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

him to transfer me to this regiment, which is at least on active duty, and I thought that here Paul Dmitrich, qui est le fils de l’intendant de mon père,101 would be of use to me. My uncle did this much for me, and I was transferred. After that other regiment, this seemed an assembly of courtiers. And Paul Dmitrich was here; he knew who I was, and I was capitally received⁠—at my uncle’s request⁠ ⁠… Guskov, vous savez. But I noticed that these people, without education or culture, cannot respect a man nor show him respect when he is not surrounded by an aureole of wealth and rank. I noticed how, little by little, when they saw that I was poor, their behaviour to me became more and more careless, and at last almost contemptuous. It is dreadful, but it is perfectly true.

“Here I have been in action, have fought, on m’a vu au feu,”102 he continued, “but when will it end? Never, I think! And my strength and energy are beginning to fail. And then, I had imagined la guerre, la vie de camp,103 but it turns out to be quite different from what I expected: dressed in a sheepskin, in soldier’s boots, unwashed, you are sent to the outposts, and lie all night in a ditch with some Antonov or other who has been sent into the army for drunkenness, and at any moment you may be shot from behind a bush⁠—you or Antonov, all the same.⁠ ⁠… That is not courage! It is horrible. C’est affreux, ça tue.’104

“Well, but you may be made a noncommissioned officer for this expedition, and next year may become an ensign,” I said.

“Yes, possibly. I was promised it; but that would be another two years, and it is very doubtful. And does anyone realize what two such years mean? Just imagine the life with this Paul Dmitrich: gambling, rough jokes, dissipation.⁠ ⁠… You want to speak out about something that has risen in your soul, but you are not understood, or you are laughed at. They talk to you not to communicate their thoughts, but to make a fool of you if possible. And it’s all so vulgar, coarse, horrid; and all the time you feel you are a private⁠—they always make you feel that. That is why you can’t imagine what a pleasure it is to talk à cœur ouvert105 to a man like you!”

I could not imagine what sort of a man I was supposed to be, and therefore did not know how to reply to him.

“Will you have supper?” at this moment asked Nikita, who had approached unseen in the darkness, and who, I noticed, was not pleased at the presence of my visitor: “there’s nothing but dumplings and a little beef left.”

“And has the captain had his supper?”

“He’s asleep long ago,” said Nikita, crossly.

On my telling him to bring us something to eat and some vodka, he muttered discontentedly, and went slowly to his tent. However, after grumbling there a bit, he brought us a travelling-case, on which he placed a candle (round which he first tied a piece of paper to keep the wind off), a saucepan, a pot of mustard, a tin cup with a handle, and a bottle of vodka bitters. Having arranged all this, Nikita stood some time near us and watched with evident disapproval while Guskov and I drank some of the spirit. By the dim light of the candle shining through the paper the only things one could see amid the surrounding darkness were the sealskin with which the travelling-case was covered, the supper standing on it, and Guskov’s face, his sheepskin coat, and the little red hands with which he took the dumplings out of the saucepan. All around was black, and only by looking intently could one discern the black battery, the equally black figure of the sentry visible over the breastwork, the watch-fires around, and the reddish stars above. Guskov smiled just perceptibly in a sad and bashful way, as if it were awkward for him to look me in the eyes after his confession. He drank another cup of vodka, and ate greedily, scraping out the saucepan.

“Yes, it must at any rate be some relief to you,” I remarked, in order to say something, “to be acquainted with the adjutant; I have heard he is a very decent fellow.”

“Yes,” answered he, “he is a kindhearted man, but he can’t help being what he is; he can’t be a man: with his education one can’t expect it,” and he suddenly seemed to blush. “You noticed his coarse jokes today about the ambuscades.” And Guskov, in spite of my repeated efforts to stop the conversation, began to justify himself to me, and to demonstrate that he did not run away from the ambuscades, and that he was not a coward, as the Adjutant and Captain S⁠⸺ wished to imply.

“As I told you,” he said, wiping his hands on his sheepskin, “people of that kind can’t be considerate to a man who is a private and who has but little money: that is above their strength. And these last five months, during which it has somehow happened that I have received nothing from my sister, I have noticed how they have changed towards me. This sheepskin I bought of a soldier, and which is so worn that there is no warmth in it” (here he showed me the bare skirt of the coat), “does not inspire him with sympathy or respect for my misfortunes, but only contempt which he is unable to conceal. However great my need, as, for instance, at the present time, when I have nothing to eat except the soldiers’ buckwheat, and nothing to wear,” he continued, seemingly abashed, and pouring out for himself yet another cup of vodka, “he does not think