Page:The Russian Review Volume 1.djvu/207

Rh amid which something white was visible. It was the body of a dead child. The white dress and the little white shoes trimmed with fur were still intact. But instead of the face, what we saw was a horrible, reddish-purple mass.

The soldiers stooped over the dead body.

"Anything there you haven't seen? Get along, now!" said the officer, looking in a different direction.

Lozhkin moved his head from side to side, as though his collar was too tight, and looked at those about him with a gaze that was full of perplexity.

"Just look at that Eh?"

That was all he said, and was silent until evening, although he was fond of chatting. In the evening, sitting down on the ground in a swamp where we had a short rest, he still remained silent for some time, smoking; later he began to whistle, and then to sing. Finally he said in a low voice:

"And the dress on her was white!"

Then he began to whistle again, and, at last, getting rid of his thoughts, he suddenly hit Zverev on the back with his fist, and shouted out:

"Get along, now, Palasha!"

This was his favorite saying, with which he usually concluded all his conversations, or the course of his thoughts.

I am a peaceful man. I have read many splendid books, in which the questions of good and evil were discussed thoroughly. I cannot kill anybody, cannot steal anything, cannot injure a woman or a child. I know, I am convinced, that war is an evil, that in it is combined everything that I cannot do. And yet the signal horn begins to scatter its disquieting tra-ta-ta through the field. My heart begins to beat rapidly, my throat is compressed, my mind is clouded, stripped entirely of what the books I had read imparted to it, void of any realization of good and evil. The only thing that remains is the inevitable, and what I do with the bayonet or the rifle is not murder, not evil, not horror, but something which is essential and highly important.

There is a mighty force in that tra-ta-ta produced by a piece of steel, a force which is more powerful than I, myself, than my horror of blood. The sound of that imperative summons is right, and not a single argument against it rises within me. Principles? What principle, what conviction is there that can withstand the force of the inevitable? Fear? But war is a state in which fear is conquered by fear. One must possess a