The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

“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