The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

The Man on Watch

1839

I

The event an account of which is offered to the reader’s attention below is touching and terrible in its significance for the main heroic character of the piece, and the denouement of the affair is so original that its like is even hardly possible anywhere but in Russia.

It consists in part of a court, in part of a historical anecdote, which characterizes rather well the morals and tendencies of the very curious, though extremely poorly chronicled, epoch of the thirties of the current nineteenth century.

There is no trace of fiction in the following story.

II

In the winter of 1839, around Theophany, there was a big thaw in Petersburg. The weather was so sodden, it was as if spring were coming: the snow melted, drops fell from the roofs all day, and the ice on the rivers turned blue and watery. On the Neva, there were deep pools just in front of the Winter Palace. A warm but very strong wind was blowing from the west: it drove the water back from the sea, and warning cannon were fired.

The guard at the palace was mounted by a company of the Izmailovsky Regiment, commanded by a young officer of brilliant education and very good standing in society, Nikolai Ivanovich Miller (later a full general and director of the lycée).¹ He was a man of the so-called “humane” tendency, a fact which had long been noted by his superiors and which had been slightly detrimental to his career.

In fact, Miller was a good and trustworthy officer, and the palace guard at that time presented no danger. It was a most quiet and untroubled period. Nothing was required of the palace guard except a punctual standing at their posts, and yet right then, during Captain Miller’s turn on guard at the palace, there took place a highly extraordinary and alarming incident, which is now barely remembered by its few surviving contemporaries.

III

At first everything went well in the guard: the posts were distributed, people were placed in them, and everything was in perfect order. The sovereign, Nikolai Pavlovich,² was in good health, took a drive in the evening, returned home, and went to bed. The palace, too, fell asleep. A most quiet night set in. The guardroom was silent. Captain Miller pinned his white handkerchief to the high and always traditionally greasy morocco back of the officer’s chair and sat down to while away the time over a book.

N. I. Miller had always been a passionate reader, and therefore he was not bored, but read and did not notice how the night slipped by; but suddenly, towards two o’clock in the morning, he was roused by a terrible disturbance: before him the sergeant on duty appears, all pale, gripped by fear, and babbles rapidly:

“Disaster, sir, disaster!”

“What is it?!”

“A terrible misfortune has befallen us!”

N. I. Miller leaped up in indescribable alarm and was barely able to find out clearly what the “disaster” and “terrible misfortune” consisted in.

IV

The matter consisted in the following: a sentry, a private of the Izmailovsky Regiment by the name of Postnikov, standing watch outside of what is now the Jordan entrance,³ heard a man drowning in a pool filled by the Neva just opposite that place and desperately calling for help.

Private Postnikov, a former house serf, was a very nervous and very sensitive man. He had long been listening to the distant cries and moans of the drowning man and was petrified by them. In terror he looked this way and that over the whole expanse of the embankment visible to him, and neither here, nor on the Neva, as ill luck would have it, did he catch sight of a single living soul.

There was no one who could help the drowning man, and he was sure to go under …

And yet the sinking man was putting up a terribly long and stubborn struggle.

It seemed there was only one thing left for him—not to waste his strength, but to go to the bottom—and yet no! His exhausted moans and cries for help first broke off and ceased, then began to ring out again, and each time closer and closer to the palace embankment. It was clear that the man was not lost yet and was moving in the right direction, straight towards the light of the streetlamps, though, of course, all the same he would not save himself, because the Jordan ice hole lay precisely in his way. There he would duck under the ice and—the end … Now he is quiet again, and a moment later he is splashing and moaning once more: “Help, help!” And now he is already so close that you can even hear the lapping of the waves as he splashes …

Private Postnikov began to realize that it would be extremely easy to save this man. If he runs out onto the ice now, the drowning man is sure to be right there. Throw him a rope, or reach him a pole, or hand him his gun, and he’s saved. He’s so close that he can take hold of it and climb out. But Postnikov remembers his duty and his oath: he knows that he is a sentry, and a sentry dare not desert his sentry box for anything or under any pretext.

On the other hand, Postnikov’s heart is very recalcitrant: it aches, it pounds, it sinks … He’d like to tear it out and throw it under his own feet—so troubled he is by the moans and howls … It is a dreadful thing to hear another man perishing, and not give the perishing one help, when, as a matter of fact, it is perfectly possible to do so, because the sentry box is not going to run away and nothing else harmful is going to happen. “Shouldn’t I run down there, eh? … They won’t see me … Ah, Lord, only let it be over! Again he’s moaning …”

During the half hour that this went on, Private Postnikov’s heart was quite torn, and he began to feel “doubt of his reason.” He was an intelligent and disciplined soldier, with a clear mind, and he understood perfectly well that for a sentry to leave his post is such an offense that it would lead at once to court-martial, and to running the gauntlet of rod-wielders, and then to hard labor and maybe even the firing squad. But from the direction of the swollen river the moaning again comes drifting closer and closer, and a spluttering and desperate floundering can be heard.

“I’m drowning! … Help, I’m dro-o-owning!”

The Jordan ice hole is right there now … The end!

Postnikov glanced around once or twice more. Not a soul anywhere, only the streetlamps shaking in the wind and glimmering, and the wind intermittently carrying this cry … maybe the last cry …

There was another splash, another brief howl, and a gurgling in the water.

The sentry could not bear it and deserted his post.

V

Postnikov rushed to the gangway, ran with a violently beating heart down onto the ice, then to the water-filled pool and, quickly spotting where the drowning man was still struggling to stay afloat, held out the stock of his gun to him.

The drowning man seized the butt, and Postnikov pulled him by the bayonet and dragged him out onto the bank.

The saved man and his savior were thoroughly soaked, and since of the two of them the saved man was in a state of extreme exhaustion and kept trembling and falling down, his savior, Private Postnikov, could not bring himself to abandon him on the ice, but led him to the embankment and began looking around for someone to hand him over to. And meanwhile, as all this was going on, a sleigh appeared on the embankment, in which sat an officer of the then-existing Palace Invalid Command (later abolished).

This gentleman arriving at just the wrong moment for Postnikov was, it must be supposed, a man of very light-minded character, and somewhat muddleheaded besides, and also a rather impudent fellow. He leaped out of the sleigh and began asking:

“Who is this man … Who are these people?”

“He was drowning, going under,” Postnikov tried to begin.

“Drowning? Who was drowning? You? Why in such a place?”

The other man only spluttered, and Postnikov was no longer there: he had shouldered his gun and gone back to the sentry box.

Whether or not the officer grasped what had happened, he did not go into it any further, but at once picked up the saved man and drove with him to the Admiralty police station on Morskaya Street.

There the officer made a declaration to a policeman that the wet man he had brought in had been drowning in a pool opposite the palace and he, mister officer, had saved him at the risk of his own life.

The man who had been saved was all wet, chilled, and worn out. From fright and terrible exhaustion he fell into unconsciousness, and it made no difference to him who had saved him.

Around him bustled a sleepy police doctor, and in the office they were writing up a report from the verbal declaration of the invalid officer, and, with the suspiciousness peculiar to policemen, were wondering how he had come out of the water perfectly dry. The officer, who was itching to get himself the medal for lifesaving, explained it by a lucky concurrence of circumstances, but his explanation was incoherent and incredible. They went to awaken the police chief and sent to make inquiries.

And meanwhile in the palace this matter was already generating other swift currents.

VI

In the palace guardroom, all the just-mentioned turns after the officer took the saved drowned man in his sleigh were unknown. The officers and soldiers of the Izmailovsky Regiment knew only that one of their soldiers, Postnikov, had abandoned his sentry box and run to save a man, and since this was a grave violation of military duty, Private Postnikov would now certainly be tried and sent under the rods, and all high-ranking persons, from the company to the regimental commander, would get into terrible trouble, against which they could in no way either protest or vindicate themselves.

The wet and trembling Private Postnikov was, naturally, replaced at his post at once and, having been brought to the guardroom, candidly told N. I. Miller everything known to us, and in all its details, up to the point when the invalid officer put the saved drowned man in the sleigh with him and told the driver to gallop to the Admiralty police station.

The danger was growing greater and more inevitable. Naturally, the invalid officer would tell the police chief everything, and he would at once bring the matter to the attention of the superintendant of police, Kokoshkin, who would report it to the sovereign in the morning, and things would get “hot.”

There was no time for lengthy discussions, it was necessary to call in their seniors.

Nikolai Ivanovich Miller immediately sent an alarmed note to his battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Svinyin,⁴ in which he asked him to come to the palace guardroom as soon as possible and take all measures to remedy the horrible disaster.

By then it was around three o’clock, and Kokoshkin appeared with his report to the sovereign quite early in the morning, so there was very little time for any thinking or acting.

VII

Lieutenant Colonel Svinyin did not have that compassion and soft-heartedness which had always distinguished Nikolai Ivanovich Miller. Svinyin was not heartless, but before all and above all he was a “serviceman” (a type that is nowadays remembered with regret). Svinyin was distinguished by his strictness and even liked to flaunt his exactingness in discipline. He had no taste for evil, and never sought to cause anyone needless suffering; but if a man violated any duty of the service whatsoever, Svinyin was implacable. He considered it irrelevant to get into a discussion of the motives that guided the actions of the guilty man in a given case, but held to the rule that in the service all guilt is guilt. And therefore in the guards company everybody knew that, whatever Private Postnikov was going to suffer for having abandoned his post, he was going suffer, and Svinyin was not going to grieve over it.

That was how this staff officer was known to his superiors and comrades, among whom were people who did not sympathize with Svinyin, because back then “humanism” and other such delusions had not yet been entirely rooted out. Svinyin was indifferent to whether the “humanists” blamed or praised him. To beg and beseech Svinyin, or even to appeal to his sense of pity, was a totally useless thing. He was hardened against all that with the firm hardening of the career men of that time, but, like Achilles, he had his weak spot.

Svinyin also had a well-launched career in the service, which he, of course, carefully protected and cared for, so that not one speck of dust should settle on it, as on a dress uniform; and yet the unfortunate escapade of a man from a battalion entrusted to him must unfailingly cast a bad shadow on the discipline of his entire unit. Whether the battalion commander was or was not responsible for what one of his soldiers had done under the influence of the most noble compassion—that was not going to be sorted out by those upon whom Svinyin’s well-launched and carefully maintained career in the service depended, and many would even willingly roll the log under his feet, in order to clear the way for a relative or promote some fine fellow patronized by the current favorites. The sovereign would, of course, get angry and would unfailingly tell the regimental commander that he had “weak officers” and “undisciplined people” under him. And who was the cause of it? Svinyin. And so it would go on being repeated that “Svinyin is weak,” and so the reproach of weakness might well remain as an indelible blot on his, Svinyin’s, reputation. He was not, then, to become anything noteworthy in the ranks of his contemporaries, and was not to leave his portrait in the gallery of historical personages of the Russian State.

Though history was little studied back then, people believed in it, and were especially eager to participate in its making themselves.

VIII

As soon as Svinyin received the alarming note from Captain Miller, at around three o’clock in the morning, he jumped out of bed, put on his uniform, and, under the influence of fear and wrath, arrived in the guardroom of the Winter Palace. There he immediately carried out the questioning of Private Postnikov and convinced himself that the incredible incident had taken place. Private Postnikov again quite candidly confirmed to his battalion commander all that had happened during his watch and that he, Postnikov, had told earlier to his company captain, Miller. The soldier said that he was “guilty before God and his sovereign without mercy,” that he had been standing watch and, hearing the moans of a man drowning in a pool, had suffered for a long time, had struggled for a long time between duty to the service and compassion, and, finally, temptation had come over him, and he had been unable to keep up the struggle: he had abandoned the sentry box, had jumped down onto the ice, and had pulled the drowning man to the bank, and there, as ill luck would have it, he had run into the officer of the Palace Invalid Command driving by.

Lieutenant Colonel Svinyin was in despair; he gave himself the only possible satisfaction by venting his wrath on Postnikov, whom he at once sent under arrest straight from there to the punishment cells, and then said a few sharp words to Miller, accusing him of “humaneering,” which was good for nothing in military service; but all that was not enough to set things straight. To find, if not a justification, then at least an excuse for such an act as a sentry’s abandoning his post, was impossible, and there remained only one way out: to conceal the whole affair from the sovereign …

But was it possible to conceal such an occurrence?

By the look of it, it appeared impossible, since the saving of the perishing man was not only known to all the guards, but was known to that detestable invalid officer as well, who by then, of course, had managed to bring it all to the knowledge of General Kokoshkin.

Where gallop off to now? Rush to whom? Seek help and protection from whom?

Svinyin wanted to gallop to the grand duke Mikhail Pavlovich⁵ and tell him everything candidly. Such maneuvers were current then. Let the grand duke, with his fiery character, get angry and shout at him, but his temper and habits were such that, the more harsh and even painfully offensive he was at first, the sooner he would become merciful afterwards and even intercede on his own. There had been not a few occasions like that, and sometimes they were sought out on purpose. “Names can never hurt,” and Svinyin wanted very much to bring the matter to that favorable state, but was it possible to gain access to the palace at night and disturb the grand duke? Yet if he waited until morning and appeared before Mikhail Pavlovich after Kokoshkin had come to the sovereign with his report, it would be too late. While Svinyin was fretting amidst such difficulties, he softened, and his mind began to perceive one more way out, which until then had been hidden in the mist.

IX

In the number of well-known military maneuvers there is one which holds that, at the moment when the greatest danger threatens from the walls of a besieged fortress, do not withdraw from it, but go straight up to its walls. Svinyin decided not to do any of the things that had first come into his head, but immediately to go straight to Kokoshkin.

Many horrific and preposterous things were said about the superintendent of police Kokoshkin at that time in Petersburg, but, among others, it was maintained that he possessed an astonishingly many-sided tact and with the aid of this tact was not only “able to make a mountain out of a molehill, but, with equal ease, was able to make a molehill out of a mountain.”

Kokoshkin was indeed very stern and forbidding and inspired great fear in everyone, but he sometimes indulged pranksters and good fun-lovers among the military, and there were many such pranksters then, and more than once they chanced to find in his person a powerful and zealous protector. Generally, he could do much and knew how to do it, if only he wanted to. Svinyin and Captain Miller both knew this about him. Miller also strengthened his battalion commander’s resolve to go immediately to Kokoshkin and trust in his magnanimity and “many-sided tact,” which would probably dictate to the general how to wriggle out of this vexing incident without provoking the sovereign’s wrath, which Kokoshkin, to his credit, always made great efforts to avoid.

Svinyin put on his overcoat, raised his eyes aloft, and, exclaiming “Lord, Lord!” several times, drove off to Kokoshkin.

It was now past four o’clock in the morning.

X

Superintendent of Police Kokoshkin was awakened, and it was announced to him that Svinyin had come on an important matter that would brook no delay.

The general immediately got up and came out to Svinyin in a house robe, rubbing his forehead, yawning, and shivering. Kokoshkin listened to everything that Svinyin told him with great attention, but calmly. During all these explanations and requests for leniency, he said only one thing:

“The soldier left his sentry box and saved a man?”

“That’s right,” replied Svinyin.

“And the sentry box?”

“Remained empty during that time.”

“Hm … I know it remained empty. Very glad it wasn’t stolen.”

At that Svinyin became even more convinced that everything was already known to him and that he had, of course, already decided how he was going to present it in his morning report to the sovereign, and that the decision was not to be changed. Otherwise such an event as a sentry’s abandoning his post in the palace guard should undoubtedly have caused much greater alarm in the energetic superintendent of police.

But Kokoshkin knew nothing. The police chief to whom the invalid officer had come with the saved drowned man saw no particular importance in this matter. In his eyes it was even not at all such a matter as called for troubling the weary superintendent during the night, and, besides, the event itself appeared rather suspicious to the police chief, because the invalid officer was completely dry, which could not possibly have been so if he had saved a drowning man at the risk of his own life. The police chief saw in this officer only an ambitious man and a liar, itching to have a new medal on his chest, and therefore, while his man on duty was drawing up the report, the police chief kept the officer with him and tried to extort the truth from him through inquiries into small details.

The police chief was also not pleased that such an occurrence had taken place in his precinct and that the drowning man had been pulled out, not by a policeman, but by a palace officer.

As for Kokoshkin’s calm, it could be explained simply, first, by the terrible fatigue he felt at that time, after a whole day’s bustling about and a nighttime participation in the extinguishing of two fires, and, second, by the fact that for him, mister superintendent of police, the sentry Postnikov’s doings were of no direct concern.

However, Kokoshkin at once gave the appropriate orders.

He sent for the police chief of the Admiralty precinct and ordered him to appear immediately, along with the invalid officer and the saved drowned man, and Svinyin he asked to wait in the small anteroom outside his office. Thereupon Kokoshkin retired to his office and, without closing the door behind him, sat at his desk and set about signing papers; but his head sank onto his arms at once, and he fell asleep in the chair behind his desk.

XI

Back then there were as yet neither city telegraphs nor telephones, and to rapidly transmit the orders of the authorities, “forty thousand messengers” went galloping in all directions, the long-lasting memory of which would be preserved in Gogol’s comedy.⁶

That, naturally, was not as speedy as the telegraph or telephone, but on the other hand it imparted to the city a considerable animation and testified to the unremitting vigilance of the authorities.

By the time the breathless police chief and the officer-savior, as well as the saved drowned man, arrived from the Admiralty police station, the nervous and energetic General Kokoshkin had had a nap and refreshed himself. That could be seen in the expression on his face and in the manifestation of his mental faculties.

Kokoshkin summoned all the new arrivals to his office and invited Svinyin to join them.

“The report?” Kokoshkin asked the police chief tersely in a refreshed voice.

The man silently handed him a folded sheet of paper and whispered softly:

“I must ask permission to add a few words to Your Excellency in private …”

“Very well.”

Kokoshkin stepped into the embrasure of the window, and the police chief followed him.

“What is it?”

The indistinct whispering of the police chief and the distinct grunting of the general were heard:

“Hm … Yes! … Well, what about it? … That could be … Insists he came out dry … Nothing else?”

“Nothing, sir.”

The general stepped away from the embrasure, sat down at his desk, and began to read. He read the report to himself, betraying neither fear nor doubt, and then turned immediately to the saved man with a loud and firm question:

“How is it, brother, that you wound up in a pool in the ice opposite the palace?”

“I’m sorry,” replied the saved man.

“Well, so! You were drunk?”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t drunk, but I’d had a drop.”

“Why did you wind up in the water?”

“I wanted to take a short cut across the ice, lost my way, and wound up in the water.”

“Meaning it was dark ahead of you?”

“Dark, it was dark all around, Your Excellency!”

“And you couldn’t make out who pulled you out?”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t make anything out. It was him, it seems.” He pointed to the officer and added: “I couldn’t make out, I was too afeared.”

“There it is. You gad about when you should be asleep! Take a good look now and remember forever who your benefactor is. This noble man risked his life for you!”

“All my life I’ll remember.”

“Your name, mister officer?”

The officer gave his name.

“Do you hear?”

“I hear, Your Excellency.”

“Are you Orthodox?”

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

“Write his name down and remember him in your prayers.”

“I will, Your Excellency.”

“Pray to God for him and be on your way: you’re no longer needed.”

The man made a low bow and darted off, immeasurably pleased that they had let him go.

Svinyin stood and wondered how, by the grace of God, everything could have taken such a turn!

XII

Kokoshkin turned to the invalid officer:

“So you risked your own life to save this man?”

“That’s right, Your Excellency.”

“There were no witnesses to this occurrence, and given the lateness of the hour there couldn’t have been?”

“Yes, Your Excellency, it was dark, and there was no one on the embankment except the sentries.”

“There’s no cause to mention sentries: a sentry guards his post and shouldn’t be distracted by anything extraneous. I believe what’s written in the report. So it’s in your own words?”

Kokoshkin uttered these words with special emphasis, as if he were threatening him or berating him.

But the officer did not quail, and, with his eyes goggling and his chest puffed out, replied:

“In my own words and perfectly correct, Your Excellency.”

“Your action deserves a reward.”

The man began to bow gratefully.

“There’s nothing to be grateful for,” Kokoshkin continued. “I will report on your selfless action to the sovereign emperor, and your chest may be decorated with a medal this very day. You can go home now, drink something warm, and don’t go out anywhere, because you may be needed.”

The invalid officer beamed, bowed out, and left.

Kokoshkin followed him with his eyes and said:

“It’s possible the sovereign himself will want to see him.”

“Yes, sir,” the quick-witted police chief replied.

“I no longer need you.”

The police chief went out and, having closed the door behind him, at once, out of pious habit, crossed himself.

The invalid officer was waiting for him downstairs, and they left the place together, in much warmer relations than when they had entered it.

In the superintendent’s office there remained only Svinyin, on whom Kokoshkin at first fixed a long, intent gaze and then asked:

“You haven’t gone to the grand duke?”

At that time, when there was mention of a grand duke, everyone knew it referred to the grand duke Mikhail Pavlovich.

“I came straight to you,” replied Svinyin.

“Who is the officer of the guard?”

“Captain Miller.”

Kokoshkin again looked Svinyin over and then said:

“It seems you were saying something different to me earlier.”

Svinyin did not even understand what this had to do with, and kept silent. Kokoshkin added:

“Well, never mind: I bid you good night.”

The audience was over.

XIII

At one o’clock in the afternoon, the invalid officer was indeed summoned again to Kokoshkin, who very affably announced to him that the sovereign was highly pleased that among the officers of his palace’s invalid command there were such vigilant and selfless people, and that he was bestowing on him the medal for lifesaving. At that, Kokoshkin handed the medal to the hero with his own hands, and the man went off to flaunt it. The affair, therefore, could be considered over and done with, yet Lieutenant Colonel Svinyin felt some sort of inconclusiveness in it and considered himself called upon to put le point sur les i.^*

He was so alarmed that he lay ill for three days, but on the fourth he got up, went to Peter’s Little House,⁷ had prayers of thanksgiving offered before the icon of the Savior, and, returning home with a quieted soul, sent to ask Captain Miller to come to him.

“Well, thank God, Nikolai Ivanovich,” he said to Miller, “now the storm that has been hanging over us is quite gone, and our unfortunate affair with the sentry is completely settled. Now, it seems, we can breathe easy. We owe it all, without doubt, first to God’s mercy, and then to General Kokoshkin. They may say he’s unkind and heartless, but I’m filled with gratitude for his magnanimity and with esteem for his resourcefulness and tact. With astonishing skill he made use of the boasting of that shifty invalid, who, in truth, should have been rewarded for his insolence not with a medal, but with a thorough thrashing behind the woodpile, but there was no other choice: he had to be made use of for the salvation of many, and Kokoshkin turned the whole affair so intelligently that no unpleasantness came of it for anybody—on the contrary, everybody’s very glad and pleased. Just between us, it has been conveyed to me through a trustworthy person that Kokoshkin himself is also very pleased with me. He liked it that I did not go anywhere else, but came straight to him and didn’t argue with that rascal who got the medal. In short, no one has suffered, and everything has been done with such tact that there’s nothing to fear in the future. But there’s one small omission on our part. We should also tactfully follow Kokoshkin’s example and finish the matter on our side, so as to protect ourselves in any case later on. There is one more person whose position has not been regularized. I’m speaking of Private Postnikov. He’s still in the punishment cell under arrest, and he’s no doubt tormented, waiting for what will happen to him. We must put an end to his racking torment.”

“Yes, it’s high time!” Miller put in happily.

“Well, of course, you are in the best position to do that: please go to the barracks at once, gather your company, release Private Postnikov from arrest, and punish him before the ranks with two hundred strokes of the birch.”

XIV

Miller was dumbfounded and made an attempt to persuade Svinyin, for the joy of all, to spare and pardon Private Postnikov altogether, since he had already suffered much without that, waiting in the punishment cell for the decision on what was to be done with him; but Svinyin flared up and did not even let Miller continue.

“No,” he interrupted, “drop that: I’ve just been talking about tact, and right away you start your tactlessness! Drop it!”

Svinyin changed his tone to a more dry and official one and added firmly:

“And since you yourself are also not entirely in the right in this affair, and are even very much to blame, because there’s a softness in you unbecoming to a military man, and this defect in your character is reflected in the subordination of the men under you, I order you to be personally present during the execution of the sentence and to insist that the flogging be performed in earnest … as severely as possible. To that end, kindly see to it that the birching is done by young soldiers newly arrived from the army, because in this respect our old-timers have all been infected by the guardsmen’s liberalism: they don’t whip a comrade as they should, but just scare the fleas off his back. I’ll stop by and see for myself how the culprit’s been done.”

Deviation from any official orders given by superiors could not, of course, take place, and the softhearted N. I. Miller had to carry out with precision the order he had received from his battalion commander.

The company was lined up in the courtyard of the Izmailovsky barracks, the birch rods were brought from the reserve in sufficient quantity, and Private Postnikov, led out from the punishment cell, was “done” with the zealous assistance of his young comrades newly arrived from the army. These men, uncorrupted by the guardsmen’s liberalism, made a perfect job of putting all the points sur les i on him, in the full measure prescribed by the battalion commander. Then the punished Postnikov was picked up and immediately carried, on the same greatcoat on which he had been flogged, from there to the regimental infirmary.

XV

Battalion commander Svinyin, on receiving notice of the carried-out punishment, at once paid Postnikov a fatherly visit in the infirmary, and was convinced to his satisfaction that his order had been carried out to perfection. The tenderhearted and nervous Postnikov had been “done properly.” Svinyin remained pleased and ordered that the punished Postnikov be given on his behalf a pound of sugar and a quarter pound of tea, to sweeten his recovery. Postnikov, lying on his cot, heard this order about the tea and replied:

“Very pleased, sir, thanks for your fatherly kindness.”

And indeed he was “pleased,” because, while sitting for three days in the punishment cell, he had been expecting something much worse. Two hundred strokes, in those harsh times, amounted to very little compared with the punishments people endured under sentencing from the courts-martial; and that was precisely the sort of punishment Postnikov would also have received, if, luckily for him, all those bold and tactical evolutions recounted above had not taken place.

But the number of all who were pleased by the incident we have recounted was not limited to these.

XVI

On the quiet, Private Postnikov’s exploit spread through various circles of the capital, which at that time of voiceless print lived in an atmosphere of endless gossip. In oral transmissions, the name of the real hero—Private Postnikov—was lost, but to make up for it the épopée itself was blown up and acquired a very interesting, romantic character.

It was said that some extraordinary swimmer came swimming towards the palace from the direction of the Peter-and-Paul Fortress,⁸ that one of the sentries standing watch by the palace shot at the swimmer and wounded him, and that a passing invalid officer threw himself into the water and saved him, for which they received, the one his due reward, the other his deserved punishment. This absurd rumor even reached patriarchal quarters, where at that time a certain bishop was living, a cautious man and not indifferent to “secular events,” who was benevolently disposed towards the pious Moscow family of the Svinyins.⁹

To the perspicacious bishop the story of the shot seemed unclear. What was this night swimmer? If he was an escaped prisoner, why had they punished the sentry, who had only done his duty by shooting at him as he swam across the Neva from the fortress? If, however, he was not a prisoner, but some other mysterious person who had had to be saved from the waves of the Neva, then why should the sentry have known about him? And then again, it cannot be that it was the way the idle talk of the world had it. In the world there is a great deal of light-mindedness and “idle talk,” but those who live in cloisters and in church precincts treat everything much more seriously and know the very truth about secular matters.

XVII

Once, when Svinyin happened to be at the bishop’s to receive his blessing, his reverend host began talking with him “incidentally about that shot.” Svinyin told him the whole truth, in which, as we know, there was nothing resembling the story made up “incidentally about that shot.”

The bishop heard out the true story in silence, slightly moving his white prayer beads and not taking his eyes off the storyteller. When Svinyin finished, the bishop uttered in softly burbling speech:

“Wherefore it is incumbent upon us to conclude that not always and everywhere has this affair been set forth in accordance with the full truth?”

Svinyin faltered and then answered evasively that the report was made not by him, but by General Kokoshkin.

The bishop ran his beads through his waxen fingers several times in silence, and then said:

“A distinction must be made between what is a lie and what is an incomplete truth.”

Again the beads, again the silence, and, finally, the softly flowing speech:

“An incomplete truth is not a lie. But the less said …”

“That is indeed so,” began the encouraged Svinyin. “For me, of course, the most disturbing thing is that I had to subject that soldier to punishment, for, though he violated his duty …”

The beads and then a softly flowing interruption:

“The duties of the service must never be violated.”

“Yes, but he did it out of magnanimity, out of compassion, and with such a struggle and such danger besides: he realized that, by saving another man’s life, he was destroying himself … This was a lofty, a holy feeling!”

“The holy is known to God, while punishment of the flesh is never injurious for the simple man and contradicts neither national custom nor the spirit of the Scriptures. The rod is far easier for the coarse body to bear than refined suffering is for the soul. In this justice has not suffered from you in the least.”

“But he was also deprived of the reward for saving a life.”

“Saving a life is not a merit, but rather a duty. He who could save a life and does not is punishable by law, and he who does has performed his duty.”

A pause, the beads, and the soft flow:

“For a soldier to suffer humiliation and wounds for his exploit may be far more salutary than to be exalted by some mark. But the major thing here is—to observe caution about this whole affair and by no means mention anywhere those to whom by some chance or other it has been recounted.”

Evidently the bishop was also pleased.

XVIII

If I had the daring of those lucky ones chosen by heaven, to whom, for the greatness of their faith, it is given to penetrate the mysteries of divine providence, I might be so bold as to allow myself to suppose that God himself was probably pleased with the behavior of Postnikov’s humble soul, which He created. But I have little faith; it does not give my mind the power to contemplate such loftiness: I am of the earth, earthy.¹⁰ I am thinking of those mortals who love the good simply for the sake of the good itself and expect no reward for it anywhere. These straightforward and reliable people, it seems to me, should also be perfectly pleased by the holy impulse of love and the no less holy patience of the humble hero of my faithful and artless story.

* The dots on the i’s. Trans.