22 (i) : ‘The Man’ apologises to Raina as all this time he had been
making a joke of the leader of the Bulgarian cavalry regiment who had charged
his artillery regiment. He had compared that leader to Don Quixote, he had said
that “of all the fools let loose on a field of battle, that man must be the
very maddest”. He had said this not knowing that that cavalry regiment leader
was Raina’s fiancé. He had not meant to offend her after she had been so kind
to him and thus is really sad and offered his apology with true remorse.
(ii) : ‘The Man’ comically tries to take back what he had said about
the leader of the Bulgarian cavalry regiment. He tries to say that his
perception of the events must have been wrong and that that leader, since he
must have been obviously greater than he seemed to have shown himself to be –
as such a wonderful person like Raina would surely be marrying someone as
wonderful as she was.
(iii) : :”get wind of” is a phrase means to have heard an unconfirmed
report – a rumour.
‘The Man’ tries to explain Sergius’ behaviour
by saying that having found out what no one else had, that the artillery
regiment before them could not fire on them because they did not have the right
ammunition (- the “cartridge business’ – the artillery regiment had been
supplied with the wrong cartridges and could not be resupplied for at least
another ten minutes). He was thus not leading his cavalry regiment on a
suicidal mission but striking the enemy when they were in a weak position.
(iv) : ‘The Man’ is referring to the cavalry charge against the Serbian
artillery regiment, which to everyone seemed a suicidal mission.
“it” would have been a
“safe job” if Sergius had known that the Serbian artillery regiment did not
have the right ammunition and thus could not fire a shot in defence. If Sergius
had known this he would have known that his regiment would not be destroyed
before they reached their enemy.
(v) : To Raina, if the leader of the Bulgarian cavalry regiment which
defeated ‘The Man’s’ artillery regiment (Sergius) had only attacked because he
knew there would be no resistance and no chance of defeat, he would be a
“pretender” because it made it seem that he was doing the daring thing whereas
he knew it was “a safe job”. She calls him (the leader of the cavalry regiment)
a “coward” because cowards only attack a weaker enemy and never take up an
equal fight or a challenge.
In so saying the above,
Raina shows that ‘The Man’ has only made his description of her fiancé more
offensive to her.
(vi) : Raina accuses ‘The Man’ of not daring having offended her before
she saved him from the Bulgarian soldiers and the blood thirsty Bulgarians came
searching for him in her house. She says so because she means to tell him that
if he had been so offensive before she would have given him up.
The comment has no
implication on the man’s character. ‘The Man’ had been very forthright I saying
what he had truly thought of the leader of the Bulgarian cavalry regiment which
had attacked his artillery regiment. He also seemed to act quite chivalrously
by trying to excuse the man when he knew how significant he was to Raina.
No comments:
Post a Comment