Short Fiction

On the twelfth of July, Captain Hlopov entered the low door of my earth-hut. He was wearing epaulettes and carrying a sword, which I had never seen him do before since I had reached the Caucasus.

“I come straight from the colonel’s,” he said in answer to my questioning look. “Tomorrow our battalion is to march.”

“Where to?” I asked.

“To N⁠⸺ N⁠⸺. The forces are to assemble there.”

“And from there, I suppose, they will go into action?”

“I expect so.”

“In what direction? What do you think?”

“What’s there to think about? I am telling you what I know! A Tartar galloped here last night and brought orders from the general for the battalion to march with two days’ rations of rusks. But where to? Why, and for how long? We do not ask, my friend; we are told to go⁠—and that’s enough!”

“But if you are to take only two days’ rations of rusks, it proves that the troops won’t be out longer than that.”

“It proves nothing at all!”

“How’s that?” I asked with surprise.

“Because it is so. We went to Dargo, and took one week’s rations of rusks, but we stayed there nearly a month.”

“All that does not interest me,” I replied.

“What is it then? Do you simply wish to see how people are killed?⁠—In 1832 we had a fellow here, also a civilian, a Spaniard I think he was. He took part with us in two campaigns, wearing some kind of blue mantle. Well, they did for the fine fellow. You won’t astonish anyone here, friend!”

Humiliating though it was that the captain so misjudged my motives, I did not try to disabuse him.

“Was he brave?” I asked.

“Heaven only knows: he always used to ride in front; and where there was firing, there he always was.”

“Then he must have been brave,” said I.

“No. Pushing oneself in where you are not needed, does not prove you to be brave.”

“Then what do you call brave?”

“Brave?⁠—Brave?⁠—” repeated the captain, with the air of one to whom such a question presents itself for the first time. “He who does what he ought to do is brave,” he said, after thinking awhile.

Recollections of a Scorer A Story

Well, it happened about three o’clock. The gentlemen were playing. There was the big stranger, as our men called him. The prince was there⁠—the two are always together. The whiskered bárin was there; also the little hussar, Oliver, who was an actor, and there was the pan. It was a pretty good crowd.

The big stranger and the prince were playing together. Now, here I was walking up and down around the billiard-table with my stick, keeping tally⁠—ten and forty-seven, twelve and forty-seven.

Everybody knows it’s our business to score. You don’t get a chance to get a bite of anything, and you don’t get to bed till two o’clock o’ nights, but you’re always being screamed at to bring the balls.

I was keeping tally; and I look, and see a new bárin comes in at the door. He gazed and gazed, and then sat down on the sofa. Very well!

“Now, who can that be?” thinks I to myself. “He must be somebody.”

His dress was neat⁠—neat as a pin⁠—checkered tricot pants, stylish little short coat, plush vest, and gold chain and all sorts of trinkets dangling from it.

He was dressed neat; but there was something about the man neater still; slim, tall, his hair brushed forward in style, and his face fair and ruddy⁠—well, in a word, a fine young fellow.

The dawn has just begun to tinge the horizon above the Sapoún hill. The dark-blue surface of the sea has already thrown off the shadows of night, and lies waiting the appearance of the first sunbeam to sparkle merrily. A cold mist blows in from the bay; there is no snow⁠—all is black⁠—but the sharp morning frost creaks underfoot and makes the face tingle, while only the distant ceaseless murmur of the sea, now and then overpowered by the thunder of the cannons in Sevastopol, breaks the stillness of the morning. All is quiet on the ships. It strikes eight bells.

On the North Side the activity of day begins gradually to replace the stillness of night: here some soldiers, with clanking muskets, pass to relieve guard; here a doctor is already hurrying to the hospital; here a soldier has crept out of his dugout, washed his bronzed face with icy water, and, turning towards the reddening east, is now praying, rapidly crossing himself; there a high and heavy cart, drawn by camels, passes with creaking wheels towards the cemetery, where the bloodstained corpses that load it almost to the top are to be buried. Approaching the harbour, you are struck by a peculiar smell of coal, dampness, and meat. Thousands of different things⁠—firewood, meat, gabions, flour, iron, and so forth⁠—are lying in heaps near the harbour. Soldiers of various regiments, with or without bags and muskets, crowd around, smoking, scolding, or helping to load the steamer which lies with smoking funnel close to the wharf. Boats filled with people of all sorts⁠—soldiers, seamen, tradesmen and women⁠—come and go.

As he sat considering, Kostílin, an officer carrying a gun, rode up to him and said:

“Come along, Zhílin, let’s go on by ourselves. It’s dreadful; I am famished, and the heat is terrible. My shirt is wringing wet.”

Kostílin was a stout, heavy man, and the perspiration was running down his red face. Zhílin thought awhile, and then asked: “Is your gun loaded?”

“Yes it is.”

“Well, then, let’s go, but on condition that we keep together.”

So they rode forward along the road across the plain, talking, but keeping a lookout on both sides. They could see afar all round. But after crossing the plain the road ran through a valley between two hills, and Zhílin said: “We had better climb that hill and have a look round, or the Tartars may be on us before we know it.”

But Kostílin answered: “What’s the use? Let us go on.”

Zhílin, however, would not agree.

“No,” he said; “you can wait here if you like, but I’ll go and look round.” And he turned his horse to the left, up the hill. Zhílin’s horse was a hunter, and carried him up the hillside as if it had wings. (He had bought it for a hundred roubles as a colt out of a herd, and had broken it in himself.) Hardly had he reached the top of the hill, when he saw some thirty Tartars not much more than a hundred yards ahead of him. As soon as he caught sight of them he turned round, but the Tartars had also seen him, and rushed after him at full gallop, getting their guns out as they went.