...’Tell us a story, colonel,’ we said
at last to Nikolai Ilyitch.
The colonel smiled, puffed out a coil of tobacco smoke
between his moustaches, passed his hand over his grey
hair, looked at us and considered. We all had
the greatest liking and respect for Nikolai Ilyitch,
for his good-heartedness, common sense, and kindly
indulgence to us young fellows. He was a tall,
broad-shouldered, stoutly-built man; his dark face,
‘one of the splendid Russian faces,’ [Footnote:
Lermontov in the Treasurer’s Wife.—Author’s
note.] straight-forward, clever glance, gentle
smile, manly and mellow voice—everything
about him pleased and attracted one.
‘All right, listen then,’ he began.
It happened in 1813, before Dantzig. I was then
in the E—— regiment of cuirassiers,
and had just, I recollect, been promoted to be a cornet.
It is an exhilarating occupation—fighting;
and marching too is good enough in its way, but it
is fearfully slow in a besieging army. There one
sits the whole blessed day within some sort of entrenchment,
under a tent, on mud or straw, playing cards from
morning till night. Perhaps, from simple boredom,
one goes out to watch the bombs and redhot bullets
flying.
At first the French kept us amused with sorties, but
they quickly subsided. We soon got sick of foraging
expeditions too; we were overcome, in fact, by such
deadly dulness that we were ready to howl for sheer
ennui. I was not more than nineteen then;
I was a healthy young fellow, fresh as a daisy, thought
of nothing but getting all the fun I could out of
the French... and in other ways too... you understand
what I mean... and this is what happened. Having
nothing to do, I fell to gambling. All of a sudden,
after dreadful losses, my luck turned, and towards
morning (we used to play at night) I had won an immense
amount. Exhausted and sleepy, I came out into
the fresh air, and sat down on a mound. It was
a splendid, calm morning; the long lines of our fortifications
were lost in the mist; I gazed till I was weary, and
then began to doze where I was sitting.
A discreet cough waked me: I opened my eyes,
and saw standing before me a Jew, a man of forty,
wearing a long-skirted grey wrapper, slippers, and
a black smoking-cap. This Jew, whose name was
Girshel, was continually hanging about our camp, offering
his services as an agent, getting us wine, provisions,
and other such trifles. He was a thinnish, red-haired,
little man, marked with smallpox; he blinked incessantly
with his diminutive little eyes, which were reddish
too; he had a long crooked nose, and was always coughing.
He began fidgeting about me, bowing obsequiously.
‘Well, what do you want?’ I asked him
at last.
’Oh, I only—I’ve only come,
sir, to know if I can’t be of use to your honour
in some way...’
‘I don’t want you; you can go.’
