For two hours after returning home he lay on his bed motionless. Then
he went to his company commander and obtained leave to visit the staff.
Without taking leave of anyone, and sending Vanyúsha to settle his
accounts with his landlord, he prepared to leave for the fort where his
regiment was stationed. Daddy Eróshka was the only one to see him off.
They had a drink, and then a second, and then yet another. Again as on
the night of his departure from Moscow, a three-horsed conveyance stood
waiting at the door. But Olénin did not confer with himself as he had
done then, and did not say to himself that all he had thought and done
here was “not it”. He did not promise himself a new life. He loved
Maryánka more than ever, and knew that he could never be loved by her.
“Well, good-bye, my lad!” said Daddy Eróshka. “When you go on an
expedition, be wise and listen to my words—the words of an old man.
When you are out on a raid or the like (you know I’m an old wolf and
have seen things), and when they begin firing, don’t get into a crowd
where there are many men. When you fellows get frightened you always
try to get close together with a lot of others. You think it is merrier
to be with others, but that’s where it is worst of all! They always aim
at a crowd. Now I used to keep farther away from the others and went
alone, and I’ve never been wounded. Yet what things haven’t I seen in
my day?”
“But you’ve got a bullet in your back,” remarked Vanyúsha, who was
clearing up the room.
“That was the Cossacks fooling about,” answered Eróshka.
“Cossacks? How was that?” asked Olénin.
“Oh, just so. We were drinking. Vánka Sítkin, one of the Cossacks, got
merry, and puff! he gave me one from his pistol just here.”
“Yes, and did it hurt?” asked Olénin. “Vanyúsha, will you soon be
ready?” he added.
“Ah, where’s the hurry! Let me tell you. When he banged into me, the
bullet did not break the bone but remained here. And I say: ‘You’ve
killed me, brother. Eh! What have you done to me? I won’t let you off!
You’ll have to stand me a pailful!’”
“Well, but did it hurt?” Olénin asked again, scarcely listening to the
tale.
“Let me finish. He stood a pailful, and we drank it, but the blood went
on flowing. The whole room was drenched and covered with blood. Grandad
Burlák, he says, ‘The lad will give up the ghost. Stand a bottle of the
sweet sort, or we shall have you taken up!’ They bought more drink, and
boozed and boozed—”
“Yes, but did it hurt you much?” Olénin asked once more.
“Hurt, indeed! Don’t interrupt: I don’t like it. Let me finish. We
boozed and boozed till morning, and I fell asleep on the top of the
oven, drunk. When I woke in the morning I could not unbend myself
anyhow—”
“Was it very painful?” repeated Olénin, thinking that now he would at
last get an answer to his question.
“Did I tell you it was painful? I did not say it was painful, but I
could not bend and could not walk.”
“And then it healed up?” said Olénin, not even laughing, so heavy was
his heart.
“It healed up, but the bullet is still there. Just feel it!” And
lifting his shirt he showed his powerful back, where just near the bone
a bullet could be felt and rolled about.
“Feel how it rolls,” he said, evidently amusing himself with the bullet
as with a toy. “There now, it has rolled to the back.”
“And Lukáshka, will he recover?” asked Olénin.
“Heaven only knows! There’s no doctor. They’ve gone for one.”
“Where will they get one? From Gróznoe?” asked Olénin.
“No, my lad. Were I the Tsar I’d have hung all your Russian doctors
long ago. Cutting is all they know! There’s our Cossack Bakláshka, no
longer a real man now that they’ve cut off his leg! That shows they’re
fools. What’s Bakláshka good for now? No, my lad, in the mountains
there are real doctors. There was my chum, Vórchik, he was on an
expedition and was wounded just here in the chest. Well, your doctors
gave him up, but one of theirs came from the mountains and cured him!
They understand herbs, my lad!”
“Come, stop talking rubbish,” said Olénin. “I’d better send a doctor
from head-quarters.”
“Rubbish!” the old man said mockingly. “Fool, fool! Rubbish. You’ll
send a doctor!—If yours cured people, Cossacks and Chéchens would go to
you for treatment, but as it is your officers and colonels send to the
mountains for doctors. Yours are all humbugs, all humbugs.”
Olénin did not answer. He agreed only too fully that all was humbug in
the world in which he had lived and to which he was now returning.
“How is Lukáshka? You’ve been to see him?” he asked.
“He just lies as if he were dead. He does not eat nor drink. Vodka is
the only thing his soul accepts. But as long as he drinks vodka it’s
well. I’d be sorry to lose the lad. A fine lad—a brave, like me. I too
lay dying like that once. The old women were already wailing. My head
was burning. They had already laid me out under the holy icons. So I
lay there, and above me on the oven little drummers, no bigger than
this, beat the tattoo. I shout at them and they drum all the harder.”
(The old man laughed.) “The women brought our church elder. They were
getting ready to bury me. They said, ‘He defiled himself with worldly
unbelievers; he made merry with women; he ruined people; he did not
fast, and he played the _balaláyka_. Confess,’ they said. So I began to
confess. ‘I’ve sinned!’ I said. Whatever the priest said, I always
answered ‘I’ve sinned.’ He began to ask me about the _balaláyka_.
‘Where is the accursed thing,’ he says. ‘Show it me and smash it.’ But
I say, ‘I’ve not got it.’ I’d hidden it myself in a net in the
outhouse. I knew they could not find it. So they left me. Yet after all
I recovered. When I went for my _balaláyka_—What was I saying?” he
continued. “Listen to me, and keep farther away from the other men or
you’ll get killed foolishly. I feel for you, truly: you are a drinker—I
love you! And fellows like you like riding up the mounds. There was one
who lived here who had come from Russia, he always would ride up the
mounds (he called the mounds so funnily, ‘hillocks’). Whenever he saw a
mound, off he’d gallop. Once he galloped off that way and rode to the
top quite pleased, but a Chéchen fired at him and killed him! Ah, how
well they shoot from their gun-rests, those Chéchens! Some of them
shoot even better than I do. I don’t like it when a fellow gets killed
so foolishly! Sometimes I used to look at your soldiers and wonder at
them. There’s foolishness for you! They go, the poor fellows, all in a
clump, and even sew red collars to their coats! How can they help being
hit! One gets killed, they drag him away and another takes his place!
What foolishness!” the old man repeated, shaking his head. “Why not
scatter, and go one by one? So you just go like that and they won’t
notice you. That’s what you must do.”
“Well, thank you! Good-bye, Daddy. God willing we may meet again,” said
Olénin, getting up and moving towards the passage.
The old man, who was sitting on the floor, did not rise.
“Is that the way one says ‘Good-bye’? Fool, fool!” he began. “Oh dear,
what has come to people? We’ve kept company, kept company for well-nigh
a year, and now ‘Good-bye!’ and off he goes! Why, I love you, and how I
pity you! You are so forlorn, always alone, always alone. You’re
somehow so unsociable. At times I can’t sleep for thinking about you. I
am so sorry for you. As the song has it:
It is very hard, dear brother,
In a foreign land to live.
So it is with you.”
“Well, good-bye,” said Olénin again.
The old man rose and held out his hand. Olénin pressed it and turned to
go.
“Give us your mug, your mug!”
And the old man took Olénin by the head with both hands and kissed him
three times with wet moustaches and lips, and began to cry.
“I love you, good-bye!”
Olénin got into the cart.
“Well, is that how you’re going? You might give me something for a
remembrance. Give me a gun! What do you want two for?” said the old
man, sobbing quite sincerely.
Olénin got out a musket and gave it to him.
“What a lot you’ve given the old fellow,” murmured Vanyúsha, “he’ll
never have enough! A regular old beggar. They are all such irregular
people,” he remarked, as he wrapped himself in his overcoat and took
his seat on the box.
“Hold your tongue, swine!” exclaimed the old man, laughing. “What a
stingy fellow!”
Maryánka came out of the cowshed, glanced indifferently at the cart,
bowed and went towards the hut.
“_La fille!_” said Vanyúsha, with a wink, and burst out into a silly
laugh.
“Drive on!” shouted Olénin, angrily.
“Good-bye, my lad! Good-bye. I won’t forget you!” shouted Eróshka.
Olénin turned round. Daddy Eróshka was talking to Maryánka, evidently
about his own affairs, and neither the old man nor the girl looked at
Olénin.