“When?”
“To-day ... at once.”
“Why art thou in such a hurry?”
“Uncle! my motto has always been ‘Hurry!
Hurry!’”
“But what is thy motto now?”
“It is the same now.... Only ‘Hurry—to
good!’”
So Misha went away, leaving me to meditate over the
mutability of human destinies.
But he speedily reminded me of his existence.
A couple of months after his visit I received a letter
from him,—the first of those letters with
which he afterward favoured me. And note this
peculiarity: I have rarely beheld a neater, more
legible handwriting than was possessed by this unmethodical
man. The style of his letters also was very regular,
and slightly florid. The invariable appeals for
assistance alternated with promises of amendment,
with honourable words and with oaths.... All this
appeared to be—and perhaps was—sincere.
Misha’s signature at the end of his letters
was always accompanied by peculiar flourishes, lines
and dots, and he used a great many exclamation-points.
In that first letter Misha informed me of a new “turn
in his fortune.” (Later on he called these turns
“dives” ... and he dived frequently.) He
had gone off to the Caucasus to serve the Tzar and
fatherland “with his breast,” in the capacity
of a yunker. And although a certain benevolent
aunt had commiserated his poverty-stricken condition
and had sent him an insignificant sum, nevertheless
he asked me to help him to equip himself. I complied
with his request, and for a period of two years thereafter
I heard nothing about him. I must confess that
I entertained strong doubts as to his having gone
to the Caucasus. But it turned out that he really
had gone thither, had entered the T——
regiment as yunker, through influence, and had served
in it those two years. Whole legends were fabricated
there about him. One of the officers in his regiment
communicated them to me.
I learned a great deal which I had not expected from
him. I was not surprised, of course, that he
had proved to be a poor, even a downright worthless
military man and soldier; but what I had not expected
was, that he had displayed no special bravery; that
in battle he wore a dejected and languid aspect, as
though he were partly bored, partly daunted.
All discipline oppressed him, inspired him with sadness;
he was audacious to recklessness when it was a question
of himself personally; there was no wager too crazy
for him to accept; but do evil to others, kill, fight,
he could not, perhaps because he had a good heart,—and
perhaps because his “cotton-wool” education
(as he expressed it) had enervated him. He was
ready to exterminate himself in any sort of way at
any time.... But others—no. “The
devil only can make him out,” his comrades said
of him:—“he’s puny, a rag—–and
what a reckless fellow he is—a regular
dare-devil!”—I happened afterward
to ask Misha what evil spirit prompted him, made him
indulge in drinking-bouts, risk his life, and so forth.
He always had one answer: “Spleen.”
