From these recollections Lieutenant-Captain Mikháylov involuntarily passed to dreams and hopes. ‘How surprised and pleased Natásha will be,’ he thought as he passed along a narrow side-street, ‘when she reads in the Invalide of my being the first to climb on the cannon, and receiving the St George! I ought to be made full captain on that former recommendation. Then I may easily become a major this year by seniority, because so many of our fellows have been killed and no doubt many more will be killed this campaign. Then there’ll be more fighting and I, as a well-known man, shall be entrusted with a regiment … then a lieutenant-colonel, the order of St Anna … a colonel’ … and he was already a general, honouring with a visit Natásha, the widow of his comrade (who would be dead by that time according to his day-dream) – when the sounds of the music on the boulevard reached his ears more distinctly, a crowd of people appeared before his eyes, and he realized that he was on the boulevard and a lieutenant-captain of infantry as before.
III
HE went first to the pavilion, beside which stood the band with soldiers of the same regiment acting as music-stands and holding open the music books, while around them clerks, cadets, nursemaids, and children formed a circle, looking on rather than listening. Most of the people who were standing, sitting, and sauntering round the pavilion were naval officers, adjutants, and white-gloved army officers. Along the broad avenue of the boulevard walked officers of all sorts and women of all sorts – a few of the latter in hats, but the greater part with kerchiefs on their heads, and some with neither kerchiefs nor hats – but it was remarkable that there was not a single old woman amongst them – all were young. Lower down, in the scented alleys shaded by the white acacias, isolated groups sat or strolled.
No one was particularly glad to meet Lieutenant-Captain Mikháylov on the boulevard, except perhaps Captain Obzhógov of his regiment and Captain Súslikov who pressed his hand warmly, but the first of these wore camel-hair trousers, no gloves, and a shabby overcoat, and his face was red and perspiring, and the second shouted so loud and was so free and easy that one felt ashamed to be seen walking with him, especially by those white-gloved officers – to one of whom, an adjutant, Mikháylov bowed, and he might have bowed to another, a Staff officer whom he had twice met at the house of a mutual acquaintance. Besides, what was the fun of walking with Obzhógov and Súslikov when as it was he met them and shook hands with them six times a day? Was this what he had come to hear the music for?
He would have liked to accost the adjutant whom he had bowed to and to talk with those gentlemen, not at all that he wanted Captains Obzhógov and Súslikov and Lieutenant Pashtétski and others to see him talking to them, but simply because they were pleasant people who knew all the news and might have told him something.
But why is Lieutenant-Captain Mikháylov afraid and unable to muster courage to approach them? ‘Supposing they don’t return my greeting,’ he thinks, ‘or merely bow and go on talking among themselves as if I were not there, or simply walk away and leave me standing among the aristocrats?’ The word aristocrats (in the sense of the highest and most select circle of any class) has lately gained great popularity in Russia, where one would think it ought not to exist. It has made its way to every part of the country, and into every grade of society which can be reached by vanity – and to what conditions of time and circumstance does this pitiful propensity not penetrate? You find it among merchants, officials, clerks, officers – in Sarátov, Mamadíshi, Vínnitza, in fact wherever men are to be found. And since there are many men, and consequently much vanity, in the besieged town of Sevastopol, aristocrats are to be found here too, though death hangs over everyone, be he aristocrat or not.
To Captain Obzhógov, Lieutenant-Captain Mikháylov was an aristocrat, and to Lieutenant-Captain Mikháylov, Adjutant Kalúgin was an aristocrat, because he was an adjutant and intimate with another adjutant. To Adjutant Kalúgin, Count Nórdov was an aristocrat, because he was an aide-de-camp to the Emperor.
Vanity! vanity! vanity! everywhere, even on the brink of the grave and among men ready to die for a noble cause. Vanity! It seems to be the characteristic feature and special malady of our time. How is it that among our predecessors no mention was made of this passion, as of small-pox and cholera? How is it that in our time there are only three kinds of people: those who, considering vanity an inevitably existing fact and therefore justifiable, freely submit to it; those who regard it as a sad but unavoidable condition; and those who act unconsciously and slavishly under its influence? Why did the Homers and Shakespeares speak of love, glory, and suffering, while the literature of to-day is an endless story of snobbery and vanity?
Twice the lieutenant-captain passed irresolutely by the group of his aristocrats, but drawing near them for the third time he made an effort and walked up to them. The group consisted of four officers: Adjutant Kalúgin, Mikháylov’s acquaintance, Adjutant Prince Gáltsin who was rather an aristocrat even for Kalúgin himself, Lieutenant-Colonel Nefërdov, one of the so-called ‘two hundred and twenty-two’ society men, who being on the retired list re-entered the army for this war, and Cavalry-Captain Praskúkhin, also of the ‘two hundred and twenty-two’. Luckily for Mikháylov, Kalúgin was in splendid spirits (the general had just spoken to him in a very confidential manner, and Prince Gáltsin who had arrived from Petersburg was staying with him), so he did not think it beneath his dignity to shake hands with Mikháylov, which was more than Praskúkhin did though he had often met Mikháylov on the bastion, had more than once drunk his wine and vodka, and even owed him twelve and a half rubles lost at cards. Not being yet well acquainted with Prince Gáltsin he did not like to appear to be acquainted with a mere lieutenant-captain of infantry. So he only bowed slightly.
‘Well, Captain,’ said Kalúgin, ‘when will you be visiting the bastion again? Do you remember our meeting at the Schwartz Redoubt? Things were hot, weren’t they, eh?’
‘Yes, very,’ said Mikháylov, and he recalled how when making his way along the trench to the bastion he had met Kalúgin walking bravely along, his sabre clanking smartly.
‘My turn’s to-morrow by rights, but we have an officer ill’, continued Mikháylov, ‘so —’
He wanted to say that it was not his turn but as the Commander of the 8th Company was ill and only the ensign was left in the company, he felt it his duty to go in place of Lieutenant Nepshisétski and would therefore be at the bastion that evening. But Kalúgin did not hear him out.
‘I feel sure that something is going to happen in a day or two,’ he said to Prince Gáltsin.
‘How about to-day? Will nothing happen to-day?’ Mikháylov asked shyly, looking first at Kalúgin and then at Gáltsin.
No one replied. Prince Gáltsin only puckered up his face in a curious way and looking over Mikháylov’s cap said after a short silence:
‘Fine girl that, with the red kerchief. You know her, don’t you, Captain?’
‘She lives near my lodgings, she’s a sailor’s daughter,’ answered the lieutenant-captain.
‘Come, let’s have a good look at her.’
And Prince Gáltsin gave one of his arms to Kalúgin and the other to the lieutenant-captain, being sure he would confer great pleasure on the latter by so doing, which was really quite true.
The lieutenant-captain was superstitious and considered it a great sin to amuse himself with women before going into action; but on this occasion he pretended to be a roué, which Prince Gáltsin and Kalúgin evidently did not believe and which greatly surprised the girl with the red kerchief, who had more than once noticed how the lieutenant-captain blushed when he passed her window. Praskúkhin walked behind them, and kept touching Prince Gáltsin’s arm and making various remarks in French, but as four people could not walk abreast on the path he was obliged to go alone until, on the second round, he took the arm of a well-known brave naval officer, Servyágin, who came up and spoke to him, being also anxious to join the aristocrats. And the well-known hero gladly passed his honest muscular hand under the elbow of Praskúkhin, whom everybody, including Servyágin himself, knew to be no better than he should be. When, wishing to explain his acquaintance with this sailor, Praskúkhin whispered to Prince Gáltsin that this was the well-known hero, Prince Gáltsin – who had been in the Fourth Bastion the day before and seen a shell burst at some twenty yards’ distance – considering himself not less courageous than the newcomer, and believing that many reputations are obtained by luck, paid not the slightest attention to Servyágin.