The unnamed quartermaster, who has been assigned to take the narrator to his
squadron, is sympathetic to the narrator's tough task ahead with the Cossacks. He
knows the Cossack life is no "life for a brainy type," or Jew. He suggests that the
narrator "mess up a lady"—rape her—in order to win the Cossacks' respect. This
suggestion foreshadows the narrator's killing of the goose.
My First Goose