Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/122

98 "Among us soldiers he was called Nikolaï Palkin—Nicholas the cudgeler. He was really Nikolaï Pavlovitch, and yet he was called nothing else but Nikolaï Palkin. That was his universal nickname. That's what I remember of that time," continued the old man. "Yes, when one has lived out a century, it is time for one to die, and when you think of it, it becomes hard.

"I have so many sins on my soul! It was a subordinate's work. One had to apply one hundred and fifty blows to a soldier"—the old man had been non-commissioned officer and sergeant major, but was now "kandidat"—"and you give him two hundred. And the man died on your hands, and you tortured him to death …. that was a sin.

"The non-commissioned officers used to beat the young soldiers to death. They would strike them anywhere with the butt-end of the gun or with the fist, over the heart or on the head, and the man would die. And there was never any redress. If a man died, murdered that way, the authorities would write, 'Died by the will of God,' and thus it was covered up. And at that time did I realize what it meant? One thought only of oneself. But now when you crawl up on top of the stove and can't sleep o' nights, you keep thinking about it and living it over again. Good as it is to take the holy communion in accordance with the Christian law and be absolved, still horror seizes you. When you remember all that you have been through, yes, and what others have suffered on your account, then no other hell is necessary; it is worse than any hell."

I vividly imagined what must have been the recollections of this solitary old man there, face to face with death, and a pang went through my heart. I remembered other horrors besides the cudgels, which he must have witnessed: men killed in running the gauntlet, put to death by shooting, the slaughter and pillage of cities in war—he had taken part in the Polish war—and I thought I would question him particularly in regard to all this: I asked him about running the gauntlet. He gave full particulars about this horrible punishment: