“Right, Captain!” yelled Lbov in reply; “but I shan’t obey,” he whispered to Romashov with a wink.
The 4th platoon exercised on the inclined ladder. The soldiers walked in turn to the ladder, gripped hold of the steps, and climbed up them with arms bent. Shapovalenko stood below and made remarks—
“Keep your feet still. Up with your soles.”
The turn now came to a little soldier in the left wing, whose name was Khliabnikov, who served as a butt to the entire company. Whenever Romashov caught sight of him, he wondered how this emaciated, sorry figure, in height almost a dwarf, whose dirty little beardless face was but a little larger than a man’s fist, could have been admitted into the army. And when he met Khliabnikov’s soulless eyes, which looked as if they had expressed nothing but a dull submissive fear ever since he was born, he felt in his heart a heavy, oppressive feeling of disgust and prick of conscience.
Khliabnikov hung motionless on the ladder like a dead, shapeless mass.
“Take a grip and raise yourself on your arms, you miserable dog!” shrieked the sergeant. “Up with you, I say.”
Khliabnikov made a violent effort to show his obedience, but in vain. He remained in the same position, and his legs swung from side to side. For the space of a second he turned downwards and sideways his ashen grey face, in which the dirty little turned-up nose obstinately turned upwards. Suddenly he let go of the ladder and fell like a sack to the ground.
“Ho, ho, you refuse to obey orders, to make the movement you were ordered to do,” roared the sergeant; “but a scoundrel like you shall not destroy discipline. Now you shall——”
“Shapovalenko, don’t touch him!” shouted Romashov, beside himself with anger and shame. “I forbid you to strike him now and always.” Romashov rushed up and pulled the sergeant’s arm.
Shapovalenko instantaneously became stiff and erect, and raised his hand to his cap. In his eyes, which at once resumed their ordinary lifeless expression, and on his lips there gleamed a faint mocking smile.