In summer we go out early into the yard, which is very wide and covered
with thick grass.
It smells delightfully, the sun warms us through, it feels so pleasant.
The breeze blows from the fields, I open my mouth and swallow the
freshness, and however much I swallow, it's not enough, I should like to
take in all the air there is. Then, perhaps, I should cough less, and
grow a little stronger.
We throw off the old uniforms, and remain in our shirts, we run and leap
and go through all sorts of performances with our hands and feet, and
it's splendid! At home I never had so much as an idea of such fun.
At first I was very much afraid of jumping across the ditch, but I
resolved once and for all--I've _got_ to jump it. If the worst comes to
the worst, I shall fall and bruise myself. Suppose I do? What then? Why
do all the others jump it and don't care? One needn't be so very strong
to jump!
And one day, before the gymnastics had begun, I left my comrades, took
heart and a long run, and when I came to the ditch, I made a great
bound, and, lo and behold, I was over on the other side! I couldn't
believe my own eyes that I had done it so easily.
Ever since then I have jumped across ditches, and over mounds, and down
from mounds, as well as any of them.
Only when it comes to climbing a ladder or swinging myself over a high
bar, I know it spells misfortune for me.
I spring forward, and seize the first rung with my right hand, but I
cannot reach the second with my left.
I stretch myself, and kick out with my feet, but I cannot reach any
higher, not by so much as a vershok, and so there I hang and kick with
my feet, till my right arm begins to tremble and hurt me. My head goes
round, and I fall onto the grass. The corporal abuses me as usual, and
the soldiers laugh.
I would give ten years of my life to be able to get higher, if only
three or four rungs, but what can I do, if my arms won't serve me?
Sometimes I go out to the ladder by myself, while the soldiers are still
asleep, and stand and look at it: perhaps I can think of a way to
manage? But in vain. Thinking, you see, doesn't help you in these cases.
Sometimes they tell one of the soldiers to stand in the middle of the
yard with his back to us, and we have to hop over him. He bends down a
little, lowers his head, rests his hands on his knees, and we hop over
him one at a time. One takes a good run, and when one comes to him, one
places both hands on his shoulders, raises oneself into the air,
and--over!
I know exactly how it ought to be done; I take the run all right, and
plant my hands on his shoulders, only I can't raise myself into the air.
And if I do lift myself up a little way, I remain sitting on the
soldier's neck, and were it not for his seizing me by the feet, I should
fall, and perhaps kill myself.
Then the corporal and another soldier take hold of me by the arms and
legs, and throw me over the man's head, so that I may see there is
nothing dreadful about it, as though I did not jump right over him
because I was afraid, while it is that my arms are so weak, I cannot
lean upon them and raise myself into the air.
But when I say so, they only laugh, and don't believe me. They say, "It
won't help you; you will have to serve anyhow!"
* * * * *
When, on the other hand, it comes to "theory," the corporal is very
pleased with me.
He says that except himself no one knows "theory" as I do.
He never questions me now, only when one of the others doesn't know
something, he turns to me:
"Well, Blumin, _you_ tell me!"
I stand up without hurrying, and am about to answer, but he is
apparently not pleased with my way of rising from my seat, and orders me
to sit down again.
"When your superior speaks to you," says he, "you ought to jump up as
though the seat were hot," and he looks at me angrily, as much as to
say, "You may know theory, but you'll please to know your manners as
well, and treat me with proper respect."
"Stand up again and answer!"
I start up as though I felt a prick from a needle, and answer the
question as he likes it done: smartly, all in one breath, and word for
word according to the book.
He, meanwhile, looks at the primer, to make sure I am not leaving
anything out, but as he reads very slowly, he cannot catch me up, and
when I have got to the end, he is still following with his finger and
reading. And when he has finished, he gives me a pleased look, and says
enthusiastically "Right!" and tells me to sit down again.
"Theory," he says, "that you _do_ know!"
Well, begging his pardon, it isn't much to know. And yet there are
soldiers who are four years over it, and don't know it then. For
instance, take my comrade Ossadtchok; he says that, when it comes to
"theory", he would rather go and hang or drown himself. He says, he
would rather have to carry three pails of water than sit down to
"theory."
I tell him, that if he would learn to read, he could study the whole
thing by himself in a week; but he won't listen.
"Nobody," he says, "will ever ask _my_ advice."
One thing always alarmed me very much: However was I to take part in the
manoeuvres?
I cannot lift a single pud (I myself only weigh two pud and thirty
pounds), and if I walk three versts, my feet hurt, and my heart beats so
violently that I think it's going to burst my side.
At the manoeuvres I should have to carry as much as fifty pounds'
weight, and perhaps more: a rifle, a cloak, a knapsack with linen,
boots, a uniform, a tent, bread, and onions, and a few other little
things, and should have to walk perhaps thirty to forty versts a day.
But when the day and the hour arrived, and the command was given
"Forward, march!" when the band struck up, and two thousand men set
their feet in motion, something seemed to draw me forward, and I went.
At the beginning I found it hard, I felt weighted to the earth, my left
shoulder hurt me so, I nearly fainted. But afterwards I got very hot, I
began to breathe rapidly and deeply, my eyes were starting out of my
head like two cupping-glasses, and I not only walked, I ran, so as not
to fall behind--and so I ended by marching along with the rest, forty
versts a day.
Only I did not sing on the march like the others. First, because I did
not feel so very cheerful, and second, because I could not breathe
properly, let alone sing.
At times I felt burning hot, but immediately afterwards I would grow
light, and the marching was easy, I seemed to be carried along rather
than to tread the earth, and it appeared to me as though another were
marching in my place, only that my left shoulder ached, and I was hot.
I remember that once it rained a whole night long, it came down like a
deluge, our tents were soaked through, and grew heavy. The mud was
thick. At three o'clock in the morning an alarm was sounded, we were
ordered to fold up our tents and take to the road again. So off we went.
It was dark and slippery. It poured with rain. I was continually
stepping into a puddle, and getting my boot full of water. I shivered
and shook, and my teeth chattered with cold. That is, I was cold one
minute and hot the next. But the marching was no difficulty to me, I
scarcely felt that I was on the march, and thought very little about it.
Indeed, I don't know what I _was_ thinking about, my mind was a blank.
We marched, turned back, and marched again. Then we halted for half an
hour, and turned back again.
And this went on a whole night and a whole day.
Then it turned out that there had been a mistake: it was not we who
ought to have marched, but another regiment, and we ought not to have
moved from the spot. But there was no help for it then.
It was night. We had eaten nothing all day. The rain poured down, the
mud was ankle-deep, there was no straw on which to pitch our tents, but
we managed somehow. And so the days passed, each like the other. But I
got through the manoeuvres, and was none the worse.
Now I am already an old soldier; I have hardly another year and a half
to serve--about sixteen months. I only hope I shall not be ill. It seems
I got a bit of a chill at the manoeuvres, I cough every morning, and
sometimes I suffer with my feet. I shiver a little at night till I get
warm, and then I am very hot, and I feel very comfortable lying abed.
But I shall probably soon be all right again.
They say, one may take a rest in the hospital, but I haven't been there
yet, and don't want to go at all, especially now I am feeling better.
The soldiers are sorry for me, and sometimes they do my work, but not
just for love. I get three pounds of bread a day, and don't eat more
than one pound. The rest I give to my comrade Ossadtchok. He eats it
all, and his own as well, and then he could do with some more. In return
for this he often cleans my rifle, and sometimes does other work for me,
when he sees I have no strength left.
I am also teaching him and a few other soldiers to read and write, and
they are very pleased.
My corporal also comes to me to be taught, but he never gives me a word
of thanks.
The superior of the platoon, when he isn't drunk, and is in good humor,
says "you" to me instead of "thou," and sometimes invites me to share
his bed--I can breathe easier there, because there is more air, and I
don't cough so much, either.
Only it sometimes happens that he comes back from town tipsy, and makes
a great to-do: How do I, a common soldier, come to be sitting on his
bed?
He orders me to get up and stand before him "at attention," and declares
he will "have me up" for it.
When, however, he has sobered down, he turns kind again, and calls me to
him; he likes me to tell him "stories" out of books.
Sometimes the orderly calls me into the orderly-room, and gives me a
report to draw up, or else a list or a calculation to make. He himself
writes badly, and is very poor at figures.
I do everything he wants, and he is very glad of my help, only it
wouldn't do for him to confess to it, and when I have finished, he
always says to me:
"If the commanding officer is not satisfied, he will send you to fetch
water."
I know it isn't true, first, because the commanding officer mustn't know
that I write in the orderly-room, a Jew can't be an army secretary;
secondly, because he is certain to be satisfied: he once gave me a note
to write himself, and was very pleased with it.
"If you were not a Jew," he said to me then, "I should make a corporal
of you."
Still, my corporal always repeats his threat about the water, so that I
may preserve a proper respect for him, although I not only respect him,
I tremble before his size. When _he_ comes back tipsy from town, and
finds me in the orderly-room, he commands me to drag his muddy boots off
his feet, and I obey him and drag off his boots.
Sometimes I don't care, and other times it hurts my feelings.