“ Vous savez que j’ai fait vœu de combattre les infidèles: prenez donc garde de le devenir. ”
A laugh answered from inside the carriage.
“ Adieu donc, cher Général! ”
“ Non, à revoir ,” said the general, ascending the steps of the porch. “ N’oubliez pas, que je m’invite pour la soirée de demain. ”
The carriage rattled off. “Here again,” I thought as I walked home, “is a man who possesses all that Russians strive after: rank, riches, distinction; and this man, on the day before an engagement, the outcome of which is known only to God, jokes with a pretty woman and promises to have tea with her next day, just as if they had met at a ball!”
At that same adjutant’s, I met a young man who surprised me even more. It was a young lieutenant of the K⸺ regiment, who was noted for his almost feminine meekness and timidity, and who had come to the adjutant to pour out his vexation and resentment against those who, he said, had intrigued against him to keep him from taking part in the impending action. He said it was mean to behave in that way, that it was unfriendly, and that he would not forget it, and so forth. Intently as I watched the expression of his face and listened to the sound of his voice, I could not help feeling convinced that he was not pretending, but was genuinely filled with indignation and grief because he was not allowed to go and shoot Circassians and expose himself to their fire. He was grieved like a little child who has been unjustly birched. I could make nothing at all of it.