At four o'clock on the morning of the next day, the captain came riding
up to my door. He had on an old well-worn coat without epaulets, wide
Lesghian trousers, a round white Circassian cap, with drooping lambskin
dyed yellow, and an ugly-looking Asiatic sabre across his shoulder. The
little white horse[8] on which he rode came with head down, and mincing
gait, and kept switching his slender tail. In spite of the fact that
the good captain's figure was neither very warlike nor very handsome,
yet there was in it such an expression of good-will toward every one
around him, that it inspired involuntary respect.
I did not keep him waiting a minute, but immediately mounted, and we
rode off together from the gate of the fortress.
The battalion was already two hundred _sazhens_[9] ahead of us, and had
the appearance of some black, solid body in motion. It was possible to
make out that it was infantry, only from the circumstance that while
the bayonets appeared like long, dense needles, occasionally there came
to the ear the sounds of a soldier's song, the drum, and a charming
tenor, the leader of the sixth company,--a song which I had more than
once enjoyed at the fort.
The road ran through the midst of a deep, wide ravine, or _balka_ as it
is called in the Caucasian dialect, along the banks of a small river,
which at this time _was playing,_ that is, was having a freshet. Flocks
of wild pigeons hovered around it, now settling on the rocky shore, now
wheeling about in mid-air in swift circles and disappearing from sight.
The sun was not yet visible, but the summit of the balka on the
right began to grow luminous. The gray and white colored crags, the
greenish-yellow moss wet with dew, the clumps of different kinds of
wild thorn,[10] stood out extraordinarily distinct and rotund in the
pellucid golden light of the sunrise.
On the other hand, the ravine, hidden in thick mist which rolled
up like smoke in varying volumes, was damp, and dark, and gave the
impression of an indistinguishable mixture of colors--pale lilac,
almost purple, dark green, and white.
Directly in front of us, against the dark blue of the horizon, with
startling distinctness appeared the dazzling white, silent masses of
the snow-capped mountains with their marvellous shadows and outlines
exquisite even in the smallest details. Crickets, grasshoppers, and
a thousand other insects, were awake in the tall grass, and filled
the air with their sharp, incessant clatter: it seemed as though a
numberless multitude of tiny bells were jingling in our very ears. The
atmosphere was alive with waters, with foliage, with mist; in a word,
had all the life of a beautiful early summer morning.
The captain struck a light, and began to puff at his pipe; the
fragrance of _sambrotalicheski tabák_ and of the punk struck me as
extremely pleasant.
We rode along the side of the road so as to overtake the infantry as
quickly as possible. The captain seemed more serious than usual; he
did not take his Daghestan pipe from his mouth, and at every step he
dug his heels into his horse's legs as the little beast, capering
from one side to the other, laid out a scarcely noticeable dark green
track through the damp, tall grass. Up from under his very feet, with
its shrill cry,[11] and that drumming of the wings that is so sure to
startle the huntsman in spite of himself, flew the pheasant, and slowly
winged its flight on high. The captain paid him not the slightest
attention.
"We had almost overtaken the battalion, when behind us was heard the
sound of a galloping horse, and in an instant there rode by us a very
handsome young fellow in an officer's coat, and a tall white Circassian
cap.[12] As he caught up with us he smiled, bowed to the captain, and
waved his whip.... I only had time to notice that he sat in the saddle
and held the bridle with peculiar grace, and that he had beautiful dark
eyes, a finely cut nose, and a mustache just beginning to grow. I was
particularly attracted by the way in which he could not help smiling,
as if to impress it upon us that we were friends of his. If by nothing
else than his smile, one would have known that he was still very young.
"And now where is he going?" grumbled the captain with a look of
dissatisfaction, not taking his pipe from his mouth.
"Who is that?" I asked.
"Ensign Alánin, a subaltern officer of my company.... Only last month
he came from the School of Cadets."
"This is the first time that he is going into action, I suppose?" said
I.
"And so he is overjoyed," replied the captain thoughtfully, shaking his
head; "it's youth."
"And why shouldn't he be glad? I can see that for a young officer this
must be very interesting."
The captain said nothing for two minutes.
"And that's why I say 'it's youth,'" he continued in a deep tone. "What
is there to rejoice in, when there's nothing to see? Here when one goes
often, one doesn't find any pleasure in it. Here, let us suppose there
are twenty of us officers going: some of us will be either killed or
wounded; that's likely. To-day my turn, to-morrow his, the next day
somebody else's. So what is there to rejoice in?"
[Footnote 8: _mashtak_ in the Caucasian dialect.]
[Footnote 9: Fourteen hundred feet.]
[Footnote 10: Paliurus, box-thorn, and _karachag._]
[Footnote 11: _tordoka'yé._]
[Footnote 12: _papákha._]