Short Fiction Vsevolod Garshin (best e reader for epub .txt) 📖

As I had come with the view of enlisting in some regiment and going to the war, I found myself, on the 7th of May, at 4 a.m., standing in the street amongst the grey ranks which had been formed up before the quarters of the Colonel of the 222nd (Starobielsky) Regiment. I was in a grey overcoat with red shoulder-straps and dark blue facings and a kepi, around which was a dark blue band. On my back was a knapsack, at my waist were cartridge-pouches, and I was holding a heavy Krinkoff rifle.

The band struck up as they brought out the colours from the Colonel’s quarters. Words of command rang out and the regiment presented arms. Then followed a fearful row. The Colonel gave a command which was taken up by the battalion, company, and, finally, section commanders, and as the result of all this shouting a confused and, to me, absolutely incomprehensible movement of grey overcoats took place, which ended in the regiment drawing itself out into a long column and marching off with measured tread to the sound of the regimental band as it thundered out a quick step. I too stepped out, trying to keep my dressing and to keep in step with my neighbour. My knapsack pulled me backwards, the heavy ammunition pouches pulled me forward; my rifle kept jumping off my shoulder, and the grey collar of my overcoat rubbed my neck. But in spite of all these little discomforts, the music, the rhythmic, ponderous movement of the column bristling with bayonets, the freshness of early morning, and the sight of the sunburnt and stem faces, all combined to inspire a feeling of calm determination.

Notwithstanding the earliness of the hour, people flocked to the courtyard gates of the houses, and half-dressed figures gazed at us from windows. We marched through the long straight street past the bazaar, where the Moldavians were already commencing to arrive in their oxcarts. The street wound up the hill and stopped at the town cemetery. The morning became overcast, and a cold drizzle commenced. The trees of the cemetery were discernible through the mist, and glimpses of tombstones could be caught above its gates and walls. As we skirted the cemetery, leaving it to our right, it seemed to me that it gazed perplexedly at us through the mist, asking: “Why are you going thousands and thousands of versts to die on foreign fields when it is possible to die here⁠—to die peacefully, and lie beneath my wooden crosses and stone slabs? Stop here!”

But we did not stop. An unknown, mysterious force was drawing us⁠—the strongest force in human life. Each of us, taken separately, would have gone home, but the whole mass went forward in obedience to discipline, and not from any recognition of the justice of the cause, nor from any feeling of hatred towards an unknown enemy; not from any fear of punishment, but moved solely by that hidden and unconscious something which will, for many a long day yet, lead humanity to sanguinary slaughter⁠—the most potent cause of every description of human ill and suffering.

A wide and deep valley which stretched away beyond sight into the mist opened out behind the cemetery.

The rain became heavier. Somewhere far, far away, the clouds had made way for a ray of sunshine which caused the slanting and perpendicular strips of rain to glisten like silver. Through the mist which rolled along the green slopes of the valley could be distinguished long columns of troops ahead of us. Now and then there was the gleam of bayonets. And the guns, as they came into the sunlight, shone like some bright star, only to vanish in the course of a few moments. Sometimes the clouds came together; it became darker and the rain more frequent. An hour after our start I felt a little stream of cold water begin to trickle down my back. The first stage was not a long one, the distance from Kishineff to the village of G⁠⸺ being in all only eighteen versts. However, not being accustomed to carry a weight of 20 to 35 pounds, I was at first unable even to eat when we at length reached the cottage told off to us. I leant against the wall, resting on my knapsack, and stood like this for some ten minutes fully equipped with my rifle in my hand. One of the soldiers going to the kitchen for his dinner took pity on me and took my canteen with him. But on his return he found me sound asleep. I slept until four o’clock in the morning, when I was awakened by the insufferably harsh sounds of a bugle sounding the “assembly,” and five minutes later I was again plodding along the muddy, sticky road under a fine drizzling rain. Before me jogged a grey back, on which was strapped a brown calfskin knapsack and an iron canteen, which rattled incessantly. The grey back had a rifle on one shoulder. On either side and behind me were similar grey figures. For the first few days I could not distinguish them one from the other. The 222nd Infantry Regiment of the Line which I had joined consisted for the most part of peasants from the Governments of Vyatka and Kostroma. They all had broad faces, now blue with cold, prominent cheekbones, and small grey eyes. Most of them were fair, with light-coloured hair and beards. Although I knew the names of several, I could not pick out their owners. A fortnight later I was unable to understand how I could ever have mixed up my two comrades, the one marching alongside me, and the other the possessor of the grey back which was constantly before my eyes. At first I had called them Feodoroff and Jitkoff indifferently, continually making mistakes, although they did not in the least resemble each other. Feodoroff, a corporal, was a young man of twenty-two, of average height, and splendidly built. His face,