"Quite a while-ten years stationed at a fort with a company, out by the Stone Ford

"Heard of it."

"Yes, sir, we had enough of those gangs

"You must have had a whole lot of adventures?" I asked, with burning curiosity.

"Aye, many indeed…"

He began to pull at the left tip of his mustache, his head drooped, and he sank into deep thought. I very badly wanted to get some sort of tale out of him-a desire that is natural to anyone who travels about taking notes. In the meantime the tea came to the boil. I dug out two travelers' glasses from my suitcase, poured out tea and placed one before the captain. He took a sip and muttered as if to himself: "Yes, many indeed!" The exclamation raised my hopes, for I knew that Caucasian old-timers like to talk and tell a story: they seldom have a chance to do so, for a man may be stationed a full five years with a company somewhere in the back woods without anyone to greet him with a "Hello" (his sergeant always says, "Good morning, sir.") And there is so much to talk about: the wild, strange people all around, the constant dangers, and the remarkable adventures-one can't help thinking it sad that we write down so little of it.

"Like to add a little rum?" I asked. "I have some white rum from Tiflis, it'll warm you up in this cold."

"No, thanks, I don't drink."

"How come?"

"Well... swore off the stuff. Once when I was still a second lieutenant we went on a brief spree, you know how it is, and that very night there was an alert. So we showed up before the ranks a little bit high, and there was hell to pay when old Yermolov found out. Lord preserve me from seeing a man as furious as he was. We escaped being court-martialed by a whisker. That's the way it is: sometimes you spend a whole year without seeing anyone, and if you get drunk you've had it."