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

little book with which the troops had been supplied. The Romanian explains. The officer turns over the pages of the book, looking for a translation of the unintelligible words, and understands nothing, but still thanks him politely. “Tfy, you comrades! What a people! Our priests and our churches, and yet you can’t understand a word!”

“Will you take a silver rouble for this?” a soldier shouts at the top of his voice, holding up a shirt in his hands to a Romanian trading at an open stall. “How much for the shirt? Five francs? Four francs?”

He draws out the money, shows it, and the business ends in mutual satisfaction.

“Make way, make way, chums, the General’s coming.”

A tall, young-looking General, in a smart jacket and high boots, with a cossack whip hanging by its lash over his shoulder, came rapidly along the street. Several paces behind him was an orderly, a little Asiatic in a coloured robe and turban, with an enormous sword and a revolver at his belt. The General, holding his head well up, and with good-natured indifference looking at the men as they saluted and made way for him, passed into an hotel. Here I, Ivan Platonich, and Stebelkoff were ensconced in a corner swallowing down some local dish composed of red pepper and meat. The dilapidated room, laid out with little tables, was full of people. The clatter of dishes, the popping of corks, and the hum of sober and drunken voices, were all hidden by the orchestra, which was seated in a kind of alcove decorated with red stuff curtains. There were five musicians. Two violins were scraping away furiously. A cello was booming on two or three notes, whilst a double-bass roared. But all these instruments merely formed an accompaniment for a fifth. A swarthy, curly-haired Hungarian, almost a boy, sat in front of all. From inside the wide velvet collar of his coat there projected a strange-looking instrument, a wooden flute of the precise pattern that Pan and the Fauns are always depicted as playing. It consisted of a row of uneven wooden pipes, so fastened together that their open ends rested against the lips of the artist. The Hungarian, turning his head first to one side then to another, blew into these pipes, producing powerful, melodious sounds, not unlike those of a flute or clarinet. He executed the most tricky and difficult passages by shaking and turning his head. His black greasy locks danced on his head and fell over his forehead. His red face was covered with perspiration, and the veins stood out on his neck. It was evidently a difficult job.⁠ ⁠… Against the discordant accompaniment of the stringed instruments, the sound of the panpipes stood out sharply, clearly, and wildly beautiful.

The General took his place at a table around which were some officers known to him, bowed to all who had risen at his entry, and loudly said, “Be seated, gentlemen,” which applied to the rank and file present. We finished our dinner in silence. Ivan Platonich ordered a bottle of red Romanian wine, and after the second bottle, when his face had taken on a jovial expression and his cheeks and nose had become brightly tinted, he turned to me:

“You, young man, tell me.⁠ ⁠… Do you remember when we had the big halt?”

“I do, Ivan Platonich.”

“Did you speak with Ventzel then?”

“I did.”

“Did you seize him by the arm?” inquired the Captain, in a preternaturally solemn tone. And when I replied I had done so he gave a prolonged deep sigh and began to blink in an agitated manner.

“You did wrong⁠ ⁠… you acted stupidly. Look here, I don’t want to reprimand you. You did very well⁠ ⁠… that is, it was contrary to all discipline.⁠ ⁠… Oh, damn it! what am I saying? You will excuse me.⁠ ⁠…”

He remained silent, gazing at the floor and breathing heavily. I also was silent. Ivan Platonich gulped down half a glass and then smacked me on the knee.

“Give me a promise that you will not do such a thing again. I quite understand.⁠ ⁠… It is difficult for a newcomer. But what good can you do by it? He is such a mad dog, this Ventzel. Well, look here.⁠ ⁠…”

Ivan Platonich evidently could not find the right word, and after a long pause again had recourse to his glass.

“That is⁠ ⁠… you see⁠ ⁠… he is a good chap really. It is a kind of⁠ ⁠… deuce knows what⁠—a kind of madness of his. You yourself saw how I, too, knocked one of the men about a little not long ago. But if the idiot won’t understand his mistakes.⁠ ⁠… You know he is such a wooden⁠ ⁠… But I, Vladimir Mikhailich, act like a father to them. I swear I have no malice against them, even though I do flare up sometimes. But as for Ventzel, it has got into his system. Hey, you!”⁠—he shouted to one of the Romanian waiters⁠—“another bottle.⁠ ⁠… And some day he will be court-martialled or even worse. The men will get revengeful, and the first time under fire.⁠ ⁠… It will be a pity, because all the same he is a good man, as you know. And even a warmhearted fellow.”

“What!” Stebelkoff exclaimed. “What warmhearted man would act like he does?”

“You should have seen, Ivan Platonich, what your warmhearted man did the other day.”

And I told the Captain how Ventzel had knocked about one of the men for smoking in the ranks.

“There you are, there you are.⁠ ⁠…”

Ivan Platonich turned red, puffed, stopped short, and again commenced to talk. “But for all that he is not a beast. Whose men are best fed? Ventzel’s. Which are the best-trained men? Ventzel’s. In which company are there practically no fines? Who never sends his men up for court-martial, unless a man does something very bad? Always Ventzel. If it were not for this unhappy weakness of his the men would carry him shoulder high.”

“Have you spoken about it to him, Ivan Platonich?”

“I have spoken and argued a dozen times. What can you do