May-flies before night

PANTIELEYMON ROMANOV

EDITOR'S NOTE: Pantieleymon Romanov is one of the Russian writers who was overtaken in full career hy the Revolution. He was horn in 1884, and had written for years with intermittent success when the Revolution gave new life to his style. Besides plays and short stories, he has written a brilliant novel, Three Pairs of Silk Stockings, which was published in this country a few years ago. Mayflies Before Night—a story of the civil war between the White Russians and the Bolsheviks, following the Revolution—was translated by Sonia Bleeker.

The sun had set over the high bank of the Volga and half of the smooth surface of the water was already in evening shadow. Further toward the opposite bank, the water was still pink and the even curves of the waves reflected deep red and purple stripes.

The young birches, on the low left bank, their triangular buds swollen with the spring awakening, blushingly reflecting the sunset, stood out vividly in the clear, fresh air.

It was very early spring, when the river, still muddy, rushed smoothly its full load downstream, and only at the islands and the rocks along the banks were there any cross currents, painted in the subdued colors of the sunset.

From the high, rocky bank over the winding path, four people were slowly descending. Three soldiers, all White Russians, and a woman, rather a young girl, thin, in a brown dress, which looked like the uniform of a gymnasium student, with a long scarf wound around her throat.

The two men, in front, carried spades. The one behind them, with silver epaulets of a White Russian officer and a revolver at his side, carried a stick and carelessly kept whisking the pebbles off the path.

When they started down over a particularly difficult pass, the officer, leaning on his stick, gallantly offered the girl his hand to help her. But the girl, with a sudden twitch of revulsion on her face, jerked her hand away.

"You hate me, don't you?" asked the officer, smiling.

"No," answered the girl. "That's quite irrelevant. But you had better not touch me. You might give me the stick, though."

And the girl, leaning on the stick, proceeded to descend slowly, placing her feet, cautiously, sideways.

Her thin, sensitive little face constantly changed expression. She smiled inwardly at her fear of the descent, raised her head every now and then, and, halting for a moment, encircled with a glance the immensity of the horizon, all blue at the distant bank, losing itself in the woods and sand dunes, where, as though competing with the sunset, red and white beacons began to flare up, lighting a zig-zagging path in the calm, unruffled waters of the river.

At this the girl's face assumed a strange, almost greedy expression, as she gazed at the endless stretch of the river, the sky, and the far-away woods.

When the officer turned to her, she began to smile—the smile of a person whose hands are put under fire, but who refuses to show any weakness.

"It bothers me very much," said the girl, "that I haven't written a letter.

"Does it matter now?' asked the officer. "—You're dressed so lightly, it is rather damp out, by the time we get there you 11 certainly be chilled.

He was a man of about thirty, blond, with a sharp little heard. His shoulders crossed by a thin leather strap, sat high and straight over a small waist, and with his well-fitting, fine, soft leather hoots he cut a handsome, light, and buoyant figure.

At times he took off his officer's cap with the badge of the W hite Russians and, looking about him, ran his fingers through his close cropped hair. This gesture reminded one of the warm spring days, when one's head gets hot from a brisk walk, and the hot sweat, under the cap, and it is pleasant to take the cap off and walk with an uncovered head, holding up to the fresh wind the burning forehead, with the red dent marked by the leather band of the cap.

They descended finally to the edge of the water. The soldiers, rattling the chains, untied a big, wide boat, painted in the military, khaki colors, file officer lit a thick, yellow, cigarette end, for a few moments, watched the burning match in his hands. The flame burned without a flicker in the quiet evening air.

"How peaceful . . . ," said the girl, looking dreamily at the flame.

"Yes, a wonderful evening."

The soldiers untied the boat and brought its nose onto the sandy beach, where the girl and officer stood waiting.

The girl hesitated when the officer again offered her his hand to help her into the boat. For a moment, her face expressed a cringing terror. She almost fell back. But soon she collected herself and without help stepped into the boat, causing it to rock in the water.

The soldiers, having pushed the boat over the crunching sand into the water, jumped into it. The boat sank deep and soft into the glassy surface and began to drift sideways with the current, gathering speed, until the men straightened its course.

The spades had been laid near the bow, where the girl had sat down. She tried to move them.

"They are in your way, let me have them here, said the officer and added, evidently addressing the soldiers: "My, what an inconsiderate lot!

"Where are the rest? inquired the girl.

"The rest are there, answered the officer, pointing forward.

"And where is that?'

"There, on the island. See. tin' sand and bushes in the middle.

"And how long will it take us to get there?"

"About twenty minutes, said the officer, with a searching, sharp look at the girl.

"You say there will also he a judge?

"Yes, of course, there ...

The girl sat at the bow facing the officer, who placed himself on the front bench. She grew silent and, turning, watched with a strange expression the narrow strip of sand hardly discernible in tin* distance. Then she again encircled with a glance tin' wide overflow of the river, touched in the center with the red of the sunset, again looked up at the clear sky, and her glance rested on the red dot of a fire on the opposite bank.

"How strange, and this will go on . . . ," she said.

"What will go on?"

"This .... Fears glistened in her eyes as she swept her hand over the river, toward the sky, and the distant, foggy, wooded horizon.

The two soldiers rowed evenly, directing the boat against the current, so it would not he carried away.

One of them, ruddy, with white eyelashes, freckled hands, and while hair, his face, broad and fleshy above broad shoulders, kept smiling good-naturedly at something, spitting on his hands and groaning with chagrin whenever the oars slipped out of the oarlocks and the boat swayed off its course. Life and health overflowed his being. He turned frequently to look at the girl and particularly at her scarf, which evidently was very much to his liking.

The other, an exact opposite of the first, appeared inarticulate. He was thin, dark, and a big scar across the bridge of his nose gave him a severe, sullen expression.

"Why did you shoot my friend—because he was a White Russian? Are you such an ardent Bolshevik?" the officer asked the girl.

"I did not want to kill. But he was holding my lover prisoner. I aimed at his feet, so that the man I loved might escape."

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"But you hit him in the head."

"I missed."

"Quite a successful miss," said the officer, looking attentively at the girl.

"But it is not quite right that I haven't written him the letter," repeated the girl, to evade the conversation.

"As far as we know your lover escaped, ran across the border and is probably now safe in Moscow," persisted the officer, still looking testily at the girl.

"It makes no difference. If I had written him a letter, it would have found him."

"There is no sense to it now."

"That is true," agreed the girl, bowing her head in thought. Then raising it again with the former expression of wonder, she looked about her.

"Do you feel how the water smells of spring? How alive and warm the air is? And how life is awakening with the spring? Life. . . ." She pronounced it as though she listened anew to the sound of the word, and pressed her hands together.

The officer drew a deep breath, took out another cigarette and also looked about him.

"Yes, it is April. The earth is thawing out."

The girl strained her thin, sensitive face forward in the direction of the narrow sandy strip of the island, which the boat was slowly nearing. Her eyes burned and she nervously shifted them from one object to another, marking each detail of the awakening life on the island.

"Here is a mayfly! Look!" She pointed, with her finger up, and even began to laugh at her own childish emotion. "When I was a child, I used to love to catch them." Then with a strange expression she added: "What a happiness it is to catch mayflies!"

The officer, with his cigarette in the corner of his mouth, smiled and again looked testily at the girl:

"Really, you're almost a child. ..."

"That's not the point. When you are in my place, you'll recall everything and will understand. . . ."

"And do you think that I shall ever be in your place?"

"Most certainly!" The girl spoke with firm assurance, straightening up and her eyes flashed the threat at him.

"And when will that happen?" mocked the officer.

"Not later than a month hence, if you must know."

"Oho! You are a curious little animal, to say the least."

For the first time he looked at the girl with open insolence. Then he added, in a changed tone:

"However, I do give you credit: I've never in all my life seen anything like it. Usually people cry, plead and, in general, do not act nicely. But you— you're wonderful."

"How strange," said the girl. "I have at this moment a very definite feeling of appreciation for you." (The officer bowed.) "It is very kind of you to praise me. This helps a lot because I'm just a hair's breadth from acting like those of whom you just spoke." "Then your calm is false—a put-on heroism ?"

"No," said the girl simply. "I myself don't quite understand it. I wouldn't have believed it, if anyone had told me that, under these circumstances I'd act this way and hold myself in check so. I can't even imagine. Here we are in a boat . . . This has happened a thousand times in my life. . . . The water drips from the oars. It is strange to think that in an hour, on the way back, the oars will move up and down with the same regularity, the boat will near the bank, it will be tied quietly . . . That's why it is all so terrible and so incomprehensible."

She shivered.

"Well, here we are," said the officer, when the boat rubbed its nose bluntly into the soft sand. He stood up. jumped gracefully out and offered the girl his hand, as young men offer their hands when they arrive at a picnic, to help each woman, in turn, alight.

The girl paled and her entire figure seemed to contract. Avoiding the proffered hand, she jumped out of the boat. Her slippers sank into the moist sand. It penetrated the eyelets of her shoes. She bent down and brushed it away with her scarf.

The ruddy soldier looked ruefully at the scarf.

The girl noticed it, took the scarf off, and said to the soldier: "Take it. I won't need it any more."

Suddenly, the officer tore the scarf out of the soldier's hands and, said roughly:

"This is not permitted! Take it back."

Then to the soldiers, he added:

"You stay here. We will walk over there to look for the others." He looked at them significantly as he spoke.

"Do we have to go far?" inquired the girl.

"About ten minutes, or maybe fifteen. Wrap the scarf around you. It is damp here. You might catch cold."

They left.

He shot her in the back of her head right there behind the bush, not even twenty paces ahead of the soldiers. He had put his hand to his side twice, so that, walking behind the girl, he could, without her noticing it, take the revolver out of the holster, but each time he drew his hand away. And only the third time, when the girl looked up at the evening sky and said: "How really infinite the sky is. I never felt it so before . . ." he had time quickly and imperceptibly to bring the nozzle of the revolver to her head, right next to her thin, girlish neck . . .

The shot was barely heard. It had a sharp sound, as though a shepherd at sunset somewhere snapped his whip.

They buried her, with the spades brought by the soldiers, in the damp sand, saturated with the Spring dampness, in her scarf, at which the soldier continued to look regretfully and for which he even asked. But his chief only glanced at him and the soldier became confused and silent.

When they returned, the twilight had almost faded. Glistening drops of water dripped from the oars, as the soldiers rowed evenly. The mayflies flew over their heads, just as before.