by Leo Tolstoy
IV
‘I SAY, isn’t it an awful nuisance that being so near we can’t get there?’ said one of the young officers. ‘There may be an action to-day and we shan’t be in it.’
The high-pitched voice and the fresh rosy spots which appeared on his face betrayed the charming youthful bashfulness of one in constant fear of not saying the right thing.
The officer who had lost an arm looked at him with a smile.
‘You’ll get there soon enough, believe me,’ he said.
The young officer looked respectfully at the crippled man, whose emaciated face suddenly lit up with a smile, and then silently turned his attention to making his tea. And really the face, the attitude, and especially the empty sleeve of the officer expressed a kind of calm indifference that seemed to say in reply to every word and action: ‘Yes, all that is admirable, but I know it all, and can do it all if only I wish to.’
‘Well, and how shall we decide it?’ the young officer began again, turning to his comrade in the Caucasian coat. ‘Shall we stay the night here or go on with our own horse?’
His comrade decided to stay.
‘Just fancy, Captain,’ continued the one who was making the tea, addressing the one-armed officer and handing him a knife he had dropped, ‘we are told that horses were awfully dear in Sevastopol, so we two bought one together in Simferópol.’
‘I expect they made you pay a stiff price.’
‘I really don’t know, Captain. We paid ninety rubles for it with the trap. Is that very much?’ he said, turning to the company in general, including Kozeltsóv, who was looking at him.
‘It’s not much if it’s a young horse,’ said Kozeltsóv.
‘You think not?… And we were told it was too much. Only it limps a bit, but that will pass. We were told it’s strong.’
‘What Cadet College were you at?’ asked Kozeltsóv, who wished to get news of his brother.
‘We are now from the Nobles’ Regiment. There are six of us and we are all going to Sevastopol – by our own desire,’ said the talkative young officer. ‘Only we don’t know where our battery is. Some say it is Sevastopol, but those fellows there say it’s in Odessa.’
‘Couldn’t you have found out in Simferópol?’ asked Kozeltsóv.
‘They didn’t know.… Only think, one of our comrades went to the Chancellery there and got nothing but rudeness. Just think how unpleasant! Would you like a ready-made cigarette?’ he said to the one-armed officer who was trying to get out his cigar-case.
He attended to this officer’s wants with a kind of servile enthusiasm.
‘And are you from Sevastopol too?’ he continued. ‘How wonderful it is! How all of us in Petersburg used to think about you all and all our heroes!’ he said, addressing Kozeltsóv with respect and kindly affection.
‘Well then, you may find that you have to go back?’ asked the lieutenant.
‘That’s just what we are afraid of. Just fancy, when we had bought the horse and got all we needed – a coffee-pot with a spirit-lamp and other necessary little things – we had no money left at all,’ he said in a low tone, glancing at his comrade, ‘so that if we have to return we don’t at all know how we are to manage.’
‘Didn’t you receive your travelling allowance, then?’ asked Kozeltsóv.
‘No,’ answered the young officer in a whisper, ‘they promised to give it us here.’
‘Have you the certificate?’
‘I know that a certificate is the principal thing, but when I was in Moscow, a senator – he’s my uncle and I was at his house – told me they would give it to me here, or else he would have given it me himself. But will they give me one in Sevastopol?’
‘Certainly they will.’
‘Yes, I think so too,’ said the lad in a tone which showed that, having asked the same question at some thirty other post-stations and having everywhere received different answers, he did not now quite believe anyone.
V
[‘HOW can they help giving it?’ suddenly remarked the officer who had quarrelled with the station-master on the porch and had now approached the speakers, addressing himself partly to the staff-officers who were sitting near by, as to listeners more worthy of attention. ‘Why, I myself wanted to join the active army just as these gentlemen do. I even gave up a splendid post and asked to be sent right into Sevastopol. And they gave me nothing but a hundred and thirty-six rubles for post-horses from Petersburg and I have already spent more than a hundred and fifty rubles of my own money. Only think of it! It’s only eight hundred versts and this is the third month we have been on the way. I have been travelling with these gentlemen here for two months. A good thing I had money of my own, but suppose I hadn’t had any?’
‘The third month? Is it possible?’ someone asked.
‘Yes, and what can one do?’ the speaker continued. ‘You see if I had not wanted to go I would not have volunteered and left a good post, so I haven’t been stopping at places on the road because I was afraid.… It was just impossible. For instance I lived a fortnight in Perekóp, and the station-master wouldn’t even speak to me.… “Go when you like; here are a whole pile of requisition forms for couriers alone.” … It must be my fate.… You see I want – but it’s just my fate. It’s not because there’s a bombardment going on, but it evidently makes no difference whether one hurries or not – and yet how I should like.
The officer was at such pains to explain his delays and seemed so keen to vindicate himself that it involuntarily occurred to one that he was afraid. This was still more evident when he began to ask where his regiment was, and whether it was dangerous there. He even grew pale and his voice faltered when the one-armed officer, who belonged to the same regiment, told him that during those last two days they had lost seventeen officers.
In fact this officer was just then a thorough coward, though six months previously he had been very different. A change had come over him which many others experienced both before and after him. He had had an excellent and quiet post in one of our provincial towns in which there is a Cadet College, but reading in the papers and in private letters of the heroic deeds performed at Sevastopol by his former comrades, he was suddenly inspired by ambition and still more by patriotic heroism.
He sacrificed much to this feeling: his well-established position, his little home with its comfortable furniture painstakingly acquired by five years’ effort, his acquaintances, and his hopes of making a good marriage. He threw all this up, and in February already had volunteered for active service, dreaming of deathless honours and of a general’s epaulettes. Two months after he had sent in his application he received an official inquiry whether he would require assistance from the government. He replied in the negative, and continued to wait patiently for an appointment, though his patriotic ardour had had time to cool considerably during those eight weeks. After another two months he received an inquiry as to whether he belonged to a Freemasons’ Lodge,3 and other similar questions, and having replied in the negative, he at last, in the fifth month, received his appointment. But all that time his friends, and still more that subconscious feeling which always awakens at any change in one’s position, had had time to convince him that he was committing an act of extreme folly by entering the active army. And when he found himself alone, with a dry throat and his face covered with dust, at the first post-station – where he met a courier from Sevastopol who told him of the horrors of the war, and where he had to spend twelve hours waiting for relay horses – he quite repented of his thoughtlessness, reflecting with vague horror on what awaited him, and without realizing it continued on his way as to a sacrifice. This feeling constantly increased during his three months’ travelling from station to station, at which he always had to wait and where he met officers returning from Sevastopol with dreadful stories, and at last this poor officer – from being a hero prepared for desperate deeds, as in the provincial town he had imagined himself to be – arrived in Djánka a wretched coward, and having a month ago come
across some young fellows from the Cadet College, he tried to travel as slowly as possible, considering these days to be his last on earth, and at every station put up his bed, unpacked his canteen, played preference, looked through the station complaint-book for amusement, and felt glad when horses were not to be had.
Had he gone at once from home to the bastions he would really have been a hero, but now he would have to go through much moral suffering before he could become such a calm, patient man, facing toil and danger, as Russian officers generally are. But it would by this time have been difficult to reawaken enthusiasm in him.]
VI
‘WHO ordered soup?’ demanded the landlady, a rather dirty, fat woman of about forty, as she came into the room with a tureen of cabbage-soup.
The conversation immediately stopped, and everyone in the room fixed his eyes on the landlady. One officer even winked to another with a glance at her.
‘Oh, Kozeltsóv ordered it,’ said the young officer. ‘We must wake him up.… Get up for dinner!’ he said, going up to the sofa and shaking the sleeper’s shoulder. A lad of about seventeen, with merry black eyes and very rosy cheeks, jumped up energetically and stepped into the middle of the room rubbing his eyes.
‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ he said to the doctor, whom he had knocked against in rising.
Lieutenant Kozeltsóv at once recognized his brother and went up to him.
‘Don’t you know me?’ he asked with a smile.
‘Ah-h-h!’ cried the younger Kozeltsóv. ‘This is wonderful!’ And he began kissing his brother.
They kissed three times, but hesitated before the third kiss, as if the thought, ‘Why has it to be just three times?’ had struck them both.
‘Well, I am glad!’ said the elder, looking into his brother’s face. ‘Come out into the porch and let’s have a chat.’
‘Yes, come along. I don’t want any soup. You eat it, Féderson,’ he said to his comrade.
‘But you wanted something to eat.’
‘I don’t want anything now.’
Out on the porch the younger one kept asking his brother: ‘Well, and how are you? Tell me how things are!’ and saying how glad he was to see him, but he did not tell him anything about himself.
When five minutes had passed and they had paused for a moment, the elder brother asked why the younger had not entered the Guards as everyone had expected him to do.
[‘Oh, yes!’ the younger replied, blushing at the very recollection, ‘that upsets me terribly. I never expected such a thing could happen. Just imagine, at the very end of the term three of us went to have a smoke – you remember that little room by the hall-porter’s lodge? It must have been there in your time – but just imagine, that beast of a hall-porter saw us and ran to tell the officer on duty (though we had tipped that porter several times) and the officer crept up on tiptoe. As soon as we noticed him the others threw away their cigarettes and bolted out by the side door – you know – but I hadn’t the chance. The officer was very nasty to me, and of course I answered him back. Well, he told the Inspector, and there was a row. Because of that, you see, they didn’t give me full marks for conduct, though for everything else my marks were excellent, except for mechanics, for which I got twelve. And so they wouldn’t let me enter the Guards. They promised to transfer me later … but I no longer wanted it, and applied to be sent to the front.’
‘Dear me!’
‘Really, I tell you seriously, I was so disgusted with everything that] I wanted to get to Sevastopol as quickly as possible. And you see, if things turn out well here one can get on quicker than in the Guards. There it takes ten years to become a colonel, but here in two years Todleben from a lieutenant-colonel has become a general. And if one gets killed – well, it can’t be helped.’
‘So that’s the sort of stuff you are made of!’ said his brother, with a smile.
‘But the chief thing, you know,’ said the younger brother, smiling and blushing as if he were going to say something very shameful – ‘the chief thing was that I felt rather ashamed to be living in Petersburg while here men are dying for the Fatherland. And besides, I wanted to be with you,’ he added, still more shyly.
The other did not look at him. ‘What a funny fellow you are!’ he said, taking out his cigarette-case. ‘Only the pity is that we shan’t be together.’
‘I say, tell me quite frankly: is it very dreadful at the bastions?’ asked the younger suddenly.
‘It seems dreadful at first but one gets used to it. You’ll see for yourself.’
‘Yes … and another thing: Do you think they will take Sevastopol? I don’t think they will. I’m certain they won’t.’
‘Heaven only knows.’
‘It’s so provoking.… Just think what a misfortune! Do you know, we’ve had a whole bundle of things stolen on the way and my shako was inside so that I am in a terrible position. Whatever shall I appear in? [You know we have new shakos now, and in general there are many changes, all improvements. I can tell you all about it. I have been everywhere in Moscow.]’
The younger Kozeltsóv, Vladímir, was very like his brother Michael, but it was the likeness of an opening rosebud to a withered dog-rose. He had the same fair hair as his brother, but it was thick and curled about his temples, and a little tuft of it grew down the delicate white nape of his neck – a sign of luck according to the nurses. The delicate white skin of his face did not always show colour, but the full young blood rushing to it betrayed his every emotion. His eyes were like his brother’s, but more open and brighter, and seemed especially so because a slight moisture often made them glisten. Soft, fair down was beginning to appear on his cheeks and above the red lips, on which a shy smile often played disclosing his white and glistening teeth. Straight, broad-shouldered, the uniform over his red Russian shirt unbuttoned – as he stood there before his brother, cigarette in hand, leaning against the banisters of the porch, his face and attitude expressing naïve joy, he was such a charming, handsome boy that one could not help wishing to look at him. He was very pleased to see his brother, and looked at him with respect and pride, imagining him to be a hero; but in some respects, namely, in what in society is considered good form (being able to speak good French, knowing how to behave in the presence of people of high position, dancing, and so on) he was rather ashamed of his brother, looked down on him, and even hoped if possible to educate him. All his views were still those he had acquired in Petersburg, particularly in the house of a lady who liked good-looking lads and had got him to spend his holidays at her house; and at a senator’s house in Moscow, where he had once danced at a grand ball.
VII
HAVING talked almost their fill, and reached that stage which often comes when two people find that though they are fond of one another they have little in common, the brothers remained silent for some time.
‘Well then, collect your things and let us be off!’ said the elder.
The younger suddenly blushed and became confused.
‘Do we go straight to Sevastopol?’ he asked after a moment’s silence.
‘Well of course. You haven’t got much luggage, I suppose. We’ll get it all in.’
‘All right! Let’s start at once,’ said the younger with a sigh, and went towards the room.
But he stopped in the passage without opening the door, hung his head sorrowfully and began thinking.
‘Now, at once, straight to Sevastopol … into that hell … terrible! Ah well, never mind. It had to be sooner or later. And now at least I’ll have my brother with me.…’
In fact, only now, at the thought that after getting into the trap there would be nothing more to detain him and that he would not alight again before reaching Sevastopol, did he clearly realize the danger he had been seeking, and he grew confused and frightened at the mere thought of the nearness of that danger. Having mastered himself as well as he could, he went into the room; but a quarter of an hour passed and he did not return to his brother, so the latter at last opened the
door to call him. The younger Kozeltsóv, in the attitude of a guilty schoolboy, was talking to an officer. When his brother opened the door he seemed quite disconcerted.
‘Yes, yes, I’m just coming!’ he cried, waving his hand to prevent his brother coming in. ‘Please wait for me there.’
A few minutes later he came out and went up to his brother with a sigh. ‘Just fancy,’ he said, ‘it turns out that I can’t go with you, after all!’
‘What? What nonsense!’
‘I’ll tell you the whole truth, Mísha … none of us have any money left and we are all in debt to that lieutenant-captain whom you saw in there. It’s such a shame!’
The elder brother frowned, and remained silent for some time.
‘Do you owe much?’ he asked at last, looking at his brother from under his brows.
‘Much? No, not very much, but I feel terribly ashamed. He paid for me at three post-stations, and the sugar was always his, so that I don’t.… Yes, and we played preference … and I lost a little to him.’
‘That’s bad, Volódya! Now what would you have done if you hadn’t met me?’ the elder remarked sternly without looking at him.
‘Well, you see, I thought I’d pay when I got my travelling allowance in Sevastopol. I could do that, couldn’t I?… So I’d better drive on with him to-morrow.’
The elder brother drew out his purse and with slightly trembling fingers produced two ten-ruble notes and one of three rubles.
‘There’s the money I have,’ he said. ‘How much do you owe?’
Kozeltsóv did not speak quite truly when he made it appear as if this were all the money he had. He had four gold coins sewn into his cuff in case of special need, but he had resolved not to touch them.
As it turned out the younger Kozeltsóv owed only eight rubles, including the sugar and the preference, his brother gave them to him, merely remarking that it would never do to go playing preference when one had no money.