Do you mean to tell me you would call it a gun?
At home you might call it a gun, certainly, but in the service it is called simply a sharp-shooting infantry rifle of small calibre, maker Berdan, number two, with a sliding bolt.
Repeat that now, you son of a——!”
Bondarenko gabbled over the words, which he evidently knew by heart.
“Sit down!” commanded Syeroshtan graciously.
“And for what purpose is the rifle given you?”
His stern gaze wandered round the class. “Shevchuk! you answer this question.”
Shevchuk stood up with a morose expression, and answered in a deep bass voice, speaking through his nose, and very slowly, and in detached phrases, as if there were a full stop after each:
“It is given to me in order that in time of peace I may practise with it.
But in time of war that I may protect my Emperor and my country from enemies.”
He stopped, scratched his nose, and added obscurely: “Whether they be external or internal.”
“Right!
You know that very well, Shevchuk, only you mumble.
Sit down.
And now, Ovechkin, tell me, whom do we call external enemies?”
Ovechkin, a sprightly soldier from Orlov, answered rapidly and with great animation, spluttering with excitement:
“External enemies are all those nations with whom we might go to war; the French, Germans, Italians, Turks, Europeans——”
“Wait,” Syeroshtan cut him short. “All that is not in the text.
Sit down.
And now tell me—Arkhipov!
Who are our internal enemies?”
He uttered the last two words very loudly, as if to emphasize them, and threw a meaning glance at the volunteer, Markouson.
The clumsy, pock-marked Arkhipov was obstinately silent, and stood gazing out of the window.
Outside the service he was an active, intelligent, clever fellow; but in class he behaved like an imbecile.
Obviously the trouble lay in the fact that his healthy mind, accustomed to observe and think about the simple, straightforward affairs of village life, was quite unable to grasp the connection between hypothetical problems and real life.
For this reason he could not understand nor learn the simplest things, to the great astonishment and indignation of his platoon commander.
“We-ll!
How much longer am I to wait while you get ready to answer?” cried Syeroshtan, beginning to get angry.
“Internal enemies—enemies——”
“You don’t know it?” cried Syeroshtan in a threatening tone, and he would have fallen upon Arkhipov, but, glancing with a side glance at the officer, he contented himself with shaking his head and rolling his eyes terribly.
“Well, listen.
Internal enemies are those who resist the law; for example, who shall we——?”
He glanced at Ovechkin’s sharp eyes.
“You tell us, Ovechkin.”
Ovechkin jumped up and cried joyfully:
“Such as rebels, students, horse-stealers, Jews and Poles.”
Shapovalenko was occupied with his platoon close by.
Pacing up and down between the benches, he asked questions from the “Soldier’s Manual,” which he held in his hand.
“Soltuis, what is a sentry?”
Soltuis, a Lithuanian, cried, opening and shutting his eyes rapidly in the effort to think:
“A sentry must be incorruptible.”
“Well, and what else?”
“A sentry is a soldier placed at a certain post with a rifle in his hand.”
“Right.
I see, Soltuis, that you are beginning to try.
And why is he placed there, Pakhorukov?”
“That he may neither sleep, nor doze, nor smoke, nor accept bribes.”
“And the pass-word?”
“And that he may give the pass-word to the officers who pass in and out.”
“Right.