The Imperial Knight

I, Savva Kobchik, a student of the Timiryazev Academy—when I got into this world, I just had to survive. And I gave myself up to the flow of life. And that carried me upward—into spheres I never aspired to and which are often incomprehensible to me.

“Everything must be sucked in with your mother’s milk,” the general-adjutant of the Olmütz king told me—and he turned out to be right. I constantly end up in unpleasant situations not so much because I don’t know the local realities, but because I don’t feel them. Not only the infamous court society, but also the highland customs of the people I officially belong to here. My reactions are raised differently.

I’m a Russian peasant, a kulak, if you will. I find it easiest here in the army—because an army is an army everywhere. I’m the boss—you’re a fool; I’m the boss—you’re a fool.

But they just don’t allow me to serve where I want to serve—in the airship unit with airships. And generally, everything I created for the imperial army was taken from me: an armored train, an assault company… I was awarded orders, even the Knight’s Cross—an analogue of the Hero of Russia here—but they won’t let me fight. As an industrialist, I’m needed by the rulers more than as an officer. Officers they have plenty of; industrialists, especially those who produce machine guns, are few.