“Well, we had a splendid action to-day, didn’t we?”

The adjutant of the battalion was a young fellow who belonged to the fourteenth army-rank, and had only lately been promoted from the yunker service. He was a modest and gentle young fellow, with a sensitive and good-natured face. I had met him before at Bolkhof’s. The young man would come to see him often, make him a bow, sit down in a corner, and for hours at a time say nothing, and only make cigarettes and smoke them; and then he would get up, make another bow, and go away. He was the type of the poor son of the Russian noble family, who has chosen the profession of arms as the only one open to him in his circumstances, and who values above every thing else in the world his official calling, — an ingenuous and lovable type, notwithstanding his absurd, indefeasible peculiarities: his tobacco-pouch, his dressing-gown, his guitar, and his mustache brush, with which we used to picture him to ourselves. In the regiment they used to say of him that he boasted of being just but stern with his servant, and quoted him as saying, “I rarely punish; but when I am driven to it, then let ‘em beware:” and once, when his servant got drunk, and plundered him, and began to rail at his master, they say he took him to the guard-house, and commanded them to have every thing ready for the chastisement; but when he saw the preparations, he was so confused, that he could only stammer a few meaningless words: “Well, now you see — I might,” … and, thoroughly upset, he set off home, and from that time never dared to look into the eyes of his man. His comrades gave him no peace, but were always nagging him about this; and I often heard how the ingenuous lad tried to defend himself, and, blushing to the roots of his hair, avowed that it was not true, but absolutely false.

The third character, Captain Trosenko, was an old Caucasian in the full acceptation of the word: that is, he was a man for whom the company under his command stood for his family; the fortress where the staff was, his home; and the song-singers his only pleasure in life, — a man for whom every thing that was not Kavkas was worthy of scorn, yes, was almost unworthy of belief; every thing that was Kavkas was divided into two halves, ours and not ours. He loved the first, the second he hated with all the strength of his soul. And, above all, he was a man of iron nerve, of serene bravery, of rare goodness and devotion to his comrades and subordinates, and of desperate frankness, and even insolence in his bearing, toward those who did not please him; that is, adjutants and bon jourists. As he came into the wigwam, he almost bumped his head on the roof, then suddenly sank down and sat on the ground.

“Well, how is it?” said he; and suddenly becoming cognizant of my presence, and recognizing me, he got up, turning upon me a troubled, serious gaze.

“Well, why were you talking about that?” asked the major, taking out his watch and consulting it, though I verily believe there was not the slightest necessity of his doing so.

“Well, he asked me why I served here.”

“Of course, Nikoláï Feódorovitch wants to win distinction here, and then go home.”

“Well, now, you tell us, Abram Ilyitch, why you serve in the Caucasus.”

“I? Because, as you know, in the first place we are all in duty bound to serve. What?” he added, though no one spoke. “Yesterday evening I received a letter from Russia, Nikoláï Feódorovitch,” he continued, eager to change the conversation. “They write me that … what strange questions are asked!”

“What sort of questions?” asked Bolkhof.

He blushed.

“Really, now, strange questions … they write me, asking, ‘Can there be jealousy without love?’ … What?” he asked, looking at us all.

“How so?” said Bolkhof, smiling.

“Well, you know, in Russia it’s a good thing,” he continued, as though his phrases followed each other in perfectly logical sequence. “When I was at Tambof in ’52 I was invited everywhere, as though I were on the emperor’s suite. Would you believe me, at a ball at the governor’s, when I got there … well, don’t you know, I was received very cordially. The governor’s wife herself, you know, talked with me, and asked me about the Caucasus; and so did all the rest … why, I don’t know … they looked at my gold cap as though it were some sort of curiosity, and they asked me how I had won it, and how about the Anna and the Vladímir; and I told them all about it…. What? That’s why the Caucasus is good, Nikoláï Feódorovitch,” he continued, not waiting for a response. “There they look on us Caucasians very kindly. A young man, you know, a staff-officer with the Anna and Vladímir, — that means a great deal in Russia. What?”

“You boasted a little, I imagine, Abram Ilyitch,” said Bolkhof.

“He-he,” came his silly little laugh in reply. “You know, you have to. Yes, and didn’t I feed royally those two months!”

“So it is fine in Russia, is it?” asked Trosenko, asking about Russia as though it were China or Japan.

“Yes, indeed! We drank so much champagne there in those two months, that it was a terror!”

“The idea! you? You drank lemonade probably. I should have died to show them how the Kavkázets drinks. The glory has not been won for nothing. I would show them how we drink…. Hey, Bolkhof?” he added.

“Yes, you see, you have been already ten years in the Caucasus, uncle,” said Bolkhof, “and you remember what Yermolof said; but Abram Ilyitch has been here only six.”…

“Ten years, indeed! almost sixteen.”

“Let us have some salvia, Bolkhof: it’s raw, b-rr! What?” he added, smiling, “shall we drink, major?”

But the major was out of sorts, on account of the old captain’s behavior to him at first; and now he evidently retired into himself, and took refuge in his own greatness. He began to hum some song, and again looked at his watch.

“Well, I shall never go there again,” continued Trosenko, paying no heed to the peevish major. “I have got out of the habit of going about and speaking Russian. They’d ask, ‘What is this wonderful creature?’ and the answer’d be, ‘Asia.’ Isn’t that so, Nikoláï Feódoruitch? And so what is there for me in Russia? It’s all the same, you’ll get shot here sooner or later. They ask, ‘Where is Trosenko?’ And down you go! What will you do then in the eighth company — heh?” he added, continuing to address the major.

“Send the officer of the day to the battalion,” shouted Kirsánof, not answering the captain, though I was again compelled to believe that there was no necessity upon him of giving any orders.

“But, young man, I think that you are glad now that you are having double pay?” said the major after a few moments’ silence, addressing the adjutant of the battalion.

“Why, yes, very.”

“I think that our salary is now very large, Nikoláï Feódoruitch,” he went on to say. “A young man can live very comfortably, and even allow himself some little luxury.”

“No, truly, Abram Ilyitch,” said the adjutant timidly: “even though we get double pay, it’s only so much; and you see, one must keep a horse.”…

“What is that you say, young man? I myself have been an ensign, and I know. Believe me, with care, one can live very well. But you must calculate,” he added, tapping his left palm with his little finger.

“We pledge all our salary before it’s due: this is the way you economize,” said Trosenko, drinking down a glass of vodka.

“Well, now, you see that’s the very thing…. What?”

At this instant at the door of the wigwam appeared a white head with a flattened nose; and a sharp voice with a German accent said, —

“You there, Abram Ilyitch? The officer of the day is hunting for you.”

“Come in, Kraft,” said Bolkhof.

A tall form in the coat of the general’s staff entered the door, and with remarkable zeal endeavored to shake hands with every one.

“Ah, my dear captain, you here too?” said he, addressing Trosenko.

The new guest, notwithstanding the darkness, rushed up to the captain and kissed him on the lips, to his extreme astonishment, and displeasure as it seemed to me.

“This is a German who wishes to be a hail fellow well met,” I said to myself.

XII

My presumption was immediately confirmed. Captain Kraft called for some vodka, which he called corn-brandy, and threw back his head, and made a terrible noise like a duck, in draining the glass.

“Well, gentlemen, we rolled about well to-day on the plains of the Chetchen,” he began; but, catching sight of the officer of the day, he immediately stopped, to allow the major to give his directions.

“Well, you have made the tour of the lines?”

“I have.”

“Are the pickets posted?”

“They are.”

“Then you may order the captain of the guard to be as alert as possible.”

“I will.”

The major blinked his eyes, and went into a brown study.

“Well, tell the boys to get their supper.”

“That’s what they’re doing now.”

“Good! then you may go. Well,” continued the major with a conciliating smile, and taking up the thread of the conversation that we had dropped, “we were reckoning what an officer needed: let us finish the calculation.”

“We need one uniform and trousers, don’t we?”

“Yes. That, let us suppose would amount to fifty rubles every two years; say, twenty-five rubles a year for dress. Then for eating we need every day at least forty kopeks, don’t we? ”

“Yes, certainly as much as that.”

“Well, I’ll call it so. Now, for a horse and saddle for remount, thirty rubles; that’s all. Twenty-five and a hundred and twenty and thirty make a hundred and seventy-five rubles. All the rest stands for luxuries, — for tea and for sugar and for tobacco, — twenty rubles. Will you look it over?… It’s right, isn’t it, Nikoláï Feódoruitch?”

“Not quite. Excuse me, Abram Ilyitch,” said the adjutant timidly, “nothing is left for tea and sugar. You reckon one suit for every two years, but here in field-service you can’t get along with one pair of pantaloons and boots. Why, I wear out a new pair almost every month. And then linen, shirts, handkerchiefs, and leg-wrappers: all that sort of thing one has to buy. And when you have accounted for it, there isn’t any thing left at all. That’s true, by God! Abram Ilyitch.”

“Yes, it’s splendid to wear leg-wrappers,” said Kraft suddenly, after a moment’s silence, with a loving emphasis on the word “leg-wrappers;” “you know it’s simply Russian fashion.”

“I will tell you,” remarked Trosenko, “it all amounts to this, that our brother imagines that we have nothing to eat; but the fact is, that we all live, and have tea to drink, and tobacco to smoke, and our vodka to drink. If you served with me,” he added, turning to the ensign, “you would soon learn how to live. I suppose you gentlemen know how he treated his denshchik.”

And Trosenko, dying with laughter, told us the whole story of the ensign and his man, though we had all heard it a thousand times.

“What makes you look so rosy, brother?” he continued, pointing to the ensign, who turned red, broke into a perspiration, and smiled with such constraint that it was painful to look at him.

“It’s all right, brother. I used to be just like you; but now, you see, I have become hardened. Just let any young fellow come here from Russia, — we have seen ‘em, — and here they would get all sorts of rheumatism and spasms; but look at me sitting here: it’s my home, and bed, and all. You see” … Here he drank still another glass of vodka. “Hah?” he continued, looking straight into Kraft’s eyes.

“That’s what I like in you. He’s a genuine old Kavkázets. Kive us your hant.”

And Kraft pushed through our midst, rushed up to Trosenko, and, grasping his hand, shook it with remarkable feeling.

“Yes, we can say that we have had all sorts of experiences here,” he continued. “In ’45 you must have been there, captain? Do you remember the night of the 24th and 25th, when we camped in mud up to our knees, and the next day went against the intrenchments? I was then with the commander-in-chief, and in one day we captured fifteen intrenchments. Do you remember, captain?”

Trosenko nodded assent, and, pushing out his lower lip, closed his eyes.

“You ought to have seen,” Kraft began with extraordinary animation, making awkward gestures with his arms, and addressing the major.

But the major, who must have more than once heard this tale, suddenly threw such an expression of muddy stupidity into his eyes, as he looked at his comrade, that Kraft turned from him, and addressed Bolkhof and me, alternately looking at each of us. But he did not once look at Trosenko, from one end of his story to the other.

“You ought to have seen how in the morning the commander-in-chief came to me, and says, ‘Kraft, take those intrenchments.’ You know our military duty, — no arguing, hand to visor. ‘It shall be done, your Excellency,’ and I started. As soon as we came to the first intrenchment, I turn round, and shout to the soldiers, ‘Poys, show your mettle! Pe on your guard. The one who stops I shall cut down with my own hand.’ With Russian soldiers you know you have to be plain-spoken. Then suddenly comes a shell — I look — one soldier, two soldiers, three soldiers, then the bullets — vz-zhin! vz-zhin! vz-zhin! I shout, ‘Forward, boys; follow me!’ As soon as we reach it, you know, I look and see — how it — you know: what do you call it?” and the narrator waved his hands in his search for the word.

“Rampart,” suggested Bolkhof.

“No…. Ach! what is it? My God, now, what is it?… Yes, rampart,” said he quickly. “Then clubbing their guns!… hurrah! ta-ra-ta-ta-ta! The enemy — not a soul was left. Do you know, they were amazed. All right. We rush on — the second intrenchment. This was quite a different affair. Our hearts poiled within us, you know. As soon as we got there, I look and I see the second intrenchment — impossible to mount it. There — what was it — what was it we just called it? Ach! what was it?”…

“Rampart,” again I suggested.

“Not at all,” said he with some heat. “Not rampart. Ah, now, what is it called?” and he made a sort of despairing gesture with his hand. “Ach! my God! what is it?”…

He was evidently so cut up, that one could not help offering suggestions.

“Moat, perhaps,” said Bolkhof.

“No; simply rampart. As soon as we reached it, if you will believe me, there was a fire poured in upon us — it was hell.”…

At the crisis, some one behind the wigwam inquired for me. It was Maksímof. As there still remained thirteen of the intrenchments to be taken in the same monotonous detail, I was glad to have an excuse to go to my division. Trosenko went with me.

“It’s all a pack of lies,” he said to me when we had gone a few steps from the wigwam. “He wasn’t at the intrenchments at all;” and Trosenko laughed so good-naturedly, that I could not help joining him.

XIII

It was already dark night, and the camp was lighted only by the flickering bonfires, when I rejoined my soldiers, after giving my orders. A great smouldering log was lying on the coals. Around it were sitting only three of the men, — Antónof, who had set his kettle on the fire to boil his ryábko, or hard-tack and tallow; Zhdánof, thoughtfully poking the ashes with a stick; and Chikin, with his pipe, which was forever in his mouth. The rest had already turned in, some under gun carriages, others in the hay, some around the fires. By the faint light of the coals I recognized the backs, the legs, and the heads of those whom I knew. Among the latter was the recruit, who, curling up close to the fire, was already fast asleep. Antónof made room for me. I sat down by him, and began to smoke a cigarette. The odor of the mist and of the smoke from the wet branches spreading through the air made one’s eyes smart, and the same penetrating drizzle fell from the gloomy sky.

Behind us could be heard regular snoring, the crackling of wood in the fire, muffled conversation, and occasionally the clank of muskets among the infantry. Everywhere about us the watch-fires were glowing, throwing their red reflections within narrow circles on the dark forms of the soldiers. Around the nearer fires I distinguished, in places where it was light, the figures of naked soldiers waving their shirts in the very flames. Many of the men had not yet gone to bed, but were wandering round, and talking over a space of fifteen square sazhens; but the thick, gloomy night imparted a peculiarly mysterious tone to all this movement, as though each felt this gloomy silence, and feared to disturb its peaceful harmony. When I spoke, it seemed to me that my voice sounded strange. On the faces of all the soldiers sitting by the fire I read the same mood. I thought, that, when I joined them, they were talking about their wounded comrade; but it was nothing of the sort. Chikin was telling about the condition of things at Tiflis, and about school-children there.

Always and everywhere, especially in the Caucasus, I have remarked in our soldiery at the time of danger peculiar tact in ignoring or avoiding those things that might have a depressing effect upon their comrades’ spirits. The spirit of the Russian soldier is not constituted, like the courage of the Southern nations, for quickly kindled and quickly cooling enthusiasm; it is as hard to set him on fire as it is to cause him to lose courage. For him it is not necessary to have accessories, speeches, martial shouts, songs, and drums; on the contrary, he wants calmness, order, and avoidance of every thing unnatural. In the Russian, the genuine Russian soldier, you never find braggadocio, bravado, or the tendency to get demoralized or excited in time of danger; on the contrary, discretion, simplicity, and the faculty of seeing in peril something quite distinct from the peril, constitute the chief traits of his character. I have seen a soldier wounded in the leg, at the first moment mourning only over the hole in his new jacket; a messenger thrown from his horse, which was killed under him, unbuckling the girth so as to save the saddle. Who does not recollect the incident at the siege of Hergebel when the fuse of a loaded bomb was on fire in the powder-room, and the artillerist ordered two soldiers to take the bomb and fling it over the wall, and how the soldiers did not take it to the most convenient place, which was near the colonel’s tent on the rampart, but carried it farther, lest it should wake the gentlemen who were asleep in the tent, and both of them were blown to pieces?

I remember, that, during this same expedition of 1852, one of the young soldiers, during action, said to some one that it was not proper for the division to go into danger, and how the whole division in scorn went for him for saying such shameful words that they would not even repeat them. And here now the thought of Velenchúk must have been in the mind of each; and when any second might bring upon us the broadside of the stealthy Tatars, all were listening to Chikin’s lively story, and no one mentioned the events of the day, nor the present danger, nor their wounded friend, as though it had happened God knows how long ago, or had never been at all. But still, it seemed to me that their faces were more serious than usual; they listened with too little attention to Chikin’s tale, and even Chikin himself felt that they were not listening to him, but let him talk to himself.

Maksímof came to the bonfire, and sat down by me. Chikin made room for him, stopped talking, and again began to suck at his pipe.

“The infantry have sent to camp for some vodka,” said Maksímof after a considerably long silence. “They’ll be back with it very soon.” He spat into the fire. “A subaltern was saying that he had seen our comrade.”

“Was he still alive?” asked Antónof, turning his kettle round.

“No, he is dead.”

The recruit suddenly raised above the fire his graceful head within his red cap, for an instant gazed intently at Maksímof and me, then quickly dropped it, and rolled himself up in his cloak.

“You see, it was death that was coming upon him this morning when I woke him in the gun-park,” said Antónof.

“Nonsense!” said Zhdánof, turning over the smouldering log; and all were silent.

Amid the general silence a shot was heard behind us in the camp. Our drummers took it up immediately, and beat the tattoo. When the last roll had ceased, Zhdánof was already up, and the first to take off his cap. The rest of us followed his example.

Amid the deep silence of the night a choir of harmonious male voices resounded: —

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; thy will be done, as on earth, so in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”

“It was just so with us in ’45: one man was contused in this place,” said Antónof when we had put on our hats and were sitting around the fire, “and so we carried him two days on the gun. Do you remember Shevchenko, Zhdánof?… We left him there under a tree.”

At this time a foot-soldier with tremendous whiskers and mustaches, carrying a gun and a knapsack, came to our fire.

“Please give a fellow-countryman a coal for his pipe,” said he.

“Of course, smoke away; there is plenty of fire,” remarked Chikin.

“You were talking about Dargi, weren’t you, friend?” asked the soldier, addressing Antónof.

The soldier shook his head, frowned, and squatted down near us on his heels.

“There were all sorts of things there,” he remarked.

“Why did you leave him?” I asked of Antónof.

“He had awful cramps in his belly. When we stood still, he did not feel it; but when we moved, he screeched and screeched. He besought us by all that was holy to leave him: it was pitiful. Well, and when he began to vex us solely, and had killed three of our men at the guns and one officer, then our batteries opened on him, and did some execution too. We weren’t able to drag out the guns, there was such mud.”

“It was muddier under the Indian mountains than anywhere else,” remarked the strange soldier.

“Well, but indeed it kept growing worse and worse for him; and we decided, Anóshenka — he was an old artillerist — and the rest of us, that indeed there was no chance for him but to say a prayer, and so we left him there. And so we decided. A tree grew there, welcome enough. We left some hard-tack for him, — Zhdánof had some, — we put him against the tree, put a clean shirt on him, said good-by to him, and so we left him.”

“Was he a man of importance?”

“Not at all: he was a soldier,” remarked Zhdánof.

“And what became of him, God knows,” added Antónof. “Many of our brothers were left there.”

“At Dargi?” asked the infantry man, standing up and picking up his pipe, and again frowning and shaking his head…. “There were all sorts of things there.”

And he left us.

“Say, are there many of the soldiers in our battery who were at Dargi?” I asked.

“Let us see; here is Zhdánof, myself, Patsan, — who is now on furlough, — and some six men more. There wouldn’t be any others.”

“Why has our Patsan gone off on leave of absence?” asked Chikin, shaking out his legs, and laying his head on a log. “It’s almost a year since he went.”

“Well, are you going to take your furlough?” I asked of Zhdánof.

“No, I’m not,” he replied reluctantly.

“I tell you it’s a good thing to go,” said Antónof, “when you come from a rich home, or when you are able to work; and it’s rather flattering to go and have the folks glad to see you.”

“But how about going when you have a brother,” asked Zhdánof, “and would have to be supported by him? They have enough for themselves, but there’s nothing for a brother who’s a soldier. Poor kind of help after serving twenty-five years. Besides, whether they are alive or no, who knows?”

“But why haven’t you written?” I asked.

“Written? I did send two letters, but they don’t reply. Either they are dead, or they don’t reply because, of course, they are poor. It’s so everywhere.”

“Have you written lately?”

“When we left Dargi I wrote my last letter.”