more Z.

Twelve Days from Before Sunrise . . .

I am traveling from Viatka to Kazan to get reinforcements for my regiment. I am using post horses. There is no other means of transportation. I ride in a covered wagon, wrapped in blankets and fur coats.

The three horses gallop over the snow. The landscape is bare. There is a cruel forest. Next to me is Ensign S. We are going for the reinforcements together.

We have been traveling for two days. Everything has been said. All our reminiscenses have been repeated. We are incredibly bored. Pulling his revolver from its holster, Ensign S. shoots at the white insulators on the telegraph poles.

These shots irritate me. I get angry at Ensign S. I rudely tell him, "Cut it out, you idiot!"

I expect a scene, shouts. But instead I hear a plaintive voice in reply. He says, "Sub-lieutenant Zoshchenko . . . don't stop me. Let me do what I want. I'll get to the front and they'll kill me."

I gaze at his snub nose, I look into his piteous bluish eyes. Now, almost thirty years later, I can remember his face. He really was killed the second day after we got to our position.

In that war sub-lieutenants lived, on an average, not more than twelve days.