Knight Without Armour

She continued: “I stayed on our estates as long as I could; I never believed our old servants would turn against me, but they did, in the end—they were intimidated, no doubt. Then there seemed nothing left but to clear out of the country altogether, which my friends had been urging me to do for a Ion, while. A few of them who were plotting against the Reds asked for my support, and I gave it to some extent, but my real desire was to get away—out of it all—utterly. When I was taken prisoner I was terribly disappointed at first, as you can imagine. Then a mood came on me in which nothing seemed to matter at all. Even when I tried to bribe you and you refused, I didn’t find myself caring very much. But now I’m beginning to care again—a little—and it hurts—it’s really more convenient not to have any hopes and fears. But I want to live—oh, I do want us both to live—we must—mustn’t we?”

“Yes,” he replied, and the word, as he uttered it, seemed a keystone set upon his life. Then he began to tell her, quite simply and dispassionately, of his own years of exile, though not of anything previous to that. As it was, the accounting was like turning old keys in rusty locks; to no one ever before had he spoken of those bitter years that had frozen his soul with their silence just as hers had been numbed by grief.

All morning they trudged from ridge to ridge, skirting Saratursk at a wide radius, and then making in a southwest direction. He kept a continually watchful look-out, for he thought it more than possible that the Reds would resume their search of the forests. Nobody, however, appeared within sight until mid-afternoon, when they saw, far off on a hillside, a man gathering small timber for fuel. They were so hungry by then that A.J. took the risk of walking up to him and, posing as a soldier who had lost his way, asking to buy food and drink. The man was quite cordial, and took A.J. to his tiny cottage half a mile away, where he lived with his wife and a large family amidst conditions of primitive savagery. It seemed a pity to take food from such people, but the man was glad to sell eggs, tea, and bread at the prices A.J. offered. It was hard, indeed, to escape from his good-natured friendliness, and especially from his offer to show the way in person for few had been made when A.J.’s desire to be unaccompanied almost offensively clear, the man’s puzzlement changed to a gust of amusement. “Ah, I begin to see how it is, comrade,” he chuckled. “You have a woman waiting for you out there in the woods, eh? Oh, don’t be afraid—I shan’t say anything! You’re not the first soldier who’s deserted the Red army and taken to the hills with a woman. But I’ll give you this bit of advice—if you do happen to meet anyone else at the same game, be careful—for they shoot at sight. They’re wild as wolves, many of’ em.”

A.J. thanked the fellow and was glad to walk away with an armful of food and nothing worse than a roar of laughter behind him. When he rejoined his companion they continued their walk for a mile or so and then sat down to eat, drink, and rest. It was already late afternoon and they had had nothing since the few crusts of bread at early morning. A.J. now gathered sticks for a small fire, on which he boiled eggs and made tea. The resulting meal lifted them both to an extraordinary pitch of happiness; as they sat near the smoking embers while the first mists of twilight dimmed the glades, a strange peacefulness fell upon them, and they both knew, even without speaking, that neither would have chosen to be anywhere else in the world. All around them lay enemies; to- morrow might see them captured, imprisoned, or dead; there might be horror in the future to balance all the horrors of the past; yet the tiny oasis of the present, with themselves at the core of it, was a sheer glow of perfection.

They were so tired that they did not move before darkness came, and then merely lay clown on the brown leaves. The evening air was chilly, and they clung together for warmth with their two great-coats huddled over them. All the small and friendly sounds of the forest wrapped them about: an owl hooted very far away; a mouse rustled through the near undergrowth; a twig broke suddenly aloft and fell with a tiny clatter to the ground. She kissed him with a grave, peaceful passion that seemed a living part of all the copious, cordial nature that surrounded them; they hardly spoke; to love seemed as simple and as speechless as to be hungry and thirsty and tired. That night he could almost have blessed the chaos that had brought them both, out of a whole world, together.