PS.—I command you to meet me at the soirée on Saturday and explain your conduct. The third quadrille will be kept for you; but mind, there is no special importance now in that.
R. P.
To Romashov this ill-spelled, ungrammatical letter was a breath of the stupidity, meanness, and spiteful tittle-tattle of a provincial town. He felt for ever soiled from head to foot by this disgusting liaison, scarcely of six months’ standing, with a woman he had never loved. He threw himself on his bed with an indescribable feeling of depression. He even felt as if he were torn to tatters by the events of the day, and he involuntarily called to mind Nasanski’s words that very night: “his thoughts were as grey as a soldier’s cloak.”
He soon fell into a deep, heavy sleep. As he had always done of late, when he had had bitter moments, he saw himself, even now in his dreams, as a little child. There were no impure impulses in him, no sense of something lacking, no weariness of life; his body was light and healthy, and his soul was luminous and full of joy and hope; and in this world of radiance and happiness he saw dear old Moscow’s streets in the dazzling brightness that is presented to the eyes in dreamland. But far away by the horizon, at the very verge of this sky that was saturated with light, there arose quickly and threateningly a dark, ill-boding wall of cloud, behind which was hidden a horrible provincial hole of a place with cruel and unbearable slavery, drills, recruit schools, drinking, false friends, and utterly corrupt women. His life was nothing but joy and gladness, but the dark cloud was waiting patiently for the moment when it was to fold him in its deadly embrace. And it so happened that little Romashov, amidst his childish babble and innocent dreams, bewailed in silence the fate of his “double.”
He awoke in the middle of the night, and noticed that his pillow was wet with tears. Then he wept afresh, and the warm tears again ran down his cheeks in rapid streams.
VI
WITH the exception of a few ambitious men bent on making a career for themselves, all the officers regarded the service as an intolerable slavery to which they must needs submit. The younger of them behaved like veritable schoolboys; they came late to the drills, and wriggled away from them as soon as possible, provided that could be done without risk of serious consequences to themselves afterwards. The captains, who, as a rule, were burdened with large families, were immersed in household cares, scandals, money troubles, and were worried the whole year through with loans, promissory notes, and other methods of raising the wind. Many ventured—often at the instigation of their wives—secretly to divert to their own purposes the moneys belonging to the regiment and the soldiers’ pay—nay, they even went so far as “officially” to withhold their men’s private letters when the latter were found to contain money. Some lived by gambling—vint, schtoss, lansquenet—and certain rather ugly stories were told in connection with this—stories which high authorities had a good deal of trouble to suppress. In addition to all this, heavy drinking, both at mess and in their own homes, was widespread amongst the officers.
With regard to the officers’ sense of duty, that, too, was, as a rule, altogether lacking. The non-commissioned officers did all the work; the pay-sergeants set in motion and regulated the inner mechanism of the company, and were held responsible for the despatch of it; hence very soon, and quite imperceptibly, the commander became a mere marionette in the coarse, experienced hands of his subordinates. The senior officers, moreover, regarded the exercises of the troops with the same aversion as did their junior comrades, and if at any time they displayed their zeal by punishing an ensign, they only did it to gain prestige or—which was more seldom the case—to satisfy their lust of power or desire for revenge.
Captains of brigades and battalions had, as a rule, absolutely nothing to do in the winter. During the summer it was their duty to inspect the exercises of the battalion, to assist at those of the regiment and division, and to undergo the hardships of the field-manœuvres. During their long freedom from duty they used to sit continually in their mess-room, eagerly studying the Russki Invalid,[7] and savagely criticizing all new appointments; but cards were, however, their alpha and omega, and they most readily permitted their juniors to be their hosts, though they but very rarely exercised a cautious hospitality in their own homes, and then only with the object of getting their numerous daughters married.
But when the time for the great review approached, it was quite another tune. All, from the highest to the lowest, were seized by a sort of madness. There was no talk of peace and quiet then; every one tried, by additional hours of drill and an almost maniacal activity, to make up for previous negligence. The soldiers were treated with the most heartless cruelty, and overtaxed to the last degree of sheer exhaustion. Every one was tyrant over some wretch; the company commanders, with endless curses, threatened their “incompetent” subalterns, and the latter, in turn, poured the vials of their wrath over the “non-coms.,” and the “non-coms.,” hoarse with shouting orders, oaths, and the most frightful insults, struck and misused the soldiers in the most ferocious manner. The whole camp and parade-ground were changed into a hell, and Sundays, with their indispensable rest and peace, loomed like a heavenly paradise in the eyes of the poor tortured recruits.