."

He wondered vaguely how it would be possible. Temptations came

to him, in middle age, tentatively and without insistence, like a neglected

butcher-boy who asks for a Christmas box in February for no more

hopeful reason that than he didn't get one in December. He had no more

idea of succumbing to them than he had of purchasing the fish-knives and

fur boas that ladies are impelled to sacrifice through the medium of

advertisement columns during twelve months of the year. Still, there was

something impressive in this unasked-for renunciation of possibly latent

enormities.

Lady Anne showed no sign of being impressed.

Egbert looked at her nervously through his glasses. To get the worst

of an argument with her was no new experience. To get the worst of a

monologue was a humiliating novelty.

"I shall go and dress for diner," he announced in a voice into which he

intended some shade of sternness to creep.

At the door a final access of weakness impelled him to make a further

appeal.

"Aren't we being very silly?"

"A fool" was Don Tarquinio's mental comment as the door closed on

Egbert's retreat. Then he lifted his velvet forepaws in the air and leapt

lightly on to a bookshelf immediately under the bullfinch's cage. It was

the first time he had seemed to notice the bird's existence, but he was

carrying out a long-formed theory of action with the precision of mature

deliberation. The bullfinch, who had fancied himself something of a

despot, depressed himself of a sudden into a third of his normal

displacement; then he fell to a helpless wing-beating and shrill cheeping.

He had cost twenty-seven shillings without the cage, but Lady Anne made

REGINALD IN RUSSIA AND OTHER SKETCHES

no sign of interfering. She had been dead for two hours.

REGINALD IN RUSSIA AND OTHER SKETCHES

THE LOST SANJAK

The prison Chaplain entered the condemned's cell for the last time, to

give such consolation as he might.

"The only consolation I crave for," said the condemned, "is to tell my

story in its entirety to some one who will at least give it a respectful

hearing."

"We must not be too long over it," said the Chaplain, looking at his

watch.

The condemned repressed a shiver and commenced.

"Most people will be of opinion that I am paying the penalty of my

own violent deeds. In reality I am a victim to a lack of specialisation in

my education and character."

"Lack of specialisation!" said the Chaplain.

"Yes. If I had been known as one of the few men in England familiar

with the fauna of the Outer Hebrides, or able to repeat stanzas of

Camoens' poetry in the original, I should have had no difficulty in proving

my identity in the crisis when my identity became a matter of life and

death for me. But my education was merely a moderately good one, and

my temperament was of the general order that avoids specialisation. I

know a little in a general way about gardening and history and old masters,

but I could never tell you off-hand whether 'Stella van der Loopen' was a

chrysanthemum or a heroine of the American War of Independence, or

something by Romney in the Louvre."

The Chaplain shifted uneasily in his seat. Now that the alternatives

had been suggested they all seemed dreadfully possible.

"I fell in love, or thought I did, with the local doctor's wife," continued

the condemned. "Why I should have done so, I cannot say, for I do not

remember that she possessed any particular attractions of mind or body.

On looking back at past events if seems to me that she must have been

distinctly ordinary, but I suppose the doctor had fallen in love with her

once, and what man had done man can do. She appeared to be pleased

with the attentions which I paid her, and to that extent I suppose I might

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REGINALDINRUSSIAANDOTHERSKETCHES1REGINALDINRUSSIAANDOTHERSKETCHESREGINALDINRUSSIAANDOTHERSKETCHES2REGINALDINRUSSIAReginaldsatinacornerofthePrincess'ssalonandtriedtoforgivethefurniture,whichstartedoutwithanobviousintentionofbeingLouisQuinze,butrelapsedatfrequentintervalsintoWilhelmII.HeclassifiedtheP...

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