Keep him amused! With no thought in our minds, no word on our tongues which did not deal with the war, the war of which he never spoke, with which he had no concern!
It was the youngest brother who broke through our quandary.
'I think we have all been blind—and stupid! Babanchik never asks for war news. But why does he always happen to be about when the paper comes in the morning? Why does he never change the subject as long as we talk of the battles? Haven’t you seen the embarrassed look on his face when Germany claims victory? And why didn’t he need the doctor until Warsaw was endangered?'
Thus did we chance upon the truth. Though even then we were not certain—not until a letter, six months delayed, came to him from Kolya. Babanchik’s hands shook when he laid it down.
'The little rat! What do you think he has done? He has sent a petition to the Tsar, the Tsar himself! To beg to be released from prison that he may join the army. He promises to go to the most dangerous position, to do the hardest work, if the Tsar will only set him free and let him fight. The blessed little rat!'
'Fight?' I asked, and looked Babanchik straight in the face, 'fight for Russia?'
The embarrassed look came into his eyes. But, even then, he did not at once capitulate.
'O my dear,' he replied, 'youth forgets so easily!'
After that it was not difficult to keep him amused. But to keep him from growing excited was not a task for human minds. Already he was fighting with Kolya. At night he lay awake, gleefully devising a thousand sly schemes whereby, single-handed, Kolya should take captive a hundred Germans; the days he spent in filling his letters to the boy with a detailed description of these schemes. Each morning we were introduced to marvels of unheard-of strategy, and called upon to translate from the newspaper every word of the long and conflicting dispatches. He was forgetting to eat, he had no time for exercise. An alarming shortness of breath followed, and we sent for the doctor again. The latter’s visit was short, his opinion no less so:—
'If he continues to live at this tension he will not last until winter. Keep him quiet.'