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

look at him. But he did not notice one of the cords with which the tent was fastened, stumbled over it, and letting the tumbler drop, fell on his hands.

“What a muff!” said the Adjutant, who had already stretched out his hand for the tumbler. Everyone burst out laughing, including Guskov, who was rubbing his bony knee, which he could not have hurt in falling.

“That’s the way the bear served the hermit,” continued the Adjutant. “It’s the way he serves me every day! He has wrenched out all the tent-pegs stumbling over them.” Guskov, paying no heed to him, apologized, looking at me with a scarcely perceptible, sad smile, which seemed to say that I alone could understand him. He was very pitiable, but the Adjutant, his protector, seemed for some reason to be angry with his lodger, and would not let him alone.

“Oh yes, he is a sharp boy, turn him which way you will.”

“But who does not stumble over those pegs, Paul Dmitrich?” said Guskov; “you yourself stumbled the day before yesterday.”

“I, old fellow, am not in the ranks; smartness is not expected of me.”

“He may drag his feet,” added Lieutenant-Captain S⁠⸺, “but a private must skip⁠ ⁠…”

“What curious jokes!⁠ ⁠…” said Guskov, almost in a whisper, with eyes cast down. The Adjutant evidently did not feel indifferent to his lodger; he watched greedily every word he uttered.

“He’ll have to be sent to the ambuscades again,” he said, addressing S⁠⸺, and winking towards the disgraced one.

“Well, then, tears will flow again,” said S⁠⸺, laughing.

Guskov no longer looked at me, but pretended to be getting tobacco from the pouch which had long been empty.

“Get ready to go to the outposts, old chap,” said S⁠⸺, laughing, “the scouts have reported that the camp will be attacked tonight, so reliable lads will have to be told off.”

Guskov smiled undecidedly, as if preparing to say something, and cast several imploring looks at S⁠⸺.

“Well, you know I have been before, and I shall go again if I am sent,” muttered he.

“Yes, and you will be sent!”

“Well, and I’ll go. What of that?”

“Yes, just as you did at Argun⁠—ran away from the ambuscade and threw away your gun,” said the Adjutant, and, turning away from him, began telling us about the order for the next day.

It was true that the enemy was expected to fire at the camp in the night, and a movement of some sort was to take place next day. After talking on various subjects of general interest for a while, the Adjutant, as if he had chanced suddenly to recollect it, proposed to Lieutenant O⁠⸺ to have a little game. The Lieutenant quite unexpectedly accepted, and they went with S⁠⸺ and the Ensign to the Adjutant’s tent, where a green folding-table and cards were to be found. The Captain, who was commander of our division, went to his tent to sleep, the other gentlemen also went away, and Guskov and I were left alone.

I had not been mistaken; I really felt uncomfortable alone with him, and I could not help rising and pacing up and down the battery. Guskov walked silently by my side, turning round hurriedly and nervously so as neither to lag behind nor pass before me.

“I am not in your way?” he said, in a meek, sad voice. As far as I could judge in the darkness his face seemed deeply thoughtful and melancholy.

“Not at all,” I answered, but as he did not begin to speak, and I did not know what to say to him, we walked a good while in silence.

The twilight was now quite replaced by the darkness of night, but over the black outlines of the mountains the sheet-lightnings so common there in the evening flashed brightly. Above our heads tiny stars twinkled in the pale-blue frosty sky, and the red flames of smoking watch-fires glared all around: the tents near us seemed grey, and the embankment of our battery a gloomy black. From the fire nearest to us, round which our orderlies sat warming themselves and talking low, now and then a gleam fell on the brass of our heavy guns, and made visible the figure of the sentry, as, with his cloak thrown over his shoulders, he walked with measured steps along the embankment.

“You can’t think what a relief it is to me to talk to a man like you!” said Guskov, though he had not yet spoken to me about anything. “Only a man who has been in my position can understand it.”

I did not know what to answer, and again we were silent, though it was evident that he wished to speak out and I wished to hear him.

“For what were you.⁠ ⁠… What was the cause of your misfortune?” I asked at last, unable to think of any better way to start the conversation.

“Did you not hear about that unfortunate affair with Metenin?”

“Oh yes; a duel, I think. I heard some reference to it,” I answered. “You see, I have been some time in the Caucasus.”

“No, not a duel, but that stupid and terrible affair! I will tell you all about it if you have not heard it. It was that same year when you and I used to meet at my sister’s. I was then living in Petersburg. But first I must tell you that I then had what is called une position dans le monde.84 and a tolerably lucrative, if not brilliant one. Mon père me donnait 10,000 par an.85 In ’49 I was promised a place in the embassy at Turin; an uncle on my mother’s side had influence and was always ready to give me a lift. It’s now a thing of the past. J’étais reçu dans la meilleure société de Petersbourg; je pouvais prétendre86 to make a good match. I had learnt⁠—as we all learn at school; so that I possessed no special education. It is true I read a good