They unpiled their arms and took their places with much bustle.
“Close up!” commanded Sliva.
“Stand at ease!”
And then, coming nearer to the company, he shouted:
“Manual exercise—count aloud. On guard!”
“One!” cried the soldiers, and held their guns aloft.
Sliva went amongst them in a leisurely manner, making abrupt remarks: “Bayonets higher.—Hold the butt-end to you.”
Then he again took up his position in front of the company and gave the order:
“Two!”
“Two!” cried the soldiers.
And once more Sliva went amongst them to see if they were doing the exercises correctly.
After the manual exercise by division they had exercise by company, then turnings, form fours, fixing and unfixing bayonets and other forms.
Romashov performed like an automaton all that was required of him, but all the time the words so carelessly uttered by Viatkin were running through his mind:
“If I thought that, I would not stay in the service.”
And all the arts of war—the skilful evolutions, the cleverness of the rifle exercise, and all those tactics and fortifications on which he had wasted nine of the best years of his life, which would fill the rest of his life, and which not so very long ago had seemed to him important and so full of wisdom—all had suddenly become deadly dull, unnatural, inventions without value, a universal self-deceit resembling an absurd dream.
When the drill was finished he and Viatkin went to the club and drank a lot of vodka together.
Romashov, hardly knowing what he was doing, kissed Viatkin and wept hysterically on his shoulder, complained of his empty, miserable life, and also that no one understood him, also that a certain woman did not love him—who she was no one should ever know. As for Viatkin, he drank glass after glass, only saying from time to time with contemptuous pity:
“The worst of you is, Romashov, that you can’t drink.
You take one glass and you are all over the place.”
Then suddenly he struck his fist on the table threateningly, and cried:
“If they want us to die, we’ll die!”
“We’ll die,” answered Romashov pitifully.
“What is dying?
A mere trifle! Oh, how my heart aches!”
Romashov did not remember going home and getting into bed.
It seemed to him that he was floating on a thick blue cloud, upon which were scattered milliards and milliards of microscopic diamonds.
His head seemed swollen to a tremendous size, and a pitiless voice was calling out in a tone which made him feel sick:
“One!
Two!”
XVII
FROM this night Romashov underwent a profound inward change.
He cut himself entirely adrift from the company of his comrades, usually took his dinner at home, never frequented the soirees dansantes of his regiment, and ceased to indulge in drink.
He had grown older, riper, and more serious, and he noticed this himself in the calm resignation with which he bore the trials and adversities of life.
Often, too, he recalled to mind the assertion he had long ago picked up from books or in the way of conversation, that human life is made up of periods of seven years, and that, in the course of each period, not only the organism, but also the character, views taken of life, and inclinations are completely renewed.
And it was not so long since Romashov had completed his twenty-first year.
The soldier Khliabnikov used to visit him, but at first, however, only after being again urged to do so.
Afterwards his visits became more and more frequent.
During the first period he put one in mind of a starved and whipped dog which flinches from the hand held out caressingly; but Romashov’s kindness and goodness gradually drove away his fear and embarrassment and restored to him the faculty of gratitude and confidence.
With something akin to remorse and shame, Romashov learned more of Khliabnikov’s sad conditions of life and family circumstances.
At home lived his mother, his father—a confirmed drunkard—a semi-idiotic brother, and four young sisters. The family’s little plot of land had been confiscated, contrary to all law and justice, by the commune, which afterwards was kind enough to shelter the poor wretches in a miserable hut. The elder members were journeymen employed by strange and occasional employers, the younger ones went out to beg.
Khliabnikov could, therefore, not reckon on any support from his people, and, on account of his delicate health, was not in a position to undertake any remunerative manual labour in such leisure as the service left him. But the soldier’s life is unendurable without money. He receives twenty-two and a half copecks a month from the State, and out of this he must defray the costs of tea, sugar, soap, etc., and in addition, the indispensable presents to greedy and unconscionable sergeants.
Woe betide the soldier who cannot, by presents, money, or schnapps, bribe his torturers. He becomes a helpless victim to insult and gross maltreatment, and all the heavy and disgusting work in the camp falls unmercifully to his lot.
With surprise, terror, and pain Romashov realized that Fate had daily united him by the closest ties with hundreds of these grey “Khliabnikovs,” with those defenceless victims of their own ignorance and brutal coarseness, of the officers’ heartless indifference and cruelty, of a humiliating, systematic slavery; but the most horrible of all, however, was the fact that not a single officer—and, up to that day, not even Romashov himself—saw in these stereotyped crowds of slaves anything beyond mechanical quantities bracketed under the name of companies, battalions, regiments, etc.
Romashov did his best to procure Khliabnikov, now and then, a little income.
Of course it was not very long before both this and other unaccustomed marks of humanity on the part of an officer became noticed in the company.
Romashov noticed very frequently how the “non-coms.” in his presence acted towards Khliabnikov with comical, exaggerated politeness in manner and tone.
That even Captain Sliva had got scent of Romashov’s changed attitude as regards the treatment of soldiers was palpable enough, and more than once, from remarks made by him—
“D-d-damned Liberals—come here to ruin the people—ought to be thrashed—f-f-flayed alive, every man Jack of ‘em!”
Now, as Romashov more and more abandoned himself to loneliness and self-examination, those curious, entangling contemplations, which a month previously, at the time of his arrest, had such a disturbing effect on him, now assailed him with even greater frequency.
These generally happened after his duties for the day had been done, when he strolled silently backwards and forwards, beneath the thick, slumbering foliage of the trees near his dwelling, and when, lonely and oppressed, he listened to the solemn bass of the booming beetles or, with dreamy eyes, gazed at the roseate and rapidly darkening sky.