And in November and December – before the first snows – it's impossible to tell whether the earth has been dried and hardened by the sun or by frost.
All this may account for the number of mirages here: the boundary between air and earth, between water and salt, has been erased. The mind of a thirsty traveller can transform this world with ease: the scorching air becomes elegant, blueish stone; the lifeless earth is filled with the gentle murmur of streams; palm trees stretch out to the horizon and the terrible sun blends with the clouds of dust to form the golden cupolas of temples and palaces… In a moment of exhaustion, a man can transform this sky and this earth into the world of his dreams.
But there is another, unexpected side to the steppe. It is also a noble, ancient world; a world where there are no screaming colours or harsh lines, but only a sober grey-blue melancholy that can rival the colours of a Russian forest in autumn; a world whose soft undulating hills capture the heart more surely than the peaks of the Caucasus; a world whose small, dark, ancient lakes seem to express the very essence of water more truly than seas or oceans.
Everything passes; but there is no forgetting this huge, cast-iron sun shining through the evening mist, this bitter wind laden with the scent of wormwood…
And the steppe has its own riches. In spring the young tulip-filled steppe is an ocean of colours. The camel-grass is still green; its harsh spines are still soft and tender…
The steppe has one other unchanging characteristic: day and night, summer and winter, in foul weather or fine weather, it speaks of freedom. If someone has lost his freedom, the steppe will remind him of it…
Darensky got out of his car and looked at a horseman on top of a small hill. Dressed in a long robe tied by a piece of string, he was sitting on his shaggy pony and surveying the steppe. He was very old; his face looked as hard as stone.
Darensky called out to the man and then walked up to him, holding out his cigarette-case. The old man turned in his saddle; his movement somehow combined the agility of youth with the thoughtful caution of age. He looked in turn at the hand holding out the cigarettes, at Darensky's face, at the pistol hanging by his side, at the three bars indicating his rank, and at his smart boots. Then he took a cigarette and rolled it between his fine, brown, childlike fingers.
The old man's hard, high-cheekboned face suddenly changed; two kind intelligent eyes looked out from between his wrinkles. There was something very splendid about these old brown eyes, about their look of trust blended with wary scrutiny; for no apparent reason Darensky suddenly felt happy and at ease. The pony, who had pricked up his ears suspiciously at Darensky's approach, inquisitively pointed first one ear, then the other, and then smiled at him with his beautiful eyes and his two rows of large teeth.
'Thank you,' said the old man in a thin voice, putting his hand on Darensky's shoulder. 'I had two sons in a cavalry division. The first one' – he raised his hand a little above the pony's head – 'was killed by the Germans. The second one' – he lowered his hand a little below the pony's head – 'is a machine-gunner: he's got three medals. How about you? Is your father still alive?'
'My mother's alive, but my father's dead.'
'Ay! that's bad!' said the old man, shaking his head. Darensky had the feeling that he wasn't just being polite, that he felt genuinely sad to learn of the death of the father of the Russian lieutenant-colonel who had offered him a cigarette.
The old man gave a sudden cry, waved his hand in the air and galloped down the hill with extraordinary grace and speed. What was he thinking as he galloped through the steppe? Of his sons? Of the father of the Russian lieutenant-colonel whose jeep needed mending?
Darensky watched. One word pounded like blood at his temples:
'Freedom… freedom… freedom…'
Yes, he was envious of the old Kalmyk.
66
Darensky had been sent from Front Headquarters on a lengthy mission to the army deployed on the extreme left of the flank. These missions were particularly unpopular among the staff officers, on account of the lack of water and housing, the poor supplies, the vast distances and the vile roads. The High Command had little precise information about these troops, lost as they were in the sands between the shores of the Caspian and the Kalmyk steppe; Darensky had a lot of tasks to carry out.
After travelling hundreds of miles through the steppe, he felt overwhelmed by melancholy and boredom. Here no one even dreamed of an offensive; there was something hopeless about the situation of these troops who had been driven back almost to the end of the world…
The continual tension of life at Front HQ, the rumours of an impending offensive, the movements of the reserves, the codes and telegrams, the never-ending work of the Signals-Section, the roar of the columns of tanks and vehicles coming in from the North – had all this really just been an illusion?
As Darensky listened to the gloomy conversations of the officers, as he collated and checked data about the state of the equipment, inspected artillery regiments and batteries, noticed the sullenness on the faces of the men and the laziness of their movements, he slowly gave in to the monotonous gloom around him. Russia seemed like a wounded animal that had been driven back into the sand-dunes, into steppes fit only for camels; there she was, lying on the harsh earth, impotent, unable ever to rise again.
Darensky arrived at Army Headquarters. A plump-faced, balding young man, wearing a tunic without any insignia of rank, was playing cards with two women in uniform, both of them lieutenants. Instead of breaking off as the lieutenant-colonel entered the room, they looked at him absent-mindedly and went on with their game.
'Why not play a trump? Or a jack?'
Darensky waited for the end of the hand before asking, 'Are these the commander's quarters?'
'He's gone to the right flank. He won't be back till evening,' said one of the young women. She looked Darensky up and down. 'Are you from Front HQ, comrade Lieutenant-Colonel?'
'That's right,' said Darensky. With a barely perceptible wink, he asked: 'Excuse me, but could I see the Member of the Military Soviet?'
'He's with the commander. He won't be back till evening either,' said the second woman. 'Are you on the artillery staff?'
'That's right.'
Though she was clearly very much the older of the two, Darensky found the first woman extremely attractive. She was the kind of woman who can look very beautiful and yet – seen from the wrong angle – appear suddenly faded, middle-aged and dull. She had a fine straight nose and blue eyes that were lacking in warmth; you could tell she knew both her own value and that of other people.
Her face looked very young, not a year over twenty-five. But as soon as she frowned or looked thoughtful, you could see the wrinkles at the corners of her lips and the loose skin at her throat; then she looked at least forty-five. But her legs – in elegant, tailored boots -were quite splendid.
All these details, which take some time to recount, were taken in at once by Darensky's experienced eye.
The second woman was young, but already stout. Taken individually, none of her features was particularly beautifuclass="underline" her hair lacked body, her face was very broad, and her eyes were an indeterminate colour. But she was young and feminine. Yes, sitting next to her, even a blind man would be conscious of her femininity.