myself and could knock hell out of him any day
of the week. The Cossack happened to be a good-natured fellow, young; hadn't been in the army long enough to get sour. He replied that he was from the stanitsa of Ust-Khoperskaya and a useful man with his fists. We parted peacefully. If he had started anything against me, there would have been a fight; and something rather worse would have happened to my own person. My intervention is to be explained by the fact that Liza was with us and when I am in her presence I am carried away by a purely childish desire to do something heroic. I can actually see myself turning into a young cockerel and feel an invisible red comb sprouting under my cap.. . . What am I coming to!
May 3rd
The only thing to do in my present mood is get drunk. On top of everything I have no money. My trousers are hopelessly split just where it matters most (in the crutch, to put it bluntly), like an overripe water-melon down on the Don, and the chances of my darn holding out are remote indeed. Might as well try to sew up a water-melon. Volodka Strezhnev has been round, Tomorrow I shall attend lectures.
m
May 7th
Money from Father. Rather a grumpy letter, but I don't feel a scrap of shame. What if Dad knew his son's moral supports are rotting like this. . . . Have bought a suit. My new tie attracts the attention even of the cabmen. After a shave at the best hairdresser's in town, came out as fresh as a draper's shop assistant. At the corner of the boulevard a policeman smiled at me. The old scoundrel! But what is past is past. ... I saw Liza quite by chance through the window of a tram. She waved her glove and smiled. How do you like that!
May 8th
"To love all ages are submissive. ..." I can still see the mouth of Tatyana's husband gaping up at me like a gun barrel. From my seat in the gallery I had an irresistible desire to spit into it. Whenever I think of that phrase, particularly the "sub-miss-ive" at the end, my jaw aches to yawn. Probably a nervous tick.
But the point is that I, at my age, am in love. Though it makes my hair stand on end to write it. .. . Called on Liza. Began with a very long and high-flown introduction. She pretended not to understand and tried to change the subject. Is it toQ early yet? Devil take it, this new suit
has mixed everything up. When I look at myself in the mirror I feel I am irresistible. Now is the time, I think! Actually, with me it is straightforward accounting that wins the day. If I don't propose now, in two months' time it will be too late; my trousers will be worn out and I won't be able to propose anyhow. As I write this I overflow with self-admiration. What a brilliant combination I am of all the best qualities of the best people of our time. Here you have gentle yet fiery passion as well as the "voice of reason firm." A Russian salad of all the virtues, not to mention a host of other admirable qualities.
Well, I got no further with her than my preliminary introduction. We were interrupted by her landlady, who called her out into the corridor and asked her for a loan. She refused although she had the money. I knew that for a fact and I pictured her face as she refused in that truthful voice of hers and with such sincerity in those hazel eyes. I didn't want to talk about love after that.
May 13th
I am well and truly in love. There can be no doubt about it. Everything tells me so. Tomorrow I shall propose. So far I have not yet worked Qut my part.
May 14th
The thing came about in a most unexpected fashion. It was raining, a nice warm shower. We were walking along the Mokhovaya, the wind was sweeping rain across the pavement. I talked and she was quiet, with her head down as if she were thinking. A trickle of rain ran off the brim of her hat on to her cheek, and she was beautiful. I quote our conversation:
"Yelizaveta Sergeyevna, I have told you what I feel, now it is up to you."
"I doubt the sincerity of your feelings."
I shrugged my shoulders in an idiotic fashion and said icily that I was ready to take an oath, or something of the kind.
She said: "Look here, you are talking like a character out of Turgenev. Can't you make it simpler?"
"Nothing could be simpler. I love you."
"And now what?"
"Now it's up to you."
"You want me to say I love you too?"
"I want you to say something."
"You see, Timofei Ivanovich. . . . How shall I put it? I like you just a little bit.. . . You're very tall,"
"I'll get taller," I promised.
"But we know each other iso little, we...,"
"In ten years' time we'll know each other a lot better."
She rubbed her wet cheeks with a pink hand and said: "Well, all right then, let's live together. Time will show. But you must let me break off my former attachment first."
"Who is he?" I inquired.
"You don't know him. He's a doctor, a vene-rologist."
"When will you be free?"
"By Friday, I hope."
"Shall we be living together? In the same flat, I mean?"
"Yes, I think it would be more convenient that way. You will move into my flat."
"Why?"
"I have a very comfortable room. It is quite clean and the landlady is a nice person."
I raised no objection. At the corner of the Tverskaya we parted. To the great astonishment of a lady who happened to be passing we kissed.
What does the future hold in store?
May 22nd
Living a life of honey. Today my "honey" mood was clouded by Liza's telling me I must change my underwear. Of course, my under-
wear is in a disgusting state. But the money, the money. . . . We are spending mine and there isn't much left. Shall have to find work.
May 24th
Today I decided to buy some new underwear but Liza put me to unexpected expense. She suddenly had an irresistible desire to dine at a good restaurant and buy herself a pair of silk stockings. We have dined and bought, but I am in despair. No underwear for me!
May 27th
She's sucking me dry. I am physically no more than a bare sunflower stalk. Not a woman but a smouldering fire!
June 2nd
We woke up today at nine. My accursed habit of wriggling my toes led to the following results. She pulled back the bed-clothes and subjected my foot to a prolonged examination. Then she summed up her observations thus:
"You have a foot like a horse's hoof. Worse! And that hair on your toes-ugh!" She jerked her shoulders in a kind of feverish disgust, buried her head under the bed-clothes and turned away to the wall.
I was confused. I tucked my feet out of sight and touched her on the shoulder.
"Liza!"
"Leave me alone!"
"Liza, this won't do at all. I can't change the shape of my feet, they weren't made to order, you know. And as for the vegetation, you never know where hair will grow next. It grows everywhere. You're a medical student, you ought to know the laws of nature."
She turned over. There was a nasty glint in her hazel eyes.
"For goodness sake buy some deodorant powder. Your feet stink like a corpse."
I remarked judiciously that her hands were always clammy. She remained silent and, to put it in lofty terms, a murky cloud descended on my soul. . . ,
June 4th
Today we went for a boat trip down the river Moskva. Recalled the Don countryside. Liza's conduct is unworthy of her. She keeps making cutting remarks at my expense, and sometimes they are very rude. To pay her back in her own coin would mean the breaking-off of our relations, and I don't want that. In spite of everything, I am getting more and more attached to her. She is simply spoiled. But I fear my influ-
6nce will not be strong enough to produce any radical change in her character. A lovable, spoiled little girl. A little girl, moreover, who has seen things that I know of only by hearsay. On the way home she dragged me into a chemist's and, with a smile on her face, bought talcum powder and some other rubbish. "This'll keep the smell down."
I made a gallant bow and thanked her.
Absurd, but t
here it is.
June 7th
She has really very little intellect, but she knows all the other things.
Every night before going to bed I wash my feet in hot water, pour eau-de-Cologne over them and powder them with some other disgusting stuff.
June 16 th
Every day she becomes 2Tiore and more intolerable. Yesterday she had an attack of hysterics. It is very hard to live with such a woman.
June 18th We have absolutely nothing in common! We are not even talking the same language.
This morning she went to my pocket for money before going to the baker's, and came across this little book. She looked at it.
"What's this you are carrying about?"
I felt hot all over. Suppose she glanced through it? I was surprised to hear myself answer in such a natural voice: "Just a notebook for calculations."
She pushed it back into my pocket quite indifferently and went out. I must be more careful. Direct impressions of this kind are only worth while when the other person knows nothing about them.
They shall be a source of entertainment to my friend Vasya.
June 21st
I am astounded at Liza. She is twenty-one. When did she have time to get so immoral? What kind of family has she got, who had a hand in her development? These are questions that interest me intensely. She is devilishly beautiful. She takes pride in the perfection of her figure. It is just a cult of self-adoration-nothing else exists for her. I have tried several times to talk to her seriously. ... It would be easier to convince an Old Believer that God does not exist than to re-educate Liza.
Life together has become impossible and absurd. Yet I hesitate to break things off. I must confess that in spite of everything I like her. She has grown upon me.
June 24th
It all came out at once. We had a heart-to-heart talk today and she told me I could not satisfy her physically. The break is not yet official, in a few days probably.
June 26th
What she needs is a stallion! A real one!
June 28th
It is very difficult for me to give her up. She drags me down like mud. Today we took a ride out to the Vorobyovy Hills. She sat by the hotel window and the sun filtered under the carved roof on to her curls. Her hair is the colour of pure gold. And there's a piece of poetry for you!
July 4th
I have left my work. Liza has left me. Today I drank beer with Strezhnev. Yesterday we drank vodka. Liza and I parted as educated people should, in a practical manner. No nonsense. Today I saw her in Dmitrov Street with a young man in jockey boots. She acknowledged my greeting with restraint. It is about time I stopped writing these notes-the source has run dry.
.5/7
July 30th
I am quite unexpectedly impelled to take up the pen again. War. An explosion of bestial enthusiasm. Every top-hat stinks like a dead dog of patriotism. The other fellows are indignant, but I am gratified. I am eaten up with longing for my . . . "paradise lost." Last night I had a quiet little dream about Liza. She has left a deep mark of yearning. I should be glad of some diversion.
August 1st
I'm fed up with all this noise and fuss. The old feeling of longing has returned. I suck at it as a child sucks a dummy.
August 3rd
A way out! I shall go to the war. Foolish? Very. Shameful?
But what else can I do? Oh for a taste of something different! Yet there was no such feeling of satiety two years ago. Surely I'm not getting old?
August 7th
I am writing in the train. We have just left Voronezh. Tomorrow I shall be home. I have made up my mind, I shall fight for "the Faith, the Tsar, and the Fatherland."
August 12th
What a send-off they gave me. The ataman had a drink or two and made an impassioned speech. Afterwards I told him in a whisper that he was a fool. He was flabbergasted and so offended his cheeks turned green. Then he hissed spitefully: "And you call yourself educated! You wouldn't be one of those we gave the lash in 1905, would you?" I replied that, to my regret, I was not "one of those." My father wept and tried to kiss me with a dewdrop dangling from the tip of his nose. Poor dear father! He ought to be in my shoes. I suggested jokingly that he should come with me, and he exclaimed in alarm: "But what about the farm?" Tomorrow I leave for the station.
August 13th
Here and there unharvested corn-fields. Sleak marmots on the hillocks. They bear a striking resemblance to the picture-postcard Germans we see impaled on Kozma Kruchkov's lance. Once upon a time when I was a student of mathematics and other exact sciences, little did I think I should live to become such a "jin-goist." When I get into a regiment I shall have a talk with the Cossacks.
August 22nd
At one of the stations along the line I saw the first group of prisoners. A fine-looking Austrian officer with a sportsman's bearing was being taken under guard to the station building. Two young ladies strolling along the platform smiled at him. He managed a very neat bow without stopping and blew them a kiss.
Even as a prisoner he was clean-shaven, gallant, his brown boots glistened. I watched him as he walked away. A young handsome fellow, a pleasant friendly face. If you met him in battle, your arm would not lift to strike.
August 24th
Refugees, refugees, refugees. , . , Every line is crowded with trains of refugees and troops.
The first hospital train has just passed. When it stopped a young soldier jumped out. His face was bandaged. We got talking. He had been wounded with grape-shot. Awfully glad he probably won't have to do any more service; his eye was damaged. He was actually laughing.
August 27th
I am in my regiment. The regimental commander is a very fine old man. A Cossack from the lower Don. One can feel the smell of blood
round here. There are rumours that we shall be in the front line the day after tomorrow. Mine is the Third Troop of the Third Squadron-Cossacks from Konstantinovskaya stanitsa. A dull lot. Only one wag and songster.
I August 28th
We are going up. Today there is a lot of noise out there. Sounds like thunder rumbling in the distance. I even sniffed the air for rain. But the sky is like blue satin.
Yesterday my horse went lame, grazed its leg on the wheel of a field-kitchen. Everything is new and strange. I don't know what to start on, what to write about.
August 30th
Yesterday there was no time to write. Now I am writing in the saddle. The jolting makes my pencil perform some monstrous antics. There are three of us riding with a forage train for grass.
Now the lads are tying down the load and I am lying on my stomach making a belated record of what happened yesterday. Yesterday Sergeant Tolokonnikov (he addresses me contemptuously as "student." "Hi there, student, can't you see your horse has got a shoe coming off?") sent six of us out on reconnaissance. We
drove through some burnt-out village or other. It was very hot. The horses were sweating and so were we. Cossacks should not have to wear serge trousers in summer. In a ditch outside the village I saw my first corpse. A German, Lying on his back with his legs in the ditch. One arm twisted under him, a rifle magazine clasped in the other. No rifle anywhere near. A ghastly sight. A cold shiver runs down my spine as I think of it. . . . He looked as if he had been sitting with his legs in the ditch, and had then lain back to rest. Grey uniform and helmet. You could see the leather lining. I was so dazed by this first experience that I don't remember his face. Only the big yellow ants crawling over the yellow forehead and glassy half-closed eyes. The Cossacks crossed themselves as they rode past. I looked at the small spot of blood on the right side of his uniform. The bullet had hit him in the right side and gone straight through. As I rode past I noticed that where the bullet had come out, the stain on the uniform and the clot of blood on the ground were much bigger and the uniform was torn raggedly.
I rode past shuddering. So that is how it happens.
The senior sergeant, whose nickname is "Teaser," tried to res
tore our spirits by telling
us a dirty story, but his own lips were trembling.
About half a verst on from the village we came to a gutted factory, just brick walls blackened with smoke at the top. We were afraid to go straight along the road because it lay past this heap of ashes, so we decided to go round it. As soon as we struck off the road somebody started firing at us from the factory. The sound of that first shot, ashamed though I am to admit it, nearly toppled me out of my saddle. I grabbed the pommel and instinctively ducked down and tugged the reins. We galloped back to the village past the ditch where the dead German lay, and did not recover our wits until the village was behind us. Then we turned round and dism.ounted. We left two men with the horses and the other four of us made our way back to that ditch. We crouched down to go along it. From a distance I saw the legs of the dead German in short yellow boots dangling over the edge. When I passed him I held my breath, as if he were asleep and I were afraid of waking him. The grass under him was moist and green.
We lay down in the ditch and a few minutes later nine German uhlans rode out from behind the ruins of the gutted factory. I could tell they were uhlans by their uniforms. One of them,
evidently an officer, shouted something in a gutteral voice and the whole detachment rode in our direction. The lads are calling for me to come and help them load the grass. I must go.
August 30th
I want to finish describing how I shot at a man for the first time. The German uhlans rode down on us and I can still see those lizard-green uniforms, the glistening bell-shapes of their helmets, their lances with the flags fluttering at the tips.
And quiet flows the Don; a novel Page 32