Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

My surmise was at once confirmed. Captain Kraft asked for vodka, calling it a “warmer,” croaked horribly, and, throwing back his head, emptied the glass.

“Well, gentlemen, we have scoured the plains of Chechnya today, have we not?” he began, but, seeing the officer on duty, stopped at once to allow the Major to give his orders.

“Have you been round the lines?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have the ambuscades been placed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then give the company commanders orders to be as cautious as possible.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Major screwed up his eyes in profound contemplation.

“Yes, and tell the men they may now boil their buckwheat.”

“They are already boiling it, sir.”

“All right! you may go, sir.”

“Well, we were just reckoning up how much an officer needs,” continued the Major, turning to us with a condescending smile. “Let us count. You want a uniform and a pair of trousers, don’t you?”

“Certainly.”

“That, let us say, is 50 rubles for two years; therefore 25 rubles a year for clothes. Then for food, 40 kopecks a day⁠—is that right?”

“Oh yes, that is even too much.”

“Well, never mind, I’ll leave it so. Then for a horse and repair of harness and saddle⁠—30 rubles. And that is all. So it’s 25, and 120, and 30⁠—that’s 175 rubles. So you have for luxuries⁠—tea, sugar, tobacco⁠—a matter of 20 rubles left. So you see⁠ ⁠… Isn’t it so, Nicholas Fedorovich?”

“No, but excuse me, Abram Ilyich,” said the Adjutant timidly, “nothing remains for tea and sugar. You allow one suit in two years; but it’s hardly possible to keep oneself in trousers with all this marching. And boots? I wear out a pair almost every month. Then underclothing⁠—shirts, towels, leg-bands,17⁠—it all has to be bought. When one comes to reckon it all up nothing remains over. That’s really so, Abram Ilyich.”

“Ah, it’s splendid to wear leg-bands,” Kraft suddenly remarked after a moment’s silence, uttering the word “leg-bands” in specially tender tones. “It’s so simple, you know; quite Russian!”

“I’ll tell you something,” Trosenko remarked. “Reckon what way you like and you’ll find we might as well put our teeth away on a shelf, and yet here we are all alive, drinking tea, smoking tobacco, and drinking vodka. When you’ve served as long as I have,” he went on, turning to the ensign, “you’ll have also learned how to live. Why, gentlemen, do you know how he treats the orderlies?”

And Trosenko, dying with laughter, told us the whole story about the ensign and his orderly, though we had all heard it hundreds of times.

“Why do you look so like a rose, old chap?” continued he, addressing the ensign, who blushed, perspired, and smiled, so that it was pitiful to see him. “Never mind, old chap! I was just like you once, and now look what a fine fellow I am. You let a young fellow straight from Russia in here⁠—haven’t we seen them?⁠—and he gets spasms or rheumatism or something; and here am I settled here, and it’s my house and my bed and all, d’you see?”

And thereupon he drank another glass of vodka, and looking fixedly at Kraft, said, “Eh?”

“That is what I respect! Here’s a genuine old Caucasian! Permit me to shake hands.”

And Kraft, pushing us all aside, forced his way to Trosenko, and catching hold of his hand shook it with peculiar emotion.

“Yes,” continued Kraft, “we may say we have gone through every kind of experience here. In ’45 you were present, Captain, were you not?⁠—you remember the night between the 12th and 13th, when we spent the night knee-deep in mud and next day captured the barricades they had made of felled trees. I was attached to the commander-in-chief at the time, and we took fifteen barricades that one day⁠—you remember, Captain?”

Trosenko nodded affirmatively, stuck out his nether lip and screwed up his eyes.

“You see⁠ ⁠…” began Kraft, with great animation, making unsuitable gestures with his hands, and addressing the Major.

But the Major, who had, in all probability, heard the story more than once, suddenly looked at the speaker with such dim, dull eyes, that Kraft turned away from him and addressed me and Bolhov, looking alternately at one and the other. But he did not give a single glance at Trosenko during the whole of his narration.

“Well then, you see, when we went out in the morning, the commander-in-chief said to me, ‘Kraft, take those barricades!’ Well, you know, a soldier’s duty is not to reason⁠—it’s hand to cap, and ‘Yes, your Excellency!’ and off. Only as we drew near the first barricade I turned and said to the soldiers, ‘Now then, lads, don’t funk it, but look sharp. If anyone hangs back I’ll cut him down myself!’ With Russian soldiers, you know, one has to speak straight out. Suddenly a bomb⁠ ⁠… I look, one soldier down, another, a third⁠ ⁠… then bullets came whizzing⁠ ⁠… vzin!⁠ ⁠… vzin!⁠ ⁠… vzin!⁠ ⁠… ‘On!’ I cry, ‘On, follow me!’ Just as we got there, I look and see a⁠ ⁠… a⁠ ⁠… you know⁠ ⁠… what do you call it?” and the narrator flourished his arms, trying to find the word he wanted.

“A scarp?” suggested Bolhov.

“No⁠ ⁠… Ach! what is the word? Good heavens, what is it?⁠ ⁠… A scarp!” he said quickly. “So, ‘fix bayonets! Hurrah! ta-ra, ta-ta-ta!’ not a sign of the enemy! Everybody was surprised, you know. Well, that’s all right; we go on to the second barricade. Ah, that was a totally different matter. Our mettle was now up, you know. Just as we reached it I look and see the second barricade, and we could not advance. There was a what’s-its-name⁠ ⁠… now, what do you call it? Ach! what is it?⁠ ⁠…”

“Another scarp, perhaps,” I suggested.

“Not at all,” he said crossly: “not a scarp but⁠—oh dear, what do you call it?” and he made an awkward gesture with his hands. “Oh, good heavens, what is it?” He seemed so distressed that one involuntarily wished to help him.

“A river, perhaps,” said Bolhov.

“No, only a scarp! Hardly had we got down, when, will you believe it, such a