Leo Tolstoy Archive
Written: 1855
Source: Text from WikiSource.org
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
It was dark night, and the fires dimly illuminated the camp, when I, having put everything away, walked up to my soldiers. A large stump was ghmmering on the coals. Three soldiers only were sitting around it : Ant6nov, who was turning around on the fire a httle kettle in which hardtack soaked in lard was cooking, Zhdanov, who was thoughtfully poking the ashes with a stick, and Chikin, with his eternally unhghted pipe. The others had already retired for their rest, some under the caissons, others in the hay, and others again around the fires. In the faint light of coals I could distinguish the famihar backs, legs, and heads ; among the latter was also the recruit, who was lying close to the fire and was apparently asleep. Antonov made a place for me. I sat down near him and lighted my pipe. The mist and the pungent smoke from the green wood was borne through the air, and made my eyes smart, and the same damp mist drizzled down from the murky sky.
Near us could be heard the even snoring, the crackling of the branches in the fire, a light conversation, and occa- sionally the clattering of the infantry muskets. All about us glowed the fires, illuminating in a small circle the black shadows of the soldiers. At the nearest fires I could distinguish in the lighted spaces the figures of naked soldiers waving their shirts over the very fire. Many other men were not asleep, but moving about and speaking in the space of fifteen square fathoms ; but the dark, gloomy night gave a peculiar, mysterious aspect to all this motion, as though all felt this melancholy quiet and were afraid to break its tranquil harmony. When I began to speak, I felt that my voice sounded quite differ- ently ; in the faces of all the soldiers who were sitting near the tire I read the same mood. I thought that pre- vious to my arrival they had been speaking of their wounded companion, but that was not at all the case: Chikiu was telling about the reception of goods at Tiuis, and about the schoolboys of that city.
Always and everywhere, but especially in the Caucasus, have I noticed the peculiar tact of our soldiers, who, dur- ing peril, pass over in silence and avoid all such things as might unhappily affect the minds of their comrades. The spirit of the Russian soldiers is not based, like the bravery of the southern nations, on an easily inflamed, and just as easily extinguished, enthusiasm. They do not need effects, speeches, military cries, songs, and drums ; they need, on the contrary, quiet, order, and the absence of all banality. In Russian, real Russian, soldiers, you will never observe vain bragging, posing, a desire to obscure themselves and to excite themselves in time of danger ; on the contrary, modesty, simplicity, and an ability to see in a danger sometliing else than the danger itself, are the distinctive features of their character.
I have seen an outrider, who had been wounded in his leg, in the first moment express his regrets only for the torn fur coat, and then creep out from under the horse, which had been killed under him, and loosen the straps, in order to take off the saddle. Who does not remember the incident at the siege of Gergebel, when the fuze of a bomb which had just been filled caught fire in the labora- tory, and the artificer told two soldiers to take the bomb and run away as fast as possible, in order to throw it into a ditch ; the soldiers did not throw it away in the nearest place, which was not far from the colonel's tent, which stood over the ditch, but carried it farther away. not to wake the gentlemen who were sleeping in the tent, and so they were both torn to pieces. I remember how, during frontier service in 1852, one of the young soldiers, for some reason, remarked during an action, that he thought the platoon would never come out alive from it, and how the whole platoon angrily upbraided him for such evil words, which they would not even repeat.
Even now, when the thought of Velenchilk ought to have been in everybody's mind, and when any moment a volley might be fired by Tartars creeping up to the camp, everybody was listening to Cliikin's animated story, and nobody recalled the action of the morning, nor the imminent danger, nor the wounded man, as though all that had happened God knows how long ago, or not at all. But it seemed to me that their faces were a little more melancholy than usual ; they did not listen very atten- tively to Cliikin's story, and even Chikin felt that he was not listened to, and kept talking from mere force of habit.
Maksimov went up to the fire and sat down near me. Chikin made a place for him, grew silent, and again started sucking his pipe.
" The foot-soldiers have sent to camp for brandy," said Maksimov, after a considerable silence. " They have just returned." He spit into the fire. " An under-officer told me that he saw our man."
" Well, is he still alive ? " asked Antonov, turning his kettle.
" No, he is dead."
The recruit in the small red cap suddenly raised his head above the fire, for a moment looked fixedly at Maksimov and at me, then swiftly lowered his head, and wrapped himself in his overcoat.
" You see, death did not come to him for nothing this morning, as I was waking him in the park," said Antonov.
" Nonsense ! " said Zhdanov, turning around a glowing stump, and all grew silent.
Amid a universal silence, there was heard a shot behind us in the camp. Our drummers took note of it, and gave the tattoo. When the last roll died down, Zhdanov was the first to rise ; he took off his cap, and we all followed his example.
Amid the deep hush of the night was heard the har- monious chorus of male voices :
" Our Father which art in heaven. Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. Give us to-day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins ; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
" It was in the year '45 that one of our men was con- tused in the same spot," said Ant6nov, after we had put on our caps, and had seated ourselves again at the fire. " We carried him for two days on the ordnance — Zhda- nov, do you remember Shevchenko ? We left him there under a tree."
Just then an infantry soldier, with immense whiskers and mustache, and wearing his cartridge-box, walked over to us.
" Coimtrymen, may I have some fire to Hght my pipe with ? " he said.
" Light it, there is plenty of fire here," remarked Chikin.
" Countryman, you are, I suppose, telling about Dargi," the foot^soldier said, turning to Antonov.
" Yes, about the year '45, at Dargi," replied Antdnov.
The foot-soldier shook his head, closed his eyes, and squatted down near us.
" It was dreadful there," he remarked.
" Wliy did you leave him ? " I asked of Antdnov.
" He had terrible pain in his abdomen. As long as we stood still, it was all right ; but the moment we moved, he shrieked terribly. He entreated us to leave him, but we pitied him. But when he began to harass us, and had killed three men on our guns, and an officer, and we had gone astray from our battery, it was terrible, — we thought we should never get the gun away. It was so muddy."
" The worst was, it was muddy at Indian Mountain," remarked a soldier.
" Well, and he grew worse ! Then we considered, — An6shenka and I, — Anoshenka was an old gun-sergeant,
— that he could not hve anyway, and that he invoked God to leave him. And so we concluded we would do so. There was a brandling tree growing there. "We put down near him soaked hardtack, — Zhdanov had some,
— and leaned him against the tree ; we put a clean shirt on him, bade him farewell, as was proper, and left him."
" Was he a good soldier ? "
" A pretty good one," remarked Zhdanov.
" God knows what became of him," continued Antonov. " We left many soldiers there."
" In Dargi ? " said the foot-soldier, rising and poking his pipe, and again closing his eyes and shaking his head. " Yes, it was terrible there."
And he went away from us.
" Are there many soldiers in the battery who have been at Dargi ? " I asked.
" Well ! Zhdanov, I, Patsan, who is now on leave of absence, and six or seven other men. That is all."
" I wonder whether Patsan is having a good time on his leave of absence," said Chikin, stretching out his legs and putting his head on a log. *' It wiU soon be a year since he left."
" Did you take the annual leave ? " I asked Zhdanov.
" No, I did not," he answered, reluctantly.
" But it is good to go," said Antonov, " when one is from a well-to-do house, or still able to work. It is pleasant, and people at home are glad to see you."
" What use is there in going, when there are two brothers?" continued ZhcUnov. «They have enough to do to support themselves, so what good would one of us soldiers be to them ? A man is a poor helper when he has been a soldier for twenty-five years. And who knows whether they are alive ? "
" Have you not written to them ? " I asked.
" Of course I have ! I have written them twice, but they have not yet answered. They are either dead, or they simply don't care to answer, which means, they are poor, and have no time."
" How long ago did you write ? "
" ЛДТ1еп I came back from Dargi, I wrote my last letter ! "
" Sing the song of the ' Birch-tree,' " Zhdanov said to Antonov, who, leaning on his knees, was humming a song.
Antouov sang the " Birch-tree " song.
" This is Uncle Zhdanov's favorite song," Chikin said to me in a whisper, pulling me by the overcoat. " Many a time, when Filipp Antonych sings it, he weeps."
Zhdanov sat at first motionless, his eyes directed on the glowing coals, and his face, illuminated by the reddish hght, looked exceedingly melancholy ; then his cheeks under his ears began to move faster and faster, and finally he got up, spread out his overcoat, and lay down in the shadow, behind the fire. It may be the way he was tossing and groaning, or Velenchiik's death and the gloomy weather had so affected me, but I really thought he was crying.
The lower part of the stump, changed into coal, flickered now and then and illuminated Antdnov's figure, with his gray mustache, red face, and his decorations on the overcoat thrown over liim, or lighted up somebody's boots or head. From above, drizzled the same gloomy mist ; in the air was the same odor of dampness and smoke ; all around me were seen the same bright points of dying fires, and were heard amid a general silence the sounds of Antonov's melancholy song ; and whenever it stopped for a moment, its refrain was the sounds of the faint nocturnal motion of the camp, of the snoring, of the clattering of the sentries' guns, and of subdued conversation.
" Second watch ! Makatyuk and Zhdanov ! " shouted Maksimov.
Antonov stopped singing ; Zhdanov rose, sighed, stepped across a log, and slowly walked over to the guns.