Fifty-Two Stories

“And you, Lieutenant Lobytko, look very sad today,” he said. “Missing Lopukhova, eh? Gentlemen, he’s missing Lopukhova!”

Lopukhova was a very corpulent and very tall lady, well past forty. The general, who nursed a predilection for large women, whatever age they might be, suspected this same predilection in his officers. The officers smiled deferentially. The general, pleased that he had said something very funny and caustic, laughed loudly, tapped his driver’s back, and saluted. The carriage rolled on…

“Everything I’m dreaming about now, and that now seems impossible and unearthly to me, is essentially quite ordinary,” thought Ryabovich, looking at the clouds of dust in the wake of the general’s carriage. “It’s all quite ordinary and experienced by everyone…For instance, this general loved in his time, is married now, has children. Captain Vakhter is also married and loved, though he has a very ugly red nape and no waist…Salmanov is brutish and too much of a Tartar, but he, too, had a love affair that ended in marriage…I’m like everybody else, and sooner or later will experience the same thing everybody does…”

And the thought that he was an ordinary man and had an ordinary life gladdened and encouraged him. Now he boldly pictured her and his happiness as he wished, and nothing hindered his imagination…

When the brigade reached its destination in the evening and the officers were resting in their tents, Ryabovich, Merzlyakov, and Lobytko sat around a trunk having supper. Merzlyakov ate unhurriedly and, chewing slowly, read The Messenger of Europe

, holding it on his knees. Lobytko talked incessantly and kept topping up his glass of beer, while Ryabovich, who had a fog in his head from dreaming all day long, said nothing and drank. After three glasses, he became tipsy, weak, and had an irrepressible desire to share his new sensations with his comrades.

“A strange happening happened to me at those Rabbeks’…,” he began, trying to give his voice an indifferent and mocking tone. “I went to the billiard room, you know…”

He started telling in great detail about the incident with the kiss and after a minute fell silent…In that minute he had told everything, and he was terribly surprised that it had taken so little time to tell it. It had seemed to him that he could tell about the kiss till morning. Having heard him out, Lobytko, who lied a lot and therefore did not believe anyone, looked at him mistrustfully and smirked. Merzlyakov raised his eyebrows and calmly, not tearing his eyes from The Messenger of Europe, said:

“God knows!…Throwing herself on your neck without any warning…Must be some kind of psychopath.”

“Right, must be a psychopath…,” Ryabovich agreed.

“Something similar once happened to me…,” said Lobytko, making frightened eyes. “I was going to Kovno last year…I had a second-class ticket…The car was overcrowded, it was impossible to sleep. I gave the conductor fifty kopecks…He took my luggage and brought me to a separate compartment…I lie down and cover myself with a blanket…It’s dark, you see. Suddenly I feel somebody touch my shoulder and breathe into my face. I move my hand and feel somebody’s elbow…I open my eyes and, can you imagine—a woman! Dark eyes, red lips like fine salmon, nostrils breathing passion, bosom—a buffer…”

“Excuse me,” Merzlyakov interrupted calmly, “I understand about the bosom, but how could you see the lips if it was dark?”

Lobytko began to dodge and laughed at Merzlyakov’s obtuseness. This jarred on Ryabovich. He left the trunk, lay down, and promised himself never to be openhearted.

Camp life began…Days flowed by, one very much like another. During all those days, Ryabovich felt, thought, and behaved like a man in love. Every morning, when the orderly brought him a full washbasin, he poured the cold water over his head, remembering each time that there was something good and warm in his life.

In the evenings, when his comrades started talking about love and women, he listened, moved closer, and assumed the expression that the faces of soldiers have when they hear stories of battles they themselves took part in. And on those evenings when carousing officers, with setter-Lobytko at their head, made donjuanesque raids on the “outskirts,” Ryabovich, taking part in the raids, was sad each time, felt himself deeply guilty, and mentally asked her forgiveness…In leisure hours or on sleepless nights, when the urge came over him to remember his childhood, father, mother, all that was near and dear, he unfailingly remembered Mestechki, the strange horse, Rabbek, his wife, who resembled the empress Eugénie, the dark room, the bright crack in the door…