*• If we live, we shall see," said the staff-captain; "and you will act just so, and so will he when he commands a battery," he added, pointing at Volodya.
" Why do you think, Friedrich Krestyanitch, that he would turn it to his profit? " broke in Tchernovitzky. " Perhaps he has property of his own; then why should he turn it to profit? "
" No, sir, I... excuse me, captain," said Volodya, reddening up to his ears, " that strikes me as insulting."
" Oh ho, ho! What a madcap he is! " said Kraut.
"That has nothing to do with it; I only think that if the money were not mine, I should not take it."
" Now, I'll tell you something right here, young man," began the staff-captain in a more serious tone, " you are to understand that when you command a battery, if you manage things well, that's sufficient; the commander of a battery does not meddle with provisioning the soldiers; that is the way it has been from time immemorial in the artillery. If you are a bad manager, you will have nothing left. Now, these are the expenditures in conformity with your position: for shoeing your horse, — one (he closed one finger); for the apothecary, —two (he closed another finger); for office work, — three (he shut a third); for extra horses, which cost five hundred rubles, my dear fellow, — that's four; you must change the soldiers' collars, you will use a great deal of coal, you must keep open table for your officers. If you are a batterycommander, you must live decently; you need a carriage, and a fur coat, and this thing and that thing, and a dozen more... but what's the use of enumerating them all! "
"But this is the principal thing, Vladimir Semyonitch," interpolated the captain, who had held his peace all this time; "imagine yourself to be a man who, like myself, for instance, has served twenty years, first for two hundred, then for three hundred rubles pay; why should he not ^ be given at least a bit of bread, against his old age t "
" Eh! yes, there you have it! " spoke up the staff-captain again, "don't be in a hurry to pronoimce judgment, but live on and serve your time."
Volodya was horribly, ashamed and sorry for having spoken so thoughtlessly, and he muttered something and continued to listen in silence, when Dyadenko undertook, with the greatest zeal, to dispute it and to prove the contrary.
The dispute was interrupted by the arrival of the colonel's servant, who summoned them to dinner.
" Tell Apollon Sergieitch that he must give us some wine to-day," said Tchernovitzky, to the captain, as he buttoned up his uniform. — " Why is he so stingy with it } He will be killed, and no one will get the good of it."
"Tell him. yourself."
" Not a bit of it. You are my superior officer. Rank must be regarded in all things."
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
XIX.
The table had been moved out from the wall, and spread with a soiled table-cloth, in the same room in which Volodya had presented himself to the colonel on the preceding evening. The battery commander now offered him his hand, and questioned him about Petersburg and his journey.
" Well, gentlemen, I beg the favor of a glass with any of you who drink vodka. The ensigns do not drink," he added, with a smile.
On the whole, the battery commander did not appear nearly so stern to-day as he had on the preceding evening; on the contrary, he had the appearance of a kindly, hospitable host, and an elder comrade among the officers. But, in spite of this, all the officers, from the old captain down to Ensign Dyadenko, by their very manner of speaking and looking the commander straight in the eye, as they approached, one after the other, to drink their vodka, exhibited great respect for him.
The dinner consisted of a large wooden bowl of cabbage-soup, in which floated fat chunks of beef, and a huge quantity of pepper and laurel-leaves, mustard, and Polish meat-balls in a cabbage leaf, turnover patties of chopped meat and dough, and with butter, which was not perfectly fresh. There were no napkins, the spoons were of pewter and wood, there were only two glasses, and on the table stood a decanter of water with a broken neck; but the dinner was not dull; conversation never halted.