Officer and Soldier-Servant

“Undress!” said the doctor to Nikita, who was standing motionless, his eyes fixed on space. Nikita gave a start, and hurriedly commenced to unfasten his clothes.

“A bit faster, friend!” cried the doctor impatiently; “you see what a lot of you there are here.”

He pointed to the crowd in the room.

“Turn round!⁠ ⁠… Lost your senses?” added by way of assistance the N.C.O. who was taking the measurements.

Nikita made even more haste, threw off his shirt and trousers, and stood in a state of nature. That there is nothing more beautiful than the human form has often been said by someone, somewhen, and somewhere, but if he who first made this pronouncement had lived in the seventies, and had seen the naked Nikita, he would certainly have retracted his words.

Before the Military Service Commission there stood a little man with a disproportionately large stomach, a legacy from generations of ancestors who had never tasted pure bread⁠—and long withered arms furnished with huge black knotted fists. His long awkward body was supported by very short bandy legs, and the whole figure was crowned by a head⁠ ⁠… what a head it was! The facial bones had been developed at the expense of the skull. His forehead was low and narrow, and his eyes, without brows or lashes, were little more than slits. On an enormous flat face forlornly sat a little round nose which, although carried high, not only failed to give the face an expression of haughtiness, but, on the contrary, made it look still more woeful. The mouth, in contrast to the nose, was enormous, and presented the appearance of a shapeless chasm, unadorned, notwithstanding Nikita’s twenty years, by one single hair. Nikita stood with his head lowered, his shoulders forward, his arms hanging like whipcords by his sides, and his feet slightly turned in.

“Ape!” said a rather stout, brisk-mannered Colonel, the military head of the Commission, leaning towards a spare young man with a handsome beard, a member of the Zemstvo Board, “a regular ape!”

“A splendid confirmation of Darwin’s theory,” murmured the Zemstvo official, to which the Colonel loudly assented, and turned to the doctor.

“Well, of course he is fit! He is sound,” replied the latter.

“Only he will not go to the Guards, ha, ha, ha!” said the Colonel, laughing heartily, but not unkindly; then, turning to Nikita, he added in a quiet tone: “Present yourself here in a fortnight’s time. The next man, Parfen Semenoff, undress!”

Nikita began slowly to dress himself; his arms and legs were all over the place, and refused to do as bid. He kept whispering something to himself, but precisely what it was he himself probably did not know. He understood only that they had declared him fit for service, and that within a fortnight they would drive him from home for some years. Only this was in his head, and only this thought pierced its way through the maze and stupor in which he was enveloped. Finally, having successfully reduced his arms to obedience, he put on his belt, and left the room in which the medical examination was taking place. A little doubled-up old man of some sixty years of age met him in the passage.

“Have they taken you?” he asked.

Nikita did not answer, and the old man knew that it was so, and did not ask any more questions. They went out into the street. It was a bright frosty day. A crowd of muzhiks and babas were standing about waiting. Many were stamping their feet, and beating themselves with their arms to keep warm. The snow crunched under their bast shoes and boots, and steam was rising from their heads enveloped in shawls and from the little shaggy ponies which had brought their masters in from the surrounding villages.

The smoke from the chimneys in the little town was rising in straight tall columns.

“Have they taken yours, Ivan?” inquired an old man, a sturdy-looking muzhik in a new tanned coat, a big sheepskin cap, and good boots.

“They have taken him. Ilia Savelich, taken him. It was God’s will to do us this injury.”

“What will you do now?”

“What is there to do? The will of God⁠ ⁠… there was one helper in the family, and now he’s gone⁠ ⁠… and⁠ ⁠…”

Ivan made a gesture with his hand.

“You should have adopted him sooner,” said Ilia Savelich, with an air of conviction, “then he would have been saved.”

“Who knew of it? We knew nothing. He was instead of my son, and once again the only helper in the family.⁠ ⁠… I thought that for this reason the gentleman would have allowed it. ‘No, no,’ he said, ‘impossible, because it is the law.’ ‘How can it be the law, Your Excellency,’ I said, ‘when his wife is in labour? Besides, Your Excellency,’ I said, ‘it is impossible for me, one⁠ ⁠…’ ‘No, we know nothing of this,’ he said, ‘and by the law as it stands he is an orphan, alone, and so he must serve. Who is to blame,’ he said, ‘that he has a wife and son? If he chose to marry when he was fifteen⁠—’

“I wanted to explain to him, but he would not listen, and got angry. ‘Go, go away,’ he said, ‘there is plenty of work without you bothering me.⁠ ⁠…’ What is to be done?⁠ ⁠… God’s will.”

“Yours was a quiet young fellow?”

“Yes, quiet and hardworking, and never have I heard a word in argument from him. Ilia, as I tell you⁠ ⁠… he has been better than a son to me. This is our grief.⁠ ⁠… God sent him, and God has taken him away.⁠ ⁠… Goodbye, Ilia Savelich; and yours, will they look at him soon?”

“That depends on the authorities⁠ ⁠… only they cannot call my son fit. He is a cripple.”

“That’s your happiness, Ilia Savelich.”

“Eh, but what are you saying! Are you not afraid to say that? Eh, eh, ‘happiness’ that a son was born lame.”

“Well, Ilia Savelich, it has turned out for the better; he will always be at home. Goodbye, and good health to you.”

“Goodbye, friend⁠ ⁠… and what about that little loan? Have you forgotten it?”

“Impossible, Ilia Savelich⁠ ⁠… that is⁠—cannot be done. It is only a trifle; you can wait, and we are in such trouble.⁠ ⁠…”

“All right! all right! we will talk about it another time. Goodbye, Ivan Petrovich.”

“Goodbye, Ilia Savelich, good health to you.”

Nikita at this moment untied the horse from the post to which it was fastened, and he, with his adopted father, settled themselves in the sleigh, and started off. It was fifteen versts to their village. The little pony went along bravely, throwing up balls of snow with his hoofs, which broke up in their flight, falling in showers on Nikita. But Nikita lay silent near his father, wrapped up in his sheepskin, without saying a word. Twice the old man spoke to him, but received no reply. He seemed to have become petrified, and gazed fixedly at the snow, as if seeking in it some point forgotten by him in the rooms of the Commission.

Having arrived, they went straight into the hut and gave the news. The family, which consisted, in addition to the men, of three women and three children of Ivan Petrovich’s son who had died last year, commenced to wail.

Nikita’s wife, Praskovia, collapsed. The women cried for a whole week. How this week passed for Nikita no one knows, because the whole time he maintained a rigid silence, his face preserving the same set expression of submissive despair.

Eventually it all came to an end. Ivan took the recruit to the town, and handed him over at the mustering-place. Two days later Nikita, one of a party of recruits, marched over the snowdrifts along the main road to the provincial capital where the regiment to which he had been drafted was quartered. He was clothed in a new short half-shuba, in trousers of thick black material, new valenkies, a cap, and mitts. In his wallet, besides two changes of linen and some pies, there lay a rouble note carefully wrapped up in a handkerchief. Nikita was indebted for all this to his adopted father, Ivan Petrovich, who had implored Ilia Savelich to make him a further advance so as to equip Nikita for service.

Nikita proved to be a very poor recruit. The instructor to whom he was handed over for his preliminary drills was in despair. Notwithstanding every conceivable explanation on his part to Nikita, amongst which cuffs and blows played a certain role, his pupil could not even entirely master the not difficult problem of forming fours. The figure of Nikita dressed up in uniform presented a sorry spectacle. In front of him projected his stomach, and in his efforts to draw it in he threw out his chest, leaning forward with his whole body at an angle which threatened to bring him down face forwards to the ground. Knock him about as they would, the authorities could not make out of Nikita even a most indifferent front-rank man. During company drill his Captain, having abused Nikita, would “tell off” the section N.C.O., who would pass it on to Nikita. The punishment awarded consisted of extra “fatigues.” Soon, however, the N.C.O. guessed that this was no punishment, but a pleasure to Nikita. He was a wonderful worker, and the duties of carrying wood and water, attending the stores, but chiefly keeping the barrack quarters clean⁠—i.e., endless swabbing the floors with a damp mop⁠—were to his liking. At any rate, whilst performing this work he was not obliged to think how not to get out of step, and not to go left when the command was “Right turn,” and, besides, he felt quite safe from terrifying questions on that wonderful science known in soldier’s language as “literature,” such as: “What is a soldier?” “What is a colour?”

Nikita knew quite well what were colours. He was prepared with all possible zeal to carry out his obligations and duties as a soldier, and would probably have given his life in defence of the colours, but to define them verbatim as set forth in the book was beyond him.

“The colour is⁠ ⁠… which colour, colour⁠ ⁠…” he used to murmur, endeavouring as far as possible to straighten out his clumsy body, poking out his chin, and screwing up his eyes bare of all lashes.

“Fool!” would cry the consumptive N.C.O. giving the lesson. “Am I to teach you your alphabet? How much longer am I to be tormented with you? You idiot! you clodhopper! Tfy!⁠ ⁠… How many times must I repeat it to you? Now say it after me⁠—the colour is a sacred banner.⁠ ⁠…”

Nikita could not repeat even these few words. The threatening aspect of the N.C.O. and his shouting had a stupefying effect on him. There was a ringing in his ears, stars were dancing before his eyes. He heard nothing of the definition of a colour; his lips did not move. He stood silent.

“Go on; the D⁠⸺ take you! The colour is a sacred banner.”

“The colour⁠ ⁠…”

“Well?⁠ ⁠…”

“… Banner⁠ ⁠…” continued Nikita in a trembling voice, with tears in his eyes.

“Is a sacred banner!” yelled the maddened N.C.O.

“Sacred which.⁠ ⁠…”

Then the N.C.O. would commence to rush from corner to corner, spitting and swearing, whilst Nikita remained perfectly still in the same place and in the same attitude, following his infuriated superior with his eyes. He was not upset by the abuse and epithets showered on him, but only grieved wholeheartedly at his inability to do his superior’s bidding.

“Three days’ extra duty!” the worn-out N.C.O. would gasp in a voice rendered faint and hoarse from shouting, and Nikita would thank God to be freed at least for a time from the hated “literature” and drill.

When it was noticed that the punishment awarded Nikita not only did not distress him, but even afforded him real pleasure, Nikita was placed under arrest. Finally, having exhausted all means for the reformation of the unfortunate man, the authorities washed their hands of him.

“Nothing can be done with Ivanoff,” was the almost daily complaint of the Company Sergeant-Major, when making his morning report to the Company Commander.

“About Ivanoff?⁠ ⁠… Oh yes. Let me see, what is it he is doing?” the Captain would ask as he sat in his dressing-gown, smoking a cigarette between the intervals of sipping tea out of a glass in an electroplated holder.

“Nothing, Your Excellency; he is not doing anything. As a man he is quiet, only he cannot understand anything.”

“Try something,” the Captain would say meditatively, blowing rings of tobacco smoke.

“We have tried, Your Excellency, but nothing comes of it.”

“Well! What can I do with him? You will agree at least that I am but a mortal, and cannot work miracles. Eh? Well, idiot, do something with him⁠ ⁠… and get out!”

Eventually the Company Commander became bored with hearing daily complaints from the Sergeant-Major about Nikita.

“Stop talking about your Ivanoff!” he shouted. “Don’t try to teach him; give him up. Do what you like with him, only don’t bring him up before me.”

The Company Sergeant-Major tried to arrange a transfer of Nikita Ivanoff to the “employed” men’s Company, but there were already plenty of “employed” men. An attempt to make him an officer’s servant was equally unsuccessful, as all the officers already had servants. Then Nikita was saddled with all the dirty work of the battalion, and all attempts to make him a soldier were abandoned. Thus he lived for a year until the arrival of a newly-appointed subaltern officer, Second Lieutenant Stebelkoff.

Nikita was told off as “permanent orderly” to him⁠—in plain language, to be his soldier-servant.

Alexander Michailovich Stebelkoff, Nikita’s new master, was a very kind young fellow of average height, with a shaven chin and a magnificently pointed moustache, which he from time to time, not without a feeling of pride, used to stroke lightly with his left hand. He had just passed through the cadet school without having displayed during his time there any special taste for sciences, but had learnt his drill to perfection. He was thoroughly happy in his present position. The two years spent at the school on Government fare, under the strict supervision of the authorities, the entire absence of friends to whom he could have gone on holidays in search of relaxation from the barrack life of the school, and not possessed of a kopeck of private money with which he could have amused himself, had all wearied him, and now, as an officer receiving forty roubles a month pay, commanding a half-company of soldiers, and a soldier-servant at his absolute disposal, he for the time at least wanted nothing more. “Good, very good,” he thought, as he went to sleep, and again awaking he first of all remembered he was no longer a cadet, but an officer, that there was no longer need to jump out of bed on the instant and dress, under fear of the orderly-officer, but that he could roll over again, make himself snug, and smoke a cigarette.

“Nikita!” he would call, and Nikita, in a faded rose-coloured cotton shirt, black cloth trousers, and a pair of old big rubber galoshes (goodness knows how he had become possessed of them) on his bare feet, would appear at the door leading from the single room of Stebelkoff’s flat into the passage.

“Cold today?”

“I cannot tell you, Your Excellency,” Nikita would reply timidly.

“Go and look! and come and tell me!”

Off would go Nikita into the frost, and in the course of a minute reappear.

“Very cold, sir.”

“Is there a wind?”

“I cannot tell you, Your Excellency.”

“Ass! Why can’t you tell? Surely you were in the courtyard?”

“In the yard there is none, sir.”

“None.⁠ ⁠… Go out into the street.”

Nikita would go out into the street, and return with the information that there was a “healthy” wind.

“No parade, sir, so Sidoroff says,” he would venture to add.

“All right; clear out!” and Alexander Michailovich would then turn over in his bunk, pull the warm blanket over him, and, half dozing, would commence to think to the accompaniment of the crackling of brightly-burning wood in the stove which had been lit by Nikita. Cadet life appeared to him as an unpleasant dream, although it was not so long ago that the drum used to beat right at his ear, and he would have to jump out of bed shivering from the cold.⁠ ⁠… These recollections would awake others, also not particularly pleasing. Poverty, and the squalid surroundings and life of a small official, a habitually sullen mother, a tall lean woman, with a severe expression on her thin face which seemed a perpetual defiance to anyone bold enough to insult her. A crowd of brothers and sisters; the constant quarrels between them. His mother’s railings against fate, an everlasting exchange of abuse between his parents whenever his father came home drunk. The school in which, in spite of all efforts, it was so difficult to learn. The teasing of his schoolmates, who for some unknown reason had bestowed on him the extremely insulting nickname of the “herring.” His failure in the examination on Russian. The depressing, humiliating scene when he was turned out of the school in consequence, and arrived home in tears. His father was asleep on the chintz-covered sofa drunk. His mother was fussing about the kitchen at the stove preparing dinner. Seeing Sasha in tears with his books, she guessed what had happened, and after showering abuse on him had rushed off to his father, awakened him, and explained what had happened, and his father had thereupon beaten him.

Sasha was then fifteen years old. Two years later he took up military service as a volunteer, and at twenty years of age was already an independent man, a Second Lieutenant in an infantry regiment of the Line.⁠ ⁠…

“It is very nice,” he would reflect, as he lay under the blanket.⁠ ⁠… “This evening at the Club there is to be a dance.”

And Alexander Michailovich would picture to himself the hall of the Officers’ Club brilliantly lighted up, the heat, and music, and young girls in long rows seated along the wall, only waiting for some young ofhcer to invite them to take a few turns in a waltz. And Stebelkoff with a click of his heels (What a pity, dash it! he sighed, he could not wear spurs), and neatly bending before the Major’s pretty daughter, with a graceful sweep of his hand would say “Permettez,” and the Major’s daughter, placing her little hand on his shoulder near his epaulette, they would glide away.⁠ ⁠…

“Yes, that’s not being a ‘herring’⁠—how idiotic, and why a ‘herring’? Those who attend the first course at the University are much more like herrings, going there and starving, but I⁠ ⁠… And why is it absolutely necessary to go to the University? We will allow that a magistrate or doctor receives a bigger salary than my pay, but think how long it takes to get it!⁠ ⁠… and all this time one must live at one’s own expense. But with us, once you get into the school everything goes of itself. If one serves well it is possible to become a General.⁠ ⁠… Ah, then I would give it⁠ ⁠…” Alexander Michailovich did not say to whom or what he would give, for other reminiscences than of “herrings” at this instance flashed into his mind.

“Nikita,” he called, “have we any tea?”

“None at all. Your Excellency⁠—all used.”

“Go out and buy some;” and then he would draw his new purse from under the pillow, and give Nikita the money, and whilst Nikita is out getting the tea Alexander Michailovich continues his reveries, but before Nikita returns has succeeded in going to sleep again.

“Sir! Your Excellency!” whispers Nikita.

“What? Eh? Have you got the tea? All right, I will get up in a moment.⁠ ⁠… Help me dress.”

Alexander Michailovich, both at home and at the school, had always dressed himself (excepting, of course, during his babyhood), but having become possessed of a manservant, he in two weeks had absolutely forgotten how to put on or take off his clothes. Nikita pulls on his master’s socks and boots, helps him with his trousers, throws around his master’s shoulders the summer military cloak which does duty as a dressing-gown. And Alexander Michailovich, without washing, sits down to drink his morning tea.

They bring him the lithographed regimental orders, and Stebelkoff, reading it from beginning to end, notes with satisfaction that his turn for “guard” is still far off. “But what is this novelty?” he wonders as he reads:

“With a view to maintaining the standard of knowledge amongst officers of the regiment, Captain Ermolin and Lieutenant Petroff (2nd) are detailed from the commencement of next week to lecture, the former on tactics, the latter on fortification. Further special notice will be given as to the hours for these lectures, which will take place in the Officers’ Club.”

“Well! Goodness knows, I suppose I shall have to go and listen,” thinks Alexander Michailovich. “They were boring enough at the school, and they will not say anything new, but will only read from the old handbooks.”

Having read through the Orders and finished his tea, Alexander Michailovich orders Nikita to clear away the samovar, and settles himself down to roll cigarettes, continuing the while his never-ending cogitations about his past, present, and future, which last promises him, if not the embonpoint of a General, at least the substantial epaulettes of a Staff-Officer. And when all the cigarettes have been rolled he lies on his bed, and reads the back numbers of the Niva, looking at the already familiar pictures, and not missing a line of the text. Finally, from long lying and reading, his head begins to get dizzy.

“Nikita!” he shouts.

Nikita jumps up from the cloak stretched out on the floor in the passage near the stove, which serves him as a bed, and rushes to the Barin.

“See what time it is!⁠ ⁠… No, better bring me my watch.”

Nikita gingerly takes up a silver watch, with its chain of new gold, from the table, and, having handed it to his master again, repairs into the passage to his cloak.

“Half-past one⁠ ⁠… about time to dine,” thinks Stebelkoff, winding up the watch with a brass key which he had just purchased, and in the head of which was inserted a little photographic picture visible in magnified shape if held up to the light. Alexander Michailovich looks at the picture, screwing up his left eye, and smiles. “What extraordinarily amusing things they make nowadays, to be sure,” he reflects, “and how clever.⁠ ⁠… However, I must be going.⁠ ⁠… Nikita!” he shouts.

Nikita appears.

“I want to wash.”

Nikita brings an unpainted deal stool into the room, and places a wash-hand basin on it. Alexander Michailovich begins to wash. The icy cold water scarcely touches his hands before he yells out.

“How many times have I told you, you clown, to leave the water in the room overnight. This water is cold enough to freeze one’s face.⁠ ⁠… Idiot!”

Nikita, fully conscious of the enormity of his crime, remains silent, and continues busily to pour water into the enraged gentleman’s palms.

“Have you brushed my tunic?”

“Yes, Your Excellency, I have brushed it,” replies Nikita, as he gives the Barin a new tunic, with glistening gold shoulder-straps, decorated with a numeral and one star, which had been hanging on the back of a chair.

Before putting it on Alexander Michailovich attentively inspects the dark green cloth, and finds a piece of fluff on it.

“What’s this? Is this what you call cleaning? Is this the way you do your work? Clear out, you fool, and brush it again.”

Nikita goes out into the passage, and begins to extract apparently from the brush, with the aid of the tunic, sounds known as “shooing.” Stebelkoff, with the aid of a folding mirror in a yellow wooden frame and pommade hongroise, begins to bring his moustaches to the greatest possible perfection. Finally they are reduced to order, but the noise in the passage continues.

“Here, give me that tunic; you will go on cleaning it until the crack of doom.⁠ ⁠… I am already late through you, ass!⁠ ⁠…”

Then, carefully buttoning up his coat, fastening on his sword, and putting on his galoshes, Alexander Michailovich goes out into the street, stamping with his feet along the frozen boards of the path.

The rest of the day passes in dining, reading the Russki Invalid, and in conversation with his brother-officers about the Service, promotion, and pay. In the evening Alexander Michailovich goes to the Club, and flashes in the “whirl of a waltz” with the Major’s daughter. He returns home late, tired, and a little excited from several drinks taken during the evening, but contented.⁠ ⁠… Life was varied only by drill, guards, camp in the summer, sometimes manoeuvres, and occasionally by lectures on fortification and tactics which it was impossible to avoid. And so the years roll on, leaving no traces on Stebelkoff, save that the colour of his face changes and signs of baldness become manifest, whilst instead of one star on the shoulder-straps there appear two, three, and then four stars.⁠ ⁠…

What does Nikita do all this time? Nikita lies for the most part on his cloak near the stove, jumping up every few minutes in answer to the never-ending demands of the Barin. In the morning he has quite a lot to do. There is the stove to be lighted, the samovar prepared, water brought, boots and uniform to be cleaned, the Barin to be dressed when he gets up, and the room to be swept and tidied. (It is true this last does not take up much time, as the whole furniture consists only of a bed, a table, three chairs, a cupboard, and a portmanteau.) Nevertheless all this is work for Nikita. When his master has gone out there commences a long, long day to be spent in the compulsory doing of nothing, broken only by a journey to the barracks for his dinner from the Company kitchen. Whilst living in barracks Nikita had learnt a little cobbling⁠—how to patch and resole boots, and to piece heels. When he was transferred to Stebelkoff he thought of continuing his trade, and used to hide the bag containing his work behind the door in the passage as soon as there was a knock at the door. The Barin having noticed for several days that there was a strong smell of leather in the passage, sought out the cause, and gave Nikita a severe “head-washing,” after which he ordered that it “must never occur again.” Then there was nothing left for Nikita to do but to lie on his cloak and think. And he used to lie there thinking through whole evenings, dozing off and on until a knock at the door notified his master’s return. Then Nikita would undress Alexander Michailovich, and soon afterwards the little flat would be buried in darkness⁠—officer and servant both asleep.

The wind drones and howls, and the snow beats in whirling flakes against the window, representing to the sleeping Stebelkoff the noise of ballroom music. In his sleep he sees a brilliantly-lighted hall such as he had hitherto never seen, full of smartly-dressed strangers. However, he does not feel at all confused, but, on the contrary, the hero of the evening. There are people he knows in the hall, too. Their attitude towards him is not as it has been usually, but is one of enthusiasm. His Colonel, instead of giving him the usual two fingers, presses his hand warmly in his own fat fist. Major Khlobuschin, who had always looked somewhat askance at Stebelkoff’s wooing of his daughter, himself now leads her to him, submissively bowing. What he had done or for what they are praising him he does not know, but that he had done something was evident. Glancing at his shoulders, he sees on them a General’s epaulettes. The music resounds, the couples glide off, and he, too, floats away somewhere ever farther and farther, ever higher and higher. The brilliantly-lighted hall becomes a mere speck of distant light. Around him are a great number of persons in various uniforms. They are all asking his orders. He does not know about what they are asking, but gives his instructions. Orderlies gallop to and from him. The distant roar of cannon is heard. There is the clash of martial music as regiment after regiment marches past him. All are moving forward. The guns sound closer and closer, and Stebelkoff becomes terrified; “They are killing people,” he thinks. And an awful yell resounds from every side. Terrible, monstrous, and ferocious beings, such as he had never seen anywhere, rush at him. They come ever closer; Stebelkoff’s heart contracts with the indescribable fear experienced only in dreams, and he shouts “Nikita!”

The wind drones and howls, and the snow beats in whirling flakes against the window, and it seems to the sleeping Nikita a real wind and real bad weather. He dreams he is lying in his own hut alone. No one is near him⁠—no wife, no father⁠—not one of his belongings. He does not know how he got home, and is afraid he must have deserted. He is certain that they are after him, and feels that they are near, and wishes to run away and hide somewhere, but is unable to move a limb. Then he cries out, and the whole hut is filled with people, all his village acquaintances, but their faces are all extraordinary. “How do you do, Nikita?” they say to him. “All yours, my friend, have gone! God has taken them all. All have died. There they are; look there!” and Nikita sees his whole family in a crowd together⁠—Ivan, his wife, and Aunt Praskovia, and the children. And he understands that, although they are all standing together, they are all dead, and that all his village friends are dead. That is why they look so odd, and are laughing so strangely. They come towards him, and seize hold of him, but he breaks away from them, and runs over the snowdrifts, stumbling and falling. The dead are no longer pursuing him, but Lieutenant Stebelkoff, with soldiers. And he runs on and on, and the Lieutenant keeps crying out to him: “Nikita! Nikita! Nikita!”

“Nikita!” shouts out Stebelkoff in reality, and Nikita, awaking, jumps up, and gropes his way into the room in his bare feet.

“What’s the matter with you? D⁠⸺ you! Are you making a fool of me, or what? How many times have I told you to place some matches near me? You sleep like a lout! I have been calling you for half an hour. Give me some matches.”

The sleepy Nikita fumbles about the table and window until he finds the matches, then lights a candle stuck in a brass candlestick, which is turning green with verdigris, and, all the time blinking his eyes, gives it to his master. Alexander Michailovich smokes a cigarette, and within a quarter of an hour’s time officer and soldier-servant are again wrapped in deep slumber.