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

he unbuttoned his uniform and took up an old pack of cards.

“Well, suppose I have a try; who knows what the devil may do for one! Even a mosquito, you know, wins his battles sometimes. Only I must have a drink to keep up my courage.”

And soon, having drunk another glass of vodka and some porter, he lost his last three roubles.

A hundred and fifty roubles were noted down against the little perspiring officer.

“No, I’ve no luck,” he said carelessly, preparing another card.

“I’ll trouble you to send up the money,” said the banker, ceasing for a moment to deal the cards and looking at him.

“Allow me to send it tomorrow,” answered the perspiring officer, rising and fumbling with renewed vigour in his empty pocket.

“H’m!” bellowed the banker, and angrily throwing to the right and left, he finished the deal.

“But this won’t do. I quit the bank. This won’t do, Zahár Ivánitch,” he repeated; “we are playing for ready money and not on credit.”

“What! don’t you trust me? It’s really too ridiculous!”

“Who is going to pay me?” muttered the Major, who had won some eight roubles. “I have paid up more than twenty roubles and when I win I get nothing.”

“How am I to pay,” said the banker, “if there is no money on the board?”

“That’s not my business,” shouted the Major, rising; “I’m playing with you, and not with them.”

The perspiring officer suddenly flared up:

“I shall pay tomorrow, I tell you. How dare you say such things to me?”

“I shall say what I please! That’s no way to behave. There now!” shouted the Major.

“That’s enough, Fyódor Fyódoritch!” said everyone, restraining the Major.

But let us hasten to drop the curtain on this scene. Tomorrow, or today, perhaps each of these men will cheerfully and proudly go to face death, and die steadfastly and calmly; but the only relief in these inhuman conditions, horrible even to the coldest imagination, and from which there is no hope of escape, is to forget and to destroy consciousness. Deep in each soul dwells a noble spark, capable of making him a hero; but the spark wearies of burning⁠—a fateful moment may come when it will flash into flame and illuminate great deeds.

XVII

The next day the bombardment continued with equal vigour. At about eleven o’clock Volódya Kozeltsóf was sitting among the battery officers, to whom he was already beginning to get used. He was examining the new faces, observing, asking questions, and talking. The modest conversation, with a flavour of erudition, of the artillery officers inspired him with respect and pleased him. On the other hand, Volódya’s bashful, innocent, and good-looking appearance inclined the officers in his favour. The senior of the battery, a Captain, a short man with reddish hair curling over his forehead and smoothed over the temples, brought up in the old artillery traditions, a ladies’ man with a pretence to scientific knowledge, questioned Volódya about what he knew of artillery and of new inventions; joked in a friendly manner about his youth and his pretty face, and in general treated him as a son, and this Volódya liked very much. Sublieutenant Dyádenko, a young officer who spoke with a Little-Russian accent, and had a torn cloak and dishevelled hair, though he talked loudly, snatched every opportunity to begin a cantankerous dispute, and was abrupt in his movements, nevertheless pleased Volódya, for he could not help seeing that a very kind heart, and much that was good, lay beneath this rough exterior. Dyádenko kept offering to be of use to Volódya, and demonstrating to him that none of the guns in Sevastopol were placed according to rule.

Lieutenant Tchernovítsky, with high-arched eyebrows, though he was the most polite of all, and his coat was clean enough and neatly patched if not very new, and though he showed a gold chain over his satin waistcoat, did not please Volódya. He kept asking what the Emperor and the Minister of War were doing, told him with unnatural rapture of feats of valour performed in Sevastopol, regretted there were so few real patriots, and in general displayed much knowledge, intelligence, and noble feeling; but, somehow, it all seemed unnatural and unpleasant to Volódya. He noticed especially that the other officers hardly spoke to Tchernovítsky. Junker Vlang, whom Volódya had disturbed the night before, was also there. He did not speak, but, sitting modestly in a corner, laughed when there was anything funny, helped to recall anything that was forgotten, handed the vodka bottle, and made cigarettes for all the officers. Whether it was the modest, courteous manner of Volódya, who behaved to him as to the officers and did not order him about as if he were a boy, or whether his attractive appearance charmed Vlánga (as the soldiers called him, giving a feminine form to his name), at any rate, he did not take his large, kind eyes from the new officer, foresaw and anticipated his wants, and was all the time in a state of enamoured ecstasy, which of course the officers noticed and made fun of.

Before dinner the Lieutenant-Captain was relieved from the bastion and joined them. Lieutenant-Captain Kraut was a fair-haired, handsome, and vivacious officer, with big, sandy moustaches and whiskers. He spoke Russian splendidly, but too accurately and elegantly for a Russian. In the service and in his life he was like his speech: he served admirably, was a first-rate comrade, most reliable in money matters; but simply as a man, just because everything was so satisfactory about him, something seemed lacking. Like all Russo-Germans, in strange contradistinction to the idealist German-Germans, he was praktisch in the extreme.

“Here he comes⁠—our hero!” said the Captain, as Kraut came into the room swinging his arms and jingling his spurs. “What will you take, Friedrich Christiánitch, tea or vodka?”

“I have already ordered some tea,” he answered, “but meanwhile I do not mind taking a drop of vodka as a refreshment to my soul.⁠—Very pleased to make your acquaintance. I