Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches
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Saki (H.H. Munro) >> Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches
This etext was prepared by Jane Duff; proofed by David Price, email
ccx074@coventry.ac.uk from the 1910 Methuen and Co. edition.
REGINALD IN RUSSIA AND OTHER SKETCHES
Contents:
REGINALD IN RUSSIA
THE RETICENCE OF LADY ANNE
THE LOST SANJAK
THE SEX THAT DOESN'T SHOP
THE BLOOD-FEUD OF TOAD-WATER
A YOUNG TURKISH CATASTROPHE
JUDKIN OF THE PARCELS
GABRIEL-ERNEST
THE SAINT AND THE GOBLIN
THE SOUL OF LAPLOSHKA
THE BAG
THE STRATEGIST
CROSS CURRENTS
THE BAKER'S DOZEN
THE MOUSE
REGINALD IN RUSSIA
Reginald sat in a corner of the Princess's salon and tried to
forgive the furniture, which started out with an obvious intention
of being Louis Quinze, but relapsed at frequent intervals into
Wilhelm II.
He classified the Princess with that distinct type of woman that
looks as if it habitually went out to feed hens in the rain.
Her name was Olga; she kept what she hoped and believed to be a fox-
terrier, and professed what she thought were Socialist opinions. It
is not necessary to be called Olga if you are a Russian Princess; in
fact, Reginald knew quite a number who were called Vera; but the
fox-terrier and the Socialism are essential.
"The Countess Lomshen keeps a bull-dog," said the Princess suddenly.
"In England is it more chic to have a bull-dog than a fox-terrier?"
Reginald threw his mind back over the canine fashions of the last
ten years and gave an evasive answer.
"Do you think her handsome, the Countess Lomshen?" asked the
Princess.
Reginald thought the Countess's complexion suggested an exclusive
diet of macaroons and pale sherry. He said so.
"But that cannot be possible," said the Princess triumphantly; "I've
seen her eating fish-soup at Donon's."
The Princess always defended a friend's complexion if it was really
bad. With her, as with a great many of her sex, charity began at
homeliness and did not generally progress much farther.
Reginald withdrew his macaroon and sherry theory, and became
interested in a case of miniatures.
"That?" said the Princess; "that is the old Princess Lorikoff. She
lived in Millionaya Street, near the Winter Palace, and was one of
the Court ladies of the old Russian school. Her knowledge of people
and events was extremely limited; but she used to patronise every
one who came in contact with her. There was a story that when she
died and left the Millionaya for Heaven she addressed St. Peter in
her formal staccato French: 'Je suis la Princesse Lor-i-koff. Il
me donne grand plaisir a faire votre connaissance. Je vous en prie
me presenter au Bon Dieu.' St. Peter made the desired introduction,
and the Princess addressed le Bon Dieu: 'Je suis la Princesse Lor-
i-koff. Il me donne grand plaisir a faire votre connaissance. On a
souvent parle de vous a l'eglise de la rue Million.'"
"Only the old and the clergy of Established churches know how to be
flippant gracefully," commented Reginald; "which reminds me that in
the Anglican Church in a certain foreign capital, which shall be
nameless, I was present the other day when one of the junior
chaplains was preaching in aid of distressed somethings or other,
and he brought a really eloquent passage to a close with the remark,
'The tears of the afflicted, to what shall I liken them--to
diamonds?' The other junior chaplain, who had been dozing out of
professional jealousy, awoke with a start and asked hurriedly,
'Shall I play to diamonds, partner?' It didn't improve matters when
the senior chaplain remarked dreamily but with painful distinctness,
'Double diamonds.' Every one looked at the preacher, half expecting
him to redouble, but he contented himself with scoring what points
he could under the circumstances."
"You English are always so frivolous," said the Princess. "In
Russia we have too many troubles to permit of our being
lighthearted."
Reginald gave a delicate shiver, such as an Italian greyhound might
give in contemplating the approach of an ice age of which he
personally disapproved, and resigned himself to the inevitable
political discussion.
"Nothing that you hear about us in England is true," was the
Princess's hopeful beginning.
"I always refused to learn Russian geography at school," observed
Reginald; "I was certain some of the names must be wrong."
"Everything is wrong with our system of government," continued the
Princess placidly. "The Bureaucrats think only of their pockets,
and the people are exploited and plundered in every direction, and
everything is mismanaged."
"With us," said Reginald, "a Cabinet usually gets the credit of
being depraved and worthless beyond the bounds of human conception
by the time it has been in office about four years."
"But if it is a bad Government you can turn it out at the
elections," argued the Princess.
"As far as I remember, we generally do," said Reginald.
"But here it is dreadful, every one goes to such extremes. In
England you never go to extremes."
"We go to the Albert Hall," explained Reginald.
"There is always a see-saw with us between repression and violence,"
continued the Princess; "and the pity of it is the people are really
not in the least inclined to be anything but peaceable. Nowhere
will you find people more good-natured, or family circles where
there is more affection."
"There I agree with you," said Reginald. "I know a boy who lives
somewhere on the French Quay who is a case in point. His hair curls
naturally, especially on Sundays, and he plays bridge well, even for
a Russian, which is saying much. I don't think he has any other
accomplishments, but his family affection is really of a very high
order. When his maternal grandmother died he didn't go as far as to
give up bridge altogether, but he declared on nothing but black
suits for the next three months. That, I think, was really
beautiful."
The Princess was not impressed.
"I think you must be very self-indulgent and live only for
amusement," she said, "a life of pleasure-seeking and card-playing
and dissipation brings only dissatisfaction. You will find that out
some day."
"Oh, I know it turns out that way sometimes," assented Reginald.
"Forbidden fizz is often the sweetest."
But the remark was wasted on the Princess, who preferred champagne
that had at least a suggestion of dissolved barley-sugar.
"I hope you will come and see me again," she said, in a tone that
prevented the hope from becoming too infectious; adding as a happy
afterthought, "you must come to stay with us in the country."
Her particular part of the country was a few hundred versts the
other side of Tamboff, with some fifteen miles of agrarian
disturbance between her and the nearest neighbour. Reginald felt
that there is some privacy which should be sacred from intrusion.
THE RETICENCE OF LADY ANNE
Egbert came into the large, dimly lit drawing-room with the air of a
man who is not certain whether he is entering a dovecote or a bomb
factory, and is prepared for either eventuality. The little
domestic quarrel over the luncheon-table had not been fought to a
definite finish, and the question was how far Lady Anne was in a
mood to renew or forgo hostilities. Her pose in the arm-chair by
the tea-table was rather elaborately rigid; in the gloom of a
December afternoon Egbert's pince-nez did not materially help him to
discern the expression of her face.
By way of breaking whatever ice might be floating on the surface he
made a remark about a dim religious light. He or Lady Anne were
accustomed to make that remark between 4.30 and 6 on winter and late
autumn evenings; it was a part of their married life. There was no
recognised rejoinder to it, and Lady Anne made none.
Don Tarquinio lay astretch on the Persian rug, basking in the
firelight with superb indifference to the possible ill-humour of
Lady Anne. His pedigree was as flawlessly Persian as the rug, and
his ruff was coming into the glory of its second winter. The page-
boy, who had Renaissance tendencies, had christened him Don
Tarquinio. Left to themselves, Egbert and Lady Anne would
unfailingly have called him Fluff, but they were not obstinate.
Egbert poured himself out some tea. As the silence gave no sign of
breaking on Lady Anne's initiative, he braced himself for another
Yermak effort.
"My remark at lunch had a purely academic application," he
announced; "you seem to put an unnecessarily personal significance
into it."
Lady Anne maintained her defensive barrier of silence. The
bullfinch lazily filled in the interval with an air from Iphigenie
en Tauride. Egbert recognised it immediately, because it was the
only air the bullfinch whistled, and he had come to them with the
reputation for whistling it. Both Egbert and Lady Anne would have
preferred something from The Yeomen of the Guard, which was their
favourite opera. In matters artistic they had a similarity of
taste. They leaned towards the honest and explicit in art, a
picture, for instance, that told its own story, with generous
assistance from its title. A riderless warhorse with harness in
obvious disarray, staggering into a courtyard full of pale swooning
women, and marginally noted "Bad News", suggested to their minds a
distinct interpretation of some military catastrophe. They could
see what it was meant to convey, and explain it to friends of duller
intelligence.
The silence continued. As a rule Lady Anne's displeasure became
articulate and markedly voluble after four minutes of introductory
muteness. Egbert seized the milkjug and poured some of its contents
into Don Tarquinio's saucer; as the saucer was already full to the
brim an unsightly overflow was the result. Don Tarquinio looked on
with a surprised interest that evanesced into elaborate
unconsciousness when he was appealed to by Egbert to come and drink
up some of the spilt matter. Don Tarquinio was prepared to play
many roles in life, but a vacuum carpet-cleaner was not one of them.
"Don't you think we're being rather foolish?" said Egbert
cheerfully.
If Lady Anne thought so she didn't say so.
"I dare say the fault has been partly on my side," continued Egbert,
with evaporating cheerfulness. "After all, I'm only human, you
know. You seem to forget that I'm only human."
He insisted on the point, as if there had been unfounded suggestions
that he was built on Satyr lines, with goat continuations where the
human left off.
The bullfinch recommenced its air from Iphigenie en Tauride. Egbert
began to feel depressed. Lady Anne was not drinking her tea.
Perhaps she was feeling unwell. But when Lady Anne felt unwell she
was not wont to be reticent on the subject. "No one knows what I
suffer from indigestion" was one of her favourite statements; but
the lack of knowledge can only have been caused by defective
listening; the amount of information available on the subject would
have supplied material for a monograph.
Evidently Lady Anne was not feeling unwell.
Egbert began to think he was being unreasonably dealt with;
naturally he began to make concessions.
"I dare say," he observed, taking as central a position on the
hearth-rug as Don Tarquinio could be persuaded to concede him, "I
may have been to blame. I am willing, if I can thereby restore
things to a happier standpoint, to undertake to lead a better life."
He wondered vaguely how it would be possible. Temptations came to
him, in middle age, tentatively and without insistence, like a
neglected butcher-boy who asks for a Christmas box in February for
no more hopeful reason that than he didn't get one in December. He
had no more idea of succumbing to them than he had of purchasing the
fish-knives and fur boas that ladies are impelled to sacrifice
through the medium of advertisement columns during twelve months of
the year. Still, there was something impressive in this unasked-for
renunciation of possibly latent enormities.
Lady Anne showed no sign of being impressed.
Egbert looked at her nervously through his glasses. To get the
worst of an argument with her was no new experience. To get the
worst of a monologue was a humiliating novelty.
"I shall go and dress for diner," he announced in a voice into which
he intended some shade of sternness to creep.
At the door a final access of weakness impelled him to make a
further appeal.
"Aren't we being very silly?"
"A fool" was Don Tarquinio's mental comment as the door closed on
Egbert's retreat. Then he lifted his velvet forepaws in the air and
leapt lightly on to a bookshelf immediately under the bullfinch's
cage. It was the first time he had seemed to notice the bird's
existence, but he was carrying out a long-formed theory of action
with the precision of mature deliberation. The bullfinch, who had
fancied himself something of a despot, depressed himself of a sudden
into a third of his normal displacement; then he fell to a helpless
wing-beating and shrill cheeping. He had cost twenty-seven
shillings without the cage, but Lady Anne made no sign of
interfering. She had been dead for two hours.
THE LOST SANJAK
The prison Chaplain entered the condemned's cell for the last time,
to give such consolation as he might.
"The only consolation I crave for," said the condemned, "is to tell
my story in its entirety to some one who will at least give it a
respectful hearing."
"We must not be too long over it," said the Chaplain, looking at his
watch.
The condemned repressed a shiver and commenced.
"Most people will be of opinion that I am paying the penalty of my
own violent deeds. In reality I am a victim to a lack of
specialisation in my education and character."
"Lack of specialisation!" said the Chaplain.
"Yes. If I had been known as one of the few men in England familiar
with the fauna of the Outer Hebrides, or able to repeat stanzas of
Camoens' poetry in the original, I should have had no difficulty in
proving my identity in the crisis when my identity became a matter
of life and death for me. But my education was merely a moderately
good one, and my temperament was of the general order that avoids
specialisation. I know a little in a general way about gardening
and history and old masters, but I could never tell you off-hand
whether 'Stella van der Loopen' was a chrysanthemum or a heroine of
the American War of Independence, or something by Romney in the
Louvre."
The Chaplain shifted uneasily in his seat. Now that the
alternatives had been suggested they all seemed dreadfully possible.
"I fell in love, or thought I did, with the local doctor's wife,"
continued the condemned. "Why I should have done so, I cannot say,
for I do not remember that she possessed any particular attractions
of mind or body. On looking back at past events if seems to me that
she must have been distinctly ordinary, but I suppose the doctor had
fallen in love with her once, and what man had done man can do. She
appeared to be pleased with the attentions which I paid her, and to
that extent I suppose I might say she encouraged me, but I think she
was honestly unaware that I meant anything more than a little
neighbourly interest. When one is face to face with Death one
wishes to be just."
The Chaplain murmured approval. "At any rate, she was genuinely
horrified when I took advantage of the doctor's absence one evening
to declare what I believed to be my passion. She begged me to pass
out of her life, and I could scarcely do otherwise than agree,
though I hadn't the dimmest idea of how it was to be done. In
novels and plays I knew it was a regular occurrence, and if you
mistook a lady's sentiments or intentions you went off to India and
did things on the frontier as a matter of course. As I stumbled
along the doctor's carriagedrive I had no very clear idea as to what
my line of action was to be, but I had a vague feeling that I must
look at the Times Atlas before going to bed. Then, on the dark and
lonely highway, I came suddenly on a dead body."
The Chaplain's interest in the story visibly quickened.
"Judging by the clothes it wore, the corpse was that of a Salvation
Army captain. Some shocking accident seemed to have struck him
down, and the head was crushed and battered out of all human
semblance. Probably, I thought, a motor-car fatality; and then,
with a sudden overmastering insistence, came another thought, that
here was a remarkable opportunity for losing my identity and passing
out of the life of the doctor's wife for ever. No tiresome and
risky voyage to distant lands, but a mere exchange of clothes and
identity with the unknown victim of an unwitnessed accident. With
considerable difficulty I undressed the corpse, and clothed it anew
in my own garments. Any one who has valeted a dead Salvation Army
captain in an uncertain light will appreciate the difficulty. With
the idea, presumably, of inducing the doctor's wife to leave her
husband's roof-tree for some habitation which would be run at my
expense, I had crammed my pockets with a store of banknotes, which
represented a good deal of my immediate worldly wealth. When,
therefore, I stole away into the world in the guise of a nameless
Salvationist, I was not without resources which would easily support
so humble a role for a considerable period. I tramped to a
neighbouring market-town, and, late as the hour was, the production
of a few shillings procured me supper and a night's lodging in a
cheap coffee-house. The next day I started forth on an aimless
course of wandering from one small town to another. I was already
somewhat disgusted with the upshot of my sudden freak; in a few
hours' time I was considerably more so. In the contents-bill of a
local news sheet I read the announcement of my own murder at the
hands of some person unknown; on buying a copy of the paper for a
detailed account of the tragedy, which at first had aroused in me a
certain grim amusement, I found that the deed ascribed to a
wandering Salvationist of doubtful antecedents, who had been seen
lurking in the roadway near the scene of the crime. I was no longer
amused. The matter promised to be embarrassing. What I had
mistaken for a motor accident was evidently a case of savage assault
and murder, and, until the real culprit was found, I should have
much difficulty in explaining my intrusion into the affair. Of
course I could establish my own identity; but how, without
disagreeably involving the doctor's wife, could I give any adequate
reason for changing clothes with the murdered man? While my brain
worked feverishly at this problem, I subconsciously obeyed a
secondary instinct--to get as far away as possible from the scene of
the crime, and to get rid at all costs of my incriminating uniform.
There I found a difficulty. I tried two or three obscure clothes
shops, but my entrance invariably aroused an attitude of hostile
suspicion in the proprietors, and on one excuse or another they
avoided serving me with the now ardently desired change of clothing.
The uniform that I had so thoughtlessly donned seemed as difficult
to get out of as the fatal shirt of--You know, I forget the
creature's name."
"Yes, yes," said the Chaplain hurriedly. "Go on with your story."
"Somehow, until I could get out of those compromising garments, I
felt it would not be safe to surrender myself to the police. The
thing that puzzled me was why no attempt was made to arrest me,
since there was no question as to the suspicion which followed me,
like an inseparable shadow, wherever I went. Stares, nudgings,
whisperings, and even loud-spoken remarks of 'that's 'im' greeted my
every appearance, and the meanest and most deserted eating-house
that I patronised soon became filled with a crowd of furtively
watching customers. I began to sympathise with the feeling of Royal
personages trying to do a little private shopping under the
unsparing scrutiny of an irrepressible public. And still, with all
this inarticulate shadowing, which weighed on my nerves almost worse
than open hostility would have done, no attempt was made to
interfere with my liberty. Later on I discovered the reason. At
the time of the murder on the lonely highway a series of important
bloodhound trials had been taking place in the near neighbourhood,
and some dozen and a half couples of trained animals had been put on
the track of the supposed murderer--on my track. One of our most
public-spirited London dailies had offered a princely prize to the
owner of the pair that should first track me down, and betting on
the chances of the respective competitors became rife throughout the
land. The dogs ranged far and wide over about thirteen counties,
and though my own movements had become by this time perfectly well-
known to police and public alike, the sporting instincts of the
nation stepped in to prevent my premature arrest. "Give the dogs a
chance," was the prevailing sentiment, whenever some ambitious local
constable wished to put an end to my drawn-out evasion of justice.
My final capture by the winning pair was not a very dramatic
episode, in fact, I'm not sure that they would have taken any notice
of me if I hadn't spoken to them and patted them, but the event gave
rise to an extraordinary amount of partisan excitement. The owner
of the pair who were next nearest up at the finish was an American,
and he lodged a protest on the ground that an otterhound had married
into the family of the winning pair six generations ago, and that
the prize had been offered to the first pair of bloodhounds to
capture the murderer, and that a dog that had 1/64th part of
otterhound blood in it couldn't technically be considered a
bloodhound. I forget how the matter was ultimately settled, but it
aroused a tremendous amount of acrimonious discussion on both sides
of the Atlantic. My own contribution to the controversy consisted
in pointing out that the whole dispute was beside the mark, as the
actual murderer had not yet been captured; but I soon discovered
that on this point there was not the least divergence of public or
expert opinion. I had looked forward apprehensively to the proving
of my identity and the establishment of my motives as a disagreeable
necessity; I speedily found out that the most disagreeable part of
the business was that it couldn't be done. When I saw in the glass
the haggard and hunted expression which the experiences of the past
few weeks had stamped on my erstwhile placid countenance, I could
scarcely feel surprised that the few friends and relations I
possessed refused to recognise me in my altered guise, and persisted
in their obstinate but widely shared belief that it was I who had
been done to death on the highway. To make matters worse,
infinitely worse, an aunt of the really murdered man, an appalling
female of an obviously low order of intelligence, identified me as
her nephew, and gave the authorities a lurid account of my depraved
youth and of her laudable but unavailing efforts to spank me into a
better way. I believe it was even proposed to search me for
fingerprints."
"But," said the Chaplain, "surely your educational attainments--"
"That was just the crucial point," said the condemned; "that was
where my lack of specialisation told so fatally against me. The
dead Salvationist, whose identity I had so lightly and so
disastrously adopted, had possessed a veneer of cheap modern
education. It should have been easy to demonstrate that my learning
was on altogether another plane to his, but in my nervousness I
bungled miserably over test after test that was put to me. The
little French I had ever known deserted me; I could not render a
simple phrase about the gooseberry of the gardener into that
language, because I had forgotten the French for gooseberry."
The Chaplain again wriggled uneasily in his seat. "And then,"
resumed the condemned, "came the final discomfiture. In our village
we had a modest little debating club, and I remembered having
promised, chiefly, I suppose, to please and impress the doctor's
wife, to give a sketchy kind of lecture on the Balkan Crisis. I had
relied on being able to get up my facts from one or two standard
works, and the back-numbers of certain periodicals. The prosecution
had made a careful note of the circumstance that the man whom I
claimed to be--and actually was--had posed locally as some sort of
second-hand authority on Balkan affairs, and, in the midst of a
string of questions on indifferent topics, the examining counsel
asked me with a diabolical suddenness if I could tell the Court the
whereabouts of Novibazar. I felt the question to be a crucial one;
something told me that the answer was St. Petersburg or Baker
Street. I hesitated, looked helplessly round at the sea of tensely
expectant faces, pulled myself together, and chose Baker Street.
And then I knew that everything was lost. The prosecution had no
difficulty in demonstrating that an individual, even moderately
versed in the affairs of the Near East, could never have so
unceremoniously dislocated Novibazar from its accustomed corner of
the map. It was an answer which the Salvation Army captain might
conceivably have made--and I made it. The circumstantial evidence
connecting the Salvationist with the crime was overwhelmingly
convincing, and I had inextricably identified myself with the
Salvationist. And thus it comes to pass that in ten minutes' time I
shall be hanged by the neck until I am dead in expiation of the
murder of myself, which murder never took place, and of which, in
any case, I am innocent."