The Duel. Александр Куприн

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СКАЧАТЬ scarcely daring to breathe, and, as it were, hypnotized by the incessant, steadfast glances, as hard as marble, from those senile, colourless, severe eyes. Colonel Shulgovich, although much troubled with fatness and advanced in years, nevertheless still contrived to carry his huge, imposing figure. His broad, fleshy face, with its bloated cheeks and deeply receding forehead, was surrounded below by a thick, silvery, pointed beard, whereby the great head came very closely to resemble an awe-inspiring rhomboid. The eyebrows were grey, bushy, and threatening. He always spoke in a subdued tone, but his powerful voice – to which alone he owed his comparatively rapid promotion – was heard all the same as far as the most distant point of the parade-ground, nay! even out on the highroad.

      “Who are you?” asked the Colonel, suddenly halting in front of a young soldier named Sharafutdinov, who was on sentry duty near the gymnastic apparatus.

      “Recruit in the 6th Company, Sharafutdinov, your Excellency,” the Tartar answered in a strained and hoarse voice.

      “Fool! I mean, of course, what post are you supposed to occupy?”

      The soldier, who was frightened by his Commander’s angry tone, was silent: he could only produce one or two nervous twitchings of the eyebrows.

      “Well?” Shulgovich raised his voice.

      “I – am – standing – on guard,” the Tartar at last spluttered out, chancing it. “I cannot – understand, your Excellency,” he went on to say, but he relapsed into silence again, and stood motionless.

      The Colonel’s face assumed a dark brick colour, a shade with a touch of blue about it, and his bushy eyebrows began to pucker in an alarming way. Beside himself with fury, he turned round and said in a sharp tone —

      “Who is the youngest officer here?”

      Romashov stepped forward and touched his cap.

      “I am, Colonel.”

      “Ha – Sub-lieutenant Romashov, you evidently train your men well. Stand at attention and stretch your legs,” bawled Shulgovich suddenly, his eyes rolling. “Don’t you know how to stand in the presence of your commanding officer? Captain Sliva, I beg to inform you that your subaltern officer has been lacking in the respect due to his chief. And you, you miserable cur,” he now turned towards the unhappy Sharafutdinov, “tell me the name of your Commander.”

      “I don’t know,” replied Sharafutdinov quickly, but in a firm tone in which, nevertheless, a melancholy resignation might be detected.

      “Oh, I ask you the name of your Colonel. Do you know who I am? I – I – I!” and Shulgovich drummed with the flat of his hand several times on his broad chest.

      “I don’t know.”

      The Colonel delivered himself of a string of about twenty words of cynical abuse. “Captain Sliva, I order you at once to exhibit this son of a sea-cook, so that all may see him, with rifle and heavy accoutrements, and let him stand there till he rots. And as for you, Sub-lieutenant, I know well enough that loose women and flirtation interest you more than the service does. In waltzing and reading Paul de Kock you’re said to be an authority, but as to performing your duties, instructing your men – that, of course, is beneath your dignity. Just look at this creature” (he gave Sharafutdinov a sound slap on the mouth) – “is this a Russian soldier? No, he’s a brute beast, who does not even recognize his own commanding officer. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

      Romashov stared speechlessly at his chief’s red and rage-distorted countenance. He felt his heart threatening to burst with shame and indignation. Suddenly, almost unconsciously, he burst out in a hollow voice —

      “Colonel, this fellow is a Tartar and does not understand a word of our language, and besides…”

      But he did not finish his sentence. Shulgovich’s features had that very instant undergone a ghastly change. His whole countenance was as white as a corpse’s, his withered cheeks were transfused with sharp, nervous puckers, and his eyes assumed a terrible expression.

      “Wh-at!” roared he in a voice so unnatural and awe-inspiring that a little crowd of Jew boys, who, some distance from the causeway, were sitting on the fence on which they had swarmed, were scattered like sparrows – “you answer back? Silence! A raw young ensign permits himself to – Lieutenant Federovski, enter in my day-book that I have ordered Sub-lieutenant Romashov four days’ arrest in his room for breach of discipline. And Captain Sliva is to be severely rebuked for neglecting to instil into his junior officers ‘a true military spirit.’”

      The Adjutant saluted respectfully without any sign of fear. Captain Sliva stood the whole time bending slightly forward, with his hand to his cap, and quivering with emotion, though without altering a feature of his wooden face.

      “I cannot help being surprised at you, Captain Sliva,” again grunted Shulgovich, who had now to some extent regained his self-control. “How is it possible that you, who are one of the best officers in the regiment, and, moreover, old in the service, can let your youngsters run so wild? They want breaking in. It is no use to treat them like young ladies and being afraid of hurting them.”

      With these words he turned his back on the Captain, and, followed by the Adjutant, proceeded to the carriage awaiting him. Whilst he was getting into the carriage, and till the latter had turned round behind the corner of the regimental school, a dull, painful silence reigned in the parade-ground.

      “Ah! you dear old ducky,” exclaimed Captain Sliva in a dry tone and with deep contempt, when the officers had, some minutes later, separated. “Now, gentlemen, I suppose I, too, ought to say a couple of loving words to you. Learn to stand at attention and hold your jaw even if the sky falls – etc. To-day I’ve had a wigging for you before the whole of my company. Who saddled me with you? Who asked for your services? Not I, at any rate. You are, for me and my company, about as necessary as a fifth leg is to a dog. Go to the deuce, and return to your feeding-bottle.”

      He finished his bitter lecture with a weary, contemptuous movement of his hand, and dragged himself slowly away in the direction of his dark, dirty, cheerless bachelor quarters. Romashov cast a long glance at him, and gazing at the tall, thin figure, already bent with age, as well as by the affront just endured, he felt a deep pity for this lonely, embittered man whom nobody loved, who had only two interests in the whole world – correct “dressing” of the 6th Company when marching at a review, and the dear little schnapps bottle which was his trusty and sole companion till bedtime.

      And whereas Romashov also had the absurd, silly habit, which is often peculiar to young people, viz. in his introspection to think of himself as a third party, and then weave his noble personality into a sentimental and stilted phrase from novelettes, our soft-hearted lieutenant now expressed his opinion of himself in the following touching manner —

      “And over his kindly, expressive eyes fell the shadow of grief.”

      II

      THE soldiers marched home to their quarters in platoon order. The square was deserted. Romashov stood hesitating for a moment at the causeway. It was not the first time during the year and a half he had been in the service he had experienced that painful feeling of loneliness, of being lost among strangers either hostile or indifferent, or that distressful hesitation as to where one shall spend the evening. To go home or spend the evening at the officers’ mess was equally distasteful to him. At the latter place, at that time of day, there was hardly a soul, at most a couple of ensigns who, whilst they drank ale and smoked to excess and indulged in as many oaths and unseemly words as possible, played pyramids in the wretched little narrow billiard-room; in addition to all this, СКАЧАТЬ