“Well, how are things? Have you already got settled among us?” Kraut
asked Volodya.... “Excuse me, what is your name and patronymic? that's
the custom with us in the artillery, you know. Have you got hold of a
saddle-horse?”
“No,” said Volodya; “I do not know what to do. I told the captain that
I had no horse, and no money, either, until I get some for forage and
travelling expenses. I want to ask the battery commander for a horse in
the meantime, but I am afraid that he will refuse me.”
“Apollon Sergiéitch, do you mean?” he produced with his lips a sound
indicative of the strongest doubt, and glanced at the captain; “not
likely.”
“What's that? If he does refuse, there'll be no harm done,” said the
captain. “There are horses, to tell the truth, which are not needed,
but still one might try; I will inquire to-day.”
“What! Don't you know him?” Dyadenko interpolated. “He might refuse
anything, but there is no reason for refusing this. Do you want to bet
on it?...”
“Well, of course, everybody knows already that you always contradict.”
“I contradict because I know. He is niggardly about other things, but
he will give the horse because it is no advantage to him to refuse.”
“No advantage, indeed, when it costs him eight rubles here for oats!”
said Kraut. “Is there no advantage in not keeping an extra horse?”
“Ask Skvoretz yourself, Vladímir Semyónitch!” said Vlang, returning
with Kraut's pipe. “It's a capital horse.”
“The one you tumbled into the ditch with, on the festival of the forty
martyrs, in March? Hey! Vlang?” remarked the staff-captain.
“No, and why should you say that it costs eight rubles for oats,”
pursued Dyadenko, “when his own inquiries show him that it is ten and a
half; of course, he has no object in it.”
“Just as though he would have nothing left! So when you get to be
battery commander, you won't let any horses go into the town?”
“When I get to be battery commander, my dear fellow, my horses will get
four measures of oats to eat, and I shall not accumulate an income,
never fear!”
“If we live, we shall see,” said the staff-captain; “and you will act
just so, and so will he when he commands a battery,” he added, pointing
at Volodya.
“Why do you think, Friedrich Krestyanitch, that he would turn it to his
profit?” broke in Tchernovitzky. “Perhaps he has property of his own;
then why should he turn it to profit?”
“No, sir, I ... excuse me, captain,” said Volodya, reddening up to his
ears, “that strikes me as insulting.”
“Oh ho, ho! What a madcap he is!” said Kraut.
“That has nothing to do with it; I only think that if the money were
not mine, I should not take it.”
“Now, I'll tell you something right here, young man,” began the
staff-captain in a more serious tone, “you are to understand that when
you command a battery, if you manage things well, that's sufficient;
the commander of a battery does not meddle with provisioning the
soldiers; that is the way it has been from time immemorial in the
artillery. If you are a bad manager, you will have nothing left. Now,
these are the expenditures in conformity with your position: for
shoeing your horse,—one (he closed one finger); for the apothecary,—two
(he closed another finger); for office work,—three (he shut a
third); for extra horses, which cost five hundred rubles, my dear
fellow,—that's four; you must change the soldiers' collars, you will
use a great deal of coal, you must keep open table for your officers.
If you are a battery-commander, you must live decently; you need a
carriage, and a fur coat, and this thing and that thing, and a dozen
more ... but what's the use of enumerating them all!”
“But this is the principal thing, Vladímir Semyónitch,” interpolated
the captain, who had held his peace all this time; “imagine yourself to
be a man who, like myself, for instance, has served twenty years, first
for two hundred, then for three hundred rubles pay; why should he not
be given at least a bit of bread, against his old age?”
“Eh! yes, there you have it!” spoke up the staff-captain again, “don't
be in a hurry to pronounce judgment, but live on and serve your time.”
Volodya was horribly ashamed and sorry for having spoken so
thoughtlessly, and he muttered something and continued to listen in
silence, when Dyadenko undertook, with the greatest zeal, to dispute it
and to prove the contrary.
The dispute was interrupted by the arrival of the colonel's servant,
who summoned them to dinner.
“Tell Apollon Sergiéitch that he must give us some wine to-day,” said
Tchernovitzky, to the captain, as he buttoned up his uniform.—“Why is
he so stingy with it? He will be killed, and no one will get the good
of it.”
“Tell him yourself.”
“Not a bit of it. You are my superior officer. Rank must be regarded in
all things.”