Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories | Page 2

would have had a
good-natured expression. His small green eyes with yellow lashes were
the only thing not quite ordinary in his face: his right eye was very
slightly higher than his left and the left eyelid drooped a little, which
made his eyes look different, strange and drowsy. Tyeglev's
countenance, which was not, however, without a certain attractiveness,
almost always wore an expression of discontent mingled with
perplexity, as though he were chasing within himself a gloomy thought
which he was never able to catch. At the same time he did not give one
the impression of being stuck up: he might rather have been taken for
an aggrieved than a haughty man. He spoke very little, hesitatingly, in a
husky voice, with unnecessary repetitions. Unlike most "fatalists," he
did not use particularly elaborate expressions in speaking and only had
recourse to them in writing; his handwriting was quite like a child's.
His superiors regarded him as an officer of no great merit--not
particularly capable and not over-zealous. The brigadier-general, a man
of German extraction, used to say of him: "He has punctuality but not
precision." With the soldiers, too, Tyeglev had the character of being
neither one thing nor the other. He lived modestly, in accordance with
his means. He had been left an orphan at nine years old: his father and
mother were drowned when they were being ferried across the Oka in
the spring floods. He had been educated at a private school, where he
had the reputation of being one of the slowest and quietest of the boys,
and at his own earnest desire and through the good offices of a cousin
who was a man of influence, he obtained a commission in the
horse-guards artillery; and, though with some difficulty, passed his
examination first as an ensign and then as a second lieutenant. His
relations with other officers were somewhat strained. He was not liked,
was rarely visited--and he hardly went to see anyone. He felt the
presence of strangers a constraint; he instantly became awkward and
unnatural ... he had no instinct for comradeship and was not on really
intimate terms with anyone. But he was respected, and respected not for
his character nor for his intelligence and education--but because the
stamp which distinguishes "fatal" people was discerned in him. No one
of his fellow officers expected that Tyeglev would make a career or
distinguish himself in any way; but that Tyeglev might do something

extraordinary or that Tyeglev might become a Napoleon was not
considered impossible. For that is a matter of a man's "star"--and he
was regarded as a "man of destiny," just as there are "men of sighs" and
"of tears."
III
Two incidents that marked the first steps in his career did a great deal
to strengthen his "fatal" reputation. On the very first day after receiving
his commission--about the middle of March--he was walking with
other newly promoted officers in full dress uniform along the
embankment. The spring had come early that year, the Neva was
melting; the bigger blocks of ice had gone but the whole river was
choked up with a dense mass of thawing icicles. The young men were
talking and laughing ... suddenly one of them stopped: he saw a little
dog some twenty paces from the bank on the slowly moving surface of
the river. Perched on a projecting piece of ice it was whining and
trembling all over. "It will be drowned," said the officer through his
teeth. The dog was slowly being carried past one of the sloping
gangways that led down to the river. All at once Tyeglev without
saying a word ran down this gangway and over the thin ice, sinking in
and leaping out again, reached the dog, seized it by the scruff of the
neck and getting safely back to the bank, put it down on the pavement.
The danger to which Tyeglev had exposed himself was so great, his
action was so unexpected, that his companions were
dumbfoundered--and only spoke all at once, when he had called a cab
to drive home: his uniform was wet all over. In response to their
exclamations, Tyeglev replied coolly that there was no escaping one's
destiny--and told the cabman to drive on.
"You might at least take the dog with you as a souvenir," cried one of
the officers. But Tyeglev merely waved his hand, and his comrades
looked at each other in silent amazement.
The second incident occurred a few days later, at a card party at the
battery commander's. Tyeglev sat in the corner and took no part in the
play. "Oh, if only I had a grandmother to tell me beforehand what cards
will win, as in Pushkin's _Queen of Spades_," cried a lieutenant whose
losses had