least on active duty, and I thought that here Paul Dmitrich, qui est le fils de l’intendant de mon père , would be of use to me. My uncle did this much for me, and I was transferred. After that other regiment, this seemed an assembly of courtiers. And Paul Dmitrich was here; he knew who I was, and I was capitally received—at my uncle’s request … Guskov, vous savez . But I noticed that these people, without education or culture, cannot respect a man nor show him respect when he is not surrounded by an aureole of wealth and rank. I noticed how, little by little, when they saw that I was poor, their behaviour to me became more and more careless, and at last almost contemptuous. It is dreadful, but it is perfectly true.
“Here I have been in action, have fought, on m’a vu au feu ,” he continued, “but when will it end? Never, I think! And my strength and energy are beginning to fail. And then, I had imagined la guerre, la vie de camp , but it turns out to be quite different from what I expected: dressed in a sheepskin, in soldier’s boots, unwashed, you are sent to the outposts, and lie all night in a ditch with some Antonov or other who has been sent into the army for drunkenness, and at any moment you may be shot from behind a bush—you or Antonov, all the same. … That is not courage! It is horrible. C’est affreux, ça tue. ”