The Colonel must have heard my step, for he turned round abruptly, and his little piercing eyes stared at me in bewilderment from beneath their bushy brows. The fact that a young subaltern should dare to follow him without permission was an enormity beyond his powers of comprehension. I came to a halt two paces away from him, saluted and, braving the danger in his eye, I said — and my voice must have been as wan as the moonlight:
‘I beg your pardon, Herr Oberst, but may I have a word with you?’
The bushy brows expanded into an astonished arch. ‘Wha-at? Now? At half-past one in the morning?’
He looked morosely at me. The next moment, I felt, he would burst out at me or order me to report on parade next morning. But there must have been something in my face to disquiet him. For one minute, two minutes, the hard, piercing eyes looked me up and down.
‘Fine thing, I must say!’ he growled. ‘But as you please. Well then, come up to my room and be quick about it!’
Colonel Svetozar Bubencic, whom I followed like a shadow up the dimly-lit corridors and barrack stairs which, although they now rang hollow and empty, still reeked of masculinity, was a thorough-going martinet and the most feared of all the senior officers. Short-legged, bull-necked, low-browed, he concealed beneath bristling eyebrows a pair of deep-set, smouldering eyes which had seldom been known to twinkle. The stocky body and heavy, ponderous gait unmistakably betrayed his peasant origin (he came from the Banat). But with his low, ox-like forehead and iron skull he had slowly and perseveringly worked his way up to the rank of Colonel. Because of his utter lack of culture, his rude speech, his crude abusiveness and rough-and-ready manners, the War Ministry, it is true, had for years transferred him from one provincial garrison to another, and it was taken for granted in higher quarters that he would be retired before reaching the rank of General. But unattractive and plebeian as he was, he had not his equal in the barracks or on the parade-ground. He knew every line of the service regulations as a Scottish Presbyterian knows his Bible; to him, far from being elastic laws to be adapted at discretion, they were almost religious commandments, the meaning or lack of meaning of which it was not a soldier’s place to question. His life was dedicated to the service as is that of a believer’s to God. He had no truck with women, he neither smoked nor played cards, he had scarcely ever in his life been to a theatre or concert, and, like his Imperial Commander-in-Chief, Francis Joseph, he never read anything but the army regulations and the military gazette. Nothing existed for him on earth but the Imperial Army, in that army nothing but the cavalry, in the cavalry nothing but the Uhlans, and among the Uhlans only his own regiment. That everything in his own regiment should be better than in any other was, in a nutshell, the whole aim and object of his existence.
A man of limited vision is hard to bear with in any sphere in which he is invested with power, but in the army is intolerable. Since service in the army consists of the carrying out of a conglomeration of a thousand-and-one over-meticulous, for the most part outmoded and fossilized regulations, which only an out-and-out martinet knows by heart, and the literal carrying out of which only a fanatic demands, none of us ever felt safe from this worshipper of the sacrosanct army code. As he sat in the saddle his corpulent figure was the very embodiment of military precision, he presided at mess with eyes as sharp as needles, he was the terror of the canteens and the regimental offices. A cold wind of fear invariably heralded his coming, and when the regiment was drawn up for inspection and Bubencic came riding slowly along on his stocky chestnut gelding, his head lowered slightly like that of a charging bull, every movement was stilled in the ranks as though enemy artillery had been brought into action and were already unlimbering and taking aim. At any moment, we knew, the first shot would be fired, and no one could be sure that he himself would not be the target. Even the horses stood as though frozen to the spot; not an ear twitched, not a spur jingled, not a breath stirred. Obviously enjoying the terror that he struck into everyone’s heart, the tyrant would ride forward at a leisurely pace, spearing one after another of us, as it were, with his accurate eye, which let nothing escape it. It took in everything, that steely military eye, it spotted the cap that was pulled down a finger’s-breadth too low, detected the button that was badly polished, spied out the slightest speck of rust on a sword, or a badly groomed horse; and no sooner had the most trifling irregularity come to light than the culprit was for it. Beneath his close-fitting uniform the Colonel’s Adam’s-apple would swell up apoplectically like a tumour, the forehead under the closely cropped hair would turn the colour of beetroot, thick blue veins would stand out on his temples. And then, in his raucous, hoarse voice, he would burst out into a storm, or rather a muddy torrent, of abuse; floods of foul invective would be poured upon the head of the guiltily innocent victim, and sometimes the coarseness of the Colonel’s epithets was so embarrassing that we officers would gaze in discomfiture at the ground for very shame in the presence of the men.
The men feared him as though he were the Devil incarnate, for he would shower fatigues and punishments on them, and sometimes, in his fury, would even punch a man full in the face with his great fist. I myself had on one occasion in the stables seen a Ruthenian Uhlan make the sign of the Cross and tremblingly mutter a short prayer when the ‘old bull-frog’ — we called him that because his fat throat swelled to bursting-point in his fury — was rampaging away in an adjoining box. Bubencic chivvied the wretched lads to the point of exhaustion, cuffed them, made them do rifle drill until their arms almost broke, and compelled them to ride the most restive horses until their legs were chafed and bleeding. Surprisingly enough, however, in their obtuse and frightened way these good peasant lads were fonder of their tyrant than of more lenient and yet more aloof officers. It was as though some instinct told them that this severity of the Colonel’s had its origin in an obstinate and narrow desire for a divinely ordained state of order. The poor devils, moreover, were consoled by the knowledge that we officers did not come off very much more lightly, for a human being will accept the strictest disciplinary measures with a better grace if he knows that they will fall with equal severity on his neighbour. Justice in some mysterious way makes up for violence. Again and again the soldiers were cheered by the story of young Prince W.; related to the Imperial family, he had imagined that he could claim all sorts of special privileges, but Bubencic had sentenced him to fourteen days’ detention just as ruthlessly as though he had been a peasant’s son; in vain distinguished personages had rung up from Vienna to intervene; Bubencic had refused to remit a single day of the young aristocrat’s sentence — a piece of defiance, incidentally, that cost him his promotion.
But what was odder still, even we officers could not help feeling a certain affection for him. We too were impressed by his blunt, implacable honesty, and above all by his feeling of absolute solidarity with officers and men. Just as he would not tolerate a speck of dust on a tunic, a splash of mud on the saddle of a single horse, so he could not endure the slightest injustice; he felt that any breath of scandal in the regiment was a slur on his own honour. We belonged to him and knew perfectly well that if ever one of us got into a scrape the wisest thing to do was to go straight to him. At first he might abuse us roundly, but in the end he would do his utmost to get us out of it. When there was any question of obtaining promotion or of securing an advance from the special officers’ fund for any of us who was in a tight corner, he always took a firm line, went straight to the War Ministry, and forced the matter through with his bullet head. No matter how he might annoy and plague us, we all felt deep down in our hearts that this peasant from the Banat upheld more loyally and honestly than all the sprigs of the aristocracy the spirit and tradition of the army, that invisible glory on which we poorly-paid subalterns subsisted far more than on our pay.
This, then, was Colonel Svetozar Bubencic, the arch-slave-driver of our regiment, in whose wake I now climbed the stairs. During the Great War he was to call himself to account in the same manly, blink
ered, naïvely honest and honourable way in which he was for ever coming down upon us. During the Serbian campaign, after Potiorek’s disastrous defeat, when exactly forty-nine men out of our whole regiment, the Colonel’s pride, retreated safely across the Save, he stayed behind to the last on the opposite bank; then, feeling that the panic-stricken retreat was a slur on the honour of the army, he did something that only a very few commanders and senior officers did after a defeat: he took out his service revolver and put a bullet through his own head, so as not to be obliged to witness the downfall of his country which, with his limited perception, he had prophetically foreseen in that terrible moment when he had watched the retreat of his regiment.
The Colonel unlocked his door and we entered his room, which, in its Spartan simplicity, resembled a student’s cubicle: an iron camp-bed — he refused to sleep in greater comfort than Francis Joseph in the Hofburg — two coloured prints, on the right the Emperor, on the left the Empress, four or five cheaply framed photographs of inspections and regimental dinners, a pair of crossed swords and two Turkish pistols — that was all. No easy-chair, no books, nothing but four cane chairs round a bare table.
Bubencic stroked his moustache vigorously several times. We were all of us familiar with that gesture of his; it was an obvious sign of an ominous state of impatience.
‘Make yourself at home,’ he growled at length, without offering me a chair; he was still panting for breath. ‘Let’s have no beating about the bush — out with it. Is it money difficulties, or trouble with women?’
It was disagreeable to me to have to stand as I spoke, and, moreover, in the glare I felt too exposed to his impatient gaze. So I merely protested hurriedly that there was no question of money difficulties.
‘Women, then! What, again! Why can’t you fellows give yourselves a rest! As though there weren’t women enough who make the whole business damned simple. But let’s come straight to the point — what’s the trouble?’
I told him as briefly as possible that I had got engaged to the daughter of Kekesfalva and three hours later had flatly denied the fact. But he must on no account think that I wished to say anything in extenuation of my dishonourable conduct — on the contrary, I had merely come to inform him privately as my superior officer that I was fully aware of what was incumbent on me in view of my infamous behaviour. I knew what my duty was and would carry it out.
Bubencic stared at me somewhat uncomprehendingly.
‘What’s all this nonsense? Dishonourable conduct? What’s incumbent on you? What the—? How the —? Why the —? Stuff and nonsense! You say you’ve got engaged to Kekesfalva’s daughter? I saw her once. Well, no accounting for tastes — surely she’s a crippled, deformed creature, isn’t she? And then you thought better of it, I suppose? Well, there’s nothing in that. Many a man has done that and couldn’t be called a blackguard. Or have you ...’ — he came nearer — ‘have you been having a bit of fun with her, and something’s gone wrong? That, I’m afraid, would be a bad business.’
I was annoyed and ashamed. The airy, almost deliberately casual, way in which he misunderstood everything exasperated me.
‘Permit me most respectfully to remark, Herr Oberst,’ I said, clicking my heels, ‘that I uttered this crude untruth about not being engaged in the presence of seven officers of the regiment at our table in the café. I lied to my fellow-officers out of cowardice and embarrassment. Tomorrow Lieutenant Hawliczek is going to challenge the apothecary who passed on the news, which happened to be perfectly correct. Tomorrow the whole town will know that I told an untruth in the presence of my fellow-officers, that I have disgraced the army.’
At this he stared up in stupefaction. His slow-working brain had obviously at last taken in the significance of the whole thing. His face clouded over.
‘Where was this, did you say?’
‘At our table in the café.’
‘In the presence of your fellow-officers, you say? They all heard it?’
‘Yes, Herr Oberst.’
‘And the apothecary knows that you’ve denied it?’
‘He’ll hear it tomorrow. He, and the whole town.’
The Colonel twirled and tugged violently at his moustache, as though trying to tear it out by the roots. I could see that behind his low forehead his brain was busily at work. He began to pace up and down irritably, his hands crossed behind his back — once, twice, five times, ten times, twenty times. The floor shook slightly beneath his heavy tread, and his spurs jingled faintly. At length he came to a halt in front of me.
‘And what is it you’re going to do?’
‘There’s only one way out. You know that yourself, Herr Oberst. I only came to say good-bye and to beg you most respectfully to see that everything is settled up afterwards, with as little publicity as possible. I don’t want the regiment to be disgraced on my account.’
‘Nonsense!’ he murmured. ‘Utter nonsense! Just for a thing like that. A smart, healthy, decent young fellow like you, because of a crippled creature like that! I suppose the old fox got round you and you couldn’t decently get out of it. Ah well — I don’t care a damn about them, what do they matter to us! But this business of your comrades and this lousy apothecary fellow knowing of it, that’s the devil, of course!’
He began to pace up and down again, more violently than before. Thinking seemed to be a tremendous effort to him, for every time he turned my way in the midst of his pacing his face flushed a shade deeper and the veins now stood out on his temples like thick black roots. At last he came to a resolute halt.
‘Now then, listen to me. This sort of thing must be dealt with quickly. If the story gets about, we shan’t be able to do anything. Now, first of all, who was present from the regiment?’
I mentioned the names. Bubencic took his notebook out of his breast-pocket — the notorious little red leather notebook which, whenever he caught out any member of the regiment in some misdemeanour, he drew out as though it were a sword. Anyone whose name was written in it might as well say good-bye to his next leave. The Colonel moistened his pencil with his lips in peasant fashion before noting down one name after another with his thick, broadnailed fingers.
‘Is that the lot?’
‘Yes.’
‘Definitely all?’
‘Yes, Herr Oberst.’
‘I see.’ He stowed the notebook away in his breast-pocket as though sheathing a sword — and there was the same ring of finality in his ‘I see.’
‘I see. Well, we can put that right. Tomorrow I’ll order them to report to me, all seven of them, one after another, before they set foot on the parade-ground, and God help the fellow who dare remember, after I’ve done with him, a word of what you said! I’ll deal with the apothecary myself. I’ll bamboozle him all right. I’ll find a way of squaring him, you leave that to me. What about saying that you wished to ask permission before making the engagement public ... or, wait a minute’— he came so close up to me that I could feel his breath on my face, and his piercing eyes looked straight into mine — ‘tell me honestly, I mean really honestly: had you been drinking — I mean before you made a fool of yourself like that?’
I felt hot with shame. ‘Well, Herr Oberst, I certainly did have a couple of cognacs before I went out, and then out there ... at dinner I drank a fair amount ... but ...’
I expected an angry explosion. Instead, his face suddenly beamed all over. He rubbed his hands together and burst into a hearty, complacent laugh.
‘Capital, capital, now I’ve got it! That’s how we’ll clear up the mess. It’s clear as daylight. I’ll simply tell them all you were as drunk as a lord and didn’t know what you were saying. You didn’t give your word of honour, I suppose?’
‘No, Herr Oberst.’
‘Then everything’s O.K. You were just half-seas-over, I’ll tell them. It’s happened even to the best people, even to an Archduke. You were dead-drunk, hadn’t the ghost of an idea what you were saying, didn’t listen properly and simply didn’t understan
d what they were asking you. That’s only logical, isn’t it? And I’ll hoodwink the apothecary into believing that I gave you a deuce of a dressing-down for blundering into the café in such a disgusting state. There we are — that settles point number one.’
I seethed with indignation to think that he should so misunderstand me. It infuriated me to find that this fundamentally good-natured blockhead was, as it were, trying to hold the stirrup for me; obviously he thought I had buttonholed him out of funk, and wanted him to get me out of a scrape. Devil take it, why shouldn’t he understand? And so I drew myself up.
‘With respect, Herr Oberst, that won’t settle the matter at all as far as I am concerned. I know what I’ve done, and know that I can’t look a decent person in the face again; I’ve behaved caddishly, and I can’t go on living and ...’
‘Shut up!’ he bawled. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon — but do let me think in peace and stop jabbering at me — I know my own business, and don’t need to be taught it by a young whipper-snapper like you. Do you imagine this matter is your concern alone? My dear fellow, that was only the first point, and now comes point number two: tomorrow morning you’ll have to clear out, I can’t do with you here. One’s got to let the grass grow over an affair of this sort. You mustn’t stay here a day longer, or the whole place will be buzzing with gossip, and everywhere you go they’ll be asking you questions, and I’m not going to have that. I won’t have any officer of mine badgered with questions and looked at askance. I won’t have it ... From tomorrow you’re transferred to the reserve battalion in Czaslau ... I’ll write the order out myself and give you a letter to the Colonel; what’s in it will be no business of yours. It’s your business to make yourself scarce, and what I do is my business. You and your batman will pack up your kit tonight, and leave the barracks so early tomorrow that not a soul in the whole regiment will set eyes on you. On parade tomorrow it’ll simply be announced that you’ve been sent away on an urgent mission, so that no one will guess anything. How you eventually settle up matters with the old man and his daughter is no affair of mine. You’ll kindly get yourself out of your own mess — my only concern is that the matter shan’t lead to a lot of scandal and gossip in the regiment ... Well, that’s settled — you’ll report to me here at half-past five in the morning, all packed and ready. I’ll give you your letter, and then you’ll be off! Understand?’