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The chanting ceased; I heard steps approaching me. "Who is there?" asked a voice in Yiddish. "It is I," answered I, "and who are you?" "It is we!" shouted many voices in chorus. "Cantonists?" "A Cantonist, too?" Thus exchanging questions, we met. They turned out to be three Cantonists, who lived in a village at some distance from Peter's house. I had never met them before.
But Peter did not let her be so cruel. "Let him grow up, he will know better," said Peter, waving his hand at me. Then Anna made up her mind to force me to eat forbidden meat. But I was obstinate. And she decided once more to complain to the sergeant. Just at that time another Cantonist had been found guilty of some offense. He belonged to the same village; his name was Jacob.
You have the privilege of dividing the number of lashes in two: ten you get to-morrow, and ten you may put off for some other time." That was the customary way of making the punishment easier in the cases when the Cantonist was either too weak to take in the whole number of lashes at once, or was thought to deserve consideration otherwise.
Now let me tell you that as a result of our Cantonist training we were not only as bold as eagles, as courageous as lions, as swift as the deer in doing the will of our patrons, but also as sly as foxes in finding a way out of a difficulty. And, by the way, that was also the opinion of our late commander, Colonel Pavel Akimovich.
And for a moment I really lost heart; I acted like a tenderfoot instead of a Cantonist. I was ready to cry; my tears were choking me, as if I were mamma's only darling. It was about a two hours' walk to the sergeant's. When I arrived there, I stood outside and waited for him. Then I thought I heard the sound of some not unfamiliar voice: arguments, expostulations, again arguments.
Well, in the long run, it appeared that there was much truth in Jacob's idea, that a Jew in exile must not accept favors from Gentiles. And the temptation to which Jacob had been exposed was certainly much harder to stand than a thousand lashes, or even, for that matter, the whole bitter life of a Cantonist. The pity of it! A few days later Zagrubsky was appointed to serve Jacob.
This is what Colonel Pavel Akimovich used to say of us. Now, once I decided to find out Anna's secret, I thought it all out beforehand, as a Cantonist should; and I hit upon a plan. That was at the beginning of spring. One day Khlopov left on a journey to the neighboring villages to collect the taxes. He had to stay away some time. The whole of that day Anna kept worrying me as usual.
No, said he, that was not his destiny: the Jewishness of a Cantonist lay only in suffering martyrdom. But with the news of the coming war, a change came over him. He became gay as a child. One morning, when we were assembled on the drill grounds before the house of the sergeant, I was called into the house.
Having arrived at their destination, the juvenile conscripts were put into the cantonist battalions. The "preparation for military service" began with their religious re-education at the hands of sergeants and corporals. No means was, neglected so long as it bade fair to bring the children to the baptismal font.
"We are two brothers," he began, "I, Ivan Ivanich, and Nicholai Ivanich, two years younger. I went in for study and became a veterinary surgeon, while Nicholai was at the Exchequer Court when he was nineteen. Our father, Tchimasha-Himalaysky, was a cantonist, but he died with an officer's rank and left us his title of nobility and a small estate. After his death the estate went to pay his debts.
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