going to play any more," murmured the captain, still half asleep.
"No, I have not been playing; but I want the money; let me have it,
please."
"Makatiuk!" shouted the captain to his servant, [Footnote: Denshchik.]
"hand me my bag with the money."
"Hush, hush!" said I, hearing Guskof's measured steps near the tent.
"What? Why hush?"
"Because that cashiered fellow has asked to borrow it of me. He's
right there."
"Well, if you knew him, you wouldn't let him have it," remarked the
captain. "I have heard about him. He's a dirty, low-lived fellow."
Nevertheless, the captain gave me the money, ordered his man to put
away the bag, pulled the flap of the tent neatly to, and, again saying,
"If you only knew him, you wouldn't let him have it," drew his head
down under the coverlet. "Now you owe me thirty-two, remember," he
shouted after me.
When I came out of the tent, Guskof was walking near the settees; and
his slight figure, with his crooked legs, his shapeless cap, his long
white hair, kept appearing and disappearing in the darkness, as he
passed in and out of the light of the candles. He made believe not to
see me.
I handed him the money. He said "Merci," and, crumpling the bank-bill,
thrust it into his trousers pocket.
"Now I suppose the game is in full swing at the adjutant's," he began
immediately after this.
"Yes, I suppose so."
"He's a wonderful player, always bold, and never backs out. When he's
in luck, it's fine; but when it does not go well with him, he can lose
frightfully. He has given proof of that. During this expedition, if
you reckon his valuables, he has lost more than fifteen hundred rubles.
But, as he played discreetly before, that officer of yours seemed to
have some doubts about his honor."
"Well, that's because he . . . Nikita, haven't we any of that red
Kavkas wine [Footnote: Chikir] left?" I asked, very much enlivened by
Guskof's conversational talent. Nikita still kept muttering; but he
brought us the red wine, and again looked on angrily as Guskof drained
his glass. In Guskof's behavior was noticeable his old freedom from
constraint. I wished that he would go as soon as possible; it seemed
as if his only reason for not going was because he did not wish to go
immediately after receiving the money. I said nothing.
"How could you, who have means, and were under no necessity, simply de
gaiete de coeur, make up your mind to come and serve in the Caucasus?
That's what I don't understand," said he to me.
I endeavored to explain this act of renunciation, which seemed so
strange to him.
"I can imagine how disagreeable the society of those officers--men
without any comprehension of culture--must be for you. You could not
understand each other. You see, you might live ten years, and not see
anything, and not hear about anything, except cards, wine, and gossip
about rewards and campaigns."
It was unpleasant for me, that he wished me to put myself on a par with
him in his position; and, with absolute honesty, I assured him that I
was very fond of cards and wine, and gossip about campaigns, and that I
did not care to have any better comrades than those with whom I was
associated. But he would not believe me.
"Well, you may say so," he continued; "but the lack of women's
society,--I mean, of course, FEMMES COMME IL FAUT,--is that not a
terrible deprivation? I don't know what I would give now to go into a
parlor, if only for a moment, and to have a look at a pretty woman,
even though it were through a crack."
He said nothing for a little, and drank still another glass of the red
wine.
"Oh, my God, my God! [Footnote: AKH, BOZHE MOI, BOZHE MOI.] If it only
might be our fate to meet again, somewhere in Petersburg, to live and
move among men, among ladies!"
He drank up the dregs of the wine still left in the bottle, and when he
had finished it he said: "AKH! PARDON, maybe you wanted some more. It
was horribly careless of me. However, I suppose I must have taken too
much, and my head isn't very strong. [Footnote: ET JE N'AI PAS LA TETE
FORTE.] There was a time when I lived on Morskaia Street, AU
REZ-DE-CHAUSSEE, and had marvellous apartments, furniture, you know,
and I was able to arrange it all beautifully, not so very expensively
though; my father, to be sure, gave me porcelains, flowers, and
silver--a wonderful lot. Le matin je sortais, visits, 5 heures
regulierement. I used to go and dine with her; often she was alone.
Il faut avouer que c'etait une femme ravissante! You didn't know her
at all, did you?"
"No."
"You see, there was such high degree of womanliness in her, and such
tenderness, and what love! Lord! I did not know how to appreciate my
happiness then. We would return after the theatre, and have a little
supper together. It was never dull where she was, toujours gaie,
toujours aimante. Yes, and I had never imagined what rare happiness it
was. Et j'ai beaucoup a me reprocher in regard to her. Je l'ai fait
souffrir et souvent. I was outrageous. AKH! What a marvellous time
that was! Do I bore you?"
"No, not at all."
"Then I will tell you about our evenings. I used to go--that stairway,
every flower-pot I knew,--the door-handle, all was so lovely, so
familiar; then the vestibule, her room. . . . No, it will never, never
come back to me again! Even now she writes to me: if you will let me,
I will show you her letters. But I am not what I was; I am ruined; I
am no longer worthy of her. . . . Yes, I am ruined for ever. Je suis
casse. There's no energy in me, no pride, nothing--nor even any rank. .
. . [Footnote: Blagorodstva, noble birth, nobility.] Yes, I am ruined;
and no one will ever appreciate my sufferings. Every one is
indifferent. I am a lost man. Never any chance for me to rise, because
I have fallen morally . . . into the mire--I have fallen. . . ."
At this moment there was evident in his words a genuine, deep despair:
he did not look at me, but sat motionless.
"Why are you in such despair?" I asked.
"Because I am abominable. This life has degraded me, all that was in
me, all is crushed out. It is not by pride that I hold out, but by
abjectness: there's no dignite dans le malheur. I am humiliated every
moment; I endure it all; I got myself into this abasement. This mire
has soiled me. I myself have become coarse; I have forgotten what I
used to know; I can't speak French any more; I am conscious that I am
base and low. I cannot tear myself away from these surroundings,
indeed I cannot. I might have been a hero: give me a regiment, gold
epaulets, a trumpeter, but to march in the ranks with some wild Anton
Bondarenko or the like, and feel that between me and him there was no
difference at all--that he might be killed or I might be killed--all
the same, that thought is maddening. You understand how horrible it is
to think that some ragamuffin may kill me, a man who has thoughts and
feelings, and that it would make no difference if alongside of me some
Antonof were killed,--a being not different from an animal--and that it
might easily happen that I and not this Antonof were killed, which is
always UNE FATALITE for every lofty and good man. I know that they
call me a coward: grant that I am a coward, I certainly am a coward,
and can't be anything else. Not only am I a coward, but I am in my way
a low and despicable man. Here I have just been borrowing money of
you, and you have the right to despise me. No, take back your money."
And he held out to me the crumpled bank-bill. "I want you to have a
good opinion of me." He covered his face with his hands, and burst into
tears. I really did not know what to say or do.
"Calm yourself," I said to him. "You are too sensitive; don't take
everything so to heart; don't indulge in self-analysis, look at things
more simply. You yourself say that you have character. Keep up good
heart, you won't have long to wait," I said to him, but not very
consistently, because I was much stirred both by a feeling of sympathy
and a feeling of repentance, because I had allowed myself mentally to
sin in my judgment of a man truly and deeply unhappy.
"Yes," he began, "if I had heard even once, at the time when I was in
that hell, one single word of sympathy, of advice, of friendship--one
humane word such as you have just spoken, perhaps I might have calmly
endured all; perhaps I might have struggled, and been a soldier. But
now this is horrible. . . . When I think soberly, I long for death.
Why should I love my despicable life and my own self, now that I am
ruined for all that is worth while in the world? And at the least
danger, I suddenly, in spite of myself, begin to pray for my miserable
life, and to watch over it as though it were precious, and I cannot, je
ne puis pas, control myself. That is, I could," he continued again
after a minute's silence, "but this is too hard work for me, a
monstrous work, when I am alone. With others, under special
circumstances, when you are going into action, I am brave, j'ai fait
mes epreuves, because I am vain and proud: that is my failing, and in
presence of others. . . . Do you know, let me spend the night with
you: with us, they will play all night long; it makes no difference,
anywhere, on the ground."
While Nikita was making the bed, we got up, and once more began to walk
up and down in the darkness on the battery. Certainly Guskof's head
must have been very weak, because two glasses of liquor and two of wine
made him dizzy. As we got up and moved away from the candles, I
noticed that he again thrust the ten-ruble bill into his pocket, trying
to do so without my seeing it. During all the foregoing conversation,
he had held it in his hand. He continued to reiterate how he felt that
he might regain his old station if he had a man such as I were to take
some interest in him.
We were just going into the tent to go to bed when suddenly a
cannon-ball whistled over us, and buried itself in the ground not far
from us. So strange it was,--that peacefully sleeping camp, our
conversation, and suddenly the hostile cannon-ball which flew from God
knows where, the midst of our tents,--so strange that it was some time
before I could realize what it was. Our sentinel, Andreief, walking up
and down on the battery, moved toward me.
"Ha! he's crept up to us. It was the fire here that he aimed at," said
he.
"We must rouse the captain," said I, and gazed at Guskof.
He stood cowering close to the ground, and stammered, trying to say,
"Th-that's th-the ene-my's . . . f-f-fire--th-that's--hidi--." Further
he could not say a word, and I did not see how and where he disappeared
so instantaneously.
In the captain's tent a candle gleamed; his cough, which always
troubled him when he was awake, was heard; and he himself soon
appeared, asking for a linstock to light his little pipe.
"What does this mean, old man?" [Footnote: Batiushka] he asked with a
smile. "Aren't they willing to give me a little sleep to-night? First
it's you with your cashiered friend, and then it's Shamyl. What shall
we do, answer him or not? There was nothing about this in the
instructions, was there?"
"Nothing at all. There he goes again," said I. "Two of them!"
Indeed, in the darkness, directly in front of us, flashed two fires,
like two eyes; and quickly over our heads flew one cannon-ball and one
heavy shell. It must have been meant for us, coming with a loud and
penetrating hum. From the neighboring tents the soldiers hastened.
You could hear them hawking and talking and stretching themselves.
"Hist! the fuse sings like a nightingale," was the remark of the
artillerist.
"Send for Nikita," said the captain with his perpetually benevolent
smile. "Nikita, don't hide yourself, but listen to the mountain
nightingales."
"Well, your honor," [Footnote: VASHE VUISOKOBLAGORODIE. German,
HOCHWOHLGEBORENER, high, well-born; regulation title of officers from
major to general] said Nikita, who was standing near the captain, "I
have seen them--these nightingales. I am not afraid of 'em; but here
was that stranger who was here, he was drinking up your red wine. When
he heard how that shot dashed by our tents, and the shell rolled by, he
cowered down like some wild beast."
"However, we must send to the commander of the artillery," said the
captain to me, in a serious tone of authority, "and ask whether we
shall reply to the fire or not. It will probably be nothing at all,
but still it may. Have the goodness to go and ask him. Have a horse
saddled. Do it as quickly as possible, even if you take my Polkan."
In five minutes they brought me a horse, and I galloped off to the
commander of the artillery. "Look you, return on foot," whispered the
punctilious captain, "else they won't let you through the lines."
It was half a verst to the artillery commander's, the whole road ran
between the tents. As soon as I rode away from our fire, it became so
black that I could not see even the horse's ears, but only the
watch-fires, now seeming very near, now very far off, as they gleamed
into my eyes. After I had ridden some distance, trusting to the
intelligence of the horse whom I allowed free rein, I began to
distinguish the white four-cornered tents and then the black tracks of
the road. After a half-hour, having asked my way three times, and
twice stumbled over the tent-stakes, causing each time a volley of
curses from the tents, and twice been detained by the sentinels, I
reached the artillery commander's. While I was on the way, I heard two
more cannon shot in the direction of our camp; but the projectiles did
not reach to the place where the headquarters were. The artillery
commander ordered not to reply to the firing, the more as the enemy did
not remain in the same place; and I went back, leading the horse by the
bridle, making my way on foot between the infantry tents. More than
once I delayed my steps, as I went by some soldier's tent where a light
was shining, and some merry-andrew was telling a story; or I listened
to some educated soldier reading from some book while the whole
division overflowed the tent, or hung around it, sometimes interrupting
the reading with various remarks; or I simply listened to the talk
about the expedition, about the fatherland, or about their chiefs.
As I came around one of the tents of the third battalion, I heard
Guskof's rough voice: he was speaking hilariously and rapidly. Young
voices replied to him, not those of soldiers, but of gay gentlemen. It
was evidently the tent of some yunker or sergeant-major. I stopped
short.
"I've known him a long time," Guskof was saying. "When I lived in
Petersburg, he used to come to my house often; and I went to his. He
moved in the best society."
"Whom are you talking about?" asked the drunken voice.
"About the prince," said Guskof. "We were relatives, you see, but,
more than all, we were old friends. It's a mighty good thing, you
know, gentlemen, to have such an acquaintance. You see he's fearfully
rich. To him a hundred silver rubles is a mere bagatelle. Here, I
just got a little money out of him, enough to last me till my sister
sends."
"Let's have some."
"Right away.--Savelitch, my dear," said Guskof, coming to the door of
the tent, "here's ten rubles for you: go to the sutler, get two bottles
of Kakhetinski. Anything else, gentlemen? What do you say?" and
Guskof, with unsteady gait, with dishevelled hair, without his hat,
came out of the tent. Throwing open his jacket, and thrusting his
hands into the pockets of his trousers, he stood at the door of the
tent. Though he was in the light, and I in darkness; I trembled with
fear lest he should see me, and I went on, trying to make no noise.
"Who goes there?" shouted Guskof after me in a thoroughly drunken
voice. Apparently, the cold took hold of him. "Who the devil is going
off with that horse?"
I made no answer, and silently went on my way.
End of Project Gutenberg's Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian, by Various