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

of today is an endless story of snobbery and vanity?

Twice the Lieutenant-Captain passed irresolutely by the group of his aristocrats, but drawing near them for the third time he made an effort and walked up to them. The group consisted of four officers: Adjutant Kaloúgin, Miháylof’s acquaintance; Adjutant Prince Gáltsin, who was rather an aristocrat even for Kaloúgin himself; Lieutenant-Colonel Nefyórdof, one of the so-called “two hundred and twenty-two” society men (who, being on the retired list, re-entered the army for this war); and Cavalry Captain Praskoúhin, also of the “two hundred and twenty-two.” Luckily for Miháylof, Kaloúgin was in splendid spirits (the General had just spoken to him in a very confidential manner, and Prince Gáltsin, who had arrived from Petersburg, was staying with him), so he did not think it beneath his dignity to shake hands with Miháylof, which was more than Praskoúhin did, though he had often met Miháylof on the bastion, had more than once drunk his wine and vodka, and even owed him twelve and a half roubles lost at cards. Not being yet well acquainted with Prince Gáltsin, he did not like to appear to be acquainted with a mere lieutenant-captain of infantry. So he only bowed slightly.

“Well, Captain,” said Kaloúgin, “when will you be visiting the bastion again? Do you remember our meeting at the Schwartz Redoubt? Things were hot, weren’t they, eh?”

“Yes, very,” said Miháylof, and he remembered how, when making his way along the trench to the bastion, he had met Kaloúgin, walking along courageously, and smartly clanking his sabre.

“My turn’s tomorrow by rights, but we have an officer ill,” continued Miháylof, “so⁠—”

He wanted to say that it was not his turn, but as the Commander of the 8th Company was ill, and only the Ensign was left in the company, he felt it his duty to offer to go in place of Lieutenant Nepshisétsky, and would therefore be at the bastion that evening. But Kaloúgin did not hear him out.

“I feel sure that something is going to happen in a day or two,” he said to Prince Gáltsin.

“How about today? will nothing happen today?” Miháylof asked shyly, looking first at Kaloúgin and then at Gáltsin.

No one replied. Prince Gáltsin only puckered up his face in a curious way, and looking over Miháylof’s cap, said, after a short silence⁠—

“Fine girl that, with the red kerchief. Don’t you know her, Captain?”

“She lives near my lodgings, she’s a sailor’s daughter,” answered the Lieutenant-Captain.

“Come, let’s have a good look at her.”

And Prince Gáltsin gave one of his arms to Kaloúgin and the other to the Lieutenant-Captain, knowing he would thereby confer great pleasure on the latter, as was really the case.

The Lieutenant-Captain was superstitious, and considered it a great sin to amuse himself with women before going into action; but on this occasion he pretended to be a roué, which Prince Gáltsin and Kaloúgin evidently did not believe, and which greatly surprised the girl with the red kerchief, who had more than once noticed how the Lieutenant-Captain blushed when he passed her window. Praskoúhin walked behind them, and kept touching Prince Gáltsin’s arm and making various remarks in French; but as four people could not walk abreast on the path, he was obliged to go alone, until, on the second round, he took the arm of a well-known brave naval officer, Servyágin, who came up and spoke to him, being also anxious to join the aristocrats. And the well-known hero gladly passed his honest, muscular hand under the elbow of Praskoúhin, whom everybody, including especially Servyágin himself, knew to be a man no better than he should be. When (wishing to explain to Prince Gáltsin his acquaintance with this sailor) Praskoúhin whispered that this was the well-known hero, Prince Gáltsin, who had been in the Fourth Bastion the day before and had seen a shell burst at some twenty yards’ distance, considering himself not less courageous than the newcomer and believing that many reputations are obtained by luck, paid not the slightest attention to Servyágin.

Lieutenant-Captain Miháylof found it so pleasant to walk in this company that he forgot his dear letter from T⁠⸺, and his gloomy forebodings at the thought of having to go to the bastion. He remained with them till they began talking exclusively among themselves, avoiding his eyes to show that he might go, and at last walked away from him. But, all the same, the Lieutenant-Captain was contented, and when he passed Junker Baron Pesth, who was particularly conceited and self-satisfied since the previous night (when for the first time in his life he had been in the bombproof of the Fifth Bastion, and had consequently become a hero in his own estimation), he (the Captain) was not at all hurt by the suspiciously haughty expression with which the Junker saluted him.

IV

But hardly had the Lieutenant-Captain crossed the threshold of his lodgings, when very different thoughts entered his head. He saw his little room with its uneven earth floor, its crooked windows, the broken panes mended with paper, his old bedstead with two Toúla pistols and a rug (showing a lady on horseback) nailed to the wall above it,36 as well as the dirty bed of the Junker who lived with him, with its cotton quilt. He saw his man, Nikíta, with his rough, greasy hair, rise, scratching himself, from the floor; he saw his old cloak, his common boots, a little bundle tied in a handkerchief, prepared for him to take to the bastion, from which peeped a bit of cheese and the neck of a porter bottle containing vodka⁠—and he suddenly remembered that he had to go with his company to spend the whole of the night at the lodgments.

“I shall certainly be killed tonight,” thought the Lieutenant-Captain; “I feel I shall. And really there was no need for me to go⁠—I offered of my own accord. And it’s always so: the one who offers himself always does get killed. And