MILITARY SERVICE 287
He never questions me now, only when one of the others doesn't know something, he turns to me :
"Well, Blumin, you tell me !"
I stand up without hurrying, and am about to answer, but he is apparently not pleased with my way of rising from my seat, and orders me to sit down again.
"When your superior speaks to you," says he, "you ought to jump up as though the seat were hot," and he looks at me angrily, as much as to say, "You may know theory, but you'll please to know your manners as well, and treat me with proper respect."
"Stand up again and answer !"
I start up as though I felt a prick from a needle, and answer the question as he likes it done: smartly, all in one breath, and word for word according to the book.
He, meanwhile, looks at the primer, to make sure I am not leaving anything out, but as he reads very slowly, he cannot catch me up, and when I have got to the end, he is still following with his finger and reading. And when he has finished, he gives me a pleased look, and says enthusiastically "Right!" and tells me to sit down again.
"Theory," he says, "that you do know !"
Well, begging his pardon, it isn't much to know. And yet there are soldiers who are four years over it, and don't know it then. For instance, take my com- rade Ossadtchok; he says that, when it comes to "theory", he would rather go and hang or drown him- self. He says, he would rather have to carry three pails of water than sit down to "theory."
