Book: Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian

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




"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.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.