"Alas! I have forgotten my pipe; that's a misfortune, fellows,"
repeated Velenchúk.
"But you should smoke _cikarettes,_[9] dear man," urged Chikin,
screwing up his mouth, and winking. "I always smoke _cikarettes_ at
home: it's sweeter."
Of course, all joined in the laugh.
"So you forgot your pipe?" interrupted Maksímof, proudly knocking out
the ashes from his pipe into the palm of his left hand, and not paying
any attention to the universal laughter, in which even the officers
joined. "You lost it somewhere here, didn't you, Velenchúk?"
Velenchúk wheeled to right face at him, started to lift his hand to his
cap, and then dropped it again.
"You see, you haven't woke up from your last evening's spree, so that
you didn't get your sleep out. For such work you deserve a good raking."
"May I drop dead on this very spot, Feódor Maksímovitch, if a single
drop passed my lips. I myself don't know what got into me," replied
Velenchúk. "How glad I should have been to get drunk!" he muttered to
himself.
"All right. But one is responsible to the chief for his brother's
conduct, and when you behave this way it's perfectly abominable," said
the eloquent Maksímof savagely, but still in a more gentle tone.
"Well, here is something strange, fellows," continued Velenchúk after a
moment's silence, scratching the back of his head, and not addressing
any one in particular; "fact, it's strange, fellows. I have been
sixteen years in the service, and have not had such a thing happen to
me. As we were told to get ready for a march, I got up, as my duty
behooved. There was nothing at all, when suddenly in the park _it_
came over me--came over me more and more; laid me out--laid me out on
the ground--and everything.... And when I got asleep, I did not hear
a sound, fellows. It must have been that I fainted away," he said in
conclusion.
"At all events, it took all my strength to wake you up," said Antónof,
as he pulled on his boot. "I pushed you, and pushed you. You slept like
a log."
"See here," remarked Velenchúk, "if I had been drunk" ...
"Like a peasant-woman we had at home," interrupted Chikin. "For almost
two years running she did not get down from the big oven. They tried
to wake her up one time, for they thought she was asleep; but there
she was, lying just as though she was dead: the same kind of sleep you
had--isn't that so, clear man?"
"Just tell us, Chikin, how you led the fashion the time when you had
leave of absence," said Maksímof, smiling, and winking at me as much as
to say, "Don't you like to hear what the foolish fellow has to say?"
"How led the fashion, Feódor Maksímuitch?" asked Chikin, casting a
quick side glance at me. "Of course, I merely told what kind of people
we are here in the Kapkas."[10]
"Well, then, that's so, that's so. You are not a fashion leader ... but
just tell us how you made them think you were commander."
"You know how I became commander for them. I was asked how we live,"
began Chikin, speaking rapidly, like a man who has often told the
same story. "I said, 'We live well, dear man: we have plenty of
victuals. At morning and night, to our delight all we soldiers get
our chocol_et_;[11] and then at dinner every sinner has his imperial
soup of barley groats, and instead of vodka, M_o_deira at each plate,
genuine old M_o_deira in the cask, forty-second degree!'".
"Fine M_o_deira!" replied Velenchúk louder than the others, and with a
burst of laughter. "Let's have some of it."
"Well, then, what did you have to tell them about the _Esiatics?_"
said Maksímof, carrying his inquiries still further, as the general
merriment subsided.
Chikin bent down to the fire, picked up a coal with his stick, put it
on his pipe, and, as though not noticing the discreet curiosity aroused
in his hearers, puffed for a long time in silence.
When at last he had raised a sufficient cloud of smoke, he threw away
the coal, pushed his cap still farther on the back of his head, and
making a grimace, and with an almost imperceptible smile, he continued:
"They asked," said he, "'What kind of a person is the little Cherkés
yonder? or is it the Turk that you are fighting with in the Kapkas
country?' I tell 'em, 'The Cherkés here with us is not of one sort,
but of different sorts. Some are like the mountaineers who live on the
rocky mountain-tops, and eat stones instead of bread. The biggest of
them,' I say, 'are exactly like big logs, with one eye in the middle
of the forehead, and they wear red caps;' they glow like fire, just as
you do, my dear fellow," he added, addressing a young recruit, who, in
fact, wore an odd little cap with a red crown.
The recruit, at this unexpected sally, suddenly sat down on the ground,
slapped his knees, and burst out laughing and coughing so that he could
hardly command his voice to say, "That's the kind of mountaineers we
have here."
"'And,' says I, 'besides, there are the _mumri,_'" continued Chikin,
jerking his head so that his hat fell forward on his forehead; "'they
go out in pairs, like little twins,--these others. Every thing comes
double with them,' says I,' and they cling hold of each other's hands,
and run so _queek_ that I tell you you couldn't catch up with them on
horseback.'--'Well,' says he, 'these _mumri_ who are so small as you
say, I suppose they are born hand in hand?'" said Chikin, endeavoring
to imitate the deep throaty voice of the peasant. "'Yes,' says I, 'my
dear man, they are so by nature. You try to pull their hands apart,
and it makes 'em bleed, just as with the Chinese: when you pull their
caps off, the blood comes.'--'But tell us,' says he, 'how they kill any
one.'--'Well, this is the way,' says I: 'they take you, and they rip
you all up, and they reel out your bowels in their hands. They reel 'em
out, and you defy them and defy them--till your soul'" ...
"Well, now, did they believe any thing you said, Chikin?" asked
Maksímof with a slight smile, when those standing round had stopped
laughing.
"And indeed it is a strange people, Feódor Maksímuitch: they believe
every one; before God, they do. But still, when I began to tell them
about Mount Kazbek, and how the snow does not melt all summer there,
they all burst out laughing at the absurdity of it. 'What a story!'
they said. 'Could such a thing be possible,--a mountain so big that the
snow does not melt on it?' And I say, 'With us, when the thaw comes,
there is such a heap; and even after it begins to melt, the snow lies
in the hollows.'--'Go away,'" said Chikin, with a concluding wink.
[Footnote 9: _sikhárki._]
[Footnote 10: _Kaphas_ for _Kavkas,_ Caucasus.]
[Footnote 11: _shchikuláta id'yót na soldátá._]