III

Usually Sashka came to the Gambrinus before anyone else had arrived, except one or two chance customers. The thick stale smell of last night’s beer pervaded the two halls, and it was gloomy there because gas was burned sparingly in the daytime. It was quiet and cool down there on hot July days, while the stone-built city was deafened by the uproar in the streets, and sweltered in the sun.

Sashka would walk up to the bar, greet Mme Ivanova and drink his first mug of beer. Sometimes she begged him, “Play something, Sashka, will you?”

“What would you like me to play, Mme Ivanova?” Sashka asked obligingly. He was always exquisitely polite to her.

“Something of your own.”

He sat down in his customary place, to the left of the piano, and played strange, melancholy pieces. The basement sank into a drowsy quiet, except that once in a while you heard the muffled rumbling of the city above, or the muted clatter and tinkle of plates end glasses in the kitchen behind the partition. Sashka’s violin wept with the Jews’ sorrow, a sorrow as ancient as the world, woven and entwined with the sad flowers of national melodies. At that twilight hour, his face with the tense chin and bowed head, with eyes gazing sternly up from beneath brows that had suddenly grown heavy, was quite different from the face which all the Gambrinus customers knew – grinning, winking, dancing. Snowdrop, the little dog, sat on his knees. She had long since learned not to howl along with the music, but the passionate sorrow, the sobbing, cursing notes, affected her in spite of herself: she would open her mouth in wide convulsive yawns and curl back her pink little tongue, and for a moment her small body and delicate, black-eyed face would tremble nervously.

Then the house began to fill, Sashka’s accompanist came after finishing some daytime business at the tailor’s or watch-maker’s, sausages in hot water and cheese sandwiches were displayed on the bar counter, and finally all the gas-jets were lighted. Sashka drank another mug, said to his partner, “ ‘May Parade,’ ein, zwei, drei!” and struck up an impetuous march. From then on he had a hard time bowing to endless new-comers, each of whom considered himself Sashka’s special friend, and looked proudly at the other customers to see if they had noticed Sashka bowing to him. As he played Sashka squinted one eye, then the other, furrowed his bald, sloping skull into long wrinkles, moved his lips in a comic way, and lavished smiles all around.

By ten or eleven o’clock the Gambrinus, which could serve more than two hundred customers at a time, was packed. Nearly half the customers came with women in kerchiefs; no one minded the place being crowded, his foot being trodden on or his hat crumpled, or somebody spilling beer over his trousers; if anyone took offence it was merely because he was drunk and itching to work up a brawl. The moisture of the cellar, gleaming dimly, trickled even more abundantly from the walls covered with oil paint, and the condensed breath of the crowd fell from the ceiling like heavy, warm rain. Drinking at the Gambrinus was done thoroughly. The smart thing to do was for two or three customers sitting together to load the table with empty bottles so thickly that they could not see each other through the green forest of glass.

By the time drinking was at its height, the customers grew red and hoarse and wet. Tobacco smoke stung the eyes. If you wanted to be heard in the general din you had to bend across the table and shout. But the tireless violin of Sashka sitting on his dais held sway over the oppressive heat, the reek of tobacco, gas and beer, and the yelling of the reckless crowd.

Soon the customers, intoxicated with beer, the nearness of women and the heat, wanted each to hear a favourite song. Two or three men with dull eyes and uncertain movements hung constantly about Sashka, tugging at his sleeve and getting in his way.

“Sashka! I want a s-sad one. Please do me – hiccup – the favour!”

“Just a second,” Sashka said again and again, with a quick nod, slipping a silver coin into his trouser pocket as noiselessly and deftly as a doctor stowing away his fee. “Just a second.”

“How can you be so mean, Sashka? I’ve given you the money, and I’m asking you for the twentieth time to play ‘I sailed to Odessa.’ “

“Just a second.”

“Give us ‘The Nightingale,’ Sashka!”

“I want ‘Marusya,’ Sashka!”

„ ‘Setz Setz,’ Sashka – let‘s have ‘Setz Setz’!“

“Just a second.”

“ ‘The She-e-epherd’!” a man yelled from the other end of the hall, in a voice that might have come from a horse.

And amid general laughter Sashka crowed back like a rooster, “Just a se-e-econd!”

Without pausing to rest, he played all the songs ordered. He seemed to know every single song by heart. Silver coins poured into his pockets from all sides, and mugs of beer were sent to him from every table. Whenever he came down from his dais to go to the bar he was all but torn apart.

“Sashka, my friend! Have just one.”

“Here’s to you, Sashka. Why don’t you come over when you’re called, blast you?”

“Sa-ashka, come and have some be-e-er!” the horse’s voice blared.

The women who, like all women, were, prone to admire men of the stage, dally with them, show off and grovel before them, called to him in cooing voices, with a playful, insistent little laugh, “Sashka dear, you must absolutely drink one from me. No, I beg you not to refuse. And please play ‘Cuckoo Walk.’ “

Sashka smiled, grimaced, and bowed right and left; he pressed his hand to his heart, blew kisses to the women, drank beer at every table and, getting back to the piano, on which la fresh mug of beer was waiting for him, struck up “Parting” or something like that. To amuse his audience, he sometimes made his violin whine like a puppy, grunt like a pig, or drone with grating bass notes, in time with the melody. And the audience responded with good-humoured approval and laughter.

It grew hotter. The ceiling dripped; some of the customers were already weeping and beating their chests; others, with bloodshot eyes, were wrangling over women or former offences and setting upon each other, while their more sober boon companions, spongers more often than not, tried to stop them. It was only by some miracle that the waiters managed to thread their way between barrels, kegs, feet land trunks, holding high above them their hands loaded with beer mugs. Mme Ivanova, more bloodless, impassive and mute than ever, ordered the waiters about from behind the bar, like a skipper in a gale.

Everyone was eager to sing. Sashka, softened by beer, his own kindness and the crude pleasure his music gave to others, was willing to play anything. And people bawled to the sounds of his violin in hoarse, stiff voices, sticking to the same note and staring into each other’s eyes with vacant earnestness:

 

Why should we part for ever:

Why should we live apart?

Let’s marry now and never,

Oh, never, never part.

 

Meantime another group, apparently a hostile one, tried hard to drown the voices of the first by bellowing at random a song of its own choice.

The Gambrinus was frequented by Greeks from Asia Minor, who came to Russian ports to fish. They would ask Sashka to play one of their Oriental songs – a dismal, monotonous wail that trailed along over two or three notes, which they were ready to sing for hours, their faces grim, their eyes blazing. Sashka could also play Italian folk songs, Ukrainian dumkas, Jewish wedding dances, and many more. One day a group of Negro sailors dropped in; as the others were singing they felt like doing the same. Sashka was quick to catch the galloping Negro melody and to pick out the accompaniment on the piano; then, to the enormous delight and amusement of habitues, the house rang with the strange, fanciful, guttural sounds of the African song.

A local newspaper reporter, an acquaintance of Sashka’s, talked a music-school professor into going to the Gambrinus to hear its famous violinist. But Sashka saw through it and purposely made his violin mew and baa and bray more than usual. The customers were roaring with laughter, but the professor said contemptuously, “A clown.”

And he left without finishing his beer.

IV

Quite often the elegant marquesses and carousing German sportsmen, the fat Cupids and the frogs witnessed from their walls such unbridled debauchery as could rarely be seen anywhere but at the Gambrinus.

In would tumble, say, a company of thieves on the spree after a good haul, each with a mistress, each in a cocked cap and high patent-leather boots, with refined tavern manners and a devil-may-care look. For them Sashka would play special thieves’ songs: “I’m a Goner Now,” “Don’t You Cry, Marusya,” “Spring Is Over,” and others. They considered dancing beneath them, but their girl-friends – all pretty and young, and some of them still in their teens – would dance “The Shepherd” with screams and much heel-tapping. Women and men alike drank a great deal, and the only trouble was that thieves always finished their revelry with old money squabbles, and liked to sneak away without paying the bill.

Fishermen would come after a lucky catch: large companies of up to thirty men. In the late autumn there were sometimes glorious weeks when some forty thousand mackerel or grey mullet would be landed daily. During that time the smallest shareholder would make more than two hundred rubles. However, what paid even better was a good catch of beluga in winter; but that was a very hard job. The men had to toil from twenty to twenty-five miles off shore, at night, sometimes in stormy weather, when waves swept over the boats and the water froze instantly on clothes and oars, and when weather kept the men out at sea for two or three days, till they were washed ashore perhaps a hundred miles away, at Anapa or Trebizond. As many as a dozen yawls were lost every winter, and it was not until spring that the bodies of the courageous fishermen would be cast up on alien shores.

When the men came back from sea with a handsome catch, a craze for excitement would grip them. In two or three days, several thousand rubles would be squandered on the coarsest, the most deadening debauchery. The men would flock to a beerhouse or some other gay place, throw out everyone else, lock the doors and close the shutters, and for fully twenty-four hours would drink, give themselves up to love, bawl songs, smash mirrors and dishes, beat up women and often each other, until sleep overcame them on a table, on the floor, or lying across a bedstead, amid spittle, cigarette ends, bits of broken glass, spilt wine and blood stains. Thus they would go on for several days on end, sometimes moving to another place. Having drunk and eaten away all their money down to the last copper, they would go back, silent and rueful, to their boats. Their heads splitting, their faces bearing marks of fighting, their bodies weak and shaking after the bout, they would take up their beloved and accursed work, so hard and yet so exciting.

They never missed the Gambrinus. They would break into the house, huge men with husky voices, their faces lashed red by the winter nor’easter, in waterproof jackets, leather trousers and oxhide boots reaching to the thighs – the same sort of boots in which their mates went straight to the bottom on a stormy night.

Out of respect for Sashka, they would not turn out strangers, though otherwise they did as they pleased, smashing the heavy mugs on the floor. Sashka would play for them their own songs, long-winded, simple and grim as the sea, and they would all sing in unison, straining their powerful chests and wind-hardened throats. Sashka was like Orpheus taming the waves, and sometimes the hulking skipper of a fishing boat, a bearded man of forty, weather-beaten and brutal, would break into tears as he wailed in a high voice the pitiful words of a song:

 

Why was I born a fisherman?

A poor and luckless boy —

 

And sometimes they danced, stony-faced, crashing down their terrific boots on one spot, their bodies and clothes spreading through the house the salty smell of fish. They were very liberal towards Sashka, whom they would not let go from their tables for a long time. He knew well how hard and desperate their life was. Very often, while he was playing for them, a sort of respectful sadness would fill his heart.

But he was particularly fond of playing for British sailors from trading ships. They would come in a band, arm in arm, fine young men all, big-chested, broad-shouldered, white-toothed and ruddy-cheeked, with gay, bold blue eyes. They had muscles that threatened to burst their shirts, and straight powerful necks that rose from the low-cut collars. Some of them knew Sashka because they had put into the port before. They would recognize and greet him in Russian, flashing their white teeth in a friendly smile, “Zdryste!”

Without waiting for an order, Sashka would play “Rule Britannia.” Probably because they were at the moment in a country crushed by slavery, they would sing that hymn to British freedom with especial pride and solemnity. They stood bare-headed, singing the wonderful closing words:

 

Britons never, never, never

Shall be slaves!

 

And as they did so even their most unruly neighbours would take off their caps in spite of themselves.

A thickset boatswain with an ear-ring and a beard sprouting right from his throat like a fringe would walk over to Sashka with two mugs of beer, grin broadly, give him a friendly pat on the back, and ask him to play a hornpipe. At the very first notes of the rollicking seamen’s dance the Englishmen would jump up from their seats and make room by shifting the kegs and barrels to the walls. The others they would ask by gestures and cheerful smiles to get up; they would not, however, stand on ceremony with those who were slow, and would knock the kegs from under them with a deft kick. But they seldom had to resort to that, for at the Gambrinus everybody was fond of dances, and the hornpipe was a favourite. Even Sashka would climb on his chair while playing, in order to see better.

The sailors would form a circle and clap their hands in time with the quick rhythm, while two of them stepped into the middle. The dance represents the sailor’s life at sea. The ship is ready to sail, it is a fine day, everything is spick and span. The dancers hold their arms crossed on their chests, their heads are thrown back and their trunks motionless, although the feet are tapping furiously. But a wind rises and the ship begins to roll slightly. This makes it all the merrier for the seamen, and the dance figures become more and more complex and intricate. Then comes a fresh breeze – it is no longer so easy to walk on deck – and the dancers begin to sway a little. Finally a real gale sets in – the sailors are pitched from side to side, and things begin to look serious. “All hands up, take in the sails!” The expressive movements of the dancers’ hands and feet show plainly that they are climbing the shrouds, furling the sails and securing the sheets, while the gale rocks the ship harder and harder. “Stop – man overboard!” A life-boat is lowered. Their heads bowed and their sinewy bare necks strained, the dancers row with swift strokes, bending and unbending their backs. But the gale passes, the roll subsides little by little, the sky clears, and once again the ship skims along before the wind, and once again the dancers are tapping the lively hornpipe, their trunks motionless and their arms crossed.

Once in a while Sashka had to play the lezginka for Georgian wine-makers who lived near the city. There were no dances he did not know. As one of the dancers, in sheepskin cap and Circassian coat, whirled nimbly among the barrels, throwing his hands in turn behind his head while his friends clapped in time and egged him on with shouts, Sashka could not help shouting gleefully with them: “Khass! Khass! Khass!” He also played sometimes the Moldavian zhok, the Italian tarantella, and waltzes for German sailors.

Occasionally they fought at the Gambrinus, and some of the fights were quite fierce. Old customers were fond of telling the story of a legendary battle between sailors of the Russian Navy, transferred to the reserve from some cruiser, and British seamen. They fought with fists, knuckledusters and beer mugs, and even hurled kegs at each other. It should be admitted in all fairness that the first to pick a quarrel, and the first to use their knives, were the Russians, and though they were three times superior in numbers to the English they managed to turn them out of the beerhouse only after half an hour’s fighting.

Very often Sashka’s intervention would stop a brawl when bloodshed seemed imminent. He would go up to the quarrelling group and joke and smile and grimace, and at once mugs would be held out to him from all sides.

“Have a mug, Sashka! Drink with me, Sashka, blast you!”

Perhaps what subdued the wild passions of those simple people was the meek, droll kindness that beamed cheerfully from his eyes under the sloping skull. Or was it a kind of respect for his gift and something like gratitude? It might also have been the fact that most Gambrinus habitues always owed him money. In the trying days of dekokhto, as complete lack of money was called in sea and harbour slang, people applied freely to Sashka for small sums or for a trifling loan at the bar, which he never refused.

Of course, he never got back his money, not because his debtors wanted to harm him, but merely because they forgot; in a moment of great merriment, however, the same debtors would repay him tenfold for his songs.

Sometimes the barmaid upbraided him, “It’s amazing how careless you are with your money.”

He would reply with conviction, “But, Mme Ivanova! I can’t take it to my grave! We’ve got quite enough, Snowdrop and I. Come here, Snowdrop, come, my doggie.”