Five other soldiers of my platoon besides Velenchúk were warming
themselves around the bonfire.
In the best place, away from the wind, on a cask, sat the platoon
artillerist[4] Maksímof, smoking his pipe. In the posture, the gaze,
and all the motions of this man it could be seen that he was accustomed
to command, and was conscious of his own worth, even if nothing were
said about the cask whereon he sat, which during the halt seemed to
become the emblem of power, or the nankeen short-coat which he wore.
When I approached, he turned his head round toward me; but his eyes
remained fixed upon the fire, and only after some time did they follow
the direction of his face, and rest upon me. Maksímof came from a
semi-noble family.[5] He had property, and in the school brigade he
obtained rank, and acquired some learning. According to the reports of
the soldiers, he was fearfully rich and fearfully learned.
I remember how one time, when they were making practical experiments
with the quadrant, he explained, to the soldiers gathered around him,
that the motions of the spirit level arise from the same causes as
those of the atmospheric quicksilver. At bottom Maksímof was far from
stupid, and knew his business admirably; but he had the bad habit of
speaking, sometimes on purpose, in such a way that it was impossible
to understand him, and I think he did not understand his own words.
He had an especial fondness for the words "arises" and "to proceed;"
and whenever he said "it arises," or "now let us proceed," then I
knew in advance that I should not understand what would follow. The
soldiers, on the contrary, as I had a chance to observe, enjoyed
hearing his "arises," and suspected it of containing deep meaning,
though, like myself, they could not understand his words. But this
incomprehensibility they ascribed to his depth, and they worshipped
Feódor Maksímuitch accordingly. In a word, Maksímof was diplomatically
dictatorial.
The second soldier near the fire, engaged in drawing on his sinewy
red legs a fresh pair of stockings, was Antónof, the same bombardier
Antónof who as early as 1837, together with two others stationed by one
gun without shelter, was returning the shot of the enemy, and with two
bullets in his thigh continued still to serve his gun and load it.
"He would have been artillerist long before, had it not been for his
character," said the soldiers; and it was true that his character was
odd. When he was sober, there was no man more calm, more peaceful, more
correct in his deportment; when he was drunk he became an entirely
different man. Not recognizing authority, he became quarrelsome and
turbulent, and was wholly valueless as a soldier. Not more than a
week before this time he got drunk at Shrovetide; and in spite of all
threats and exhortations, and his attachment to his cannon, he got
tipsy and quarrelsome on the first Monday in Lent. Throughout the fast,
notwithstanding the order for all in the division to eat meat, he lived
on hard-tack alone, and in the first week he did not even take the
prescribed allowance of vodka. However, it was necessary to see this
short figure, tough as iron, with his stumpy, crooked legs, his shiny
face with its mustache, when he, for example, under the influence of
liquor, took the _balaláïka,_ or three-stringed guitar of the Ukraïna,
into his strong hands, and, carelessly glancing to this side and that,
played some love-song, or with his cloak thrown over his shoulders, and
the orders dangling from it, and his hands thrust into the pockets of
his blue nankeen trousers, he rolled along the street; it was necessary
to see his expression of martial pride, and his scorn for all that did
not pertain to the military,--to comprehend how absolutely impossible
it was for him to compare himself at such moments with the rude or
the simply insinuating servant, the Cossack, the foot-soldier, or the
volunteer, especially those who did not belong to the artillery. He
quarrelled and was turbulent, not so much for his own pleasure as for
the sake of upholding the spirit of all soldierhood, of which he felt
himself to be the protector.
The third soldier, with ear-rings in his ears, with bristling
mustaches, goose-flesh, and a porcelain pipe in his lips, crouching
on his heels in front of the bonfire, was the artillery-rider Chikin.
The dear man Chikin, as the soldiers called him, was a jester. In
bitter cold, up to his knees in the mud, going without food two days
at a time, on the march, on parade, undergoing instruction, the dear
man always and everywhere screwed his face into grimaces, executed
flourishes with his legs, and poured out such a flood of nonsense that
the whole platoon would go into fits of laughter. During a halt or in
camp Chikin had always around him a group of young soldiers, whom he
either played cards with, or amused with tales about some sly soldier
or English milord, or by imitating the Tatar and the German, or simply
by making his jokes, at which everybody nearly died with laughter. It
was a fact, that his reputation as a joker was so widespread in the
battery, that he had only to open his mouth and wink, and he would be
rewarded with a universal burst of guffaws; but he really had a great
gift for the comic and unexpected. In every thing he had the wit to see
something remarkable, such as never came into anybody else's head; and,
what is more important, this talent for seeing something ridiculous
never failed under any trial.
The fourth soldier was an awkward young fellow, a recruit of the last
year's draft, and he was now serving in an expedition for the first
time. He was standing in the very smoke, and so close to the fire that
it seemed as if his well-worn short-coat[6] would catch on fire; but,
notwithstanding this, by the way in which he had flung open his coat,
by his calm, self-satisfied pose, with his calves arched out, it was
evident that he was enjoying perfect happiness.
And finally, the fifth soldier, sitting some little distance from the
fire, and whittling a stick, was Uncle Zhdánof. Zhdánof had been in
service the longest of all the soldiers in the battery,--knew all the
recruits; and everybody, from force of habit, called him _dy'á-denka,_
or little uncle. It was said that he never drank, never smoked, never
played cards (not even the soldier's pet game of _noski_), and never
indulged in bad talk. All the time when military duties did not engross
him he worked at his trade of shoemaking; on holidays he went to
church wherever it was possible, or placed a farthing candle before
the image, and read the psalter, the only book in which he cared to
read. He had little to do with the other soldiers,--with those higher
in rank,--though to the younger officers he was coldly respectful. With
his equals, since he did not drink, he had little reason for social
intercourse; but he was extremely fond of recruits and young soldiers:
he always protected them, read them their lessons, and often helped
them. All in the battery considered him a capitalist, because he had
twenty-five rubles, which he willingly loaned to any soldier who really
needed it. That same Maksímof who was now artillerist used to tell me
that when, ten years before, he had come as a recruit, and the old
drunken soldiers helped him to drink up the money that he had, Zhdánof,
pitying his unhappy situation, took him home with him, severely
upbraided him for his behavior, even administered a castigation, read
him the lesson about the duties of a soldier's life, and sent him away
after presenting him with a shirt (for Maksímof hadn't one to his back)
and a half-ruble piece.
"He made a man of me," Maksímof used to say, always with respect and
gratitude in his tone. He had also taken Velenchúk's part always,
ever since he came as a recruit, and had helped him at the time of
his misfortune about the lost cloak, and had helped many, many others
during the course of his twenty-five years' service.
In the service it was impossible to find a soldier who knew his
business better, who was braver or more obedient; but he was too meek
and homely to be chosen as an artillerist,[7] though he had been
bombardier fifteen years. Zhdánof's one pleasure, and even passion, was
music. He was exceedingly fond of some songs, and he always gathered
round him a circle of singers from among the young soldiers; and though
he himself could not sing, he stood with them, and putting his hands
into the pockets of his short-coat,[8] and shutting his eyes, expressed
his contentment by the motions of his head and cheeks. I know not why
it was, that in that regular motion of the cheeks under the mustache,
a peculiarity which I never saw in any one else, I found unusual
expression. His head white as snow, his mustache dyed black, and his
brown, wrinkled face, gave him at first sight a stern and gloomy
appearance; but as you looked more closely into his great round eyes,
especially when they smiled (he never smiled with his lips), something
extraordinarily sweet and almost childlike suddenly struck you.
[Footnote 4: _feierverker;_ German, _Feuerwerker._]
[Footnote 5: _odnodvortsui,_ of one estate; freemen, who in the
seventeenth century were settled in the Ukrafoa with special
privileges.]
[Footnote 6: _polushubochek,_ little half _shuba._]
[Footnote 7: _feierverker._]
[Footnote 8: _polushubka._]