In Those Days: The Story of an Old Man Part 9

XI

A mixture of light and darkness appeared in a corner of the eastern sky, something like the reflection of a distant conflagration. The light spread farther and farther, and swallowed many a star. It looked as if some half-extinguished firebrand of a world had blazed up again, and was burning brightly once more. But no! that was neither a world-catastrophe nor a conflagration: some mysterious new creation was struggling into existence. And after the noiseless storm and battle of lights, the moon appeared, angry-looking, and ragged-edged. In the light of the moon the speaker too looked strange and fantastic, like a relic of a world that is no more.

The old man continued:--

Well, on that day we turned a new leaf in our lives. Till then we had been like people who live against their own will, without aim or object. We had to get up in the morning, because we had gone to bed the night before. We ate, because we were hungry. We went to our drills, because we were ordered to go. And we went to sleep at night, because we felt tired. All our existence seemed to be only for the sake of discipline; and that discipline, again, seemed a thing in itself. But the moment they told us of mobilization and war, our riddle was solved. It suddenly became clear to us why we had been caught and brought to where we were, and why we had been suffering all the time. It looked as if year in, year out, we had been walking in the darkness of some cave, and all of a sudden our path became light. And we were happy.

I saw Jacob: he, too, looked happy, which had not been his way for the last few years. From the moment he had received permission to pray in Hebrew and observe the Sabbath, his mood had changed for the worse: he looked as if he were "possessed." He complained that his prayers were not so sweet to him any more as they had been before; and the Sabbath rest was a real burden upon him. Then, his father did not appear in his dreams any more. Besides, he confessed that he forgot his prayers many a time, and was not very strict as to the Sabbath. He feared his prayers were no longer acceptable in Heaven.

No, said he, that was not his destiny: the Jewishness of a Cantonist lay only in suffering martyrdom. But with the news of the coming war, a change came over him. He became gay as a child.

One morning, when we were a.s.sembled on the drill grounds before the house of the sergeant, I was called into the house. "Hourvitz,"

said my good sergeant, turning to me, "three beautiful creatures ask me not to send you to the fighting line but to appoint you to some auxiliary company. Ask, and I shall do so."

"Sir," said I, "if this be your order, I have but to obey; but if my wish counts for anything, I should prefer to stay with the colors and go to the fighting line. Otherwise what was our preparation for and our training of many years?"

A smile of satisfaction appeared on the face of the sergeant.

"And if you fall in battle?"

"I shall not fall, sir, before I make others fall."

"What makes you feel so sure of it?"

"I cannot tell, sir; but it is enough if I am sure of it."

"Well, I agree with you. Now let us hear what your fair advocates have to say."

He opened the door of an adjoining room, and Anna, Marusya, and the sergeant's wife appeared. Then a dispute began. They insisted on their opinion, and I on mine.

"Let us count votes," said the sergeant. "I grant you two votes; together with my own vote it makes three against tree."

Then I looked at Marusya. She thought a little, and added her vote to mine. So the majority prevailed. When I went outside, Marusya followed me, and handed me a small parcel. What I found there, among other things, was a small Hebrew prayer book, which Marusya must have gotten at Moshko's, and a small silver cross which she had always worn around her neck. We looked at each other and kept silent: was there anything to be said?

After she had walked away a few steps, she turned around, as if she had forgotten something.

"And if you return . . .?"

"Then to you I return," was my answer. She went on, and I turned to look back in her direction: she also looked back at me. Later I turned again to look at her, and she, too, kept looking back, until we lost sight of each other.

Before Anna could be dispossessed, Heaven wrought a miracle: Serge Ivanovich was drafted into the army. He was attached to our regiment, and we served in the same company. In the meantime Anna remained in possession of the house.

XII

So, after all, they had not been mere sport, those years of drilling, of exercising, of training to "stand up," to "lie down,"

to "run," etc., etc. . . .

It had been all for the sake of war, and it was to war that we were going. My companion in exile, I mean my Barker, did not wish to part from me. Ashamed though I am, I must yet call him "my true friend." Human beings as a rule forget favors rendered. This is the way G.o.d has made them. In very truth, it is only your soldier, your fellow in exile, and your dog that are able to serve you and love you at the risk of their own lives. I chased Barker away, but he kept on following me. I struck him: he took the blows, and licked my hands. I struck him over the legs with the stock of my gun. He broke out in a whine, and ran after me, limping. Marusya caught him and locked him up in the stable. I thought I had gotten rid of him. But some hours later I saw him limping after me. Then I realized that the dog was fated to share all the troubles of campaign life with me. And my Barker became a highly respectable dog. The first day he eyed everybody with a look of suspicion. The bright b.u.t.tons and the blue uniforms scared him; possibly because b.u.t.tons and uniforms went with stocks of guns like the one that had given him the lame leg. By and by Barker picked me and Jacob out from among the soldiers, and kept near us. They used to say in our company that Barker was a particular friend of jews, and he knew a Jew when he saw one. Very likely that was so. But then they never knew how many slices of bread and meat Barker had gotten from Jewish hands before he knew the difference.

Just about that time we got other new companions. One of them was a certain Pole, Va.s.sil Stefanovich Zagrubsky, blessed be his memory, Jew-hater though he was.

The beginning of our acquaintance promised no good. That particular Pole was poor but proud--a poor fellow with many wants. Then he was a smoker, too. I also enjoyed a smoke when I had an extra copper in my pocket. But Zagrubsky had a pa.s.sion for smoking, and when he had no tobacco of his own, he demanded it of others. That was his way: he could not beg; he could only demand. Three of us shared one tent: Zagrubsky, Serge, and myself. Serge was a soldier in comfortable circ.u.mstances. He had taken some money with him from home, and received a monthly allowance from his parents. He always had excellent tobacco. Once, when he happened to open his tobacco pouch to roll a cigarette, Zagrubsky took notice of it, and put forth his hand to take some tobacco. That was his way: whenever he saw a tobacco pouch open, he would try to help himself to some of its contents. But Serge was one of those peasants whose ambition extends beyond their cla.s.s. He was painfully proud, prouder than any of the n.o.bles. Before entering the service he had made up his mind to "rise." He wanted to become an officer, so that the villagers would have to stand at attention before him, when he returned home. Therefore he gave Zagrubsky a supercilious look of contempt, and unceremoniously closed the pouch when the Pole wanted to take some tobacco. I was sorry for the Pole, and offered him some of my own tobacco. He did not fail to take it, but at the same time I heard him sizzle out "Zhid" from between his tightly closed lips. I looked at him in amazement: how on earth could he guess I was a Jew, when I spoke my Russian with the right accent and inflection, while his was lame, broken, and half mixed with Polish?

That was a riddle to me. But I had no time to puzzle it out, and I forgot it on the spot.

We had long been occupying the same position, waiting for a merry beginning. All that time seemed to us something like a preparation for a holiday; but the long tiresome wait was disgusting. In the meantime something extraordinary happened in our camp. Our camp was surrounded by a cordon of sentries. At some distance from the cordon was the camp of the purveyors, the merchants who supplied the soldiers with all kinds of necessaries. Without a special permit no purveyor could pa.s.s the line of sentries and enter the camp.

It happened that one of those purveyors excited the suspicion of Jacob. Without really knowing why, Jacob came to consider him a suspicious character. Even Barker, timid dog that he was, once viciously attacked that particular man, as if to tear him to pieces.

And it was with great difficulty that Jacob saved him from Barker's teeth. But from that time on Jacob began to watch the man closely.

That very day we were told that General Luders was going to visit our camp. Jacob was doing sentry duty. Just then the suspicious purveyor appeared suddenly, as if he had sprung out of the ground.

Jacob had his eye on him. Presently Jacob noticed that the fellow was hiding behind a bank of earth; he saw him take out a pistol from his pocket and aim it somewhere into s.p.a.ce. That very moment General Luders appeared on the grounds. Without thinking much, Jacob aimed his gun at the purveyor and shot him dead. On investigation, it turned out that the purveyor was a Pole, who had smuggled himself into the camp in order to a.s.sa.s.sinate the General.

Then they began to gossip in the regiment about Jacob's "rising."

General Luders patted him on the shoulder, and said, "Bravo, officer!"

A few days later I met Jacob: he looked pale and worn out. His smile was more like the frozen smile of the agony of death. I told him I had dreamt he was drowning in a river of oil. Then he told me confidentially that he had promised his superiors to renounce his faith.

Well, in the long run, it appeared that there was much truth in Jacob's idea, that a Jew in exile must not accept favors from Gentiles. And the temptation to which Jacob had been exposed was certainly much harder to stand than a thousand lashes, or even, for that matter, the whole bitter life of a Cantonist. The pity of it!

A few days later Zagrubsky was appointed to serve Jacob. But when Zagrubsky reported for duty, Jacob dismissed him. It was against Jacob's nature to have others do for him what he could do himself.

Zagrubsky departed, hissing "Zhid" under his breath. It was the way he had treated me. My patience was gone. I put myself in his way, stopped him and asked him: "Now listen, you Pollack, how do you come to find out so quickly who is a Jew, and who is not? As far as I can see, you cannot speak Russian correctly yourself: why, then, do you spy on others? I have not yet forgotten that it was on account of my tobacco that you recognized I was a Zhid, too."

"O, that is all very simple," said he. "I never saw such lickspittles as the Jews are. They are always ready to oblige others with their favors and refuse honors due to themselves. That is why the authorities favor them so much. Do you wish to know what a Jew is? A Jew is a spendthrift, a liar, a whip-kisser, a sneak.

He likes to be trampled on much more than others like to trample on him. He makes a slave of himself in order to be able to enslave everybody else. I hate the Jews, especially those from whom I ever get any favors."

Well, by this time I am ready almost to agree with many of the Pole's a.s.sertions. The Jew is very lavish in his dealings with Gentiles. He is subservient, and always ready to give up what is his due. All that is a puzzle to the Gentiles, and every Jew who has been brought up and educated among them knows that as well as I do. Sometimes they have a queer explanation for it. A gentile who has ever tasted of Jewish kindness and unselfishness will say to himself, "Very likely the Jew feels that he owes me much more."

To be brief: Zagrubsky and I became very much attached to each other. But we never tried to disguise our feelings. I knew he was my enemy, and he knew that I was repaying him in kind, with open enmity. That was just what Zagrubsky liked. We loved our mutual cordial hatred. When one feels like giving vent to his feelings, like hating, cursing, or detesting somebody or something, one's enemy becomes dearer than a hundred friends.

Then there came a certain day, and that day brought us closer together for a moment, closer than we should ever be again. It happened at night . . . . cursed be that night! swallowed up the following day! . . . .

We soldiers had long become tired of our drill and our manoeuvres; we got tired of "attacking" under the feint of a "retreat," and of "retreating" under the feint of an "attack." We were disgusted with standing in line and discharging our guns into the air, without ever seeing the enemy. In our days a soldier hated feints and make-believes. "Get at your enemy and crush his head, or lie down yourself a crushed 'cadaver'"--that was our way of fighting, and that was the way we won victories. As our general used to say: "The bullet is a blind fool, but the bayonet is the real thing."

At last, at last, we heard the quick, nervous notes of the bugle, and the hurried beats of the drum, the same we used to hear year in, year out. But till that moment it was all "make-believe" drill. It was like what we mean by the pa.s.sage in the Pa.s.sover HagG.o.dah: "Any one who is in need may come, and partake of the Pa.s.sah-lamb. . . ."

Till that moment we used to attack the air with our bayonets and pierce s.p.a.ce right and left, "as if" the enemy had been before us, ready for our steel. We were accustomed to pierce and to vanquish the air and spirits, and that is all. At the same time there was something wonderful, sweet, and terrible in those blasts of the bugle, something that was the very secret of soldiery, something that went right into our souls when we returned home from our drill.

But on that day it was not drill any more, and not make-believe any more, no! Before us was the real enemy, looking into our very eyes and thirsting for our blood.

Then, just for a moment I thought of myself, of my own flesh, which was not made proof against the sharp steel. I remembered that I had many an account to settle in this world; that I had started many a thing and had not finished it; and that there was much more to start. I thought of my own enemies, whom I had not harmed as yet.