‘That’s enough, Fedor Fedorich!’ said everybody, trying to pacify him.
But let us hasten to drop the curtain on this scene. To-morrow 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 Volodya Kozeltsov 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, Volodya’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 Volodya 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 Volodya very much.
Sub-lieutenant Dyadenko, 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 Volodya, for he could not help seeing that a very kind heart and much that was good lay beneath this rough exterior. Dyadenko kept offering to be of use to Volodya, and demonstrating to him that none of the guns in Sevastopol were placed according to rule.
The only one Volodya did not like was Lieutenant Tchernovitski 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. Volodya noticed in Particular that the other officers hardly spoke to Tchernovitski. Cadet Vlang, whom Volodya 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 Volodya, who treated him as an officer and did not order him about as if he were a boy, or whether Volodya’s attractive appearance charmed Vlanga (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 I’ said the captain, as Kraut entered the room swinging his arms and jingling his spurs. ‘What will you take, Friedrich Christianich, 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 Volodya, 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 Dyadenko.
‘Oh, all right; only Skvortsov 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.
‘Well, Dmitri Gavrilich,’ he said, shaking the captain by his knee, ‘how are you getting on? What of your recommendation? Is it still silent?’
‘There’s no news as yet.’
‘And there won’t be any,’ began Dyadenko. ‘I told you so before.’
‘Why won’t there be?’
‘Because the report was not written properly.’
‘Ah, you wrangler! You wrangler!’ said Kraut, smiling merrily. ‘A real obstinate Ukrainian! There now, just to spite you you’ll get a lieutenancy.’
‘No I shan’t!’
‘Vlang, get me my pipe and fill it,’ said Kraut, turning to the cadet, who rose at once and readily ran for the pipe.
Kraut brightened them all up: he talked of the bombardment, asked what had been going on in his absence, and spoke to everybody.
XIX
Well, have you established yourself satisfactorily among us?’ Kraut asked Volodya. ‘Excuse me, what is your name and patronymic? You know that’s our custom in the artillery. . . . Have you a horse?’
‘No,’ said Volodya, ‘I don’t know what I’m to do. I was telling the captain … I have no horse nor any money until I get my forage-money and travelling expenses paid. I thought meanwhile of asking the commander of the battery to let me have a horse, but I’m afraid he’ll refuse.’
‘Apollon Sergeich . . .?’ and Kraut made a sound with his lips expressive of strong doubt, and looking at the captain added, ‘Hardly!’
‘Well, if he does refuse there’ll be no harm done,’ said the captain. ‘To tell you the truth, a horse is not much wanted here. Still, it’s worth trying. I will ask him to-day.’
‘How little you know him,’ Dyidenko put in: ‘he might refuse anything else, but not that. . . . Will you bet?’
‘Oh, we know you can’t help contradicting!’
‘I contradict because I know. He’s close in other matters, but he’ll give a horse because he gains nothing by refusing.’
‘Gains nothing when oats are eight rubles?’ said Kraut. ‘The gain is not having to keep an extra horse.’
‘You ask for Skvorets, Vladimir Semenich,’ said Vlang, returning with Kraut’s pipe. ‘He’s a capital horse.’
‘Off which you fell into a ditch in Soroki, eh, Vlanga?’ remarked the lieutenant-captain.
‘What does it matter if oats are eight rubles, when in his estimates they figure at ten and a half?1 That’s
1 Referring to the custom of charging the government more than the actual price of supplies, and thereby where the gain comes in,’ said Dyadenko, continuing to argue.
‘Well naturally you can’t expect him to keep nothing. When you’re commander of a battery I daresay you won’t let a man have a horse to ride into town.’
‘When I’m commander of a battery my horses will get four measures each and I shan’t make an income, no fear!’
.’We shall see if we live . . said the lieutenant-captain. ‘You’ll act in just the same way — and so will he,’ pointing to Volodya.
‘Why do you think that he too would wish to make a profit?’ said Tcheraovitski to Kraut. ‘He may have private means, then why should he want to make a profit?’
‘Oh no, I . . . excuse me, Captain,’ said Volodya, blushing up to his ears, ‘but I should think such a thing dishonourable.’
‘Dear me! What a severe fellow he is!’ said Kraut.
‘No, I only mean that I think that if the money is not mine I ought not to take it.’
‘But I’ll tell you something, young man,’ began the lieutenant-captain in a more serious tone. ‘Do you know that if you are commanding a battery you have to conduct things properly, and that’s enough. The commander of a battery doesn’t interfere with the soldiers’ supplies: that’s always been the custom in the artillery. If you are a bad manager you will have no surplus. But you have to spend over and above what’s in the estimates: for shoeing-that’s one’ (he bent down one finger), ‘and for medicine — that’s two’ (and he bent down another finger), ‘for office expenses — that’s three: then for off-horses one has to pay up to five hundred rubles my dear fellow — that’s four: you have to supply the soldiers with new
making an income which was supposed
