The Dark Forest

His was the first figure to catch my eye that evening in Petrograd; he stood under the dusky lamp in the vast gloomy Warsaw station, with exactly the expression that I was afterwards to know so well, impressed not only upon his face but also upon the awkwardness of his arms that hung stiffly at his side, upon the baggy looseness of his trousers at the knees, the unfastened straps of his long black military boots. His face, with its mild blue eyes, straggly fair moustache, expressed anxiety and pride, timidity and happiness, apprehension and confidence. He was in that first moment of my sight of him as helpless, as unpractical, and as anxious to please as any lost dog in the world⁠—and he was also as proud as Lucifer. I knew him at once for an Englishman; his Russian uniform only accented the cathedral-town, small public-school atmosphere of his appearance. He was exactly what I had expected. He was not, however, alone, and that surprised me. By his side stood a girl, obviously Russian, wearing her Sister’s uniform with excitement and eager anticipation, her eyes turning restlessly from one part of the platform to another, listening with an impatient smile to the remarks of her companion.

From where I stood I could hear his clumsy, hesitating Russian and her swift, preoccupied replies. I came up to them.

“Mr. Trenchard?” I asked.

He blushed, stammered, held out his hand, missed mine, blushed the more, laughed nervously.

“I’m glad⁠ ⁠… I knew⁠ ⁠… I hope.⁠ ⁠…”

I could feel that the girl’s eyes were upon me with all the excited interest of one who is expecting that every moment of her new wonderful experience will be of a stupendous, even immortal quality.

“Now!” someone cried, and instantly there was such a roar that I seemed to be lifted by it far into the sky, held, rocked, then dropped gently. I woke to find myself standing up in the trench, my hands to my ears. I was aware first that the sky had changed from blue into a muddy grey, then that dust and an ugly smell were in my eyes, my mouth, my nose. I remembered that I repeated stupidly, again and again: “What? what? what?” Then the grey sky slowly fell away as though it were pushed by some hand and I saw the faint evening blue, with (so strange and unreal they seemed) silver-pointed stars. I caught my breath and realised that now the whole right corner of the barn was gone. The field stretched, a dark shadow, to the edge of the yard. In the ground where the stakes of the barn had been there was a deep pit; scattered helter-skelter were bricks, pieces of wood, and over it all a cloud of thin fine dust that hovered and swung a little like grey silk. The line of soldiers was crouched back into the trench as though it had been driven by some force. From, as it appeared, a great distance, I heard the Colonel’s voice: “Slava Bogu, another step to the right and we’d not have had time to say ‘goodbye.’⁠ ⁠… Get in there, you⁠ ⁠… with your head out like that, do you want another?” I was conscious then of Andrey Vassilievitch sitting huddled on the ground of the trench, his head tucked into his chest.

“You’re not hurt, are you?” I said, bending down to him.

The soldiers were ghosts: there was no one, save ourselves, alive in the whole world.⁠ ⁠…

Then a little incident occurred. I was walking in the rear of our wagons that I might see that all were there. I felt a touch on my arm and found Andrey Vassilievitch standing in the middle of the road. His face, staring at me as though I were a stranger, expressed desperate determination.

“Come on,” I said. “We’ve no time to waste.”

“I’m not coming,” he whispered back. His voice was breathless as though he had been running.

“Nonsense,” I answered roughly, and I put my hand on his arm. His body trembled in jerks and starts.

“It’s madness⁠ ⁠… this road⁠ ⁠… the moon.⁠ ⁠… Of course they’ll fire.⁠ ⁠… We’ll all be killed. But it isn’t⁠ ⁠… it isn’t⁠ ⁠… I can’t move.⁠ ⁠…”

“You must move.⁠ ⁠… Come, Andrey Vassilievitch, you’ve been brave enough all day. There’s no danger, I tell you. See how quiet everything is. You must.⁠ ⁠…”

“I can’t.⁠ ⁠… It’s nothing⁠ ⁠… nothing to do with me.⁠ ⁠… It’s awful all day⁠—and now this!”

I thought of Marie Ivanovna early in the morning. I looked down the road and saw that the wagons were slowly moving into the distant shadows.

“You must come,” I repeated. “We can’t leave you here. Don’t think of yourself. And nothing can touch you⁠—nothing, I tell you.”

“I’ll go back, I must. I can’t go on.”

“Go back? How can you? Where to? You can’t go back to the trench. We shan’t know where to find you.” A furious anger seized me; I caught his arm. “I’ll leave you, if you like. There are other things more important.”

“It’s better damp.⁠ ⁠…”

Then, quite suddenly, the blow fell.

One evening, as they were standing alone together in the yard watching the yellow sky die into dusk, without any preparation, she spoke to him.

“John,” she said, “I can’t marry you.”

He heard her as though she had spoken to another man. It was as though he said: “Ah, that will be bad news for so-and-so.”

“I don’t understand,” he said, and instantly afterwards his heart began to beat like a raging beast and his knees trembled.

“I can’t marry you,” she told him, “because I don’t love you. Ah, I’ve known it a long time⁠—ever since we left Petrograd. I’ve often, often wanted to tell you⁠ ⁠… I’ve been afraid.”

“You can’t marry me?” he repeated, “But you must.⁠ ⁠…” Then hurriedly: “No, I shouldn’t say that. You must forgive me⁠ ⁠… you have confused me.”

“I’m very unhappy⁠ ⁠… I’ve been unhappy a long time. It was a mistake in Petrograd. I don’t love you⁠—but it isn’t only that.⁠ ⁠… You wouldn’t be happy with me. You think now⁠ ⁠… but it’s a mistake.”

He has told me that as the idea worked through to his brain his only thought was that he must keep her at all costs, under any conditions, keep her.

“You can’t⁠—you mustn’t,” he whispered, staring as though he would hold her by her eyes. “Don’t you see that you mustn’t? What am I to do after all this?

We crossed the moonlit field and for a brief moment silence fell, as though an audience were holding its breath watching us. On the other side were cottages, the outskirts of a tiny village. Here beside these cottages we fell into a fantastic world. That small village must in other times have been a pretty place, nestling with its gardens by the river under the hill. It seemed now to rock and rattle under the noise of the cannon. All the open spaces were like white marble in the moonlight and in these open spaces there was utter silence and emptiness. The place seemed deserted⁠—and yet, in every shadow, in long lines under the cottage wells, in little clumps and clusters round trees or ruins there were eyes staring, the gleam of muskets shone, little specks of light, dancing from wall to wall. Everywhere there were bodies, legs, boots, arms, heads, sudden caps, sudden fingers, sudden hot and streaming breaths. And over everything this infernal noise and yet no human sound. A nightmare of the true nightmare of dreams. The open silver spaces, the little gardens thick with flowers, the high moon and the starry sky, not a living soul to be seen⁠—and nevertheless watchers everywhere. “Step forward on to that little plot of grass in front of the cottage windows and you’re a dead man”⁠—the moonlight said. There were men in the body of the earth, not in trenches, but in holes⁠—my foot stepped on a head of hair and some low voice cursed me. I was, I suppose, by this time, a little delirious with my adventure.