A Desperate Character | Page 8

as it were rising up out of the bowels of the earth: 'All right! fell
on the sand ... but it was a long flight! Ten roubles you've lost!'
'Climb out!' shouted his comrades. 'Climb out, I dare say!' echoed
Misha. 'A likely story! I should like to see you climb out. You'll have to
go for torches and ropes now. And, meanwhile, to keep up my spirits
while I wait, fling down a flask....'
And so Misha had to stay five hours at the bottom of the ravine; and
when they dragged him out, it turned out that his shoulder was
dislocated. But that in no way troubled him. The next day a bone-setter,
one of the black-smiths, set his shoulder, and he used it as though
nothing had been the matter.
His health in general was marvellous, incredible. I have already
mentioned that up to the time of his death he kept his almost childishly
fresh complexion. Illness was a thing unknown to him, in spite of his
excesses; the strength of his constitution never once showed signs of
giving way. When any other man would infallibly have been seriously
ill, or even have died, he merely shook himself, like a duck in the water,
and was more blooming than ever. Once, also in the Caucasus ... this
legend is really incredible, but one may judge from it what Misha was
thought to be capable of.... Well, once, in the Caucasus, in a state of
drunkenness, he fell down with the lower half of his body in a stream
of water; his head and arms were on the bank, out of water. It was
winter-time, there was a hard frost, and when he was found next
morning, his legs and body were pulled out from under a thick layer of
ice, which had formed over them in the night--and he didn't even catch
cold! Another time--this was in Russia (near Orel, and also in a time of
severe frost)--he was in a tavern outside the town in company with
seven young seminarists (or theological students), and these seminarists

were celebrating their final examination, but had invited Misha, as a
delightful person, a man of 'inspiration,' as the phrase was then. A very
great deal was drunk, and when at last the festive party got ready to
depart, Misha, dead drunk, was in an unconscious condition. All the
seven seminarists together had but one three-horse sledge with a high
back; where were they to stow the unresisting body? Then one of the
young men, inspired by classical reminiscences, proposed tying Misha
by his feet to the back of the sledge, as Hector was tied to the chariot of
Achilles! The proposal met with approval ... and jolting up and down
over the holes, sliding sideways down the slopes, with his legs torn and
flayed, and his head rolling in the snow, poor Misha travelled on his
back for the mile and a half from the tavern to the town, and hadn't as
much as a cough afterwards, hadn't turned a hair! Such heroic health
had nature bestowed upon him!

V
From the Caucasus he came again to Moscow, in a Circassian dress, a
dagger in his sash, a high-peaked cap on his head. This costume he
retained to the end, though he was no longer in the army, from which
he had been discharged for outstaying his leave. He stayed with me,
borrowed a little money ... and forthwith began his 'plunges,' his
wanderings, or, as he expressed it, 'his peregrinations from pillar to
post,' then came the sudden disappearances and returns, and the
showers of beautifully written letters addressed to people of every
possible description, from an archbishop down to stable-boys and
mid-wives! Then came calls upon persons known and unknown! And
this is worth noticing: when he made these calls, he was never abject
and cringing, he never worried people by begging, but on the contrary
behaved with propriety, and had positively a cheerful and pleasant air,
though the inveterate smell of spirits accompanied him everywhere,
and his Oriental costume gradually changed into rags. 'Give, and God
will reward you, though I don't deserve it,' he would say, with a bright
smile and a candid blush; 'if you don't give, you'll be perfectly right,
and I shan't blame you for it. I shall find food to eat, God will provide!
And there are people poorer than I, and much more deserving of

help--plenty, plenty!' Misha was particularly successful with women:
he knew how to appeal to their sympathy. But don't suppose that he
was or fancied himself a Lovelace....Oh, no! in that way he was very
modest. Whether it was that he had inherited a cool temperament from
his parents, or whether indeed this too is to be