Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XV. Later Sects
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contemptuously nicknamed them “marmots.” “What sort of soldier
is that?” he will vehemently exclaim. “He has scarcely
learnt to hold a rifle in his hand before they let him return to
his old woman! No; if he had been drubbed as much as I,
he would have known what military service is. True, it was
very strict in our time, and at first it seemed very hard. I very
nearly hanged myself from the yard-arm, through vexation
and fright, but after they had cut me down, kept me in
hospital, and given me some more of the necessary drubbing, I
lost all my rustic foolishness.”
The neighbours, who know P. P. as a hot-headed, ambitious
man, often poke fun at him. He gets particularly angry when
anyone jests at his war-medals and suchlike. Then he raves,
shouts, and sometimes spits in his antagonist’s face. Yet all
this does not prevent them from highly respecting a man who
leads a sober life, never takes anything that is not his, makes
boots all winter and tends his kitchen garden all summer, asks
nothing from anyone, lives happily with his wife, goes regularly
to church on Sundays, and reads “Lives of the Saints” at
home, owns a well-stocked library, consisting mostly of such
works as “The Holy Theodora,” “Description of Hell,” “The
Thirteen Sufferings after Death,” &c. How can they help
revering a man who never tells a lie—his tall stories of his
naval exploits not counting as lies—never cheats, and enjoys
such confidence that on saints’ days the saloon-keeper hands
over his entire stock of vodka to him without measuring the
amount or counting the money paid? How can they do other
than honour a man who, even when sitting in a dirty grogshop,
retains the dignity of an admiral, and if anyone misbehaves
commands “Silence! Out with you!” and order is restored?
What else can they do but respect a man who always holds
himself erect before the stanavoj (village police); who once
called the elder of the village district “a venal rascal”; and,
finally, is an intimate friend of Psalmsinger Agathon?
No one could help loving P. P.; he was an upright,
benevolent man, who never refused to help the needy. He always
stood up to defend the weak against the strong; he publicly
withstood the kulack and “mir-eater” when he tried to
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