Plays Pleasant Page 6

  RAINA [looking at the ottoman] He’s gone! I left him here.

  CATHERINE. Here! Then he must have climbed down from the –

  RAINA [seeing him] Oh! [She points].

  CATHERINE [scandalized] Well! [She strides to the bed, Raina following until she is opposite her on the other side]. He’s fast asleep. The brute!

  RAINA [anxiously] Sh!

  CATHERINE [shaking him] Sir! [Shaking him again, harder] Sir!! [Vehemently, shaking very hard] Sir!!!

  RAINA [catching her arm] Dont, mamma: the poor darling is worn out. Let him sleep.

  CATHERINE [letting him go, and turning amazed to Raina] The poor darling! Raina!!! [She looks sternly at her daughter]. The man sleeps profoundly.

  ACT II

  The sixth of March, 1886. In the garden of Major Petkoff’s house. It is a fine spring morning: the garden looks fresh and pretty. Beyond the paling the tops of a couple of minarets can be seen, shewing that there is a valley there, with the little town in it. A few miles further the Balkan mountains rise and shut in the landscape. Looking towards them from within the garden, the side of the house is seen on the left, with a garden door reached by a little flight of steps. On the right the stable yard, with its gateway, encroaches on the garden. There are fruit bushes along the paling and house, covered with washing spread out to dry. A path runs by the house, and rises by two steps at the corner, where it turns out of sight. In the middle, a small table, with two bent wood chairs at it, is laid for breakfast with Turkish coffee pot, cups, rolls, etc. ; but the cups have been used and the bread broken. There is a wooden garden seat against the wall on the right.

  Louka, smoking a cigaret, is standing between the table and the house, turning her back with angry disdain on a man servant who is lecturing her. He is a middle-aged man of cool temperament and low but clear and keen intelligence, with the complacency of the servant who values himself on his rank in servitude, and the imperturbability of the accurate calculator who has no illusions. He wears a white Bulgarian costume: jacket with embroidered border, sash, wide knickerbockers, and decorated gaiters. His head is shaved up to the crown, giving him a high Japanese forehead. His name is Nicola.

  NICOLA. Be warned in time, Louka: mend your manners. I know the mistress. She is so grand that she never dreams that any servant could dare be disrespectful to her; but if she once suspects that you are defying her, out you go.

  LOUKA. I do defy her. I will defy her. What do I care for her ?

  NICOLA. If you quarrel with the family, I never can marry you. It’s the same as if you quarrelled with me!

  LOUKA. You take her part against me, do you ?

  NICOLA [sedately] I shall always be dependent on the good will of the family. When I leave their service and start a shop in Sofia, their custom will be half my capital: their bad word Would ruin me.

  LOUKA. You have no spirit. I should like to catch them saying a word against me!

  NICOLA [pityingly] I should have expected more sense from you, Louka. But youre young: youre young!

  LOUKA. Yes; and you like me the better for it, dont you ? But I know some family secrets they wouldnt care to have told, young as I am. Let them quarrel with me if they dare!

  NICOLA [with compassionate superiority] Do you know what they would do if they heard you talk like that ?

  LOUKA. What could they do ?

  NICOLA. Discharge you for untruthfulness. Who would believe any stories you told after that ? Who would give you another situation ? Who in this house would dare be seen speaking to you ever again ? How long would your father be left on his little farm ? [She impatiently throws away the end of her cigaret, and stamps on it]. Child: you dont know the power such high people have over the like of you and me when we try to rise out of our poverty against them. [He goes close to her and lowers his voice]. Look at me, ten years in their service. Do you think I know no secrets ? I know things about the mistress that she wouldnt have the master know for a thousand levas. I know things about him that she wouldnt let him hear the last of for six months if I blabbed them to her. I know things about Raina that would break off her match with Sergius if –

  LOUKA [turning on him quickly] How do you know ? I never told you!

  NICOLA [opening his eyes cunningly] So thats your little secret, is it ? I thought it might be something like that. Well, you take my advice and be respectful; and make the mistress feel that no matter what you know or dont know, she can depend on you to hold your tongue and serve the family faithfully. Thats what they like; and thats how youll make most out of them.

  LOUKA [with searching scorn] You have the soul of a servant, Nicola.

  NICOLA [complacently] Yes: thats the secret of success in service.

  A loud knocking with a whip handle on a wooden door is heard from the stable yard.

  MALE VOICE OUTSIDE. Hollo! Hollo there! Nicola!

  LOUKA. Master! back from the war!

  NICOLA [quickly] My word for it, Louka, the war’s over. Off with you and get some fresh coffee. [He runs out into the stable yard].

  LOUKA [as she collects the coffee pot and cups on the tray, and carries it into the house] Youll never put the soul of a servant into me.

  Major Petkoff comes from the stable yard, followed by Nicola. He is a cheerful, excitable, insignificant, unpolished man of about 50, naturally unambitious except as to his income and his importance in local society, but just now greatly pleased with the military rank which the war has thrust on him as a man of consequence in his town. The fever of plucky patriotism which the Serbian attack roused in all the Bulgarians has pulled him through the war; but he is obviously glad to be home again.

  PETKOFF [pointing to the table with his whip] Breakfast out here, eh ?

  NICOLA. Yes, sir. The mistress and Miss Raina have just gone in.

  PETKOFF [sitting down and taking a roll] Go in and say Ive come; and get me some fresh coffee.

  NICOLA. It’s coming, sir. [He goes to the house door. Louka, with fresh coffee, a clean cup, and a brandy bottle on her tray, meets him]. Have you told the mistress ?

  LOUKA. Yes: she’s coming.

  Nicola goes into the house. Louka brings the coffee to the table.

  PETKOFF. Well: the Serbs havnt run away with you, have they ?

  LOUKA. NO, sir.

  PETKOFF. Thats right. Have you brought me some cognac ?

  LOUKA [putting the bottle on the table] Here, sir.

  PETKOFF. Thats right. [He pours some into his coffee].

  Catherine, who, having at this early hour made only a very perfunctory toilet, wears a Bulgarian apron over a once brilliant but now half worn-out dressing gown, and a colored handkerchief tied over her thick black hair, comes from the house with Turkish slippers on her bare feet, looking astonishingly handsome and stately under all the circumstances. Louka goes into the house.

  CATHERINE. My dear Paul: what a surprise for us! [She stoops over the back of his chair to kiss him]. Have they brought you fresh coffee ?

  PETKOFF. Yes: Louka’s been looking after me. The war’s over. The treaty was signed three days ago at Bucharest; and the decree for our army to demobilize was issued yesterday.

  CATHERINE [springing erect, with flashing eyes] Paul: have you let the Austrians force you to make peace ?

  PETKOFF [submissively] My dear: they didnt consult me. What could I do ? [She sits down and turns away from him]. But of course we saw to it that the treaty was an honorable one. It declares peace –

  CATHERINE [outraged] Peace!

  PETKOFF [appeasing her] – but not friendly relations: remember that. They wanted to put that in; but I insisted on its being struck out. What more could I do ?

  CATHERINE. You could have annexed Serbia and made Prince Alexander Emperor of the Balkans. Thats what I would have done.

  PETKOFF. I dont doubt it in the least, my dear. But I should have had to subdue the whole Austrian Empire first; and that would have kept me too long away from you. I missed you greatly.

  CATHERIN
E [relenting] Ah! [She stretches her hand affectionately across the table to squeeze his].

  PETKOFF. And how have you been, my dear ?

  CATHERINE. Oh, my usual sore throats: thats all.

  PETKOFF [with conviction] That comes from washing your neck every day. Ive often told you so.

  CATHERINE. Nonsense, Paul!

  PETKOFF [over his coffee and cigaret] I dont believe in going too far with these modern customs. All this washing cant be good for the health: it’s not natural. There was an Englishman at Philippopolis who used to wet himself all over with cold water every morning when he got up. Disgusting! It all comes from the English: their climate makes them so dirty that they have to be perpetually washing themselves. Look at my father! he never had a bath in his life; and he lived to be ninety-eight, the healthiest man in Bulgaria. I dont mind a good wash once a week to keep up my position; but once a day is carrying the thing to a ridiculous extreme.

  CATHERINE. You are a barbarian at heart still, Paul. I hope you behaved yourself before all those Russian officers.

  PETKOFF. I did my best. I took care to let them know that we have a library.

  CATHERINE. Ah; but you didnt tell them that we have an electric bell in it ? I have had one put up.

  PETKOFF. Whats an electric bell ?

  CATHERINE. You touch a button; something tinkles in the kitchen; and then Nicola comes up.

  PETKOFF. Why not shout for him ?

  CATHERINE. Civilized people never shout for their servants. Ive learnt that while you were away.

  PETKOFF. Well, I’ll tell you something Ive learnt too. Civilized people dont hang out their washing to dry where visitors can see it; so youd better have all that [indicating the clothes on the bushes] put somewhere else.

  CATHERINE. Oh, thats absurd, Paul: I dont believe really refined people notice such things.

  SERGIUS [knocking at the stable gates] Gate, Nicola!

  PETKOFF. Theres Sergius. [Shouting] Hollo, Nicola!

  CATHERINE. Oh, dont shout, Paul: it really isnt nice.

  PETKOFF. Bosh! [He shouts louder than before] Nicola!

  NICOLA [appearing at the house door] Yes, sir.

  PETKOFF. Are you deaf ? Dont you hear Major Saranoff knocking ? Bring him round this way. [He pronounces the name with the stress on the second syllable: Sarahnoff].

  NICOLA. Yes, Major. [He goes into the stable yard].

  PETKOFF. You must talk to him, my dear, until Raina takes him off our hands. He bores my life out about our not promoting him. Over my head, if you please.

  CATHERINE. He certainly ought to be promoted when he marries Raina. Besides, the country should insist on having at least one native general.

  PETKOFF. Yes; so that he could throw away whole brigades instead of regiments. It’s no use, my dear: he hasnt the slightest chance of promotion until we’re quite sure that the peace will be a lasting one.

  NICOLA [at the gate, announcing] Major Sergius Saranoff! [He goes into the house and returns presently with a third chair, which he places at the table. He then withdraws].

  Major Sergius Saranoff, the original of the portrait in Raina’s room, is a tall romantically handsome man, with the physical hardihood, the high spirit, and the susceptible imagination of an untamed mountaineer chieftain. But his remarkable personal distinction is of a characteristically civilized type. The ridges of his eyebrows, curving with an interrogative twist round the projections at the outer corners; his jealously observant eye; his nose, thin, keen, and apprehensive in spite of the pugnacious high bridge and large nostril; his assertive chin, would not be out of place in a Parisian salon, shewing that the clever imaginative barbarian has an acute critical faculty which has been thrown into intense activity by the arrival of western civilization in the Balkans. The result is precisely what the advent of nineteenth century thought first produced in England: to wit, Byronism. By his brooding on the perpetual failure, not only of others, but of himself, to live up to his ideals; by his consequent cynical scorn for humanity; by his jejune credulity as to the absolute validity of his concepts and the unworthiness of the world in disregarding them; by his wincings and mockeries under the sting of the petty disillusions which every hour spent among men brings to his sensitive observations, he has acquired the half tragic, half ironic air, the mysterious moodiness, the suggestion of a strange and terrible history that has left nothing but undying remorse, by which Childe Harold fascinated the grandmothers of his English contemporaries. It is clear that here or no-where is Raina’s ideal hero. Catherine is hardly less enthusiastic about him than her daughter, and much less reserved in shewing her enthusiasm. As he enters from the stable gate, she rises effusively to greet him. Petkoff is distinctly less disposed to make a fuss about him.

  PETKOFF. Here already, Sergius! Glad to see you.

  CATHERINE. My dear Sergius! [She holds out both her hands].

  SERGIUS [kissing them with scrupulous gallantry] My dear mother, if I may call you so.

  PETKOFF [drily] Mother-in-law, Sergius: mother-in-law! Sit down; and have some coffee.

  SERGIUS. Thank you: none for me. [he gets away from the table with a certain distaste for petkoff’s enjoyment of it, and posts himself with conscious dignity against the rail of the steps leading to the house].

  CATHERINE. You look superb. The campaign has improved you, Sergius. Everybody here is mad about you. We were all wild with enthusiasm about that magnificent cavalry charge.

  SERGIUS [with grave irony] Madam: it was the cradle and the grave of my military reputation.

  CATHERINE. How SO ?

  SERGIUS. I won the battle the wrong way when our worthy Russian generals were losing it the right way. In short, I upset their plans, and wounded their self-esteem. Two Cossack colonels had their regiments routed on the most correct principles of scientific warfare. Two major-generals got killed strictly according to military etiquette. The two colonels are now major-generals; and I am still a simple major.

  CATHERINE. You shall not remain so, Sergius. The women are on your side; and they will see that justice is done you.

  SERGIUS. It is too late. I have only waited for the peace to send in my resignation.

  PETKOFF [dropping his cup in his amazement] Your resignation!

  CATHERINE. Oh, you must withdraw it!

  SERGIUS [with resolute measured emphasis, folding his arms] I never withdraw.

  PETKOFF [vexed] Now who could have supposed you were going to do such a thing ?

  SERGIUS [with fire] Everyone that knew me. But enough of myself and my affairs. How is Raina; and where is Raina ?

  RAINA [suddenly coming round the corner of the house and standing at the top of the steps in the path] Raina is here.

  She makes a charming picture as they turn to look at her. She wears an underdress of pale green silk, draped with an overdress of thin ecru canvas embroidered with gold. She is crowned with a dainty eastern cap of gold tinsel. Sergius goes impulsively to meet her. Posing regally, she presents her hand; he drops chivalrouslyon one knee and kisses it.

  PETKOFF [aside to Catherine, beaming with parental pride] Pretty, isnt it ? She always appears at the right moment.

  CATHERINE [impatiently] Yes: she listens for it. It is an abominable habit.

  Sergius leads Raina forward with splendid gallantry. When they arrive at the table, she turns to him with a bend of the head: he bows; and thus they separate, he coming to his place and shegoing behind her father’s chair.

  RAINA [stooping and kissing her father] Dear father! Welcome home!

  PETKOFF [patting her cheek] My little pet girl. [He kisses her. She goes to the chair left by Nicola for Sergius, and sits down].

  CATHERINE. And so youre no longer a soldier, Sergius.

  SERGIUS. I am no longer a soldier. Soldiering, my dear madam, is the coward’s art of attacking mercilessly when you are strong, and keeping out of harm’s way when you are weak. That is the whole secret of successful fighting. Get your enemy at a disadvantage; and never, on
any account, fight him on equal terms.

  PETKOFF. They wouldnt let us make a fair stand-up fight of it. However, I suppose soldiering has to be a trade like any other trade.

  SERGIUS. Precisely. But I have no ambition to shine as a tradesman; so I have taken the advice of that bagman of a captain that settled the exchange of prisoners with us at Pirot, and given it up.

  PETKOFF. What! that Swiss fellow ? Sergius: Ive often thought of that exchange since. He over-reached us about those horses.

  SERGIUS. Of course he over-reached us. His father was a hotel and livery stable keeper; and he owed his first step to his knowledge of horse-dealing. [With mock enthusiasm] Ah, he was a soldier: every inch a soldier! If only I had bought the horses for my regiment instead of foolishly leading it into danger, I should have been a field-marshal now!

  CATHERINE. A Swiss ? What was he doing in the Serbian army ?

  PETKOFF. A volunteer, of course: keen on picking up his profession. [Chuckling] We shouldnt have been able to begin fighting if these foreigners hadnt shewn us how to do it: we knew nothing about it; and neither did the Serbs. Egad, there’d have been no war without them!

  RAINA. Are there many Swiss officers in the Serbian Army ?

  PETKOFF. No. All Austrians, just as our officers were all Russians. This was the only Swiss I came across. I’ll never trust a Swiss again. He humbugged us into giving him fifty ablebodied men for two hundred worn out chargers. They werent even eatable!

  SERGIUS. We were two children in the hands of that consummate soldier, Major: simply two innocent little children.

  RAINA. What was he like ?

  CATHERINE. Oh, Raina, what a silly question!

  SERGIUS. He was like a commercial traveller in uniform. Bourgeois to his boots!

  PETKOFF [grinning] Sergius: tell Catherine that queer story his friend told us about how he escaped after Slivnitza. You remember. About his being hid by two women.

  SERGIUS [with bitter irony] Oh yes: quite a romance! He was serving in the very battery I so unprofessionally charged. Being a thorough soldier, he ran away like the rest of them, with our cavalry at his heels. To escape their sabres he climbed a waterpipe and made his way into the bedroom of a young Bulgarian lady. The young lady was enchanted by his persuasive commercial traveller’s manners. She very modestly entertained him for an hour or so, and then called in her mother lest her conduct should appear unmaidenly. The old lady was equally fascinated; and the fugitive was sent on his way in the morning, disguised in an old coat belonging to the master of the house, who was away at the war.