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“DID you hear that?” the ex-soldier growled through clenched teeth. “‘Palm in hand’ indeed! Why, the fellow must be a Mennonite or a Molokan, though the two, really, are one, and absolutely indistinguishable, as well as equally foolish. Yes, ‘palm in hand’ indeed!”

Similarly could I understand the ex-soldier’s indignation, for, like him, I felt that such dreary, monotonous singing was altogether out of place in a spot where everything could troll a song so delightful as to lead one to wish to hear nothing more, to hear only the whispering of the forest and the babbling of the stream. And especially out of place did the terms “palm” and “Mennonite” appear.

Yet I had no great love for the ex-soldier. Somehow he jarred upon me. Middle-aged, squat, square, and bleached with the sun, he had faded eyes, flattened-out features, and an expression of restless moroseness. Never could I make out what he really wanted, what he was really seeking. For instance, once, after reviewing the Caucasus from Khassav-Urt to Novorossisk, and from Batum to Derbent, and, during the review, crossing the mountain range by three different routes at least, he remarked with a disparaging smile:

“I suppose the Lord God made the country.”

“You do not like it, then? How should I? Good for nothing is what I call it.”

Then, with a further glance at me, and a twist of his sinewy neck, he added:

“However, not bad altogether are its forests.”

A native of Kaluga, he had served in Tashkend, and, in fighting with the Chechintzes of that region,had been wounded in the head with a stone. Yet as he told me the story of this incident, he smiled shamefacedly, and, throughout, kept his glassy eyes fixed upon the ground.

“Though I am ashamed to confess it,” he said, “once a woman chipped a piece out of me. You see, the women of that region are shrieking devils–there is no other word for it; and when we captured a village called Akhal-Tiapa a number of them had to be cut up, so that they lay about in heaps, and their blood made walking slippery. Just as our company of the reserve entered the street, something caught me on the head. Afterwards, I learnt that a woman on a roof had thrown a stone, and, like the rest, had had to be put out of the way.”

Here, knitting his brows, the ex-soldier went on in more serious vein:

“Yet all that folk used to say about those women, about their having beards to shave, turned out to be so much gossip, as I ascertained for myself. I did so by lifting the woman’s skirt on the point of my bayonet, when I perceived that, though she was lean, and smelt like a goat, she was quite as regular as, as–“

“Things must have been indeed terrible on that expedition!” I interposed.

“I do not know for certain, since, though men who took an actual part in the expedition’s engagements have said that they were so (the Chechintze is a vicious brute, and never gives in), I myself know but little of the affair, since I spent my whole time in the reserve, and never once did my company advance to the assault. No, it merely lay about on the sand, and fired at long range. In fact, nothing but sand was to be seen thereabouts; nor did we ever succeed in finding out what the fighting was for. True, if a piece of country be good, it is in our interest to take it; but in the present case the country was poor and bare, with never a river in sight, and a climate so hot that all one thought of was one’s mortal need of a drink. In fact, some of our fellows died of thirst outright. Moreover, in those parts there grows a sort of millet called dzhugar — millet which not only has a horrible taste, but proves absolutely delusive, since the more one eats of it, the less one feels filled.”