"I've been in the Far East twice, I've been in prison for vagrancy again and again.... All right....
They put me in barracks just the same, gave me a soldier's certificate, and sent me to the war.... Six wounds.... Look here."
He pushed his finger into the inside of his cheek, and pulled his mouth sideways, displaying broken stumps.
"I managed to get to Moscow, to a hospital, and there were the Bolsheviks.... And all my sufferings were at an end.
'What's your social position?' they asked me.
'No need to look far back,' I told them. 'I am a hereditary farmhand, with no ancestors.'
They laughed.
They gave me a rifle and a mandate—me!
We were patrolling the town in those days, looking for bourgeois.... You get into some grand house, the owners, of course, are frightened.... You look into their hiding places; flour, sugar.... The swine are all atwitter, scared, but they don't say a word to us.... Sometimes you get quite mad—aren't you a human being, oily-mug? Talk, swear, implore, can't you? You swear at him, and still not a word.... What's the matter, I ask myself....
It's maddening—to have held one's tongue all one's life, working for those smug devils, spilling one's blood for them.... And they don't even consider one a human being.... So that's what they're like, the bourgeois!
Since then I have burned with class hatred.
Very well.... Once we were sent to requisition the merchant Ryabinkin's mansion.
There were four of us, and we had a machine gun with us, to put the fear of God into him.
We knocked at the front door.
After some time a neat little maid opened the door to us—the poor thing turned pale and started tiptoeing about, crying: 'Oh, oh!...' We pushed her out of the way, and stepped into the hall—an enormous room with pillars, a table in the middle, with Ryabinkin and his guests around it, eating pancakes.
It was Shrovetide, and everyone was drunk of course.... Just when the proletariat was dying of hunger!...
I banged on the floor with my rifle with all my might, and shouted at them.
They just sat there, smiling. Then Ryabinkin ran up to us, all red and jolly, his eyes bulging, crying:
'Dear Comrades! I've known all along that you meant to requisition my house and everything in it!
Just let us finish up the pancakes, and, by the way, why not sit down with us? There's no disgrace in it—it's all public property.' He pointed to the table.... We stood, shifting our feet for a while, and then we sat down, still holding on to our rifles, and frowning. And Ryabinkin started pouring out vodka for us, and piling our plates with pancakes and all sorts of snacks.... Talking and laughing all the time.... The things he told us, and so sarcastic—mimicking people to their faces..... All the guests were roaring with laughter, and we couldn't help laughing, either.
All sorts of stories about the gentry were told, there was a lot of arguing, and whenever the host thought any of us looked like getting nasty, he poured out some more vodka: we drank out of tumblers—nothing smaller was used. Then they began opening bottles of champagne, and we stacked our rifles in a corner.
'Is that you, Chertogonov, stumbling about the hall, running into pillars?' I asked myself.
We began singing in chorus.
And in the evening we put the machine gun on the porch, so that nobody should butt in.
We went on drinking for two days without stopping.
I made up for my whole life as an underdog.
But Ryabinkin baulked us, the wily merchant!
While we were enjoying ourselves he managed to move all his diamonds, and gold and money and other valuables to a safe place—the maid helped him. All we requisitioned was the walls and the furniture.... And when we were leaving, Ryabinkin said to us in farewell (of course everyone was still tipsy):
'Dear Comrades, take all, all, I grudge nothing. I came from the people, and I now return to the people....' And that very day he escaped abroad.
And I was hauled up before the Cheka.
'I'm to blame—shoot me!' I told them.
If they didn't shoot me it was only because they considered I wasn't class-conscious yet.
And to this day I'm glad I had my fling for once. At least I have one happy memory...."
"There are many blackguards among the bourgeoisie, but we have plenty, too." The speaker was half-hidden by smoke, and everyone looked in his direction.
The man who had asked Telegin for tobacco said:
"There's no stopping the people, since they smelled blood in 1914."
"That's not what I mean," said the voice from out of the smoke.
"Foes are foes, and blood must be spilled. I was talking about real bad lots."
"And who may you be?"
"Me?
Oh—I'm one of the bad lots," replied the voice quietly.
At this all fell silent, staring at the glowing embers.
A shiver ran down Telegin's spine.
It was a chilly night.
Some of the men round the campfire moved restlessly and lay down resting their cheeks on their caps.
Telegin got up and stretched, straightening the folds of his uniform.
Now that the smoke had subsided, he could see the "bad lot" sitting cross-legged on the other side of the fire.
He was chewing a stalk of wormwood.
The embers lit up a long, thin countenance of an almost feminine softness, with a fair sparse down on the cheeks.
A shabby cap was pushed to the back of the head and a military greatcoat was flung over the narrow shoulders; under it, he was naked to the waist.