Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 1

by Leo Tolstoy

  Chapter VIII

  EVERYONE who has been in action undoubtedly knows that strange and though illogical yet powerful feeling of aversion for the spot where someone has been killed or wounded. It was evident that for a moment my men gave way to this feeling when Velenchúk had to be taken to the cart that came up to fetch him. Zhdánov came up angrily to the wounded man and, taking him under the arms, lifted him without heeding his loud screams. ‘Now then, what are you standing there for? take hold!’ he shouted, and about ten assistants, some of them superfluous, immediately surrounded Velenchúk. But hardly had they moved him when he began screaming and struggling terribly.

  ‘What are you screaming like a hare for?’ said Antónov roughly, holding his leg; ‘mind, or we’ll just leave you.’

  And the wounded man really became quiet and only now and then uttered, ‘Oh, it’s my death! Oh, oh, oh, lads!’

  When he was laid in the cart he even stopped moaning and I heard him speak to his comrades in low clear tones, probably saying farewell to them.

  No one likes to look at a wounded man during an action and, instinctively hurrying to end this scene, I ordered him to be taken quickly to the ambulance, and returned to the guns. But after a few minutes I was told that Velenchúk was asking for me, and I went up to the cart.

  The wounded man lay at the bottom of the cart holding on to the sides with both hands. His broad healthy face had completely changed during those few moments; he seemed to have grown thinner and years older, his lips were thin and pale and pressed together with an evident strain. The hasty and dull expression of his glance was replaced by a kind of bright clear radiance, and on the bloody forehead and nose already lay the impress of death. Though the least movement caused him excruciating pain, he nevertheless asked to have a small chérez8 with money taken from his left leg.

  The sight of his bare, white, healthy leg, when his jackboot had been taken off and the purse untied, produced in me a terribly sad feeling.

  ‘Here are three rubles and a half,’ he said, as I took the purse: ‘you’ll take care of them.’

  The cart was starting, but he stopped it.

  ‘I was making a cloak for Lieutenant Sulimóvsky. He gave me two rubles. I bought buttons for one and a half, and half a ruble is in my bag with the buttons. Please let him have it.’

  ‘All right! all right!’ said I. ‘Get well again, old fellow.’

  He did not answer; the cart started and he again began to groan and cry out in a terrible, heart-rending voice. It was as if, having done with the business of this life, he did not think it necessary to restrain himself and considered it permissible to allow himself this relief.

  Chapter IX

  ‘WHERE are you off to? Come back! Where are you going?’ I shouted to the recruit, who with his reserve linstock under his arm and a stick of some sort in his hand was, in the coolest manner, following the cart that bore the wounded man.

  But the recruit only looked at me lazily, muttered something or other, and continued on his way, so that I had to send a soldier to bring him back. He took off his red cap and looked at me with a stupid smile.

  ‘Where were you going?’ I asked.

  ‘To the camp.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why?… Velenchúk is wounded,’ he said, again smiling.

  ‘What’s that to you? You must stay here.’

  He looked at me with surprise, then turned quietly round, put on his cap, and went back to his place.

  The affair in general was successful. The Cossacks, as we heard, had made a fine charge and brought back three dead Tartars;9 the infantry had provided itself with firewood and had only half-a-dozen men wounded; the artillery had lost only Velenchúk and two horses. For that, two miles of forest had been cut down and the place so cleared as to be unrecognizable. Instead of the thick outskirts of the forest you saw before you a large plain covered with smoking fires and cavalry and infantry marching back to camp.

  Though the enemy continued to pursue us with artillery and small-arms fire up to the cemetery by the little river we had crossed in the morning, the retirement was successfully accomplished. I was already beginning to dream of the cabbage-soup and mutton-ribs with buckwheat that were awaiting me in camp, when a message came from the General ordering a redoubt to be constructed by the river, and the 3rd battalion of the K– Regiment and the platoon of the 4th Battery to remain there till next day.

  The carts with the wood and the wounded, the Cossacks, the artillery, the infantry with muskets and faggots on their shoulders, all passed us with noise and songs. Every face expressed animation and pleasure caused by the escape from danger and the hope of rest. Only we and the 3rd battalion had to postpone those pleasant feelings till to-morrow.

  Chapter X

  WHILE we of the artillery were busy with the guns – parking the limbers and the ammunition wagons and arranging the picket-ropes – the infantry had already piled their muskets, made up camp-fires, built little huts of branches and maize straw, and begun boiling their buckwheat.

  The twilight had set in. Bluish white clouds crept over the sky. The mist, turning into fine dank drizzle, wetted the earth and the soldiers’ cloaks; the horizon narrowed and all the surroundings assumed a gloomier hue. The damp I felt through my boots and on my neck, the ceaseless movement and talk in which I took no part, the sticky mud on which my feet kept slipping, and my empty stomach, all combined to put me into the dreariest, most unpleasant frame of mind after the physical and moral weariness of the day. I could not get Velenchúk out of my head. The whole simple story of his soldier-life depicted itself persistently in my imagination.

  His last moments were as clear and calm as his whole life had been. He had lived too honestly and been too artless for his simple faith in a future heavenly life to be shaken at the decisive moment.

  ‘Your honour!’ said Nikoláyev, coming up to me, ‘the captain asks you to come and have tea with him.’

  Having scrambled through, as best I could, between the piles of arms and the camp-fires, I followed Nikoláyev to where Bólkhov was, thinking with pleasure of a tumbler of hot tea and a cheerful conversation which would disperse my gloomy thoughts.

  ‘Have you found him?’ I heard Bólkhov’s voice say from inside a maize-hut in which a light was burning.

  ‘I’ve brought him, y’r honour,’ answered Nikoláyev’s bass voice.

  Inside the hut Bólkhov was sitting on a dry mantle, with unbuttoned coat and no cap. A samovar stood boiling by his side and on a drum were light refreshments. A bayonet holding a candle was stuck into the ground.

  ‘What do you think of it?’ he asked, looking proudly round his cosy establishment. It really was so nice inside the hut that at tea I quite forgot the damp, the darkness, and Velenchúk’s wound. We talked of Moscow and of things that had not the least relation to the war or to the Caucasus.

  After a moment of silence such as sometimes occurs in the most animated conversation, Bólkhov looked at me with a smile.

  ‘I think our conversation this morning struck you as being very strange,’ he said.

  ‘No, why do you think so? It only seemed to me that you were too frank; there are things which we all know, but which should never be mentioned.’

  ‘Why not? If there were the least possibility of changing this life for the lowest and poorest without danger and without service, I should not hesitate a moment.’

  ‘Then why don’t you return to Russia?’ I asked.

  ‘Why?’ he repeated. ‘Oh, I have thought about that long ago. I can’t return to Russia now until I have the Anna and Vladímir orders: an Anna round my neck and the rank of major, as I planned when I came here.’

  ‘Why? – if, as you say, you feel unfit for the service here.’

  ‘But what if I feel still more unfit to go back to Russia to the same position that I left? That is also one of the traditions in Russia, confirmed by Pássek, Sleptsóv and others, that one need only go to the Caucasus to be laden with rewar
ds. Everyone expects and demands it of us; and I have been here for two years, have been on two expeditions, and have got nothing. But still I have so much ambition that I won’t leave on any account until I am a major with a Vladímir and Anna round my neck. I have become so concerned about it that it upsets me when Gnilokíshkin gets a reward and I don’t. And then how am I to show myself in Russia, to the village elder, to the merchant Kotëlnikov to whom I sell my corn, to my Moscow aunt, and to all those good people, if after two years spent in the Caucasus I return without any reward? It is true I don’t at all wish to know all those people, and they no doubt care very little about me either; but man is so made that, though I don’t want to know them, yet on account of them I’m wasting the best years of my life, all my life’s happiness, and am ruining my future.’

  Chapter XI

  JUST then we heard the voice of the commander of the battalion outside, addressing Bólkhov.

  ‘Who is with you, Nicholas Fëdorovich?’

  Bólkhov gave him my name, and then three officers scrambled into the hut – Major Kirsánov; the adjutant of his battalion; and Captain Trosénko.

  Kirsánov was not tall but stout, he had black moustaches, rosy cheeks, and oily little eyes. These eyes were his most remarkable feature. When he laughed nothing remained of them but two tiny moist stars, and these little stars together with his wide-stretched lips and outstretched neck often gave him an extraordinarily senseless look. In the regiment Kirsánov behaved himself and bore himself better than anyone else; his subordinates did not complain of him and his superiors respected him – though the general opinion was that he was very limited. He knew the service, was exact and zealous, always had ready money, kept a carriage and a man-cook, and knew how to make an admirable pretence of being proud.

  ‘What were you talking about, Nicholas Fëdorovich?’

  ‘Why, about the attractions of the service here.’

  But just then Kirsánov noticed me, a cadet, and to impress me with his importance he paid no attention to Bólkhov’s reply, but looked at the drum and said —

  ‘Are you tired, Nicholas Fëdorovich?’

  ‘No, you see we —’ Bólkhov began.

  But again the dignity of the commander of the battalion seemed to make it necessary to interrupt, and to ask another question.

  ‘That was a famous affair to-day, was it not?’

  The adjutant of the battalion was a young ensign recently promoted from being a cadet, a modest, quiet lad with a bashful and kindly-pleasant face. I had met him at Bólkhov’s before. The lad would often come there, bow, sit down in a corner, and remain silent for hours making cigarettes and smoking them; then he would rise, bow, and go away. He was the type of a poor Russian nobleman’s son who had chosen the military career as the only one possible to him with his education, and who esteemed his position as an officer above everything else in the world – a simple-minded and lovable type notwithstanding the comical appurtenances inseparable from it: the tobacco-pouch, dressing-gown, guitar, and little moustache-brush we are accustomed to associate with it. It was told of him in the regiment that he bragged about being just but strict with his orderly, and that he used to say, ‘I punish seldom, but when I am compelled to do it it’s no joke,’ but that when his tipsy orderly robbed him outrageously and even began to insult him, he, the master, took him to the guard-house and ordered everything to be prepared for a flogging, but was so upset at the sight of the preparations that he could only say, ‘There now, you see, I could —’ and becoming quite disconcerted, ran home in great confusion and was henceforth afraid to look his man Chernóv in the eyes. His comrades gave the simple-minded boy no rest but teased him continually about this episode, and more than once I heard how he defended himself, and blushing to the tips of his ears assured them that it was not true, but just the contrary.

  The third visitor, Captain Trosénko, was a thoroughgoing old Caucasian – that is, a man for whom the company he commanded had become his family; the fortress where the staff was, his home; and the soldiers’ singing his only pleasure in life. He was a man for whom everything unconnected with the Caucasus was contemptible and scarcely worthy of being considered probable, and everything connected with the Caucasus was divided into two halves: ours and not ours. The first he loved, the second he hated with all the power of his soul; but above all he was a man of steeled, calm courage, wonderfully kind in his behaviour to his comrades and subordinates and desperately frank and even rude to aides-de-camp and ‘bonjourists’, for whom for some reason he had a great dislike. On entering the hut he nearly caved the roof in with his head, then suddenly sank down and sat on the ground.

  ‘Well?’ he said, and then suddenly remarking me whom he did not know, he stopped and gazed at me with a dull, fixed look.

  ‘Well, and what have you been conversing about?’ asked the major, taking out his watch and looking at it, though I am perfectly certain he had no need to.

  ‘Why, I’ve been asked my reasons for serving here —’

  ‘Of course, Nicholas Fëdorovich wishes to distinguish himself here, and then to return home,’ said the major.

  ‘Well, and you, Abram Ilých,’ said Bólkhov, addressing Kirsánov, ‘tell me why you are serving in the Caucasus.’

  ‘I serve because in the first place, as you know, it is everyone’s duty to serve.… What?’ he then added, though no one had spoken. ‘I had a letter from Russia yesterday, Nicholas Fëdorovich,’ he continued, evidently wishing to change the subject; ‘they write that … they ask such strange questions.’

  ‘What questions?’ asked Bólkhov.

  The major began laughing.

  ‘Very queer questions.… They ask, can jealousy exist where there is no love.… What?’ he asked, turning round and glancing at us all.

  ‘Dear me!’ said Bólkhov, with a smile.

  ‘Yes, you know, it is nice in Russia,’ continued the major, just as if his sentences flowed naturally from one another. ‘When I was in Tambóv in ’52 they received me everywhere as if I had been some emperor’s aide-de-camp. Will you believe it that at a ball at the governor’s, when I came in, you know … well, they received me very well. The general’s wife herself, you know, talked to me and asked me about the Caucasus, and everybody was … so that I hardly knew.… They examined my gold sabre as if it were some curiosity; they asked for what I had received the sabre, for what the Anna, for what the Vladímir … so I just told them.… What? That’s what the Caucasus is good for, Nicholas Fëdorovich!’ he continued without waiting for any reply: – ‘There they think very well of us Caucasians. You know a young man that’s a staff-officer and has an Anna and a Vladímir … that counts for a good deal in Russia.… What?’

  ‘And you, no doubt, piled it on a bit, Abram Ilých?’ said Bólkhov.

  ‘He – he!’ laughed the major stupidly. ‘You know one has to do that. And didn’t I feed well those two months!’

  ‘And tell me, is it nice there in Russia?’ said Trosénko, inquiring about Russia as though it were China or Japan.

  ‘Yes, and the champagne we drank those two months, it was awful!’

  ‘Eh, nonsense! You’ll have drunk nothing but lemonade. There now, I’d have burst to let them see how Caucasians drink. I’d have given them something to talk about. I’d have shown them how one drinks; eh, Bólkhov?’ said Trosénko.

  ‘But you, Daddy, have been more than ten years in the Caucasus,’ said Bólkhov, ‘and you remember what Ermólov10 said?… And Abram Ilých has been only six.’

  ‘Ten indeed! … nearly sixteen.… Well, Bólkhov, let us have some sage-vodka. It’s damp, b-r-r-r! … Eh?’ said Trosénko, smiling, ‘Will you have a drink, Major?’

  But the major had been displeased by the old captain’s first remarks to him, and plainly drew back and sought refuge in his own grandeur. He hummed something, and again looked at his watch.

  ‘For my part I shall never go there!’ Trosénko continued without heeding the major’s frowns. ‘I hav
e lost the habit of speaking and walking in the Russian way. They’d ask, “What curious creature is this coming here? Asia, that’s what it is.” Am I right, Nicholas Fëdorovich? Besides, what have I to go to Russia for? What does it matter? I shall be shot here some day. They’ll ask, “Where’s Trosénko?” “Shot!” What will you do with the 8th Company then, eh?’ he added, always addressing the major.

  ‘Send the officer on duty!’ shouted the major, without answering the captain, though I again felt sure there was no need for him to give any orders.

  ‘And you, young man, are glad, I suppose, to be drawing double pay?’11 said the major, turning to the adjutant of the battalion after some moments of silence.

  ‘Yes, sir, very glad of course.’

  ‘I think our pay now very high, Nicholas Fëdorovich,’ continued the major; ‘a young man can live very decently and even permit himself some small luxuries.’

  ‘No, really, Abram Ilých,’ said the adjutant bashfully. ‘Though it’s double it’s barely enough. You see one must have a horse.’

  ‘What are you telling me, young man? I have been an ensign myself and know. Believe me, one can live very well with care. But there! count it up,’ added he, bending the little finger of his left hand.

  ‘We always draw our salaries in advance; isn’t that account enough for you?’ said Trosénko, emptying a glass of vodka.

  ‘Well, yes, but what do you expect.… What?’

  Just then a white head with a flat nose thrust itself into the opening of the hut and a sharp voice said with a German accent —

  ‘Are you there, Abram Ilých? The officer on duty is looking for you.’

  ‘Come in, Kraft!’ said Bólkhov.

  A long figure in the uniform of the general staff crept in at the door and began shaking hands all round with peculiar fervour.

  ‘Ah, dear Captain, are you here too?’ said he, turning to Trosénko.

  In spite of the darkness the new visitor made his way to the captain and to the latter’s extreme surprise and dismay as it seemed to me, kissed him on the lips.