Translated from the Armenian by Shant Norashkharian.
What was going on? Babken Miranian's windows were still lighted!
He stopped. Turned his ears. No, this was no party. No sound could be heard. The curtains prevented him from seeing inside. He looked at his watch; it was around three o'clock in the morning. At that hour they are usually asleep. Then, what was the reason that their lights were on? Could it be, that someone is sick? Could it be, that something happened...? Being uncertain, he waited.
From the street nearby footsteps of passing troops could be heard. The soldiers are leaving, he thought, could it be...?
He knocked on the window pane gently. No one answered. He waited and knocked again, this time harder. A shadow moved behind the curtain, came closer, moved the curtain aside, put its nose against the glass but could see nothing because of the darkness.
"Who is it...?"
It was Miranian's voice.
"It is me, Herian!..."
A little later, the street door was opened. "I saw some lights, I thought perhaps something happened...what is it? Man and wife, all alone, are you having a party...?"
"No", replied Miranian, trying to give an accent to the indifference in his voice," no, we were just sitting...please come in...the matter is that..."
When Mrs. Vartouhi stood up from the sofa to greet him, Herian noticed her eyes were extremely red, she was pale and her shoulders were hanging down from exhaustion. But it was surprising that she was dressed up so well. She had put on that deep blue satin dress that she had brought from Baku, which looked so well on her and which Miranian loved very much.
"By my sun!" exclaimed Herian, forcing himself to look cheerful, "By my sun, you resemble a queen who has just lost her throne..."
The lady looked confused, put her hands against her face and started sobbing.
"What happened?" asked Herian bewildered.
"Brother, nothing!" answered Miranian with a guilty voice, "she is really wearing herself out in vain...she did not want to sleep and all the time she has been crying...The matter is that at eight o'clock we are heading to the front..."
"The front...? What is it, war...?"
"You ask as if so far what has taken place was not really war, as if war had ever stopped...Simply, the fights are still continuing; that's it...only this time the situation seems more serious...the Turks are advancing toward Gars, and on the other side, the Red Army is threatening Georgia and us...They say, our chief general, Nazarbegian, is very concerned..."
Herian sat down and looked down.
They fell silent.
Miranian went to the other room and returned with a bottle of cognac in his hand. He put the glasses on the table and filled them up.
"What is it, you are coming from a party...?"
"No, I was just invited somewhere", answered Herian.
"Varya my dear! Have a drink with us...! I beg you, don't be sad, smile, sweetheart, smile...!"
The lady wiped her tears, smiled and took the glass.
"Yes, that's how!" said the cavalry officer cheerfully. "Truly, whoever lives in fire does not fear fire...what can he fear? It has already been five years that we have had no rest. The Austrian front, the battles of Baku, Sareghamish...I have four wounds, my body is used to it...well, let us drink to being alive..."
Herian drank, and avoiding to disturb their intimacy, stood up to leave. Miranian complained.
"Please sit down, let's talk a little", he said,"who knows when shall shall we see each other again...?"
He turned his head and looked at something far. He became focused again.
"Varya, my dear, if you like, set up the phonograph and play something...something light...gypsy style..."
"Not now, later..."
"Fine, as you like...Until now we were playing and listening," he said, filling up the glasses. "Drink...! We were listening to my favorite pieces...I must say, music is what I love most..."
"Music?" asked the lady, with a sad and jealous voice.
"Music and Varya...If it wasn't for those mixed-up times, I may have attended Petersburg's music school to continue my violin playing...I was making pretty good progress..."
He stood up, sat down by his wife and put her hands in his hands.
A strange fate awaited our generation, a senseless fate...Because France and Germany had some problems to solve between them, Alsace-Loraine, economic superiority and I don't know what else, fire started falling on our heads...The world became ruined, militarized, savage...When one thinks how far we have come from everything, when one thinks...! Tonight, as I sat with Varya, we were listening...Bach's Concerto for Two Violins, Beethoven's quintets, Brahms' Fourth and other pieces...how good it was, how good...! I specially love Bach; his restrained fire, his spirituality architectured with bright lines, his cool warmth and that...how can one explain...that bright attitude toward life...Ah, Varya my dear, put the Concerto for Two Violins on and let Mr. Herian listen..."
He put his head between his hands and remained so until the music ended. When he raised his head - Herian had never seen him in that state - his eyes were burning, his face was cleared and transparent.
"There, now tell me!" he exclaimed with a sad voice, "here on one hand this bright and awe-inspiring dialogue of the violins, this felicitous discussion between death and love, and on the other hand, the ignorant, bloodthirsty, filthy Turk...Bach and the Turk...! No, nature is ruthless...!
Herian, who was used to raising arguments with Miranian, this time could not restrain himself. He leaned back on the armchair and said:
"To be truthful, if we consider our Abaranian peasant, it seems that he would not understand Bach's music much either..."
"That is not the question, that is not the question!" complained Miranian. "It seems that even in Germany there would be many peasants who would not understand Bach at all. I have thought about that often...The question is that, with the Armenian peasant, behind his exterior crudity, in his unconscious depth, the potentialities of the human mind and the highest spiritual flights are recorded...Put him in other, ordinary circumstances and he will enter into the complex world of Bach and the other greats, as if it were his own home...He will enter that world, because his spirit is woven of the same substance as Beethoven's spirit , and they belong to the same race...They are able to pray in the same temple, to become sad with the same sadness, to be spirited with the same spirituality, to sit together, to look into each other's eyes, and to understand each other without speaking...that's it...!"
He approached the table, filled up the glasses again, and drank.
"That's it...! But the Turk...! Here, facing each other, these are two opposite worlds which reject each other...What is so terrible, Captain Herian, is that the Turk has no spiritual past, his unconscious mind is a dark night, full of bestial instincts and primitive appetites...It has been shown, that when the Turk receives the highest education, he becomes assimilated. He fears culture, because he understands that culture - when it is not exterior style with no content - is deadly to him. And that is very understandable; to create culture one must become transformed, reborn spiritually, take flight, give new values to life and live with those values. But he is used to destroy, to burn...Wherever the Turk has passed, no forest remained, no vegetation remained, no homes remained...ask the Greeks, ask the Serbs, ask the Bulgarians...Even today, observe their savagery toward defenseless civilians, not only toward women and children, but also toward those miraculous works of architecture, which have lived for ten to fifteen centuries, which have contributed to the glory of mankind and the foundation of Christian art...You know, of course, that the Kemalian government has commanded its troops to bombard these structures, all the churches which witness the genius of our race, with canons. And that not because of military necessity, but simply to ruin and destroy...Think of the miraculous works of Akhtamar, the palaces and churches of Ani which are unlike any others...Bastards...!"
"Without doubt you are right", agreed Herian with a sad voice.
"I am an officer; war is war; a cruel thing...To fight, that sometimes is essential...but it is dishonorable to slay women and children, it is dishonorable to destroy only to destroy...The Turk is a dishonorable soldier; brave, enduring, fearless, but dishonorable. He is more a murderer, than fighter. And as a murderer, he cannot tolerate that which has to do with the mind and the soul. The Turk is primarily the anti-culture. Because of them, for centuries long, one of the world's richest and most beautiful areas, Armenia and Asia Minor, has been closed to the rest of mankind, emptied of its greatness, forced to give up its messiah. In those circumstances, how could there be a connection between them and Bach...?"
He fell silent. He walked from corner to corner.
"I say all this", he continued, stopping in front of Herian, "because I want to account to myself why I am going and risking my youthful life... I could be killed, but I want to know what will I be killed for? I will fight and kill others; I want to know what am I defending and for what will I be killing others...? Country, people, independence, you will say. Those are general words. If this country, these people, this independence are not more than what they appear to be now, if they are not the incarnation of a high and creative soul, if they are not the defenders of a calling which was prepared for centuries and is deeply present, then I am a fool for wishing to become a martyr for nothing...I am leaving - let this not seem so strange - to defend the Bach spirit against the Turks..."
"What are you talking about, dear Babken?" said the wife, directing her eyes toward her husband.
"I don't know", said Miranian, after thinking for a moment, "I don't know...perhaps what I am saying is really strange, perhaps it is laughable and makes me look gullible...You see, dear Varya! We have lived for years away from Armenians. We have been Armenian, of course, but more by birth than mind and soul...Russian culture, Russian education...our eyes were fixed on Petersburg...On holidays we went to church, to the courtyard rather than inside, we practiced light patriotism, we gave money to the refugees from Turkey, so that they would not beg in the streets and humiliate us, we heard uncertain things from our fathers about Armenian literature, and the word Armenia was like a distant historic bird, which had nested in unknown places and was surrounded with pain and dreams...My father, during his free hours, loved to browse through various books related to Armenians; 'Brotherhood Help for Armenians', a discolored collection of photos from Ani, Yesov's, Badganian's, Adonts's books...In general, have you noticed that our merchants, because of whom foreigners have such negative opinions about our innocent people, in order to caress their patriotism, love to collect books related to Armenians, which they never read, and even if they did, they would not understand them...? But that is not what I wanted to say; It was that when one opened those books, he became really despaired. Ruined churches, fallen stones of sculptured ornaments, destroyed steeples, deserts, and in the deserts, a few peasants and a couple of priests...A kind of total annihilation, which would wound you rather than vitalize you..."
"That is so!" agreed Herian, " I have had that same impression often..."
" Isn't that so...? In the streets torn, filthy, unshaved beggars, and in the books, fallen stones, and in the papers, descriptions of endless horrors...To us, who have lived freely - to our proud and bold people who are used to fighting - all that was hurtful, demeaning...Our heart was mourning and our mind was subdued. We could not reconcile with that reality and we could not understand that reality. And then all of a sudden everything changed, when events rushed into our heads with the speed of lightning, turned our lives upside down, reversed the values, took us and threw us into the mouth of the hurricane...Have you really thought, what kind of conversion that was...? From a stable, firm century which had taken a final form, like an Arab hero, we suddenly fell on a flying carpet and rushed into another century...I will never forget that day, dear Varya, you remember, don't you, when we entered Armenia...?"
He closed his eyes, remained silent for a moment, then continued:
"A new country, never before seen...as soon as you saw it, it was as if a light was turned on in your heart...Everything seemed so intimate, so peaceful, so attracting...It's impossible to explain...I can't find the words...The pictures at my father's library suddenly became alive, they were crowned with the sun, they became alive with another life, entered an environment full of brightness and hidden meanings, and I understood...I say I understood, but I must use another word, let's say I felt, I lived, I rediscovered in myself that which I had not noticed before...I became different, other...And that which before seemed so far, so high and so uncertain, suddenly became so clear and with those lands, those mountains, those buildings took on a full, complete life...There, that is the essential...When I say Bach, let it not seem surprising to you; I developed my musical education with his example and with him I am able to measure spiritual heights...Have you been to Etchmiadzin, Captain...?"
"I have been there, of course!"
"Good! Consider Hripsime's magnificent temple, for example, stand in front of it and examine it well, and you will see, that its plain, simple lines, its color which is lit by its inner fire, its complex clarity, its restrained and controlled flight, it is truly and only truly a structure of Bach...The same body transformed to spirit, the same fire-soaked blood, the same rhythm...When Goethe says that architecture is frozen music, the example is right there...I feel that deeply, with my soul and my body, with my whole being, and so I tell myself: Here is Hripsime and there is the beast; Bach and the beast...the war is between them..."
Miranian was speaking so much from the heart, he was so full of sorrow, that no one had the strength to interrupt him. Herian had never seen him so serious, so deep into himself.
"Therefore, I say that the war is between them", he continued. "For me, this is how the question is posited: Either this spiritual wealth defended by the sacrifices of tens of centuries or the darkness wins...Our struggle is a just, essential and sanctified struggle...Our struggle is a struggle that belongs to all of humanity, a defense of the gems which make its crown of life...That is absolutely so, either Bach or the beast..."
"And if the beast wins...? Already there are those who are shaking the hands of murderers, those who are helping them, those who are arming them..."
Miranian's eyes became filled with anger.
"You say, the beast may win? He exclaimed, "The beast may win...? At that time that beast will also defeat those who are shaking its bloody hands...A day will come, when a savage, ruthless, tyrannical force will pass over their heads...Today's victors, because they trampled on the sacred principles that they declared, because they denied their own ideals, will be defeated, subdued, belittled, forced to bow down in their moral rags, while the beast, terrible and ruthless, will roar wildly, and will pound its iron fist on the table of accountability and threaten them..."
Herian was listening with astonishment and admiration. How strange is the human creature, he was thinking. You live with a man side by side for months, you establish a friendship, you eat together, drink, talk, argue, and it turns out that the man you thought you knew is totally someone different. That Miranian preached about Napoleon, he stood in front of the mirror for hours fixing his uniform and medals, he got involved in delicate discussions about Bajarski steaks, he loved his horse and his wife, and in general left the impression of a spoiled, wealthy young man full of sarcasm; but, lo and behold...Bach, Hripsime...!
A milky, foggy light rested on the windows.
The faces of those in the room became discolored. The morning's first light, like a white voice calling from outside, slowly pushed its way inside and everything started waking up. Something disappeared, drowned in darkness, and a new, different reality was born.
Miranian put off the torchlight, stretched up his arms and yawned. Varya, who had gathered her legs and nestled on the sofa, because of her gorgeous dress and the obscure light, resembled an enormous wilted flower. She lifted her heavy eyebrows, stared with a foggy stare, suddenly became focused, jumped upwards.
"I'll go change", she said, "my Babig wanted that I wear this dress tonight for sure... he loves it...he wanted for sure..."
"And I will", said Herian, "go change this collar, these stupid shoes...I will return and then we shall say goodbye..."
"My dear Captain, please wait, there is still some time", begged Miranian. "Varya, go ahead my dear, change, and we shall drink one more glass...Isn't it so, Captain, one more glass?"
Herian wanted to insist, but the officer gestured with his eyes and made him understand that he had something to say. When the lady left, he took Herian to a corner and said with a low voice: "This is what I wanted to say...! I am leaving...at war, anything could happen...!"
"What will happen...? This is not the first time...is it...?"
"Sure, that is so...but war is war...the bullet has no mind...to tell you the truth, this time I have strange premonitions...after all, it's life, and no one knows...that's what I wanted to say; if something happens, I beg you, don't leave Varya alone...Her sister is in Tbilisi and she would do well if she went to stay with her...You may tell her that is my will...let her go to her sister..."
"I will tell her, be sure of that...and in general you don't have to worry about anything until your return...it is even unnecessary to talk about that..."
"Here she comes; let us drink...!"
When the lady entered, they raised their full glasses, and Herian, giving his voice a fake enthusiasm, exclaimed: " And , please, give those dogs a good lesson...in such a way...that is necessary..."
"And I wish, that one day the ship will reach its destination...I wish you success..."
They pulled their heads back and emptied their glasses.
After an hour, when Herian returned to say farewell, Miranian, wearing his warm coat, with the scarf around his neck, was already sitting on his horse and was ready to leave. When he saw Herian, he became cheerful, pulled back the horse's bridle, leaned down and shook his hand firmly.
"Now, it's time to go..."
"Babig, Babig", called his wife running after him, "let me, my sweetheart, kiss you one more time."
He leaned, took his wife's head in his hands, kissed and then whipped the horse.
"May luck be with you"! shouted Herian.
The sounds of the horse's hoofs disappeared. The street, suddenly, became empty.
The lady went inside sobbing.