The Enchanted Wanderer and Other Stories

Miller was dumbfounded and made an attempt to persuade Svinyin, for the joy of all, to spare and pardon Private Postnikov altogether, since he had already suffered much without that, waiting in the punishment cell for the decision on what was to be done with him; but Svinyin flared up and did not even let Miller continue.

“No,” he interrupted, “drop that: I’ve just been talking about tact, and right away you start your tactlessness! Drop it!”

Svinyin changed his tone to a more dry and official one and added firmly:

“And since you yourself are also not entirely in the right in this affair, and are even very much to blame, because there’s a softness in you unbecoming to a military man, and this defect in your character is reflected in the subordination of the men under you, I order you to be personally present during the execution of the sentence and to insist that the flogging be performed in earnest … as severely as possible. To that end, kindly see to it that the birching is done by young soldiers newly arrived from the army, because in this respect our old-timers have all been infected by the guardsmen’s liberalism: they don’t whip a comrade as they should, but just scare the fleas off his back. I’ll stop by and see for myself how the culprit’s been done.”

Deviation from any official orders given by superiors could not, of course, take place, and the softhearted N. I. Miller had to carry out with precision the order he had received from his battalion commander.

The company was lined up in the courtyard of the Izmailovsky barracks, the birch rods were brought from the reserve in sufficient quantity, and Private Postnikov, led out from the punishment cell, was “done” with the zealous assistance of his young comrades newly arrived from the army. These men, uncorrupted by the guardsmen’s liberalism, made a perfect job of putting all the points sur les i on him, in the full measure prescribed by the battalion commander. Then the punished Postnikov was picked up and immediately carried, on the same greatcoat on which he had been flogged, from there to the regimental infirmary.

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Battalion commander Svinyin, on receiving notice of the carried-out punishment, at once paid Postnikov a fatherly visit in the infirmary, and was convinced to his satisfaction that his order had been carried out to perfection. The tenderhearted and nervous Postnikov had been “done properly.” Svinyin remained pleased and ordered that the punished Postnikov be given on his behalf a pound of sugar and a quarter pound of tea, to sweeten his recovery. Postnikov, lying on his cot, heard this order about the tea and replied:

“Very pleased, sir, thanks for your fatherly kindness.”

And indeed he was “pleased,” because, while sitting for three days in the punishment cell, he had been expecting something much worse. Two hundred strokes, in those harsh times, amounted to very little compared with the punishments people endured under sentencing from the courts-martial; and that was precisely the sort of punishment Postnikov would also have received, if, luckily for him, all those bold and tactical evolutions recounted above had not taken place.

But the number of all who were pleased by the incident we have recounted was not limited to these.

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On the quiet, Private Postnikov’s exploit spread through various circles of the capital, which at that time of voiceless print lived in an atmosphere of endless gossip. In oral transmissions, the name of the real hero—Private Postnikov—was lost, but to make up for it the épopée itself was blown up and acquired a very interesting, romantic character.

It was said that some extraordinary swimmer came swimming towards the palace from the direction of the Peter-and-Paul Fortress,⁸ that one of the sentries standing watch by the palace shot at the swimmer and wounded him, and that a passing invalid officer threw himself into the water and saved him, for which they received, the one his due reward, the other his deserved punishment. This absurd rumor even reached patriarchal quarters, where at that time a certain bishop was living, a cautious man and not indifferent to “secular events,” who was benevolently disposed towards the pious Moscow family of the Svinyins.⁹

To the perspicacious bishop the story of the shot seemed unclear. What was this night swimmer? If he was an escaped prisoner, why had they punished the sentry, who had only done his duty by shooting at him as he swam across the Neva from the fortress? If, however, he was not a prisoner, but some other mysterious person who had had to be saved from the waves of the Neva, then why should the sentry have known about him? And then again, it cannot be that it was the way the idle talk of the world had it. In the world there is a great deal of light-mindedness and “idle talk,” but those who live in cloisters and in church precincts treat everything much more seriously and know the very truth about secular matters.

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