Arms and the Man

window is hinged doorwise and stands wide open, folding back to the left. Outside a pair of wooden shutters, opening outwards, also stand open. On the balcony, a young lady, intensely conscious of the romantic beauty of the night, and of the fact that her own youth and beauty is a part of it, is on the balcony, gazing at the snowy Balkans. She is covered by a long mantle of furs, worth, on a moderate estimate, about three times the furniture of her room. Her reverie is interrupted by her mother, Catherine Petkoff, a woman over forty, imperiously energetic, with magnificent black hair and eyes, who might be a very splendid specimen of the wife of a mountain farmer, but is determined to be a Viennese lady, and to that end wears a fashionable tea gown on all occasions. Catherine Entering hastily, full of good news. Raina⁠—She pronounces it Rah-eena, with the stress on the ee. Raina⁠—She goes to the bed, expecting to find Raina there. Why, where⁠—Raina looks into the room. Heavens! child, are you out in the night air instead of in your bed? You’ll catch your death. Louka told me you were asleep. Raina Coming in. I sent her away. I wanted to be alone. The stars are so beautiful! What is the matter? Catherine Such news. There has been a battle! Raina Her eyes dilating. Ah! She throws the cloak on the ottoman, and comes eagerly to Catherine in her nightgown, a pretty garment, but evidently the only one she has on. Catherine A great battle at Slivnitza! A victory! And it was won by Sergius. Raina With a cry of delight. Ah! Rapturously. Oh, Mother! Then, with sudden anxiety. Is Father safe? Catherine Of course: he sent me the news. Sergius is the hero of the hour, the idol of the regiment. Raina Tell me, tell me. How was it! Ecstatically. Oh, Mother, Mother, Mother! Raina pulls her mother down on the ottoman; and they kiss one another frantically. Catherine With surging enthusiasm. You can’t guess how splendid it is. A cavalry charge⁠—think of that! He defied our Russian commanders⁠—acted without orders⁠—led a charge on his own responsibility⁠—headed it himself⁠—was the first man to sweep through their guns. Can’t you see it, Raina; our gallant splendid Bulgarians with their swords and eyes flashing, thundering down like an avalanche and scattering the wretched Serbian dandies like chaff. And you⁠—you kept Sergius waiting a year before you would be betrothed to him. Oh, if you have a drop of Bulgarian blood in your veins, you will worship him when he comes back. Raina What will he care for my poor little worship after the acclamations of a whole army of heroes? But no matter: I am so happy⁠—so proud! She rises and walks about excitedly. It proves that all our ideas were real after all. Catherine Indignantly. Our ideas real! What do you mean? Raina Our ideas of what Sergius would do⁠—our patriotism⁠—our heroic ideals. Oh, what faithless little creatures girls are!⁠—I sometimes used to doubt whether they were anything but dreams. When I buckled on Sergius’s sword he looked so noble: it was treason to think of disillusion or humiliation or failure. And yet⁠—and yet⁠—Quickly. Promise me you’ll never tell him. Catherine Don’t ask me for promises until I know what I am promising. Raina Well, it came into my head just as he was holding me in his arms and looking into my eyes, that perhaps we only had our heroic ideas because we are so fond of reading Byron and Pushkin, and because we were so delighted with the opera that season at Bucharest. Real life is so seldom like that⁠—indeed never, as far as I knew it then. Remorsefully. Only think, Mother, I doubted him: I wondered whether all his heroic qualities and his soldiership might not prove mere imagination when he went into a real battle. I had an uneasy fear that he might cut a poor figure there beside all those clever Russian officers. Catherine A poor figure! Shame on you! The Serbians have Austrian officers who are just as clever as our Russians; but we have beaten them in every battle for all that. Raina Laughing and sitting down again. Yes, I was only a prosaic little coward. Oh, to think that it was all true⁠—that Sergius is just as splendid and noble as he looks⁠—that the world is really a glorious world for women who can see its glory and men who can act its romance! What happiness! what unspeakable fulfilment! Ah! She throws herself on her knees beside her mother and flings her arms passionately round her. They are interrupted by the entry of Louka, a handsome, proud girl in a pretty Bulgarian peasant’s dress with double apron, so defiant that her servility to Raina is almost insolent. She is afraid of Catherine, but even with her goes as far as she dares. She is just now excited like the others; but she has no sympathy for Raina’s raptures and looks contemptuously at the ecstasies of the two before she addresses them. Louka If you please, madam, all the windows are to be closed and the shutters made fast. They say there may be shooting in the streets. Raina and Catherine rise together, alarmed. The Serbians are being chased right back through the pass; and they say they may run into the town. Our cavalry will be after them; and our people will be ready for them you may be sure, now that they are running away. She goes out on the balcony and pulls the outside shutters to; then steps back into the room. Raina I wish our people were not so cruel. What glory is there in killing wretched fugitives? Catherine Businesslike, her housekeeping instincts aroused. I must see that everything is made safe downstairs. Raina To Louka. Leave