A Desperate Character | Page 6

making a straight, low bow--a monk's bow--he added: 'Won't you help me on my way? I'm going, see, on foot to the monastery....'
'When?'
'To-day ... at once.'
'Why be in such a hurry?'
'Uncle, my motto always was, "Make haste, make haste!"'
'But what is your motto now?'
'It's the same now.... Only, make haste towards good!'
And so Misha went off, leaving me to ponder on the vicissitudes of human destiny.
But he soon reminded me of his existence. Two months after his visit, I got a letter from him, the first of those letters, of which later on he furnished me with so abundant a supply. And note a peculiar fact: I have seldom seen a neater, more legible handwriting than that unbalanced fellow's. And the wording of his letters was exceedingly correct, just a little flowery. Invariable entreaties for assistance, always attended with resolutions to reform, vows, and promises on his honour.... All of it seemed--and perhaps was--sincere. Misha's signature to his letters was always accompanied by peculiar strokes, flourishes, and stops, and he made great use of marks of exclamation. In this first letter Misha informed me of a new 'turn in his fortune.' (Later on he used to refer to these turns as plunges, ... and frequent were the plunges he took.) He was starting for the Caucasus on active service for his tsar and his country in the capacity of a cadet! And, though a certain benevolent aunt had entered into his impecunious position, and had sent him an inconsiderable sum, still he begged me to assist him in getting his equipment. I did what he asked, and for two years I heard nothing more of him.
I must own I had the gravest doubts as to his having gone to the Caucasus. But it turned out that he really had gone there, had, by favour, got into the T---- regiment as a cadet, and had been serving in it for those two years. A perfect series of legends had sprung up there about him. An officer of his regiment related them to me.

IV
I learned a great deal which I should never have expected of him.--I was, of course, hardly surprised that as a military man, as an officer, he was not a success, that he was in fact worse than useless; but what I had not anticipated was that he was by no means conspicuous for much bravery; that in battle he had a downcast, woebegone air, seemed half-depressed, half-bewildered. Discipline of every sort worried him, and made him miserable; he was daring to the point of insanity when only his own personal safety was in question; no bet was too mad for him to accept; but do harm to others, kill, fight, he could not, possibly because his heart was too good--or possibly because his 'cottonwool' education (so he expressed it), had made him too soft. Himself he was quite ready to murder in any way at any moment.... But others--no. 'There's no making him out,' his comrades said of him; 'he's a flabby creature, a poor stick--and yet such a desperate fellow--a perfect madman!' I chanced in later days to ask Misha what evil spirit drove him, forced him, to drink to excess, risk his life, and so on. He always had one answer--'wretchedness.'
'But why are you wretched?'
'Why! how can you ask? If one comes, anyway, to one's self, begins to feel, to think of the poverty, of the injustice, of Russia.... Well, it's all over with me! ... one's so wretched at once--one wants to put a bullet through one's head! One's forced to start drinking.'
'Why ever do you drag Russia in?'
'How can I help it? Can't be helped! That's why I'm afraid to think.'
'It all comes, and your wretchedness too, from having nothing to do.'
'But I don't know how to do anything, uncle! dear fellow! Take one's life, and stake it on a card--that I can do! Come, you tell me what I ought to do, what to risk my life for? This instant ... I'll ...'
'But you must simply live.... Why risk your life?'
'I can't! You say I act thoughtlessly.... But what else can I do? ... If one starts thinking--good God, all that comes into one's head! It's only Germans who can think! ...'
What use was it talking to him? He was a desperate man, and that's all one can say.
Of the Caucasus legends I have spoken about, I will tell you two or three. One day, in a party of officers, Misha began boasting of a sabre he had got by exchange--'a genuine Persian blade!' The officers expressed doubts as to its genuineness. Misha began disputing. 'Here then,' he cried at last; 'they say the man that knows most about sabres is Abdulka the one-eyed. I'll go to him, and ask.' The officers wondered.