One evening when I was at Ivashin’s, I saw a short, thoroughly pleasant-looking young man, in a black coat, white vest and necktie. My host hastened to make me acquainted with him. The young man, evidently dressed for a ball, with his cap in his hand, was standing before Ivashin, and was eagerly but politely arguing with him about a common friend of ours, who had distinguished himself at the time of the Hungarian campaign. He said that this acquaintance was not at all a hero or a man born for war, as was said of him, but was simply a clever and cultivated man.
I recollect, I took Part in the argument against Guskof, and went to the extreme of declaring also that intellect and cultivation always bore an inverse relation to bravery; and I recollect how Guskof pleasantly and cleverly pointed out to me that bravery was necessarily the result of intellect and a decided degree of development, — a statement which I, who considered myself an intellectual and cultivated man, could not in my heart of hearts agree with.
I recollect that towards the close of our conversation Madame Ivashina introduced me to her brother; and he, with a condescending smile, offered me his little hand on which he had not yet had time to draw his kid gloves, and weakly and irresolutely pressed my hand as he did now. Though I had been prejudiced against Guskof, I could not help granting that he was in the right, and agreeing with his sister that he was really a clever and agreeable young man, who ought to have great success in society. He was extraordinarily neat, beautifully dressed, and fresh, and had affectedly modest manners, and a thoroughly youthful, almost childish appearance, on account of which you could not help excusing his expression of self-sufficiency, though it modified the impression of his high-mightiness caused by his intellectual face and especially his smile.
It is said that he had great success that winter with the high-born ladies of Moscow. As I saw him at his sister’s I could only infer how far this was true by the feeling of pleasure and contentment constantly excited in me by his youthful appearance and by his sometimes indiscreet anecdotes. He and I met half a dozen times, and talked a good deal; or, rather, he talked a good deal, and I listened. He spoke for the most Part in French, always with a good accent, very fluently and ornately; and he had the skill of drawing others gently and politely into the conversation. As a general thing, he behaved toward all, and toward me, in a somewhat supercilious manner, and I felt that he was perfectly right in this way of treating people. I always feel that way in regard to men who are firmly convinced that they ought to treat me superciliously, and who are comparative strangers to me.
Now, as he sat with me, and gave me his hand, I keenly recalled in him that same old haughtiness of expression; and it seemed to me that he did not properly appreciate his position of official inferiority, as, in the presence of the officers, he asked me what I had been doing in all that time, and how I happened to be there. In spite of the fact that I invariably made my replies in Russian, he kept putting his questions in French, expressing himself as before in remarkably correct language. About himself he said fluently that after his unhappy, wretched story (what the story was, I did not know, and he had not yet told me), he had been three months under arrest, and then had been sent to the Caucasus to the N. regiment, and now had been serving three years as a soldier in that regiment.
“You would not believe,” said he to me in French, “how much I have to suffer in these regiments from the society of the officers. Still it is a pleasure to me, that I used to know the adjutant of whom we were just speaking: he is a good man — it’s a fact,” he remarked condescendingly. “I live with him, and that’s something of a relief for me. Yes, my dear, the days fly by, but they aren’t all alike,” he added; and suddenly hesitated, reddened, and stood up, as he caught sight of the adjutant himself coming toward us.
“It is such a pleasure to meet such a man as you,” said Guskof to me in a whisper as he turned from me. “I should like very, very much, to have a long talk with you.”
I said that I should be very happy to talk with him, but in reality I confess that Guskof excited in me a sort of dull pity that was not akin to sympathy.
I had a presentiment that I should feel a constraint in a private conversation with him; but still I was anxious to learn from him several things, and, above all, why it was, when his father had been so rich, that he was in poverty, as was evident by his dress and appearance.
The adjutant greeted us all, including Guskof, and sat down by me in the seat which the cashiered officer had just vacated. Pavel Dmitrievitch, who had always been calm and leisurely, a genuine gambler, and a man of means, was now very different from what he had been in the flowery days of his success; he seemed to be in haste to go somewhere, kept constantly glancing at everybody, and it was not five minutes before he proposed to Lieutenant O., who had sworn off from playing, to set up a small faro-bank. Lieutenant O. refused, under the pretext of having to attend to his duties, but in reality because, as he knew that the adjutant had few possessions and little money left, he did not feel himself justified in risking his three hundred rubles against a hundred or even less which the adjutant might stake.
“Well, Pavel Dmitrievitch,” said the lieutenant, anxious to avoid a repetition of the invitation, “is it true, what they tell us, that we return to-morrow?”
“I don’t know,” replied the adjutant. “Orders came to be in readiness; but if it’s true, then you’d better play a game. I would wager my Kabarda cloak.”
“No, to-day already” . . .
“It’s a gray one, never been worn; but if you prefer, play for money. How is that?”
“Yes, but . . . I should be willing — pray don’t think that” . . . said Lieutenant O., answering the implied suspicion; “but as there may be a raid or some movement, I must go to bed early.”
The adjutant stood up, and, thrusting his hands into his pockets, started to go across the grounds. His face assumed its ordinary expression of coldness and pride, which I admired in him.
“Won’t you have a glass of mulled wine?” I asked him.
“That might be acceptable,” and he came back to me; but Guskof politely took the glass from me, and handed it to the adjutant, striving at the same time not to look at him. But as he did not notice the tent-rope, he stumbled over it, and fell on his hand, dropping the glass.
“What a bungler!” exclaimed the adjutant, still holding out his hand for the glass. Everybody burst out laughing, not excepting Guskof, who was rubbing his hand on his sore knee, which he had somehow struck as he fell. “That’s the way the bear waited on the hermit,” continued the adjutant. “It’s the way he waits on me every day. He has pulled up all the tent-pins; he’s always tripping up.”
Guskof, not hearing him, apologized to us, and glanced toward me with a smile of almost noticeable melancholy, as though saying that I alone could understand him. He was pitiable to see; but the adjutant, his protector, seemed, on that very account, to be severe on his messmate, and did not try to put him at his ease.
“Well, you’re a graceful lad! Where did you think you were going?”
“Well, who can help tripping over these pins, Pavel Dmitrievitch?” said Guskof. “You tripped over them yourself the other day.”
“I, old man, [Footnote: batiushka] — I am not of the rank and file, and such gracefulness is not expected of me.”
“He can be lazy,” said Captain S., keeping the ball rolling, “but low-rank men have to make their legs fly.”
“Ill-timed jest,” said Guskof, almost in a whisper, and casting down his eyes. The adjutant was evidently vexed with his messmate; he listened with inquisitive attention to every word that he said.
“He’ll have to be sent out into ambuscade again,” said he, addressing S., and pointing to the cashiered officer.
“Well, there’ll be some more tears,” said S., laughing. Guskof no longer looked at me, but acted as though he were going to take some tobacco from his pouch, though there had been none there for some time.
“Get ready for the ambuscade, old man,” said S., addressing him with shouts of laughter. “To-day the scouts have brought the news, there’ll be an attack on the camp to-night, so it’s necessary to designate the trusty lads.” Guskof’s face showed a fleeting smile as though he were preparing to make some reply, but several times he cast a supplicating look at S.
“Well, you know I have been, and I’m ready to go again if
