smoke, and so near the flames that his threadbare cloak seemed in danger of catching fire, yet, judging by the way he extended the skirts of his cloak and bent out his calves, and by his quiet, self-satisfied pose, he was feeling highly contented.
The fifth and last of the soldiers was Daddy Zhdanov. He sat a little way off, cutting a stick.
Zhdanov had been serving in the battery longer than anyone else, had known all the others as recruits, and they were all in the habit of calling him “daddy.” It was said of him that he never drank, smoked, or played cards (not even “noses”), and never used bad language.
He spent all his spare time boot-making, went to church on holidays where that was possible, or else put a farthing taper before his icon and opened the Book of Psalms, the only book he could read.
He seldom kept company with the other soldiers. To those who were his seniors in rank though his juniors in years, he was coldly respectful; with his equals he, not being a drinker, had few opportunities of mixing.
He liked the recruits and the youngest soldiers best: he always took them under his protection, admonished them, and often helped them. Everyone in the battery considered him a capitalist because he had some twenty-five rubles, out of which he was always ready to lend something to a soldier in real need.
The same Maksimov who was now gun-sergeant, told me that ten years ago, when he first came as a recruit and drank all he had with the old soldiers who were in the habit of drinking, Zhdanov, noticing his unfortunate position, called him up, severely reprimanded him for his conduct and even beat him, delivered a lecture on how one should live in the army, and sent him away after giving him a shirt (which Maksimov lacked) and half-a-ruble in money.