30 
LAND & WATER 
March 29, 1917 
only too rrady to listen to the tale of travels from our comrade 
Toniassov. He had hern attarlipH to our military irtissioh in* 
I'aris the year before the war. High imjtecti(ms no doubt— 
or inavbo sheer luck. 
■ I dunl think he couUl have l)oen a very useful member 
of the mission. It could not have l)oen expected froni iiis 
youth and ciini])lete inexperience. Apparently all his time 
in Paris was his own. The use he made of it was to fall in 
love, to remain in that state, to cultivate it, to exist only for 
it, in a manner of speakint;. 
" Thus it w.is something more than a mere memory that he 
had lirought with him fiom France. Memory 'is a fugitive 
thiuK. It can be falsified. It can be effaced. It can Ix- even 
doubted. Why! I myself come to doubt sometimes that I. 
too. have been in Paris in my turn. And the very long road 
there with battles for its stages would appear still more 
incred.ble if it were n(jt for a certain musket ball which I have 
been carrving about mv jx-rson ever since a little cavalry 
affair which happened in Silesia, at the very beginning of the 
l.eipsic campaign. 
■■ Passages of love, however, are more impressive perhaps 
than passages of danger. You don't go affronting love in 
troops as it were. Tlicy are more unique, more jx'rsonal 
and more intimate. And of course with Tomassov all that was 
\ery fresh yet. He had not been home from France four months 
when the war began. 
• His heart, his mind were full of that experience. He 
was a little awed by it. And he was simple enough to let it 
ajipear in his speeches. He considered himself a sort of 
]irivileged person, not because she had looked at him with 
favour, btit simpiv because^ how shall 1 say it— he had had 
the wonderful illumination of that worship as if it were heaven 
itst>lf which had done this for him. 
" Oh yes ! He was very simple. A nice youngster, yet 
no fool ; and with that utterly inexperienced, unsuspicious 
and even unthinking. You find one like that here and there 
—in the provinces. He had a lot of poetry in him too. It 
could be onlv natural, something quite his own, not acquired. 
1 suppfisc Father Adam had some poetry in him too of that 
natural sort. For the rest un Kusse sauvage as the French 
sometimes call us, but not of that kind which, they maintain, 
cats tallow candles for a delicacy. 
" As to the woman, the l-'renchwoman. well, though I 
also have been in Paris with a hundred thousand other 
Russians, I have never seen her. Very Hkely she was not 
in Paris then. And in any case hers were not the doors 
that would flv open before simple fellows of my sort, you 
understand. ' C.ilded saloons were never in my way. 1 could 
not tell you how she looked, even from description, which is 
strange considering that I was, if I may say so, Tomassov's 
confidant. 
" He very soon got shy of talking before the others'. I 
suppose camp-fire comments jarred his finer feelings. But 
1 was left to him and truly I had to submit. You can't very 
well expect a fellow in that state toTiold his tongue altogether ; 
and I- I suppose, you'll find it difficult to believe— 1 am m 
reality a rather silent sort of person. 
" Very Hkely my silences appeared to him sympathetic. 
Goodness only knows. All the month of September our regi- 
ment quartered in villages had an easy time. It was then 
that I heard most of that— you can't call it a story. The story 
1 have in my mind is not in that. Outpourings, let us call 
them. , , 
" I would sit, quite content to hold my peace, a whole 
horn- perhaps, vviiile Tomassov talked with exaltation. And 
when he was done I would still hold my peace. And there 
would Ix; produced a solemn effect of silence which, I 
imagine, pleased Tomassov in a way. 
"She was of course not a woman in her first youth. A 
widow maybe. At anv rate I have never heard Tomassov 
mention a husband. "She had a salon. Something very 
distinguished. A social centre in wliich that admirable lady 
(piecned it with great splendour. 
" Somehow, 1 fancy her coi^rt was composed mostly of 
men. But Tomassov, I must say, kept such details out of 
his discourses wonderfully well. Upon my word, I don't 
know whether her haic was dark or fair, her eyes brown, black 
or blue, what was her stature, her features or her complexion. 
His love soared above mere physical impressions. He 
never described her to me in set terms. 
" Hut he was ready to swear that in her presence every- 
body's thoughts and feelings were bound to circle round her. 
She was that sort of woman. Conversations on all sorts of 
subjects went on in her salon. Most wonderful conversations, 
but through them all there flowed like an unheard, mysterious, 
strain of music the assertion, the power, the tyranny of sheer 
beautv. So, apparently, she was beautiful. It detaciied all 
these talking people from their life-interests, and even ■ from 
their- vanities. She was a. secret delight and a secret torment 
' iivcu the old men when they looked at her seemed to broo. 
as if struck by the thought that their lives had been wasted. 
She was" the very joy anVl'shuVlder, of felicity and she brought 
only "sadness and torment to the.kgarts of men. 
" In short, she niust have been an extraordinary woman 
or else Tomassov was an extraordinary young fellow to feel 
in lli.it way and talk likt? this about her. I told you the 
fellow had some |x>etry in him. And observe that all this 
sounded true enough. It would be just about the eli'ect a 
woman very much out of the common would produce, you 
know. Poets do get close to the truth, somehow ; there's 
no denying that. 
" There's no poetry in my composition, I know ; but I 
have my share of common shrewdness, and I have no doubt 
that the lady was kind to the youngster, once he did find his 
way inside her salon. His getting in is the real marvel for 
me. However he did get in, the innocent, and he found him- 
self in distinguished company there, amongst men of consider- 
able jjosition. And you know what that means : thick waists, 
bald heads, teeth that are not — as some poet puts it. Imagine 
amongst them a nice boy fresh and simple like an apple just 
off the tree. A modest, good-looking, impressionable, adoring 
yoimg barbarian. My word ! What a change ! What a relief 
for jaded feelings. And with that a dose of poetry in his 
nature too, which saves even a simpleton from being a fool. 
" He became an artlessly, unconditionally devoted slave. 
He was rewarded by being smiled on kindly, and in time 
admitted to the intimacy of the house. It may be that the 
unsophisticated barbarian amused the exquisite lady. Perhaps 
— since he didn't feed on tallow candles— he satisfied some 
need oi tenderness in the woman ? You know there are many 
kinds of tenderness highly civilized women are capable of. 
Women with heads and imaginations. I mean, and no tem- 
perament to speak of; you understand. But v/ho's going Ui 
fathom their needs or their fancies. Most of the time they 
themselves don't know much about their innermost moods 
and blunder out of one into another, sometimes with cata- 
strophic results. And then wlio's more surprised than they ? 
However Tomassov's case was in its nature quite idyllic. 
The fashionable world was amused. It made for him a kind 
of social success. But he didn't care. There was one divinity 
and there was the shrine where .he was permitted to go in and 
out without regard for official reception-hours. 
" He took advantage of that privilege freely. Well, 
he had no official duties you know. The military mission was 
supposed to be more complimentary than anything else — the 
head of it being a personal friend of our Emperor .\lexander, 
and he, too, was laying himself out for successes in fashionable 
life exclusively — as it seemed. As it seemed. 
" One afternoon Tomassov called on the mistress of his 
thoughts rather earlier than usual. She was not alone. 
There was a man with her, not one of the thick- waisted, bald- 
headed personages but a somebody all the same, a man of 
over thirty, a French oflicer who to some extent was also a 
privileged intimate. Tomassov was not jealous of him. Such 
a sentiment would have appeared presumptuous to the simple 
fellow. 
" On the contrary — ^lie admired the officer. You have 
no idea of the French military man's prestige in those days, 
even with us Russian soldiers who had managed to face them 
perhaps better than the rest. Victory had marked them on 
the forehead — it seemed for ever. ;., They would have been more 
than human if they had not been conscious of it, but they 
were good comrades, and had a sort of brotherly feeling for all 
who bore arms, even if it was against them. 
" And this was quite a superior example, an officer on 
the Major-General's staff and a man of the best society besides. 
He was powerfully built and thorouglily masculine though he 
was as carefully groomed as a woman. He had the courteous 
self-possession of a man of the \yorld. His forehead, white 
as alabaster, contrasted impressively with the healthy colour 
of his face. j 
" I don't know whether he wp5 jealous of Tomassov. but 
I suspect that he may have been a little annoyed at him as at a 
sort of walking absurdity of the sentimental order. But those 
men of the world are impenetrable ; and outwardly he con- 
descended to recognise Tomassov's existence even more 
distinctly thail was strictly necessary. Once or twice he 
offered him some useful- worldly advice with perfect tnct 
andmeasurc. Tomassov. became completely confjuered by 
that 'kindness piercing through tlic cold- polish of the best 
societjj. . .. . . i •, ;• . ' 
"Tomassov, introduced into the .petit salon, found these 
two- exquisite peo])le sitting' together, and became aware 
that he had interrupted some special conversation. They 
looked at him strangely he thought ; but he was not made to 
feebthat he had intruded. After a time the lady said to the 
(jfTicer — his name was de Castel ; ' I wish you would take the 
trouble to- ascertain the exact truth as to that rumour.' 
" .' It's'rathcr more than, a rumour ' remarked the officer. 
tC6ntinu('H''b'n^Tatic 32.) 
