Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 1

by Leo Tolstoy

‘Keep to the wall, your Honour!’ said the soldier.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s dangerous, your Honour. There it is, flying over us!’ said the soldier, listening to the sound of a ball that whistled past and fell on the hard ground on the other side of the road.

  [Without heeding the soldier’s words Kozeltsóv went boldly down the middle of the road.]

  Here were still the same streets, the same or even more frequent firing, the same sounds, the same groans from the wounded one met on the way, and the same batteries, breastworks, and trenches, as when he was in Sevastopol in the spring; but somehow it all seemed more melancholy now and yet more vigorous. There were more holes in the houses, there were no lights in any of the windows except those of Kústchin’s house (a hospital), not a woman was to be seen, and the place no longer bore its former customary character and air of unconcern, but seemed burdened with heavy suspense and weariness.

  But here is the last trench and the voice of a soldier of the P—regiment who has recognized his former company-commander, and there stands the third battalion, pressing against the wall in the darkness, now and then lit up for an instant by the firing, and sounds are heard, subdued talking and the clatter of muskets.

  ‘Where is the commander of the regiment?’ asked Kozeltsóv.

  ‘In the naval officers’ casemate, your Honour,’ answers an obliging soldier. ‘Let me show you the way.’

  Passing from trench to trench, the soldier led the way to a cutting in the trench. A sailor sat there smoking a pipe. Behind him was a door through a chink in which a light shone.

  ‘Can I go in?’

  ‘I’ll announce you at once,’ and the sailor went in at the door.

  Two voices were heard talking inside.

  ‘If Prussia remains neutral,’ said one voice, ‘Austria will too.…’

  ‘What does Austria matter?’ said the other, ‘when the Slavonic lands.… Well, ask him in.’

  Kozeltsóv had never been in this casemate and was struck by its elegance. It had a parquet floor and a screen in front of the door, two beds stood against the walls, and in a corner of the room there was a large icon – the Mother of God with an embossed gilt cover – with a pink lamp alight before it. A naval officer, fully dressed, was lying asleep on one of the beds. On the other, before a table on which stood two uncorked bottles of wine, sat the speakers – the new regimental commander and his adjutant. Though Kozeltsóv was far from being a coward and was not at all guilty of any offence either against the government or the regimental commander, still he felt abashed in the presence of his former comrade the colonel, so proudly did that colonel rise and give him his attention.

  [And the adjutant who was sitting there also made Kozeltsóv feel abashed by his pose and look, that seemed to say: ‘I am only a friend of your regimental commander’s. You have not come to present yourself to me, and I can’t and don’t wish to demand any deference from you.’]

  ‘How strange!’ thought Kolzeltsóv as he looked at his commander, ‘It’s only seven weeks since he took the command, and yet all his surroundings – his dress, manner, and looks – already indicate the power a regimental commander has: [a power based not so much on his age, seniority, or military worth, as on his wealth as a regimental commander.] It isn’t long since this same Batríshchev used to hobnob with us, wore one and the same dark cotton print shirt a whole week, ate rissoles and curd dumplings every day, never asking anyone to share them – but look at him now! [A fine linen shirt showing from under his wide-sleeved cloth coat, a ten-ruble cigar in his hand, a six-ruble bottle of claret on the table – all bought at incredible prices through the quartermaster at Simferópol – and] in his eyes that look of the cold pride of a wealthy aristocrat, which says: though as a regimental commander of the new school I am your comrade [don’t forget that your pay is sixty rubles once in four months, while tens of thousands pass through my hands, and] believe me I know very well that you’d give half your life to be in my place!’

  ‘You have been under treatment a long time,’ said the colonel, with a cold look at Kozeltsóv.

  ‘I have been ill, Colonel. The wound is not thoroughly closed even now.’

  ‘Then it’s a pity you’ve come,’ said the colonel, looking suspiciously at the officer’s solid figure. ‘But still, you are capable of taking duty?’

  ‘Certainly sir, I am.’

  ‘I am very glad to hear it. Then you’ll take over from Ensign Záytsev the Ninth Company that you had before. You will receive your orders at once.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Be so good as to send the regimental adjutant to me when you go.’ The commander finished with a slight bow, thereby intimating that the audience was at an end.

  On leaving the casemate Kozeltsóv muttered something to himself several times, and shrugged his shoulders as if he were hurt, or uncomfortable, or provoked – and provoked not with the colonel (he had no ground to be so) but with himself, and he felt dissatisfied with everything around him.

  [Discipline and the subordination that goes with it, like every legalized relationship, is pleasant only when it rests on a mutual consciousness of its necessity, and of a superiority in experience, military worth, or simply on a moral superiority recognized by the inferior. But if the discipline is founded on arbitrary or pecuniary considerations, as is often the case among us, it always turns into pretentiousness on the one side and into suppressed envy and irritation on the other, and instead of a useful influence uniting the mass into one whole it produces a quite opposite effect. A man who does not feel that he can inspire respect by his own worth, instinctively fears intimacy with his subordinates and tries by ostentation to keep criticism at a distance. The subordinates, seeing only this external side which is offensive to themselves, suppose (often unjustly) that there is nothing good behind it.]

  XVI

  BEFORE going to join his fellow officers Kozeltsóv went to greet the men of his company and to see where it was stationed. The breastworks of gabions, the plan of the trenches, the cannon he passed, and even the fragments and bombs he stumbled over on the way, all lit up incessantly by the flashes of the firing, were quite familiar to him. All this had vividly impressed itself on his memory three months before, when he had spent two consecutive weeks at this bastion. Though there was much that was dreadful in the recollection, a certain charm of old times was mingled with it and he recognized all the familiar places and objects with pleasure, as if the fortnight spent there had been an agreeable one. His company was stationed against the wall of defence on the side towards the Sixth Bastion.

  Kozeltsóv entered a long bomb-proof, quite open on the entrance side, where he was told he would find the Ninth Company. There was literally no room to set one’s foot in the whole shelter: it was crowded with soldiers from the very entrance. At one side burned a crooked tallow candle which a soldier, lying on the ground, held over the book another was reading from, spelling out the words. Through the smoky atmosphere of the place, in the dim light near the candle, heads were visible, raised eagerly to listen to the reader. The book was a primer, and on entering the bomb-proof Kozeltsóv heard the following:

  ‘Pra-yer af-ter les-sons. We Thank Thee, O Cre-a-tor.…’

  ‘Snuff the candle!’ said a voice. ‘It’s a fine book.’

  ‘God … is’ … continued the reader.

  When Kozeltsóv asked for the sergeant-major the reader stopped and the soldiers began moving, coughing and blowing their noses, as is usual after a restrained silence. The sergeant-major, buttoning his uniform, rose not far from the reader’s group, and stepping over and onto the legs of those who could not get out of his way for lack of room, came up to the officer.

  ‘Good evening, friend! Is this the whole of our company?’

  ‘We wish your Honour health. Welcome back, your Honour!’ answered the sergeant-major with a cheerful and friendly look at Kozeltsóv. ‘How is your health getting on, your Honour? Thank God you’re better! We have misse
d you.’

  It was easy to see that Kozeltsóv was liked by his company.

  Far back in the bomb-proof voices were heard saying: ‘Our old company-commander has come back!’ ‘Him that was wounded.’ ‘Kozeltsóv.’ ‘Michael Semënich,’ and so on. Some men even moved nearer to him, and the drummer greeted him.

  ‘How do you do, Obantchúk?’ said Kozeltsóv. ‘Still whole? Good evening, lads!’ he added, raising his voice.

  The answer, ‘Wish your Honour health!’ resounded through the casemate.

  ‘How are you getting on, lads?’

  ‘Badly, your Honour. The French are getting the better of us. They give it us hot from behind their ‘trenchments, but don’t come out into the open.’

  ‘Perhaps it will be my luck to see them coming out into the open, lads,’ said Kozeltsóv. ‘It won’t be the first time … you and I will give them a thrashing.’

  ‘We’ll do our best, your Honour,’ several voices replied.

  ‘Yes, he’s really brave!’ said a voice.

  ‘Awfully brave!’ said the drummer to another soldier, not loud but so as to be heard, and as if justifying the commander’s words to himself and proving that there was nothing boastful or unlikely in what he had said.

  From the soldiers, Kozeltsóv went to join his fellow officers in the Defence Barracks.

  XVII

  IN the large caserne there was a crowd of naval, artillery, and infantry officers. Some slept, others talked, sitting on a chest of some kind and on the carriage of a garrison gun, but the largest and noisiest group sat on two Cossack cloaks spread out on the floor beyond the arch, and were drinking porter and playing cards.

  ‘Ah, Kozeltsóv! Kozeltsóv! … So you’ve come! That’s good.… You’re a brick.… How’s your wound?’ It was evident that he was liked here also, and that his return gave pleasure.

  When he had shaken hands with those he knew, Kozeltsóv joined the noisy group of officers playing cards. With some of them he was acquainted. A thin, dark, handsome man, with a long thin nose and large moustaches which joined his whiskers, was keeping the bank and dealt the cards with thin white fingers on one of which he wore a large seal-ring with a crest. He dealt straight ahead and carelessly, being evidently excited about something, and only trying to appear at ease. On his right lay a grey-haired major leaning on his elbows who with affected coolness kept staking half-rubles and paying at once. On his left squatted an officer with a red perspiring face, smiling unnaturally and joking. When his cards lost he kept fumbling with one hand in his empty trouser pocket. He was playing high, but evidently no longer for ready money, and it was this that upset the handsome dark man. A bald, thin, pale officer with a huge nose and mouth paced the room with a large bundle of paper money in his hand and continually staked va-banque for ready money and won. Kozeltsóv drank a glass of vodka and sat down with the players.

  ‘Stake something, Michael Semënich!’ said the banker. ‘You must have brought back heaps of money.’

  ‘Where should I get money? On the contrary, what I had I’ve spent in the town.’

  ‘Never! … You’ve surely cleared someone out in Simferópol!’

  ‘I’ve really very little,’ said Koseltsóv, but evidently not wishing to be believed he unbuttoned his uniform and took up an old pack of cards.

  ‘Well, suppose I have a try! Who knows what the devil may do for one? Even a mosquito, you know, wins his battles sometimes. But I must have a drink to keep up my courage.’

  And having drunk another glass of vodka and some porter he soon lost his last three rubles.

  A hundred and fifty rubles were noted down against the perspiring little officer.

  ‘No, I’ve no luck,’ he said, carelessly preparing another card.

  ‘I’ll trouble you to hand up the money,’ said the banker, ceasing to deal the cards for a moment and looking at him.

  ‘Allow me to send it to-morrow,’ replied the other, rising and fumbling with renewed vigour in his empty pocket.

  The banker cleared his throat loudly, and angrily throwing the cards right and left finished the deal.

  ‘But this won’t do. I give up the bank. This won’t do, Zakhár Ivánich,’ he repeated. ‘We were playing for cash, not on credit.’

  ‘What? Don’t you trust me? It’s really too ridiculous!’

  ‘Who am I to receive from?’ muttered the major, who was quite drunk by this time and had won some eight rubles. ‘I have paid up more than twenty rubles and when I win I get nothing.’

  ‘What am I to pay with,’ said the banker, ‘when there’s no money on the board?’

  ‘That’s not my business,’ shouted the major, rising. ‘I’m playing with you, with honest people, and not with him.’

  The perspiring officer suddenly flared up:

  ‘I shall pay to-morrow, I tell you. How dare you insult me?’

  ‘I shall say what I please! Honest people don’t behave like that. So there!’ shouted the major.

  ‘That’s enough, Fëdor Fëdorich!’ said everybody, trying to pacify him.

  But let us hasten to drop the curtain on this scene. Tomorrow or to-day, perhaps, each of these men will cheerfully and proudly go to face death, and die steadfastly and calmly; but the only relief in these inhuman conditions, horrible even to the coldest imagination and from which there is no hope of escape, is to forget and to suppress consciousness. Deep in each soul is a noble spark capable of making its possessor a hero, but it wearies of burning brightly – till a fateful moment comes when it will flash into flame and illumine great deeds.

  XVIII

  THE bombardment continued with equal vigour the next day. At about eleven o’clock Volódya Kozeltsóv was sitting among the officers of his battery whom he was already beginning to get used to. He was examining the new faces, observing, asking questions, and talking. The modest conversation, with some pretension to knowledge, of these artillery officers inspired him with respect and pleased him, and on the other hand, Volódya’s bashful and innocent good looks inclined the officers in his favour. The senior of the battery, a captain, a short man with reddish hair standing up in a tuft above his forehead and brushed smooth on his temples, brought up in the old artillery traditions, a ladies’ man with pretensions to scientific knowledge, questioned Volódya about what he knew of artillery and new inventions, joked in a friendly manner about his youth and his pretty face, and in general treated him like a son – and this pleased Volódya very much. Sub-lieutenant Dyádenko, a young officer who spoke with an Ukrainian accent and who wore a torn cloak and had dishevelled hair – though he talked loudly, snatched every opportunity to begin a hot dispute, and was abrupt in his movements – nevertheless seemed attractive to Volódya, for he could not help seeing that a very kind heart and much that was good lay beneath this rough exterior. Dyádenko kept offering to be of use to Volódya, and demonstrating to him that none of the guns in Sevastopol were placed according to rule.

  The only one Volódya did not like was Lieutenant Tchernovítski with his arched eyebrows, though he was the most polite of them all, and wore a coat which was clean enough and neatly patched if not very new, and though he displayed a gold chain over his satin waistcoat. He kept asking what the Emperor and the Minister of War were doing, and told him with unnatural rapture of feats of valour performed in Sevastopol, regretted [the ill-advised arrangements that were being made, and] that there were so few real patriots, and in general displayed much knowledge, intelligence, and noble feeling; but for some reason it all seemed unnatural and unpleasant. Volódya noticed in particular that the other officers hardly spoke to Tchernovítski. Cadet Vlang, whom Volódya had disturbed the night before, was also there. He did not speak, but sitting modestly in a corner laughed when there was anything funny, helped to recall anything that was forgotten, handed the vodka bottle, and made cigarettes for all the officers. Whether it was the modest, courteous manner of Volódya, who treated him as an officer and did not order him about as if he were a boy, o
r whether Volódya’s attractive appearance charmed Vlánga (as the soldiers called him, giving a feminine form to his name), at any rate he did not take his large kindly eyes from the new officer, foresaw and anticipated his wants, and was all the time in a state of enamoured ecstasy which of course the officers noticed and made fun of.

  Before dinner the lieutenant-captain was relieved from the bastion and joined them. Lieutenant-Captain Kraut was a fair-haired, handsome, vivacious officer with big sandy moustaches and whiskers. He spoke Russian excellently, but too accurately and elegantly for a Russian. In the service and in his life he was just the same as in his speech: he served admirably, was a first-rate comrade, most reliable in money matters, but as a man he seemed to lack something just because everything about him was so satisfactory. Like all Russo-Germans, in strange contradistinction to the idealist German-Germans, he was praktisch in the extreme.

  ‘Here he comes – our hero!’ said the captain, as Kraut entered the room swinging his arms and jingling his spurs. ‘What will you take, Friedrich Christiánich, tea or vodka?’

  ‘I have already ordered some tea,’ answered Kraut, ‘but meanwhile I do not mind taking a drop of vodka as a refreshment for my soul.… Very pleased to make your acquaintance. I hope you will favour me with your company and your friendship,’ he added, turning to Volódya, who rose and bowed to him. ‘Lieutenant-Captain Kraut.… The master-gunner at our bastion told me yesterday that you had arrived.’

  ‘I am very grateful to you for your bed: I slept on it.’

  ‘But were you comfortable? One of the legs is broken; no one has time to mend it in this state of siege, it has to be propped up.’

  ‘Well, what luck have you had on duty?’ asked Dyádenko.

  ‘Oh, all right; only Skvortsóv was hit, and yesterday we had to mend a gun-carriage – the cheek was blown to shivers.’

  He rose and began to walk up and down. It was evident that he was under the influence of that pleasant feeling men experience who have just left a post of danger.