“‘Brehm’ is a fine fellow. I like him,” interrupted Romashov.
“He certainly is that, my friend,” Nasanski admitted in a weary tone, “and yet,” he went on to say with a lowering countenance, “if you knew what I once saw at the man?uvres.
After a night march we were directly afterwards to advance to attack.
Both officers and men were utterly done up.
‘Brehm’ was in command, and ordered the buglers to sound the charge, but the latter, goodness knows why, signalled the reserve to advance.
‘Brehm’ repeated his order once, twice, thrice, but in vain; the result was the same.
Then our excellent, kind-hearted ‘Brehm’ gallops up to the unsuspecting bugler, and bangs his fist, with all his force, against the bell of the trumpet.
I saw with my own eyes the trumpeter spitting out blood and broken teeth.”
“Oh, my God!” groaned Romashov in disgust.
“Yes, they are all alike, even the best and most tender-hearted among them. At home they are splendid fathers of families and excellent husbands; but as soon as they approach the barracks they become low-minded, cowardly, and idiotic barbarians.
You ask me why this is, and I answer: Because nobody can find a grain of sense in what is called military service.
You know how all children like to play at war.
Well, the human race has had its childhood—a time of incessant and bloody war; but war was not then one of the scourges of mankind, but a continued, savage, exultant national feast to which daring bands of youths marched forth, meeting victory or death with joy and pleasure.
The bravest, strongest, and most cunning was chosen as leader, and so long as success attended his banner, he was almost accorded divine worship, until at last he was killed by his subjects, in order to make room for a luckier and more powerful rival.
Mankind, however, grew in age and wisdom; people got weary of the former rowdy, bloody games, and became more serious, thoughtful, and cautious.
The old Vikings of song and saga were designated and treated as pirates.
The soldier no longer regarded war as a bloody but enjoyable occupation, and he had often to be dragged to the enemy with a noose round his neck.
The former terrifying, ruthless, adored atamens have been changed into cowardly, cautious chinovniks, who get along painfully enough on never adequate pay.
Their courage is inspired by drink.
Military discipline still exists, but it is based on threats and dread, and undermined by a dull, mutual hatred.
To make a long story short, the whilom fine, proud ‘pheasants’ are of faded hue and look ruffled.
Only one more parallel resembling the foregoing can I adduce from universal history, to wit, monasticism.
The legend of its origin is touching and beautiful, its mission was peaceful, benevolent, and civilizing, and its existence most certainly an historic necessity.
But centuries pass away, and what do we see now?
Hundreds of thousands of impostors, idle, licentious, and impudent, who are hated and despised even by those who think they need their religious aid.
And all this abomination is carefully hidden under a close veil of tinsel and finery, and foolish, empty ceremonies, in all ages the charlatan’s conditio sine qua non.
Is not this comparison of mine between the monastic orders and the military caste logical?
Here the cassock and the censer; there the gold-laced uniform and the clank of arms. Here bigotry, hypocritical humility, sighs, and sugary, sanctimonious, unmeaning phrases; there the same odious affectations, although of another kind—swaggering manners, bold, and scornful looks—‘God help the man who dares to insult me!’—padded shoulders, cock-a-hoop defiance.
Both the former and the latter class live like parasites on society, and are profoundly conscious of that fact, but fear—especially for their bellies’ sake—to publish it.
And both remind one of certain little blood-sucking animals which eat their way most obstinately into the surface of a foreign body in proportion as it is decomposed.”
Nasanski stopped and spat with withering contempt.
“Go on, go on,” exclaimed Romashov eagerly.
“But other times are coming, indeed have come.
Yes, tremendous surprises and changes are about to take place.
You remember my saying on one occasion that for a thousand years there has existed a genius of humanity that seldom reveals itself, but whose laws are as inexorable as they are ruthless; but the wiser men become, so much more deeply do they penetrate the spirit of those laws.
And I am convinced that, sooner or later, everything in this world must be brought into equilibrium in accordance with these immutable laws. Justice will then be dispensed.
The longer and more cruel the slavery has been, so much more terrible will be the day of reckoning for tyrants.
The greater the violence, injustice, and brutality, so much more bloody will be the retribution.
Oh, I am firmly convinced that the day will dawn when we ‘superior officers,’ we ‘almighty swells,’ darlings of the women, drones and brainless swaggerers, will have our ears boxed with impunity in streets and lanes, in vestibules and corridors, when women will turn their backs on us in contempt, and when our own affectionate soldiers will cease to obey us.
And all this will happen, not because we have brutally ill-treated men deprived of every possibility of self-defence; not because we have, for the ‘honour’ of the uniform, insulted women; not because we have committed, when in a state of intoxication, scandalous acts in public-houses and public places; and not even because we, the privileged lick-spittles of the State, have, in innumerable battlefields and in pretty nearly every country, covered our standards with shame, and been driven by our own soldiers out of the maize-fields in which we had taken shelter.
Well, of course, we shall also be punished for that.
No, our most monstrous and unpardonable sin consists in our being blind and deaf to everything.
For long, long periods past—and, naturally, far away from our polluted garrisons—people have discerned the dawn of a new life resplendent with light and freedom.
Far-seeing, high-minded, and noble spirits, free from prejudices and human fear, have arisen to sow among the nations burning words of liberation and enlightenment.
These heroes remind one of the last scene in a melodrama, when the dark castles and prison towers of tyranny fall down and are buried, in order, as it were, by magic, to be succeeded by freedom’s dazzling light and hailed by exultant throngs.
We alone—crass idiots, irredeemable victims of pride and blindness—still stick up our tail-feathers, like angry turkey-cocks, and yell in savage wrath,
‘What?
Where?
Silence!
Obey!