Arms and the Man
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 to 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 see them dare say a word against
me!
NICOLA.
(_pityingly_). I should have expected more sense from you, Louka. But
you’re young, you’re young!
LOUKA.
Yes; and you like me the better for it, don’t you? But I know some
family secrets they wouldn’t 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 don’t 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 wouldn’t
have the master know for a thousand levas. I know things about him that
she wouldn’t 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 that’s 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 don’t know, they can depend on you to hold your tongue and serve the
family faithfully. That’s what they like; and that’s how you’ll make
most out of them.
LOUKA.
(_with searching scorn_). You have the soul of a servant, Nicola.
NICOLA.
(_complacently_). Yes: that’s the secret of success in service.
(_A loud knocking with a whip handle on a wooden door, outside on the
left, is heard._)
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 puts the coffee pot and the cups upon the tray, and carries it
into the house_). You’ll 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 Servian 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 I’ve 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 Servians haven’t run away with you, have they?
LOUKA.
No, sir.
PETKOFF.
That’s right. Have you brought me some cognac?
LOUKA.
(_putting the bottle on the table_). Here, sir.
PETKOFF.
That’s right. (_He pours some into his coffee._)
(_Catherine who has at this early hour made only a very perfunctory
toilet, and wears a Bulgarian apron over a once brilliant, but now half
worn out red dressing gown, and a colored handkerchief tied over her
thick black hair, with Turkish slippers on her bare feet, comes from
the house, 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_). The war over! Paul: have you
let the Austrians force you to make peace?
PETKOFF.
(_submissively_). My dear: they didn’t 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 Servia and made Prince Alexander Emperor of the
Balkans. That’s what I would have done.
PETKOFF.
I don’t 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.
CATHERINE.
(_relenting_). Ah! (_Stretches her hand affectionately across the table
to squeeze his._)
PETKOFF.
And how have you been, my dear?
CATHERINE.
Oh, my usual sore throats, that’s all.
PETKOFF.
(_with conviction_). That comes from washing your neck every day. I’ve
often told you so.
CATHERINE.
Nonsense, Paul!
PETKOFF.
(_over his coffee and cigaret_). I don’t believe in going too far with
these modern customs. All this washing can’t be good for the health:
it’s not natural. There was an Englishman at Phillipopolis 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 don’t 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 had a library.
CATHERINE.
Ah; but you didn’t tell them that we have an electric bell in it? I
have had one put up.
PETKOFF.
What’s 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. I’ve learnt that while
you were away.
PETKOFF.
Well, I’ll tell you something I’ve learnt, too. Civilized people don’t
hang out their washing to dry where visitors can see it; so you’d
better have all that (_indicating the clothes on the bushes_) put
somewhere else.
CATHERINE.
Oh, that’s absurd, Paul: I don’t believe really refined people notice
such things.
(_Someone is heard knocking at the stable gates._)
PETKOFF.
There’s Sergius. (_Shouting._) Hollo, Nicola!
CATHERINE.
Oh, don’t shout, Paul: it really isn’t nice.
PETKOFF.
Bosh! (_He shouts louder than before._) Nicola!
NICOLA.
(_appearing at the house door_). Yes, sir.
PETKOFF.
If that is Major Saranoff, bring him round this way. (_He pronounces
the name with the stress on the second syllable—Sarah-noff._)
NICOLA.
Yes, sir. (_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, mind you.
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 has not the slightest chance of promotion
until we are 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 a ram’s-horn twist round the marked 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 Paris salon. In
short, 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; and 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 imaginative ideals, his consequent
cynical scorn for humanity, the jejune credulity as to the absolute
validity of his ideals and the unworthiness of the world in
disregarding them, his wincings and mockeries under the sting of the
petty disillusions which every hour spent among men brings to his
infallibly quick observation, he has acquired the half tragic, half
ironic air, the mysterious moodiness, the suggestion of a strange and
terrible history that has left him nothing but undying remorse, by
which Childe Harold fascinated the grandmothers of his English
contemporaries. Altogether it is clear that here or nowhere is Raina’s
ideal hero. Catherine is hardly less enthusiastic, 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 grace against the rail of the steps leading to the house._)
CATHERINE.
You look superb—splendid. The campaign has improved you. 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.