Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 1 Read online

  [A bugler who had vodka and provisions was sent for. The captain’s calmness and equanimity involuntarily produced an effect on me. We ate roasted pheasant and chatted, without at all reflecting that the owners of that hut had not merely no desire to see us there but could hardly have imagined our existence.]

  ‘There don’t seem to have been many of the enemy,’ I said, wishing to know his opinion of the action that had taken place.

  ‘The enemy?’ he repeated with surprise. ‘The enemy was not there at all! Do you call those the enemy?… Wait till the evening when we go back, and you will see how they will speed us on our way: what a lot of them will pour out from there,’ he said, pointing to a thicket we had passed in the morning.

  ‘What is that?’ I asked anxiously, interrupting the captain and pointing to a group of Don Cossacks who had collected round something not far from us.

  A sound of something like a child’s cry came from there, and the words:

  ‘Stop … don’t hack it … you’ll be seen … Have you a knife, Evstignéich … Lend me a knife.

  ‘They are up to something, the scoundrels …’ replied the captain calmly.

  But at that moment the young ensign, his comely face flushed and frightened, came suddenly running from behind a corner and rushed towards the Cossacks waving his arms.

  ‘Don’t touch it! Don’t kill it!’ he cried in a childish voice.

  Seeing the officer, the Cossacks stepped apart and released a little white kid. The young ensign was quite abashed, muttered something, and stopped before us with a confused face. Seeing the captain and me on the roof he blushed still more and ran leaping towards us.

  ‘I thought they were killing a child,’ he said with a bashful smile.

  Chapter X

  THE general went ahead with the cavalry. The battalion with which I had come from Fort N. remained in the rear-guard. Captain Khlópov’s and Lieutenant Rosenkranz’s battalions retired together.

  The captain’s prediction was fully justified. No sooner had we entered the narrow thicket he had mentioned, than on both sides of us we caught glimpses of hillsmen mounted and on foot, and so near were they that I could distinctly see how some of them ran stooping, rifle in hand, from one tree to another.

  The captain took off his cap and piously crossed himself, some of the older soldiers did the same. From the wood were heard war-cries and the words ‘Iay giaour’, ‘Urus! iay!’ Sharp short rifle-shots, following one another fast, whizzed on both sides of us. Our men answered silently with a running fire, and only now and then remarks like the following were made in the ranks: ‘See where he15 fires from! It’s all right for him inside the wood. We ought to use cannon,’ and so forth.

  Our ordnance was brought out, and after some grape-shot had been fired the enemy seemed to grow weaker, but a moment later and at every step taken by our troops, the enemy’s fire again grew hotter and the shouting louder.

  We had hardly gone seven hundred yards from the village before enemy cannon-balls began whistling over our heads. I saw a soldier killed by one.… But why should I describe the details of that terrible picture which I would myself give much to be able to forget!

  Lieutenant Rosenkranz kept firing, and incessantly shouted in a hoarse voice at the soldiers and galloped from one end of the cordon to the other. He was rather pale and this suited his martial countenance very well.

  The good-looking young ensign was in raptures: his beautiful dark eyes shone with daring, his lips were slightly smiling, and he kept riding up to the captain and begging permission to charge.

  ‘We will repel them,’ he said persuasively, ‘we certainly will.’

  ‘It’s not necessary,’ replied the captain abruptly. ‘We must retreat.’

  The captain’s company held the skirts of the wood, the men lying down and replying to the enemy’s fire. The captain in his shabby coat and shabby cap sat silent on his white horse, with loose reins, bent knees, his feet in the stirrups, and did not stir from his place. (The soldiers knew and did their work so well that there was no need to give them any orders.) Only at rare intervals he raised his voice to shout at those who exposed their heads. There was nothing at all martial about the captain’s appearance, but there was something so sincere and simple in it that I was unusually struck by it. ‘It is he who is really brave,’ I involuntarily said to myself.

  He was just the same as I had always seen him: the same calm movements, the same guileless expression on his plain but frank face, only his eyes, which were brighter than usual, showed the concentration of one quietly engaged on his duties. ‘As I had always seen him’ is easily said, but how many different shades have I noticed in the behaviour of others; one wishing to appear quieter, another sterner, a third merrier, than usual, but the captain’s face showed that he did not even see why he should appear anything but what he was.

  The Frenchman at Waterloo who said, ‘La garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas,’16 and other, particularly French, heroes who uttered memorable sayings were brave, and really uttered remarkable words, but between their courage and the captain’s there was this difference, that even if a great saying had in any circumstance stirred in the soul of my hero, I am convinced that he would not have uttered it: first because by uttering a great saying he would have feared to spoil a great deed, and secondly because when a man feels within himself the capacity to perform a great deed no talk of any kind is needed. That, I think, is a peculiar and a lofty characteristic of Russian courage, and that being so, how can a Russian heart help aching when our young Russian warriors utter trivial French phrases intended to imitate antiquated French chivalry?

  Suddenly from the side where our young ensign stood with his platoon we heard a not very hearty or loud ‘Hurrah!’ Looking round to where the shout came from, I saw some thirty soldiers with sacks on their shoulders and muskets in their hands managing with very great difficulty to run across a ploughed field. They kept stumbling, but nevertheless ran on and shouted. In front of them, sword in hand, galloped the young ensign.

  They all disappeared into the wood.…

  After a few minutes of whooping and clatter a frightened horse ran out of the wood, and soldiers appeared bringing back the dead and wounded. Among the latter was the young ensign. Two soldiers supported him under his arms. He was as pale as a sheet, and his pretty head, on which only a shadow remained of the warlike enthusiasm that had animated him a few minutes before, was dreadfully sunk between his shoulders and drooped on his chest. There was a small spot of blood on the white shirt beneath his unbuttoned coat.

  ‘Ah, what a pity!’ I said, involuntarily turning away from this sad spectacle.

  ‘Of course it’s a pity,’ said an old soldier, who stood leaning on his musket beside me with a gloomy expression on his face. ‘He’s not afraid of anything. How can one do such things?’ he added, looking intently at the wounded lad. ‘He was still foolish and now he has paid for it!’

  ‘And you?’ I asked. ‘Are you afraid?’

  ‘What do you expect?’

  Chapter XI

  FOUR soldiers were carrying the ensign on a stretcher and behind them an ambulance soldier was leading a thin, broken-winded horse with two green boxes on its back containing surgical appliances. They waited for the doctor. Some officers rode up to the stretcher and tried to cheer and comfort the wounded lad.

  ‘Well, friend Alánin, it will be some time before you will dance again with castanets,’ said Lieutenant Rosenkranz, riding up to the stretcher with a smile.

  He probably supposed that these words would raise the young ensign’s spirits, but as far as one could judge by the latter’s coldly sad look the words had not the desired effect.

  The captain rode up too. He looked intently at the wounded man and his usually calm and cold face expressed sincere sympathy. ‘Well, my dear Anatól Ivánich,’ he said, in a voice of tender sympathy such as I never expected from him, ‘evidently it was God’s will.’

  The wounded lad looked r
ound and his pale face lit up with a sad smile. ‘Yes, I disobeyed you.’

  ‘Say rather, it was God’s will,’ repeated the captain.

  The doctor when he arrived, [as far as could be judged by the shakiness of his legs and the redness of his eyes, was in no fit condition to bandage the patient: however, he] took from his assistant bandages, a probe, and another instrument, rolled up his sleeves and stepped up to the ensign with an encouraging smile.

  ‘So it seems they have made a hole in a sound spot for you too,’ he said in a carelessly playful tone. ‘Let me see.’

  The ensign obeyed, but the look he gave the merry doctor expressed astonishment and reproof which the inebriated practitioner did not notice. He touched the wound so awkwardly, quite unnecessarily pressing on it with his unsteady fingers, that the wounded ensign, driven beyond the limits of endurance, pushed away his hand with a deep groan.

  ‘Let me alone!’ he said in a scarcely audible voice. ‘I shall die anyway.’

  [Then, addressing the captain, he said with difficulty: ‘Please, Captain … yesterday I lost … twenty rubles to Drónov.… When my things are sold … let him be paid.’]

  With those words he fell back, and five minutes later when I passed the group that had formed around him, and asked a soldier, ‘How is the ensign?’ the answer was, ‘Passing away.’

  Chapter XII

  IT was late in the day when the detachment, formed into a broad column and singing, approached the Fort.

  [The general rode in front and by his merry countenance one could see that the raid had been successful. In fact, with little loss, we had that day been in Mukay aoul – where from immemorial times no Russian foot had trod.

  The Saxon, Kaspar Lavréntich, narrated to another officer that he had himself seen how three Chechens had aimed straight at his breast. In the mind of Ensign Rosenkranz a complete story of the day’s action had formulated itself. Captain Khlópov walked with thoughtful face in front of his company, leading his little white horse by its bridle.]

  The sun had hidden behind the snowy mountain range and threw its last rosy beams on a long thin cloud stretching motionless across the clear horizon. The snow peaks began to disappear in purple mist and only their top outline was visible, wonderfully distinct in the crimson sunset glow. The delicate moon, which had risen long since, began to grow pale against the deep azure. The green of the grass and trees was turning black and becoming covered with dew. The dark masses of troops moved with measured sounds over the luxuriant meadows. Tambourines, drums, and merry songs were heard from various sides. The voice of the second tenor of the Sixth Company rang out with full force and the sounds of his clear chest-notes, full of feeling and power, floated through the clear evening air.

  1 Novels by the above-mentioned authors.

  2 ‘Good evening, Countess.’

  3 ‘You know I have sworn to fight the infidels (the unfaithful), so beware of becoming one.’

  4 ‘Good-bye then, dear general.’

  5 ‘No, au revoir. Don’t forget that I am inviting myself for to-morrow’s soirée.’

  6 Frogs in the Caucasus make a noise quite different from the croaking of frogs elsewhere. L. T.

  7 In the Caucasus rivers are apt to overflow in July. L. T.

  8 Shamyl was the leader (in 1834–59) of the Caucasian hill-tribes in their resistance to Russia.

  9A naib was a man to whom Shamyl had entrusted some administrative office. L. T.

  10 The word murid has several meanings, but here it denotes something between an adjutant and a bodyguard.

  11 The colours among the hillsmen correspond to those of our troops, except that every dzhigit or ‘brave’ among them may make his own colours and carry them. L. T.

  12 ‘What a charming view.’

  13 ‘Charming … War in such beautiful country is a real pleasure.’

  14 ‘Especially in good company.’

  15 He is a collective noun by which the soldiers indicate the enemy. L. T.

  16 ‘The Guard dies, but does not surrender.’

  THE WOOD-FELLING

  A CADET’S STORY

  Chapter I

  IN the middle of the winter of 185– a division of one battery was on service with the detachment operating in that part of the Terek Territory1 called the Great Chéchnya. On the evening of February 14, knowing that the platoon which I in the absence of any officer was commanding, was to join a column told off to fell wood next day, and having given and received the necessary orders, I retired to my tent earlier than usual. As I had not contracted the bad habit of warming my tent with hot charcoal, I lay down without undressing on my bed, which was supported on stakes driven into the ground, drew my fur cap over my eyes, tucked myself up in my sheepskin cloak, and fell into that peculiar, heavy, and deep sleep which comes at times of anxiety and when one is awaiting danger. The expectation of the next day’s affair had this effect on me.

  At three next morning, while it was still quite dark, the warm sheepskin was pulled off me and my eyes, heavy with sleep, were unpleasantly struck by the red light of a candle.

  ‘Get up, please,’ said a voice. I shut my eyes, unconsciously pulled the sheepskin back over myself, and again fell asleep. ‘Get up, please,’ said Dmítry once more, remorselessly shaking me by the shoulder: ‘the infantry are starting.’ The reality suddenly flashed on my mind, I sat up and jumped to my feet. After hurriedly drinking a glass of tea and washing myself with icy water I crept out of the tent and went to the ‘park’ (the place where the cannon were). It was dark, misty, and cold. The dim red light of the night-fires, which gleaming here and there in the camp showed up the figures of the sleepy soldiers who lay near them, seemed only to make the darkness more intense.

  Near by, quiet regular snoring could be heard, and from farther off, sounds of movements, voices, and the clatter of the muskets of the infantry preparing to start. There was a smell of smoke, manure, torches, and mist; the morning air caused cold shivers to run down one’s back, and one’s teeth chattered involuntarily.

  It was only by the snorting and occasional stamping of the horses harnessed to them that we could tell where the limbers and ammunition wagons stood in the impenetrable darkness; and only the fiery dots of the linstocks showed where the guns were. ‘God be with us!’ With these words came the clanging sound of the first gun moving, then the noise of the ammunition wagon – and the platoon started. We all took off our caps and crossed ourselves. Having occupied the interval between the infantry companies, the platoon stopped and waited a quarter of an hour for the whole column to collect and for the commander to appear.

  ‘One of our men is missing, Nicholas Petróvich.’ With these words a black figure approached me, whom I only knew by the voice to be the gun-sergeant of the platoon, Maksímov.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Velenchúk is missing. He was there all the time they were harnessing – I saw him myself – but now he’s gone.’

  As the column could not be expected to start at once, we decided to send Corporal Antónov to look for Velenchúk. Directly after that, several horsemen trotted past us in the dark. They were the commander and his suite; and immediately the head of the column moved and started and so at last did we also, but Antónov and Velenchúk were still absent. We had, however, hardly gone a hundred yards before they both overtook us.

  ‘Where was he?’ I asked Antónov.

  ‘Asleep in the “park”.’

  ‘Why, has he had a drop too much?’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘Then how is it he fell asleep?’

  ‘I can’t make out.’

  For about three hours we moved slowly on in silence and darkness over some unploughed fields bare of snow and over low bushes that crackled under the wheels of the gun-carriages. At last, after we had crossed a shallow but extremely rapid stream, we were stopped, and we heard the abrupt reports of vintóvkas2 in the direction of the vanguard.

  These sounds as usual had a most exhilarating e
ffect on everyone. The detachment seemed to wake up: sounds of talking, movement, and laughter were heard in the ranks. Here a soldier wrestled with a comrade, there another hopped from foot to foot. Here was one chewing hard-tack, or to while away the time shouldering and grounding arms. Meanwhile the mist began to grow distinctly whiter in the east, the damp became more intense, and the surrounding objects gradually emerged from the gloom. I could already discern the green gun-carriages and ammunition wagons, the brass of the guns covered with moisture by the mist, the familiar figures of my soldiers, every minute detail of which I had involuntarily studied, the bay horses, and the lines of infantry with their bright bayonets, their bags, their ramrods, and the kettles they carried on their backs.

  We were soon again moved forward a few hundred yards where there was no road, and then we were shown our position. To the right one could see the steep bank of a winding stream and the high wooden posts of a Tartar cemetery; to the left and in front a black strip was visible through the mist. The platoon unlimbered. The Eighth Company, which covered us, piled their muskets, and a battalion with axes and muskets went to the forest.

  Before five minutes were over fires were crackling and smoking in all directions. The soldiers dispersed, blew the fires and stirred them with hands and feet, dragged logs and branches, while the forest resounded with the unceasing noise of hundreds of axes and the crashing of falling trees.

  The artillery, with a certain rivalry of the infantry, heaped their pile high, and though it was already burning so that one could hardly come within two paces of it and thick black smoke was rising through the frozen branches, which the soldiers pressed down into the fire (and from which drops fell sizzling into the flames), and though the charcoal was glowing beneath and the grass was scorched all around, the soldiers were not satisfied, but kept throwing great logs on to the pile, feeding it with dry grass beneath and heaping it higher and higher.

  When I came up to the fire to smoke a cigarette, Velenchúk, always officious, but to-day feeling guilty and bustling about more than anyone, in a fit of zeal snatched a piece of charcoal from the fire with his bare hand and, after tossing it from hand to hand a couple of times, dropped it on the ground.