Book: Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian

V >> Various >> Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian







Our division had been out in the field. The work in hand was
accomplished: we had cut a way through the forest, and each day we were
expecting from headquarters orders for our return to the fort. Our
division of fieldpieces was stationed at the top of a steep mountain-
crest which was terminated by the swift mountain-river Mechik, and had
to command the plain that stretched before us. Here and there on this
picturesque plain, out of the reach of gunshot, now and then, especially
at evening, groups of mounted mountaineers showed themselves, attracted
by curiosity to ride up and view the Russian camp.

The evening was clear, mild, and fresh, as it is apt to be in December
in the Caucasus; the sun was setting behind the steep chain of the
mountains at the left, and threw rosy rays upon the tents scattered over
the slope, upon the soldiers moving about, and upon our two guns, which
seemed to crane their necks as they rested motionless on the earthwork
two paces from us. The infantry picket, stationed on the knoll at the
left, stood in perfect silhouette against the light of the sunset; no
less distinct were the stacks of muskets, the form of the sentry, the
groups of soldiers, and the smoke of the smouldering camp-fire.

At the right and left of the slope, on the black, sodden earth, the
tents gleamed white; and behind the tents, black, stood the bare trunks
of the platane forest, which rang with the incessant sound of axes, the
crackling of the bonfires, and the crashing of the trees as they fell
under the axes. The bluish smoke arose from tobacco-pipes on all sides,
and vanished in the transparent blue of the frosty sky. By the tents and
on the lower ground around the arms rushed the Cossacks, dragoons, and
artillerists, with great galloping and snorting of horses as they
returned from getting water. It began to freeze; all sounds were heard
with extraordinary distinctness, and one could see an immense distance
across the plain through the clear, rare atmosphere. The groups of the
enemy, their curiosity at seeing the soldiers satisfied, quietly
galloped off across the fields, still yellow with the golden corn-
stubble, toward their auls, or villages, which were visible beyond the
forest, with the tall posts of the cemeteries and the smoke rising in
the air.

Our tent was pitched not far from the guns on a place high and dry, from
which we had a remarkably extended view. Near the tent, on a cleared
space, around the battery itself, we had our games of skittles, or
chushki. The obliging soldiers had made for us rustic benches and
tables. On account of all these amusements, the artillery officers, our
comrades, and a few infantry men liked to gather of an evening around
our battery, and the place came to be called the club.

As the evening was fine, the best players had come, and we were amusing
ourselves with skittles [Footnote: Gorodki]. Ensign D., Lieutenant O.,
and myself had played two games in succession; and to the common
satisfaction and amusement of all the spectators, officers, soldiers,
and servants [Footnote: Denshchiki ] who were watching us from their
tents, we had twice carried the winning party on our backs from one end
of the ground to the other. Especially droll was the situation of the
huge fat Captain S., who, puffing and smiling good-naturedly, with legs
dragging on the ground, rode pickaback on the feeble little Lieutenant
O.

When it grew somewhat later, the servants brought three glasses of tea
for the six men of us, and not a spoon; and we who had finished our game
came to the plaited settees.

There was standing near them a small bow-legged man, a stranger to us,
in a sheepskin jacket, and a papakha, or Circassian cap, with a long
overhanging white crown. As soon as we came near where he stood, he took
a few irresolute steps, and put on his cap; and several times he seemed
to make up his mind to come to meet us, and then stopped again. But
after deciding, probably, that it was impossible to remain irresolute,
the stranger took off his cap, and, going in a circuit around us,
approached Captain S.

"Ah, Guskantinli, how is it, old man?" [Footnote: Nu chto, batenka,]
said S., still smiling good-naturedly, under the influence of his ride.

Guskantni, as S. called him, instantly replaced his cap, and made a
motion as though to thrust his hands into the pockets of his jacket;
[Footnote: Polushubok, little half shuba, or fur cloak.] but on the side
toward me there was no pocket in the jacket, and his small red hand fell
into an awkward position. I felt a strong desire to make out who this
man was (was he a yunker, or a degraded officer?), and, not realizing
that my gaze (that is, the gaze of a strange officer) disconcerted him,
I continued to stare at his dress and appearance.

I judged that he was about thirty. His small, round, gray eyes had a
sleepy expression, and at the same time gazed calmly out from under the
dirty white lambskin of his cap, which hung down over his face. His
thick, irregular nose, standing out between his sunken cheeks, gave
evidence of emaciation that was the result of illness, and not natural.
His restless lips, barely covered by a sparse, soft, whitish moustache,
were constantly changing their shape as though they were trying to
assume now one expression, now another. But all these expressions seemed
to be endless, and his face retained one predominating expression of
timidity and fright. Around his thin neck, where the veins stood out,
was tied a green woollen scarf tucked into his jacket, his fur jacket,
or polushubok, was worn bare, short, and had dog-fur sewed on the collar
and on the false pockets. The trousers were checkered, of ash-gray
color, and his sapogi had short, unblacked military bootlegs.

"I beg of you, do not disturb yourself," said I when he for the second
time, timidly glancing at me, had taken off his cap.

He bowed to me with an expression of gratitude, replaced his hat, and,
drawing from his pocket a dirty chintz tobacco-pouch with lacings, began
to roll a cigarette.

I myself had not been long a yunker, an elderly yunker; and as I was
incapable, as yet, of being good-naturedly serviceable to my younger
comrades, and without means, I well knew all the moral difficulties of
this situation for a proud man no longer young, and I sympathized with
all men who found themselves in such a situation, and I endeavored to
make clear to myself their character and rank, and the tendencies of
their intellectual peculiarities, in order to judge of the degree of
their moral sufferings. This yunker or degraded officer, judging by his
restless eyes and that intentionally constant variation of expression
which I noticed in him, was a man very far from stupid, and extremely
egotistical, and therefore much to be pitied.

Captain S. invited us to play another game of skittles, with the stakes
to consist, not only of the usual pickaback ride of the winning party,
but also of a few bottles of red wine, rum, sugar, cinnamon, and cloves
for the mulled wine which that winter, on account of the cold, was
greatly popular in our division.

Guskantini, as S. again called him, was also invited to take part; but
before the game began, the man, struggling between gratification because
he had been invited and a certain timidity, drew Captain S. aside, and
began to say something in a whisper. The good-natured captain punched
him in the ribs with his big, fat hand, and replied, loud enough to be
heard:

"Not at all, old fellow [Footnote: Batenka, Malo-Russian diminutive,
little father], I assure you."

When the game was over, and that side in which the stranger whose rank
was so low had taken part, had come out winners, and it fell to his lot
to ride on one of our officers, Ensign D., the ensign grew red in the
face: he went to the little divan and offered the stranger a cigarette
by way of a compromise.

While they were ordering the mulled wine, and in the steward's tent were
heard assiduous preparations on the part of Nikita, who had sent an
orderly for cinnamon and cloves, and the shadow of his back was
alternately lengthening and shortening on the dingy sides of the tent,
we men, seven in all, sat around on the benches; and while we took turns
in drinking tea from the three glasses, and gazed out over the plain,
which was now beginning to glow in the twilight, we talked and laughed
over the various incidents of the game.

The stranger in the fur jacket took no share in the conversation,
obstinately refused to drink the tea which I several times offered him,
and as he sat there on the ground in Tartar fashion, occupied himself in
making cigarettes of fine-cut tobacco, and smoking them one after
another, evidently not so much for his own satisfaction as to give
himself the appearance of a man with something to do. When it was
remarked that the summons to return was expected on the morrow, and that
there might be an engagement, he lifted himself on his knees, and,
addressing Captain B. only, said that he had been at the adjutant's, and
had himself written the order for the return on the next day. We all
said nothing while he was speaking; and notwithstanding the fact that he
was so bashful, we begged him to repeat this most interesting piece of
news. He repeated what he had said, adding only that he had been
staying at the adjutant's (since he made it his home there) when the
order came.

"Look here, old fellow, if you are not telling us false, I shall have to
go to my company and give some orders for to-morrow," said Captain S.

"No . . . why . . . it may be, I am sure," . . . stammered the stranger,
but suddenly stopped, and, apparently feeling himself affronted, contracted
his brows, and, muttering something between his teeth, again began to
roll a cigarette. But the fine-cut tobacco in his chintz pouch began to
show signs of giving out, and he asked S. to lend him a little
cigarette. [Footnote: PAPIROSTCHKA, diminished diminutive of PAPIROSKA,
from PAPIROS.]

We kept on for a considerable time with that monotonous military chatter
which every one who has ever been on an expedition will appreciate; all
of us, with one and the same expression, complaining of the dullness and
length of the expedition, in one and the same fashion sitting in
judgment on our superiors, and all of us likewise, as we had done many
times before, praising one comrade, pitying another, wondering how much
this one had gained, how much that one had lost, and so on, and so on.

"Here, fellows, this adjutant of ours is completely broken up," said
Captain S. "At headquarters he was everlastingly on the winning side; no
matter whom he sat down with, he'd rake in everything: but now for two
months past he has been losing all the time. The present expedition
hasn't been lucky for him. I think he has got away with two thousand
silver rubles and five hundred rubles' worth of articles,--the carpet
that he won at Mukhin's, Nikitin's pistols, Sada's gold watch which
Vorontsof gave him. He has lost it all."

"The truth of the matter in his case," said Lieutenant O., "was that he
used to cheat everybody; it was impossible to play with him."

"He cheated every one, but now it's all gone up in his pipe;" and here
Captain S. laughed good-naturedly. "Our friend Guskof here lives with
him. He hasn't quite lost HIM yet: that's so, isn't it, old fellow?"
[Footnote: Batenka] he asked, addressing Guskof.

Guskof tried to laugh. It was a melancholy, sickly laugh, which
completely changed the expression of his countenance. Till this moment
it had seemed to me that I had seen and known this man before; and,
besides the name Guskof, by which Captain S. called him, was familiar to
me; but how and when I had seen and known him, I actually could not
remember.

"Yes," said Guskof, incessantly putting his hand to his moustaches, but
instantly dropping it again without touching them. "Pavel Dmitrievitch's
luck has been against him in this expedition, such a veine de malheur"
he added in a careful but pure French pronunciation, again giving me to
think that I had seen him, and seen him often, somewhere. "I know Pavel
Dmitrievitch very well. He has great confidence in me," he proceeded to
say; "he and I are old friends; that is, he is fond of me," he
explained, evidently fearing that it might be taken as presumption for
him to claim old friendship with the adjutant. "Pavel Dmitrievitch plays
admirably; but now, strange as it may seem, it's all up with him, he is
just about perfectly ruined; la chance a tourne," he added, addressing
himself particularly to me.

At first we had listened to Guskof with condescending attention; but as
soon as he made use of that second French phrase, we all involuntarily
turned from him.

"I have played with him a thousand times, and we agreed then that it was
strange," said Lieutenant O., with peculiar emphasis on the word STRANGE
[Footnote: Stranno]. "I never once won a ruble from him. Why was it,
when I used to win of others?"

"Pavel Dmitrievitch plays admirably: I have known him for a long time,"
said I. In fact, I had known the adjutant for several years; more than
once I had seen him in the full swing of a game, surrounded by officers,
and I had remarked his handsome, rather gloomy and always passionless
calm face, his deliberate Malo-Russian pronunciation, his handsome
belongings and horses, his bold, manly figure, and above all his skill
and self-restraint in carrying on the game accurately and agreeably.
More than once, I am sorry to say, as I looked at his plump white hands
with a diamond ring on the index-finger, passing out one card after
another, I grew angry with that ring, with his white hands, with the
whole of the adjutant's person, and evil thoughts on his account arose
in my mind. But as I afterwards reconsidered the matter coolly, I
persuaded myself that he played more skilfully than all with whom he
happened to play: the more so, because as I heard his general
observations concerning the game,--how one ought not to back out when
one had laid the smallest stake, how one ought not to leave off in
certain cases as the first rule for honest men, and so forth, and so
forth,--it was evident that he was always on the winning side merely
from the fact that he played more sagaciously and coolly than the rest
of us. And now it seemed that this self-reliant, careful player had been
stripped not only of his money but of his effects, which marks the
lowest depths of loss for an officer.

"He always had devilish good luck with me," said Lieutenant O. "I made a
vow never to play with him again."

"What a marvel you are, old fellow!" said S., nodding at me, and
addressing O. "You lost three hundred silver rubles, that's what you
lost to him."

"More than that," said the lieutenant savagely.

"And now you have come to your senses; it is rather late in the day, old
man, for the rest of us have known for a long time that he was the cheat
of the regiment," said S., with difficulty restraining his laughter, and
feeling very well satisfied with his fabrication. "Here is Guskof right
here,--he FIXES his cards for him. That's the reason of the friendship
between them, old man" [Footnote: BATENKA MOI] . . . and Captain S.,
shaking all over, burst out into such a hearty "ha, ha, ha!" that he
spilt the glass of mulled wine which he was holding in his hand. On
Guskof's pale emaciated face there showed something like a color; he
opened his mouth several times, raised his hands to his moustaches, and
once more dropped them to his side where the pockets should have been,
stood up, and then sat down again, and finally in an unnatural voice
said to S.:

"It's no joke, Nikolai Ivanovitch, for you to say such things before
people who don't know me and who see me in this unlined jacket . . .
because--" His voice failed him, and again his small red hands with
their dirty nails went from his jacket to his face, touching his
moustache, his hair, his nose, rubbing his eyes, or needlessly
scratching his cheek.

"As to saying that, everybody knows it, old fellow," continued S.,
thoroughly satisfied with his jest, and not heeding Guskof's complaint.
Guskof was still trying to say something; and placing the palm of his
right hand on his left knee in a most unnatural position, and gazing at
S., he had an appearance of smiling contemptuously.

"No," said I to myself, as I noticed that smile of his, "I have not only
seen him, but have spoken with him somewhere."

"You and I have met somewhere," said I to him when, under the influence
of the common silence, S.'s laughter began to calm down. Guskof's mobile
face suddenly lighted up, and his eyes, for the first time with a truly
joyous expression, rested upon me.

"Why, I recognized you immediately," he replied in French. "In '48 I had
the pleasure of meeting you quite frequently in Moscow at my sister's."

I had to apologize for not recognizing him at first in that costume and
in that new garb. He arose, came to me, and with his moist hand
irresolutely and weakly seized my hand, and sat down by me. Instead of
looking at me, though he apparently seemed so glad to see me, he gazed
with an expression of unfriendly bravado at the officers.

Either because I recognized in him a man whom I had met a few years
before in a dresscoat in a parlor, or because he was suddenly raised in
his own opinion by the fact of being recognized,--at all events it
seemed to me that his face and even his motions completely changed: they
now expressed lively intelligence, a childish self-satisfaction in the
consciousness of such intelligence, and a certain contemptuous
indifference; so that I confess, notwithstanding the pitiable position
in which he found himself, my old acquaintance did not so much excite
sympathy in me as it did a sort of unfavorable sentiment.

I now vividly remembered our first meeting. In 1848, while I was staying
at Moscow, I frequently went to the house of Ivashin, who from childhood
had been an old friend of mine. His wife was an agreeable hostess, a
charming woman, as everybody said; but she never pleased me. . . . The
winter that I knew her, she often spoke with hardly concealed pride of
her brother, who had shortly before completed his course, and promised
to be one of the most fashionable and popular young men in the best
society of Petersburg. As I knew by reputation the father of the
Guskofs, who was very rich and had a distinguished position, and as I
knew also the sister's ways, I felt some prejudice against meeting the
young man. One evening when I was at Ivashin's, I saw a short,
thoroughly pleasant-looking young man, in a black coat, white vest and
necktie. My host hastened to make me acquainted with him. The young man,
evidently dressed for a ball, with his cap in his hand, was standing
before Ivashin, and was eagerly but politely arguing with him about a
common friend of ours, who had distinguished himself at the time of the
Hungarian campaign. He said that this acquaintance was not at all a hero
or a man born for war, as was said of him, but was simply a clever and
cultivated man. I recollect, I took part in the argument against Guskof,
and went to the extreme of declaring also that intellect and cultivation
always bore an inverse relation to bravery; and I recollect how Guskof
pleasantly and cleverly pointed out to me that bravery was necessarily
the result of intellect and a decided degree of development,--a
statement which I, who considered myself an intellectual and cultivated
man, could not in my heart of hearts agree with.

I recollect that towards the close of our conversation Madame Ivashina
introduced me to her brother; and he, with a condescending smile,
offered me his little hand on which he had not yet had time to draw his
kid gloves, and weakly and irresolutely pressed my hand as he did now.
Though I had been prejudiced against Guskof, I could not help granting
that he was in the right, and agreeing with his sister that he was
really a clever and agreeable young man, who ought to have great success
in society. He was extraordinarily neat, beautifully dressed, and fresh,
and had affectedly modest manners, and a thoroughly youthful, almost
childish appearance, on account of which you could not help excusing his
expression of self-sufficiency, though it modified the impression of his
high-mightiness caused by his intellectual face and especially his
smile. It is said that he had great success that winter with the high-
born ladies of Moscow. As I saw him at his sister's I could only infer
how far this was true by the feeling of pleasure and contentment
constantly excited in me by his youthful appearance and by his sometimes
indiscreet anecdotes. He and I met half a dozen times, and talked a good
deal; or, rather, he talked a good deal, and I listened. He spoke for
the most part in French, always with a good accent, very fluently and
ornately; and he had the skill of drawing others gently and politely
into the conversation. As a general thing, he behaved toward all, and
toward me, in a somewhat supercilious manner, and I felt that he was
perfectly right in this way of treating people. I always feel that way
in regard to men who are firmly convinced that they ought to treat me
superciliously, and who are comparative strangers to me.

Now, as he sat with me, and gave me his hand, I keenly recalled in him
that same old haughtiness of expression; and it seemed to me that he did
not properly appreciate his position of official inferiority, as, in the
presence of the officers, he asked me what I had been doing in all that
time, and how I happened to be there. In spite of the fact that I
invariably made my replies in Russian, he kept putting his questions in
French, expressing himself as before in remarkably correct language.
About himself he said fluently that after his unhappy, wretched story
(what the story was, I did not know, and he had not yet told me), he had
been three months under arrest, and then had been sent to the Caucasus
to the N. regiment, and now had been serving three years as a soldier in
that regiment.

"You would not believe," said he to me in French, "how much I have to
suffer in these regiments from the society of the officers. Still it is
a pleasure to me, that I used to know the adjutant of whom we were just
speaking: he is a good man--it's a fact," he remarked condescendingly.
"I live with him, and that's something of a relief for me. Yes, my dear,
the days fly by, but they aren't all alike," [Footnote: OUI, MON CHER,
LES JOURS SE SUIVENT, MAIS NE SE RESSEMBLENT PAS: in French in the
original.] he added; and suddenly hesitated, reddened, and stood up, as
he caught sight of the adjutant himself coming toward us.

"It is such a pleasure to meet such a man as you," said Guskof to me in
a whisper as he turned from me. "I should like very, very much, to have
a long talk with you."

I said that I should be very happy to talk with him, but in reality I
confess that Guskof excited in me a sort of dull pity that was not akin
to sympathy.

I had a presentiment that I should feel a constraint in a private
conversation with him; but still I was anxious to learn from him several
things, and, above all, why it was, when his father had been so rich,
that he was in poverty, as was evident by his dress and appearance.

The adjutant greeted us all, including Guskof, and sat down by me in the
seat which the cashiered officer had just vacated. Pavel Dmitrievitch,
who had always been calm and leisurely, a genuine gambler, and a man of
means, was now very different from what he had been in the flowery days
of his success; he seemed to be in haste to go somewhere, kept
constantly glancing at everybody, and it was not five minutes before he
proposed to Lieutenant O., who had sworn off from playing, to set up a
small faro-bank. Lieutenant O. refused, under the pretext of having to
attend to his duties, but in reality because, as he knew that the
adjutant had few possessions and little money left, he did not feel
himself justified in risking his three hundred rubles against a hundred
or even less which the adjutant might stake.

"Well, Pavel Dmitrievitch," said the lieutenant, anxious to avoid a
repetition of the invitation, "is it true, what they tell us, that we
return to-morrow?"

"I don't know," replied the adjutant. "Orders came to be in readiness;
but if it's true, then you'd better play a game. I would wager my
Kabarda cloak."

"No, to-day already" . . .

"It's a gray one, never been worn; but if you prefer, play for money.
How is that?"

"Yes, but . . . I should be willing--pray don't think that" . . . said
Lieutenant O., answering the implied suspicion; "but as there may be a
raid or some movement, I must go to bed early."

The adjutant stood up, and, thrusting his hands into his pockets,
started to go across the grounds. His face assumed its ordinary
expression of coldness and pride, which I admired in him.

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