The Duel

“Thanks, my children,” cried the old General joyously – “that’s the way it should be done. Thanks, thanks.”

After the oral examination the company was drawn up in open file; but the General delayed his final dismissal. It was as if it seemed hard to him to say good-bye to this company. Passing as slowly as possible along the front, he observed every soldier with particular and deep interest, and a very delighted smile gleamed through the pince-nez from the clever eyes beneath the heavy, prominent eyebrows. Suddenly he stopped his charger, turned round on his saddle to the head of his staff, and exclaimed —

“No; come here and look, Colonel, what muzzles the rascals have. What do you feed them on, Captain? Pies? Hi, you thick nose” (he pointed to a young soldier in the ranks), “your name’s Kovál?”

“Mikhail Borichuk, your Excellency,” boldly replied the young recruit with a frank, happy smile.

“Oh, you scamp, I thought you were called Kovál. Well, this time I was out of my reckoning,” said the General in fun, “but there’s no harm done; better luck next time,” he added, with the same good-humour.

At these words the soldier’s countenance puckered in a broad grin.

“No, your Excellency, you are not wrong at all,” shouted the soldier in a raised voice. “At home, in the village, I am employed as a farrier, and, therefore, they call me Kovál.”

The General nodded in delight, and he was evidently very proud of his memory. “Well, Captain, is he a good soldier?”

“Very good, General. All my soldiers are good,” replied Stelikovski in his usual confident tone.

The General’s eyebrows were knitted, but his lips kept smiling, and the crabbed old face gradually resumed its light and friendly expression. “Well, well, Captain; we will see about that. How is the punishment-list?”

“Your Excellency, for five years not a single man in my company has been punished.”

The General bent forward heavily and held out to Stelikovski his hairy hand in the white, unbuttoned glove that had slipped down to the knuckles.

“I heartily thank you, my friend,” he replied in a trembling voice, and tears glistened in his eyes. The General, like many old warriors, liked, now and then, to shed a slight tear. “Again my thanks for having given an old man pleasure. And you, too, my brave boys, accept my thanks,” he shouted in a loud and vigorous voice to the soldiers.

Thanks to the good impression left behind from Stelikovski’s inspection, the review of the 6th Company also went off nearly satisfactorily; the General did certainly not bestow praise, but neither were any reproaches heard. At the bayonet attack on the straw mannikin this company even went astray.

“Not that way, not that way, not that way!” screamed the General, shaking with wrath in the saddle. “Hold, stop! that’s damnable. You go to work as if you were making a hole in soft bread. Listen, boys. That’s not the way to deal with an enemy. The bayonet should be driven in forcibly and furiously right in the waist up to the muzzle of your rifle. Don’t forget.”

The remaining companies made, one after the other, a hopeless “hash” of everything. At last the General’s outburst of anger ceased. Tired and listless, he watched the miserable spectacle with gloomy looks, and, without uttering a word, he entirely excused himself from inspecting the 15th and 16th Companies, exclaiming with a gesture of disgust —

“Enough, enough of such abortions.”

There still remained the grand march past, and the parade. The whole regiment was formed into columns with half companies in front, and reduced gaps. Again the everlasting markers were ordered out to set the line of march by their ropes. The heat was now almost unbearable, and the soldiers could hardly bear any longer the fearful stench that exuded from their own freely perspiring bodies.

But for the forthcoming “solemn” march past, the men now made a final effort to pull themselves together. The officers almost besought their subordinates to strain every nerve for this final proof of their endurance and discipline. “Brothers, for the honour of the regiment, do your best. Save yourselves and us from disgracing ourselves before the General.” In this humble recourse on the part of the officers to their subordinates there lay – besides much else that was little edifying – too, an indirect recognition of their own faults and shortcomings. The wrath aroused in such a great personage as the General of the regiment was felt to be equally painful and oppressive to officers and troops alike, and it had, to some extent, a levelling effect, so that all were, in an equally high degree, dispirited, nervous, and apathetic.

“Attention! The band in front!” ordered Colonel Shulgovich, in the far distance.

And all these fifteen hundred human beings for a second suppressed their faint inward murmurings; all muscles were once more strained, and again they stood in nervous, painful expectation.

Shulgovich could not be detected by any eye, but his tremendous voice again rang across the field —

“Stand at ease!”

Four battalion Captains turned in their saddles to their respective divisions, and each uttered the command —

“Battalion, stand at – ” after which they awaited with feverish nervousness the word of command.

Somewhere, far away on the field, a sabre suddenly gleamed like lightning in the air. This was the desired signal, and all the Captains at once roared —

“ – ease!” whereupon all the regiment, with a dull thud, grounded their rifles. Here and there was heard the click of a few unfortunate bayonets which, in the movement, happened to clash together.

But now, at last, the solemn, never-to-be-forgotten moment had arrived, when the commander of the regiment’s tremendous lungs were to be heard by the world in all their awful majesty. Solemnly, confidently, but, at the same time, menacingly, like slow rumblings of thunder, the strongly accentuated syllables rolled across the plain in the command —

“March past!”

In the next moment you might hear sixteen Captains risking their lives in mad attempt to shout each other down, when they repeated all at once —

“March past!”

One single poor sinner far away in detail of the column managed to come too late. He whined in a melancholy falsetto:

“March pa – !”

The rest of the word was unfortunately lost to the men, and probably drowned in the oaths and threats of the bystanders.

“Column in half companies!” roared Colonel Shulgovich.

“Column in half companies!” repeated the Captains.

“With double platoon – hollow!” chanted Shulgovich.

“With double platoon – hollow!” answered the choir.

“Dress-ing – ri-ight!” thundered the giant.

“Dress-ing – ri-ight!” came from the dwarfs.

Shulgovich now took breath for two or three seconds, after which he once more gave vent to his voice of thunder in the command —

“First half company – forward – march!”

Rolling heavily through the dense ranks across the level plain came Osadchi’s dull roar —

“First half company, dress to the right – forward – march!”

Away in the front was heard the merry rattle of drums. Seen from the rear, the column resembled a forest of bayonets which often enough waved backwards and forwards.

“Second half company to the middle!” Romashov recognized Artschakovski’s squeaky falsetto.

A new line of bayonets assumed a leaning position and departed. The thunder of the drums grew more and more faint, and was just about to sink down, as it were, and be absorbed in the ground, when suddenly the last sounds of drum-beats were dispersed by the rhythmically jubilant, irresistible waves of music from the wind instruments. The sleepy marching time of the companies filing past at once caught fire and life; languid eyes and greyish cheeks regained their colour, and tired muscles were once more braced to save the honour of the regiment.

The half companies proceeded to march, one after the other, and at every step the soldiers’ torpid spirits were revived under the influence of the band’s cheerful strains. The 1st Battalion’s last company had already got some distance when, lo! Lieutenant-Colonel Liech advanced gently on his thin, raven-black horse, followed close at his heels by Olisár. Both had their sabres ready for the salute, with their sabre-hilts’ knots dangling on a level with their mouths. Soon Stelikovski’s quiet, nonchalant command was heard. High above the bayonets, the standard lorded on its long pole, and it was now the 6th Company’s turn to march. Captain Sliva stepped to the front and inspected his men by a glance from his pale, prominent, fishy eyes. With his miserable shrunken figure stooping, and his long arms, he had a striking resemblance to an ugly old monkey.

“F-irst half company – forward!”

With a light and elegant step Romashov hurried to his place right in front of the second half company’s pivot. A blissful, intoxicating feeling of pride came over him whilst he allowed his glance to glide quickly over the first row of his division. “The old swashbuckler viewed with an eagle’s eyes the brave band of veterans,” he declaimed silently, after which in a prolonged sing-song he gave the order —

“Second half company – forward!”

“One, two,” Romashov counted softly to himself, marking time with a soft stamping on the spot. Pronouncing the word at the right moment was of infinite importance, as upon it depended the exact carrying out of the inexorable command that the half company should begin marching with the proper foot, i.e., with the same foot as the preceding division, “left, right; left, right.” At last a start was made. With head erect, and beaming with a smile of boundless happiness, he cried in a loud, resonant voice —

“March!”

A second afterwards he made, as quick as lightning, a complete turn on one foot towards his men, and commanded, two tones lower in the scale —

“Dress – right!”

The profound solemnity and “infinite beauty” of the moment almost took away his breath. At that instant it seemed to him as if the music’s waves of melody surrounded him, and were changed into a seething, blinding ocean of light and fire; as if these deafening brazen peals had descended on him from on high, from heaven, from the sun. Even now, as at his last never-to-be-forgotten tryst with Shurochka, he was thrilled by a freezing, petrifying shudder that made the very hair on his head stand up.

With joy in their voices and in time with the music, the 5th Company replied to the General’s salute. Nearer and nearer to Romashov sounded the jubilant notes of the parade march. On the right and onwards, he could now distinguish the General’s heavy figure on his grey horse, and, somewhat farther off, the ladies’ brilliant dresses, which, in the blinding glare of the noon-day sun, reminded him of the flaming flower-petals in the old sagas. On the left gleamed the bandsmen’s gold instruments, and it seemed to Romashov as if, between the General and the band, was drawn an invisible, enchanted thread, the passing of which was combined peril and bliss.

At this moment the first half company reached “the thread.”

“Good, my lads,” rang the General’s delighted voice. “Ah, ah, ah, ah!” was the soldiers’ rapid, joyous answer. Stronger and stronger at every second grew the alluring influence of the parade march, and Romashov could hardly restrain his feelings any longer. “O thou, my ideal,” thought he of the General, with deep emotion.

The blissful moment had come. With elastic strides that scarcely touched the ground, Romashov approached his “enchanted thread.” He threw his head bravely back with a proud and defiant twist to the left. So potent a feeling of lightness, freedom, and bliss rushed through his being that he fancied he could at any moment whirl himself into space. And while he felt he was an object of delight and admiration to the eyes of all – a centre of all the universe contains of strength, beauty, and delight, he said to himself, as though under the witchery of a heavenly dream —

“Look, look, there goes Romashov! The ladies’ eyes are shining with love and admiration. One, two; left, right, ‘Colonel Shulgovich,’ shouts the General, ‘your Romashov is a priceless jewel; he must be my Adjutant.’ Left, right! One, two!”

Another second and Romashov knew he had started and passed his mystic “thread.” The parade march had changed to a joyous peal of trumpets announcing victory. “Now comes the General’s salute and thanks,” thought Romashov, and his soul returns to the regions of bliss; but he fancies he hears the Colonel’s voice and certain other voices.

“What has happened; what is the matter? Of course the General has saluted, but why don’t my men respond? – What’s this?”

Romashov turned round, and his face became white. Instead of a well-ordered troop in two lines as straight as an arrow, his men formed a shapeless mass – a crowd – resembling a flock of sheep – of individuals mad with imbecility and misery, pushing and jolting each other. The cause of this was that Romashov, whilst he was in his paradisaical world of dreams and intoxication of victory, failed to notice that, step by step, he deviated from the line of march, and more and more approached the right wing of his division. His trusty, unfortunate “markers” followed close on the heels of their leader, and, of course, in consequence of this the whole of the half company finally got into the wildest confusion. Romashov saw all this at the very moment he became aware that the wretched Khliabnikov was stalking, on his own account, twenty paces behind the division, right under the very nose of the General.

Romashov immediately let his wings droop. Covered with dust, he stood quite still to await and collect his poor veterans, who, absolutely dead beaten with the weight of their knapsacks and ammunition, were now hardly able to crawl along on all-fours with one hand still grasping the rifle and the other fumbling in the air or in the region of their perspiring noses.

To Romashov it seemed as if the glorious May sun had suddenly lost its radiance; as if he had been buried under an infinite weight, under sand and gravel, and that the music that so lately sounded such triumphant strains now rang softly and ominously in his ears, like a funeral march. And he felt so small and weak and wretched, so loathsome in every respect, that it was all he could do to keep himself upright on his leaden, palsied legs.

The Colonel’s Adjutant at that moment rushed up to him. Federovski’s face was as red as fire and distorted with passion. His lower jaw trembled, and he was panting with rage and his hard riding. Even at a distance he began shrieking like a man possessed, and uttering inarticulate and incomprehensible words.

“Sub-lieutenant Romashov, the commander of your regiment condemns, in the strongest terms, your behaviour to-day. Seven days’ arrest in the staff cells. What a monstrous scandal! The whole regiment – on account of you. Oh, such an abortion!”

Romashov did not make the slightest reply, nor did he even turn his head. And, besides, what answer could he make? Federovski had, most certainly, a right to be furious. But the troops, the soldiers who heard every single insulting word of the Adjutant’s – what would they think? Romashov felt at that moment a boundless hatred and contempt of himself. “I am lost; I am dishonoured for ever. I’ll shoot myself. Can I suppose I am worthy to live! What am I? An insignificant, ridiculous, contemptible wretch – a caricature, an ugly, disgusting, idiotic creature. My own soldiers will laugh at me, and, behind my back, they will make merry with nudges and secret signs, at my expense. Or, perhaps, they will pity me. All the same, everything is lost, and I – I’ll shoot myself.”

After passing the General, all the companies made a half-turn to the left, and then went back to their original places, where they were successively drawn up again and in open file. Whilst waiting for the return of the last companies to march past, the men were allowed to “stand easy,” and the officers utilized the occasion to smoke a cigarette and chat with one another. Only Romashov stood quite alone, silent and motionless in front of his half company. He dug the earth incessantly with the point of his sabre, and though he cast his eyes down fixedly, he felt he was, on all sides, a mark for curious, sarcastic, and contemptuous glances.

Captain Sliva purposely passed by Romashov without stopping except to look at him, and spoke, as it were, to himself through his clenched teeth, and in a voice hoarse and unrecognizable through hatred and fury —

“Be good enough to send in to-day a request to be transferred to another company.”

A little while afterwards Viätkin came. In his kindly, frank glance and the drawn corners of his mouth, Romashov read that expression of pity and compassion with which people usually regard a dog that has been run over and crushed in the street. And, at the same time, Romashov felt with disgust that he had, half mechanically, twisted his mouth into an unmeaning, pitiful smile.

“Yuri Alexievich,” exclaimed Viätkin, “come and smoke a cigarette with me,” and with a click of the tongue and slightly throwing his head back, he added in a despondent tone —

“Well, well, old chap!”

Romashov’s chin and the corners of his mouth twitched, and a lump came into his throat. Tears were not far off, and he replied in the faltering and fretful voice of an aggrieved child —

“No, no; not now! – I don’t want to!”

Viätkin withdrew.

“Suppose I were to go and give that fellow Sliva a bang on his ear,” thought Romashov, buffeted here and there by his melancholy introspections. “Or to go up to that grey-bearded General and say: ‘Aren’t you ashamed, at your age, to play with soldiers and torture men? Release us from here instantly, and let us rest. For two long weeks the soldiers have been ill-treated solely on account of you.’”

Romashov, however, remembered his own proud, stuck-up thoughts only a brief while ago – of the young ensign as handsome as a picture, of the ladies’ ideal, of the General’s favourite future Adjutant, etc., etc. – and he felt so much shame and pain that a deep blush overspread, not only his face, but even his chest and back.

“You wretched, absurd, contemptible being!” he shrieked to himself in thought. “Let all know that I shall shoot myself to-day.”

The review was over. The regiment had, nevertheless, to parade several times before the General, first by companies in the ordinary march, afterwards in quick march, and finally in close columns. The General became a little less severe, as it were, and he even praised the soldiers several times. At last the clock was close upon 4 p.m. Then at length the men got a little rest whilst the officers assembled to criticize them.

The staff-trumpeter blew a signal. “The officers are summoned to the General,” it shouted through the companies.

The officers left the ranks, and formed themselves into a dense circle round the General, who remained on horseback, stooping and visibly extremely tired; but he peered through his glasses as shrewdly and scornfully as before.

“I shall be brief,” said he in an abrupt and decisive tone. “The regiment is inefficient, but that’s not the fault of the soldiers, but of the officers. When the coachman is bad the horses will not go. Gentlemen, you have no heart, no mind or sympathy, so far as the men’s needs and interests are concerned. Don’t forget, ‘Blessed is he who lays down his life for his friend.’ With you there is only one thought, ‘How shall I best please the General at the review?’ You treat your men like plough horses. The appearance of the officers witnesses to moral slovenliness and barbarism. Here and there an officer puts me in mind of a village sexton dressed in an officer’s uniform. Moreover, I will refer to my orders of the day in writing. An ensign, belonging probably to the sixth or seventh company, lost his head entirely and hopelessly muddled up his division. Such a thing is a disgrace. I do not want a jog-trot march in three-time, but, before everything else, a sound and calm judgment.”

“That last referred to me,” thought Romashov, and he fancied he felt all the glances of those present turned towards him at once. But nobody even stirred: all stood speechless, petrified, with their eyes immovably fixed on the General’s face.

“My very heartiest thanks to the Captain of the 5th Company. Where are you, Captain? Oh, there you are!” The General, a little theatrically, took off his cap with both hands and bared his powerfully shaped bald head, whilst making a profound bow to Stelikovski. “Once more I thank you, and it is a pleasure for me to shake you by the hand. If God should ordain that this corps is to fight under my command, remember, Captain, that the first dangerous task belongs to you. And now, gentlemen, good-bye. Your work for the day is finished, and it will be a pleasure for me to see you again, but under different and more pleasing circumstances. Make way for my horse now.”

Colonel Shulgovich stepped out of the circle.

“Your Excellency, in the officers’ name, I invite you respectfully to dine at our mess. We shall be – ”

“No, I see no reason for that,” interrupted the General dryly. “I thank you, as I am in duty bound to do, but I am invited to Count Liedochovski’s.”

The officers cleared a way, and the General galloped off to the place where the regiment was awaiting the officers’ return.

“I thank you, my lads,” he shouted lustily and kindly to the soldiers. “I give you two days’ leave. And now, off with you to your tents. Quick march, hurrah!”

It was just as if he had, by this last brief shout, turned the whole regiment topsy-turvy. With a deafening yell of delight, fifteen hundred men dispersed, in an instant, in all directions, and the ground shook beneath the feet of the fugitives.

Romashov separated himself from the other officers, who returned, in groups, to the town, and took a long circuit through the camp. He felt just then like a banned, excommunicated fugitive; like an unworthy member expelled from the circle of his comrades – nay, even like a creature beyond the pale of humanity, in soul and body stunted and despised.

When he at length found himself behind the camp, near his own mess, he heard a few cries of sudden but restrained rage. He stood an instant and saw how his ensign, Rynda – a small, red-faced, powerful fellow – was, with frightful invectives and objurgations, belabouring with his fists Khliabnikov’s nose and cheeks. In the poor victim’s almost bestially dull eyes one could see an indescribable terror, and, at every blow, Khliabnikov staggered now to the right, now to the left.

Romashov hurried away from the spot almost at running speed. In his present state of mind, it was beyond his power to protect Khliabnikov from further ill-treatment. It seemed to Romashov as if this wretched soldier’s fate had to-day become linked with his own. They were both, he thought, cripples, who aroused in mankind the same feeling of compassion and disgust. This similarity in their position certainly excited, on Romashov’s part, an intolerable feeling of shame and disgust at himself, but also a consciousness that in this lay something singularly deep and truly human.

XV

ONLY one way led from the camp to the town, viz. over the railway-line, which at this spot crossed a deep and declivitous ravine. Romashov ran briskly down the narrow, well-trodden, almost precipitous pathway, and was beginning, after that, a toilsome clamber up the other slope. He had not reached more than half-way to the top of the ravine before he noticed a figure there in uniform with a cloak over his shoulders. After a few seconds’ close examination, Romashov recognized his friend Nikoläiev.

“Now,” thought Romashov, “comes the most disagreeable of all,” and he could not suppress a certain unpleasant feeling of anxiety; but he continued on his way resigned to his fate, and was soon on the plateau.

The two officers had not seen each other for five days, but neither of them made even an intimation of greeting, and it seemed, at any rate to Romashov, as if this were quite the correct thing on this memorable, miserable day.

“I have purposely waited for you here, Yuri Alexievich,” began Nikoläiev, whilst he looked over Romashov’s shoulder into the distance, towards the camp.

“I am at your service, Vladimir Yefimovich,” replied Romashov in a strained, unconcerned tone, and with a slight tremor in his voice. He stooped down to the ground and broke off a dry, brown stalk of grass from the previous year. Whilst absently biting the stalk of grass, he stared obstinately at the bright buttons on Nikoläiev’s cape, and he saw in them his own distorted figure – a little narrow head upwards; downwards two stunted legs, and between them an abnormally broad big belly.