and a nosegay over his head. Then two officers emerged, bowing too, and a
stout man with a big beard, wearing a greasy forage cap.
Chapter 3
Saying good-bye to the princess, Sergey Ivanovitch was joined by
Katavasov; together they got into a carriage full to overflowing, and the
train started.
At Tsaritsino station the train was met by a chorus of young men singing
“Hail to Thee!” Again the volunteers bowed and poked their heads out, but
Sergey Ivanovitch paid no attention to them. He had had so much to do with
the volunteers that the type was familiar to him and did not interest him.
Katavasov, whose scientific work had prevented his having a chance of
observing them hitherto, was very much interested in them and questioned
Sergey Ivanovitch.
Sergey Ivanovitch advised him to go into the second-class and talk to
them himself. At the next station Katavasov acted on this suggestion.
At the first stop he moved into the second-class and made the
acquaintance of the volunteers. They were sitting in a corner of the carriage,
talking loudly and obviously aware that the attention of the passengers and
Katavasov as he got in was concentrated upon them. More loudly than all
talked the tall, hollow-chested young man. He was unmistakably tipsy, and
was relating some story that had occurred at his school. Facing him sat a
middle-aged officer in the Austrian military jacket of the Guards uniform.
He was listening with a smile to the hollow-chested youth, and occasionally
pulling him up. The third, in an artillery uniform, was sitting on a box
beside them. A fourth was asleep.
Entering into conversation with the youth, Katavasov learned that he was
a wealthy Moscow merchant who had run through a large fortune before he
was two-and-twenty. Katavasov did not like him, because he was unmanly
and effeminate and sickly. He was obviously convinced, especially now
after drinking, that he was performing a heroic action, and he bragged of it
in the most unpleasant way.
The second, the retired officer, made an unpleasant impression too upon
Katavasov. He was, it seemed, a man who had tried everything. He had
been on a railway, had been a land-steward, and had started factories, and
he talked, quite without necessity, of all he had done, and used learned
expressions quite inappropriately.
The third, the artilleryman, on the contrary, struck Katavasov very
favorably. He was a quiet, modest fellow, unmistakably impressed by the
knowledge of the officer and the heroic self-sacrifice of the merchant and
saying nothing about himself. When Katavasov asked him what had
impelled him to go to Servia, he answered modestly:
“Oh, well, everyone’s going. The Servians want help, too. I’m sorry for
them.”
“Yes, you artillerymen especially are scarce there,” said Katavasov.
“Oh, I wasn’t long in the artillery, maybe they’ll put me into the infantry
or the cavalry.”
“Into the infantry when they need artillery more than anything?” said
Katavasov, fancying from the artilleryman’s apparent age that he must have
reached a fairly high grade.
“I wasn’t long in the artillery; I’m a cadet retired,” he said, and he began
to explain how he had failed in his examination.
All of this together made a disagreeable impression on Katavasov, and
when the volunteers got out at a station for a drink, Katavasov would have
liked to compare his unfavorable impression in conversation with someone.
There was an old man in the carriage, wearing a military overcoat, who had
been listening all the while to Katavasov’s conversation with the volunteers.
When they were left alone, Katavasov addressed him.
“What different positions they come from, all those fellows who are
going off there,” Katavasov said vaguely, not wishing to express his own
opinion, and at the same time anxious to find out the old man’s views.
The old man was an officer who had served on two campaigns. He knew
what makes a soldier, and judging by the appearance and the talk of those
persons, by the swagger with which they had recourse to the bottle on the
journey, he considered them poor soldiers. Moreover, he lived in a district
town, and he was longing to tell how one soldier had volunteered from his
town, a drunkard and a thief whom no one would employ as a laborer. But
