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

veterans,” he declaimed silently, after which in a prolonged singsong 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 noonday 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.

“Sublieutenant Romashov, the commander of your regiment condemns, in the strongest terms, your behaviour today. 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