"I'm too comfortable," she decided, "while there is so much misery in the distance."
However comfortable Sylvia felt when at a quarter past three she let herself into the Pension Eliane, she felt extremely uncomfortable about an hour later, when the sound of an explosion and the crash of falling glass made those inmates of the pension who were still gossiping down-stairs in the dining-room drop their cigarettes and stare at one another in astonishment.
"Whatever's that?" Ruby cried.
"It must be the gas," said Armand, who could not turn paler than he was, but whose lips trembled.
Another crash followed; outside in the street rose a moan of frightened voices and the clatter of frightened feet.
Two more explosions still nearer drove everybody that was in the pension out of doors, and when it became certain that war-ships were bombarding Odessa there was a rush to join the inhabitants who were fleeing to what they supposed was greater safety in the heart of the town. In vain Sylvia protested that if the town was really being bombarded, they were just as safe in a pension near the sea-front as anywhere else; the mere idea of propinquity to the sea set everybody running faster than ever away from it. She could hear now the shells whinnying like nervous horses, and with every crash she kept saying to herself in a foolish way:
"Well, at any rate, there's no more danger from that one."
At first in the rush of panic she had not observed any particular incident; but now, as shell after shell exploded without any visible sign of damage, she began to look with interest at non-combatant humanity in the presence of danger. She did not know whether to be glad or sorry that, on the whole, the men behaved worse than the women; she put this observation on one side to be argued out later with Armand, who had certainly run faster than any one else in the pension. The number of the shells was already getting less, yet there were no signs of the populace's recovery. Fear was begetting fear with such rapidity that to stand still and listen to the moans and groans of the uninjured was awe-inspiring. In one doorway a distraught man with nothing on but a shirt and slippers was dancing about with a lighted candle, evidently in a quandary of terror whether to join the onflowing mob or to stay where he was. An explosion quite close made up his mind, and he dived down the steps into the street, where the candle was immediately extinguished; nevertheless, he continued to hold it as if it were still alight while he ran with the crowd. In another doorway stood a woman confronted with a triple problem. Wearing nothing but a wrapper and carrying in her arms a pet dog, she was trying at the same time to keep her wrapper fastened, to avoid letting the dog drop, and to shut the door behind her. The problem was a nice one: she could either keep her wrapper fastened, maintain the dog, and leave the door open, in which case she would lose her silver; or she could keep her wrapper close, shut the door, and drop the dog, in which case she would lose the dog; or she could keep the dog, shut the door, and let go of her wrapper, in which case she would lose her modesty. Sylvia's anxiety to see how she would solve the problem made her forget all about the shells; and it was only when the perplexed lady in a last desperate attempt slammed the door, so that her wrapper came flying open and the dog went bolting down the street, that Sylvia realized the bombardment was over. She turned back toward the pension with a last look over her shoulder at the lady, who was vanishing into the darkness, gathering the wrapper round her nakedness as she ran, and calling wildly to her pet.
Next day the military and civil population set out to find who could possibly have told the Turkish destroyers that such a place as Odessa existed. Armand, the Belgian dancer, was particularly loud on the subject of spies; Sylvia suspected it was he who had suggested to the police that Madame Eliane, as a reputed Austrian, should be severely examined with a view to finding out if the signals of which all were talking could be traced to her windows. If he did inform the police, his meanness recoiled upon his own head, for the examination of Madame Eliane was succeeded by an examination of all her guests, in the course of which Armand's passport was found to be slightly irregular, and he was nearly expelled to Rumania in consequence. The authorities made up their minds that no Turkish destroyer should ever again discover the whereabouts of their town, and the most stringent ordinances against showing lights were promulgated; but a more important result of the declaration of war by Turkey than the lighting of Odessa was its interference with the future plans of the mountebanks at the Cabaret de l'Aube. There was not one of them who had not intended to proceed from here to Constantinople, a much more profitable winter engagement than this Black Sea port.
"C'est assommant," Armand declared. "Zut! On ne peut pas rester ici tout l'hiver. On crevera."