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had served his full time and remained in the army of his own free will, not knowing where to go.
'Twice,' he told me, 'I \vrote to my home in Mogilev province, but I got no answer, so it seems as though there were none of my people left: and so it would be painful to go home; one would stay there a bit and then wander off like a lost soul, following one's nose to beg one's bread.'
How barbarously and mercilessly the army is organised in Russia with its monstrous term of service ! ! A man's personality is everywhere sacrificed V\'ithout the slightest mercy and with no reward.
Old Filimonov had pretensions to a knowledge of German which he had studied in winter quarters after the taking of Paris. He very felicitously adapted German words to the Russian spirit, calling a horse, fert, eggs, rerr, fish, pish, oats, ober, pancakes, pankukhi.
There was a naivete about his stories which made me sad and thoughtful. In Moldavia during the Turkish campaign of 1 805
he had been in the company of a captain, the most good-natured man in the world, who looked after every soldier as though he were his own son and was always foremost in action.
'A Moldavian girl captivated him and then we saw our captain was worried, for, do you knO\v, he noticed that the girl was making up to another officer. So one day he called me and a comrade-a splendid soldier, he had both his legs blown off afterwards at Maly-Yaroslavets-and began telling us how the Moldavian girl had wronged him and asked would we care to help him and give her a lesson. "To be sure, sir," we said, "we are always glad to do our best for your honour." He thanked us and pointed out the house in which the officer lived, and he says,
"You wait on the bridge at night; she will certainly go to him.
You seize her without any noise and drop her in the river." "We can do that, your honour," we tell him, and my comrade and I got a sack ready. We were sitting there, when towards midnight thl'r<''s the Moldavian girl running up. "Why, are you in a hurry, madam)" we say, and Wl' givP }]('r onl' on th<' head. She llPH'r uttered a squl'al, poor dea1·, and W<' popped lwr into the sack and over into the river: and next day our captain goes to I St>n·ice in the Russian army at this time, for those who were not officers, was for twenty-fiw yPars. a"nd soldiers with bad records might be made to serve for life. Conscription was not general. and exemption could be bought. Under Alexander II, in 1 874, the term was reduced to seven yPars; conscription became genPral and �xemption could not be pur·
chaser!. All recruits had to start in the ranks. (R.)
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the other officer and says: "Don't you be angry with your Moldavian girl : we detained her a little, and now she is in the river, and I am ready to take a turn with you," he says, "with the sabre or with pistols, which you like." So they hacked at each other. The officer gave our captain a great stab in the chest, and the poor, dear man wasted away and a fe\V months later gave up his soul to God.'
'And the Moldavian girl was drowned, then? ' I asked.
'Yes, sir, she was drowned,' answered the soldier.
I looked with surprise at the child ish unconcern with which the old gendarme told me this story. And he, as though guessing what I felt, or thinking about it for the first time, added, to soothe me <Jnd conciliate his conscience:
'A heathen woman, sir, as good as not christened, that sort of people.'
On every Imperial holiday the gendarmes are given a glass of vodka. The scrgPant allowPd Filimonov to refusp his share for five or six times and to receive them all at once. Filimonov scored on a wooden tally-stick how many glasses he had miss('d, and on th(' most important holidays h(' would go for them. He would pour this vodka into a bowl, crumble bread into it and eat it with a spoon. Aft('r this dish lw would light a big pipe with a tiny mouthpiece, filled with tobacco of incredible strength which he used to cut up himself, and therefore rather wittily called
'sans-cracher.' As he smoked he \\·ould fold himself up on a little window-scat, bent double-there were no chairs in the soldiers'
rooms-and sing his song:
The maids came out into the meadow.
�Vhere ll/as an anthill and a (lowrr.
As he got mon• drunk the words would become more inarticulate until he fell asleep. Imagine the health of a man who had been twice \Votmded and at over sixty could still survive such carousals!
Before I leave these Flt>mish barrack scenes a Ia Wouverman and (i Ia Callot, and this prison gossip, which is like the reminiscences of all prisoners, I shall say a few more words about the oiJiC<'rS.
The greater number among them were quite decent men, by no nwans spi('s, hut m<'n who had come hy chance into the gPndarnws' d ivision. Young g('ntl<>nwn with little or no education and no fortllnc, who did not know where to lay their heads, tlwy were gendarmps because they had found no other job. They
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performed their duties with military exactitude, but I never observed a shadow of zeal in any of them, except the adjutant, but that, of course, is why he was the adjutant.
When the officers had got to know me, they did all such little things as they could to alleviate my lot, and it would be a sin to complain of them.
One young officer told me that in 1 83 1 he had been sent to find and arrest a Polish landowner, who was in hiding some>vhere in the neighbourhood of his estate. He was charged with having relations with emissaries.2 From evidence that the officer collected he found out where the landowner must be hidden, went there with his company, put a cordon round the house and entered it with two gendarmes. The house was empty-they walked through the rooms, peeping into everything and found no one anywhere, but yet a few trifles showed clearly that there had recently been people in the house. Leaving the gendarmes below, the young man went a second time up to the attic; looking round attentively he saw a little door which led to a closet or some small room ; the door was fastened on the inside ; he pushed it with his foot, it opened, and a tall, handsome woman stood before it. She pointed in silence to a man who held in his arms a girl of about twelve, who was almost unconscious. This was the Pole and his wife and child. The officer was embarrassed. The tall woman noticed this and asked him:
'And will you have the cruelty to destroy them?'
The officer apologised, saying the usual commonplaces about the inviolability of his military oath, and his duty, and, at last, in despair, seeing that his words had no effect, ended with the question:
'What am I to do?'
The \voman looked proudly at him and said, pointing to the door:
'Go down and say there is no one here.'
'Upon my v•;ord, I don't know how it happened,' said the officer, 'or \Vhat was the matter with me, but I vo.-cnt down from the attic and told the corporal to collect the men. A couple of hour!f later we were diligently looking for him on another estate, while he was making his way over the frontier. "Well-woman ! I admit it!'