Captain Ribnikov Page #4

"Captain Ribnikov" is a novel by Russian author Aleksandr Kuprin, published in 1913. The story revolves around the experiences of Captain Ribnikov, a dedicated and principled officer in the Russian Navy, as he confronts moral dilemmas and the harsh realities of life at sea. The narrative explores themes of duty, honor, and the complexities of human relationships, set against the backdrop of naval life. Kuprin's vivid storytelling captures the struggles of individuals grappling with their ideals and the often brutal world around them, making it a poignant reflection on the nature of loyalty and sacrifice.

• Novel

								

refuse to obey orders. The soldiers are shooting the officers with
their own revolvers.’

‘I heard that the general in command hanged fifty sisters of mercy.
Well, of course, they were only dressed as sisters of mercy.’

Schavinsky glanced round at Ribnikov. Now the talkative captain was
silent. With his eyes screwed and his chest pressed upon the hilt of
his sword, he was intently watching each of the speakers in turn. Under
the tight-stretched skin of his cheekbones the sinews strongly played,
and his lips moved as if he were repeating every word to himself.

‘My God, whom does he remind me of?’ the journalist thought
impatiently for the tenth time. This so tormented him that he tried to
make use of an old familiar trick ... to pretend to himself that he
had completely forgotten the captain, and then suddenly to give him a
quick glance. Usually that trick soon helped him to recall a name or a
meeting-place, but now it was quite ineffective.

Under his stubborn look, Ribnikov turned round again, gave a deep sigh
and shook his head sadly.

‘Awful news! Do you believe it? What? Even if it is true we need not
despair. You know what we Russians say: “Whom God defends the pigs
can’t eat,”--that’s to say, I mean that the pigs are the Japanese, of
course.’

He held out stubbornly against Schavinsky’s steady look, and in his
yellow animal eyes the journalist noticed a flame of implacable,
inhuman hatred.

Piestrukhin, the poet asleep on the sofa, suddenly got up, smacked his
lips, and stared at the officer with dazed eyes.

‘Ah!... you’re still here, Jap mug,’ he said drunkenly, hardly moving
his mouth. ‘You just get out of it!’

And he collapsed on the sofa again, turning on to his other side.

‘Japanese!’ Schavinsky thought with anxious curiosity, ‘That’s what
he’s like,’ and drawled meaningly: ‘You are a jewel, Captain!’

‘I?’ the latter cried out. His eyes lost their fire, but his lips still
twitched nervously. ‘I am Captain Ribnikov!’ He banged himself on the
chest again with curious pride. ‘My Russian heart bleeds. Allow me to
shake your hand. My head was grazed at Liao-Yang, and I was wounded in
the leg at Mukden. You don’t believe it? I’ll show you now.’

He put his foot on a chair and began to pull up his trousers.

‘Don’t!... stop! we believe you,’ Schavinsky said with a frown.
Nevertheless, his habitual curiosity enabled him to steal a glance at
Ribnikov’s leg and to notice that this infantry captain’s underclothing
was of expensive spun silk.

A messenger came into the saloon with a letter for Matanya.

‘That’s for you, Vladimir Ivanovich,’ said Matanya, when he had torn
the envelope. ‘The race-card from the stable. Put one on Zenith both
ways for me. I’ll pay you on Tuesday.’

‘Come to the races with me, Captain?’ said Schavinsky.

‘Where? To the races? With pleasure.’ Ribnikov got up noisily,
upsetting his chair. ‘Where the horses jump? Captain Ribnikov at your
service. Into battle, on the march, to the devil’s dam! Ha, ha, ha!
That’s me! Eh, what?’

       *       *       *       *       *

When they were sitting in the cab, driving through Cabinetsky Street,
Schavinsky slipped his arm through the officer’s, bent right down to
his ear, and said, in a voice hardly audible:

‘Don’t be afraid. I shan’t betray you. You’re as much Ribnikov as I am
Vanderbilt. You’re an officer on the Japanese Staff. I think you’re a
colonel at least, and now you’re a military agent in Russia....’

Either Ribnikov did not hear the words for the noise of the wheels
or he did not understand. Swaying gently from side to side, he spoke
hoarsely with a fresh drunken enthusiasm:

‘We’re fairly on the spree now! Damn it all, I adore it. I’m not
Captain Ribnikov, a Russian soldier, if I don’t love Russian writers! A
magnificent lot of fellows! They drink like fishes, and know all about
life. “Russia’s joy is in the bottle.” And I’ve been at it from the
morning, old man!’

III

By business and disposition Schavinsky was a collector of human
documents, of rare and strange manifestations of the human spirit.
Often for weeks, sometimes for months together, he watched an
interesting type, tracking him down with the persistence of a
passionate sportsman or an eager detective. It would happen that
the prize was found to be, as he called it, ‘a knight of the black
star’--a sharper, a notorious plagiarist, a pimp, a souteneur, a
literary maniac, the terror of every editor, a plunging cashier or
bank messenger, who spends public money in restaurants and gambling
hells with the madness of a man rushing down the steep; but no less the
objects of his sporting passion were the lions of the season--pianists,
singers, littérateurs, gamblers with amazing luck, jockeys, athletes,
and cocottes coming into vogue. By hook or crook Schavinsky made
their acquaintance and then, enveloping them in his spider’s toils,
tenderly and gently secured his victim’s attention. Then he was ready
for anything. He would sit for whole sleepless nights with vulgar,
stupid people, whose mental equipment, like the Hottentots’, consisted
of a dozen or two animal conceptions and clichés; he stood drinks and
dinners to damnable fools and scoundrels, waiting patiently for the
moment when in their drunkenness they would reveal the full flower of
their villainy. He flattered them to the top of their bent, with his
eyes open; gave them monstrous doses of flattery, firmly convinced
that flattery is the key to open every lock; he lent them money
generously, knowing well that he would never receive it back again.
In justification of this precarious sport he could say that the inner
psychological interest for him considerably surpassed the benefits he
subsequently acquired as a realistic writer. It gave him a subtle and
obscure delight to penetrate into the mysterious inaccessible chambers
of the human soul, to observe the hidden springs of external acts,
springs sometimes petty, sometimes shameful, more often ridiculous than
affecting--as it were, to hold in his hand for a while, a live, warm
human heart and touch its very pulse. Often in this inquisitive pursuit
it seemed to him that he was completely losing his own ‘ego,’ so much
did he begin to think and feel with another’s soul, even speaking in
his language with his peculiar words until at last he even caught
himself using another’s gesture and tone. But when he had saturated
himself in a man he threw him aside. It is true that sometimes he had
to pay long and heavily for a moment’s infatuation.

But no one for a long time had so deeply interested him, even to
agitation, as this hoarse, tippling infantry captain. For a whole day
Schavinsky did not let him go. As he sat by his side in the cab and
watched him surreptitiously, Schavinsky resolved:

‘No, I can’t be mistaken;--this yellow, squinting face with the
cheekbones, these eternal bobs and bows, and the incessant hand
washing; above all this strained, nervous, uneasy familiarity.... But
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