I
Evening drills in the Sixth Company were drawing to a close, and the junior officers were looking at their watches more and more frequently and impatiently. The regulations for garrison duty were being studied practically. Soldiers stood scattered across the parade ground: near the poplars lining the highway, by the gymnastics equipment, near the doors of the company school, and by the sighting benches. All these were imaginary posts, such as a post at a powder magazine, at the standard, in the guardhouse, or at the money-box. Changing-off officers walked between them and posted sentries; guard mounts were performed; non-commissioned officers checked the posts and tested their soldiers’ knowledge, trying to cunningly lure the sentry into giving up his rifle, to make him leave his post, or to hand him something to keep, mostly their own cap. Old-timers, who knew this mock casuistry better, answered in such cases with an exaggeratedly stern tone: “Step back! I do not have the full right to hand over my rifle to anyone, unless I receive an order from the Emperor himself.” But the young ones got confused. They had not yet learned to distinguish jokes or examples from the genuine demands of the service, and they fell into one extreme or the other.
“Khlebnikov! You clumsy devil!” shouted the small, round, and quick corporal Shapovalenko, his voice ringing with a commander’s suffering. “I taught and taught you, you fool! Whose order did you just follow? The arrested man’s? Oh, damn you!… Answer me, why were you posted here?”
In the Third Platoon, a serious mix-up occurred. The young soldier Mukhamedzhinov, a Tatar who barely understood or spoke Russian, was completely bewildered by the tricks of his superiors—both real and imaginary. He suddenly became furious, took his rifle on the arm (ready to stab), and to all persuasions and commands, he responded with one resolute word:
“I’ll stab!”
“Wait a minute… you’re a fool…” Sergeant Bobylev reasoned with him. “Who am I? I’m your Guard Commander, naturally…”
“I’ll stab!” the Tatar cried, scared and malicious, and with bloodshot eyes, he nervously lunged with his bayonet at anyone who approached him. A cluster of soldiers gathered around him, delighted by the comical incident and the momentary respite from the tiresome drill.
The Company Commander, Captain Sliva, went to sort out the matter. While he trudged with a sluggish gait, hunched over and dragging his feet, to the other end of the parade ground, the junior officers gathered to chat and smoke. There were three of them: Lieutenant Vetkin—a bald, moustachioed man of about thirty-three, a joker, talker, singer, and drinker; Sub-Lieutenant Romashov, who was serving only his second year in the regiment; and Under-Ensign Lbov, a lively, slim lad with mischievously affectionate-and-silly eyes and a perpetual smile on his thick, naive lips—entirely stuffed, as it were, with old officer anecdotes.
“It’s beastly,” said Vetkin, looking at his nickel-silver watch and angrily snapping the cover shut. “Why the devil is he keeping the company out so late? Ethiopian!”
“Why don’t you explain that to him, Pavel Pavlych?” suggested Lbov with a sly expression.
“Like hell. Go explain it yourself. The main thing is what? The main thing is, it’s all useless. They always rush things before inspections. And they always overdo it. They’ll harass the soldier, torture him, wear him out, and at the review, he’ll stand there like a stump. You know the famous case, when two company commanders bet on whose soldier could eat the most bread? They both picked the most extreme gluttons. The wager was large—something around a hundred rubles. Well, one soldier ate seven pounds and collapsed, unable to eat more. The Company Commander immediately yelled at the sergeant-major: ‘Why did you let me down, you good-for-nothing?’ And the sergeant-major just blinked his eyes: ‘I can’t tell you, Your Honor, what happened to him. We had a rehearsal in the morning—he wolfed down eight pounds in one sitting…’ It’s the same with ours… They rehearse pointlessly, and at the inspection, they’ll fall flat on their face.”
“Yesterday…” Lbov suddenly burst into laughter. “Yesterday, all the companies had already finished drills, and I was walking to my quarters, it was about eight o’clock, completely dark. I see the Eleventh Company practicing signals. In chorus. ‘A-im, to the chest, hit!’ I ask Lieutenant Andrusevich: ‘Why are you still making such music?’ And he says: ‘We’re howling at the moon, like dogs.'”
“I’m sick of everything, Kuka!” said Vetkin and yawned. “Wait a minute, who’s riding there? Looks like Bek?”
“Yes. Bek-Agamalov,” the sharp-eyed Lbov decided. “He sits beautifully.”
“Very beautifully,” Romashov agreed. “In my opinion, he rides better than any cavalryman. Oh-oh-oh! She’s dancing. Bek is showing off.”
An officer in white gloves and an adjutant’s uniform was slowly riding along the highway. Beneath him was a tall, long, golden-colored horse with a short, English-style tail. She was spirited, impatiently tossing her curved neck, gathered by the bit, and often shuffling her thin legs.
“Pavel Pavlych, is it true that he’s a genuine Circassian?” Romashov asked Vetkin.
“I think so, yes. Sometimes Armenians pretend to be Circassians or Lezgins, but Bek generally seems not to lie. Look how he sits on the horse!”
“Wait, I’ll shout to him,” said Lbov.
He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted in a muffled voice, so the Company Commander wouldn’t hear:
“Lieutenant Agamalov! Bek!”
The officer on horseback pulled the reins, stopped for a second, and turned to the right. Then, turning the horse in that direction and bending slightly in the saddle, he forced her to jump the ditch with a springy movement, and he galloped towards the officers at a restrained pace.
He was below average height, lean, sinewy, and very strong. His face, with a sloping forehead, a thin, hooked nose, and resolute, firm lips, was masculine and handsome and had not yet lost its characteristic Eastern paleness—both swarthy and matte.
“Hello, Bek,” said Vetkin. “Who were you showing off to there? Girls?”
Bek-Agamalov shook hands with the officers, bending low and casually from the saddle. He smiled, and it seemed that his white, clenched teeth cast a reflected light on the entire lower part of his face and on his small, black, well-groomed moustache…
“There were two pretty little Jewesses walking there. But what’s that to me? I paid zero attention.”
“We know how badly you play checkers!” Vetkin shook his head.
“Listen, gentlemen,” Lbov began, and laughed beforehand again. “Do you know what General Dokhturov said about infantry adjutants? This applies to you, Bek. That they are the most reckless riders in the whole world…”
“Don’t lie, Cadet!” said Bek-Agamalov.
He nudged the horse with his heels and pretended to ride at the under-ensign.
“By God, it’s true! All of them, he says, don’t have horses, but some kind of guitars, cabinets—with spavin, lame, cross-eyed, drugged. But give him an order—and he just charges, anywhere, at a full gallop. A fence is a fence, a ravine is a ravine. He crashes through bushes. Reins lost, stirrups scattered, cap gone to hell! Daring riders!”
“What’s the news, Bek?” asked Vetkin.
“What’s new? Nothing new. Just now, the Regimental Commander caught Lieutenant Colonel Lokh at the officers’ club. He screamed at him so loudly that it could be heard in the cathedral square. And Lokh was drunk as a lord, couldn’t utter a word. He just stood there swaying, his hands clasped behind his back. And Shulgovich roared at him: ‘When you are talking to the Regimental Commander, don’t keep your hands on your ass!’ And the servants were right there.”
“Strongly worded!” said Vetkin with a smirk—both ironic and perhaps encouraging. “In the Fourth Company yesterday, they say he shouted: ‘Why are you shoving the regulations in my face? I am the regulations for you, and no more talk! I am Tsar and God here!'”
Lbov suddenly laughed again at his own thoughts.
“Oh, and gentlemen, there was another incident with an adjutant in the N-th regiment…”
“Shut up, Lbov,” Vetkin noted seriously. “You’re really bursting today.”
“There is more news,” Bek-Agamalov continued. He turned his horse’s front end towards Lbov again and, jokingly, began to ride at him. The horse tossed her head and snorted, spraying foam around. “There’s more news. The Commander is demanding that officers in all companies practice cutting dummies. He’s caused such a cold panic in the Ninth Company, it’s terrible. He put Epifanov under arrest because his sabre wasn’t sharpened… Why are you running away, Cadet!” Bek-Agamalov suddenly shouted at the under-ensign. “Get used to it. You’ll be an adjutant yourself someday. You’ll sit on a horse like a roasted sparrow on a plate.”
“Get out of here, you Asian!… Take your dead nag away,” Lbov waved the horse’s muzzle away. “Did you hear, Bek, how one adjutant in the N-th regiment bought a horse from the circus? He rode her out for the inspection, and she suddenly started to parade with the Spanish walk right in front of the Corps Commander. You know, like this: legs up and shifting side to side. Finally, he crashed into the leading company—commotion, shouting, disgrace. And the horse paid no attention, just kept doing the Spanish walk. So Dragomirov made a megaphone—just like this—and shouted: ‘Lieutenant, proceed at the same gait to the guardhouse, for twenty-one days, march!'”
“Ah, nonsense,” Vetkin grimaced. “Listen, Bek, you’ve really given us a surprise with this saber cutting. What does this mean? No free time left at all? They brought us that monster yesterday, too.”
He pointed to the middle of the parade ground, where a dummy made of wet clay stood, representing something like a human figure, but without arms or legs.
“Well? Did you cut it?” Bek-Agamalov asked with curiosity. “Romashov, have you tried?”
“Not yet.”
“Nonsense! I’m not going to bother with such rubbish,” Vetkin grumbled. “When do I have time to cut? From nine in the morning until six in the evening, all you do is hang around here. You barely have time to eat and drink some vodka. Thank God, I’m not a boy anymore…”
“How foolish. But an officer must know how to use a sabre.”
“Why, I ask? In war? With modern firearms, they won’t let you within a hundred paces. What the hell do I need your sabre for? I’m not a cavalryman. And if necessary, I’ll just take a rifle and—smash-smash—with the butt to the heads. That’s more reliable.”
“Well, alright, but in peacetime? There could be any number of incidents. A riot, a rebellion, or something…”
“So what? What does the sabre have to do with it again? I’m not going to do the dirty work of chopping off people’s heads. Company, fire!—and the job’s done…”
Bek-Agamalov frowned with displeasure.
“Ah, you’re always playing the fool, Pavel Pavlych. No, answer me seriously. You’re walking somewhere at a public event or in the theatre, or, let’s say, some civilian insults you in a restaurant… let’s take an extreme case—some civilian slaps you. What will you do?”
Vetkin shrugged his shoulders and curled his lips contemptuously.
“W-well! First, no civilian will hit me, because they only hit someone who is afraid of being hit. And second… well, what would I do? I’d pop him with a revolver.”
“And what if the revolver was left at home?” asked Lbov.
“Oh, damn… well, I’d go get it… What nonsense. There was a case where a cornet was insulted in a café-chantant. And he drove home in a cab, brought a revolver, and killed two of those pheasants. And that was it!…”
Bek-Agamalov shook his head in annoyance.
“I know. I heard. But the court decided he acted with premeditation and convicted him. What’s good about that? No, if someone insulted or hit me…”
He didn’t finish, but clenched his small hand holding the reins so tightly that it trembled. Lbov suddenly shook with laughter and snickered.
“Again!” Vetkin strictly noted.
“Gentlemen… please… Ha-ha-ha! There was a case in the M-th regiment. Under-Ensign Krause caused a scandal at the Nobility Assembly. The bartender grabbed his epaulet and almost tore it off. So Krause took out his revolver—bang to his head! Dead on the spot! Then some little lawyer came along, and he bang him too! Well, naturally, everyone scattered. And then Krause calmly walked back to the camp, to the front line, to the standard. The sentry challenges: ‘Who goes there?’—’Under-Ensign Krause, to die beneath the standard!’ He lay down and shot himself in the arm. Later, the court acquitted him.”
“Well done!” said Bek-Agamalov.
The usual conversation began, a favorite among young officers, about unexpected bloody confrontations on the spot and how these incidents almost always went unpunished. In one small town, a beardless, drunken cornet charged with his sabre into a crowd of Jews after he had previously “broken up a Passover gathering.” In Kyiv, an infantry sub-lieutenant hacked a student to death in a ballroom because the latter had bumped his elbow at the buffet. In some large city—either Moscow or St. Petersburg—an officer shot a civilian “like a dog” because the latter remarked to him in a restaurant that decent people do not bother strange ladies.
Romashov, who had been silent until now, suddenly, blushing with embarrassment, unnecessarily adjusting his glasses and clearing his throat, intervened in the conversation:
“Well, gentlemen, this is what I would say. I don’t count the bartender, for example… yes… But if the civilian… how should I put it?… Yes… Well, if he is a decent man, a nobleman, and so on… why should I attack him, unarmed, with a sabre? Why can’t I demand satisfaction from him? After all, we are cultured people, so to speak…”
“Ah, you’re talking nonsense, Romashov,” Vetkin interrupted him. “You’ll demand satisfaction, and he’ll say: ‘No… uh… you know, I… uh… don’t recognize dueling. I’m an opponent of bloodshed… And besides, uh… we have a justice of the peace…’ And then you’ll walk around with a bruised face for the rest of your life.”
Bek-Agamalov smiled broadly with his radiant smile.
“What? Aha! You agree with me? I tell you, Vetkin: learn to cut. In the Caucasus, everyone learns from childhood. On willow rods, on sheep carcasses, on water…”
“And on people?” Lbov interjected.
“And on people,” Bek-Agamalov answered calmly. “And how they cut! With one blow they cleave a person diagonally from shoulder to hip. That is a cut! Otherwise, why bother getting your hands dirty?”
“And can you do that, Bek?”
Bek-Agamalov sighed regretfully:
“No, I can’t… I can cut a young lamb in half… I even tried a calf carcass… but a person, probably not… I wouldn’t cleave him. I’d knock his head off, I know that, but to cut him diagonally… no. My father did that easily…”
“Well, gentlemen, let’s go try,” said Lbov in a pleading tone, with glowing eyes. “Bek, darling, please, let’s go…”
The officers approached the clay dummy. Vetkin was the first to cut. Giving his kind, simple face a savage expression, he struck the clay with all his might, with a large, awkward swing. At the same time, he involuntarily made that characteristic sound—krash!—that butchers make when chopping beef. The blade penetrated the clay a quarter of an arshin (about 7 inches), and Vetkin had difficulty pulling it out.
“Bad!” remarked Bek-Agamalov, shaking his head. “Your turn, Romashov…”
Romashov drew his sabre and awkwardly adjusted his glasses with his hand. He was of medium height, slender, and though quite strong for his build, he was clumsy due to great shyness. He could not fence with sabres even at the academy, and in a year and a half of service, he had completely forgotten the art. Raising the weapon high above his head, he instinctively thrust his left hand forward.
“The hand!” shouted Bek-Agamalov.
But it was already too late. The tip of the sabre only lightly grazed the clay. Expecting greater resistance, Romashov lost his balance and staggered. The sabre’s blade, hitting his outstretched hand, tore a flap of skin at the base of his index finger. Blood spurted.
“Ugh! See that!” exclaimed Bek-Agamalov angrily, dismounting his horse. “It’s easy to cut off your hand that way. Is that how you should handle a weapon? It’s nothing, a trifle, tie a handkerchief tightly around it. You’re like a schoolgirl. Hold the horse, Cadet. Now, watch. The main point of the strike is not in the shoulder or the elbow, but right here, in the wrist joint.” He made a few rapid circular movements with his right wrist, and the sabre blade turned into one continuous glittering circle above his head. “Now look: I put my left hand back, behind my back. When you deliver the blow, don’t hit or chop the object, but slice it, as if sawing, drawing the sabre back… Do you understand? And remember firmly: the plane of the sabre must absolutely be inclined to the plane of the blow, absolutely. That makes the angle sharper. Here, watch.”
Bek-Agamalov stepped two paces away from the clay dummy, fixed a sharp, aiming gaze on it, and suddenly, flashing the sabre high in the air, with a terrifying, imperceptible movement, he threw his whole body forward and delivered a quick blow. Romashov only heard the piercing whistle of the cut air, and immediately the upper half of the dummy flopped softly and heavily onto the ground. The cut surface was smooth, as if polished.
“Ah, the devil! Now that’s a cut!” exclaimed the delighted Lbov. “Bek, my dear fellow, once more, please.”
“Come on, Bek, again,” asked Vetkin.
But Bek-Agamalov, as if afraid to spoil the effect he had produced, smiled and sheathed his sabre. He was breathing heavily, and at that moment, with his wide-open, malicious eyes, his hooked nose, and bared teeth, he resembled some kind of predatory, angry, and proud bird.
“What is this? Is this even cutting?” he said with feigned contempt. “My father, in the Caucasus, was sixty years old, and he could cut a horse’s neck. In half! You must practice constantly, my children. This is how we do it: they put a willow rod in a vise and cut it, or they let water run down in a thin stream from above and cut it. If there are no splashes, the blow was true. Now, Lbov, your turn.”
Sergeant Bobylev ran up to Vetkin with a frightened look.
“Your Honor… The Regimental Commander is approaching!”
“Att-tention!” Captain Sliva shouted, long, sternly, and excitedly, from the other end of the square.
The officers hastily scattered to their platoons.
A large, clumsy carriage slowly pulled off the highway onto the parade ground and stopped. The Regimental Commander heavily climbed out from one side, tipping the entire carriage body sideways, while the Regimental Adjutant, Lieutenant Fedorovsky—a tall, dapper officer—lightly jumped to the ground from the other.
“Hello, Sixth!” came the Colonel’s deep, calm voice.
The soldiers shouted loudly and raggedly from various corners of the parade ground:
“We wish you good health, Your High Excellency!”
The officers saluted.
“I ask you to continue the drills,” the Regimental Commander said and approached the nearest platoon.
Colonel Shulgovich was in a very foul mood. He walked around the platoons, asked the soldiers questions about garrison duty, and from time to time swore with that special, dashing virtuosity that is characteristic of old front-line servicemen in such cases. The soldiers were seemingly hypnotized by the fixed, persistent gaze of his elderly pale, faded, stern eyes, and they looked at him, not blinking, barely breathing, stretching out their entire bodies in terror. The Colonel was a huge, obese, stately old man. His fleshy face, very wide at the cheekbones, narrowed upwards toward the forehead, and below merged into a thick, silvery spade beard, thus having the shape of a large, heavy rhombus. His eyebrows were gray, shaggy, and menacing. He spoke almost without raising his voice, but every sound of his extraordinary voice, famous throughout the division—a voice, by the way, that had made his entire career—was clearly audible in the farthest corners of the vast parade ground and even on the highway.
“Who are you?” the Colonel asked abruptly, suddenly stopping in front of the young soldier Sharafutdinov, who was standing by the gymnastics fence.
“Private Sharafutdinov of the Sixth Company, Your High Excellency!” the Tatar cried out hoarsely and diligently.
“You fool! I’m asking you what post you are posted to?”
The soldier, confused by the shout and the angry look of the Commander, was silent and only blinked his eyes.
“W-well?” Shulgovich raised his voice.
“The sentry’s face… inviolable…” the Tatar stammered haphazardly. “I cannot know, Your High Excellency,” he finished suddenly, quietly and firmly.
The Commander’s full face flushed with a deep, brick-red, elderly blush, and his bushy eyebrows angrily drew together. He turned around and asked sharply:
“Who is the junior officer here?”
Romashov stepped forward and brought his hand to his cap.
“I am, Mr. Colonel.”
“Aha! Sub-Lieutenant Romashov. You must be doing good work with the men. Knees together!” Shulgovich bellowed, rolling his eyes. “How dare you stand in the presence of your Regimental Commander? Captain Sliva, I call your attention to the fact that your subordinate officer does not know how to conduct himself before a superior while performing official duties… You, son of a dog,” Shulgovich turned to Sharafutdinov, “who is your Regimental Commander?”
“I cannot know,” the Tatar answered with despondency, but quickly and firmly.
“………………………………..,” the Colonel swore with a long, twenty-word, convoluted, and cynical phrase. “Captain Sliva, you are to immediately put this son of a bitch under arms with full gear. Let the scoundrel rot under arms. You, Sub-Lieutenant, think more about women’s tails than about service, sir. You dance waltzes? You read Paul de Kock?… What is this—a soldier, in your opinion?” he poked his finger into Sharafutdinov’s lips. “This is a disgrace, a shame, an abomination, not a soldier. He doesn’t even know his Regimental Commander’s name… I am surprised at you, Sub-Lieutenant!…”
Romashov stared at the gray, red, irritated face and felt his heart pounding and his vision darkening from offense and agitation… And suddenly, almost unexpectedly to himself, he said dully:
“He is a Tatar, Mr. Colonel. He doesn’t understand anything in Russian, and besides…”
Shulgovich’s face instantly went pale, his flabby cheeks began to twitch, and his eyes became completely empty and terrifying.
“What?!” he roared in such an unnaturally deafening voice that the Jewish boys sitting on the fence near the highway scattered like sparrows in different directions. “What? Talking back? Be quiet! The milk-fed puppy of an ensign dares to… Lieutenant Fedorovsky, announce in today’s order that I am placing Sub-Lieutenant Romashov under house arrest for four days for not understanding military discipline. And I issue a severe reprimand to Captain Sliva for not knowing how to instill proper concepts of duty in his junior officers.”
The adjutant saluted with a respectful and impassive look. Sliva stood hunched over with a wooden, expressionless face, keeping his trembling hand at the visor of his cap the entire time.
“Shame on you, Captain Sliva, sir,” Shulgovich grumbled, gradually calming down. “One of the best officers in the regiment, an old serviceman—and you let the young people run wild like this. Tighten them up, give them hell without reservation. No need to be lenient with them. They’re not young ladies, they won’t melt…”
He turned abruptly and, accompanied by the adjutant, walked toward the carriage. And while he was getting in, while the carriage turned onto the highway and disappeared behind the company school building, a timid, perplexed silence hung over the parade ground.
“Ah, you son of a b-!” Sliva said with contempt, dryly and unfriendlily, a few minutes later, as the officers were dispersing to go home. “You just had to talk back. You should have stood there and kept quiet, if God had already struck you down. Now I get a reprimand in the order because of you. And why the devil did they send you to my company? I need you like a dog needs a fifth leg. You should be sucking a pacifier, not…”
He didn’t finish, wearily waved his hand, and, turning his back on the young officer, all hunched over and dejected, he trudged home to his dirty, lonely, old bachelor apartment. Romashov looked after him, at his gloomy, narrow, and long back, and suddenly felt that in his heart, through the bitterness of the recent insult and public disgrace, a feeling of pity stirred for this lonely, coarse, unloved man, who had only two attachments left in the whole world: the drill-ground beauty of his company and a quiet, solitary daily drunkenness in the evenings—”until the pillow,” as the old, hard-drinking grumblers in the regiment put it.
And since Romashov had a slightly funny, naive habit, often characteristic of very young people, of thinking about himself in the third person, using the language of conventional novels, he now pronounced inwardly:
“His kind, expressive eyes clouded with sadness…”
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