Leo Tolstoy

“ He has wrenched out all the tent-pegs stumbling over them.” Guskov, paying no heed to him, apologized, looking at me with a scarcely perceptible, sad smile, which seemed to say that I alone could understand him. He was very pitiable, but the Adjutant, his protector, seemed for some reason to be angry with his lodger, and would not let him alone.
“Oh yes, he is a sharp boy, turn him which way you will.”
“But who does not stumble over those pegs, Paul Dmitrich?” said Guskov; “you yourself stumbled the day before yesterday.”
“I, old fellow, am not in the ranks; smartness is not expected of me.” ”

“ In ’48, during my stay in Moscow, I often visited Ivashin. We had grown up together and were old friends. His wife was a pleasant hostess and what is considered an amiable woman, but I never liked her. The winter I visited them, she often spoke with ill-concealed pride of her brother, who had lately finished his studies, and was, it seemed, among the best-educated and most popular young men in the best Petersburg society. Knowing by reputation Guskov’s father, who was very rich and held an important position, and knowing his sister’s leanings, I was prejudiced before I met Guskov. ”

“ I tried to justify myself for this step that seemed to him so strange.
“I can imagine how uncongenial to you also the society of these officers must be, men without an idea of education. It is impossible for you and them to understand one another. Why, you may live here for ten years, and except cards and wine, and talk about rewards and campaigns, you will see nothing and hear nothing.” ”

“ Specially amusing was the position of the enormous, fat Lieutenant-Captain S⁠⸺, who, puffing and smiling goodhumoredly, with his feet trailing on the ground, rode on the back of the small and puny Lieutenant O⁠⸺. But it was growing late. The orderlies brought three tumblers of tea without any saucers, for the whole six of us, and having finished our game we came to the rustic seats. Near them stood a short, bandy-legged man whom I did not know, dressed in a sheepskin coat, and with a large, white, long-woolled sheepskin cap on his head. ”

“ And Paul Dmitrich was here; he knew who I was, and I was capitally received⁠—at my uncle’s request⁠ ⁠... Guskov, vous savez. But I noticed that these people, without education or culture, cannot respect a man nor show him respect when he is not surrounded by an aureole of wealth and rank. ”

“ How is it I win when playing with others?”
“Paul Dmitrich plays admirably: I have long known him,” said I. I had really known the Adjutant for some years; had more than once seen him playing for stakes high in proportion to the officers’ means; and had admired his handsome, rather stern, and ever imperturbably calm face, his slow, Little-Russian pronunciation, his beautiful things, his horses, his leisurely, Little-Russian disposition, and especially his ability to play with self-control⁠—systematically and pleasantly. ”

“ When you have luck it is all right, but then, when it goes against you, you may lose terribly. He is a proof of it. On this expedition he has lost more than fifteen hundred rubles, counting the things he has lost. And with what self-control he used to play formerly! So that that officer of yours seemed even to doubt his honor.”
“Oh, he did not mean anything.⁠ ⁠... Nikita, have we any Caucasian wine left?” I asked, very much relieved by Guskov’s loquacity. Nikita grumbled again, but brought us the wine all the same, and again crossly watched Guskov emptying his cup. ”

“ I can understand how, after five years of such a life, one may become like our cashiered officer, Dromov, who drinks with the soldiers and writes notes to all the officers begging them to lend him three rubles, and signs himself, ‘Tout à vous Dromov.’ One needs a character like mine in order not to sink quite into the mire in this terrible position. ”

“ You say yourself that you are a man of character; face your task, you have not much longer to suffer,” I said to him very incoherently, for I was excited both by feelings of pity and by a feeling of repentance at having allowed myself to condemn a man who was truly and deeply suffering. ”

“ He has not hit it off this campaign! I should think he’s lost 2,000 rubles in money, and things for another 500: the carpet he won of Mukhin, Nikitin’s pistols, the gold watch from Sada’s that Vorontsov gave him⁠—have all gone.”
“Serves him right,” said Lieutenant O⁠⸺; “he gulled everybody; it was impossible to play with him.”
“He gulled everybody, and now he himself is graveled,” and Lieutenant-Captain S⁠⸺ laughed good-naturedly. “Guskov, here, lives with him⁠—the Adjutant nearly lost him one day at cards!⁠—Really.⁠—Am I not right, old chap?” he said, turning to Guskov. ”

“ You understand how terrible it is that some ragamuffin may kill me⁠—a man who thinks and feels, and that he might as well kill Antonov by my side, a creature indistinguishable from a brute; and it is quite likely to happen that it is I who will be killed and not Antonov⁠—it is always so, une fatalité for all that is lofty or good. ”

“ To the right and to the left, halfway down the hill, white tents gleamed on the trodden black earth, and beyond the tents loomed the bare black trunks of the plane forest, where axes continually rang, fires crackled, and trees fell crashing down. ”

“ When others are present, and in ordinary circumstances when going into action, I am brave enough⁠—j’ai fait mes preuves124⁠—because I have self-love and am proud⁠—that is my fault⁠—and in the presence of others⁠ ⁠... I say, let me spend the night with you; they’ll be playing all night in our tent. I can sleep anywhere⁠—on the ground.”
While Nikita was making up a bed we rose, and again, in the dark, began walking up and down the battery. Guskov must really have had a very weak head, for after only two cups of vodka and two glasses of wine he was unsteady on his feet. ”

“ Understanding, therefore, all the wretchedness of such a position for a proud man no longer young, I felt for all who were in that state, and tried to discern their characters and the degree and direction of their mental capacities, in order to be able to judge the extent of their moral suffering. ”

“ And Guskov, in spite of my repeated efforts to stop the conversation, began to justify himself to me, and to demonstrate that he did not run away from the ambuscades, and that he was not a coward, as the Adjutant and Captain S⁠⸺ wished to imply.
“As I told you,” he said, wiping his hands on his sheepskin, “people of that kind can’t be considerate to a man who is a private and who has but little money: that is above their strength. ”

“ And in the presence of people who don’t know me and who see me in a common sheepskin coat⁠ ⁠... because⁠ ⁠...” His voice failed him, and again the little red hands with their dirty nails moved from his coat to his face; now smoothing his mustaches or hair, now touching his nose, rubbing his eye, or unnecessarily scratching his cheek.
“What’s the good of talking; everyone knows it, old chap!” continued S⁠⸺, really enjoying his joke and not in the least noticing Guskov’s excitement. ”

“ Je suis cassé.120 I have neither energy nor pride; nothing, not even nobility⁠ ⁠... Yes, I am ruined! and no one will ever understand what I have suffered. Everyone is indifferent. I am a lost man! I can never rise again, because I have sunk morally⁠ ⁠... ”

“ When I reason sanely, I long for death. Why should I care for a life of dishonor, or for myself, who am dead to all that is good in life? But at the least sign of danger I can’t help craving for this vile life, and guarding it as if it were something very precious, and I can’t, je ne puis pas,123 master myself.⁠ ⁠... ”

“ On my telling him to bring us something to eat and some vodka, he muttered discontentedly, and went slowly to his tent. However, after grumbling there a bit, he brought us a traveling-case, on which he placed a candle (round which he first tied a piece of paper to keep the wind off) , a saucepan, a pot of mustard, a tin cup with a handle, and a bottle of vodka bitters. Having arranged all this, Nikita stood some time near us and watched with evident disapproval while Guskov and I drank some of the spirit. ”

“ Because of all these conveniences, our comrades the artillery officers, and some of the infantry, liked to assemble at our battery, and called this place “The Club.”
It was a beautiful evening, the best players had come, and we were playing Gorodki. I, Ensign O⁠⸺, and Lieutenant O⁠⸺, lost two games running, and to the general amusement and laughter of the onlooking officers, and of soldiers and orderlies who were watching us from their tents, we twice carried the winners piggyback from one end of the ground to the other. ”

“ This was evidently a cadet’s or sergeant-major’s tent. I stopped.
“I have long known him,” Guskov was saying. “When I was in Petersburg he often came to see me, and I visited him. He belonged to very good society.”
“Whom are you talking about?” asked a tipsy voice.
“About the prince,” answered Guskov. “We are related, you know; more than that, we are old friends. You know, gentlemen, it is a good thing to have such an acquaintance. He is awfully rich, you see. A hundred rubles is nothing to him ”

“ This change suggested to me the idea that I had seen and known the man before; besides, Guskov, his real name, was familiar to me. But how and when I had seen him I was quite unable to recollect.
“Yes,” said Guskov, who kept raising his hand to his mustaches and letting it sink again without touching them, “Paul Dmitrich has been very unlucky this campaign: such a veine de malheur,”80 he added, in carefully spoken but good French, and I again thought I had met, and even often met, him somewhere. “I know Paul Dmitrich well; he has great confidence in me,” continued he ”

“ I was disgusted that⁠—on account, no doubt, of my knowing French⁠—he should suppose that I ought to despise the officer set, which, on the contrary, I, having lived long in the Caucasus, had fully learned to appreciate, and which I esteemed a thousand times more than the society Mr. Guskov had left. I wished to tell him so, but his position restrained me.
“In the N⁠⸺ Regiment the officer set is a thousand times worse than here,” he continued⁠—“J’espère que c’est beaucoup dire96⁠—so that you can’t imagine what it is like! Not to mention the cadets and the soldiers⁠—it is just awful! ”

“ Why should?⁠ ⁠... Is it likely?⁠ ⁠... It is certain⁠ ⁠...” began the stranger, but stopped suddenly, having evidently determined to feel hurt, frowned unnaturally and, muttering something between his teeth, again began making cigarettes. But the dregs of tobacco-dust that he could extract from his pouch being insufficient, he asked S⁠⸺ to favor him with the loan of a cigarette. We long continued among ourselves that monotonous military chatter familiar to all who have been on campaign. We complained, ever in the same terms, of the tediousness and duration of the expedition ”

“ At that time in Petersburg that fellow Metenin had a reputation⁠ ⁠...” And Guskov continued in this manner to tell me the story of his misfortune, which, being quite uninteresting, I shall here omit.
“Two months,” continued he, “I was under arrest and quite alone. I don’t know what did not pass through my mind in that time; but, do you know, when it was all over, when it seemed as if every link with the past was severed, it became easier for me. Mon père, vous en avez entendu parler89 surely: he is a man with an iron will and firm convictions ”