The Duel - Aleksandr Kuprin (best summer reads of all time TXT) 📗

stopped at the parade-ground. Out of it stepped the Commander with great trouble and agony amidst a loud moaning and groaning from the side of the poor carriage. The Commander was followed by his Adjutant, Staff-Captain Federovski, a tall, slim officer of smart appearance.

“Good day, 7th Company,” was his greeting in a careless, indistinct voice. An earsplitting chorus of soldiers, dispersed over the whole extent of the ground, replied instantly: “God preserve your Excellency!”

The officers touched their caps.

“Proceed with the drill,” ordered the Commander, as he went up to the nearest platoon.

Colonel Shulgovich was evidently not in a good humour. He wandered about the platoons, growling and swearing, all the while repeatedly trying to worry the life out of the unhappy recruits by catch-questions from the Military Regulations. Time after time he was heard to reel out the most awful strings of insults and threats, and in this he displayed an inventive power and mastery that could hardly be surpassed. The soldiers stood before him, transfixed with terror, stiff, motionless, scarcely daring to breathe, and, as it were, hypnotized by the incessant, steadfast glances, as hard as marble, from those senile, colourless, severe eyes. Colonel Shulgovich, although much troubled with fatness and advanced in years, nevertheless still contrived to carry his huge, imposing figure. His broad, fleshy face, with its bloated cheeks and deeply receding forehead, was surrounded below by a thick, silvery, pointed beard, whereby the great head came very closely to resemble an awe-inspiring rhomboid. The eyebrows were grey, bushy, and threatening. He always spoke in a subdued tone, but his powerful voice⁠—to which alone he owed his comparatively rapid promotion⁠—was heard all the same as far as the most distant point of the parade-ground, nay! even out on the highroad.

“Who are you?” asked the Colonel, suddenly halting in front of a young soldier named Sharafutdinov, who was on sentry duty near the gymnastic apparatus.

“Recruit in the 6th Company, Sharafutdinov, your Excellency,” the Tartar answered in a strained and hoarse voice.

“Fool! I mean, of course, what post are you supposed to occupy?”

The soldier, who was frightened by his Commander’s angry tone, was silent: he could only produce one or two nervous twitchings of the eyebrows.

“Well?” Shulgovich raised his voice.

“I⁠—am⁠—standing⁠—on guard,” the Tartar at last spluttered out, chancing it. “I cannot⁠—understand, your Excellency,” he went on to say, but he relapsed into silence again, and stood motionless.

The Colonel’s face assumed a dark brick colour, a shade with a touch of blue about it, and his bushy eyebrows began to pucker in an alarming way. Beside himself with fury, he turned round and said in a sharp tone⁠—

“Who is the youngest officer here?”

Romashov stepped forward and touched his cap.

“I am, Colonel.”

“Ha⁠—Sublieutenant Romashov, you evidently train your men well. Stand at attention and stretch your legs,” bawled Shulgovich suddenly, his eyes rolling. “Don’t you know how to stand in the presence of your commanding officer? Captain Sliva, I beg to inform you that your subaltern officer has been lacking in the respect due to his chief. And you, you miserable cur,” he now turned towards the unhappy Sharafutdinov, “tell me the name of your Commander.”

“I don’t know,” replied Sharafutdinov quickly, but in a firm tone in which, nevertheless, a melancholy resignation might be detected.

“Oh, I ask you the name of your Colonel. Do you know who I am? I⁠—I⁠—I!” and Shulgovich drummed with the flat of his hand several times on his broad chest.

“I don’t know.”

The Colonel delivered himself of a string of about twenty words of cynical abuse. “Captain Sliva, I order you at once to exhibit this son of a sea-cook, so that all may see him, with rifle and heavy accoutrements, and let him stand there till he rots. And as for you, Sublieutenant, I know well enough that loose women and flirtation interest you more than the service does. In waltzing and reading Paul de Kock you’re said to be an authority, but as to performing your duties, instructing your men⁠—that, of course, is beneath your dignity. Just look at this creature” (he gave Sharafutdinov a sound slap on the mouth)⁠—“is this a Russian soldier? No, he’s a brute beast, who does not even recognize his own commanding officer. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

Romashov stared speechlessly at his chief’s red and rage-distorted countenance. He felt his heart threatening to burst with shame and indignation. Suddenly, almost unconsciously, he burst out in a hollow voice⁠—

“Colonel, this fellow is a Tartar and does not understand a word of our language, and besides.⁠ ⁠…”

But he did not finish his sentence. Shulgovich’s features had that very instant undergone a ghastly change. His whole countenance was as white as a corpse’s, his withered cheeks were transfused with sharp, nervous puckers, and his eyes assumed a terrible expression.

“Wh-at!” roared he in a voice so unnatural and awe-inspiring that a little crowd of Jew boys, who, some distance from the causeway, were sitting on the fence on which they had swarmed, were scattered like sparrows⁠—“you answer back? Silence! A raw young ensign permits himself to⁠—Lieutenant Federovski, enter in my daybook that I have ordered Sublieutenant Romashov four days’ arrest in his room for breach of discipline. And Captain Sliva is to be severely rebuked for neglecting to instil into his junior officers ‘a true military spirit.’ ”

The Adjutant saluted respectfully without any sign of fear. Captain Sliva stood the whole time bending slightly forward, with his hand to his cap, and quivering with emotion, though without altering a feature of his wooden face.

“I cannot help being surprised at you, Captain Sliva,” again grunted Shulgovich, who had now to some extent regained his self-control. “How is it possible that you, who are one of the best officers in the regiment, and, moreover, old in the service, can let your youngsters run so wild? They want breaking in. It is no use to treat them like young ladies and being afraid of hurting them.”

With these words he turned his back on the Captain, and, followed