The desperate type, like the commanding type, is good only in the first subdivision: the distinctive traits of desperate jokers are their imperturbable cheerfulness, their ability to do everything, a well-endowed nature, and dashing spirit of adventure; this type is just as dreadfully bad in the second subdivision of desperate debauchees, who, however, to the honour of the Russian army be it said, occur very rarely, and wherever they are found are removed from companionship by the community of the soldiers themselves. The chief characteristics of this sub-division are faithlessness and a certain adventurousness in vice.
Velenchiik belonged to the order of the busily submissive. He was a Little-Russian by birth, fifteen years in active service, and though not a very fine-appearing man, and not a very agile soldier, he was simple-hearted, kindly, overzealous, though generally inopportunely so, and exceedingly honest. I say “ exceedingly honest,” because the year before there had been an incident when he had very palpably displayed this characteristic quality. It must be remarked that nearly every soldier has some trade; the most popular trades are those of a tailor and a shoemaker. Velenchiik had learned the first, and, to judge from the fact that Sergeant Mikhail Dorofeich himself had him make his clothes for him, he must have reached a certain artistic perfection in it.
The year before, while in camp, Velenchuk had under- taken to make a fine overcoat for Mikhail Dorofeich; but in the night, when, after cutting the cloth and fixing the lining, he lay down to sleep with the goods under his head, a misfortune befell him: the cloth, which had cost seven roubles, had disappeared. With tears in his eyes, trembling lips, and restrained sobs, Velenchuk announced the fact to the sergeant. Mikhail Dorofeich was furious.
In the first moment of his anger he threatened the tailor, but later, being a man of means, and good at heart, he dropped the whole matter and did not ask any restitution of the value of the overcoat. However much bustling Velenchuk fretted and wept, as he was telling about his misfortune, the thief did not show up.
Though there were strong suspicions against a desperate debauchee of a soldier, Chernov by name, who was sleeping in the same tent with him, there were no positive proofs. The sagacious commander, Mikhail Dorofeich, being a man of means and in some kind of Partnership with the superin- tendent of arms and the steward, the aristocrats of the battery, very soon completely forgot the loss of that par- ticular overcoat; Velenchuk, on the contrary, could not forget his misfortune.
The soldiers said that they were afraid all the time that he would lay hands on himself or run away into the mountains, for tliis unfortunate acci- dent had affected him powerfully. He did not eat, nor drink; he could not work, and wept all the time. Three days later he appeared before Mikhail Dorofeich, and, all pale, drew with trembliug hands a gold coin out of his rolled up sleeve, and handed it to him.
“Upon my word, this is all I have, Mikhail Dorofeich, and I have borrowed it from Zhdanov,” he said, sobbing arain. “ The two roubles that are wantin» I will sfive you, upon my word, as soon as I have earned them. He “ (Velenchuk himself did not know who that “ he “ was) “ has made me out a thief in your eyes. His vHe, con- temptible soul has taken the last thing away from his brother soldier; here I have been serving fifteen years, and—” To Mikhail Dorofeich’s honour, it must be said that he did not take from liim the lacking two roubles, though Velenchuk offered them to him two months later.
III.
Besides Velenchiik, five other soldiers of my platoon were warming themselves at the fire.
In the best place, protected from the wind, on a cask, sat the gun-sergeant of the platoon, Maksimov, smoking a pipe. In the pose, the look, and all the motions of this man could be observed the habit of commanding and the consciousness of his personal dignity, even inde- pendently of the cask, on which he was sitting, and which, at a halt, formed the emblem of authority, and of the nankeen-covered fur half-coat.
When I came up, he turned his head toward me; but his eyes remained fixed upon the fire, and only much later did they follow the direction of his head, and rest upon me. Maksimov was a freeman; he was possessed of some means, had taken instruction in the school of the brigade, and had picked up some information. He was dreadfully rich and dreadfuUy learned, as the soldiers ex- pressed themselves.
I remember how once, at gun-practice with the quad- rant, he explained to the soldiers who were crowding around him that the level was “ nothing else than that it originates because the atmospheric quicksilver has its motion.” In reality, Maksimov was far from being stupid, and he knew his work very well, but he had an unfortunate peculiarity of speaking at times purposely in such a way that it was totally impossible to understand him, and so that, as I am convinced, he did not under- stand his own words.
He was especially fond of the words “ originates “ and “ to continue,” and when he introduced his remarks with “ originates “ and “ con- tinuing,” I knew in advance that I should not understand a word of what followed. The soldiers, on the contrary, so far as I was able to observe, liked to hear his “ origi- nates,” and suspected that a deep meaning lay behind it, though, like myself, they did not comprehend a word. They referred this lack of comprehension to their own stupidity, and respected Fedor Maksimych the more for it. In short, Maksimych was a sagacious commander.
The second soldier, who was taking ofif the boots from his red, muscular legs, was Antonov, the same bombardier Antonov, who in the year ‘37, having been left with two others at a gun, without protection, had kept up a fire against a numerous enemy, and, with two bullets in his hip, had continued to attend to the gun and load it. “ He would have been a gun-sergeant long ago, if it were not for his character,” the soldiers would say of him. In- deed, his was a strange character: in his sober mood there was not a quieter, prompter, and more peaceful soldier; but when he became intoxicated, he was an entirely different man: he did not respect the au- thorities, brawled, fought, and was an altogether use- less soldier. Not more than a week before he had gone on a spree during Butter-week, and, in spite of all threats, persuasions, and calls to duty, he continued his drunken bouts and brawls until the first Monday in Lent.
But during the whole fast, in spite of the order for all men in the division to eat meat, he lived on nothing but hardtack, and in the first week he did not even take the prescribed dram of brandy. However, it was only neces- sary to see this undersized figure, built as though of iron, with his short, crooked legs and shining, whiskered face, take into his muscular hands the balalayka, while under the influence of liquor, and, carelessly casting his glances to both sides, strum some “ lady’s “ song, or, to see him. his overcoat, with the decorations danghng from it, thrown over shoulder, and his hands thrust into the pockets of his bhie nankeen trousers, stroll down the street, — it was only necessary to see the expression of military pride and contempt of everything un-military, which was displayed in his face at such a time, in order to understand how utterly impossible it was for him to keep from fighting at such a moment an imperti- nent or even innocent orderly, who got in his way, or a Cossack, a foot-soldier, or settler, in general one who did not belong to the artillery. He fought and was turbu- lent not so much for his own amusement, as for the sake of supporting the spirit of the whole soldierhood, of which he felt himself to be a representative.
The third soldier, with an earring in one ear, bristly moustache, a sharp, birdlike face, and a porcelain pipe between his teeth, who was squatting near the fire, was the artillery-rider Chikin. The dear man Chikin, as the soldiers called him, was a joker. Wliether in bitter cold, or up to his knees in mud, for two days without food, in an expedition, on parade, at instruction, the dear man always and everywhere made faces, pirouetted with his feet, and did such funny things that the whole platoon roared with laughter.
At a halt or in camp there was always around Chikin a circle of young soldiers, with whom he played cards; or he told them stories about
