Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy

Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich

From Caucasian memories (degraded)

L. N. Tolstoy

FROM CAUCASUS MEMORIES

DEMOTATED

We were in a squad. Things were already over, they finished cutting the clearing and every day they were waiting from the headquarters for an order to retreat to the fortress. Our division of battery guns stood on the slope of a steep mountain range ending in the fast mountain river Mechik, and had to fire at the plain ahead. On this picturesque plain, out of range, from time to time, especially before evening, here and there appeared non-hostile groups of horsemen riding out of curiosity to look at the Russian camp. The evening was clear, calm and fresh, as usual on December evenings in the Caucasus, the sun descended behind the steep spur of the mountains to the left and threw pink rays on the tents scattered along the mountain, on the moving groups of soldiers and on our two guns, heavily, as if stretching out their necks, standing motionless a couple of paces from us on an earthen battery. The infantry picket, located on the knoll to the left, was clearly visible in the transparent light of the sunset, with its goat guns, the figure of a sentry, a group of soldiers and the smoke of a fire. To the right and to the left, along the half-mountain, tents gleamed white on the black trampled earth, and behind the tents blackened the bare trunks of a plane tree forest, in which axes were constantly banging, bonfires were crackling, and chopped trees were falling with a roar. Bluish smoke rose like a chimney from all sides into the light blue frosty sky. Cossacks, dragoons and artillerymen, returning from a watering place, were dragging past the tents and fields near the stream with stomping and snorting. It began to freeze, all the sounds were heard especially clearly, and far ahead along the plain it was visible in the pure thin air. The enemy groups, no longer arousing the curiosity of the soldiers, quietly drove around the light yellow stubble of corn fields, where high cemeteries and smoking auls could be seen from behind the trees. Our tent was not far from the guns, on a dry and high place, from which the view was especially extensive. Near the tent, near the battery itself, on a cleared area, we arranged a game of gorodki or ingots. Helpful soldiers immediately attached wicker benches and a table for us. Because of all these conveniences, artillery officers, our comrades, and a few infantrymen liked to gather in our battery in the evenings and called this place a club. The evening was glorious, the best players gathered, and we played gorodki. I, warrant officer D. and lieutenant O. lost two games in a row and, to the general pleasure and laughter of the spectators, officers, soldiers and batmen who looked at us from their tents, I carried the winning game twice on my backs from one horse to another. Particularly amusing was the situation of the huge, fat staff of Captain Sh., who, panting and smiling good-naturedly, with his legs dragging on the ground, rode on a small and frail lieutenant O. But it was getting late, the orderlies brought us, for all six people, three glasses of tea without saucers, and we, having finished the game, went to the wicker benches. Near them stood a little man, unfamiliar to us, with crooked legs, in an unsheathed sheepskin coat and a hat with long hanging white wool. As soon as we got close to him, he hesitantly took off and put on his hat several times, and several times seemed to be about to come up to us and stopped again. But having decided, it must be, that it was no longer possible to remain unnoticed, this stranger took off his hat and, going around us, went up to the staff captain Sh. A, Guskantini! Well, my friend? Sh. said to him, smiling good-naturedly, still under the influence of his trip. Guskantini, as Sh. called him, immediately put on his hat and pretended to put his hands in the pockets of his sheepskin coat, but on the side from which he stood towards me there was no pocket in his sheepskin coat, and his small red hand remained in an awkward position. position. I wanted to decide who this man was (junker or demoted?), and I, not noticing that my look (i.e., the look of an unfamiliar officer) embarrassed him, peered intently at his clothes and appearance. He seemed to be in his thirties. His small, gray, round eyes, as if sleepily and at the same time uneasily, peered out from behind the dirty, white kurpei papakha that hung over his face. A thick, irregular nose among sunken cheeks revealed a sickly, unnatural thinness. The lips, very little covered by a sparse, soft, whitish mustache, were incessantly in a restless state, as if trying to assume this or that expression. But all these expressions were somehow incomplete; on his face there always remained one predominant expression of fright and haste. A green woolen scarf was tied around his thin, sinewy neck, hidden under a sheepskin coat. The sheepskin coat was worn, short, with a dog sewn on the collar and on the fake pockets. The pantaloons were checkered, ash-colored, and boots with short unblackened soldier tops. Please don't worry, I told him, when he looked at me timidly again and took off his hat. He bowed to me with a grateful expression, put on his cap, and, taking a dirty cotton pouch with strings from his pocket, began to make a cigarette. I myself was recently a cadet, an old cadet, already incapable of being a good-natured, helpful junior comrade, and a cadet without a fortune, therefore, knowing full well the moral gravity of this position for an elderly and conceited person, I sympathized with all people in such a position, and tried to explain their character and the degree and direction of mental faculties, in order to judge the degree of their moral suffering. This junker or demoted one, by his restless look and that deliberate incessant change in facial expression that I noticed in him, seemed to me a very intelligent and extremely proud man, and therefore very pitiful. Headquarters Captain Sh. suggested that we play another game of gorodki, so that the losing party, in addition to transportation, would pay for several bottles of red wine, rum, sugar, cinnamon and cloves for mulled wine, which this winter, due to the cold, was in large quantities. fashion in our squad. Guscantini, as Sh. again called him, was also invited to the game, but before starting the game, he, apparently struggling between the pleasure that this invitation brought him, and some kind of fear, took Captain Sh.'s staff aside and became that then whisper to him. The good-natured staff captain hit him with his plump, large hand on the stomach and answered loudly: "Nothing, my friend, I will believe you." When the game was over, and the party in which there was an unfamiliar lower rank won, and he had to ride on one of our officers, ensign D., the ensign blushed, went to the sofas and offered the lower rank cigarettes in the form of a ransom. While mulled wine was ordered and Nikita’s bustling housekeeping was heard in the orderly tent, sending a messenger for cinnamon and cloves, and his back stretched here and there the dirty floors of the tent, all seven of us sat down near the benches and, alternately drinking tea from three glasses and looking ahead on the plain, which was beginning to dress at dusk, they talked and laughed about the various circumstances of the game. A stranger in a short fur coat did not take part in the conversation, stubbornly refused tea, which I offered him several times, and, sitting on the ground in Tatar style, made cigarettes one after another from fine tobacco and smoked them, apparently, not so much for his pleasure, how much in order to give yourself the appearance of a busy person. When they started talking about the fact that tomorrow they were expecting a retreat and, perhaps, business, he got up on his knees and, turning to one of the staff captain Sh., said that he was now at the adjutant's house and he himself wrote the order to speak for tomorrow. We were all silent while he was speaking, and, despite the fact that he was apparently timid, we forced him to repeat this extremely interesting news for us. He repeated what he had said, adding, however, that he was sitting with the adjutant, with whom he lives together, while the order was brought. Look, if you are not lying, my friend, then I need to go in my company to order something for tomorrow, said Staff Captain Sh. No ... why? But the finest tobacco poured out was no longer enough in his cotton pouch, and he asked Sh. to lend him a cigarette. We continued among ourselves for quite a long time that monotonous military chatter, which everyone who has been on campaigns knows, complained with the same expressions about boredom and the length of the campaign, in the same manner we talked about the authorities, everything is the same as many times before , they praised one comrade, pitied another, they were surprised how much this one won, how much this one lost, etc., etc. Here, my friend, our adjutant broke through, so broke through, said the staff captain Sh., at the headquarters he always won, he would sit down with anyone, he used to rake in, and now he’s been losing everything for the second month. The current detachment did not ask him. I think I lost 1000 coins, and 500 coins worth of things: the carpet that I won from Mukhin, Nikitinsky pistols, a gold watch, everything blew from the Garden that Vorontsov gave him. Serve him right, said Lieutenant O., otherwise he really blew everyone away: it was impossible to play with him. He blew everyone, and now he flew out all into the chimney, and the staff captain Sh. laughed good-naturedly. Here Guskov lives with him and he almost lost him, right. So, daddy? he turned to Guskov. Guskov laughed. He had a pathetic, painful laugh that completely changed the expression on his face. With this change, it seemed to me that I had known and seen this man before, moreover, his real name, Guskov, was familiar to me, but how and when I knew and saw him, I absolutely could not remember. Yes, Guskov said, constantly raising his hands to his moustache and, without touching it, lowered it again. Pavel Dmitrievich was very unlucky in this detachment, he added such a veine de malheur 1 in a diligent but pure French accent, and again it seemed to me that I had already seen, and even often seen, him somewhere. I know Pavel Dmitrievich well, he trusts me with everything, he continued, we are still old acquaintances, that is, he loves me, he added, apparently frightened by the too bold assertion that he was an old acquaintance of the adjutant. Pavel Dmitrievich plays excellently, but now it's amazing what happened to him, he looks like he's lost, la chance a tourne, 2 he added, addressing himself mainly to me. At first we listened to Guskov with condescending attention, but as soon as he said this French phrase, we all involuntarily turned away from him. I played with him a thousand times, and you must admit that this is strange, said Lieutenant O. with special emphasis on the atom of the word, surprisingly strange: I never won a single abaza against him. Why do I win over others? Pavel Dmitrievich plays excellently, I have known him for a long time, I said. Indeed, I had known the adjutant for several years already, I had seen him more than once in the game, big at the expense of the officers, and admired his handsome, slightly gloomy and always imperturbably calm physiognomy, his slow little Russian accent, his beautiful things and horses, his unhurried Khokhlak youthfulness and especially his ability to play with restraint, distinctness and pleasure. More than once, I repent of that, looking at his full and white hands with a diamond ring on his index finger, which hit me one card after another, I was angry at this ring, at his white hands, at the whole person of the adjutant, and they came to me at his expense bad thoughts; but discussing it later in cold blood, I became convinced that he was simply a smarter player than all those with whom he had to play. Moreover, listening to his general discussions about the game, about how one should not bend back, having risen from a small jackpot, how one should go on strike in certain cases, how the first rule is to play clean, etc., etc., it was clear that he always benefited only because he was smarter and more characteristic than all of us. Now it turned out that this abstemious, characteristic player lost heavily in the detachment not only in money, but also in things, which means the last degree of loss for an officer. He's always damned lucky with me, Lieutenant O continued. I've made a promise to myself not to play with him again. What an eccentric you are, my friend, said Sh., winking at me with his whole head and turning to O., lost him 300 coins, after all, you lost! More, the lieutenant said angrily. And now they have seized upon their wits, but it’s too late, my friend: everyone has long known that he is our regimental cheater, said Sh., barely restraining himself from laughter and very pleased with his invention. Here Guskov is there, he is preparing cards for him. That's why they have friendship, my friend ... and staff captain Sh. laughed so good-naturedly, hesitating with his whole body, that he spilled a glass of mulled wine, which he was holding in his hand at that time. It was as if paint appeared on Guskov’s yellow, emaciated face, he opened his mouth several times, raised his hands to his mustache and again lowered them to the place where the pockets should have been, rose and fell, and finally, in a voice that was not his own, said Sh .: This is not a joke , Nikolay Ivanovich; you say such things in front of people who don't know me and see me in an unsheathed sheepskin coat. .. because... His voice broke off, and again small red hands with dirty nails went from the sheepskin coat to his face, now straightening his mustache, hair, nose, now clearing his eye or scratching his cheek unnecessarily. What can I say, everyone knows, my friend, continued Sh., sincerely pleased with his joke and not at all noticing Guskov's excitement. Guskov still whispered something and, resting the elbow of his right hand on the knee of his left leg, in the most unnatural position, looking at Sh., began to pretend as if he was smiling contemptuously. "No," I thought resolutely, looking at that smile, "I not only saw him, but spoke to him somewhere." We met somewhere, I told him, when Sh.'s laughter began to subside under the influence of general silence. How, I now recognize you, he spoke in French. In 1948 I quite often had the pleasure of seeing you in Moscow, at my sister Ivashchina's. I apologized for not recognizing him immediately in this suit and this new clothes. He got up, came up to me, and with his damp hand hesitantly, weakly shook my hand, and sat down beside me. Instead of looking at me, whom he seemed to be so glad to see, he looked back at the officers with an expression of some unpleasant boasting. Whether it was because I recognized in him a man whom I had seen several years ago in a tailcoat in the drawing room, or because, at this recollection, he suddenly rose in his own opinion, it seemed to me that his face and even his movements had completely changed: they expressed now a lively mind, childish self-satisfaction from the consciousness of this mind, and a kind of contemptuous carelessness, so that, I confess, despite the miserable position in which he was, my old acquaintance already inspired me not with compassion, but with some kind of somewhat hostile feeling. I vividly recalled our first meeting. In 1948, when I was in Moscow, I often went to Ivashin, with whom we grew up together and were old friends. His wife was a pleasant mistress of the house, an amiable woman, as they say, but I never liked her ... That winter when I knew her, she often spoke with thinly concealed pride about her brother, who had recently completed his course and seemed to have been one of the most educated and beloved young people in the best Petersburg society. Knowing by rumor the father of the Guskovs, who was very rich and occupied a significant place, and knowing the direction of my sister, I met the young Guskov with prejudice. Once, in the evening, when I arrived at Ivashin's, I found a short, very pleasant-looking young man in a black tailcoat, white waistcoat and tie, with whom the owner forgot to introduce me. The young man, apparently about to go to the ball, with a hat in his hand, stood in front of Ivashin and heatedly but politely argued with him about our common acquaintance, who distinguished himself at that time in the Hungarian campaign. He said that this acquaintance was not at all a hero and a man born for war, as he was called, but only an intelligent and educated person. I remember that I took part in the dispute against Guskov and went to extremes, even arguing that intelligence and education are always inversely related to courage, and I remember how Guskov pleasantly and cleverly proved to me that courage is a necessary consequence of intelligence and a certain degree of development, with which I, considering myself an intelligent and educated person, could not secretly disagree! I remember that at the end of our conversation, Ivashina introduced me to her brother, and he, smiling condescendingly, gave me his small hand, on which he had not yet quite managed to put on a kid glove, and just as weakly and hesitantly as now, shook my hand. . Although I was prejudiced against him, I could not then do justice to Guskov and disagree with his sister that he was really an intelligent and pleasant young man who should have been successful in society. He was unusually neat, elegantly dressed, fresh, had self-confidently modest receptions and an extremely youthful, almost childish appearance, sa which you involuntarily excused him for the expression of complacency and desire to moderate the degree of his superiority over you, which his intelligent face and especially smile. It was said that this winter he had great success with the Moscow ladies. Seeing him at his sister's, I could only conclude from the expression of happiness and contentment that his young appearance constantly wore, and from his sometimes immodest stories, to what extent this was true. We met with him about six times and talked quite a lot, or rather he talked a lot and I listened. He spoke for the most part in French, a very good language, very fluently, figuratively, and knew how to gently, politely interrupt others in conversation. In general, he treated everyone and me rather condescendingly, and, as I always do with people who are firmly convinced that I should be treated with condescension, and whom I know little, I felt that he was absolutely right in this respect. . Now, when he sat down beside me and gave me his hand, I vividly recognized his former arrogant expression, and it seemed to me that he was not quite honestly taking advantage of his position as a lower rank in front of an officer, so casually questioning me about what I was doing. all this time and how I got here. Despite the fact that I always answered in Russian, he spoke in French, in which he was already noticeably not as fluent as before. To himself, he briefly told me that after his unfortunate, stupid story (what this story consisted of, I didn’t know, and he didn’t tell me) he had been under arrest for three months, then he was sent to the Caucasus in the N. regiment, now served as a soldier in this regiment for three years. You will not believe, he told me in French, how much I had to suffer in these regiments from the company of officers; it is still my happiness that I previously knew the adjutant about whom we were just talking: he good man really, he remarked condescendingly, I live with him, and for me it is still a small relief. Oui, mon cher, les jours se suivent, mais ne se ressemblent pas, 3 he added, and suddenly hesitated, blushed and got up, noticing that the same adjutant we were talking about was approaching us. Such a joy to meet such a person as you, Guskov told me in a whisper, moving away from me, I would much, much like to talk with you. I said that I was very glad about this, but in essence, I confess, Guskov inspired me with unsympathetic, heavy compassion. I had a presentiment that I would be uncomfortable with him face to face, but I wanted to learn a lot from him, and especially why, when his father was so rich, he was in poverty, as was evident from his clothes and manners. The adjutant greeted us all, with the exception of Guskov, and sat down next to me in the place occupied by the demoted one. Always calm and slow, a characteristic player and money man, Pavel Dmitrievich was now completely different, as I knew him in the flourishing days of his game; he seemed to be in a hurry somewhere, constantly looking around at everyone, and before five minutes had passed, he, always refusing to play, suggested to Lieutenant O. to make a jar. Lieutenant O. refused under the pretext of employment in the service, actually because, knowing how little things and money Pavel Dmitrievich had left, he considered it unreasonable to risk his 300 rubles against 100 rubles, or maybe less, which he could win. And what, Pavel Dmitrievich, said the lieutenant, apparently wanting to get rid of the repetition of the request, is it true that they say there will be a performance tomorrow? I don’t know, Pavel Dmitrievich remarked, only I was ordered to get ready, but really, it would be better if they played, I would pawn my Kabardian to you. No, now ... Gray, all right, and then, if you want, with money. Well? Yes, I'm well ... I would be ready, you don’t think, Lieutenant O. spoke, answering his own doubt, otherwise tomorrow, maybe a raid or movement, you need to sleep. The adjutant stood up and, putting his hands in his pockets, began to walk around the platform. His face took on the usual expression of coldness and a certain pride, which I loved in him. Would you like a glass of mulled wine? I told him. You can, and he went towards me, but Guskov hurriedly took the glass from my hands and carried it to the adjutant, trying not to look at him. But, not paying attention to the rope pulling the tent, Guskov stumbled on it and, dropping the glass from his hands, fell on his hands. Eka file! said the adjutant, who had already stretched out his hand to the glass. Everyone burst out laughing, not excepting Guskov, who rubbed his thin knee with his hand, which he could not hurt when he fell. This is how the bear served the hermit, continued the adjutant. So he serves me every day, he broke all the pegs on the tents, everything stumbles. Guskov, not listening to him, apologized to us and looked at me with a barely noticeable sad smile, with which he seemed to say that I alone could understand him. He was pathetic, but the adjutant, his patron, seemed for some reason embittered at his roommate and did not want to leave him alone. What a clever boy! wherever you turn. But who doesn’t stumble over these pegs, Pavel Dmitrievich, said Guskov, you yourself stumbled on the third day. I, father, am not a lower rank, dexterity is not asked of me. He can drag his legs, captain Sh. picked up the staff, and the lower rank should bounce ... Strange jokes, Guskov said almost in a whisper and lowering his eyes. The adjutant was apparently not indifferent to his roommate, he eagerly listened to his every word. We'll have to send it as a secret again, he said, turning to Sh. and winking at the demoted one. Well, there will be tears again, said Sh., laughing. Guskov no longer looked at me, but pretended to take tobacco out of a pouch, in which there had been nothing for a long time. Get in secret, my friend, Sh. said through laughter, now the scouts have reported that there will be an attack on the camp at night, so you need to appoint reliable guys. Guskov smiled indecisively, as if about to say something, and several times raised his imploring glance at Sh. Yes, they will. Well, I'll go. What is it? Yes, as on the Argun, they ran away from the secret and threw the gun away, said the adjutant, and turning away from him, began to tell us orders for the next day. Indeed, during the night they expected firing at the camp from the enemy, and for the next day some kind of movement. After talking more about various general subjects, the adjutant, as if by accident, suddenly remembering, suggested that Lieutenant O. sweep him a little one. Lieutenant O. quite unexpectedly agreed, and together with Sh. and the ensign went to the adjutant's tent, who had a folding green table and maps. The captain, the commander of our division, went to sleep in the tent, the other gentlemen also dispersed, and we were left alone with Guskov. I was not mistaken, I really felt awkward with him face to face. I involuntarily got up and began to walk up and down the battery. Guskov silently walked beside me, turning hurriedly and uneasily so as not to lag behind and not to get ahead of me. Am I bothering you? he said in a meek, sad voice. As far as I could see his face in the darkness, it seemed to me deeply thoughtful and sad. Not at all, I answered; but since he did not begin to speak, and I did not know what to say to him, we walked for a long time in silence. The twilight had already been completely replaced by the darkness of night, a bright evening lightning lit up over the black profile of the mountains, small stars flickered overhead in a light blue frosty sky, on all sides the flame of smoking fires reddened in the darkness, near the gray of the tent, and the embankment of our battery gloomy blackened. From the nearest fire, near which our batmen were talking quietly while warming themselves, the copper of our heavy guns occasionally shone on the battery, and the figure of a sentry in a greatcoat with a cape was shown, moving measuredly along the embankment. You cannot imagine what a joy it is for me to talk to a man like you, Guskov told me, although he has not yet spoken to me about anything, only someone who has been in my position can understand this. I did not know what to answer him, and we were silent again, despite the fact that he, apparently, wanted to speak out, and I wanted to listen to him. What were you... what did you suffer for? I asked him at last, without thinking of anything better to start a conversation. Haven't you heard about this unfortunate story with Metenin? Yes, a duel, it seems; heard in passing, I answered: after all, I have long been in the Caucasus. No, not a duel, but this stupid and terrible story! I'll tell you everything if you don't know. It was in the same year when we met at my sister's, I was then living in St. Petersburg. I must tell you, I had then what is called une position dans le monde, 4 and quite profitable, if not brilliant. Mon pere me donnait 10,000 par an. 5 In 1949 I was promised a place at the embassy in Turin, my maternal uncle could and was always ready to do a lot for me. The thing is past now, j "etais recu dans la meilleure societe de Petersbourg, je pouvais pretendre 6 for the best game. I studied like we all studied at school, so I didn’t have a special education; however, I read a lot after, mais j "avais surtout, you know, ce jargon du monde, 7 and, be that as it may, for some reason they found me one of the first young people in St. Petersburg. What raised me even more in the general opinion c "est cette liaison avec m me D., 8 about which they talked a lot in St. Petersburg, but I was terribly young at that time and did not appreciate all these benefits. I was just young and stupid, which did I need more?” At that time, this Metenin had a reputation in St. Petersburg. ... And Guskov continued in this way to tell me the story of his misfortune, which, as completely uninteresting, I will skip here. For two months I was under arrest, he continued, completely alone, and no matter what I changed my mind during that time. But you know, when it all ended, as if it had finally been severed for its connection with the past, I felt better. Mon pere, vous en avez entendu parler 9 he is probably a man with an iron character and strong convictions, il m "a desherite 10 and stopped all communication with me. According to his convictions, this should have been done, and I do not blame him at all: il a ete consequent.11 On the other hand, I did not take a step so that he would change his intention.My sister was abroad,mme D.one wrote to me when she was allowed to, and offered to help, but you understand that I refused.So I didn't have those little things that make things a little easier in this situation, you know: no books, no linen, no food, nothing. I was not interested in me in Petersburg, they did not flatter me at all, it all seemed ridiculous to me. I felt that I myself was to blame, careless, young, I ruined my career and only thought about how to correct it again. And I felt in myself strength and energy for this. From custody, as I told you, I was sent here to Avkaz, in N. Regiment. I thought, he continued, more and more inspired, that here, in the Caucasus la vie de camp, 12 simple, honest people with whom I would be in relations, war, danger, all this would suit my mood in the best possible way, that I will begin new life . On me verra au feu 13 they will love me, they will respect me for more than one name, the cross, the non-commissioned officer, they will remove the fine, and I will return again et, vous savez, avec ce prestige du malheur! Ho quel desenchantment. 14 You can't imagine how wrong I was!.. Do you know the company of officers of our regiment? He was silent for a long time, waiting, it seemed to me, for me to tell him that I knew how bad the company of the local officers was; but I didn't answer him. I was disgusted that he, because it is true that I knew French, assumed that I should have been indignant at the society of officers, which, on the contrary, having spent a long time in the Caucasus, managed to fully appreciate and respect a thousand times more than that the society from which Mr. Guskov emerged. I wanted to tell him this, but his position bound me. In the N. regiment, the society of officers is a thousand times worse than here, he continued. J "espere que c" est beaucoup dire, 15 i.e. you can't imagine what it is! I'm not talking about the junkers and soldiers. What a horror it is! At first I was received well, it is absolutely true, but then, when they saw that I could not help but despise them, you know, in these inconspicuous petty relationships, they saw that I was a completely different person, standing much higher than they were, they became angry with me and began repay me with various petty humiliations. Ce que j "ai eu a souffrir, vous ne vous faites pas une idee. 16 Then these involuntary relations with the junkers, and most importantly avec les petits moyens que j" avais, je manquais de tout, 17 y I only had that sister sent me. Here is proof for you how much I have suffered, that with my character, avec ma fierte, j "ai ecrit a mon pere, 18 I begged him to send me at least something. I understand that living such a life for five years you can become the same as our degraded Dromov, who drinks with the soldiers and writes notes to all the officers, asking him to lend him three rubles, and signs tout a vous 19 Dromov. silently walked beside me. Avez vous un papiros? 20 he said to me. Yes, so where did I stop? Yes. I could not stand it, not physically, because although it was bad, cold and hungry, I lived like a soldier, "But all the same, the officers had some kind of respect for me. Some kind of prestige remained on me and for them. They did not send me on guard duty, for training. I could not bear it. But I suffered terribly morally. And most importantly, I did not see way out of this situation. I wrote to my uncle, begging him to transfer me to the local regiment, which at least happens to be in business, and I thought that Pavel Dmitrievich was here, qui est le fils de l "intendant de mon pere, 22 all the same, he could be useful to me. Uncle did this for me, they transferred me. After that regiment, this regiment seemed to me a collection of chamberlains. Then Pavel Dmitrievich was here, he knew who I was, and they received me perfectly. At the request of my uncle ... Guskov, vous savez ... 23 but I noticed that with these people, without education and development, they cannot respect a person and show him signs of respect if he does not have this halo of wealth, nobility; I noticed how little by little, when they saw that I was poor, their relations with I became careless, careless and, finally, became almost contemptuous. It's terrible! but it's absolutely true. Here I was in business, fought, on m "a vu au feu, 24 he continued, but when will it end? I think never! and my strength and energy are already beginning to deplete. Then I imagined la guerre, la vie de camp, 25 but all this is not how I see you in a sheepskin coat, unwashed, in soldier's boots, you go into secret and lie all night in a ravine with some Antonov, who was given to the soldiers for drunkenness, and any minute they might shoot you from behind a bush, you or Antonov, it doesn't matter. It's not courage that's terrible. C "est affreux, cat tue. 26 Well, now you can get a non-commissioned officer for a campaign, and next year a warrant officer, I said. Yes, I can, they promised me, but two more years, and that's hardly. But what what these two years are like, if anyone knew. Imagine this life with this Pavel Dmitrievich: cards, rude jokes, revelry, you want to say something that boils in your soul, they don’t understand you or they still laugh at you, they talk to you not in order to inform you of an idea, but in such a way that, if possible, they can still make a jester out of you. And all this is so vulgar, rude, disgusting, and you always feel that you are a lower rank, this is always for you make you feel. From this you will not understand what a pleasure it is to talk a coeur ouvert 27 with a person like you. I did not understand what kind of person I was, and therefore did not know what to answer him ... Will you have a snack? told me meanwhile, Nikita, who had crept up to me in the dark and, as I noticed, was dissatisfied with the presence of a guest. left. Did the captain eat? They have been sleeping for a long time, Nikita replied gloomily. At my order to bring us here a snack and vodka, he grumbled something in displeasure and dragged himself to his tent. After grumbling while still there, he nevertheless brought us a cellar; he put a candle on the cellar, tying it in front with paper from the wind, a saucepan, mustard in a jar, a tin glass with a handle and a bottle of wormwood tincture. Having arranged all this, Nikita stood for some more time near us and watched as Guskov and I drank vodka, which, apparently, was very unpleasant for him. Under the dull illumination of the candle, through the paper and in the surrounding darkness, only the sealskin of the cellar, the supper standing on it, Guskov's face, short fur coat and his small red hands, with which he began to put dumplings out of the saucepan, could be seen. Everything was black all around, and only by looking closely could one make out a black battery, the same black figure of a sentry, visible through the parapet, firelights on the sides and reddish stars above. Guskov smiled sadly and shyly, almost perceptibly, as if he was embarrassed to look me in the eyes after his confession. He drank another glass of vodka and ate greedily, scraping the saucepan. Yes, it’s a relief for you all the same, I told him, to say something, your acquaintance with the adjutant: I heard he is a very good person. Yes, answered the demoted one, he is a good man, but he cannot be different, he cannot be a man, with his education one cannot demand. He suddenly seemed to blush. You noticed his rude jokes today about the secret, and Guskov, despite the fact that I tried several times to hush up the conversation, began to justify himself to me and prove that he had not run away from the secret and that he was not a coward, as the adjutant and Sh. As I told you, he continued, wiping his hands on his sheepskin coat, such people cannot be delicate with a soldier who has little money; it is beyond their strength. And lately, for some reason I have not received anything from my sister for five months, I noticed how they have changed towards me. This sheepskin coat, which I bought from a soldier and which does not keep you warm, because it is all worn out (while he showed me the bare coat), does not inspire him with compassion or respect for misfortune, but with contempt, which he is not able to hide. Whatever my need, like now, that I have nothing to eat but soldier's porridge, and nothing to wear, he continued looking down, pouring himself another glass of vodka, he would not think of offering me a loan of money, knowing for sure that I would give it to him, and waiting for me in my position to address him. And you understand what it's like for me and with him. You should, for example, I directly said vous etes au dessus de cela; mon cher, je n "ai pas le sou. 28 And you know, he said, suddenly looking desperately into my eyes, I tell you directly, I am now in a terrible position: pouvez vous me preter 10 roubles argent? 29 My sister must send me by the next post et mon pere... 30

Ah, I'm very glad, I said, while, on the contrary, I was hurt and annoyed, especially because, having lost at cards the day before, I myself had only five rubles with something from Nikita. Now, I said, getting up, I'll go get it in the tent. No, after, ne vous derangez pas. 31 However, not listening to him, I crawled into the buttoned tent where my bed stood and the captain slept. Alexei Ivanovich, please give me 10 rubles. to the rations, I told the captain, pushing him aside. What, blown out again? and yesterday they wanted not to play anymore, the captain said awake. No, I did not play, but I need to, please give me. Makatyuk! shouted the captain to his batman, get out the box of money and give it here. Hush, hush, I said, listening to Guskov's measured steps behind the tent. What? why quieter? It was this demoted man who asked me for a loan. He is here! If I had known, I wouldn’t have given it, the captain remarked, I heard about him the first dirty boy! However, the captain did give me money, ordered me to hide the box, wrap the tent well, and, repeating again: if I had known what, I would not have given it, wrapped myself up under the covers. Now you have thirty-two, remember, he shouted to me. When I left the tent, Guskov was walking around the sofas, and his small figure with crooked legs and in an ugly hat with long white hair showed up and hid in the darkness when he passed the candle. He pretended not to notice me. I gave him the money. He said: merci and, crumpling, put the paper in the pocket of his trousers. Now Pavel Dmitrievich, I think, the game is in full swing, after that he began. Yes, I think. He plays strangely, is always an arebur and does not bend back; when you're lucky, that's good, but when it doesn't work, you can lose terribly. He proved it. In this detachment, if you count with things, he lost more than one and a half thousand. And how he played with restraint before, so that this officer of yours seemed to doubt his honesty. Yes, he is so ... Nikita, do we still have chikhir? I said, greatly relieved by Guskov's talkativeness. Nikita grumbled some more, but brought us some chikhir and again looked angrily as Guskov drank his glass. In Guskov's appeal, the former swagger became noticeable. I wanted him to leave as soon as possible, and it seemed that he did not do this only because he was ashamed to leave immediately after he received the money. I was silent. How is it that you, with funds, without any need, decided de gaiete de coeur 32 to go to serve in the Caucasus? That's what I don't understand, he told me. I tried to justify myself in such a strange act for him. I imagine how hard it is for you to be in the company of these officers, people without any idea of ​​education. You cannot understand each other with them. Indeed, in addition to maps, wine and talk about awards and campaigns, you will live ten years, you will not see or hear anything. It was unpleasant to me that he wanted me to necessarily share his position, and I quite sincerely assured him that I was very fond of cards, and wine, and talk about campaigns, and that better than those comrades that I had, I did not wanted to have. But he didn't want to believe me. Well, that's what you say, he continued, but the absence of women, that is, I mean femmes comme il faut, 33 isn't this a terrible deprivation? I don't know what I would give now, just for a moment to be transported into the living room and even through the crack to look at the lovely woman. He was silent for a while and drank another glass of chikhir. Oh my God, my God! Maybe someday we will meet in Petersburg, among people, to be and live with people, with women. He poured out the last wine that was left in the bottle, and after drinking it, he said: Ah, pardon, maybe you wanted more, I'm terribly distracted. However, I seem to have drunk too much et je n "ai pas la tete forte. 34 There was a time when I lived on the Marine au rez de chaussee, 35 I had a wonderful apartment, furniture, you know, I knew how to arrange it gracefully, although not too expensive, really: mon pere gave me porcelain, flowers, wonderful silver. Le matin je sortais, visits, a 5 heures regulierement 36 I went to dine with her, often she was alone. Il faut avouer que c "etait une femme ravissante ? 37 You didn't know her? not at all? No. You know, she had this femininity to the highest degree, tenderness, and then what kind of love! God! I did not know how to appreciate this happiness then. Or after the theater we returned together and had dinner. It was never boring with her, toujours gaie, toujours aimante. 38 Yes, I had no idea what a rare happiness it was. Et j "ai beaucoup a me reprocher in front of her. Je l" ai fait souffrir et souvent. 39 I was cruel. Ah, what a wonderful time it was! Are you bored? No, not at all. So I'll tell you our evenings. I used to go up this staircase, I knew every pot of flowers the doorknob, it was all so sweet, familiar, then the front room, her room... No, it would never, never come back! She still writes to me, I'll probably show you her letters. But I'm not the same, I'm lost, I'm no longer worth it ... Yes, I'm finally dead! Je suis casse. 40 I have no energy, no pride, nothing. Not even nobility. .. Yes, I'm dead! And no one will ever understand my suffering. Nobody cares. I am a lost man! I will never get up, because I mentally fell ... into the mud ... fell ... At that moment, sincere, deep despair was heard in his words: he did not look at me and sat motionless. Why be so desperate? I said. Because I am vile, this life has destroyed me, everything that was in me has been killed. I endure no longer with pride, but with meanness, dignite dans le malheur is no more. I am humiliated every minute, I endure everything, I myself climb into humiliation. This dirt a deteint sur moi, 42 I myself have become rude, I forgot what I knew, I can no longer speak French, I feel that I am vile and low. I can’t fight in this situation, I definitely can’t, I could be a hero: give me a regiment, golden epaulettes, trumpeters, and go next to some wild Anton Bondarenko, etc. and think what’s between me and it makes no difference to them that they kill me or they kill him anyway, this thought kills me. Do you understand how terrible it is to think that some ragamuffin will kill me, a person who thinks, feels, and that it would still be next to me to kill Antonov, a creature that is no different from an animal, and that it can easily happen that they will kill it was me, and not Antonov, as always happens une fatalite 43 for everything high and good. I know they call me a coward; let me be a coward, I'm definitely a coward and I can't be different. Not only am I a coward, I am in their language a beggar and despicable person. So I just begged you for money, and you have the right to despise me. No, take your money back, and he handed me a crumpled piece of paper. I want you to respect me. He covered his face with his hands and wept; I didn't really know what to say or do. Calm down, I told him, you are too sensitive, do not take everything to heart, do not analyze, look at things easier. You yourself say that you have character. Take it upon yourself, you don’t have long to endure, I tell him, but very awkwardly, because I was excited both by a feeling of compassion and a feeling of remorse that I allowed myself to mentally condemn a person who was truly and deeply unhappy. Yes, he began, if I had heard at least once since I was in this hell, at least one word of participation, advice, friendship, a human word, such as I hear from you. Maybe I could endure everything calmly; maybe I would even take it upon myself and could even be a soldier, but now it’s terrible ... When I reason sensibly, I wish death, and why should I love a disgraced life and myself, who died for all the good in the world? And at the slightest danger, I suddenly involuntarily begin to adore this vile life and cherish it like something precious, and I cannot, je ne puis pas, overcome myself. That is, I can, he continued again after a moment's silence, but it costs me too much work, enormous work, if I am alone. With others in ordinary conditions, as you go into business, I am brave, j "ai fait mes preuves, 45 because I am proud and proud: this is my vice, and with others ... You know, let me spend the night with you, otherwise we'll have a game all night long, somewhere on the ground for me. While Nikita was making a bed, we got up and began to walk around the battery again in the dark. Indeed, Guskov's head must have been very weak, because from two glasses of vodka and two glasses of wine, he swayed. When we got up and moved away from the candle, I noticed that, trying not to see this, he again put into his pocket a ten-rouble note, which he had been holding in his palm all the time of the previous conversation. He went on saying that he feels that he can still rise if he had a man like me who would take part in it. We were about to go to the tent to go to bed, when suddenly a shot whistled over us and hit the ground not far away. It was so strange, this quiet sleeping camp, our conversation, and suddenly the core of the enemy e, which, God knows where, flew into the middle of our tents, so strange that for a long time I could not give myself an account of what it was. Our soldier Andreev, who was walking on the clock on the battery, moved towards me. Vish crept up! There was a fire here, he said. We must wake up the captain, I said, and looked at Guskov. He stood, bent completely to the ground, and stammered, wanting to utter something. This is ... otherwise ... dislike ... this is super ... funny. He said nothing more, and I did not see how and where he disappeared instantly. A candle was lit in the captain's tent, his usual awakening cough was heard, and he himself soon went out, demanding an overcoat to light his small pipe. What is it, father, he said, smiling, they don’t want to let me sleep today: now you are with your demoted one, then Shamil; what are we going to do: answer or not? Was there nothing about it in the order? Nothing. Here he is, I said, and out of two. Indeed, in the darkness, ahead to the right, two fires lit up, like two eyes, and soon one cannonball and one, probably ours, empty grenade flew over us, producing a loud and piercing whistle. Soldiers crawled out from neighboring tents, their quacking and stretching and talking could be heard. Look, it whistles like a nightingale, the artilleryman noticed. Call Nikita, said the captain with his usual kind smile. Nikita! do not hide, but listen to the mountain nightingales. Well, your honor, said Nikita, standing next to the captain, I saw them, then the nightingales, I'm not afraid, but the guest that was here, our chikhir drank, as soon as he heard, he gave a quick shot past our tent, rolled around like a beast bent! However, I must go to the chief of artillery, the captain told me in a serious commanding tone, to ask whether to shoot at the fire or not; It won't make any sense, but it's still possible. Make the effort to go and ask. Tell the horse to saddle, it will be sooner, at least take my Polkan. Five minutes later they gave me a horse, and I went to the chief of artillery. Look, the tip of the drawbar, the punctual captain whispered to me, otherwise they won’t let me through the chain. It was half a verst to the chief of artillery, the whole road went between the tents. As soon as I drove away from our fire, it became so black that I could not even see the horse's ears, but only the fires, which seemed to me very close, then very far, seemed to me in my eyes. Having driven off a little, by the grace of the horse, to which I loosened the reins, I began to distinguish white quadrangular tents, then black ruts of the road; half an hour later, after asking three times for directions, twice hooking on the pegs of the tents, for which each time I received curses from the tents, and twice stopped by sentries, I arrived at the chief of artillery. While I was driving, I heard two more shots at our camp, but the shells did not reach the place where the headquarters was. The chief of artillery did not order to answer the shots, especially since the enemy stopped, and I went home, taking the horse in the reins and making my way on foot between the infantry tents. More than once I slowed down my pace, passing by a soldier's tent, in which a fire glowed, and listened either to a fairy tale that a joker told, or to a book that a literate man read and listened to the whole squad, crowded in and around the tent, interrupting the reader occasionally with different remarks, or simply to talk about the campaign, about the homeland, about the bosses. Passing near one of the tents of the 3rd battalion, I heard the loud voice of Guskov, who spoke very cheerfully and smartly. He was answered by young, also cheerful, gentlemanly, not soldierly voices. This, obviously, was a cadet or sergeant's tent. I stopped. I have known him for a long time, Guskov said. When I lived in Petersburg, he often visited me, and I visited him, he lived in a very good light. Who are you talking about? asked a drunken voice. About the prince, said Guskov. After all, we are relatives with him, and most importantly, old friends. It is, you know, gentlemen, it is good to have such an acquaintance. He's terribly rich. He's a hundred ruble trifles. So I took some money from him until my sister sends it to me. Well, send it. Now. Savelich, my dove! Guskov's voice spoke, moving towards the door of the tent, here's ten coins for you, go to the sutler, take two bottles of Kakhetian and what else? Lord? Speak! And Guskov, staggering, with matted hair, without a hat, left the tent. Turning down the flaps of his sheepskin coat and thrusting his hands into the pockets of his gray trousers, he stopped at the door. Although he was in the light and I was in the dark, I trembled with fear that he might not see me, and, trying not to make any noise, I went on. Who is there? Guskov shouted at me in a completely drunken voice. It can be seen that it was dismantled in the cold. What the hell is going on with the horse? I did not answer and silently got out on the road. November 15, 1856

1 [a streak of bad luck,] 2 [happiness turned away,] 3 [Yes, my dear, the days go one after another, but do not repeat,] 4 [position in the world,] 5 [Father gave me 10,000 annually.] 6 [I was accepted in the best society of St. Petersburg, I could count] 7 [but I especially mastered this secular jargon,] 8 [so this is a connection with Mrs. D.,] 9 [My father, you heard about him] 10 [he deprived me of the right to the inheritance] 11 [he was consistent.] 12 [camp life,] 13 [they will see me under fire] 14 [and, you know, with this charm of misfortune! But, what a disappointment.] 15 [I hope that says enough,] 16 [You can't imagine how much I suffered.] 17 [with the little money I had, I needed everything] 18 [with my pride, I wrote to my father,] 19 [all yours] 20 [Do you have a cigarette?] 21 [authority] 22 [my father's steward's son,] 23 [you know...] 24 [I was seen under fire,] 25 [war, camp life,] 26 [It's terrible, it's deadly.] 27 [to my liking] 28 [you are better than that; my dear, I don't have a penny.] 29 [can you lend me 10 silver rubles?] 30 [and my father...] 31 [don't worry.] 32 [with a light heart] 33 [decent women,] 34 [ and my head is weak.] 35 [downstairs,] 36 [I left in the morning, exactly at 5 o'clock] 37 [I must admit that she was a charming woman! ] 38 [always cheerful, always loving.] 39 [I reproach myself for many things before her. I often made her suffer.] 40 [I am broken.] 41 [dignity in adversity] 42 [stamped on me,] 43 [rock] 44 [I can not,] 45 [I proved,]

Story >> Literature and Russian language

... Tolstoy: in diary entries of the 50s, in "Childhood", "Youth", in stories Caucasian ... Tolstoy on the father's side - I.A. Tolstoy and his wife P.N. Tolstoy. IN " Memories" Tolstoy... with Napoleon was borrowed Tolstoy from Mikhailovsky Danilevsky (cf .: A. ...

Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich

From Caucasian memories (degraded)

L. N. Tolstoy

FROM CAUCASUS MEMORIES

DEMOTATED

We were in a squad. “Things were already over, they were finishing the clearing, and every day they were waiting from the headquarters for an order to retreat to the fortress. Our division of battery guns stood on the slope of a steep mountain range ending in the fast mountain river Mechik, and had to fire at the plain ahead. On this picturesque plain, out of range, from time to time, especially before evening, here and there appeared non-hostile groups of horsemen riding out of curiosity to look at the Russian camp. The evening was clear, calm and fresh, as usual on December evenings in the Caucasus, the sun descended behind the steep spur of the mountains to the left and threw pink rays on the tents scattered along the mountain, on the moving groups of soldiers and on our two guns, heavily, as if stretching out their necks, standing motionless a couple of paces from us on an earthen battery. The infantry picket, located on the knoll to the left, was clearly visible in the transparent light of the sunset, with its goat guns, the figure of a sentry, a group of soldiers and the smoke of a fire. To the right and to the left, along the half-mountain, tents gleamed white on the black trampled earth, and behind the tents blackened the bare trunks of a plane tree forest, in which axes were constantly banging, bonfires were crackling, and chopped trees were falling with a roar. Bluish smoke rose like a chimney from all sides into the light blue frosty sky. Cossacks, dragoons and artillerymen, returning from a watering place, were dragging past the tents and fields near the stream with stomping and snorting. It began to freeze, all the sounds were heard especially clearly - and far ahead along the plain it was visible in the pure rare air. The enemy groups, no longer arousing the curiosity of the soldiers, quietly drove around the light yellow stubble of corn fields, in some places high cemeteries and smoking auls could be seen from behind the trees. Our tent was not far from the guns, on a dry and high place, from which the view was especially extensive. Near the tent, near the battery itself, on a cleared area, we arranged a game of gorodki or ingots. Helpful soldiers immediately attached wicker benches and a table for us. Because of all these conveniences, artillery officers, our comrades, and a few infantrymen liked to gather in our battery in the evenings and called this place a club. The evening was glorious, the best players gathered, and we played gorodki. I, warrant officer D. and lieutenant O. lost two games in a row and, to the general pleasure and laughter of the spectators, officers, soldiers and batmen who looked at us from their tents, carried the winning game twice on their backs from one horse to another. Particularly amusing was the position of the huge, fat staff captain Sh., who, panting and smiling good-naturedly, with his legs dragging along the ground, rode on the small and frail lieutenant O. But it was getting late, the batmen brought us, for all six people, three glasses of tea without saucers, and we, having finished the game, went to the wicker benches. Near them stood a little man, unfamiliar to us, with crooked legs, in an unsheathed sheepskin coat and a hat with long hanging white wool. As soon as we got close to him, he hesitantly took off and put on his hat several times, and several times seemed to be about to come up to us and stopped again. But having decided, it must have been, that it was no longer possible to remain unnoticed, this stranger took off his hat and, walking around us, approached Captain Sh. - Ah, Guskantini! Well, my friend? Sh. told him, smiling good-naturedly, still under the influence of his trip. Guskantini, as Sh. called him, immediately put on his hat and pretended to put his hands in the pockets of his sheepskin coat, but on the side from which he stood towards me there was no pocket in his sheepskin coat, and his small red hand remained in an awkward position. position. I wanted to decide who this man was (junker or demoted?), and I, not noticing that my look (i.e., the look of an unfamiliar officer) embarrassed him, peered intently at his clothes and appearance. He seemed to be in his thirties. His small, gray, round eyes looked out somehow sleepily and at the same time uneasily from behind the dirty, white kurpei papakha that hung over his face. A thick, irregular nose among sunken cheeks revealed a sickly, unnatural thinness. The lips, very little covered by a sparse, soft, whitish mustache, were incessantly in a restless state, as if trying to assume this or that expression. But all these expressions were somehow incomplete; on his face there always remained one predominant expression of fright and haste. A green woolen scarf was tied around his thin, sinewy neck, hidden under a sheepskin coat. The sheepskin coat was worn, short, with a dog sewn on the collar and on the fake pockets. The pantaloons were checkered, ash-colored, and boots with short unblackened soldier tops. “Please don’t worry,” I told him, when he again, looking timidly at me, took off his hat. He bowed to me with a grateful expression, put on his cap, and, taking a dirty cotton pouch with strings from his pocket, began to make a cigarette. I myself was recently a cadet, an old cadet, no longer capable of being a good-natured, helpful junior comrade, and a cadet without a fortune, therefore, knowing full well the moral gravity of this position for an elderly and conceited person, I sympathized with all people in such a position, and tried to to explain to oneself their character and the degree and direction of their mental faculties, in order to judge by this the degree of their moral suffering. This junker or demoted one, by his restless look and that deliberate incessant change in facial expression that I noticed in him, seemed to me a very intelligent and extremely proud man, and therefore very pitiful. Staff Captain Sh. suggested that we play another game of gorodki, so that the losing party, in addition to transportation, would pay for several bottles of red wine, rum, sugar, cinnamon and cloves for mulled wine, which this winter, due to the cold, was in big fashion in our squad. Guskantini, as Sh. again called him, was also invited to the game, but before starting the game, he, apparently struggling between the pleasure that this invitation gave him and some kind of fear, took Captain Sh. aside and began to whisper something to him. The good-natured staff captain hit him with his plump, large hand on the stomach and answered loudly: "Nothing, my friend, I will believe you." When the game was over, and the party in which there was an unfamiliar lower rank won, and he had to ride on one of our officers, ensign D., the ensign blushed, went to the sofas and offered the lower rank cigarettes in the form of a ransom. While mulled wine was ordered and Nikita’s bustling housekeeping was heard in the orderly tent, sending a messenger for cinnamon and cloves, and his back stretched here and there the dirty floors of the tent, all seven of us sat down near the benches and, alternately drinking tea from three glasses and looking ahead on the plain, which was beginning to dress at dusk, they talked and laughed about the various circumstances of the game. A stranger in a sheepskin coat did not take part in the conversation, stubbornly refused tea, which I offered him several times, and, sitting on the ground in Tatar style, one after another made cigarettes from fine tobacco and smoked them, apparently not so much for his pleasure, as much as to give himself the appearance of a busy man. When they started talking about the fact that they were expecting a retreat tomorrow and, perhaps, business, he got up on his knees and, turning to one staff captain Sh., said that he was now at the adjutant's house and he wrote the order to speak for tomorrow. We were all silent while he was speaking, and, despite the fact that he was apparently timid, we forced him to repeat this extremely interesting news for us. He repeated what he had said, adding, however, that he was sitting with the adjutant, with whom he lives together, while the order was brought. “Look, if you’re not lying, my friend, then I need to go in my company to order something for tomorrow,” said Captain Sh. “No… why?… how is it possible, I’m sure…” the lower rank began to speak, but suddenly fell silent and, apparently deciding to be offended, furrowed his eyebrows unnaturally and, whispering something under his breath, began to make a cigarette again. But the finest tobacco poured out was no longer enough in his cotton pouch, and he asked Sh. to lend him a cigarette. We continued among ourselves for quite a long time that monotonous military chatter, which everyone who has been on campaigns knows, complained with the same expressions about boredom and the length of the campaign, in the same manner we talked about the authorities, everything is the same as many times before , they praised one comrade, pitied another, they were surprised how much this one won, how much this one lost, etc., etc. “Here, my friend, our adjutant broke through so broke through,” said staff captain Sh., “at headquarters he was always on the winning side, with whomever he sits, he used to rake in, and now he’s been losing everything for the second month. The current detachment did not ask him. I think I lost 1000 coins, and 500 coins worth of things: the carpet that I won from Mukhin, Nikitinsky pistols, a gold watch, everything blew from the Garden that Vorontsov gave him. - Serve him right, - said Lieutenant O., - otherwise he really blew everyone: - it was impossible to play with him. - He blew everyone, and now he flew out into the chimney, - and Staff Captain Sh. laughed good-naturedly. - Here Guskov lives with him - he almost lost him, right. So, daddy? he turned to Guskov. Guskov laughed. He had a pathetic, painful laugh that completely changed the expression on his face. With this change, it seemed to me that I had previously known and seen this man, moreover, his real name, Guskov, was familiar to me, but how and when I knew and saw him, I definitely could not remember. - Yes, - said Guskov, constantly raising his hands to his mustache and, without touching them, lowered them again. - Pavel Dmitrievich was very unlucky in this detachment, such a veine de malheur 1 - he added in a diligent but clear French accent, and again it seemed to me that I had already seen, and even often seen, him somewhere. “I know Pavel Dmitrievich well, he trusts me with everything,” he continued, “we are still old acquaintances, that is, he loves me,” he added, apparently frightened by the too bold assertion that he was an old acquaintance of the adjutant. Pavel Dmitrievich plays excellently, but now it's amazing what happened to him, he looks like he's lost, - la chance a tourne, 2 - he added, addressing himself mainly to me. At first we listened to Guskov with condescending attention, but as soon as he said this French phrase, we all involuntarily turned away from him. “I played with him a thousand times, and you must admit that this is strange,” said Lieutenant O. with special emphasis on the atom of the word, “surprisingly strange: I never won a single abaza against him. Why do I win over others? “Pavel Dmitrievich plays very well, I have known him for a long time,” I said. Indeed, I had known the adjutant for several years already, I had seen him more than once in the game, big at the expense of the officers, and admired his handsome, slightly gloomy and always imperturbably calm physiognomy, his slow little Russian accent, his beautiful things and horses, his unhurried Khokhlak youthfulness and especially his ability to play with restraint, distinctness and pleasure. More than once, I repent of that, looking at his full and white hands with a diamond ring on his index finger, which hit me one card after another, I was angry at this ring, at his white hands, at the whole person of the adjutant, and they came to me at his expense bad thoughts; but discussing it later in cold blood, I became convinced that he was simply a smarter player than all those with whom he had to play. Moreover, listening to his general discussions about the game, about how one should not bend back, having risen from a small jackpot, how one should go on strike in certain cases, how the first rule is to play clean, etc., etc., it was clear that he always benefited only because he was smarter and more characteristic than all of us. Now it turned out that this abstemious, characteristic player lost heavily in the detachment not only in money, but also in things, which means the last degree of loss for an officer. “He’s always damned lucky with me,” Lieutenant O continued. “I’ve made a promise to myself not to play with him again. - What an eccentric you are, my friend, - said Sh., winking at me with his whole head and turning to O., - you lost 300 coins to him, because you lost! “More,” the lieutenant said angrily. - And now they grabbed their wits, but it's too late, my friend: everyone has long known that he is our regimental cheater, - said Sh., barely restraining himself from laughter and very pleased with his invention. - Here Guskov is there, he is preparing cards for him. That’s why they have friendship, my friend ... - and the staff captain Sh. laughed so good-naturedly, hesitating with his whole body, that he spilled a glass of mulled wine, which he was holding in his hand at that time. It was as if paint appeared on Guskov’s yellow, emaciated face, he opened his mouth several times, raised his hands to his mustache and again lowered them to the place where the pockets should have been, rose and fell, and finally, in a voice that was not his own, said Sh .: - This is not joke, Nikolai Ivanovich; you say such things in front of people who don’t know me and see me in an unsheathed sheepskin coat ... because ...” His voice broke off, and again small red hands with dirty nails went from the sheepskin coat to his face, now straightening his mustache, hair, nose, then clearing the eye or scratching the cheek unnecessarily. “What can I say, everyone knows, my friend,” Sh. continued, sincerely pleased with his joke and not at all noticing Guskov’s excitement. Guskov still whispered something and, resting the elbow of his right hand on the knee of his left leg, in the most unnatural position, looking at Sh., began to pretend that he was smiling contemptuously. “No,” I thought resolutely, looking at that smile, “I not only saw him, but spoke to him somewhere.” “We met somewhere,” I told him, when Sh.’s laughter began to subside under the influence of general silence. “Well, I recognized you just now,” he said in French. - In 1948, I quite often had the pleasure of seeing you in Moscow, at my sister Ivashchina's. I apologized for not recognizing him immediately in this suit and this new clothes. He got up, came up to me, and with his damp hand hesitantly, weakly shook my hand, and sat down beside me. Instead of looking at me, whom he seemed to be so glad to see, he looked back at the officers with an expression of some unpleasant boasting. Whether it was because I recognized in him a man whom I had seen several years ago in a tailcoat in the drawing room, or because, at this recollection, he suddenly rose in his own opinion, it seemed to me that his face and even his movements had completely changed: they expressed now a lively mind, a childlike self-satisfaction from the consciousness of this mind, and a kind of contemptuous carelessness, so that, I confess, despite the miserable situation in which he was, my old acquaintance no longer inspired me with compassion, but some kind of somewhat hostile feeling. I vividly recalled our first meeting. In 1948, when I was in Moscow, I often went to Ivashin, with whom we grew up together and were old friends. His wife was a pleasant mistress of the house, an amiable woman, as they say, but I never liked her ... That winter when I knew her, she often spoke with thinly concealed pride about her brother, who had recently completed his course and seemed to be alone of the most educated and beloved young people in the best Petersburg society. Knowing by rumor the father of the Guskovs, who was very rich and occupied a significant place, and knowing the direction of my sister, I met the young Guskov with prejudice. Once, in the evening, when I arrived at Ivashin's, I found a short, very pleasant-looking young man in a black tailcoat, white waistcoat and tie, with whom the owner forgot to introduce me. The young man, apparently about to go to the ball, with a hat in his hand, stood in front of Ivashin and heatedly but politely argued with him about our common acquaintance, who distinguished himself at that time in the Hungarian campaign. He said that this acquaintance was not at all a hero and a man born for war, as he was called, but only an intelligent and educated person. I remember that I took part in the dispute against Guskov and went to extremes, even arguing that intelligence and education are always inversely related to courage, and I remember how Guskov pleasantly and cleverly proved to me that courage is a necessary consequence of intelligence and a certain degree of development, with which I, considering myself an intelligent and educated person, could not secretly disagree! I remember that at the end of our conversation, Ivashina introduced me to her brother, and he, smiling condescendingly, gave me his small hand, on which he had not yet quite managed to put on a kid glove, and just as weakly and hesitantly as now, shook my hand. . Although I was prejudiced against him, I could not then do justice to Guskov and disagree with his sister that he was really an intelligent and pleasant young man who should have been successful in society. He was unusually neat, elegantly dressed, fresh, had self-confidently modest manners and an extremely youthful, almost childlike appearance, sa which you involuntarily excused him for the expression of complacency and desire to moderate the degree of his superiority over you, which his intelligent face constantly wore on him and in smile features. It was said that this winter he had great success with the Moscow ladies. Seeing him at his sister's, I could only conclude from the expression of happiness and contentment that his young appearance constantly wore, and from his sometimes immodest stories, to what extent this was true. We met with him about six times and talked quite a lot, or rather he talked a lot and I listened. He spoke for the most part in French, a very good language, very fluently, figuratively, and was able to gently, politely interrupt others in conversation. In general, he treated everyone and me rather condescendingly, and I, as always happens to me with respect to people who firmly believe that I should be treated condescendingly, and whom I know little, I felt that he was absolutely right in this. respect. Now, when he sat down beside me and gave me his hand, I vividly recognized his former arrogant expression, and it seemed to me that he was not quite honestly taking advantage of his position as a lower rank in front of an officer, so casually questioning me about what I was doing. all this time and how I got here. Despite the fact that I always answered in Russian, he spoke in French, in which he was already noticeably not as fluent as before. He briefly told me to himself that after his unfortunate, stupid story (I didn’t know what this story consisted of, and he didn’t tell me) he had been under arrest for three months, then he was sent to the Caucasus in the N. Regiment, - now He has been a soldier in this regiment for three years. “You won’t believe,” he said to me in French, “how much I had to suffer in these regiments from the company of officers; it’s still my happiness that I previously knew the adjutant we were just talking about: he’s a good man, really, he remarked condescendingly, “I live with him, and for me it’s still a small relief. Oui, mon cher, les jours se suivent, mais ne se ressemblent pas, 3 - he added, and suddenly he hesitated, blushed and got up, noticing that the same adjutant we were talking about was approaching us. “It’s such a joy to meet a man like you,” Guskov told me in a whisper, moving away from me, “I would like to talk a lot, a lot with you. I said that I was very glad about this, but in essence, I confess, Guskov inspired me with unsympathetic, heavy compassion. I had a presentiment that I would be uncomfortable with him face to face, but I wanted to learn a lot from him, and especially why, when his father was so rich, he was in poverty, as was evident from his clothes and manners. The adjutant greeted us all, with the exception of Guskov, and sat down next to me in the place occupied by the demoted one. Always calm and slow, a characteristic player and money man, Pavel Dmitrievich was now completely different, as I knew him in the flourishing days of his game; he seemed to be in a hurry somewhere, constantly looking around at everyone, and before five minutes had passed, he, always refusing to play, suggested to Lieutenant O. to make a jar. Lieutenant O. refused under the pretext of employment in the service, actually because, knowing how little things and money Pavel Dmitrievich had left, he considered it unreasonable to risk his 300 rubles against 100 rubles, or maybe less, which he could win. - And what, Pavel Dmitrievich, - said the lieutenant, apparently wanting to get rid of the repetition of the request, - do they really say - tomorrow the performance? “I don’t know,” Pavel Dmitrievich remarked, “only I was ordered to get ready, but really, it would be better if they played, I would pawn my Kabardian to you. - No, really now ... - Gray, no matter what, and then, if you want, with money. Well? - Yes, well, I ... I would be ready, you don’t think, - Lieutenant O began to speak. , answering his own doubt, - otherwise tomorrow, maybe a raid or movement, you need to get enough sleep. The adjutant stood up and, putting his hands in his pockets, began to walk around the platform. His face took on the usual expression of coldness and a certain pride, which I loved in him. - Would you like a glass of mulled wine? I told him. “Maybe,” and he started towards me, but Guskov hurriedly took the glass from my hands and carried it to the adjutant, trying not to look at him. But, not paying attention to the rope pulling the tent, Guskov stumbled on it and, dropping the glass from his hands, fell on his hands. - Eka fila! said the adjutant, who had already stretched out his hand to the glass. Everyone burst out laughing, not excepting Guskov, who rubbed his thin knee with his hand, which he could not hurt when he fell. “This is how the bear served the hermit,” continued the adjutant. - So he serves me every day, he broke all the pegs on the tents, - he stumbles. Guskov, not listening to him, apologized to us and looked at me with a barely noticeable sad smile, with which he seemed to say that I alone could understand him. He was pathetic, but the adjutant, his patron, seemed somehow embittered at his roommate and did not want to leave him alone. - What a clever boy! wherever you turn. - Yes, who does not stumble on these pegs, Pavel Dmitrievich, - said Guskov, you yourself stumbled the third day. - I, father, am not a lower rank, dexterity is not asked of me. - He can drag his legs, - Captain Sh. picked up, - and the lower rank should bounce ... - Strange jokes, - Guskov said almost in a whisper and lowering his eyes. The adjutant was apparently not indifferent to his roommate, he eagerly listened to his every word. “We’ll have to send it as a secret again,” he said, turning to Sh. and winking at the demoted one. - Well, there will be tears again, - said Sh., laughing. Guskov no longer looked at me, but pretended to take tobacco out of a pouch, in which there had been nothing for a long time. - Get in secret, my friend, - Sh. said through laughter, - today the scouts reported that there will be an attack on the camp at night, so you need to appoint reliable guys. Guskov smiled hesitantly, as if about to say something, and several times raised his imploring glance at Sh. Yes, they will. - Well, I'll go. What is it? - Yes, as on Argun, they ran away from the secret and threw the gun, - said the adjutant and, turning away from him, began to tell us orders for tomorrow. Indeed, during the night they expected firing from the enemy at the camp, and for the next day some movement. After talking more about various general subjects, the adjutant, as if by accident, suddenly remembering, suggested that Lieutenant O. sweep him a little one. Lieutenant O. quite unexpectedly agreed, and together with Sh. and the ensign went to the adjutant's tent, who had a folding green table and maps. The captain, the commander of our division, went to sleep in the tent, the other gentlemen also dispersed, and we were left alone with Guskov. I was not mistaken, I really felt awkward with him face to face. I involuntarily got up and began to walk up and down the battery. Guskov silently walked beside me, turning hurriedly and uneasily so as not to lag behind and not to get ahead of me. - Am I disturbing you? he said in a meek, sad voice. As far as I could see his face in the darkness, it seemed to me deeply thoughtful and sad. “Not at all,” I answered; but since he did not begin to speak, and I did not know what to say to him, we walked for a long time in silence. The twilight had already been completely replaced by the darkness of night, a bright evening lightning lit up over the black profile of the mountains, small stars flickered overhead in a light blue frosty sky, on all sides the flames of smoking fires reddened in the darkness, near the gray of the tent, and the embankment of our battery gloomily blackened. From the nearest fire, near which our batmen were talking quietly while warming themselves, the copper of our heavy guns occasionally shone on the battery, and the figure of a sentry in a greatcoat with a cape was shown, moving measuredly along the embankment. “You can’t imagine what a joy it is for me to talk to a man like you,” Guskov told me, although he had not yet spoken to me about anything, “only someone who has been in my position can understand this. I did not know what to answer him, and we were silent again, despite the fact that he, apparently, wanted to speak out, and I wanted to listen to him. - What were you… what did you suffer for? I asked him at last, unable to think of anything better to start a conversation. - Haven't you heard about this unfortunate story with Metenin? - Yes, a duel, it seems; I heard a glimpse, - I answered: - after all, I have long been in the Caucasus. - No, not a duel, but this stupid and terrible story! I'll tell you everything if you don't know. It was in the same year when we met at my sister's, I was then living in St. Petersburg. I must tell you, I had then what is called une position dans le monde, 4 and quite profitable, if not brilliant. Mon pere me donnait 10,000 par an. 5 In 1949 I was promised a place at the embassy in Turin, my maternal uncle could and was always ready to do a lot for me. The thing is past now, j "etais recu dans la meilleure societe de Petersbourg, je pouvais pretendre 6 for the best game. I studied like we all studied at school, so I didn’t have a special education; however, I read a lot after, mais j "avais surtout, you know, ce jargon du monde, 7 and, be that as it may, for some reason they found me one of the first young people in St. Petersburg. What raised me even more in the general opinion - c "est cette liaison avec m‑me D., 8 about which they talked a lot in St. Petersburg, but I was terribly young at that time and did not appreciate all these benefits. I was just young and stupid What else did I need? At that time in Petersburg, this Metenin had a reputation ... - And Guskov continued in this way to tell me the story of his misfortune, which, as completely uninteresting, I will skip here. - For two months I was under arrest, - continued he, "is completely alone, and no matter what I changed my mind at that time. But you know, when it all ended, as if it had finally been severed for its connection with the past, it became easier for me. Mon pere, vous en avez entendu parler 9 probably he a man with an iron character and strong convictions, il m "a desherite 10 and stopped all communication with me. According to his convictions, it was necessary to do so, and I do not blame him at all: il a ete consequent. 11 But I did not take a step so that he changed his intention. My sister was abroad, m-me D. wrote to me alone when she was allowed to, and offered to help, but you understand that I refused. So I didn't have those little things that make it a little easier in this situation, you know: no books, no linen, no food, nothing. I changed my mind a lot, a lot at that time, I began to look at everything with different eyes; for example, this noise, the talk of the world about me in Petersburg did not interest me, did not flatter me in the least, all this seemed to me ridiculous. I felt like I was at fault, careless, young, I ruined my career and only thought about how to fix it again. And I felt in myself for this strength and energy. From under arrest, as I told you, they sent me here, to the Caucasus, to the N. Regiment. - I thought, - he continued, getting more and more inspired, - that here, in the Caucasus - la vie de camp, 12 people are simple, honest, with whom I will be in relations, war, dangers, all this will have to my mood as It couldn't be better that I start a new life. On me verra au feu 13 - they will love me, they will respect me for more than one name, - cross, non-commissioned officer, they will remove the fine, and I will return again et, vous savez, avec ce prestige du malheur! Ho quel desenchantment. 14 You can't imagine how wrong I was!.. Do you know the company of officers of our regiment? He was silent for a long time, waiting, it seemed to me, for me to tell him that I knew how bad the company of the local officers was; but I didn't answer him. I was disgusted that he, because it is true that I knew French, assumed that I should have been indignant at the society of officers, which, on the contrary, having spent a long time in the Caucasus, managed to fully appreciate and respect a thousand times more than the society from which Mr. Guskov emerged. I wanted to tell him this, but his position bound me. “In the N. Regiment, the company of officers is a thousand times worse than here,” he continued. J "espere que c" est beaucoup dire, 15 i.e. you can't imagine what it is! I'm not talking about the junkers and soldiers. What a horror it is! At first I was received well, it is absolutely true, but then, when they saw that I could not help but despise them, you know, in these inconspicuous petty relationships, they saw that I was a completely different person, standing much higher than they were, they became angry with me and began repay me with various petty humiliations. Ce que j "ai eu a souffrir, vous ne vous faites pas une idee. 16 Then these involuntary relations with the junkers, and most importantly avec les petits moyens que j" avais, je manquais de tout, 17 y I only had that sister sent me. Here is proof to you of how much I suffered, that I, with my character, avec ma fierte, j "ai ecrit a mon pere, 18 begged him to send me at least something. I understand that to live such a life for five years - you can become the same like our degraded Dromov, who drinks with the soldiers and writes notes to all the officers, asking him to lend him three rubles, and signs tout a vous Dromov 19. It was necessary to have such a character that I had in order not to completely wallow in this terrible situation. "He walked silently beside me for a long time. Avez-vous un papiros? 20," he said to me. "Yes, so where did I stop? Yes. I could not stand it, not physically, because although it was bad, I was cold and hungry "I lived like a soldier, but still the officers had some respect for me. Some prestige remained on me and for them. They did not send me on guard duty, for training. I could not bear it. But morally I suffered terribly. And most importantly, I did not see a way out of this situation. I wrote to my uncle, begged him to transfer me to the local regiment, which at least happens to be in business, and thought that here Pavel Dmitrievich, qui est le fils de l "intendant de mon pere, 22 after all, he could be useful to me. Uncle did it for me, they transferred me. After that regiment, this one seemed to me a collection of chamberlains. Then Pavel Dmitrievich was here, he knew who I was, and they received me very well. At the request of my uncle ... Guskov, vous savez ... 23 but I noticed that with these people, without education and development, they cannot respect a person and show him signs of respect if he does not have this halo of wealth, nobility; I noticed how, little by little, when they saw that I was poor, their relations with me became careless, careless, and finally became almost contemptuous. It's horrible! but it is absolutely true. - Here I was in business, fought, on m "a vu au feu, 24," he continued, "but when will it end? I think never! And my strength and energy are already beginning to deplete. Then I imagined la guerre, la vie de camp, 25 but all this is not as I see it - in a sheepskin coat, unwashed, in soldier's boots you go into secret and lie all night in a ravine with some Antonov, who was given to the soldiers for drunkenness, and every minute you are they can shoot you or Antonov behind the bush, it doesn't matter. It's not courage - it's terrible. C "est affreux, cat tue. 26 “Well, now you can get a non-commissioned officer for a campaign, and next year an ensign,” I said. - Yes, I can, they promised me, but two more years, and then hardly. And what are these two years, if anyone knew. Imagine this life with this Pavel Dmitrievich: cards, rude jokes, revelry, you want to say something that boils in your soul, they don’t understand you or they still laugh at you, they don’t talk to you in order to inform you thought, but so that, if possible, make a jester out of you. Yes, and all this is so vulgar, rude, disgusting, and you always feel that you are a lower rank, you are always allowed to feel this. From this you will not understand what a pleasure it is to talk a coeur ouvert 27 with a person like you. I didn’t understand what kind of person I was, and therefore I didn’t know what to answer him ... - Will you have a snack? - Nikita said to me at that time, imperceptibly crept up to me in the dark and, as I noticed, was dissatisfied with the presence of a guest. - Only dumplings and beaten beef left a little. - Has the captain had a bite yet? “They have been sleeping for a long time,” Nikita answered sullenly. At my order to bring us a snack and vodka here, he grumbled something in displeasure and dragged himself to his tent. After grumbling while still there, he nevertheless brought us a cellar; he put a candle on the cellar, tying it in front with paper from the wind, a saucepan, mustard in a jar, a tin glass with a handle and a bottle of wormwood tincture. Having arranged all this, Nikita stood for some more time near us and watched as Guskov and I drank vodka, which, apparently, was very unpleasant for him. Under the dull illumination of the candle, through the paper and in the surrounding darkness, only the sealskin of the cellar, the supper standing on it, Guskov's face, short fur coat and his small red hands, with which he began to put dumplings out of the saucepan, could be seen. Everything was black all around, and only by looking closely could one make out a black battery, the same black figure of a sentry, visible through the parapet, firelights on the sides and reddish stars above. Guskov smiled sadly and shyly, almost perceptibly, as if he was embarrassed to look me in the eyes after his confession. He drank another glass of vodka and ate greedily, scraping the saucepan. “Yes, it’s a relief for you, after all,” I said to him, to say something, your acquaintance with the adjutant: he, I heard, is a very good person. “Yes,” answered the demoted one, “he is a kind man, but he cannot be different, he cannot be a man, with his education one cannot demand. He suddenly seemed to blush. - You noticed his rude jokes today about the secret, - and Guskov, despite the fact that I tried several times to hush up the conversation, began to justify himself to me and prove that he had not run away from the secret and that he was not a coward, as they wanted to make it clear adjutant and Sh. - As I told you, - he continued, wiping his hands on his sheepskin coat, - such people cannot be delicate with a man - a soldier and who has little money; it is beyond their strength. And lately, after five months for some reason I have not received anything from my sister, I noticed how they have changed towards me. This sheepskin coat, which I bought from a soldier and which does not keep you warm, because it is all worn out (while he showed me the bare coat), does not inspire him with compassion or respect for misfortune, but with contempt, which he is not able to hide. Whatever my need, like now, that I have nothing to eat but soldier’s porridge, and nothing to wear,” he continued, looking down, pouring himself another glass of vodka, “he won’t think of offering me a loan of money, knowing for sure that I will give it to him.” but waits for me in my position to turn to him. And you understand what it's like for me and with him. For example, I would say directly to you - vous etes au-dessus de cela; mon cher, je n "ai pas le sou. 28 And you know," he said, suddenly looking desperately into my eyes, "I tell you straight, I'm in a terrible situation now: pouvez vous me preter 10 roubles argent? 29 My sister owes me send by following mail et mon pere… 30

“Ah, I’m very glad,” I said, while, on the contrary, I was hurt and annoyed, especially because, having lost at cards the day before, I myself had only five rubles with something from Nikita. - Now, - I said, getting up, - I'll go get it in the tent. - No, after, ne vous derangez pas. 31 However, not listening to him, I crawled into the buttoned tent where my bed stood and the captain slept. - Alexey Ivanovich, please give me 10 rubles. to the rations,” I said to the captain, pushing him aside. - What, blew out again? and yesterday they didn’t want to play any more,” the captain said awake. - No, I didn’t play, but I need to, please give it. - Makatyuk! - the captain shouted to his batman, - get the box with the money and give it here. “Hush, hush,” I said, listening to Guskov’s measured steps behind the tent. - What? why quieter? - It was this demoted one who asked me for a loan. He is here! - If I knew, I wouldn’t give it, - the captain remarked, - I heard about him - the first dirty boy! “However, the captain did give me money, ordered me to hide the box, wrap the tent well, and, repeating again: “If I knew what, I wouldn’t give it,” he wrapped himself up under the covers. “Now you have thirty-two, remember,” he shouted at me. When I left the tent, Guskov was walking around the sofas, and his small figure with crooked legs and in an ugly hat with long white hair showed up and hid in the darkness when he passed the candle. He pretended not to notice me. I gave him the money. He said: merci and, crumpling, put the paper in the pocket of his trousers. “Now Pavel Dmitrievich, I think, the game is in full swing,” he began after that. - Yes, I think. - He plays strangely, is always an arebur and does not bend back; when you're lucky, that's good, but when it doesn't work, you can lose terribly. He proved it. In this detachment, if you count with things, he lost more than one and a half thousand. And how he played with restraint before, so that this officer of yours seemed to doubt his honesty. - Yes, he is so ... Nikita, do we still have chikhir? I said, greatly relieved by Guskov's talkativeness. Nikita grumbled some more, but brought us some chikhir and again looked angrily as Guskov drank his glass. In Guskov's appeal, the former swagger became noticeable. I wanted him to leave as soon as possible, and it seemed that he did not do this only because he was ashamed to leave immediately after he received the money. I was silent. - How did you, with funds, without any need, decide de gaiete de coeur to go to serve in the Caucasus? That's what I don't understand," he told me. I tried to justify myself in such a strange act for him. “I imagine how hard it is for you to be in the company of these officers, people without any idea of ​​education. You cannot understand each other with them. Indeed, in addition to maps, wine and talk about awards and campaigns, you will live ten years, you will not see or hear anything. It was unpleasant to me that he wanted me to necessarily share his position, and I quite sincerely assured him that I was very fond of cards, and wine, and talk about campaigns, and that better than those comrades that I had, I did not wanted to have. But he didn't want to believe me. “Well, you say so,” he continued, “and the absence of women, that is, I mean femmes comme il faut, 33 is not this a terrible deprivation? I don't know what I would give now, just for a moment to be transported into the living room and even through the crack to look at the lovely woman. He was silent for a while and drank another glass of chikhir. - Oh, my God, my God! Maybe someday we will meet in Petersburg, among people, to be and live with people, with women. He poured out the last wine left in the bottle, and after drinking it, he said: - Oh, pardon, maybe you wanted more, I'm terribly distracted. However, I seem to have drunk too much et je n "ai pas la tete forte. 34 There was a time when I lived on the Marine au rez de chaussee, 35 I had a wonderful apartment, furniture, you know, I knew how to arrange it gracefully, although not too expensive, really: mon pere gave me porcelain, flowers, wonderful silver. Le matin je sortais, visits, a 5 heures regulierement 36 I went to dine with her, often she was alone. Il faut avouer que c "etait une femme ravissante ? 37 You didn't know her? not at all? - Not. - You know, she had this femininity in the highest degree, tenderness and then what kind of love! God! I did not know how to appreciate this happiness then. Or after the theater we returned together and had dinner. It was never boring with her, toujours gaie, toujours aimante. 38 Yes, I had no idea what a rare happiness it was. Et j "ai beaucoup a me reprocher in front of her. Je l" ai fait souffrir et souvent. 39 I was cruel. Ah, what a wonderful time it was! Are you bored? - No, not at all. - So I'll tell you our evenings. I used to go in - this staircase, I knew every pot of flowers - the handle of the door, all this is so sweet, familiar, then the front room, her room ... No, this will never, never return! She still writes to me, I'll probably show you her letters. But I'm not the same, I'm dead, I'm no longer worth it ... Yes, I finally died! Je suis casse. 40 I have no energy, no pride, nothing. Not even nobility... Yes, I'm dead! And no one will ever understand my suffering. Nobody cares. I am a lost man! I will never get up again, because I morally fell ... into the mud ... fell ... - At that moment, sincere, deep despair was heard in his words: he did not look at me and sat motionless. Why be so desperate? - I said. “Because I am vile, this life has destroyed me, everything that was in me has been killed. I endure no longer with pride, but with meanness, dignite dans le malheur is no more. I am humiliated every minute, I endure everything, I myself climb into humiliation. This dirt a deteint sur moi, 42 I myself have become rude, I forgot what I knew, I can no longer speak French, I feel that I am vile and base. I can’t fight in this situation, I definitely can’t, I could perhaps be a hero: give me a regiment, golden epaulettes, trumpeters, and go next to some wild Anton Bondarenko, etc. and think what is between it makes no difference to me and to them that they kill me or kill him - anyway, this thought kills me. Do you understand how terrible it is to think that some ragamuffin will kill me, a man who thinks, feels, and that it would still be next to me to kill Antonov, a creature that is no different from an animal, and that it can easily happen that they will kill me, and not Antonov, as always happens une fatalite 43 for everything high and good. I know they call me a coward; let me be a coward, I'm definitely a coward and I can't be different. Not only am I a coward, I am in their language a beggar and despicable person. So I just begged you for money, and you have the right to despise me. No, take your money back,” and he handed me a crumpled piece of paper. - I want you to respect me. He covered his face with his hands and wept; I didn't really know what to say or do. - Calm down, - I told him, - you are too sensitive, do not take everything to heart, do not analyze, look at things easier. You yourself say that you have character. Take it upon yourself, you don’t have long to endure,” I tell him, but very awkwardly, because I was excited by both a feeling of compassion and a feeling of remorse that I allowed myself to mentally condemn a person who was truly and deeply unhappy. “Yes,” he began, “if I had heard at least once since I was in this hell, at least one word of participation, advice, friendship – a human word, such as I hear from you. Maybe I could endure everything calmly; maybe I would even take it upon myself and could even be a soldier, but now it’s terrible ... When I reason sensibly, I wish death, and why should I love a disgraced life and myself, who died for all the good in the world? And at the slightest danger, I suddenly involuntarily begin to adore this vile life and cherish it like something precious, and I cannot, je ne puis pas, 44 overcome myself. That is, I can,” he continued again after a moment of silence, “but it costs me too much work, enormous work, if I am alone. With others in ordinary conditions, as you go into business, I am brave, j "ai fait mes preuves, 45 because I am proud and proud: this is my vice, and with others ... You know, let me spend the night with you, otherwise we the whole night the game will be, somewhere on earth for me. While Nikita was making a bed, we got up and again began to walk around the battery in the dark. Indeed, Guskov's head must have been very weak, because from two glasses of vodka and two glasses of wine, he swayed. When we got up and moved away from the candle, I noticed that, trying not to see this, he again put into his pocket a ten-rouble note, which he had been holding in his palm all the time of the previous conversation. He continued to say that he he feels that he can still rise if he had a man like me who would take part in it. We were about to go to the tent to go to bed, when suddenly a shot whistled over us and hit the ground not far away. It was so strange, - this quiet sleeping camp, our conversation, and suddenly the enemy's core , which, God knows where, flew into the middle of our tents - so strange that for a long time I could not give myself an account of what it was. Our soldier Andreev, who was walking on the clock on the battery, moved towards me. - Vish crept up! You could see the fire here,” he said. “We need to wake up the captain,” I said, and looked at Guskov. He stood, bent completely to the ground, and stammered, wanting to utter something. This is ... otherwise ... rejection ... this is super ... funny. - He said nothing more, and I did not see how and where he disappeared instantly. A candle was lit in the captain's tent, his usual awakening cough was heard, and he himself soon went out, demanding an overcoat to light his small pipe. “What is it, father,” he said, smiling, “they don’t want to let me sleep now: now you are with your demoted one, then Shamil; what are we going to do: answer or not? Was there nothing about it in the order? - Nothing. Here he is, - I said, - and of the two. - Indeed, in the darkness, ahead to the right, two fires lit up, like two eyes, and soon one cannonball and one, must be ours, empty grenade flew over us, producing a loud and piercing whistle. Soldiers crawled out from neighboring tents, their quacking and stretching and talking could be heard. “Look, it whistles like a nightingale,” the artilleryman remarked. “Call Nikita,” the captain said with his usual kind smile. Nikita! do not hide, but listen to the mountain nightingales. “Well, your honor,” said Nikita, standing next to the captain, “I saw them, the nightingales, I’m not afraid, but the guest that was here, our chikhir drank, as soon as he heard, he gave a quick shot past our tent, the ball rolled like a beast bent! “However, I need to go to the chief of artillery,” the captain told me in a serious commanding tone, “to ask whether to shoot at the fire or not; it won't make any sense, but it's still possible. Make the effort to go and ask. Tell the horse to saddle, it will be sooner, at least take my Polkan. Five minutes later they gave me a horse, and I went to the chief of artillery. “Look, the tip is drawbar,” the punctual captain whispered to me, “otherwise they won’t let me through the chain.” It was half a verst to the chief of artillery, the whole road went between the tents. As soon as I drove away from our fire, it became so black that I could not even see the horse's ears, but only the fires, which seemed to me very close, then very far, seemed to me in my eyes. Having driven off a little, by the grace of the horse, to which I loosened the reins, I began to distinguish white quadrangular tents, then black ruts of the road; half an hour later, after asking three times for directions, twice hooking on the pegs of the tents, for which each time I received curses from the tents, and twice stopped by sentries, I arrived at the chief of artillery. While I was driving, I heard two more shots at our camp, but the shells did not reach the place where the headquarters was. The chief of artillery did not order to answer the shots, especially since the enemy stopped, and I went home, taking the horse in the reins and making my way on foot between the infantry tents. More than once I slowed down my pace, passing by a soldier's tent, in which a fire glowed, and listened either to a fairy tale that a joker told, or to a book that a literate man read and listened to the whole squad, crowded in and around the tent, interrupting the reader occasionally with different remarks, or simply to talk about the campaign, about the homeland, about the bosses. Passing near one of the tents of the 3rd battalion, I heard the loud voice of Guskov, who spoke very cheerfully and smartly. He was answered by young, also cheerful, gentlemanly, not soldierly voices. This, obviously, was a cadet or sergeant's tent. I stopped. “I have known him for a long time,” said Guskov. - When I lived in St. Petersburg, he often visited me, and I visited him, he lived in a very good light. - Who are you talking about? a drunken voice asked. “About the prince,” said Guskov. - We are related to him, and most importantly - old friends. It is, you know, gentlemen, it is good to have such an acquaintance. He's terribly rich. He's a hundred ruble trifles. So I took some money from him until my sister sends it to me. - Well, send it. - Now. Savelich, my dove! - Guskov's voice spoke, moving towards the door of the tent, - here's ten coins for you, go to the sutler, take two bottles of Kakhetian and what else? Lord? Speak! - And Guskov, staggering, with matted hair, without a hat, left the tent. Turning down the flaps of his sheepskin coat and thrusting his hands into the pockets of his gray trousers, he stopped at the door. Although he was in the light and I was in the dark, I trembled with fear that he might not see me, and, trying not to make any noise, I went on. - Who is there? Guskov shouted at me in a completely drunken voice. It can be seen that it was dismantled in the cold. - What the hell is going on with the horse? I did not answer and silently got out on the road. November 15, 1856

1 [a streak of bad luck,] 2 [happiness turned away,] 3 [Yes, my dear, the days go one after another, but do not repeat,] 4 [position in the world,] 5 [Father gave me 10,000 annually.] 6 [I was accepted in the best society of St. Petersburg, I could count] 7 [but I especially knew this secular jargon,] 8 [so this is a connection with Mrs. D.,] 9 [My father, you heard about him] 10 [he deprived me inheritance rights] 11 [he was consistent.] 12 [camp life,] 13 [I will be seen under fire] 14 [and, you know, with this charm of misfortune! But, what a disappointment.] 15 [I hope that says enough,] 16 [You can't imagine how much I suffered.] 17 [with the little money I had, I needed everything] 18 [with my pride, I wrote to my father,] 19 [all yours] 20 [Do you have a cigarette?] 21 [authority] 22 [my father's steward's son,] 23 [you know...] 24 [I was seen under fire,] 25 [war, camp life,] 26 [It's terrible, it's deadly.] 27 [to my liking] 28 [you are better than that; my dear, I don't have a penny.] 29 [can you lend me 10 silver rubles?] 30 [and my father...] 31 [don't worry.] 32 [with a light heart] 33 [decent women,] 34 [ and my head is weak.] 35 [downstairs,] 36 [I left in the morning, exactly at 5 o'clock] 37 [I must admit that she was a charming woman! ] 38 [always cheerful, always loving.] 39 [I reproach myself for many things before her. I often made her suffer.] 40 [I am broken.] 41 [dignity in adversity] 42 [stamped on me,] 43 [rock] 44 [I can not,] 45 [I proved,]

Tolstoy Lev Nikolaevich

From Caucasian memories (degraded)

L. N. Tolstoy FROM CAUCASUS MEMORIES DEGRADED (1853-1856) We stood in the detachment. Things were already over, they finished cutting the clearing and every day they were waiting from the headquarters for an order to retreat to the fortress. Our division of battery guns stood on the slope of a steep mountain range ending in the fast mountain river Mechik, and had to fire at the plain ahead. On this picturesque plain, out of range, from time to time, especially before evening, here and there appeared non-hostile groups of horsemen riding out of curiosity to look at the Russian camp. The evening was clear, calm and fresh, as usual on December evenings in the Caucasus, the sun descended behind the steep spur of the mountains to the left and threw pink rays on the tents scattered along the mountain, on the moving groups of soldiers and on our two guns, heavily, as if stretching out their necks, standing motionless a couple of paces from us on an earthen battery. The infantry picket, located on the knoll to the left, was clearly visible in the transparent light of the sunset, with its goat guns, the figure of a sentry, a group of soldiers and the smoke of a fire. To the right and to the left, along the half-mountain, tents gleamed white on the black trampled earth, and behind the tents blackened the bare trunks of a plane tree forest, in which axes were constantly banging, bonfires were crackling, and chopped trees were falling with a roar. Bluish smoke rose like a chimney from all sides into the light blue frosty sky. Cossacks, dragoons and artillerymen, returning from a watering place, were dragging past the tents and fields near the stream with stomping and snorting. It began to freeze, all the sounds were heard especially clearly, and far ahead along the plain it was visible in the pure thin air. The enemy groups, no longer arousing the curiosity of the soldiers, quietly drove around the light yellow stubble of corn fields, where high cemeteries and smoking auls could be seen from behind the trees. Our tent was not far from the guns, on a dry and high place, from which the view was especially extensive. Near the tent, near the battery itself, on a cleared area, we arranged a game of gorodki or ingots. Helpful soldiers immediately attached wicker benches and a table for us. Because of all these conveniences, artillery officers, our comrades, and a few infantrymen liked to gather in our battery in the evenings and called this place a club. The evening was glorious, the best players gathered, and we played gorodki. I, warrant officer D. and lieutenant O. lost two games in a row and, to the general pleasure and laughter of the spectators, officers, soldiers and batmen who looked at us from their tents, I carried the winning game twice on my backs from one horse to another. Particularly amusing was the position of the huge, fat staff captain Sh., who, panting and smiling good-naturedly, with his legs dragging on the ground, rode on the small and frail lieutenant O. But it was getting late, the batmen brought us, for all six people, three glasses of tea without saucers , and we, having finished the game, went to the wicker benches. Near them stood a little man, unfamiliar to us, with crooked legs, in an unsheathed sheepskin coat and a hat with long hanging white wool. As soon as we got close to him, he hesitantly took off and put on his hat several times, and several times seemed to be about to come up to us and stopped again. But having decided, it must have been, that it was no longer possible to remain unnoticed, this stranger took off his hat and, walking around us, approached the staff captain Sh. A, Guskantini! Well, my friend? Sh. said to him, smiling good-naturedly, still under the influence of his trip. Guskantini, as Sh. called him, immediately put on his hat and pretended to put his hands in the pockets of his sheepskin coat, but on the side from which he stood towards me there was no pocket in his sheepskin coat, and his small red hand remained in an awkward position. position. I wanted to decide who this man was (junker or demoted?), and I, not noticing that my look (i.e., the look of an unfamiliar officer) embarrassed him, peered intently at his clothes and appearance. He seemed to be in his thirties. His small, gray, round eyes looked out sleepily and at the same time uneasily from behind the dirty, white kurpei papakha that hung over his face. A thick, irregular nose among sunken cheeks revealed a sickly, unnatural thinness. The lips, very little covered by a sparse, soft, whitish mustache, were incessantly in a restless state, as if trying to assume this or that expression. But all these expressions were somehow incomplete; on his face there always remained one predominant expression of fright and haste. A green woolen scarf was tied around his thin, sinewy neck, hidden under a sheepskin coat. The sheepskin coat was worn, short, with a dog sewn on the collar and on the fake pockets. The pantaloons were checkered, ash-colored, and boots with short unblackened soldier tops. Please don't worry, I told him, when he looked at me timidly again and took off his hat. He bowed to me with a grateful expression, put on his cap, and, taking a dirty cotton pouch with strings from his pocket, began to make a cigarette. I myself was recently a cadet, an old cadet, incapable of being a good-natured junior comrade, and a cadet without a fortune, therefore, knowing full well the moral gravity of this position for an elderly and conceited person, I sympathized with all people in such a position, and tried to explain to myself their character and the degree and direction of their mental faculties, in order to judge by this the degree of their moral suffering. This junker or demoted one, by his restless look and that deliberate incessant change in facial expression that I noticed in him, seemed to me a very intelligent and extremely proud man, and therefore very pitiful. Staff Captain Sh. suggested that we play another game of gorodki, so that the losing party, in addition to transportation, would pay for several bottles of red wine, rum, sugar, cinnamon and cloves for mulled wine, which this winter, due to the cold, was in great fashion. in our squad. Guskantini, as Sh. again called him, was also invited to the game, but before starting the game, he, apparently struggling between the pleasure that this invitation brought him, and some kind of fear, took the staff captain Sh. aside and began to whisper something to him . The good-natured staff captain hit him with his plump, large palm on his stomach and answered loudly: "Nothing, my friend, I will believe you." When the game was over, and the party in which there was an unfamiliar lower rank won, and he had to ride on one of our officers, ensign D., the ensign blushed, went to the sofas and offered the lower rank cigarettes in the form of a ransom. While mulled wine was ordered and Nikita’s bustling housekeeping was heard in the orderly tent, sending a messenger for cinnamon and cloves, and his back stretched here and there the dirty floors of the tent, all seven of us sat down near the benches and, alternately drinking tea from three glasses and looking ahead on the plain, which was beginning to dress at dusk, they talked and laughed about the various circumstances of the game. A stranger in a sheepskin coat did not take part in the conversation, stubbornly refused tea, which I offered him several times, and sitting on the ground like a Tatar, one after another made cigarettes from fine tobacco and smoked them, apparently, not so much for his own pleasure. how much in order to give yourself the look of a busy person. When they started talking about the fact that they were expecting a retreat tomorrow and, perhaps, business, he got up on his knees and, turning to one of the staff captain Sh., said that he was now at the adjutant's house and he himself wrote the order to speak for tomorrow. We were all silent while he was speaking, and, despite the fact that he was apparently timid, we forced him to repeat this extremely interesting news for us. He repeated what he had said, adding, however, that he was sitting with the adjutant, with whom he lives together, while the order was brought. Look, if you're not lying, my friend, then I need to go in my company to order something for tomorrow, said Staff Captain Sh. No ... why? But the finest tobacco poured out was no longer enough in his cotton pouch, and he asked Sh. to lend him a cigarette. We continued among ourselves for quite a long time that monotonous military chatter, which everyone who has been on campaigns knows, complained with the same expressions about boredom and the length of the campaign, in the same manner we talked about the authorities, everything is the same as many times before , they praised one comrade, pitied another, they were surprised how much this one won, how much this one lost, etc., etc. Here, my friend, our adjutant broke through, so broke through, said the staff captain Sh., at the headquarters he was always a winner, he would sit down with anyone, he used to rake in, and now he’s been losing everything for the second month. The current detachment did not ask him. I think I lost 1000 coins, and 500 coins worth of things: the carpet that I won from Mukhin, Nikitinsky pistols, a gold watch, everything blew from the Garden that Vorontsov gave him. Serve him right, said Lieutenant O., otherwise he really blew everyone away: it was impossible to play with him. He blew everyone, and now he flew out into the chimney, and Staff Captain Sh. laughed good-naturedly. Here Guskov lives with him and he almost lost him, right. So, daddy? he turned to Guskov. Guskov laughed. He had a pathetic, painful laugh that completely changed the expression on his face. With this change, it seemed to me that I had known and seen this man before, moreover, his real name, Guskov, was familiar to me, but how and when I knew and saw him, I absolutely could not remember. Yes, Guskov said, constantly raising his hands to his moustache and, without touching it, lowered it again. Pavel Dmitrievich was very unlucky in this detachment, he added such a veine de malheur 1 in a diligent but pure French accent, and again it seemed to me that I had already seen, and even often seen, him somewhere. I know Pavel Dmitrievich well, he trusts me with everything, he continued, we are still old acquaintances, that is, he loves me, he added, apparently frightened by the too bold assertion that he was an old acquaintance of the adjutant. Pavel Dmitrievich plays excellently, but now it's amazing what happened to him, he looks like he's lost, la chance a tourne, 2 he added, addressing himself mainly to me. At first we listened to Guskov with condescending attention, but as soon as he said this French phrase, we all involuntarily turned away from him. I played with him a thousand times, and you must admit that this is strange, said Lieutenant O. with special emphasis on the atom of the word, surprisingly strange: I never won a single abaza against him. Why do I win over others? Pavel Dmitrievich plays excellently, I have known him for a long time, I said. Indeed, I had known the adjutant for several years already, I had seen him more than once in the game, big at the expense of the officers, and admired his handsome, slightly gloomy and always imperturbably calm physiognomy, his slow little Russian accent, his beautiful things and horses, his unhurried Khokhlak youthfulness and especially his ability to play with restraint, distinctness and pleasure. More than once, I repent of that, looking at his full and white hands with a diamond ring on his index finger, which hit me one card after another, I was angry at this ring, at his white hands, at the whole person of the adjutant, and they came to me at his expense bad thoughts; but discussing it later in cold blood, I became convinced that he was simply a smarter player than all those with whom he had to play. Moreover, listening to his general discussions about the game, about how one should not bend back, having risen from a small jackpot, how one should go on strike in certain cases, how the first rule is to play clean, etc., etc., it was clear that he always benefited only because he was smarter and more characteristic than all of us. Now it turned out that this abstemious, characteristic player lost heavily in the detachment not only in money, but also in things, which means the last degree of loss for an officer. He's always damned lucky with me, Lieutenant O continued. I've made a promise to myself not to play with him again. What an eccentric you are, my friend, said Sh., winking at me with his whole head and turning to O., lost him 300 coins, after all, you lost! More, the lieutenant said angrily. And now they have seized upon their wits, but it’s too late, my friend: everyone has long known that he is our regimental cheater, said Sh., barely restraining himself from laughter and very pleased with his invention. Here Guskov is there, he is preparing cards for him. From this they have friendship, my friend ... and the staff captain Sh. laughed so good-naturedly, hesitating with his whole body, that he spilled a glass of mulled wine, which he was holding in his hand at that time. It was as if paint appeared on Guskov’s yellow, emaciated face, he opened his mouth several times, raised his hands to his mustache and again lowered them to the place where the pockets should have been, rose and fell, and finally, in a voice that was not his own, said Sh .: This is not a joke , Nikolay Ivanovich; you say such things in front of people who don't know me and see me in an unsheathed sheepskin coat. .. because... His voice broke off, and again small red hands with dirty nails went from the sheepskin coat to his face, now straightening his mustache, hair, nose, now clearing his eye or scratching his cheek unnecessarily. What can I say, everyone knows, my friend, continued Sh., sincerely pleased with his joke and not at all noticing Guskov's excitement. Guskov still whispered something and, resting the elbow of his right hand on the knee of his left leg, in the most unnatural position, looking at Sh., began to pretend that he was smiling contemptuously. "No," I thought resolutely, looking at that smile, "I not only saw him, but spoke to him somewhere." We met somewhere, I told him, when Sh.'s laughter began to subside under the influence of the general silence. How, I now recognize you, he spoke in French. In 1948 I quite often had the pleasure of seeing you in Moscow, at my sister Ivashchina's. I apologized for not recognizing him immediately in this suit and this new clothes. He got up, came up to me, and with his damp hand hesitantly, weakly shook my hand, and sat down beside me. Instead of looking at me, whom he seemed to be so glad to see, he looked back at the officers with an expression of some unpleasant boasting. Whether it was because I recognized in him a man whom I had seen several years ago in a tailcoat in the drawing room, or because, at this recollection, he suddenly rose in his own opinion, it seemed to me that his face and even his movements had completely changed: they expressed now a lively mind, a childlike self-satisfaction from the consciousness of this mind, and a kind of contemptuous carelessness, so that, I confess, despite the miserable situation in which he was, my old acquaintance already inspired me not with compassion, but with some kind of somewhat hostile feeling. I vividly recalled our first meeting. In 1948, when I was in Moscow, I often went to Ivashin, with whom we grew up together and were old friends. His wife was a pleasant mistress of the house, an amiable woman, as they say, but I never liked her ... That winter when I knew her, she often spoke with thinly concealed pride about her brother, who had recently completed his course and seemed to be alone of the most educated and beloved young people in the best Petersburg society. Knowing by rumor the father of the Guskovs, who was very rich and occupied a significant place, and knowing the direction of my sister, I met the young Guskov with prejudice. Once, in the evening, when I arrived at Ivashin's, I found a short, very pleasant-looking young man in a black tailcoat, white waistcoat and tie, with whom the owner forgot to introduce me. The young man, apparently about to go to the ball, with a hat in his hand, stood in front of Ivashin and heatedly but politely argued with him about our common acquaintance, who distinguished himself at that time in the Hungarian campaign. He said that this acquaintance was not at all a hero and a man born for war, as he was called, but only an intelligent and educated person. I remember that I took part in the dispute against Guskov and went to extremes, even arguing that intelligence and education are always inversely related to courage, and I remember how Guskov pleasantly and cleverly proved to me that courage is a necessary consequence of intelligence and a certain degree of development, with which I, considering myself an intelligent and educated person, could not secretly disagree! I remember that at the end of our conversation, Ivashina introduced me to her brother, and he, smiling condescendingly, gave me his small hand, on which he had not yet quite managed to put on a kid glove, and just as weakly and hesitantly as now, shook my hand. . Although I was prejudiced against him, I could not then do justice to Guskov and disagree with his sister that he was really an intelligent and pleasant young man who should have been successful in society. He was unusually neat, elegantly dressed, fresh, had self-confidently modest manners and an extremely youthful, almost childlike appearance, sa which you involuntarily excused him for the expression of complacency and desire to moderate the degree of his superiority over you, which his intelligent face and especially his smile constantly wore. . It was said that this winter he had great success with the Moscow ladies. Seeing him at his sister's, I could only conclude from the expression of happiness and contentment that his young appearance constantly wore, and from his sometimes immodest stories, to what extent this was true. We met with him about six times and talked quite a lot, or rather he talked a lot and I listened. He spoke for the most part in French, a very good language, very fluently, figuratively, and was able to gently, politely interrupt others in conversation. In general, he treated everyone and me rather condescendingly, and, as I always do with people who are firmly convinced that I should be treated with condescension, and whom I know little, I felt that he was absolutely right in this respect. . Now, when he sat down beside me and gave me his hand, I vividly recognized his former arrogant expression, and it seemed to me that he was not quite honestly taking advantage of his position as a lower rank in front of an officer, so casually questioning me about what I was doing. all this time and how I got here. Despite the fact that I always answered in Russian, he spoke in French, in which he was already noticeably not as fluent as before. To himself, he briefly told me that after his unfortunate, stupid story (what this story consisted of, I didn’t know, and he didn’t tell me) he had been under arrest for three months, then he was sent to the Caucasus in the N. regiment, now served as a soldier in this regiment for three years. You will not believe, he told me in French, how much I had to suffer in these regiments from the company of officers; It’s also my happiness that I used to know the adjutant about whom we were just talking: he’s a good man, really, he remarked condescendingly, I live with him, and for me it’s all the same a small relief. Oui, mon cher, les jours se suivent, mais ne se ressemblent pas, 3 he added, and suddenly hesitated, blushed and got up, noticing that the same adjutant we were talking about was approaching us. Such a joy to meet such a person as you, Guskov told me in a whisper, moving away from me, I would much, much like to talk with you. I said that I was very glad about this, but in essence, I confess, Guskov inspired me with unsympathetic, heavy compassion. I had a presentiment that I would be uncomfortable with him face to face, but I wanted to learn a lot from him, and especially why, when his father was so rich, he was in poverty, as was evident from his clothes and manners. The adjutant greeted us all, with the exception of Guskov, and sat down next to me in the place occupied by the demoted one. Always calm and slow, a characteristic player and money man, Pavel Dmitrievich was now completely different, as I knew him in the flourishing days of his game; he seemed to be in a hurry somewhere, constantly looking around at everyone, and before five minutes had passed, he, always refusing to play, suggested to Lieutenant O. to make a jar. Lieutenant O. refused under the pretext of employment in the service, actually because, knowing how little things and money Pavel Dmitrievich had left, he considered it unreasonable to risk his 300 rubles against 100 rubles, or maybe less, which he could win. And what, Pavel Dmitrievich, said the lieutenant, apparently wanting to get rid of the repetition of the request, is it true that they say there will be a performance tomorrow? I don’t know, Pavel Dmitrievich remarked, only I was ordered to get ready, but really, it would be better if they played, I would pawn my Kabardian to you. No, now ... Gray, all right, and then, if you want, with money. Well? Yes, well, I ... I would be ready, you don’t think, Lieutenant O spoke up. , answering his own doubt, otherwise tomorrow, maybe a raid or movement, you need to get enough sleep. The adjutant stood up and, putting his hands in his pockets, began to walk around the platform. His face took on the usual expression of coldness and a certain pride, which I loved in him. Would you like a glass of mulled wine? I told him. Mozhnos, and he went towards me, but Guskov hurriedly took the glass from my hands and carried it to the adjutant, trying not to look at him. But, not paying attention to the rope pulling the tent, Guskov stumbled on it and, dropping the glass from his hands, fell on his hands. Eka file! said the adjutant, who had already stretched out his hand to the glass. Everyone burst out laughing, not excepting Guskov, who rubbed his thin knee with his hand, which he could not hurt when he fell. This is how the bear served the hermit, continued the adjutant. So he serves me every day, he broke all the pegs on the tents, everything stumbles. Guskov, not listening to him, apologized to us and looked at me with a barely noticeable sad smile, with which he seemed to say that I alone could understand him. He was pathetic, but the adjutant, his patron, seemed somehow embittered at his roommate and did not want to leave him alone. What a clever boy! wherever you turn. But who doesn’t stumble over these pegs, Pavel Dmitrievich, said Guskov, you yourself stumbled on the third day. I, father, am not a lower rank, dexterity is not asked of me. He can drag his legs, the staff captain Sh. picked up, and the lower rank should bounce ... Strange jokes, Guskov said almost in a whisper and lowering his eyes. The adjutant was apparently not indifferent to his roommate, he eagerly listened to his every word. We'll have to send it as a secret again, he said, turning to Sh. and winking at the demoted one. Well, there will be tears again, said Sh., laughing. Guskov no longer looked at me, but pretended to take tobacco out of a pouch, in which there had been nothing for a long time. Get in secret, my friend, Sh. said through laughter, now the scouts have reported that there will be an attack on the camp at night, so you need to appoint reliable guys. Guskov smiled indecisively, as if about to say something, and several times raised his imploring glance at Sh. Yes, they will. Well, I'll go. What is it? Yes, as on the Argun, they ran away from the secret and threw the gun away, said the adjutant, and turning away from him, began to tell us orders for the next day. Indeed, during the night they expected firing from the enemy at the camp, and for the next day some kind of movement. After talking more about various general subjects, the adjutant, as if by accident, suddenly remembering, suggested that Lieutenant O. sweep him a little one. Lieutenant O. quite unexpectedly agreed, and together with Sh. and the ensign went to the adjutant's tent, who had a folding green table and maps. The captain, the commander of our division, went to sleep in the tent, the other gentlemen also dispersed, and we were left alone with Guskov. I was not mistaken, I really felt awkward with him face to face. I involuntarily got up and began to walk up and down the battery. Guskov silently walked beside me, turning hurriedly and uneasily so as not to lag behind and not to get ahead of me. Am I bothering you? he said in a meek, sad voice. As far as I could see his face in the darkness, it seemed to me deeply thoughtful and sad. Not at all, I answered; but since he did not begin to speak, and I did not know what to say to him, we walked for a long time in silence. The twilight had already been completely replaced by the darkness of night, a bright evening lightning lit up over the black profile of the mountains, small stars flickered overhead in a light blue frosty sky, on all sides the flames of smoking fires reddened in the darkness, near the gray of the tent, and the embankment of our battery gloomy blackened. From the nearest fire, near which our batmen were talking quietly while warming themselves, the copper of our heavy guns occasionally shone on the battery, and the figure of a sentry in a greatcoat with a cape was shown, moving measuredly along the embankment. You cannot imagine what a joy it is for me to talk to a man like you, Guskov told me, although he has not yet spoken to me about anything, only someone who has been in my position can understand this. I did not know what to answer him, and we were silent again, despite the fact that he, apparently, wanted to speak out, and I wanted to listen to him. What were you... what did you suffer for? I asked him at last, without thinking of anything better to start a conversation. Haven't you heard about this unfortunate story with Metenin? Yes, a duel, it seems; heard in passing, I answered: after all, I have long been in the Caucasus. No, not a duel, but this stupid and terrible story! I'll tell you everything if you don't know. It was in the same year when we met at my sister's, I was then living in St. Petersburg. I must tell you, I had then what is called une position dans le monde, 4 and quite profitable, if not brilliant. Mon pere me donnait 10,000 par an. 5 In 1949 I was promised a place at the embassy in Turin, my maternal uncle could and was always ready to do a lot for me. The thing is past now, j "etais recu dans la meilleure societe de Petersbourg, je pouvais pretendre 6 for the best game. I studied, as we all studied at school, so I did not have a special education; true, I read a lot after, mais j "avais surtout, you know, ce jargon du monde, 7 and, be that as it may, for some reason they found me one of the first young people in St. Petersburg. Which raised me even more in the general opinion c "est cette liaison avec mme D., 8 which was much talked about in St. Petersburg, but I was terribly young at that time and appreciated all these advantages little. I was just young and stupid, what else did I need? At that time in St. Petersburg this Metenin had a reputation... And Guskov went on telling me the story of his misfortune in this way, which, as uninteresting at all, I will skip here. For two months I was under arrest, he continued, completely alone, and no matter what I changed my mind during that time. But you know, when it all ended, as if it had finally been severed for its connection with the past, I felt better. Mon pere, vous en avez entendu parler 9 he is probably a man with an iron character and strong convictions, il m "a desherite 10 and stopped all communication with me. According to his convictions, this should have been done, and I do not blame him at all: il a ete consequent.11 On the other hand, I did not take a step to make him change his mind.My sister was abroad, mme D., one wrote to me when she was allowed to, and offered help, but you understand that I refused. So I didn’t have those little things that make this situation a little easier, you know: no books, no linen, no food, nothing. I thought a lot, a lot at that time, began to look at everything with different eyes; for example, this noise, I was not interested in Petersburg, they were not flattered at all, it all seemed ridiculous to me. I felt that I myself was to blame, careless, young, I ruined my career and only thought about how to correct it again. And I felt in myself on it is strength and energy.From under arrest, as I told you, I was sent here to Kav kaz, in N. regiment. I thought, he continued, more and more inspired, that here, in the Caucasus la vie de camp, 12 simple, honest people with whom I would be in relations, war, danger, all this would suit my mood in the best possible way, that I will start a new life. On me verra au feu 13 they will love me, they will respect me for more than one name, the cross, the non-commissioned officer, they will remove the fine, and I will return again et, vous savez, avec ce prestige du malheur! Ho quel desenchantment. 14 You can't imagine how wrong I was!.. Do you know the company of officers of our regiment? He was silent for a long time, waiting, it seemed to me, for me to tell him that I knew how bad the company of the local officers was; but I didn't answer him. I was disgusted that he, because it is true that I knew French, assumed that I should have been indignant against the society of officers, which, on the contrary, after spending a long time in the Caucasus, I managed to fully appreciate and respect a thousand times more than that society from which Mr. Guskov came out. I wanted to tell him this, but his position bound me. In the N. regiment, the society of officers is a thousand times worse than here, he continued. J "espere que c" est beaucoup dire, 15 i.e. you can't imagine what it is! I'm not talking about the junkers and soldiers. What a horror it is! At first I was received well, it is absolutely true, but then, when they saw that I could not help but despise them, you know, in these inconspicuous petty relationships, they saw that I was a completely different person, standing much higher than they were, they became angry with me and began repay me with various petty humiliations. Ce que j "ai eu a souffrir, vous ne vous faites pas une idee. 16 Then these involuntary relations with the junkers, and most importantly avec les petits moyens que j" avais, je manquais de tout, 17 y I only had that sister sent me. Here is proof for you how much I suffered, that with my character, avec ma fierte, j "ai ecrit a mon pere, 18 I begged him to send me at least something. I understand that living such a life for five years can become the same as ours degraded Dromov, who drinks with the soldiers and writes notes to all the officers, asking him to lend him three rubles, and signs tout a vous 19 Dromov. walked beside me. Avezvous un papiros? 20 he said to me. Yes, so where did I stop? Yes. I could not stand it, not physically, because although it was bad, cold and hungry, I lived like a soldier, but all the same and the officers had some kind of respect for me. Some kind of prestige remained on me and for them. They did not send me on guard duty, for training. I could not bear it. But I suffered terribly mentally. And most importantly, I did not see a way out of this situation. I wrote to my uncle, begged him to transfer me to the local regiment , who at least happens in business, and thought that here Pavel Dmitrievich, qui est le fils de l "intendant de mon pere, 22 all the same, he could be useful to me. Uncle did it for me, they transferred me. After that regiment, this one seemed to me a collection of chamberlains. Then Pavel Dmitrievich was here, he knew who I was, and they received me very well. At the request of my uncle ... Guskov, vous savez ... 23 but I noticed that with these people, without education and development, they cannot respect a person and show him signs of respect if he does not have this halo of wealth, nobility; I noticed how, little by little, when they saw that I was poor, their relations with me became careless, careless, and finally became almost contemptuous. It's horrible! but it is absolutely true. Here I was in business, fought, on m "a vu au feu, 24 he continued, but when will it end? I think never! and my strength and energy are already beginning to deplete. Then I imagined la guerre, la vie de camp, 25 but all this is not the way I see it in a sheepskin coat, unwashed, in soldier's boots, you go into secret and lie all night in a ravine with some Antonov, who has been handed over to the soldiers for drunkenness, and at any moment they can shoot you from behind a bush, you or Antonov , anyway. It's not courage that's terrible. C "est affreux, ca tue. 26 Well, now you can get a non-commissioned officer for a campaign, and next year an ensign, I said. Yes, I can, they promised me, but two more years, and then hardly. And what are these two years, if anyone knew. Imagine this life with this Pavel Dmitrievich: cards, rude jokes, revelry, you want to say something that boils in your soul, they don’t understand you or they still laugh at you, they don’t talk to you in order to tell you an idea, and so, if possible, to make a jester out of you. Yes, and all this is so vulgar, rude, disgusting, and you always feel that you are a lower rank, you are always allowed to feel this. From this you will not understand what a pleasure it is to talk a coeur ouvert 27 with a person like you. I didn’t understand what kind of person I was, and therefore I didn’t know what to answer him ... Will you have a snack? Nikita said to me at that time, imperceptibly crept up to me in the darkness and, as I noticed, was dissatisfied with the presence of a guest. Only dumplings and beaten beef remained a little. Did the captain eat? They have been sleeping for a long time, Nikita replied gloomily. At my order to bring us here a snack and vodka, he grumbled something with displeasure and dragged himself to his tent. After grumbling while still there, he nevertheless brought us a cellar; he put a candle on the cellar, tying it in front with paper from the wind, a saucepan, mustard in a jar, a tin glass with a handle and a bottle of wormwood tincture. Having arranged all this, Nikita stood for some more time near us and watched as Guskov and I drank vodka, which, apparently, was very unpleasant for him. Under the dull illumination of the candle, through the paper and in the surrounding darkness, only the sealskin of the cellar, the supper standing on it, Guskov's face, short fur coat and his small red hands, with which he began to put dumplings out of the saucepan, could be seen. Everything was black all around, and only by looking closely could one make out a black battery, the same black figure of a sentry, visible through the parapet, firelights on the sides and reddish stars above. Guskov smiled sadly and shyly, almost perceptibly, as if he was embarrassed to look me in the eyes after his confession. He drank another glass of vodka and ate greedily, scraping the saucepan. Yes, it's a relief for you all the same, I said to him, to say something, your acquaintance with the adjutant: he, I heard, is a very good person. Yes, answered the demoted one, he is a good man, but he cannot be different, he cannot be a man, with his education one cannot demand. He suddenly seemed to blush. You noticed his rude jokes today about the secret, and Guskov, despite the fact that I tried several times to hush up the conversation, began to justify himself to me and prove that he had not run away from the secret and that he was not a coward, as the adjutant and Sh. As I told you, he continued, wiping his hands on his sheepskin coat, such people cannot be delicate with a soldier who has little money; it is beyond their strength. And lately, since for some reason I have not received anything from my sister for five months, I noticed how they have changed towards me. This sheepskin coat, which I bought from a soldier and which does not keep you warm, because it is all worn out (while he showed me the bare coat), does not inspire him with compassion or respect for misfortune, but with contempt, which he is not able to hide. Whatever my need, like now, that I have nothing to eat but soldier's porridge, and nothing to wear, he continued looking down, pouring himself another glass of vodka, he would not think of offering me a loan of money, knowing for sure that I would give it to him, and waiting for me in my position to address him. And you understand what it's like for me and with him. You should, for example, I directly said vous etes audessus de cela; mon cher, je n "ai pas le sou. 28 And you know, he said, suddenly looking desperately into my eyes, I tell you directly, I am now in a terrible situation: pouvez vous me preter 10 roubles argent? 29 My sister should send me a next mail et mon pere... Ah, I am very glad, I said, whereas, on the contrary, I was hurt and annoyed, especially because, having lost at cards the day before, I myself had only five rubles with something Nikita. Now, I said, getting up, I'll go and get it in the tent. No, later, ne vous derangez pas. 31 However, not listening to him, I crawled into the buttoned tent where my bed stood and the captain slept. Alexei Ivanovich, let me please 10 rubles before the rations, I said to the captain, pushing him aside. What, have you blown up again? and even yesterday they wanted not to play anymore, the captain said awake. No, I didn’t play, but you need to, please give me. Makatyuk! shouted the captain to his batman, get out the box of money and give it here. Hush, hush, I said, listening to Guskov's measured steps behind the tent. What? why quieter? It was this demoted man who asked me for a loan. He is here! If I had known, I wouldn’t have given it, the captain remarked, I heard about him the first dirty boy! However, the captain did give me money, ordered me to hide the box, wrap the tent well, and, repeating again: if I had known what, I would not have given it, wrapped myself up under the covers. Now you have thirty-two, remember, he shouted to me. When I left the tent, Guskov was walking around the sofas, and his small figure with crooked legs and in an ugly hat with long white hair showed up and hid in the darkness when he passed the candle. He pretended not to notice me. I gave him the money. He said: merci and, crumpling, put the paper in the pocket of his trousers. Now Pavel Dmitrievich, I think, the game is in full swing, after that he began. Yes, I think. He plays strangely, is always an arebur and does not bend back; when you're lucky, that's good, but when it doesn't work, you can lose terribly. He proved it. In this detachment, if you count with things, he lost more than one and a half thousand. And how he played with restraint before, so that this officer of yours seemed to doubt his honesty. Yes, he is so ... Nikita, do we still have chikhir? I said, greatly relieved by Guskov's talkativeness. Nikita grumbled some more, but brought us some chikhir and again looked angrily as Guskov drank his glass. In Guskov's appeal, the former swagger became noticeable. I wanted him to leave as soon as possible, and it seemed that he did not do this only because he was ashamed to leave immediately after he received the money. I was silent. How is it that you, with funds, without any need, decided de gaiete de coeur 32 to go to serve in the Caucasus? That's what I don't understand, he told me. I tried to justify myself in such a strange act for him. I imagine how hard it is for you to be in the company of these officers, people without any idea of ​​education. You cannot understand each other with them. Indeed, in addition to maps, wine and talk about awards and campaigns, you will live ten years, you will not see or hear anything. It was unpleasant to me that he wanted me to necessarily share his position, and I quite sincerely assured him that I was very fond of cards, and wine, and talk about campaigns, and that better than those comrades that I had, I did not wanted to have. But he didn't want to believe me. Well, you say it like that, he continued, but the absence of women, that is, e. I mean femmes comme il faut, 33 Isn't this a terrible deprivation? I don't know what I would give now, just for a moment to be transported into the living room and even through the crack to look at the lovely woman. He was silent for a while and drank another glass of chikhir. Oh my God, my God! Maybe someday we will meet in Petersburg, among people, to be and live with people, with women. He poured out the last wine that was left in the bottle, and after drinking it, he said: Ah, pardon, maybe you wanted more, I'm terribly distracted. However, I seem to have drunk too much et je n "ai pas la tete forte. 34 There was a time when I lived on the Marine au rez de chaussee, 35 I had a wonderful apartment, furniture, you know, I knew how to arrange it gracefully, although not too expensive, really: mon pere gave me porcelain, flowers, wonderful silver. Le matin je sortais, visits, a 5 heures regulierement 36 I went to dine with her, often she was alone. Il faut avouer que c "etait une femme ravissante ? 37 You didn't know her? not at all? No. You know, she had this femininity to the highest degree, tenderness, and then what kind of love! God! I did not know how to appreciate this happiness then. Or after the theater we returned together and had dinner. It was never boring with her, toujours gaie, toujours aimante. 38 Yes, I had no idea what a rare happiness it was. Et j "ai beaucoup a me reprocher in front of her. Je l" ai fait souffrir et souvent. 39 I was cruel. Ah, what a wonderful time it was! Are you bored? No, not at all. So I'll tell you our evenings. I used to go into this staircase, I knew every pot of flowers the doorknob, everything is so sweet, familiar, then the front room, her room ... No, this will never, never return! She still writes to me, I'll probably show you her letters. But I'm not the same, I'm lost, I'm no longer worth it ... Yes, I'm finally dead! Je suis casse. 40 I have no energy, no pride, nothing. Not even nobility... Yes, I'm dead! And no one will ever understand my suffering. Nobody cares. I am a lost man! I will never get up, because I mentally fell ... into the mud ... fell ... At that moment, sincere, deep despair was heard in his words: he did not look at me and sat motionless. Why be so desperate? I said. Because I am vile, this life has destroyed me, everything that was in me has been killed. I endure no longer with pride, but with meanness, dignite dans le malheur is no more. I am humiliated every minute, I endure everything, I myself climb into humiliation. This dirt a deteint sur moi, 42 I myself have become rude, I forgot what I knew, I can no longer speak French, I feel that I am vile and low. I can’t fight in this situation, I definitely can’t, maybe I could be a hero: give me a regiment, golden epaulettes, trumpeters, and go next to some wild Anton Bondarenko, etc. and think what is between me and it makes no difference to them that they kill me or they kill him anyway, this thought kills me. Do you understand how terrible it is to think that some ragamuffin will kill me, a person who thinks, feels, and that it would still be next to me to kill Antonov, a creature that is no different from an animal, and that it can easily happen that they will kill me, and not Antonov, as always happens une fatalite 43 for everything high and good. I know they call me a coward; let me be a coward, I'm definitely a coward and I can't be different. Not only am I a coward, I am a poor and contemptible person. So I just begged you for money, and you have the right to despise me. No, take your money back, and he handed me a crumpled piece of paper. I want you to respect me. He covered his face with his hands and wept; I didn't really know what to say or do. Calm down, I told him, you are too sensitive, do not take everything to heart, do not analyze, look at things easier. You yourself say that you have character. Take it upon yourself, you don’t have long to endure, I tell him, but very awkwardly, because I was excited by both a feeling of compassion and a feeling of remorse that I allowed myself to mentally condemn a person who was truly and deeply unhappy. Yes, he began, if I had heard at least once since I was in this hell, at least one word of participation, advice, friendship, a human word, such as I hear from you. Maybe I could endure everything calmly; maybe I would even take it upon myself and could even be a soldier, but now it’s terrible ... When I reason sensibly, I wish death, and why should I love a disgraced life and myself, who died for all the good in the world? And at the slightest danger, I suddenly involuntarily begin to adore this vile life and cherish it like something precious, and I cannot, je ne puis pas, 44 overcome myself. That is, I can, he continued again after a moment's silence, but it costs me too much work, enormous work, if I am alone. With others in ordinary conditions, as you go into business, I am brave, j "ai fait mes preuves, 45 because I am proud and proud: this is my vice, and with others ... You know, let me spend the night with you, otherwise we'll have a game all night long, I'll be somewhere on the ground.While Nikita was making a bed, we got up and began to walk around the battery again in the dark. Indeed, Guskov's head must have been very weak, because he was swaying from two glasses of vodka and two glasses of wine. When we got up and moved away from the candle, I noticed that, trying not to see this, he put the ten-rouble note into his pocket again, which he had been holding in his palm during the entire conversation. He went on to say that he felt that he could still rise if he had a man like me who would take part in it. We were about to go into the tent to go to bed, when suddenly a cannonball whistled over us and hit the ground not far away. It was so strange, this quiet sleeping camp, our conversation, and suddenly an enemy core, which, from God knows where, flew into the middle of our tents, so strange that for a long time I could not give myself an idea of ​​what it was. Our soldier Andreev, who was walking on the clock on the battery, moved towards me. Vish crept up! There was a fire here, he said. We must wake up the captain, I said, and looked at Guskov. He stood, bent completely to the ground, and stammered, wanting to utter something. This is ... otherwise ... dislike ... this is super ... funny. He said nothing more, and I did not see how and where he disappeared instantly. A candle was lit in the captain's tent, his usual awakening cough was heard, and he himself soon went out, demanding an overcoat to light his small pipe. What is it, father, he said, smiling, they don’t want to let me sleep today: now you are with your demoted one, then Shamil; what are we going to do: answer or not? Was there nothing about it in the order? Nothing. Here he is, I said, and out of two. Indeed, in the darkness, ahead to the right, two fires lit up, like two eyes, and soon one cannonball and one, probably ours, empty grenade flew over us, producing a loud and piercing whistle. Soldiers crawled out from neighboring tents, their quacking and stretching and talking could be heard. Look, it whistles like a nightingale, the artilleryman noticed. Call Nikita, said the captain with his usual kind smile. Nikita! do not hide, but listen to the mountain nightingales. Well, your high nobility, said Nikita, standing next to the captain, I saw them, nightingale, I'm not afraid, but the guest that was here, our chikhir drank, as soon as he heard it, he gave a quick shot past our tent, rolled like a ball what a twisted beast! However, it is necessary to go to the chief of artillery, the captain told me in a serious commanding tone, to ask whether to shoot at the fire or not; It won't make any sense, but it's still possible. Make the effort to go and ask. Tell the horse to saddle, it will be sooner, at least take my Polkan. Five minutes later they gave me a horse, and I went to the chief of artillery. Look, the tip of the drawbar, the punctual captain whispered to me, otherwise they won’t let me through the chain. It was half a verst to the chief of artillery, the whole road went between the tents. As soon as I drove away from our fire, it became so black that I could not even see the horse's ears, but only the fires, which seemed to me very close, then very far, seemed to me in my eyes. Having driven off a little, by the grace of the horse, to which I loosened the reins, I began to distinguish white quadrangular tents, then black ruts of the road; half an hour later, after asking three times for directions, twice hooking on the pegs of the tents, for which each time I received curses from the tents, and twice stopped by sentries, I arrived at the chief of artillery. While I was driving, I heard two more shots at our camp, but the shells did not reach the place where the headquarters was. The chief of artillery did not order to answer the shots, especially since the enemy stopped, and I went home, taking the horse in the reins and making my way on foot between the infantry tents. More than once I slowed down my pace, passing by a soldier's tent, in which a fire glowed, and listened either to a fairy tale that a joker told, or to a book that a literate man read and listened to the whole squad, crowded in and around the tent, interrupting the reader occasionally with different remarks, or simply to talk about the campaign, about the homeland, about the bosses. Passing near one of the tents of the 3rd battalion, I heard the loud voice of Guskov, who spoke very cheerfully and smartly. He was answered by young, also cheerful, gentlemanly, not soldierly voices. This, obviously, was a cadet or sergeant's tent. I stopped. I have known him for a long time, Guskov said. When I lived in Petersburg, he often visited me, and I visited him, he lived in a very good light. Who are you talking about? asked a drunken voice. About the prince, said Guskov. After all, we are relatives with him, and most importantly, old friends. It is, you know, gentlemen, it is good to have such an acquaintance. He's terribly rich. He's a hundred ruble trifles. So I took some money from him until my sister sends it to me. Well, send it. Now. Savelich, my dove! Guskov's voice spoke, moving towards the door of the tent, here's ten coins for you, go to the sutler, take two bottles of Kakhetian and what else? Lord? Speak! And Guskov, staggering, with matted hair, without a hat, left the tent. Turning down the flaps of his sheepskin coat and thrusting his hands into the pockets of his gray trousers, he stopped at the door. Although he was in the light and I was in the dark, I trembled with fear that he might not see me, and, trying not to make any noise, I went on. Who is there? Guskov shouted at me in a completely drunken voice. It can be seen that it was dismantled in the cold. What the hell is going on with the horse? I did not answer and silently got out on the road. November 15, 1856

1 [a streak of bad luck,] 2 [happiness turned away,] 3 [Yes, my dear, the days go one after another, but do not repeat,] 4 [position in the world,] 5 [Father gave me 10,000 annually.] 6 [I was accepted in the best society of St. Petersburg, I could count] 7 [but I especially mastered this secular jargon,] 8 [so this is a connection with Mrs. D.,] 9 [My father, you heard about him] 10 [he deprived me of the right to inheritance] 11 [he was consistent.] 12 [camp life,] 13 [I will be seen under fire] 14 [and, you know, with this charm of misfortune! But, what a disappointment.] 15 [I hope that says enough,] 16 [You can't imagine how much I suffered.] 17 [with the little money I had, I needed everything] 18 [with my pride, I wrote to my father,] 19 [all yours] 20 [Do you have a cigarette?] 21 [authority] 22 [my father's steward's son,] 23 [you know...] 24 [I was seen under fire,] 25 [war, camp life,] 26 [It's terrible, it's deadly.] 27 [to my liking] 28 [you are better than that; my dear, I don't have a penny.] 29 [can you lend me 10 silver rubles?] 30 [and my father...] 31 [don't worry.] 32 [with a light heart] 33 [decent women,] 34 [ and my head is weak.] 35 [downstairs,] 36 [I left in the morning, exactly at 5 o'clock] 37 [I must admit that she was a charming woman! ] 38 [always cheerful, always loving.] 39 [I reproach myself for many things before her. I often made her suffer.] 40 [I am broken.] 41 [dignity in adversity] 42 [stamped on me,] 43 [rock] 44 [I can not,] 45 [I proved,]

Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy

From Caucasian memories. Demoted

We were in a squad. Things were already over, they finished cutting the clearing and every day they were waiting from the headquarters for an order to retreat to the fortress. Our division of battery guns stood on the slope of a steep mountain range ending in the fast mountain river Mechik, and had to fire at the plain ahead. On this picturesque plain, out of range, from time to time, especially before evening, here and there appeared non-hostile groups of horsemen riding out of curiosity to look at the Russian camp. The evening was clear, calm and fresh, as usual on December evenings in the Caucasus, the sun descended behind the steep spur of the mountains to the left and threw pink rays on the tents scattered along the mountain, on the moving groups of soldiers and on our two guns, heavily, as if stretching out their necks, standing motionless a couple of paces from us on an earthen battery. The infantry picket, located on the knoll to the left, was clearly visible in the transparent light of the sunset, with its goat guns, the figure of a sentry, a group of soldiers and the smoke of a fire. To the right and to the left, along the half-mountain, tents gleamed white on the black trampled earth, and behind the tents blackened the bare trunks of a plane tree forest, in which axes were constantly banging, bonfires were crackling, and chopped trees were falling with a roar. Bluish smoke rose like a chimney from all sides into the light blue frosty sky. Cossacks, dragoons and artillerymen, returning from a watering place, were dragging past the tents and below the stream with stomping and snorting. It began to freeze, all sounds were heard especially clearly - and far ahead along the plain it was visible in the clear, rare air. The enemy groups, no longer arousing the curiosity of the soldiers, quietly drove around the light yellow stubble of corn fields, in some places high cemeteries and smoking auls could be seen from behind the trees.

Our tent was not far from the guns, on a dry and high place, from which the view was especially extensive. Near the tent, near the battery itself, on a cleared area, we arranged a game of gorodki, or ingots. Helpful soldiers immediately attached wicker benches and a table for us. Because of all these conveniences, artillery officers, our comrades, and a few infantrymen liked to gather in our battery in the evenings and called this place a club.

The evening was glorious, the best players gathered, and we played gorodki. I, warrant officer D. and lieutenant O. lost two games in a row and to the general pleasure and laughter of the spectators - officers, soldiers and batmen who looked at us from their tents - I carried the winning game twice on my backs from one horse to another. Particularly amusing was the position of the huge, fat staff captain Sh., who, panting and smiling good-naturedly, with his legs dragging along the ground, rode on a small and frail lieutenant O. But it was getting late, the batmen brought us, for all six people, three glasses of tea , without saucers, and after finishing the game, we went to the wicker benches. Near them stood a little man, unfamiliar to us, with crooked legs, in an unsheathed sheepskin coat and a hat with long hanging white wool. As soon as we got close to him, he hesitantly took off and put on his hat several times, and several times seemed to be about to come up to us and stopped again. But deciding, it must be, that it was no longer possible to remain unnoticed, this stranger took off his hat and, walking around us, approached Captain Sh.

- Ah, Guscantini! Well, my friend? - Sh. told him, smiling good-naturedly under the influence of his trip.

Guskantini, as Sh. called him, immediately put on his hat and pretended to put his hands in the pockets of his sheepskin coat, but on the side from which he stood towards me there was no pocket in his sheepskin coat, and his small red hand remained in an awkward position. position. I wanted to decide who this man was (junker or demoted?), and I, not noticing that my look (that is, the look of an unfamiliar officer) embarrassed him, peered intently at his clothes and appearance. He seemed to be in his thirties. His small, gray, round eyes peeped out somehow sleepily and at the same time uneasily from behind the dirty white fur hat that hung over his face. A thick, irregular nose among sunken cheeks revealed a sickly, unnatural thinness. The lips, very little covered by a sparse, soft, whitish mustache, were incessantly in a restless state, as if trying to take on one expression or another. But all these expressions were somehow incomplete; on his face there always remained one predominant expression of fright and haste. A thin, sinewy neck that was tied around a woolen green scarf, hiding under a sheepskin coat. The sheepskin coat was worn, short, with a dog sewn on the collar and on the fake pockets. The pantaloons were checkered, ash-colored, and boots with short unblackened soldier tops!.

“Please don’t worry,” I told him, when he looked at me again timidly and was about to take off his hat.

He bowed to me with a grateful expression, put on his cap, and, taking a dirty cotton pouch with strings from his pocket, began to make a cigarette.

I myself was recently a cadet, an old cadet, no longer capable of being a good-natured, helpful junior comrade, and a cadet without a fortune, therefore, knowing full well the moral gravity of this position for an elderly and conceited person, I sympathized with all people in such a position, and tried to to explain to oneself their character and the degree and direction of their mental faculties, in order to judge by this the degree of their moral suffering. This junker or demoted one, by his restless look and that deliberate incessant change in facial expression that I noticed in him, seemed to me a very intelligent and extremely proud man, and therefore very pitiful.

Staff Captain Sh. suggested that we play another game of gorodki, so that the losing party, in addition to transportation, would pay for several bottles of red rum, sugar, cinnamon and cloves for mulled wine, which this winter, due to the cold, was in great fashion. in our squad. Guscantini, as Sh. again called him, was also invited to the game, but, before starting the game, he, apparently struggling between the pleasure that this invitation brought him, and some kind of fear, took staff captain Sh aside, and began to whisper something to him. The good-natured staff captain hit him with his plump, large palm on his stomach and answered loudly: "Nothing, my friend, I will believe you."

When the game was over, and the party in which there was an unfamiliar lower rank won, and he had to ride on one of our officers, ensign D., the ensign blushed, went to the sofas and offered the lower rank cigarettes in the form of a ransom. While mulled wine was ordered and in the orderly tent one could hear Nikita’s busy hosting, sending a messenger for cinnamon and cloves, and his back stretched here and there the dirty floors of the tent, all seven of us sat down near the benches and, alternately drinking tea from three glasses and looking ahead on the plain, which was beginning to dress at dusk, they talked and laughed about the various circumstances of the game. A stranger in a sheepskin coat did not take part in the conversation, stubbornly refused tea, which I offered him several times, and, sitting on the ground in Tatar style, one after another made cigarettes from fine tobacco and smoked them, apparently, not so much for his pleasure, as much as to give himself the appearance of a busy man. When they started talking about the fact that the next day they were expecting a retreat and, perhaps, things, he got up on his knees and, turning to one staff captain Sh., said that he was now at the adjutant's house and he himself wrote the order to speak the next day. We were all silent while he was speaking, and, despite the fact that he was apparently shy, we forced him to repeat this extremely interesting news for us. He repeated what he had said, adding, however, that he was And sat with the adjutant, with whom he lives together while the order was brought.

“Look, if you’re not lying, my friend, then I need to go in my company to order something for tomorrow,” said Staff Captain Sh.

“No… why?… how can it be, I’m sure…” the lower rank spoke up, but suddenly fell silent and, apparently deciding to be offended, frowned unnaturally and, whispering something under his breath, again began to make a cigarette. But the smallest tobacco poured out was no longer enough in his cotton pouch, and he asked Sh. borrow to him cigarette. We continued among ourselves for quite a long time that monotonous military chatter, which everyone who has been on campaigns knows, complained with the same expressions about boredom and the length of the campaign, in the same manner we talked about the authorities, everything is the same as many times before , they praised one comrade, pitied another, they were surprised how much this one won, how much this one lost, etc., etc.

“Here, my friend, our adjutant broke through so broke through,” said the staff captain Sh., “at the headquarters he always won, he would sit down with anyone, he used to rake in, and now he’s been losing everything for the second month. The current detachment did not ask him. I think I lost a thousand coins, and five hundred coins worth of things: the carpet that I won from Mukhin, Nikitinsky pistols, a gold watch, everything blew from Sada that Vorontsov gave him.

“To serve him right,” said Lieutenant O., “otherwise he really blew everyone away: it was impossible to play with him.

- He blew everyone, and now he flew out all into the chimney, - and Staff Captain Sh. laughed good-naturedly, - here Guskov lives with him - he almost lost him, right. So, daddy? he turned to Guskov.

Guskov laughed. He had a pitiful, painful laugh that completely changed the expression on his face. With this change, it seemed to me that I had previously known and seen this man, moreover, his real name, Guskov, was familiar to me, but how and when I knew and saw him - I absolutely could not remember.

“Yes,” Guskov said, constantly raising his hands to his mustache and, without touching them, lowering them again, “Pavel Dmitrievich was very unlucky in this detachment, such a veine de malheur,” he added in a diligent but clear French accent, and to me again it seemed that I had already seen, and even often saw him somewhere. “I know Pavel Dmitrievich well, he trusts me with everything,” he continued, “we are still old acquaintances, that is, he loves me,” he added, apparently frightened by the too bold assertion that he was an old acquaintance of the adjutant. “Pavel Dmitrievich plays excellently, but now it’s amazing what happened to him, he’s just like a lost man, la chance a tourne,” he added, addressing himself mainly to me.

At first we listened to Guskov with condescending attention, but as soon as he said this French phrase, we all involuntarily turned away from him.

“I played with him a thousand times, and you must admit that this is strange,” said Lieutenant O. with a special emphasis on this word, “amazing strange: I have never won an Abaza against him. Why do I win over others?

“Pavel Dmitrievich plays excellently, I have known him for a long time,” I said. Indeed, I had known the adjutant for several years already, I had seen him more than once in the game, big at the expense of the officers, and admired his handsome, slightly gloomy and always imperturbably calm physiognomy, his slow little Russian accent, his beautiful things and horses, his unhurried Khokhlak youthfulness and especially his ability to play with restraint, distinctness and pleasure. More than once, I repent of that, looking at his full and white hands with a diamond ring on his index finger, which hit me one card after another, I was angry at this ring, at his white hands, at the whole person of the adjutant, and they came to me at his expense bad thoughts; but, discussing it later in cold blood, I became convinced that he was simply a smarter player than all those with whom he had to play. Moreover, listening to his general discussions about the game, about how one should not bend back, having risen from a small jackpot, how one should go on strike in certain cases, how the first rule is to play on clean etc., etc., it was clear that he always benefited only because he was smarter and more characteristic than all of us. Now it turned out that this abstinent, characteristic player lost in the feathers in the detachment not only in money, but also in things, which means the last degree of loss for an officer.

"He's always damned lucky with me," continued Lieutenant O. "I've made a promise to myself not to play with him again."

- What an eccentric you are, my friend, - said Sh, winking at me with his whole head and turning to O., - you lost three hundred coins to him, after all, you lost!

“More,” the lieutenant said angrily.

“And now they grabbed their wits, but it’s too late, my friend: everyone has long known that he is our regimental cheater,” said Sh., barely holding back laughter and very pleased with his invention. - Here Guskov is there, he is preparing cards for him. That's why they have friendship, my friend ... - And staff captain Sh. laughed so good-naturedly, hesitating with his whole body, that he spilled a glass of mulled wine, which he was holding in his hand at that time. On Guskov's yellow, emaciated face, it was as if a blush appeared, he opened his mouth several times, raised his hands to his mustache and again lowered them to the place where the pockets should have been, rose and fell, and finally, in a voice that was not his own, said Sh .:

- This is not a joke, Nikolai Ivanovich; you say such things in front of people who don’t know me and see me in an unsheathed sheepskin coat ... because ...” His voice broke off, and again small red hands with dirty nails went from the sheepskin coat to his face, now straightening his mustache, hair, nose, then clearing the eye or scratching the cheek unnecessarily.

“What can I say, everyone knows, my friend,” continued Sh., sincerely pleased with his joke and not at all noticing Guskov’s excitement. Guskov still whispered something and, resting the elbow of his right hand on the knee of his left leg, in the most unnatural position, looking at Sh., began to pretend that he was smiling contemptuously.

“No,” I thought resolutely, looking at that smile, “I not only saw him, but spoke to him somewhere.”

“We met somewhere,” I told him, when, under the influence of general silence, Sh.’s laughter began to subside. Guskov’s changeable face suddenly brightened, and for the first time his eyes, with a sincerely cheerful expression, rushed to me.

“Well, I recognized you just now,” he spoke in French. - In the forty-eighth year, I quite often had the pleasure of seeing you in Moscow, at my sister Ivashina's.

I apologized for not recognizing him immediately in this suit and this new clothes. He got up, came up to me, and with his damp hand hesitantly, weakly shook my hand, and sat down beside me. Instead of looking at me, whom he seemed to be so glad to see, he looked back at the officers with an expression of some unpleasant boasting. Whether it was because I recognized in him a man whom I had seen several years ago in a tailcoat in the drawing room, or because, at this recollection, he suddenly rose in his own opinion, it seemed to me that his face and even his movements had completely changed: they expressed now a lively mind, a childlike self-satisfaction from the consciousness of this mind, and some kind of contemptuous carelessness, so that, I confess, despite the miserable situation in which he was, my old acquaintance no longer inspired pity, but some kind of somewhat hostile feeling.

I vividly recalled our first meeting. In the forty-eighth year, when I was in Moscow, I often went to Ivashin, with whom we grew up together and were old friends. His wife was a pleasant mistress of the house, an amiable woman, as they say, but I never liked her ... That winter when I knew her, she often spoke with thinly concealed pride about her brother, who had recently completed his course and allegedly was one of the most educated and beloved young people in the best Petersburg light. Knowing by rumor the father of the Guskovs, who was very rich and occupied a significant place, and knowing the direction of my sister, I met the young Guskov with prejudice. One evening, when I arrived at Ivashin's, I found a short, very pleasant-looking young man in a black tailcoat, white waistcoat and tie, whom the owner had forgotten to introduce me to. The young man, apparently about to go to the ball, with a hat in his hand, stood in front of Ivashin and heatedly, but politely, argued with him about our common acquaintance, who had distinguished himself at that time in the Hungarian campaign. He said that this acquaintance was not at all a hero and a man born for war, as he was called, but only an intelligent and educated person. I remember that I took part in the dispute against Guskov and went to extremes, even arguing that intelligence and education are always inversely related to courage, and I remember how Guskov pleasantly and cleverly proved to me that courage is a necessary consequence of intelligence and a certain degree of development, with which I, considering myself an intelligent and educated person, could not secretly disagree! I remember that at the end of our conversation, Ivashina introduced me to her brother, and he, smiling condescendingly, gave me his small hand, on which he had not yet quite managed to put on a kid glove, and just as weakly and hesitantly as now, shook my hand. . Although I was prejudiced against him, I could not then do justice to Guskov and disagree with his sister that he was really an intelligent and pleasant young man who should have been successful in society. He was unusually neat, elegantly dressed, fresh, had self-confidently modest manners and an extremely youthful, almost childish appearance, for which you involuntarily excused him for the expression of complacency and desire to moderate the degree of his superiority over you, which his intelligent face constantly wore on him and in smile features. It was said that this winter he had great success with the Moscow ladies. Seeing him at his sister's, I could only conclude from the expression of happiness and contentment that his young appearance constantly wore, and from his sometimes immodest stories, to what extent this was true. We met with him about six times and talked quite a lot, or rather he talked a lot and I listened. He spoke for the most part in French, a very good language, very fluently, figuratively, and was able to gently, politely interrupt others in conversation. In general, he treated everyone and me rather condescendingly, and I, as always happens to me with respect to people who firmly believe that I should be treated condescendingly, and whom I know little, I felt that he was absolutely right in this. respect.

Now, when he sat down beside me and gave me his hand, I vividly recognized his former arrogant expression, and it seemed to me that he was not quite honestly taking advantage of his position as a lower rank in front of an officer, so casually questioning me about what I was doing. all this time and how it got here. In spite of the fact that I always answered in Russian, he spoke in French, which was already noticeably less fluent than before. He briefly told me to himself that after his unfortunate stupid story (what this story consisted of, I didn’t know, and he didn’t tell me) he had been under arrest for three months, then he was sent to the Caucasus in the N. regiment, - now served as a soldier in this regiment for three years.

“You won’t believe,” he said to me in French, “how much I had to suffer in these regiments from the company of officers; It’s also my happiness that I used to know the adjutant about whom we were just talking: he’s a good man, really, ”he remarked condescendingly,“ I live with him, and for me it’s still a small relief. Oui, mon cher, les jours se suivent, mais ne se ressemblent pas,” he added, and suddenly hesitated, blushed, and stood up, noticing that the same adjutant we were talking about was approaching us.

“It is such a joy to meet such a person as you,” Guskov said to me in a whisper, moving away from me, “I would like to talk a lot, a lot with you.

I said that I was very happy about this, but, in essence, I confess. Guskov inspired me with unsympathetic, heavy compassion.

I had a presentiment that I would be uncomfortable with him face to face, but I wanted to learn a lot from him, and especially why, when his father was so rich, he was in poverty, as was evident from his clothes and manners.

The adjutant greeted us all, with the exception of Guskov, and sat down next to me in the place occupied by the demoted one. Always calm and slow, a characteristic player and money man, Pavel Dmitrievich was now completely different, as I knew him in the flourishing days of his game; he seemed to be in a hurry somewhere, constantly looking around at everyone, and five minutes had not passed before he, always refusing to play, suggested to Lieutenant O. that they make a jar. Lieutenant O. refused under the pretext of employment in the service, in fact, because, knowing how little things and money Pavel Dmitrievich had left, he considered it unreasonable to risk his three hundred rubles against a hundred rubles, or maybe less, which he could win .

- And what, Pavel Dmitrievich, - said the lieutenant, apparently wanting to get rid of the repetition of the request, - do they really say - there is a performance tomorrow?

“I don’t know,” Pavel Dmitrievich remarked, “only I was ordered to get ready, but really, it would be better if they played, I would pawn my Kabardian to you.

- No, now...

- Gray, all right, and then, if you want, with money. Well?

“Yes, well, I ... I would be ready, don’t think about it,” Lieutenant O. spoke, answering his own doubt, “otherwise tomorrow, maybe a raid or a movement, you need to get enough sleep.

The adjutant stood up and, putting his hands in his pockets, began to walk around the platform. His face took on the usual expression of coldness and a certain pride, which I liked in him.

Would you like a glass of mulled wine? I told him.

“You can,” and he started towards me, but Guskov hastily took the glass from my hands and carried it to the adjutant, trying not to look at him. But, not paying attention to the rope pulling the tent, Guskov stumbled on it and, dropping the glass from his hands, fell on his hands.

- Eka fila! said the adjutant, who had already stretched out his hand to the glass. Everyone burst out laughing, not excepting Guskov, who rubbed his thin knee with his hand, which he could not hurt when he fell.

“This is how the bear served the hermit,” continued the adjutant. - So he serves me every day, he broke all the pegs on the tents - everyone stumbles.

Guskov, not listening to him, apologized to us and looked at me with a barely noticeable sad smile, with which he seemed to say that I alone could understand him. He was pathetic, but the adjutant, his patron, seemed for some reason embittered at his roommate and did not want to leave him alone.

“What a smart boy! wherever you turn.

- Yes, who does not stumble on these pegs, Pavel Dmitrievich, - said Guskov, - you yourself stumbled the third day.

- I, father, am not a lower rank, dexterity is not asked from me.

- He can drag his legs, - picked up the staff captain Sh., - and the lower rank should bounce ...

"Strange jokes," said Guskov, almost in a whisper, and lowering his eyes. The adjutant was apparently not indifferent to his roommate, he eagerly listened to his every word.

“We’ll have to send it as a secret again,” he said, turning to Sh. and winking at the demoted one.

“Well, there will be tears again,” Sh. said, laughing. Guskov no longer looked at me, but pretended to take tobacco out of a pouch, in which there had been nothing for a long time.

“Get in secret, my friend,” Sh. said through laughter, “today the scouts reported that there will be an attack on the camp at night, so you need to appoint reliable guys. - Guskov smiled hesitantly, as if about to say something, and several times raised an imploring glance at Sh.

“Well, after all, I went, and I will go again if they send,” he murmured.

Yes, they will send.

- Well, I'll go. What is it?

“Yes, like on the Argun, they ran away from the secret and left the gun,” said the adjutant and, turning away from him, began to tell us orders for tomorrow.

Indeed, during the night they expected firing at the camp from the enemy, and the next day some movement. After talking more about various general subjects, the adjutant, as if suddenly remembering accidentally, suggested that Lieutenant O. sweep him a little one. Lieutenant O. quite unexpectedly agreed, and together with Sh. and the ensign went to the adjutant's tent, who had a folding green table and maps. The captain, the commander of our division, went to sleep in the tent, the other gentlemen also dispersed, and we were left alone with Guskov. I was not mistaken, I really felt awkward with him face to face. I involuntarily got up and began to walk up and down the battery. Guskov silently walked beside me, turning hurriedly and uneasily so as not to lag behind and not to get ahead of me.

- Am I disturbing you? he said in a meek, sad voice. As far as I could see his face in the darkness, it seemed to me deeply thoughtful and sad.

“Not at all,” I answered; but since he did not begin to speak and I did not know what to say to him, we walked for quite a long time in silence.

The twilight had already been completely replaced by the darkness of night, a bright evening lightning lit up over the black profile of the mountains, small stars flickered overhead in a light blue frosty sky, on all sides the flames of smoking fires reddened in the darkness, near the gray of the tent and the embankment of our battery gloomy blackened. From the nearest fire, near which our batmen were talking quietly while warming themselves, the copper of our heavy guns occasionally shone on the battery, and the figure of a sentry in an overcoat turned upside down was shown, moving measuredly along the embankment.

“You cannot imagine what a joy it is for me to talk to a man like you,” Guskov told me, although he had not yet spoken to me about anything, “only someone who has been in my position can understand this.

I did not know what to answer him, and we were silent again, despite the fact that he, apparently, wanted to speak out, and I wanted to listen to him.

“What were you… what did you suffer for?” I asked him at last, unable to think of anything better to start a conversation.

- Haven't you heard about this unfortunate story with Metenin?

- Yes, a duel, it seems; heard in passing, - I answered, - after all, I have long been in the Caucasus.

- No, not a duel, but this stupid and terrible story! I'll tell you everything if you don't know. It was in the same year when we met at my sister's, I was then living in St. Petersburg. I must tell you, at that time I had what is called une position dans le monde, and quite profitable, if not brilliant. Mon pere me donnait dix milles par an. In 1949 I was promised a position at the embassy in Turin, my maternal uncle could and was always ready to do a lot for me. The thing is past now, j "etais recu dans la meilleure societe de Petersbourg, je pouvais pretendre, for the best game. I studied like we all studied at school, so I didn’t have a special education; however, I read a lot, mais j "avais surtout, you know, ce jargon du monde and, be that as it may, for some reason they found me one of the first young people in St. Petersburg. What raised me even more in the general opinion was c "est cette liaison avec madame D., about which they talked a lot in St. Petersburg, but I was terribly young at that time and did not appreciate all these benefits. I was just young and stupid, why should I At that time in St. Petersburg this Metenin had a reputation... - And Guskov continued to tell me the story of his misfortune in this way, which, as not at all interesting, I will skip here. - I was under arrest for two months, - he continued, - completely alone, and what I didn’t change my mind at that time. But you know, when it all ended, as if the connection with the past had finally been severed, I felt better. Mon pere, vous en avez entendu parler, he must be a man of character iron and with strong convictions, il m "a desherite. and cut off all communication with me. According to his convictions, this should have been done, and I do not in the least blame him: il a ete consequent On the other hand, I did not take a step so that he would change his intention. My sister was abroad, Madame D. alone wrote to me when she was allowed and offered to help, but you understand that I refused. So I didn't have those little things that make it a little easier in this position, you know, no books, no linen, no food, nothing. I changed my mind a lot, a lot at that time, I began to look at everything with different eyes; for example, this noise, the talk of the world about me in Petersburg did not interest me, did not flatter me at all, all this seemed to me ridiculous. I felt like I was at fault, careless, young, I ruined my career and only thought about how to fix it again. And I felt in myself for this strength and energy. From under arrest, as I told you, they sent me here, to the Caucasus, to N. regiment. I thought,” he continued, becoming more and more inspired, “that here, in the Caucasus, la vie de camp, simple, honest people with whom I will be in relations, war, danger, all this will suit my mood in the best possible way.” that I will start a new life. On me verra au feu, they will love me, they will respect me for more than one name - the cross, non-commissioned officer, they will remove the fine, and I will return again et, vous savez, avec ce prestige du malheur! Ho quel desenshantement. You cannot imagine how wrong I was!... Do you know the society of officers of our regiment? - He was silent for a long time, waiting, it seemed to me, that I would tell him that I knew how bad the company of the local officers was; but I didn't answer him. I was disgusted that he, because it is true that I knew French, assumed that I should have been indignant against the society of officers, which, on the contrary, after spending a long time in the Caucasus, I managed to fully appreciate and respect a thousand times more than the society from which Mr. Guskov emerged. I wanted to tell him this, but his position bound me. “In the N. Regiment, the company of officers is a thousand times worse than here,” he continued. - J "espere que c" est beaucoup dire, that is, you cannot imagine what it is! I'm not talking about the junkers and soldiers. What a horror it is! At first I was received well, it is absolutely true, but then, when they saw that I could not help but despise them, you know, in these inconspicuous petty relationships, they saw that I was a completely different person, standing much higher than they were, they became angry with me and began repay me with various petty humiliations. Ce que j "ai eu a souffrir, vous ne vous faites pas une idee. Then these involuntary relations with the junkers, and most importantly avec les petits moyens, que j" avais, je manquais de tout, y I had only that my sister sent. Here is proof for you how much I suffered, that with my character, avec ma fierte, j "ai ecrit a mon pere, I begged him to send me at least something. I understand that to live such a life for five years - you can become the same, like our degraded Dromov, who drinks with the soldiers and writes notes to all the officers, asking lend him with three rubles, and signed "tout a vous, Dromov." He walked silently beside me for a long time. - Avez-vous un papiros? he told me. Yes, so where did I stop? Yes. I could not stand it, not physically, because although it was bad, cold and hungry, I lived like a soldier, but still the officers had some respect for me. Some prestige remained on me and for them. They didn't send me on guard, for training. I wouldn't take it. But mentally I suffered terribly. And most importantly, I did not see a way out of this situation. I wrote to my uncle, begging him to transfer me to the local regiment, which, at least, is in business, and I thought that here Pavel Dmitrievich, qui est le fils de l "intendant de mon pere, after all, he could be useful to me. My uncle did this for me, they transferred me. After that regiment, this regiment seemed to me a collection of chamberlains. Then Pavel Dmitrievich was here, he knew who I was, and they received me perfectly. At the request of my uncle ... Guskov, vous savez ... but I noticed that with these people, without education and development, they cannot respect a person and show him signs of respect if he does not have this halo of wealth, nobility; I noticed how little by little, when they saw that I was poor, their relations with me became more careless , careless, and finally became almost contemptuous. It's terrible! but it's absolutely true.

- Here I was in business, fought, on m "a vu au feu," he continued, "but when will it end? I think never! and my strength and energy are already beginning to deplete. Then I imagined la guerre, la vie de camp, but all this is not as I see it - in a sheepskin coat, unwashed, in soldier's boots, you go into secret and lie all night in a ravine with some Antonov, who was given to the soldiers for drunkenness, and every minute you because of bushes can be shot, you or Antonov, it doesn’t matter. It’s not courage - it’s terrible. C "est affreux, ca tue.

“Well, now you can get a non-commissioned officer for a campaign, and next year a warrant officer,” I said.

- Yes, I can, they promised me, but two more years, and then hardly. And what are these two years, if anyone knew. Can you imagine this life with this Pavel Dmitrievich: cards, rude jokes, revelry; you want to say something that boils in your soul, they don’t understand you or they still laugh at you, they don’t talk to you in order to tell you an idea, but in such a way that, if possible, they can still make a jester out of you. Yes, and all this is so vulgar, rude, disgusting, and you always feel that you are a lower rank, you are always allowed to feel this. From this you will not understand what a pleasure it is to talk a coeur ouvert with a person like you.

I did not understand what kind of person I was, and therefore did not know what to answer him ...

- Will you have a snack? - Nikita said to me at this time, imperceptibly crept up to me in the dark and, as I noticed, was dissatisfied with the presence of a guest. - Only dumplings and beaten beef left a little.

“Did the captain eat?”

"They've been sleeping for a long time," Nikita answered sullenly. At my order to bring us here a snack and vodka, he grumbled something with displeasure and dragged himself to his tent. After grumbling while still there, he, however, brought us a cellar; he put a candle on the cellar, tying it in front with paper from the wind, a saucepan, mustard in a jar, a tin glass with a handle and a bottle of wormwood tincture. Having arranged all this, Nikita stood for some more time near us and watched as Guskov and I drank vodka, which, apparently, was very unpleasant for him. Under the dull illumination of the candle, through the paper and in the surrounding darkness, only the sealskin of the cellar, the supper standing on it, Guskov's face, short fur coat and his small red hands, with which he began to put dumplings out of the saucepan, could be seen. All around was black, and only by looking closely could one make out a black battery, the same black figure of a sentry, visible through the parapet, firelights on the sides and reddish stars above. Guskov smiled sadly and shyly, almost perceptibly, as if he was embarrassed to look me in the eyes after his confession. He drank another glass of vodka and ate greedily, scraping the saucepan.

“Yes, it’s a relief for you,” I said to him, to say something, “your acquaintance with the adjutant; he is, I heard, a very good man.

“Yes,” answered the demoted one, “he is a kind man, but he cannot be different, he cannot be a man, with his education one cannot demand. He suddenly seemed to blush. “You noticed his rude jokes today about the secret,” and Guskov, despite the fact that I tried several times to hush up the conversation, began to justify himself to me and prove that he had not run away from the secret and that he was not a coward, as they wanted to make it clear adjutant and Sh.

“As I told you,” he continued, wiping his hands on his sheepskin coat, “such people cannot be delicate with a man who is a soldier and who has little money; it is beyond their strength. And lately, since for some reason I have not received anything from my sister for five months, I noticed how they have changed towards me. This sheepskin coat, which I bought from a soldier and which does not keep you warm, because it is all worn out (while he showed me the bare coat), does not inspire him with compassion or respect for misfortune, but with contempt, which he is not able to hide. Whatever my need may be, as it is now that I have nothing to eat but soldier’s porridge, and nothing to wear,” he continued, looking down, pouring himself another glass of vodka, “he won’t think of offering me a loan, knowing for sure that I will repay him, but waits for me, in my position, to turn to him. And you understand what it's like for me and with him. For example, I would say directly to you - vous etes au-dessus de cela; mon cher, je n "ai pas le sou. And you know," he said, suddenly looking desperately into my eyes, "I tell you directly, I'm in a terrible situation now: pouvez vous me preter dix roubles argent? My sister should send me a next post et mon pere…

“Oh, I’m very glad,” I said, while, on the contrary, I was hurt and annoyed, especially because, having lost at cards the day before, I myself had only five rubles with something from Nikita. “Now,” I said, getting up, “I’ll go get it in the tent.

However, not listening to him, I crawled into the buttoned tent where my bed stood and the captain slept. “Aleksei Ivanovich, please give me ten rubles before the rations,” I said to the captain, pushing him aside.

- What, blew out again? and yesterday they didn’t want to play anymore,” the captain said awake.

- No, I didn’t play, but I need to, please give it.

- Makatyuk! - the captain shouted to his batman, - get the box with the money and give it here.

"Hush, hush," I said, listening to Guskov's measured steps behind the tent.

- What? why quieter?

“It was this demoted one who asked me for a loan. He is here!

- If I knew, I wouldn’t give it, - the captain remarked, - I heard about him - the first dirty boy! “However, the captain did give me money, ordered me to hide the box, wrap the tent well, and, repeating again: “If I had known what, I wouldn’t have given it,” he wrapped himself up under the covers. “Now you have thirty-two, remember,” he shouted at me.

When I left the tent, Guskov was walking around the sofas, and his small figure with crooked legs and in an ugly hat with long white hair showed up and hid in the darkness when he passed the candle. He pretended not to notice me. I gave him the money. He said merci and, crumpling, put the paper in the pocket of his trousers.

“Now Pavel Dmitrievich, I think, is playing in full swing,” he began after that.

- Yes, I think.

- He plays strangely, he always is an arebur and does not bend back: when you are lucky, this is good, but then, when it doesn’t work anymore, you can lose terribly. He proved it. In this detachment, if you count with things, he lost more than one and a half thousand. And how he played with restraint before, so that this officer of yours seemed to doubt his honesty.

- Yes, he is so ... Nikita, do we still have chikhir? I said, greatly relieved by Guskov's talkativeness. Nikita grumbled some more, but brought us some chikhir and again looked angrily as Guskov drank his glass. In Guskov's appeal, the former swagger became noticeable. I wanted him to leave as soon as possible, and it seemed that he did not do this only because he was ashamed to leave immediately after he received the money. I was silent.

- How did you, with the means, without any need, decide de gaiete de coeur to go to serve in the Caucasus? That's what I don't understand," he told me.

I tried to justify myself in such a strange act for him.

“I imagine how hard it is for you to be in the company of these officers, people without a clue about education. You cannot understand each other with them. After all, apart from maps, wine and talk about awards and campaigns, you will live ten years without seeing or hearing anything.

It was unpleasant for me that he wanted me to share his position without fail, and quite sincerely assured him that I was very fond of cards, and wine, and talk about campaigns, and that I didn’t want to have any better comrades that I had. . But he didn't want to believe me.

“Well, that’s what you say,” he continued, “and the absence of women, that is, I mean femmes comme il faut, isn’t it a terrible deprivation? I don't know what I would give now, just for a moment to be transported into the living room and even through the crack to look at the lovely woman.

He was silent for a while and drank another glass of chikhir.

- Oh, my God, my God! Maybe someday we will meet in Petersburg, among people, to be and live with people, with women. - He poured out the last wine left in the bottle, and after drinking it, he said: - Oh, pardon, maybe you wanted more, I'm terribly absent-minded. However, I seem to have drunk too much, et je n "ai pas la tete forte. There was a time when I lived on the Marine au re de chaussee, I had a wonderful apartment, furniture, you know, I knew how to arrange it gracefully, although not too expensive, really: mon pere gave me porcelain, flowers, wonderful silver. Le matin je sortais, visits, a cinq heures regulierement I went to dine with her, often she was alone. Il faut avouer que c "etait une femme ravissante! Did you not know her? not at all?

- You know, she had this femininity in the highest degree, tenderness, and then what kind of love! God! I did not know how to appreciate this happiness then. Or after the theater we returned together and had dinner. It was never boring with her, toujours gaie, toujours aimante. Yes, I had no idea what a rare happiness it was. Et j "ai beaucoup a, me reprocher in front of her. Je l" ai fait souffrir et souvent. I was cruel. Ah, what a wonderful time it was! Are you bored?

- No, not at all.

- So I'll tell you our evenings. I used to go in - this staircase, I knew every pot of flowers - the handle of the door, all this is so sweet, familiar, then the front room, her room ... No, this will never, never return! She still writes to me, I'll probably show you her letters. But I'm not the same, I'm dead, I'm no longer worth it ... Yes, I finally died! Je suis casse. I have no energy, no pride, nothing. Not even nobility... Yes, I'm dead! And no one will ever understand my suffering. Nobody cares. I am a lost man! I will never get up again, because I mentally fell ... into the mud ... fell ... - At that moment, sincere, deep despair was heard in his words; he did not look at me and sat motionless.

Why be so desperate? - I said.

“Because I am vile, this life has destroyed me, everything that was in me has been killed. I endure no longer with pride, but with meanness, dignite dans le malheur, no longer. I am humiliated every minute, I endure everything, I myself climb into humiliation. This filth a deteint sur moi, I myself have become rude, I forgot what I knew, I can no longer speak French, I feel that I am vile and base. I can’t fight in this situation, I absolutely can’t, maybe I could be a hero: give me a regiment, golden epaulettes, trumpeters, and go next to some wild Anton Bondarenko and so on and think what is between me and it makes no difference to them that they kill me or that they kill him - it doesn't matter, this thought kills me. Do you understand how terrible it is to think that some ragamuffin will kill me, a man who thinks, feels, and that it would still be next to me to kill Antonov, a creature that is no different from an animal, and that it can easily happen that they will kill me, and not Antonov, as always happens une fatalite for everything high and good. I know they call me a coward; let me be a coward, I'm definitely a coward and I can't be different. Not only am I a coward, I am in their language a beggar and despicable person. So I just begged you for money, and you have the right to despise me. No, take your money back,” and he handed me a crumpled piece of paper. “I want you to respect me. He covered his face with his hands and wept; I didn't really know what to say or do.

- Calm down, - I told him, - you are too sensitive, do not take everything to heart, do not analyze, look at things easier. You yourself say that you have character. Take it upon yourself, you don’t have long to endure,” I told him, but very awkwardly, because I was excited by both a feeling of compassion and a feeling of remorse that I allowed myself to mentally condemn a person who was truly and deeply unhappy.

“Yes,” he began, “if I had heard at least once since I was in this hell, at least one word of participation, advice, friendship - a human word, such as I hear from you. Maybe I could endure everything calmly; maybe I would even take it upon myself and could even be a soldier, but now it’s terrible ... When I reason sensibly, I wish death, and why should I love a disgraced life and myself, who died for all the good in the world? And at the slightest danger, I suddenly involuntarily begin to adore this vile life and cherish it like something precious, and I cannot, je ne puis pas, overcome myself. That is, I can,” he continued again after a moment of silence, “but it costs me too much work, enormous work, if I am alone. With others, in ordinary conditions, as you go into business, I am brave, j "ai fait mes preuves because I am proud and proud: this is my vice, and with others ... You know, let me spend the night with you, otherwise we kiss night the game will be, me somewhere, on earth.

While Nikita was making the bed, we got up and began walking around the battery in the dark again. Indeed, Guskov's head must have been very weak, because he was swaying from two glasses of vodka and two glasses of wine. When we got up and moved away from the candle, I noticed that, trying not to let me see it, he put the ten-rouble note in his pocket again, which he had been holding in his palm all the time of the preceding conversation. He went on to say that he felt that he could still rise if he had a man like me who would take part in it.

We were about to go to the tent to go to bed, when suddenly a shot whistled over us and hit the ground not far away. It was so strange - this quiet sleeping camp, our conversation, and suddenly an enemy cannonball, which, from God knows where, flew into the middle of our tents - so strange that for a long time I could not give myself an account of what it was. Our soldier Andreev, who was walking on the clock on the battery, moved towards me.

- Look, he crept up! There was a fire here,” he said.

“We need to wake up the captain,” I said, and looked at Guskov.

He stood, bent completely to the ground, and stammered, wanting to utter something. “It’s… otherwise… dislike… it’s super… funny.” He said nothing more, and I did not see how and where he disappeared instantly.

A candle was lit in the captain's tent, his usual awakening cough was heard, and he himself soon went out, demanding an overcoat to light his small pipe.

“What is it, father,” he said, smiling, “they don’t want to let me sleep today: now you are with your demoted one, then Shamil; what are we going to do, answer or not. Was there nothing about it in the order?

- Nothing. Here he is, - I said, - and of the two.

Indeed, in the darkness, ahead to the right, two fires lit up, like two eyes, and soon one cannonball and one, probably ours, empty grenade flew over us, producing a loud and piercing whistle. Soldiers crawled out of neighboring tents, their quacking, and stretching, and talking could be heard.

“Look, it whistles like a nightingale,” the gunner remarked.

“Call Nikita,” the captain said with his usual kind smile. - Nikita! do not hide, but listen to the mountain nightingales.

“Well, your honor,” said Nikita, standing next to the captain, “I saw them, the nightingales, I’m not afraid, but the guest that was here, our chikhir drank, as soon as he heard it, he shot so quickly past our tents, the ball rolled like a beast bent!

“However, we must go to the chief of artillery,” the captain told me in a serious commanding tone, “to ask whether to shoot at the fire or not; it won't make any sense, but it's still possible. Make the effort to go and ask. Tell the horse to saddle, it will be sooner, at least take my Polkan.

Five minutes later they gave me a horse, and I went to the chief of artillery.

“Look, the review is “drawbar,” the punctual captain whispered to me, “otherwise they won’t let me through the chain.”

It was half a verst to the chief of artillery, the whole road went between the tents. As soon as I drove away from our fire, it became so black that I could not even see the horse's ears, but only the fires, which seemed to me very close, then very far, seemed to me in my eyes. Having driven off a little, by the grace of the horse, to which I loosened the reins, I began to distinguish white quadrangular tents, then black ruts of the road; half an hour later, after asking three times for directions, twice hooking on the pegs of the tents, for which each time I received curses from the tents, and once or twice stopped by a sentry, I arrived at the chief of artillery. While I was driving, I heard two more shots not to our camp, but the shells did not reach the place where the headquarters was. The chief of artillery did not order to answer the shots, especially since the enemy stopped, and I went home, taking the horse in the reins and making my way on foot between the infantry tents. More than once I slowed down my pace, passing by a soldier's tent, in which a fire glowed, and listened either to a fairy tale that a joker told, or to a book that a literate man read and listened to the whole squad, crowded in and around the tent, interrupting the reader occasionally with different remarks, or simply to talk about the campaign, about the homeland, about the bosses.

Passing near one of the tents of the third battalion, I heard the loud voice of Guskov, who spoke very cheerfully and smartly. He was answered by young, also cheerful, gentlemanly, not soldierly voices. This, obviously, was a cadet or sergeant's tent. I stopped.

“I have known him for a long time,” Guskov said, “when I lived in St. Petersburg, he often visited me, and I visited him, he lived in a very good light.

– Who are you talking about? a drunken voice asked.

“About the prince,” said Guskov. - We are related to him, and most importantly - old friends. It is, you know, gentlemen, it is good to have such an acquaintance. He's terribly rich. He's a hundred ruble trifles. So I took some money from him until my sister sends it to me.

- Well, send it.

- Now. Savelich, my dove! - Guskov's voice spoke, moving towards the door of the tent, - here's ten coins for you, go to the shopper, take two bottles of Kakhetian and what else? Lord? Speak! - And Guskov, staggering, with matted hair, without a hat, left the tent. Turning down the flaps of his sheepskin coat and thrusting his hands into the pockets of his gray trousers, he stopped at the door. Although he was in the light and I was in the dark, I trembled with fear that he might not see me, and, trying not to make any noise, I went on.

- Who is there? Guskov shouted at me in a completely drunken voice. It can be seen that it was dismantled in the cold. - What the hell is going on with the horse?

I did not answer and silently got out on the road.

"Degraded"

From Caucasian memories

We were in a squad. - Things were already over, they finished cutting the clearing and every day they were waiting from the headquarters for an order to retreat to the fortress. Our division of battery guns stood on the slope of a steep mountain range ending in the fast mountain river Mechik, and had to fire at the plain ahead. On this picturesque plain, out of range, from time to time, especially before evening, here and there appeared non-hostile groups of horsemen riding out of curiosity to look at the Russian camp. The evening was clear, calm and fresh, as usual on December evenings in the Caucasus, the sun descended behind the steep spur of the mountains to the left and threw pink rays on the tents scattered along the mountain, on the moving groups of soldiers and on our two guns, heavily, as if stretching out their necks, standing motionless a couple of paces from us on an earthen battery. The infantry picket, located on the knoll to the left, was clearly visible in the transparent light of the sunset, with its goat guns, the figure of a sentry, a group of soldiers and the smoke of a fire. To the right and to the left, along the half-mountain, tents gleamed white on the black trampled earth, and behind the tents blackened the bare trunks of a plane tree forest, in which axes were constantly banging, bonfires were crackling, and chopped trees were falling with a roar.

Bluish smoke rose like a chimney from all sides into the light blue frosty sky. Cossacks, dragoons and artillerymen, returning from a watering place, were dragging past the tents and fields near the stream with stomping and snorting. It began to freeze, all the sounds were heard especially clearly - and far ahead along the plain it was visible in the pure rare air.

The enemy groups, no longer arousing the curiosity of the soldiers, quietly drove around the light yellow stubble of corn fields, in some places high cemeteries and smoking auls could be seen from behind the trees.

Our tent was not far from the guns, on a dry and high place, from which the view was especially extensive. Near the tent, near the battery itself, on a cleared area, we arranged a game of gorodki or ingots. Helpful soldiers immediately attached wicker benches and a table for us. Because of all these conveniences, artillery officers, our comrades, and a few infantrymen liked to gather in our battery in the evenings and called this place a club.

The evening was glorious, the best players gathered, and we played gorodki. I, warrant officer D. and lieutenant O. lost two games in a row and, to the general pleasure and laughter of the spectators - officers, soldiers and batmen who looked at us from their tents - carried the winning game twice on my backs from one horse to another.

Particularly amusing was the position of the huge, fat staff captain Sh., who, panting and smiling good-naturedly, with his legs dragging along the ground, rode on a small and frail lieutenant O. But it was getting late, the batmen brought us, for all six people, three glasses of tea without saucers, and we, having finished the game, went to the wicker benches. Near them stood a little man, unfamiliar to us, with crooked legs, in an unsheathed sheepskin coat and a hat with long hanging white wool.

As soon as we got close to him, he hesitantly took off and put on his hat several times, and several times seemed to be about to come up to us and stopped again.

But deciding, it must be, that it was no longer possible to remain unnoticed, this stranger took off his hat and, walking around us, approached Captain Sh.

Ah, Guscantini! Well, my friend? - Sh. told him good-naturedly smiling still under the influence of his trip.

Guskantini, as Sh. called him, immediately put on his hat and pretended to put his hands in the pockets of his sheepskin coat, but on the side from which he stood towards me there was no pocket in his sheepskin coat, and his small red hand remained in an awkward position. position. I wanted to decide who this man was (junker or demoted?), and I, not noticing that my look (i.e., the look of an unfamiliar officer) embarrassed him, peered intently at his clothes and appearance. He seemed to be in his thirties. His small, gray, round eyes looked out somehow sleepily and at the same time uneasily from behind the dirty, white kurpei papakha that hung over his face. A thick, irregular nose among sunken cheeks revealed a sickly, unnatural thinness. The lips, very little covered by a sparse, soft, whitish mustache, were incessantly in a restless state, as if trying to assume this or that expression. But all these expressions were somehow incomplete; on his face there always remained one predominant expression of fright and haste.

A green woolen scarf was tied around his thin, sinewy neck, hidden under a sheepskin coat. The sheepskin coat was worn, short, with a dog sewn on the collar and on the fake pockets. The pantaloons were checkered, ash-colored, and boots with short unblackened soldier tops.

Please don't worry,” I told him, when he looked at me timidly again and took off his hat.

He bowed to me with a grateful expression, put on his cap, and, taking a dirty cotton pouch with strings from his pocket, began to make a cigarette.

I myself was recently a cadet, an old cadet, no longer capable of being a good-natured, helpful junior comrade, and a cadet without a fortune, therefore, knowing full well the moral gravity of this position for an elderly and conceited person, I sympathized with all people in such a position, and tried to to explain to oneself their character and the degree and direction of their mental faculties, in order to judge by this the degree of their moral suffering. This junker or demoted one, by his restless look and that deliberate incessant change in facial expression that I noticed in him, seemed to me a very intelligent and extremely proud man, and therefore very pitiful.

Staff Captain Sh. suggested that we play another game of gorodki, so that the losing party, in addition to transportation, would pay for several bottles of red wine, rum, sugar, cinnamon and cloves for mulled wine, which this winter, due to the cold, was in big fashion in our squad. Guskantini, as Sh. again called him, was also invited to the game, but before starting the game, he, apparently struggling between the pleasure that this invitation gave him and some kind of fear, took Captain Sh. aside and began to whisper something to him.

The good-natured staff captain hit him with his plump, large palm on his stomach and answered loudly: "Nothing, my friend, I will believe you."

When the game was over, and the party in which there was an unfamiliar lower rank won, and he had to ride on one of our officers, ensign

The ensign blushed, went to the sofas and offered the lower rank cigarettes in the form of a ransom. While mulled wine was ordered and Nikita’s bustling housekeeping was heard in the orderly tent, sending a messenger for cinnamon and cloves, and his back stretched here and there the dirty floors of the tent, all seven of us sat down near the benches and, alternately drinking tea from three glasses and looking ahead on the plain, which was beginning to dress at dusk, they talked and laughed about the various circumstances of the game. A stranger in a sheepskin coat did not take part in the conversation, stubbornly refused tea, which I offered him several times, and, sitting on the ground in Tatar style, one after another made cigarettes from fine tobacco and smoked them, apparently, not so much for his pleasure, as much as to give himself the appearance of a busy man. When they started talking about the fact that tomorrow they were expecting a retreat and, perhaps, business, he got up on his knees and, turning to one staff captain Sh., said that he was now at the adjutant's house and he himself wrote the order to speak for tomorrow. We were all silent while he was speaking, and, despite the fact that he was apparently timid, we forced him to repeat this extremely interesting news for us. He repeated what he had said, adding, however, that he was sitting with the adjutant, with whom he lives together, while the order was brought.

Look, if you’re not lying, my friend, then I need to go in my company to order something for tomorrow,” said Staff Captain Sh.

No ... why? But the smallest tobacco poured out was no longer enough in his cotton pouch, and he asked Sh.

lend him a cigarette. We continued among ourselves for quite a long time that monotonous military chatter, which everyone who has been on campaigns knows, we all complained with the same expressions about boredom and the duration of the campaign, we talked about the authorities in the same manner, everything is the same as many times before. , they praised one comrade, pitied another, they were surprised how much this one won, how much this one lost, etc., etc.

Here, my friend, our adjutant broke through so broke through, - said staff captain Sh., - at the headquarters he was always a winner, with whomever he sits, he used to rake in, and now he is losing everything for the second month. The current detachment did not ask him. I think I lost 1000 coins, and 500 coins worth of things: the carpet that I won from Mukhin, Nikitinsky pistols, a gold watch, from Sada, what

Vorontsov gave it, everything blew up.

Serve him right, - said Lieutenant O., - otherwise he really blew everyone: -

you couldn't play with him.

He blew everyone, and now he flew out into the chimney, - and Staff Captain Sh.

laughed good-naturedly. - Here Guskov lives with him - he almost lost him, right. So, daddy? he turned to Guskov.

Guskov laughed. He had a pathetic, painful laugh that completely changed the expression on his face. With this change, it seemed to me that I had known and seen this man before, moreover, his real name, Guskov, was familiar to me, but how and when I knew and saw him, I definitely could not remember.

Yes, - said Guskov, constantly raising his hands to his mustache and, without touching them, lowered them again. - Pavel Dmitrievich was very unlucky in this detachment, such a veine de malheur (1) - he added in a diligent but clear French accent, and again it seemed to me that I had already seen, and even often seen, him somewhere. “I know Pavel Dmitrievich well, he trusts me with everything,” he continued,

We are still old acquaintances, that is, he loves me, ”he added, apparently frightened by the too bold assertion that he was an old acquaintance of the adjutant. - Pavel Dmitrievich plays great, but now it's amazing what happened to him, he's just like a lost one, - la chance a tourne, (2) -

At first we listened to Guskov with condescending attention, but as soon as he said this French phrase, we all involuntarily turned away from him.

I played with him a thousand times, and you will agree that this is strange, -

said Lieutenant O. with special emphasis on the atom of the word, - surprisingly strange: I have never won a single abaza from him. Why do I win over others?

Pavel Dmitrievich plays excellently, I have known him for a long time,” I said.

Indeed, I had known the adjutant for several years already, I had seen him more than once in the game, big at the expense of the officers, and admired his handsome, slightly gloomy and always imperturbably calm physiognomy, his slow little Russian accent, his beautiful things and horses, his unhurried Khokhlak youthfulness and especially his ability to play with restraint, distinctness and pleasure. More than once, I repent of that, looking at his full and white hands with a diamond ring on his index finger, which hit me one card after another, I was angry at this ring, at his white hands, at the whole person of the adjutant, and they came to me at his expense bad thoughts; but discussing it later in cold blood, I became convinced that he was simply a smarter player than all those with whom he had to play. Moreover, listening to his general discussions about the game, about how one should not bend back, having risen from a small jackpot, how one should go on strike in certain cases, how the first rule is to play on clean ones, etc.

etc., etc., it was clear that he always benefited only because he was smarter and more characteristic than all of us. Now it turned out that this abstemious, characteristic player lost heavily in the detachment not only in money, but also in things, which means the last degree of loss for an officer.

He's always damned lucky with me, - Lieutenant O. continued. - I already promised myself not to play with him anymore.

What an eccentric you are, my friend, - said Sh., winking at me with his whole head and turning to O., - you lost 300 coins to him, after all, you lost!

More than that,” the lieutenant said angrily.

And now they grabbed their wits, but it’s too late, my friend: everyone has long known that he is our regimental cheater, ”said Sh., barely restraining himself from laughter and very pleased with his invention. - Here Guskov is there, he is preparing cards for him. That's why they have friendship, my friend ... - and staff captain Sh. laughed so good-naturedly, hesitating with his whole body, that he spilled a glass of mulled wine, which he was holding in his hand at that time.

It was as if paint appeared on Guskov's yellow, emaciated face, he opened his mouth several times, raised his hands to his mustache and again lowered them to the place where the pockets should have been, rose and fell, and finally, in a voice that was not his own, said Sh .:

This is not a joke, Nikolai Ivanovich; you say such things even in front of people who don’t know me and see me in an unsheathed sheepskin coat ... because ...” His voice broke off, and again small red hands with dirty nails went from the sheepskin coat to his face, then straightening his mustaches, hair , nose, then clearing his eye or scratching his cheek unnecessarily.

What can I say, everyone knows, my friend, - continued Sh., sincerely pleased with his joke and not at all noticing Guskov's excitement. Guskov still whispered something and, resting the elbow of his right hand on the knee of his left leg, in the most unnatural position, looking at Sh., began to pretend that he was smiling contemptuously.

"No," I thought resolutely, looking at that smile, "I not only saw him, but spoke to him somewhere."

We met somewhere, - I told him, when, under the influence of general silence, Sh.'s laughter began to subside. Guskov's changeable face suddenly brightened, and for the first time his eyes, with a sincerely cheerful expression, rushed to me.

Well, I recognized you just now,” he spoke in French. - In 1948, I quite often had the pleasure of seeing you in Moscow, with my sister

Ivashchina.

I apologized for not recognizing him immediately in this suit and this new clothes. He got up, came up to me, and with his damp hand hesitantly, weakly shook my hand, and sat down beside me. Instead of looking at me, whom he seemed to be so glad to see, he looked back at the officers with an expression of some unpleasant boasting. Whether it was because I recognized him as a man whom I had seen in a tailcoat in the drawing-room several years ago, or because, at this recollection, he suddenly rose in his own opinion, it seemed to me that his face and even his movements had completely changed:

they now expressed a lively mind, childish self-satisfaction from the consciousness of this mind, and some kind of contemptuous carelessness, so that, I confess, despite the miserable situation in which he was, my old acquaintance no longer inspired me with compassion, but some kind of somewhat hostile feeling. .

I vividly recalled our first meeting. In 1948, when I was in my

Moscow went to Ivashin, with whom we grew up together and were old friends.

His wife was a pleasant mistress of the house, an amiable woman, as they say, but I never liked her ... That winter when I knew her, she often spoke with thinly concealed pride about her brother, who had recently completed his course and allegedly was one of the most educated and beloved young people in the best Petersburg society. Knowing by rumor the father of the Guskovs, who was very rich and occupied a significant place, and knowing the direction of my sister, I met the young Guskov with prejudice. Once, in the evening, arriving at

Ivashina, I found a short, very pleasant-looking young man in a black tailcoat, white waistcoat and tie, with whom the owner forgot to introduce me. The young man, apparently about to go to the ball, with a hat in his hand, stood in front of Ivashin and heatedly but politely argued with him about our common acquaintance, who distinguished himself at that time in the Hungarian campaign. He said that this acquaintance was not at all a hero and a man born for war, as he was called, but only an intelligent and educated person. I remember that I took part in the dispute against Guskov and went to extremes, even arguing that intelligence and education are always inversely related to courage, and I remember how Guskov pleasantly and cleverly proved to me that courage is a necessary consequence of intelligence and a certain degree of development, with which I, considering myself an intelligent and educated person, could not secretly disagree! I remember that at the end of our conversation, Ivashina introduced me to her brother, and he, smiling condescendingly, gave me his small hand, on which he had not yet quite managed to put on a kid glove, and just as weakly and hesitantly as now, shook my hand. . Although I was prejudiced against him, I could not then do justice to Guskov and disagree with his sister that he was really an intelligent and pleasant young man who should have been successful in society. He was unusually neat, elegantly dressed, fresh, had self-confidently modest manners and an extremely youthful, almost childlike appearance, sa which you involuntarily excused him for the expression of self-satisfaction and the desire to moderate the degree of his superiority over you, which constantly wore his intelligent face and in smile features. It was said that this winter he had great success with the Moscow ladies. Seeing him at his sister's, I could only conclude from the expression of happiness and contentment that his young appearance constantly wore, and from his sometimes immodest stories, to what extent this was true.

We met with him about six times and talked quite a lot, or rather he talked a lot and I listened. He spoke for the most part in French, a very good language, very fluently, figuratively, and was able to gently, politely interrupt others in conversation. In general, he treated everyone and me rather condescendingly, and I, as it always happens with me in relation to people who firmly believe that I should be treated condescendingly, and whom I know little, I felt that he was absolutely right in this. respect.

Now, when he sat down beside me and gave me his hand, I vividly recognized his former arrogant expression, and it seemed to me that he was not quite honestly taking advantage of his position as a lower rank in front of an officer, so casually questioning me about what I was doing. all this time and how it got here. In spite of the fact that I always answered in Russian, he spoke in French, which was already noticeably less fluent than before. He briefly told me to himself that after his unfortunate, stupid story (what this story consisted of, I didn’t know, and he didn’t tell me) he had been under arrest for three months, then he was sent to the Caucasus in the N. Regiment, - now He has been a soldier in this regiment for three years.

You will not believe, - he said to me in French, - how much I had to suffer in these regiments from the company of officers; it’s still my happiness that I used to know the adjutant about whom we were just talking: he’s a good man, really,

He remarked condescendingly, - I live with him, and for me it is still a small relief. Oui, mon cher, les jours se suivent, mais ne se ressemblent pas, (3) - he added and suddenly hesitated, blushed and got up, noticing that the same adjutant we were talking about was approaching us.

Such a joy to meet a man like you, - he said to me in a whisper

Guskov, moving away from me, - I would like to talk a lot, a lot with you.

I said that I was very glad about this, but in essence, I confess, Guskov inspired me with unsympathetic, heavy compassion.

I had a presentiment that I would be uncomfortable with him face to face, but I wanted to learn a lot from him, and especially why, when his father was so rich, he was in poverty, as was evident from his clothes and manners.

The adjutant greeted us all, with the exception of Guskov, and sat down next to me in the place occupied by the demoted one. Always calm and slow, a characteristic player and money man, Pavel Dmitrievich was now completely different, as I knew him in the flourishing days of his game; he seemed to be in a hurry somewhere, constantly looking around at everyone, and before five minutes had passed, he, who always refused to play, proposed to Lieutenant O.

make a jar. Lieutenant O.

refused under the pretext of employment in the service, actually because, knowing how little things and money Pavel Dmitrievich had left, he considered it imprudent to risk his 300 rubles against 100 rubles, or maybe less, which he could win.

And what, Pavel Dmitrievich, - said the lieutenant, apparently wanting to get rid of the repetition of the request, - do they really say - tomorrow the performance?

I don’t know,” Pavel Dmitrievich remarked, “only I was ordered to get ready, but really, it would be better if they played, I would pawn my Kabardian to you.

No, today...

Gray, all right, and then, if you want, with money. Well?

Yes, I'm well ... I would be ready, don't think about it, - Lieutenant O. spoke, answering his own doubt, - otherwise tomorrow, maybe a raid or a movement, you need to get enough sleep.

The adjutant stood up and, putting his hands in his pockets, began to walk around the platform. His face took on the usual expression of coldness and a certain pride, which I loved in him.

Would you like a glass of mulled wine? I told him.

You can, sir, - and he went towards me, but Guskov hurriedly took the glass from my hands and carried it to the adjutant, trying not to look at him. But, not paying attention to the rope pulling the tent, Guskov stumbled on it and, dropping the glass from his hands, fell on his hands.

Eka file! - said the adjutant, who had already stretched out his hand to the glass. Everyone burst out laughing, not excepting Guskov, who rubbed his thin knee with his hand, which he could not hurt when he fell.

That's how the bear served the hermit, - continued the adjutant. - That's how he serves me every day, he broke all the pegs on the tents, - everything stumbles.

Guskov, not listening to him, apologized to us and looked at me with a barely noticeable sad smile, with which he seemed to say that I alone could understand him. He was pathetic, but the adjutant, his patron, seemed for some reason embittered at his roommate and did not want to leave him alone.

What a clever boy! wherever you turn.

But who does not stumble over these pegs, Pavel Dmitrievich, - said

Guskov, - you yourself stumbled on the third day.

I, father, am not a lower rank, dexterity is not asked of me.

He can drag his legs, - picked up staff captain Sh., - and the lower rank should bounce ...

Strange jokes, - Guskov said almost in a whisper and lowering his eyes.

The adjutant was apparently not indifferent to his roommate, he eagerly listened to his every word.

We’ll have to send it as a secret again,” he said, turning to Sh. and winking at the demoted one.

Well, there will be tears again, - said Sh., laughing. Guskov no longer looked at me, but pretended to take tobacco out of a pouch, in which there had been nothing for a long time.

Get in secret, my friend, - Sh. said through laughter, - today the scouts reported that there will be an attack on the camp at night, so you need to appoint reliable guys. - Guskov smiled hesitantly, as if about to say something, and several times raised an imploring glance at Sh.

Well, after all, I went, and I will go again, if they send, - he murmured.

Yes, they will.

Well, I'll go. What is it?

Yes, as on Argun, they ran away from the secret and threw the gun, - said the adjutant and, turning away from him, began to tell us orders for tomorrow.

Indeed, during the night they expected firing from the enemy at the camp, and for the next day some kind of movement. After talking more about various general subjects, the adjutant, as if by accident, suddenly remembering, suggested that Lieutenant O. sweep him a little one.

Lieutenant O. quite unexpectedly agreed, and together with Sh. and the ensign went to the adjutant's tent, who had a folding green table and maps.

The captain, the commander of our division, went to sleep in the tent, the other gentlemen also dispersed, and we were left alone with Guskov. I was not mistaken, I really felt awkward with him face to face. I involuntarily got up and began to walk up and down the battery. Guskov silently walked beside me, turning hurriedly and uneasily so as not to lag behind and not to get ahead of me.

Am I bothering you? he said in a meek, sad voice. As far as I could see his face in the darkness, it seemed to me deeply thoughtful and sad.

Not at all, I answered; but since he did not begin to speak, and I did not know what to say to him, we walked for a long time in silence.

The twilight had already been completely replaced by the darkness of night, a bright evening lightning lit up over the black profile of the mountains, small stars flickered overhead in a light blue frosty sky, on all sides the flames of smoking fires reddened in the darkness, near the gray of the tent, and the embankment of our battery gloomily blackened. From the nearest fire, near which our batmen were talking quietly while warming themselves, the copper of our heavy guns occasionally shone on the battery, and the figure of a sentry in a greatcoat with a cape was shown, moving measuredly along the embankment.

You can’t imagine what a joy it is for me to talk to a man like you,” Guskov told me, although he had not yet spoken to me about anything, “only someone who has been in my position can understand this.

I did not know what to answer him, and we were silent again, despite the fact that he, apparently, wanted to speak out, and I wanted to listen to him.

What were you... what did you suffer for? - I asked him at last, without thinking of anything better to start a conversation.

Haven't you heard about this unfortunate story with Metenin?

Yes, a duel, it seems; heard in passing, - I answered: - after all, I have long been in the Caucasus.

No, not a duel, but this stupid and terrible story! I'll tell you everything if you don't know. It was in the same year when we met at my sister's, I was then living in St. Petersburg. I must tell you, I had then what is called une position dans le monde, (4) and quite profitable, if not brilliant. Mon pere me donnait 10,000 par an.(5) In 1949 I was promised a place at the embassy in Turin, my maternal uncle could and was always ready to do a lot for me.

The thing is past now, j "etais recu dans la meilleure societe de

Petersbourg, je pouvais pretendre(6) for the best game. I studied, as we all studied at school, so I did not have a special education; true, I read a lot after, mais j "avais surtout, you know, ce jargon du monde, (7) and, be that as it may, for some reason they found me one of the first young people

Petersburg. What elevated me even more in the general opinion - c "est cette liaison avec m-me D., (8) about which they talked a lot in St. Petersburg, but I was terribly young at that time and did not appreciate all these benefits. I was just young and stupid, what else did I need? At that time in St. Petersburg this Metenin had a reputation ... - And Guskov continued in this way to tell me the story of his misfortune, which, as completely uninteresting, I will skip here. - For two months I sat under arrest," he continued, "completely alone, and no matter what I changed my mind at that time. But you know, when it was all over, as if I had finally been severed for my connection with the past, I felt better. Mon pere, vous en avez entendu parler (9) he is probably a man with an iron character and strong convictions, il m "a desherite (10) and stopped all communication with me. According to his convictions, this should have been done, and I do not blame him at all:

il a ete consequent.(11) On the other hand, I did not take a step to make him change his intention. My sister was abroad, m-me D. wrote to me alone when she was allowed to, and offered to help, but you understand that I refused.

So I didn't have those little things that make it a little easier in this situation, you know: no books, no linen, no food, nothing. I changed my mind a lot, a lot at that time, I began to look at everything with different eyes; for example, this noise, the talk of the world about me in Petersburg did not interest me, did not flatter me at all, all this seemed to me ridiculous.

I felt like I was at fault, careless, young, I ruined my career and only thought about how to fix it again. And I felt in myself for this strength and energy. From under arrest, as I told you, they sent me here, to the Caucasus, to N.

I thought, - he continued, getting more and more inspired, - that here, on

La vie de camp, (12) simple, honest people with whom I will be in relations, war, danger, all this will suit my mood in the best possible way, that I will start a new life. On me verra au feu (13) - they will love me, they will respect me for more than one name, - the cross, non-commissioned officer, they will remove the fine, and I will return again et, vous savez, avec ce prestige du malheur! Ho quel desenchantement.(14) You can't imagine how wrong I was!..

Do you know the society of officers of our regiment? - He was silent for a long time, waiting, it seemed to me, that I would tell him that I knew how bad the company of the local officers was; but I didn't answer him. I was disgusted that he, because it is true that I knew French, assumed that I should have been indignant against the society of officers, which I, on the contrary, having spent a long time on

Caucasus, managed to fully appreciate and respected a thousand times more than the society from which Mr. Guskov came out. I wanted to tell him this, but his position bound me.

In the N. Regiment, the society of officers is a thousand times worse than here,” he continued. - J "espere que c" est beaucoup dire, (15) i.e. you can't imagine what it is! I'm not talking about the junkers and soldiers. What a horror it is! At first I was received well, it is absolutely true, but then, when they saw that I could not help but despise them, you know, in these inconspicuous petty relationships, they saw that I was a completely different person, standing much higher than they were, they became angry with me and began repay me with various petty humiliations. Ce que j "ai eu a souffrir, vous ne vous faites pas une idee. (16) Then these involuntary relations with the junkers, and most importantly avec les petits moyens que j" avais, je manquais de tout, (17) I was only what my sister sent me. Here is proof to you of how much I suffered, that with my character, avec ma fierte, j "ai ecrit a mon pere, (18) I begged him to send me at least something. I understand that living such a life for five years -

one can become like our degraded Dromov, who drinks with the soldiers and writes notes to all the officers, asking him to lend him three rubles, and signing Dromov's tout a vous. It was necessary to have such a character that I had in order not to get completely bogged down in this terrible situation. He walked silently beside me for a long time. - Avez vous un papiros?(20)

He told me. - Yes, so where did I stop? Yes.

I could not stand it, not physically, because although it was bad, cold and hungry, I lived like a soldier, but still the officers had some respect for me. Some prestige (21) remained on me and for them. They didn't send me on guard, for training. I wouldn't take it. But mentally I suffered terribly. And most importantly, I did not see a way out of this situation. I

wrote to my uncle, begged him to transfer me to the local regiment, which is at least in business, and thought that Pavel Dmitrievich was here, qui est le fils de l "intendant de mon pere, (22) after all, he could be useful to me "Uncle did it for me, they transferred me. After that regiment, this regiment seemed to me like a meeting of chamberlains. Then Pavel Dmitrievich was here, he knew who I was, and I was received perfectly. At the request of my uncle ... Guskov, vous savez ... (23) but I noticed that with these people, without education and development, they cannot respect a person and show him signs of respect if he does not have this halo of wealth, nobility; I noticed how little by little when they saw that I am poor, their relations with me became more careless, careless, and finally became almost contemptuous It's terrible, but it's absolutely true.

Here I was in business, fought, on m "a vu au feu, (24) - he continued,

But when will it end? I think never! and my strength and energy are already beginning to deplete. Then I imagined la guerre, la vie de camp, (25) but all this is not as I see it - in a short fur coat, unwashed, in soldier's boots you go into secret and lie all night in a ravine with some Antonov, for drunkenness handed over to the soldiers, and any minute they might shoot you from behind a bush, you or Antonov, it doesn’t matter. It's not courage - it's terrible. C "est affreux, cat tue. (26)

Well, now you can get a non-commissioned officer for a campaign, and next year a warrant officer, ”I said.

Yes, I can, they promised me, but two more years, and then hardly. And what are these two years, if anyone knew. Can you imagine this life with this

Pavel Dmitrievich: cards, rude jokes, revelry, you want to say something that boils in your soul, they don’t understand you or they still laugh at you, they don’t talk to you in order to tell you a thought, but in such a way that, if possible, make a jester out of you. Yes, and all this is so vulgar, rude, disgusting, and you always feel that you are a lower rank, you are always allowed to feel this.

This will not make you understand what a pleasure it is to talk a coeur ouvert(27) with a man like you.

I did not understand what kind of person I was, and therefore did not know what to answer him ...

Will you have a snack? - Nikita said to me at that time, imperceptibly crept up to me in the dark and, as I noticed, was dissatisfied with the presence of a guest. - Only dumplings and beaten beef left a little.

Did the captain eat?

They have been sleeping for a long time,” Nikita answered gloomily. At my order to bring us here a snack and vodka, he grumbled something with displeasure and dragged himself to his tent.

After grumbling while still there, he nevertheless brought us a cellar; he put a candle on the cellar, tying it in front with paper from the wind, a saucepan, mustard in a jar, a tin glass with a handle and a bottle of wormwood tincture. Having arranged all this

Nikita stood for some more time near us and watched as Guskov and I drank vodka, which, apparently, was very unpleasant for him. Under the dull illumination of the candle, through the paper and in the surrounding darkness, only the sealskin of the cellar, the supper standing on it, Guskov's face, short fur coat and his small red hands, with which he began to put dumplings out of the saucepan, could be seen. Everything was black all around, and only by looking closely could one make out a black battery, the same black figure of a sentry, visible through the parapet, firelights on the sides and reddish stars above. Guskov smiled sadly and shyly, almost perceptibly, as if he was embarrassed to look me in the eyes after his confession. He drank another glass of vodka and ate greedily, scraping the saucepan.

Yes, it's a relief for you all the same, - I said to him, to say something, - your acquaintance with the adjutant: he, I heard, is a very good person.

Yes, - answered the demoted one, - he is a good man, but he cannot be different, he cannot be a man, with his education one cannot demand. He suddenly seemed to blush. - Did you notice his rude jokes today about the secret, -

and Guskov, despite the fact that I tried several times to hush up the conversation, began to justify himself to me and prove that he had not run away from the secret and that he was not a coward, as the adjutant and Sh.

As I told you,” he continued, wiping his hands on his sheepskin coat, “such people cannot be delicate with a man who is a soldier and who has little money;

it is beyond their strength. And lately, since for some reason I have not received anything from my sister for five months, I noticed how they have changed towards me. This sheepskin coat, which I bought from a soldier and which does not keep you warm, because it is all worn out (while he showed me the bare coat), does not inspire him with compassion or respect for misfortune, but with contempt, which he is not able to hide. Whatever my need may be, as now that I have nothing to eat but soldier’s porridge, and nothing to wear,” he continued, looking down, pouring himself another glass of vodka, “he won’t think of offering me a loan of money, knowing for sure that I will give it to him.” but waits for me in my position to turn to him. And you understand what it's like for me and with him. For example, I would say directly to you - vous etes au-dessus de cela; mon cher, je n "ai pas le sou. (28) And you know -

he said, suddenly looking desperately into my eyes, “I tell you straight, I am now in a terrible position: pouvez vous me preter 10 roubles argent? (29)

My sister should send me by the next post et mon pere...(30)

Oh, I’m very glad,” I said, while, on the contrary, I was hurt and annoyed, especially because, having lost at cards the day before, I myself had only five rubles with something from Nikita. - Now, - I said, getting up, - I'll go get it in the tent.

No, after that, ne vous derangez pas. (31) However, not listening to him, I crawled into the buttoned tent where my bed stood and the captain slept. -

Alexei Ivanovich, please give me 10 rubles. to the rations,” I said to the captain, pushing him aside.

What, blown out again? and yesterday they wanted not to play anymore, -

awake said the captain.

No, I did not play, but I need to, please give me.

Makatyuk! - the captain shouted to his batman, - get the box with the money and give it here.

Hush, hush," I said, listening to Guskov's measured steps behind the tent.

What? why quieter?

It was this demoted man who asked me for a loan. He is here!

If I knew, I wouldn’t give it, - the captain remarked, - I heard about him -

first dirty boy! - However, the captain did give me money, ordered me to hide the box, wrap the tent well, and, repeating again: - if I knew what, I wouldn’t give it, - I wrapped myself up under the covers. -

Now you have thirty-two, remember, he shouted to me.

When I left the tent, Guskov was walking around the sofas, and his small figure with crooked legs and in an ugly hat with long white hair showed up and hid in the darkness when he passed the candle. He pretended not to notice me. I gave him the money. He said: merci and, crumpling, put the paper in the pocket of his trousers.

Now, Pavel Dmitrievich, I think, the game is in full swing, - after this he began.

Yes, I think.

He plays strangely, is always an arebur and does not bend back; when you're lucky, that's good, but when it doesn't work, you can lose terribly. He proved it. In this detachment, if you count with things, he lost more than one and a half thousand. And how he played with restraint before, so that this officer of yours seemed to doubt his honesty.

Yes, he is so ... Nikita, do we still have chikhir? I said, greatly relieved by Guskov's talkativeness. Nikita grumbled some more, but brought us some chikhir and again looked angrily as Guskov drank his glass. IN

in Guskov's appeal, the former swagger became noticeable. I wanted him to leave as soon as possible, and it seemed that he did not do this only because he was ashamed to leave immediately after he received the money. I was silent.

How is it that you, with the means, without any need, decided de gaiete de coeur (32) to go to serve in the Caucasus? That's what I don't understand, he told me.

I tried to justify myself in such a strange act for him.

I imagine how hard it is for you to be in the company of these officers, people without any idea of ​​education. You cannot understand each other with them. Indeed, in addition to maps, wine and talk about awards and campaigns, you will live ten years, you will not see or hear anything.

It was unpleasant to me that he wanted me to necessarily share his position, and I quite sincerely assured him that I was very fond of cards, and wine, and talk about campaigns, and that better than those comrades that I had, I did not wanted to have. But he didn't want to believe me.

Well, you say it like that,” he continued, “but the absence of women, that is,

I mean femmes comme il faut, (33) isn't this a terrible deprivation? I don't know what I would give now, just for a moment to be transported into the living room and even through the crack to look at the lovely woman.

He was silent for a while and drank another glass of chikhir.

Oh my God, my God! Maybe someday we will meet in Petersburg, among people, to be and live with people, with women. - He poured out the last wine remaining in the bottle, and after drinking it, he said: - Oh, pardon, maybe you wanted more, I'm terribly absent-minded. However, I seem to have drunk too much et je n "ai pas la tete forte. (34) There was a time when I lived on the Sea au rez de chaussee, (35) I had a wonderful apartment, furniture, you know, I knew how to do it arrange gracefully, although not too expensive, really:

mon pere gave me china, flowers, wonderful silver. Le matin je sortais, visits, a 5 heures regulierement(36) I went to dine with her, often she was alone. Il faut avouer que c "etait une femme ravissante? (37) Didn't you know her?

not at all?

You know, she had this femininity to the highest degree, tenderness, and then what kind of love! God! I did not know how to appreciate this happiness then. Or after the theater we returned together and had dinner. It was never boring with her, toujours gaie, toujours aimante. (38) Yes, I did not foresee what a rare happiness it was. Et j "ai beaucoup a me reprocher in front of her. Je l" ai fait souffrir et souvent. (39) I was cruel. Ah, what a wonderful time it was! Are you bored?

No, not at all. - So I'll tell you our evenings. I used to go in

this staircase, every pot of flowers I knew - the handle of the door, it's all so sweet, familiar, then the hall, her room ... No, this will never, never return! She still writes to me, I'll probably show you her letters. But I'm not the same, I'm lost, I'm no longer worth it ... Yes, I'm finally dead! Je suis casse.(40) I have no energy, no pride, nothing. Not even nobility... Yes, I'm dead! And no one will ever understand my suffering. Nobody cares. I am a lost man! I will never get up again, because I morally fell ... into the mud ... fell ... - At that moment, sincere, deep despair was heard in his words: he did not look at me and sat motionless.

Why be so desperate? - I said.

Because I am vile, this life destroyed me, everything that was in me, everything was killed. I endure no longer with pride, but with meanness, dignite dans le malheur is no more. I am humiliated every minute, I endure everything, I myself climb into humiliation. This dirt a deteint sur moi, (42) I myself became rude, I forgot what I knew, I can no longer speak French, I feel that I am mean and low.

I can’t fight in this situation, I definitely can’t, maybe I could be a hero: give me a regiment, golden epaulettes, trumpeters, and go next to some wild Anton Bondarenko, etc.

and to think that there is no difference between me and him, that they will kill me or kill him - all the same, this thought kills me. Do you understand how terrible it is to think that some ragamuffin will kill me, a man who thinks, feels, and that it would still be next to me to kill Antonov, a creature that is no different from an animal, and that it can easily happen that they will kill me, not Antonov, as always happens une fatalite(43)

for everything high and good.

I know they call me a coward; let me be a coward, I'm definitely a coward and I can't be different. Not only am I a coward, I am in their language a beggar and despicable person. So I just begged you for money, and you have the right to despise me. No, take your money back, - and he handed me a crumpled piece of paper. - I want you to respect me. He covered his face with his hands and wept;

I didn't really know what to say or do.

Calm down, - I told him, - you are too sensitive, do not take everything to heart, do not analyze, look at things easier. You yourself say that you have character. Take it upon yourself, you don’t have long to endure, ”I tell him, but very awkwardly, because I was excited by both a feeling of compassion and a feeling of remorse that I allowed myself to mentally condemn a person who was truly and deeply unhappy.

Yes, - he began, - if I had heard at least once since I was in this hell, at least one word of participation, advice, friendship - a human word, such as I hear from you. Maybe I could endure everything calmly; maybe I would even take it upon myself and could even be a soldier, but now it’s terrible ... When I reason sensibly, I wish death, and why should I love a disgraced life and myself, who died for all the good in the world? And at the slightest danger, I suddenly involuntarily begin to adore this vile life and cherish it like something precious, and I cannot, je ne puis pas, (44) overcome myself. That is, I can,” he continued again after a moment’s silence, “but it costs me too much work, enormous work, if I’m alone. With others in ordinary conditions, as you go into business, I am brave, j "ai fait mes preuves, (45) because I am proud and proud: this is my vice, and with others ...

You know, let me spend the night with you, otherwise we will have a game all night long, somewhere on earth for me.

While Nikita was making the bed, we got up and began walking around the battery in the dark again. Indeed, Guskov's head must have been very weak, because he was swaying from two glasses of vodka and two glasses of wine. When we got up and moved away from the candle, I noticed that, trying not to let me see it, he put the ten-rouble note in his pocket again, which he had been holding in his palm all the time of the preceding conversation. He went on to say that he felt that he could still rise if he had a man like me who would take part in it.

We were about to go into the tent to go to bed, when suddenly a cannonball whistled over us and hit the ground not far away. It was so strange - this quiet sleeping camp, our conversation, and suddenly an enemy core, which, from God knows where, flew into the middle of our tents - so strange that for a long time I could not give myself an account of what it was. Our soldier Andreev, who was walking on the clock on the battery, moved towards me.

Vish crept up! There was a fire here, he said.

We must wake the captain, - I said and looked at Guskov.

He stood, bent completely to the ground, and stammered, wanting to utter something. - This is ... otherwise ... hostility ... this is super ... funny. - He said nothing more, and I did not see how and where he disappeared instantly.

A candle was lit in the captain's tent, his usual awakening cough was heard, and he himself soon went out, demanding an overcoat to light his small pipe.

What is it, father, - he said, smiling, - they don’t want to let me sleep today: now you are with your degraded, then Shamil; what are we going to do:

answer or not?

Was there nothing about it in the order?

Nothing. Here he is, - I said, - and out of two. - Indeed, in the darkness, to the right in front, two fires lit up, like two eyes, and soon one cannonball and one, must be ours, empty grenade flew over us, producing a loud and piercing whistle. Soldiers crawled out from neighboring tents, their quacking and stretching and talking could be heard.

You see, it whistles like a nightingale, - the artilleryman noticed.

Call Nikita, - said the captain with his usual kind smile.

Nikita! do not hide, but listen to the mountain nightingales.

Well, your honor, - said Nikita, standing next to the captain,

I saw them, the nightingales, I'm not afraid, but the guest that was here, our chikhir was drinking, as soon as I heard it, it gave a quick arrow past our tent, rolled like a beast like a beast!

However, it is necessary to go to the chief of artillery, - the captain told me in a serious bossy tone, - to ask whether to shoot at the fire or not;

it won't make any sense, but it's still possible. Make the effort to go and ask.

Tell the horse to saddle, it will be sooner, at least take my Polkan.

Five minutes later they gave me a horse, and I went to the chief of artillery.

Look, the tip of the drawbar, - the punctual captain whispered to me, - otherwise they won’t let me through the chain.

It was half a verst to the chief of artillery, the whole road went between the tents. As soon as I drove away from our fire, it became so black that I could not even see the horse's ears, but only the fires, which seemed to me very close, then very far, seemed to me in my eyes. Having driven off a little, by the grace of the horse, to which I loosened the reins, I began to distinguish white quadrangular tents, then black ruts of the road; half an hour later, after asking three times for directions, twice hooking on the pegs of the tents, for which each time I received curses from the tents, and twice stopped by sentries, I arrived at the chief of artillery. While I was driving, I heard two more shots at our camp, but the shells did not reach the place where the headquarters was. The chief of artillery did not order to answer the shots, especially since the enemy stopped, and I went home, taking the horse in the reins and making my way on foot between the infantry tents. More than once I slowed down my pace, passing by a soldier's tent, in which a fire glowed, and listened either to a fairy tale that a joker told, or to a book that a literate man read and listened to the whole squad, crowded in and around the tent, interrupting the reader occasionally with different remarks, or simply to talk about the campaign, about the homeland, about the bosses.

Passing near one of the tents of the 3rd battalion, I heard a loud voice

Guskov, who spoke very cheerfully and smartly. He was answered by young, also cheerful, gentlemanly, not soldierly voices. This, obviously, was a cadet or sergeant's tent. I stopped.

I have known him for a long time, - said Guskov. - When I lived in St. Petersburg, he often visited me, and I visited him, he lived in a very good light.

Who are you talking about? asked a drunken voice.

About the prince, - said Guskov. - We are relatives with him, and most importantly -

old buddies. It is, you know, gentlemen, it is good to have such an acquaintance. He's terribly rich. He's a hundred ruble trifles. So I took some money from him until my sister sends it to me.

Well, send it.

Now. Savelich, my dove! - Guskov's voice spoke, moving towards the door of the tent, - here's ten coins for you, go to the shopper, take two bottles of Kakhetian and what else? Lord? Speak! - And Guskov, staggering, with matted hair, without a hat, left the tent. Turning down the flaps of his sheepskin coat and thrusting his hands into the pockets of his gray trousers, he stopped at the door.

Although he was in the light and I was in the dark, I trembled with fear that he might not see me, and, trying not to make any noise, I went on.

Who is there? Guskov shouted at me in a completely drunken voice. It can be seen that it was dismantled in the cold. - What the hell is going on with the horse?

I did not answer and silently got out on the road.

(1) [losing streak,]

(2) [happiness turned away,]

(3) [Yes, my dear, the days go one after another, but do not repeat,]

(4) [position in light,]

(5) [Father gave me 10,000 annually.]

(6) [I was accepted in the best society of St. Petersburg, I could count]

(7) [but I was especially proficient in this secular jargon,]

(8) [so this is the relationship with Ms. D.,]

(9) [My father, have you heard of him]

(10) [he deprived me of the right to inherit]

(11) [He was consistent.]

(12) [camp life,]

(13) [I will be seen under fire]

(14) [and, you know, with this charm of misfortune! But what a disappointment.]

(15) [I hope this says enough,]

(16) [You can't imagine how much I've suffered.]

(17) [with the little money I had, I needed everything]

(18) [with my pride, I wrote to my father,]

(19) [all yours]

(20) [Do you have a cigarette?]

(22) [son of my father's steward,]

(23) [you know...]

(24) [I was seen under fire,]

(25) [war, camp life,]

(26) [It's terrible, it's deadly.]

(27) [like]

(28) [you are above this; my dear, I don't have a penny.]

(29) [can you lend me 10 silver rubles?]

(30) [and my father...]

(31) [Don't worry.]

(32) [with a light heart]

(33) [decent women,]

(34) [and I have a weak head.]

(35) [downstairs,]

(36) [In the morning I left, exactly at 5 o'clock]

(37) [I must admit that she was a charming woman! ]

(38) [always cheerful, always loving.]

(39) [I reproach myself for many things before her. I often made her suffer.]

(40) [I'm broken.]

(41) [merits in adversity]

(42) [imprinted on me,]

(44) [I can't]

(45) [I proved]

See also Leo Tolstoy - Prose (stories, poems, novels...):

Forest felling. Junker's story
(1852-1854) I. In the middle of the winter of 185, the division of our battery stood ...

Sevastopol in August 1855
1 At the end of August, along the big gorge Sevastopol road, between D...