I learned a great deal which I should never have expected
of him.—I was, of course, hardly surprised
that as a military man, as an officer, he was not
a success, that he was in fact worse than useless;
but what I had not anticipated was that he was by
no means conspicuous for much bravery; that in battle
he had a downcast, woebegone air, seemed half-depressed,
half-bewildered. Discipline of every sort worried
him, and made him miserable; he was daring to the
point of insanity when only his own personal
safety was in question; no bet was too mad for him
to accept; but do harm to others, kill, fight, he
could not, possibly because his heart was too good—or
possibly because his ‘cottonwool’ education
(so he expressed it), had made him too soft. Himself
he was quite ready to murder in any way at any moment....
But others—no. ‘There’s
no making him out,’ his comrades said of him;
’he’s a flabby creature, a poor stick—and
yet such a desperate fellow—a perfect madman!’
I chanced in later days to ask Misha what evil spirit
drove him, forced him, to drink to excess, risk his
life, and so on. He always had one answer—’wretchedness.’
‘But why are you wretched?’
’Why! how can you ask? If one comes, anyway,
to one’s self, begins to feel, to think of the
poverty, of the injustice, of Russia.... Well,
it’s all over with me! ... one’s so wretched
at once—one wants to put a bullet through
one’s head! One’s forced to start
drinking.’
‘Why ever do you drag Russia in?’
‘How can I help it? Can’t be helped!
That’s why I’m afraid to think.’
‘It all comes, and your wretchedness too, from
having nothing to do.’
’But I don’t know how to do anything,
uncle! dear fellow! Take one’s life, and
stake it on a card—that I can do! Come,
you tell me what I ought to do, what to risk my life
for? This instant ... I’ll ...’
‘But you must simply live.... Why risk
your life?’
’I can’t! You say I act thoughtlessly....
But what else can I do? ... If one starts thinking—good
God, all that comes into one’s head! It’s
only Germans who can think! ...’
What use was it talking to him? He was a desperate
man, and that’s all one can say.
Of the Caucasus legends I have spoken about, I will
tell you two or three. One day, in a party of
officers, Misha began boasting of a sabre he had got
by exchange—’a genuine Persian blade!’
The officers expressed doubts as to its genuineness.
Misha began disputing. ’Here then,’
he cried at last; ’they say the man that knows
most about sabres is Abdulka the one-eyed. I’ll
go to him, and ask.’ The officers wondered.
’What Abdulka? Do you mean that lives in
the mountains? The rebel never subdued?
Abdul-khan?’ ‘Yes, that’s him.’
’Why, but he’ll take you for a spy, will
put you in a hole full of bugs, or else cut your head
off with your own sabre. And, besides, how are
Copyrights
A Desperate Character and Other Stories from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
