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

he a bachelor, or has he a wife and children? Perhaps he has some trouble at home? Or he is very poor? Answer me.”

“I can’t say, your Excellency? I have a hundred men under my command. It is hard to remember all about them.”

“Hard to remember, did you say?” repeated the General in a sad and serious voice. “Ah, gentlemen, gentlemen. You must certainly know what the Scripture says: ‘Do not destroy the soul,’ and what are you doing? That poor, grey, wretched creature standing there, may, perhaps, some day, in the hour of battle, protect you by his body, carry you on his shoulders out of a hail of bullets, may, with his ragged cloak, protect you against snow and frost, and yet you have nothing to say about him, but ‘I can’t say!’ ”

In his nervous excitement the General pulled in the reins and shouted over Osadchi’s head, in an angry voice, to the commander of the regiment⁠—

“Colonel, get this company out of my way. I have had enough. Nothing but marionettes and blockheads.”

From that moment the fate of the regiment was sealed. The terrified soldiers’ absolute exhaustion, the noncoms’ lunatical cruelty, the officers’ incapacity, indifference, and laziness⁠—all this came out clearly as the review proceeded. In the 2nd Company the soldiers did not even know the Lord’s Prayer. In the 3rd, the officers ran like wild fowls when the company was to be drilled in “open order.” In the 4th, the manual exercise was below criticism, etc. The worst of all was, however, that none of the companies, with the exception of the 5th, knew how to meet a sudden charge of cavalry. Now, this was precisely the General’s hobby; he had published independently copious instructions on this, in which he pointed out minutely the vital importance of the troops’ mobility and quickness, and of their leader’s resolution and deliberation.

After each company had in turn been reviewed, the General commanded the officers, both commissioned and noncommissioned, to go out of earshot, after which he questioned the soldiers with regard to their wishes and grounds of complaint; but everywhere he met with the same good-humoured reply: “Satisfied with everything, your Excellency.” When that question was put to No. 1 Company, Romashov heard an ensign in it remark in a threatening voice⁠—

“Just let me hear anyone daring to complain; I’ll give him ‘complaints’!”

For the 5th Company only was the whole review a complete triumph. The brave, young, lusty soldiers executed all their movements with life and energy, and with such facility, mobility, and absence of all pedantry that the whole of the review seemed to officers and men, not a severe, painful examination, but like a jolly and amusing game. The General smiled his satisfaction, and soon could not refrain from a “Well done, my lads”⁠—the first words of approval he uttered during the whole time.

When, however, the ominous pretended charge was to be met, Stelikovski literally took the old General by storm. The General himself started the exercise by suddenly shouting to the commander of the company: “Cavalry from the right, eight hundred paces.” Stelikovski formed, without a second’s hesitation and with the greatest calm and precision, his company to meet the supposed enemy, which seemed to approach at a furious gallop. With compactly closed ranks⁠—the fore-rank in a kneeling position⁠—the troops fired two or three rounds, immediately after which was heard the fateful command: “Quick fire!”

“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 goodbye 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