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Title: Sevastopol
Author: Leo Tolstoy
Date: 1855
Language: en
Topics: fiction, war, philosophy
Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47197

Leo Tolstoy

Sevastopol

Sevastopol in December, 1854.

The flush of morning has but just begun to tinge the sky above Sapun

Mountain; the dark blue surface of the sea has already cast aside the

shades of night and awaits the first ray to begin a play of merry

gleams; cold and mist are wafted from the bay; there is no snow—all is

black, but the morning frost pinches the face and crackles underfoot,

and the far-off, unceasing roar of the sea, broken now and then by the

thunder of the firing in Sevastopol, alone disturbs the calm of the

morning. It is dark on board the ships; it has just struck eight bells.

Toward the north the activity of the day begins gradually to replace the

nocturnal quiet; here the relief guard has passed clanking their arms,

there the doctor is already hastening to the hospital, further on the

soldier has crept out of his earth hut and is washing his sunburnt face

in ice-encrusted water, and, turning towards the crimsoning east,

crosses himself quickly as he prays to God; here a tall and heavy

camel-wagon has dragged creaking to the cemetery, to bury the bloody

dead, with whom it is laden nearly to the top. You go to the wharf—a

peculiar odor of coal, manure, dampness, and of beef strikes you;

thousands of objects of all sorts—wood, meat, gabions, flour, iron, and

so forth—lie in heaps about the wharf; soldiers of various regiments,

with knapsacks and muskets, without knapsacks and without muskets,

throng thither, smoke, quarrel, drag weights aboard the steamer which

lies smoking beside the quay; unattached two-oared boats, filled with

all sorts of people,—soldiers, sailors, merchants, women,—land at and

leave the wharf.

“To the Grafsky, Your Excellency? be so good.” Two or three retired

sailors rise in their boats and offer you their services.

You select the one who is nearest to you, you step over the

half-decomposed carcass of a brown horse, which lies there in the mud

beside the boat, and reach the stern. You quit the shore. All about you

is the sea, already glittering in the morning sun, in front of you is an

aged sailor, in a camel’s-hair coat, and a young, white-headed boy, who

work zealously and in silence at the oars. You gaze at the motley

vastness of the vessels, scattered far and near over the bay, and at the

small black dots of boats moving about on the shining azure expanse, and

at the bright and beautiful buildings of the city, tinted with the rosy

rays of the morning sun, which are visible in one direction, and at the

foaming white line of the quay, and the sunken ships from which black

tips of masts rise sadly here and there, and at the distant fleet of the

enemy faintly visible as they rock on the crystal horizon of the sea,

and at the streaks of foam on which leap salt bubbles beaten up by the

oars; you listen to the monotonous sound of voices which fly to you over

the water, and the grand sounds of firing, which, as it seems to you, is

increasing in Sevastopol.

It cannot be that, at the thought that you too are in Sevastopol, a

certain feeling of manliness, of pride, has not penetrated your soul,

and that the blood has not begun to flow more swiftly through your

veins.

“Your Excellency! you are steering straight into the Kistentin,”[1] says

your old sailor to you as he turns round to make sure of the direction

which you are imparting to the boat, with the rudder to the right.

“And all the cannon are still on it,” remarks the white-headed boy,

casting a glance over the ship as we pass.

“Of course; it’s new. Korniloff lived on board of it,” said the old man,

also glancing at the ship.

“See where it has burst!” says the boy, after a long silence, looking at

a white cloud of spreading smoke which has suddenly appeared high over

the South Bay, accompanied by the sharp report of an exploding bomb.

“He is firing to-day with his new battery,” adds the old man, calmly

spitting on his hands. “Now, give way, Mishka! we’ll overtake the

barge.” And your boat moves forward more swiftly over the broad swells

of the bay, and you actually do overtake the heavy barge, upon which

some bags are piled, and which is rowed by awkward soldiers, and it

touches the Grafsky wharf amid a multitude of boats of every sort which

are landing.

Throngs of gray soldiers, black sailors, and women of various colors

move noisily along the shore. The women are selling rolls, Russian

peasants with samovárs are crying hot sbiten;[2] and here upon the first

steps are strewn rusted cannon-balls, bombs, grape-shot, and cast-iron

cannon of various calibers; a little further on is a large square, upon

which lie huge beams, gun-carriages, sleeping soldiers; there stand

horses, wagons, green guns, ammunition-chests, and stacks of arms;

soldiers, sailors, officers, women, children, and merchants are moving

about; carts are arriving with hay, bags, and casks; here and there

Cossacks make their way through, or officers on horseback, or a general

in a drosky. To the right, the street is hemmed in by a barricade, in

whose embrasures stand some small cannon, and beside these sits a sailor

smoking his pipe. On the left a handsome house with Roman ciphers on the

pediment, beneath which stand soldiers and blood-stained

litters—everywhere you behold the unpleasant signs of a war encampment.

Your first impression is inevitably of the most disagreeable sort. The

strange mixture of camp and town life, of a beautiful city and a dirty

bivouac, is not only not beautiful, but seems repulsive disorder; it

even seems to you that every one is thoroughly frightened, and is

fussing about without knowing what he is doing. But look more closely at

the faces of these people who are moving about you, and you will gain an

entirely different idea. Look at this little soldier from the provinces,

for example, who is leading a troïka of brown horses to water, and is

purring something to himself so composedly that he evidently will not go

astray in this motley crowd, which does not exist for him; but he is

fulfilling his duty, whatever that may be,—watering the horses or

carrying arms,—with just as much composure, self-confidence, and

equanimity as though it were taking place in Tula or Saransk. You will

read the same expression on the face of this officer who passes by in

immaculate white gloves, and in the face of the sailor who is smoking as

he sits on the barricade, and in the faces of the working soldiers,

waiting with their litters on the steps of the former club, and in the

face of yonder girl, who, fearing to wet her pink gown, skips across the

street on the little stones.

Yes! disenchantment certainly awaits you, if you are entering Sevastopol

for the first time. In vain will you seek, on even a single countenance,

for traces of anxiety, discomposure, or even of enthusiasm, readiness

for death, decision,—there is nothing of the sort. You will see the

tradespeople quietly engaged in the duties of their callings, so that,

possibly, you may reproach yourself for superfluous raptures, you may

entertain some doubt as to the justice of the ideas regarding the

heroism of the defenders of Sevastopol which you have formed from

stories, descriptions, and the sights and sounds on the northern side.

But, before you doubt, go upon the bastions, observe the defenders of

Sevastopol on the very scene of the defence, or, better still, go

straight across into that house, which was formerly the Sevastopol

Assembly House, and upon whose roof stand soldiers with litters,—there

you will behold the defenders of Sevastopol, there you will behold

frightful and sad, great and laughable, but wonderful sights, which

elevate the soul.

You enter the great Hall of Assembly. You have but just opened the door

when the sight and smell of forty or fifty seriously wounded men and of

those who have undergone amputation—some in hammocks, the majority upon

the floor—suddenly strike you. Trust not to the feeling which detains

you upon the threshold of the hall; be not ashamed of having come to

look at the sufferers, be not ashamed to approach and address them: the

unfortunates like to see a sympathizing human face, they like to tell of

their sufferings and to hear words of love and interest. You walk along

between the beds and seek a face less stern and suffering, which you

decide to approach, with the object of conversing.

“Where are you wounded?” you inquire, timidly and with indecision, of an

old, gaunt soldier, who, seated in his hammock, is watching you with a

good-natured glance, and seems to invite you to approach him. I say “you

ask timidly,” because these sufferings inspire you, over and above the

feeling of profound sympathy, with a fear of offending and with a lofty

reverence for the man who has undergone them.

“In the leg,” replies the soldier; but, at the same time, you perceive,

by the folds of the coverlet, that he has lost his leg above the knee.

“God be thanked now,” he adds,—“I shall get my discharge.”

“Were you wounded long ago?”

“It was six weeks ago, Your Excellency.”

“Does it still pain you?”

“No, there’s no pain now; only there’s a sort of gnawing in my calf when

the weather is bad, but that’s nothing.”

“How did you come to be wounded?”

“On the fifth bastion, during the first bombardment. I had just trained

a cannon, and was on the point of going away, so, to another embrasure

when it struck me in the leg, just as if I had stepped into a hole and

had no leg.”

“Was it not painful at the first moment?”

“Not at all; only as though something boiling hot had struck my leg.”

“Well, and then?”

“And then—nothing; only the skin began to draw as though it had been

rubbed hard. The first thing of all, Your Excellency, is not to think at

all. If you don’t think about a thing, it amounts to nothing. Men suffer

from thinking more than from anything else.”

At that moment, a woman in a gray striped dress and a black kerchief

bound about her head approaches you.

She joins in your conversation with the sailor, and begins to tell about

him, about his sufferings, his desperate condition for the space of four

weeks, and how, when he was wounded, he made the litter halt that he

might see the volley from our battery, how the grand-duke spoke to him

and gave him twenty-five rubles, and how he said to him that he wanted

to go back to the bastion to direct the younger men, even if he could

not work himself. As she says all this in a breath, the woman glances

now at you, now at the sailor, who has turned away as though he did not

hear her and plucks some lint from his pillow, and her eyes sparkle with

peculiar enthusiasm.

“This is my housewife, Your Excellency!” the sailor says to you, with an

expression which seems to say, “You must excuse her. Every one knows

it’s a woman’s way—she’s talking nonsense.”

You begin to understand the defenders of Sevastopol. For some reason,

you feel ashamed of yourself in the presence of this man. You would like

to say a very great deal to him, in order to express to him your

sympathy and admiration; but you find no words, or you are dissatisfied

with those which come into your head,—and you do reverence in silence

before this taciturn, unconscious grandeur and firmness of soul, this

modesty in the face of his own merits.

“Well, God grant you a speedy recovery,” you say to him, and you halt

before another invalid, who is lying on the floor and appears to be

awaiting death in intolerable agony.

He is a blond man with pale, swollen face. He is lying on his back, with

his left arm thrown out, in a position which is expressive of cruel

suffering. His parched, open mouth with difficulty emits his stertorous

breathing; his blue, leaden eyes are rolled up, and from beneath the

wadded coverlet the remains of his right arm, enveloped in bandages,

protrude. The oppressive odor of a corpse strikes you forcibly, and the

consuming, internal fire which has penetrated every limb of the sufferer

seems to penetrate you also.

“Is he unconscious?” you inquire of the woman, who comes up to you and

gazes at you tenderly as at a relative.

“No, he can still hear, but he’s very bad,” she adds, in a whisper. “I

gave him some tea to-day,—what if he is a stranger, one must still have

pity!—and he hardly tasted it.”

“How do you feel?” you ask him.

The wounded man turns his eyeballs at the sound of your voice, but he

neither sees nor understands you.

“There’s a gnawing at my heart.”

A little further on, you see an old soldier changing his linen. His face

and body are of a sort of cinnamon-brown color, and gaunt as a skeleton.

He has no arm at all; it has been cut off at the shoulder. He is sitting

with a wide-awake air, he puts himself to rights; but you see, by his

dull, corpse-like gaze, his frightful gauntness, and the wrinkles on his

face, that he is a being who has suffered for the best part of his life.

On the other side, you behold in a cot the pale, suffering, and delicate

face of a woman, upon whose cheek plays a feverish flush.

“That’s our little sailor lass who was struck in the leg by a bomb on

the 5^(th),” your guide tells you. “She was carrying her husband’s

dinner to him in the bastion.”

“Has it been amputated?”

“They cut it off above the knee.”

Now, if your nerves are strong, pass through the door on the left. In

yonder room they are applying bandages and performing operations. There,

you will see doctors with their arms blood-stained above the elbow, and

with pale, stern faces, busied about a cot, upon which, with eyes widely

opened, and uttering, as in delirium, incoherent, sometimes simple and

touching words, lies a wounded man under the influence of chloroform.

The doctors are busy with the repulsive but beneficent work of

amputation. You see the sharp, curved knife enter the healthy, white

body, you see the wounded man suddenly regain consciousness with a

piercing cry and curses, you see the army surgeon fling the amputated

arm into a corner, you see another wounded man, lying in a litter in the

same apartment, shrink convulsively and groan as he gazes at the

operation upon his comrade, not so much from physical pain as from the

moral torture of anticipation.—You behold the frightful, soul-stirring

scenes; you behold war, not from its conventional, beautiful, and

brilliant side, with music and drum-beat, with fluttering flags and

galloping generals, but you behold war in its real phase—in blood, in

suffering, in death.

On emerging from this house of pain, you will infallibly experience a

sensation of pleasure, you will inhale the fresh air more fully, you

will feel satisfaction in the consciousness of your health, but, at the

same time, you will draw from the sight of these sufferings a

consciousness of your nothingness, and you will go calmly and without

any indecision to the bastion.

“What do the death and sufferings of such an insignificant worm as I

signify in comparison with so many deaths and such great sufferings?”

But the sight of the clear sky, the brilliant sun, the fine city, the

open church, and the soldiers moving about in various directions soon

restores your mind to its normal condition of frivolity, petty cares,

and absorption in the present alone.

Perhaps you meet the funeral procession of some officer coming from the

church, with rose-colored coffin, and music and fluttering banners;

perhaps the sounds of firing reach your ear from the bastion, but this

does not lead you back to your former thoughts; the funeral seems to you

a very fine military spectacle, and you do not connect with this

spectacle, or with the sounds, any clear idea of suffering and death, as

you did at the point where the bandaging was going on.

Passing the barricade and the church, you come to the most lively part

of the city. On both sides hang the signs of shops and inns. Merchants,

women in bonnets and kerchiefs, dandified officers,—everything speaks to

you of the firmness of spirit, of the independence and the security of

the inhabitants.

Enter the inn on the right if you wish to hear the conversations of

sailors and officers; stories of the preceding night are sure to be in

progress there, and of Fenka, and the affair of the 24^(th), and of the

dearness and badness of cutlets, and of such and such a comrade who has

been killed.

“Devil take it, how bad things are with us to-day!” ejaculates the bass

voice of a beardless naval officer, with white brows and lashes, in a

green knitted sash.

“Where?” asks another.

“In the fourth bastion,” replies the young officer, and you are certain

to look at the white-lashed officer with great attention, and even with

some respect, at the words, “in the fourth bastion.” His excessive ease

of manner, the way he flourishes his hands, his loud laugh, and his

voice, which seems to you insolent, reveal to you that peculiar boastful

frame of mind which some very young men acquire after danger;

nevertheless, you think he is about to tell you how bad the condition of

things on the fourth bastion is because of the bombs and balls. Nothing

of the sort! things are bad because it is muddy. “It’s impossible to

pass through the battery,” says he, pointing at his boots, which are

covered with mud above the calf. “And my best gun-captain was killed

to-day; he was struck plump in the forehead,” says another. “Who’s that?

Mitiukhin?” “No!... What now, are they going to give me any veal? the

villains!” he adds to the servant of the inn. “Not Mitiukhin, but

Abrosimoff. Such a fine young fellow!—he was in the sixth sally.”

At another corner of the table, over a dish of cutlets with peas, and a

bottle of sour Crimean wine called “Bordeaux,” sit two infantry

officers; one with a red collar, who is young and has two stars on his

coat, is telling the other, with a black collar and no stars, about the

affair at Alma. The former has already drunk a good deal, and it is

evident, from the breaks in his narrative, from his undecided glance

expressive of doubt as to whether he is believed, and chiefly from the

altogether too prominent part which he has played in it all, and from

the excessive horror of it all, that he is strongly disinclined to bear

strict witness to the truth. But these tales, which you will hear for a

long time to come in every corner of Russia, are nothing to you; you

prefer to go to the bastions, especially to the fourth, of which you

have heard so many and such diverse things. When any one says that he

has been in the fourth bastion, he says it with a peculiar air of pride

and satisfaction; when any one says, “I am going to the fourth bastion,”

either a little agitation or a very great indifference is infallibly

perceptible in him; when any one wants to jest about another, he says,

“You must be stationed in the fourth bastion;” when you meet litters and

inquire whence they come, the answer is generally, “From the fourth

bastion.” On the whole, two totally different opinions exist with regard

to this terrible bastion; one is held by those who have never been in

it, and who are convinced that the fourth bastion is a regular grave for

every one who enters it, and the other by those who live in it, like the

white-lashed midshipman, and who, when they mention the fourth bastion,

will tell you whether it is dry or muddy there, whether it is warm or

cold in the mud hut, and so forth.

During the half-hour which you have passed in the inn, the weather has

changed; a fog which before spread over the sea has collected into damp,

heavy, gray clouds, and has veiled the sun; a kind of melancholy, frozen

mist sprinkles from above, and wets the roofs, the sidewalks, and the

soldiers’ overcoats.

Passing by yet another barricade, you emerge from the door at the right

and ascend the principal street. Behind this barricade, the houses are

unoccupied on both sides of the street, there are no signs, the doors

are covered with boards, the windows are broken in; here the corners are

broken away, there the roofs are pierced. The buildings seem to be old,

to have undergone every sort of vicissitude and deprivation

characteristic of veterans, and appear to gaze proudly and somewhat

scornfully upon you. You stumble over the cannon-balls which strew the

way, and into holes filled with water, which have been excavated in the

stony ground by the bombs. In the street you meet and overtake bodies of

soldiers, sharpshooters, officers; now and then you encounter a woman or

a child, but it is no longer a woman in a bonnet, but a sailor’s

daughter in an old fur cloak and soldier’s boots. As you proceed along

the street, and descend a small declivity, you observe that there are no

longer any houses about you, but only some strange heaps of ruined

stones, boards, clay, and beams; ahead of you, upon a steep hill, you

perceive a black, muddy expanse, intersected by canals, and this that is

in front is the fourth bastion. Here you meet still fewer people, no

women are visible, the soldiers walk briskly, you come across drops of

blood on the road, and you will certainly encounter there four soldiers

with a stretcher and upon the stretcher a pale yellowish face and a

blood-stained overcoat. If you inquire, “Where is he wounded?” the

bearers will say angrily, without turning towards you, “In the leg or

the arm,” if he is slightly wounded, or they will preserve a gloomy

silence if no head is visible on the stretcher and he is already dead or

badly hurt.

The shriek of a cannon-ball or a bomb close by surprises you

unpleasantly, as you ascend the hill. You understand all at once, and

quite differently from what you have before, the significance of those

sounds of shots which you heard in the city. A quietly cheerful memory

flashes suddenly before your fancy; your own personality begins to

occupy you more than your observations; your attention to all that

surrounds you diminishes, and a certain disagreeable feeling of

uncertainty suddenly overmasters you. In spite of this decidedly base

voice, which suddenly speaks within you, at the sight of danger, you

force it to be silent, especially when you glance at a soldier who runs

laughing past you at a trot, waving his hands, and slipping down the

hill in the mud, and you involuntarily expand your chest, throw up your

head a little higher, and climb the slippery, clayey hill. As soon as

you have reached the top, rifle-balls begin to whiz to the right and

left of you, and, possibly, you begin to reflect whether you will not go

into the trench which runs parallel with the road; but this trench is

full of such yellow, liquid, foul-smelling mud, more than knee-deep,

that you will infallibly choose the path on the hill, the more so as you

see that every one uses the path. After traversing a couple of hundred

paces, you emerge upon a muddy expanse, all ploughed up, and surrounded

on all sides by gabions, earthworks, platforms, earth huts, upon which

great cast-iron guns stand, and cannon-balls lie in symmetrical heaps.

All these seem to be heaped up without any aim, connection, or order.

Here in the battery sit a knot of sailors; there in the middle of the

square, half buried in mud, lies a broken cannon; further on, a

foot-soldier, with his gun, is marching through the battery, and

dragging his feet with difficulty through the sticky soil. But

everywhere, on all sides, in every spot, you see broken dishes,

unexploded bombs, cannon-balls, signs of encampment, all sunk in the

liquid, viscous mud. You seem to hear not far from you the thud of a

cannon-ball; on all sides, you seem to hear the varied sounds of

balls,—humming like bees, whistling sharply, or in a whine like a

cord—you hear the frightful roar of the fusillade, which seems to shake

you all through with some horrible fright.

“So this is it, the fourth bastion, this is it—that terrible, really

frightful place!” you think to yourself, and you experience a little

sensation of pride, and a very large sensation of suppressed terror. But

you are mistaken, this is not the fourth bastion. It is the Yazonovsky

redoubt—a place which is comparatively safe; and not at all dreadful.

In order to reach the fourth bastion, you turn to the right, through

this narrow trench, through which the foot-soldier has gone. In this

trench you will perhaps meet stretchers again, sailors and soldiers with

shovels; you will see the superintendent of the mines, mud huts, into

which only two men can crawl by bending down, and there you will see

sharpshooters of the Black Sea battalions, who are changing their shoes,

eating, smoking their pipes, and living; and you will still see

everywhere that same stinking mud, traces of a camp, and cast-off iron

débris in every possible form. Proceeding yet three hundred paces, you

will emerge again upon a battery,—on an open space, all cut up into

holes and surrounded by gabions, covered with earth, cannon, and

earthworks. Here you will perhaps see five sailors playing cards under

the shelter of the breastworks, and a naval officer who, perceiving that

you are a new-comer, and curious, will with pleasure show his household

arrangements, and everything which may be of interest to you.

This officer rolls himself a cigarette of yellow paper, with so much

composure as he sits on a gun, walks so calmly from one embrasure to

another, converses with you so quietly, without the slightest

affectation, that, in spite of the bullets which hum above you even more

thickly than before, you become cool yourself, question attentively, and

listen to the officer’s replies.

This officer will tell you, but only if you ask him, about the

bombardment on the 5^(th), he will tell you how only one gun in his

battery could be used, and out of all the gunners who served it only

eight remained, and how, nevertheless, on the next morning, the 6^(th),

he fired all the guns; he will tell you how a bomb fell upon a sailor’s

earth hut on the 5^(th), and laid low eleven men; he will point out to

you, from the embrasures, the enemy’s batteries and entrenchments, which

are not more than thirty or forty fathoms distant from this point. I

fear, however, that, under the influence of the whizzing bullets, you

may thrust yourself out of the embrasure in order to view the enemy; you

will see nothing, and, if you do see anything, you will be very much

surprised that that white stone wall, which is so near you and from

which white smoke rises in puffs,—that that white wall is the enemy—he,

as the soldiers and sailors say.

It is even quite possible that the naval officer will want to discharge

a shot or two in your presence, out of vanity or simply for his own

pleasure. “Send the captain and his crew to the cannon;” and fourteen

sailors step up briskly and merrily to the gun and load it—one thrusting

his pipe into his pocket, another one chewing a biscuit, still another

clattering his heels on the platform.

Observe the faces, the bearing, the movements of these men. In every

wrinkle of that sunburned face, with its high cheek-bones, in every

muscle, in the breadth of those shoulders, in the stoutness of those

legs shod in huge boots, in every calm, firm, deliberate gesture, these

chief traits which constitute the power of Russia—simplicity and

straightforwardness—are visible; but here, on every face, it seems to

you that the danger, misery, and the sufferings of war have, in addition

to these principal characteristics, left traces of consciousness of

personal worth, emotion, and exalted thought.

All at once a frightful roar, which shakes not your organs of hearing

alone but your whole being, startles you so that you tremble all over.

Then you hear the distant shriek of the shot as it pursues its course,

and the dense smoke of the powder conceals from you the platform and the

black figures of the sailors who are moving about upon it. You hear

various remarks of the sailors in reference to this shot, and you see

their animation, and an exhibition of a feeling which you had not

expected to behold perhaps—a feeling of malice, of revenge against the

enemy, which lies hidden in the soul of each man. “It struck the

embrasure itself; it seems to have killed two men—see, they’ve carried

them off!” you hear in joyful exclamation. “And now they are angry;

they’ll fire at us directly,” says some one; and, in fact, shortly after

you see a flash in front and smoke; the sentry, who is standing on the

breastwork, shouts “Can-non!” And then the ball shrieks past you,

strikes the earth, and scatters a shower of dirt and stones about it.

This ball enrages the commander of the battery; he orders a second and a

third gun to be loaded, the enemy also begins to reply to us, and you

experience a sensation of interest, you hear and see interesting things.

Again the sentry shouts, “Can-non!” and you hear the same report and

blow, the same shower, or he shouts “Mortar!” and you hear the

monotonous, even rather pleasant whistle of the bomb, with which it is

difficult to connect the thought of horror; you hear this whistle

approaching you, and increasing in swiftness, then you see the black

sphere, the impact on the ground, the resounding explosion of the bomb

which can be felt. With the whistle and shriek, splinters fly again,

stones whiz through the air, and mud showers over you. At these sounds

you experience a strange feeling of enjoyment, and, at the same time, of

terror. At the moment when you know that the projectile is flying

towards you, it will infallibly occur to you that this shot will kill

you; but the feeling of self-love upholds you, and no one perceives the

knife which is cutting your heart. But when the shot has flown past

without touching you, you grow animated, and a certain cheerful,

inexpressibly pleasant feeling overpowers you, but only for a moment, so

that you discover a peculiar sort of charm in danger, in this game of

life and death, you want cannon-balls or bombs to strike nearer to you.

But again the sentry has shouted in his loud, thick voice, “Mortar!”

again there is a shriek, and a bomb bursts, but with this noise comes

the groan of a man. You approach the wounded man, at the same moment

with the bearers; he has a strange, inhuman aspect, covered as he is

with blood and mud. A part of the sailor’s breast has been torn away.

During the first moments, there is visible on his mud-stained face only

fear and a certain simulated, premature expression of suffering,

peculiar to men in that condition; but, at the same time, as the

stretcher is brought to him and he is laid upon it on his sound side,

you observe that this expression is replaced by an expression of a sort

of exaltation and lofty, inexpressible thought. His eyes shine more

brilliantly, his teeth are clenched, his head is held higher with

difficulty, and, as they lift him up, he stops the bearers and says to

his comrades, with difficulty and in a trembling voice: “Farewell,

brothers!” He tries to say something more, and it is plain that he wants

to say something touching, but he repeats once more: “Farewell,

brothers!”

At that moment, one of his fellow-sailors steps up to him, puts the cap

on the head which the wounded man holds towards him, and, waving his

hand indifferently, returns calmly to his gun. “That’s the way with

seven or eight men every day,” says the naval officer to you, in reply

to the expression of horror which has appeared upon your countenance, as

he yawns and rolls a cigarette of yellow paper.

Thus you have seen the defenders of Sevastopol, on the very scene of the

defence, and you go back paying no attention, for some reason or other,

to the cannon-balls and bullets, which continue to shriek the whole way

until you reach the ruined theatre,—you proceed with composure, and with

your soul in a state of exaltation.

The principal and cheering conviction which you have brought away is the

conviction of the impossibility of the Russian people wavering anywhere

whatever—and this impossibility you have discerned not in the multitude

of traverses, breastworks, artfully interlaced trenches, mines, and

ordnance, piled one upon the other, of which you have comprehended

nothing; but you have discerned it in the eyes, the speech, the manners,

in what is called the spirit of the defenders of Sevastopol. What they

are doing they do so simply, with so little effort and exertion, that

you are convinced that they can do a hundred times more—that they can do

anything. You understand that the feeling which makes them work is not a

feeling of pettiness, ambition, forgetfulness, which you have yourself

experienced, but a different sentiment, one more powerful, and one which

has made of them men who live with their ordinary composure under the

fire of cannon, amid hundreds of chances of death, instead of the one to

which all men are subject who live under these conditions amid incessant

labor, poverty, and dirt. Men will not accept these frightful conditions

for the sake of a cross or a title, nor because of threats; there must

be another lofty incentive as a cause, and this cause is the feeling

which rarely appears, of which a Russian is ashamed, that which lies at

the bottom of each man’s soul—love for his country.

Only now have the tales of the early days of the siege of Sevastopol,

when there were no fortifications there, no army, no physical

possibility of holding it, and when at the same time there was not the

slightest doubt that it would not surrender to the enemy,—of the days

when that hero worthy of ancient Greece, Korniloff, said, as he reviewed

the army: “We will die, children, but we will not surrender Sevastopol;”

and our Russians, who are not fitted to be phrase-makers, replied: “We

will die! hurrah!”—only now have tales of that time ceased to be for you

the most beautiful historical legends, and have become real facts and

worthy of belief. You comprehend clearly, you figure to yourself, those

men whom you have just seen, as the very heroes of those grievous times,

who have not fallen, but have been raised by the spirit, and have

joyfully prepared for death, not for the sake of the city, but of the

country. This epos of Sevastopol, whose hero was the Russian people,

will leave mighty traces in Russia for a long time to come.

Night is already falling. The sun has emerged from the gray clouds,

which cover the sky just before its setting, and has suddenly

illuminated with a crimson glow the purple vapors, the greenish sea

covered with ships and boats rocking on the regular swell, and the white

buildings of the city, and the people who are moving through its

streets. Sounds of some old waltz played by the regimental band on the

boulevard, and the sounds of firing from the bastions, which echo them

strangely, are borne across the water.

Sevastopol in May, 1855.

I.

Six months have already passed since the first cannon-ball whistled from

the bastions of Sevastopol, and ploughed the earth in the works of the

enemy, and since that day thousands of bombs, cannon-balls, and

rifle-balls have been flying incessantly from the bastions into the

trenches and from the trenches into the bastions, and the angel of death

has never ceased to hover over them.

Thousands of men have been disappointed in satisfying their ambition;

thousands have succeeded in satisfying theirs, in becoming swollen with

pride; thousands repose in the embrace of death. How many red coffins

and canvas canopies there have been! And still the same sounds are

echoed from the bastions, and still on clear evenings the French peer

from their camp, with involuntary tremor, at the yellow, furrowed

bastions of Sevastopol, at the black forms of our sailors moving about

upon them, and count the embrasures and the iron cannon which project

angrily from them; the under officer still gazes through his telescope,

from the heights of the telegraph station, at the dark figures of the

French at their batteries, at their tents, at the columns moving over

the green hill, and at the puffs of smoke which issue forth from the

trenches,—and a crowd of men, formed of divers races, still streams in

throngs from various quarters, with the same ardor as ever, and with

desires differing even more greatly than their races, towards this

fateful spot. And the question, unsolved by the diplomats, has still not

been solved by powder and blood.

II.

On the boulevard of the besieged city of Sevastopol, not far from the

pavilion, the regimental band was playing, and throngs of military men

and of women moved gayly through the streets. The brilliant sun of

spring had risen in the morning over the works of the English, had

passed over the bastions, then over the city, over the Nikolaevsky

barracks, and, illuminating all with equal cheer, had now sunk into the

blue and distant sea, which was lighted with a silvery gleam as it

heaved in peace.

A tall, rather bent infantry officer, who was drawing upon his hand a

glove which was presentable, if not entirely white, came out of one of

the small naval huts, built on the left side of the Morskaya[3] street,

and, staring thoughtfully at the ground, took his way up the slope to

the boulevard.

The expression of this officer’s homely countenance did not indicate any

great mental capacity, but rather simplicity, judgment, honor, and a

tendency to solid worth. He was badly built, not graceful, and he seemed

to be constrained in his movements. He was dressed in a little worn cap,

a cloak of a rather peculiar shade of lilac, from beneath whose edge the

gold of a watch-chain was visible; in trousers with straps, and

brilliantly polished calfskin boots. He must have been either a

German—but his features clearly indicate his purely Russian descent—or

an adjutant, or a regimental quartermaster, only in that case he would

have had spurs, or an officer who had exchanged from the cavalry for the

period of the campaign, or possibly from the Guards. He was, in fact, an

officer who had exchanged from the cavalry, and as he ascended the

boulevard, at the present moment, he was meditating upon a letter which

he had just received from a former comrade, now a retired land-owner in

the Government of T., and his wife, pale, blue-eyed Natasha, his great

friend. He recalled one passage of the letter, in which his comrade

said:—

“When our Invalid[4] arrives, Pupka (this was the name by which the

retired uhlan called his wife) rushes headlong into the vestibule,

seizes the paper, and runs with it to the seat in the arbor, in the

drawing-room (in which, if you remember, you and I passed such

delightful winter evenings when the regiment was stationed in our town),

and reads your heroic deeds with such ardor as it is impossible for you

to imagine. She often speaks of you. ‘There is Mikhaïloff,’ she says,

‘he’s such a love of a man. I am ready to kiss him when I see him. He

fights on the bastions, and he will surely receive the Cross of St.

George, and he will be talked about in the newspapers ...’ and so on,

and so on ... so that I am really beginning to be jealous of you.”

In another place he writes: “The papers reach us frightfully late, and,

although there is plenty of news conveyed by word of mouth, not all of

it can be trusted. For instance, the young ladies with the music,

acquaintances of yours, were saying yesterday that Napoleon was already

captured by our Cossacks, and that he had been sent to Petersburg; but

you will comprehend how much I believe of this. Moreover, a traveller

from Petersburg told us (he has been sent on special business by the

minister, is a very agreeable person, and, now that there is no one in

town, he is more of a resource to us than you can well imagine ...)

well, he declares it to be a fact that our troops have taken Eupatoria,

so that the French have no communication whatever with Balaklava, and

that in this engagement two hundred of ours were killed, but that the

French lost fifteen thousand. My wife was in such raptures over this

that she caroused all night, and she declares that her instinct tells

her that you certainly took part in that affair, and that you

distinguished yourself.”

In spite of these words, and of the expressions which I have purposely

put in italics, and the whole tone of the letter, Staff-Captain

Mikhaïloff recalled, with inexpressibly sad delight, his pale friend in

the provinces, and how she had sat with him in the arbor in the evening,

and talked about sentiment, and he thought of his good comrade, the

uhlan, and of how the latter had grown angry and had lost the game when

they had played cards for kopek stakes in his study, and how the wife

had laughed at them ... he recalled the friendship of these two people

for himself (perhaps it seemed to him to lie chiefly on the side of his

pale feminine friend); all these faces with their surroundings flitted

before his mind’s eye, in a wonderfully sweet, cheerfully rosy light,

and, smiling at his reminiscences, he placed his hand on the pocket

which contained the letter so dear to him.

From reminiscences Captain Mikhaïloff involuntarily proceeded to dreams

and hopes. “And what will be the joy and amazement of Natasha,” he

thought, as he paced along the narrow lane, “... when she suddenly reads

in the Invalid a description of how I was the first to climb upon the

cannon, and that I have received the George! I shall certainly be

promoted to a full captaincy, by virtue of seniority. Then it is quite

possible that I may get the grade of major in the line, this very year,

because many of our brothers have already been killed, and many more

will be in this campaign. And after that there will be more affairs on

hand, and a regiment will be entrusted to me, since I am an experienced

man ... lieutenant-colonel ... the Order of St. Anna on my neck ...

colonel!...” and he was already a general, granting an interview to

Natasha, the widow of his comrade, who, according to his dreams, would

have died by that time, when the sounds of the music on the boulevard

penetrated more distinctly to his ears, the crowds of people caught his

eye, and he found himself on the boulevard, a staff-captain of infantry

as before.

III.

He went, first of all, to the pavilion, near which were standing the

musicians, for whom other soldiers of the same regiment were holding the

notes, in the absence of stands, and about whom a ring of cadets,

nurses, and children had formed, intent rather on seeing than on

hearing. Around the pavilion stood, sat, or walked sailors, adjutants,

and officers in white gloves. Along the grand avenue of the boulevard

paced officers of every sort, and women of every description, rarely in

bonnets, mostly with kerchiefs on their heads (some had neither bonnets

nor kerchiefs), but no one was old, and it was worthy of note that all

were gay young creatures. Beyond, in the shady and fragrant alleys of

white acacia, isolated groups walked and sat.

No one was especially delighted to encounter Captain Mikhaïloff on the

boulevard, with the exception, possibly, of the captain of his regiment,

Obzhogoff, and Captain Suslikoff, who pressed his hand warmly; but the

former was dressed in camel’s-hair trousers, no gloves, a threadbare

coat, and his face was very red and covered with perspiration, and the

second shouted so loudly and incoherently that it was mortifying to walk

with them, particularly in the presence of the officers in white gloves

(with one of whom, an adjutant, Staff-Captain Mikhaïloff exchanged bows;

and he might have bowed to another staff-officer, since he had met him

twice at the house of a mutual acquaintance). Besides, what pleasure was

it to him to promenade with these two gentlemen, Obzhogoff and

Suslikoff, when he had met them and shaken hands with them six times

that day already? It was not for this that he had come.

He wanted to approach the adjutant with whom he had exchanged bows, and

to enter into conversation with these officers, not for the sake of

letting Captains Obzhogoff and Suslikoff and Lieutenant Pashtetzky see

him talking with them, but simply because they were agreeable people,

and, what was more, they knew the news, and would have told it.

But why is Captain Mikhaïloff afraid, and why cannot he make up his mind

to approach them? “What if they should, all at once, refuse to recognize

me,” he thinks, “or, having bowed to me, what if they continue their

conversation among themselves, as though I did not exist, or walk away

from me entirely, and leave me standing there alone among the

aristocrats.” The word aristocrats (in the sense of a higher, select

circle, in any rank of life) has acquired for some time past with us, in

Russia, a great popularity, and has penetrated into every locality and

into every class of society whither vanity has penetrated—among

merchants, among officials, writers, and officers, to Saratoff, to

Mamaduish, to Vinnitz, everywhere where men exist.

To Captain Obzhogoff, Staff-Captain Mikhaïloff was an aristocrat. To

Staff-Captain Mikhaïloff, Adjutant Kalugin was an aristocrat, because he

was an adjutant, and was on such a footing with the other adjutants as

to call them “thou”! To Adjutant Kalugin, Count Nordoff was an

aristocrat, because he was an adjutant on the Emperor’s staff.

Vanity! vanity! and vanity everywhere, even on the brink of the grave,

and among men ready to die for the highest convictions. Vanity! It must

be that it is a characteristic trait, and a peculiar malady of our

century. Why was nothing ever heard among the men of former days, of

this passion, any more than of the small-pox or the cholera? Why did

Homer and Shakespeare talk of love, of glory, of suffering, while the

literature of our age is nothing but an endless narrative of snobs and

vanity?

The staff-captain walked twice in indecision past the group of his

aristocrats, and the third time he exerted an effort over himself and

went up to them. This group consisted of four officers: Adjutant

Kalugin, an acquaintance of Mikhaïloff’s, Adjutant Prince Galtsin, who

was something of an aristocrat even for Kalugin himself, Colonel

Neferdoff, one of the so-called hundred and twenty-two men of the world

(who had entered the service for this campaign, from the retired list),

and Captain of Cavalry Praskukhin, also one of the hundred and

twenty-two. Luckily for Mikhaïloff, Kalugin was in a very fine humor

(the general had just been talking to him in a very confidential way,

and Prince Galtsin, who had just arrived from Petersburg, was stopping

with him); he did not consider it beneath his dignity to give his hand

to Captain Mikhaïloff, which Praskukhin, however, could not make up his

mind to do, though he had met Mikhaïloff very frequently on the bastion,

had drunk the latter’s wine and vodka, and was even indebted to him

twenty rubles and a half at preference. As he did not yet know Prince

Galtsin very well, he did not wish to convict himself, in the latter’s

presence, of an acquaintance with a simple staff-captain of infantry. He

bowed slightly to the latter.

“Well, Captain,” said Kalugin, “when are we to go to the bastion again?

Do you remember how we met each other on the Schvartz redoubt—it was hot

there, hey?”

“Yes, it was hot,” said Mikhaïloff, recalling how he had, that night, as

he was making his way along the trenches to the bastion, encountered

Kalugin, who was walking along like a hero, valiantly clanking his

sword. “I ought to have gone there to-morrow, according to present

arrangements; but we have a sick man,” pursued Mikhaïloff, “one officer,

as....”

He was about to relate how it was not his turn, but, as the commander of

the eighth company was ill, and the company had only a cornet left, he

had regarded it as his duty to offer himself in the place of Lieutenant

Nepshisetzky, and was, therefore, going to the bastion to-day. But

Kalugin did not hear him out.

“I have a feeling that something is going to happen within a few days,”

he said to Prince Galtsin.

“And won’t there be something to-day?” asked Mikhaïloff, glancing first

at Kalugin, then at Galtsin.

No one made him any reply. Prince Galtsin merely frowned a little, sent

his eyes past the other’s cap, and, after maintaining silence for a

moment, said:—

“That’s a magnificent girl in the red kerchief. You don’t know her, do

you, captain?”

“She lives near my quarters; she is the daughter of a sailor,” replied

the staff-captain.

“Come on; let’s have a good look at her.”

And Prince Galtsin linked one arm in that of Kalugin, the other in that

of the staff-captain, being convinced in advance that he could afford

the latter no greater gratification, which was, in fact, quite true.

The staff-captain was superstitious, and considered it a great sin to

occupy himself with women before a battle; but on this occasion he

feigned to be a vicious man, which Prince Galtsin and Kalugin evidently

did not believe, and which greatly amazed the girl in the red kerchief,

who had more than once observed how the staff-captain blushed as he

passed her little window. Praskukhin walked behind, and kept touching

Prince Galtsin with his hand, and making various remarks in the French

tongue; but as a fourth person could not walk on the small path, he was

obliged to walk alone, and it was only on the second round that he took

the arm of the brave and well known naval officer Servyagin, who had

stepped up and spoken to him, and who was also desirous of joining the

circle of aristocrats. And the gallant and famous beau joyfully thrust

his honest and muscular hand through the elbow of a man who was known to

all, and even well known to Servyagin, as not too nice. When Praskukhin,

explaining to the prince his acquaintance with that sailor, whispered to

him that the latter was well known for his bravery, Prince Galtsin,

having been on the fourth bastion on the previous evening, having seen a

bomb burst twenty paces from him, considering himself no less a hero

than this gentleman, and thinking that many a reputation is acquired

undeservedly, paid no particular attention to Servyagin.

It was so agreeable to Staff-Captain Mikhaïloff to walk about in this

company that he forgot the dear letter from T——, and the gloomy thoughts

which had assailed him in connection with his impending departure for

the bastion. He remained with them until they began to talk exclusively

among themselves, avoiding his glances, thereby giving him to understand

that he might go, and finally deserted him entirely. But the

staff-captain was content, nevertheless, and as he passed Yunker[5]

Baron Pesth, who had been particularly haughty and self-conceited since

the preceding night, which was the first that he had spent in the

bomb-proof of the fifth bastion, and consequently considered himself a

hero, he was not in the least offended at the presumptuous expression

with which the yunker straightened himself up and doffed his hat before

him.

IV.

When later the staff-captain crossed the threshold of his quarters,

entirely different thoughts entered his mind. He looked around his

little chamber, with its uneven earth floor, and saw the windows all

awry, pasted over with paper, his old bed, with a rug nailed over it,

upon which was depicted a lady on horseback, and over which hung two

Tula pistols, the dirty couch of a cadet who lived with him, and which

was covered with a chintz coverlet; he saw his Nikita, who, with untidy,

tallowed hair, rose from the floor, scratching his head; he saw his

ancient cloak, his extra pair of boots, and a little bundle, from which

peeped a bit of cheese and the neck of a porter bottle filled with

vodka, which had been prepared for his use on the bastion, and all at

once he remembered that he was obliged to go with his company that night

to the fortifications.

“It is certainly foreordained that I am to be killed to-night,” thought

the captain.... “I feel it. And the principal point is that I need not

have gone, but that I offered myself. And the man who thrusts himself

forward is always killed. And what’s the matter with that accursed

Nepshisetsky? It is quite possible that he is not sick at all; and they

will kill another man for his sake, they will infallibly kill him.

However, if they don’t kill me, I shall be promoted probably. I saw how

delighted the regimental commander was when I asked him to allow me to

go, if Lieutenant Nepshisetsky was ill. If I don’t turn out a major,

then I shall certainly get the Vladímir cross. This is the thirteenth

time that I have been to the bastion. Ah, the thirteenth is an unlucky

number. They will surely kill me, I feel that I shall be killed; but

some one had to go, it was impossible for the lieutenant of the corps to

go. And, whatever happens, the honor of the regiment, the honor of the

army, depends on it. It was my duty to go ... yes, my sacred duty. But I

have a foreboding.”

The captain forgot that this was not the first time that a similar

foreboding had assailed him, in a greater or less degree, when it had

been necessary to go to the bastion, and he did not know that every one

who sets out on an affair experiences this foreboding with more or less

force. Having calmed himself with this conception of duty, which was

especially and strongly developed in the staff-captain, he seated

himself at the table, and began to write a farewell letter to his

father. Ten minutes later, having finished his letter, he rose from the

table, his eyes wet with tears, and, mentally reciting all the prayers

he knew, he set about dressing. His coarse, drunken servant indolently

handed him his new coat (the old one, which the captain generally wore

when going to the bastion, was not mended).

“Why is not my coat mended? You never do anything but sleep, you

good-for-nothing!” said Mikhaïloff, angrily.

“Sleep!” grumbled Nikita. “You run like a dog all day long; perhaps you

stop—but you must not sleep, even then!”

“You are drunk again, I see.”

“I didn’t get drunk on your money, so you needn’t scold.”

“Hold your tongue, blockhead!” shouted the captain, who was ready to

strike the man. He had been absent-minded at first, but now he was, at

last, out of patience, and embittered by the rudeness of Nikita, whom he

loved, even spoiled, and who had lived with him for twelve years.

“Blockhead? Blockhead?” repeated the servant. “Why do you call me a

blockhead, sir? Is this a time for that sort of thing? It is not good to

curse.”

Mikhaïloff recalled whither he was on the point of going, and felt

ashamed of himself.

“You are enough to put a saint out of patience, Nikita,” he said, in a

gentle voice. “Leave that letter to my father on the table, and don’t

touch it,” he added, turning red.

“Yes, sir,” said Nikita, melting under the influence of the wine which

he had drunk, as he had said, “at his own expense,” and winking his eyes

with a visible desire to weep.

But when the captain said: “Good-by, Nikita,” on the porch, Nikita

suddenly broke down into repressed sobs, and ran to kiss his master’s

hand.... “Farewell, master!” he exclaimed, sobbing. The old sailor’s

wife, who was standing on the porch, could not, in her capacity of a

woman, refrain from joining in this touching scene, so she began to wipe

her eyes with her dirty sleeve, and to say something about even

gentlemen having their trials to bear, and that she, poor creature, had

been left a widow. And she related for the hundredth time to drunken

Nikita the story of her woes; how her husband had been killed in the

first bombardment, and how her little house had been utterly ruined (the

one in which she was now living did not belong to her), and so on. When

his master had departed, Nikita lighted his pipe, requested the daughter

of their landlord to go for some vodka, and very soon ceased to weep,

but, on the contrary, got into a quarrel with the old woman about some

small bucket, which, he declared, she had broken.

“But perhaps I shall only be wounded,” meditated the captain, as he

marched through the twilight to the bastion with his company. “But

where? How? Here or here?” he thought, indicating his belly and his

breast.... “If it should be here (he thought of the upper portion of his

leg), it might run round. Well, but if it were here, and by a splinter,

that would finish me.”

The captain reached the fortifications safely through the trenches, set

his men to work, with the assistance of an officer of sappers, in the

darkness, which was complete, and seated himself in a pit behind the

breastworks. There was not much firing; only once in a while the

lightning flashed from our batteries, then from his, and the brilliant

fuse of a bomb traced an arc of flame against the dark, starry heavens.

But all the bombs fell far in the rear and to the right of the

rifle-pits in which the captain sat. He drank his vodka, ate his cheese,

lit his cigarette, and, after saying his prayers, he tried to get a

little sleep.

V.

Prince Galtsin, Lieutenant-Colonel Neferdoff, and Praskukhin, whom no

one had invited, to whom no one spoke, but who never left them, all went

to drink tea with Adjutant Kalugin.

“Well, you did not finish telling me about Vaska Mendel,” said Kalugin,

as he took off his cloak, seated himself by the window in a soft

lounging-chair, and unbuttoned the collar of his fresh, stiffly starched

cambric shirt: “How did he come to marry?”

“That’s a joke, my dear fellow! There was a time, I assure you, when

nothing else was talked of in Petersburg,” said Prince Galtsin, with a

laugh, as he sprang up from the piano, and seated himself on the window

beside Kalugin. “It is simply ludicrous, and I know all the details of

the affair.”

And he began to relate—in a merry, and skilful manner—a love story,

which we will omit, because it possesses no interest for us. But it is

worthy of note that not only Prince Galtsin, but all the gentlemen who

had placed themselves here, one on the window-sill, another with his

legs coiled up under him, a third at the piano, seemed totally different

persons from what they were when on the boulevard; there was nothing of

that absurd arrogance and haughtiness which they and their kind exhibit

in public to the infantry officers; here they were among their own set

and natural, especially Kalugin and Prince Galtsin, and were like very

good, amiable, and merry children. The conversation turned on their

companions in the service in Petersburg, and on their acquaintances.

“What of Maslovsky?”

“Which? the uhlan of the body-guard or of the horse-guard?”

“I know both of them. The one in the horse-guards was with me when he

was a little boy, and had only just left school. What is the elder one?

a captain of cavalry?”

“Oh, yes! long ago.”

“And is he still going about with his gypsy maid?”

“No, he has deserted her ...” and so forth, and so forth, in the same

strain.

Then Prince Galtsin seated himself at the piano, and sang a gypsy song

in magnificent style. Praskukhin began to sing second, although no one

had asked him, and he did it so well that they requested him to

accompany the prince again, which he gladly consented to do.

The servant came in with the tea, cream, and cracknels on a silver

salver.

“Serve the prince,” said Kalugin.

“Really, it is strange to think,” said Galtsin, taking a glass, and

walking to the window, “that we are in a beleaguered city; tea with

cream, and such quarters as I should be only too happy to get in

Petersburg.”

“Yes, if it were not for that,” said the old lieutenant-colonel, who was

dissatisfied with everything, “this constant waiting for something would

be simply unendurable ... and to see how men are killed, killed every

day,—and there is no end to it, and under such circumstances it would

not be comfortable to live in the mud.”

“And how about our infantry officers?” said Kalugin. “They live in the

bastions with the soldiers in the casemates and eat beet soup with the

soldiers—how about them?”

“How about them? They don’t change their linen for ten days at a time,

and they are heroes—wonderful men.”

At this moment an officer of infantry entered the room.

“I ... I was ordered ... may I present myself to the gen ... to His

Excellency from General N.?” he inquired, bowing with an air of

embarrassment.

Kalugin rose, but, without returning the officer’s salute, he asked him,

with insulting courtesy and strained official smile, whether they[6]

would not wait awhile; and, without inviting him to be seated or paying

any further attention to him, he turned to Prince Galtsin and began to

speak to him in French, so that the unhappy officer, who remained

standing in the middle of the room, absolutely did not know what to do

with himself.

“It is on very important business, sir,” said the officer, after a

momentary pause.

“Ah! very well, then,” said Kalugin, putting on his cloak, and

accompanying him to the door.

“Eh bien, messieurs, I think there will be hot work to-night,” said

Kalugin in French, on his return from the general’s.

“Hey? What? A sortie?” They all began to question him.

“I don’t know yet—you will see for yourselves,” replied Kalugin, with a

mysterious smile.

“And my commander is on the bastion—of course, I shall have to go,” said

Praskukhin, buckling on his sword.

But no one answered him: he must know for himself whether he had to go

or not.

Praskukhin and Neferdoff went off, in order to betake themselves to

their posts. “Farewell, gentlemen!” “Au revoir, gentlemen! We shall meet

again to-night!” shouted Kalugin from the window when Praskukhin and

Neferdoff trotted down the street, bending over the bows of their

Cossack saddles. The trampling of their Cossack horses soon died away in

the dusky street.

“No, tell me, is something really going to take place to-night?” said

Galtsin, in French, as he leaned with Kalugin on the window-sill, and

gazed at the bombs which were flying over the bastions.

“I can tell you, you see ... you have been on the bastions, of course?”

(Galtsin made a sign of assent, although he had been only once to the

fourth bastion.) “Well, there was a trench opposite our lunette”, and

Kalugin, who was not a specialist, although he considered his judgment

on military affairs particularly accurate, began to explain the position

of our troops and of the enemy’s works and the plan of the proposed

affair, mixing up the technical terms of fortifications a good deal in

the process.

“But they are beginning to hammer away at our casemates. Oho! was that

ours or his? there, it has burst,” they said, as they leaned on the

window-sill, gazing at the fiery line of the bomb, which exploded in the

air, at the lightning of the discharges, at the dark blue sky,

momentarily illuminated, and at the white smoke of the powder, and

listened to the sounds of the firing, which grew louder and louder.

“What a charming sight? is it not?” said Kalugin, in French, directing

the attention of his guest to the really beautiful spectacle. “Do you

know, you cannot distinguish the stars from the bombs at times.”

“Yes, I was just thinking that that was a star; but it darted down ...

there, it has burst now. And that big star yonder, what is it called? It

is just exactly like a bomb.”

“Do you know, I have grown so used to these bombs that I am convinced

that a starlight night in Russia will always seem to me to be all bombs;

one gets so accustomed to them.”

“But am not I to go on this sortie?” inquired Galtsin, after a momentary

silence.

“Enough of that, brother! Don’t think of such a thing! I won’t let you

go!” replied Kalugin. “Your turn will come, brother!”

“Seriously? So you think that it is not necessary to go? Hey?...”

At that moment, a frightful crash of rifles was heard in the direction

in which these gentlemen were looking, above the roar of the cannon, and

thousands of small fires, flaring up incessantly, without intermission,

flashed along the entire line.

“That’s it, when the real work has begun!” said Kalugin.—“That is the

sound of the rifles, and I cannot hear it in cold blood; it takes a sort

of hold on your soul, you know. And there is the hurrah!” he added,

listening to the prolonged and distant roar of hundreds of voices,

“A-a-aa!” which reached him from the bastion.

“What is this hurrah, theirs or ours?”

“I don’t know; but it has come to a hand-to-hand fight, for the firing

has ceased.”

At that moment, an officer followed by his Cossack galloped up to the

porch, and slipped down from his horse.

“Where from?”

“From the bastion. The general is wanted.”

“Let us go. Well, now, what is it?”

“They have attacked the lodgements ... have taken them ... the French

have brought up their heavy reserves ... they have attacked our forces

... there were only two battalions,” said the panting officer, who was

the same that had come in the evening, drawing his breath with

difficulty, but stepping to the door with perfect unconcern.

“Well, have they retreated?” inquired Galtsin.

“No,” answered the officer, angrily. “The battalion came up and beat

them back; but the commander of the regiment is killed, and many

officers, and I have been ordered to ask for re-enforcements....”

And with these words he and Kalugin went off to the general, whither we

will not follow them.

Five minutes later, Kalugin was mounted on the Cossack’s horse (and with

that peculiar, quasi-Cossack seat, in which, as I have observed, all

adjutants find something especially captivating, for some reason or

other), and rode at a trot to the bastion, in order to give some orders,

and to await the news of the final result of the affair. And Prince

Galtsin, under the influence of that oppressive emotion which the signs

of a battle near at hand usually produce on a spectator who takes no

part in it, went out into the street, and began to pace up and down

there without any object.

VI.

The soldiers were bearing the wounded on stretchers, and supporting them

by their arms. It was completely dark in the streets; now and then, a

rare light flashed in the hospital or from the spot where the officers

were seated. The same thunder of cannon and exchange of rifle-shots was

borne from the bastions, and the same fires flashed against the dark

heavens. Now and then, you could hear the trampling hoofs of an

orderly’s horse, the groan of a wounded man, the footsteps and voices of

the stretcher-bearers, or the conversation of some of the frightened

female inhabitants, who had come out on their porches to view the

cannonade.

Among the latter were our acquaintances Nikita, the old sailor’s widow,

with whom he had already made his peace, and her ten-year-old daughter.

“Lord, Most Holy Mother of God!” whispered the old woman to herself with

a sigh, as she watched the bombs, which, like balls of fire, sailed

incessantly from one side to the other. “What a shame, what a shame!

I-i-hi-hi! It was not so in the first bombardment. See, there it has

burst, the cursed thing! right above our house in the suburbs.”

“No, it is farther off, in aunt Arinka’s garden, that they all fall,”

said the little girl.

“And where, where is my master now!” said Nikita, with a drawl, for he

was still rather drunk. “Oh, how I love that master of mine!—I don’t

know myself!—I love him so that if, which God forbid, they should kill

him in this sinful fight, then, if you will believe it, aunty, I don’t

know myself what I might do to myself in that case—by Heavens, I don’t!

He is such a master that words will not do him justice! Would I exchange

him for one of those who play cards? That is simply—whew! that’s all

there is to say!” concluded Nikita, pointing at the lighted window of

his master’s room, in which, as the staff-captain was absent, Yunker

Zhvadchevsky had invited his friends to a carouse, on the occasion of

his receiving the cross: Sub-Lieutenant Ugrovitch and Sub-Lieutenant

Nepshisetsky, who was ill with a cold in the head.

“Those little stars! They dart through the sky like stars, like stars!”

said the little girl, breaking the silence which succeeded Nikita’s

words. “There, there! another has dropped! Why do they do it, mamma?”

“They will ruin our little cabin entirely,” said the old woman, sighing,

and not replying to her little daughter’s question.

“And when uncle and I went there to-day, mamma,” continued the little

girl, in a shrill voice, “there was such a big cannon-ball lying in the

room, near the cupboard; it had broken through the wall and into the

room ... and it is so big that you couldn’t lift it.”

“Those who had husbands and money have gone away,” said the old woman,

“and now they have ruined my last little house. See, see how they are

firing, the wretches. Lord, Lord!”

“And as soon as we came out, a bomb flew at us, and burst and scattered

the earth about, and a piece of the shell came near striking uncle and

me.”

VII.

Prince Galtsin met more and more wounded men, in stretchers and on foot,

supporting each other, and talking loudly.

“When they rushed up, brothers,” said one tall soldier, who had two guns

on his shoulder, in a bass voice, “when they rushed up and shouted,

‘Allah, Allah!’[7] they pressed each other on. You kill one, and another

takes his place—you can do nothing. You never saw such numbers as there

were of them....”

But at this point in his story Galtsin interrupted him.

“You come from the bastion?”

“Just so, Your Honor!”

“Well, what has been going on there? Tell me.”

“Why, what has been going on? They attacked in force, Your Honor; they

climbed over the wall, and that’s the end of it. They conquered

completely, Your Honor.”

“How conquered? You repulsed them, surely?”

“How could we repulse them, when he came up with his whole force? They

killed all our men, and there was no help given us.”

The soldier was mistaken, for the trenches were behind our forces; but

this is a peculiar thing, which any one may observe: a soldier who has

been wounded in an engagement always thinks that the day has been lost,

and that the encounter has been a frightfully bloody one.

“Then, what did they mean by telling me that you had repulsed them?”

said Galtsin, with irritation. “Perhaps the enemy was repulsed after you

left? Is it long since you came away?”

“I have this instant come from there, Your Honor,” replied the soldier.

“It is hardly possible. The trenches remained in his hands ... he won a

complete victory.”

“Well, and are you not ashamed to have surrendered the trenches? This is

horrible!” said Galtsin, angered by such indifference.

“What, when he was there in force?” growled the soldier.

“And, Your Honor,” said a soldier on a stretcher, who had just come up

with them, “how could we help surrendering, when nearly all of us had

been killed? If we had been in force, we would only have surrendered

with our lives. But what was there to do? I ran one man through, and

then I was struck.... O-oh! softly, brothers! steady, brothers! go more

steadily!... O-oh!” groaned the wounded man.

“There really seem to be a great many extra men coming this way,” said

Galtsin, again stopping the tall soldier with the two rifles. “Why are

you walking off? Hey there, halt!”

The soldier halted, and removed his cap with his left hand.

“Where are you going, and why?” he shouted at him sternly. “He ...”

But, approaching the soldier very closely at that moment, he perceived

that the latter’s right arm was bandaged, and covered with blood far

above the elbow.

“I am wounded, Your Honor!”

“Wounded? how?”

“It must have been a bullet, here!” said the soldier, pointing at his

arm, “but I cannot tell yet. My head has been broken by something,” and,

bending over, he showed the hair upon the back of it all clotted

together with blood.

“And whose gun is that second one you have?”

“A choice French one, Your Honor! I captured it. And I should not have

come away if it had not been to accompany this soldier; he might fall

down,” he added, pointing at the soldier, who was walking a little in

front, leaning upon his gun, and dragging his left foot heavily after

him.

Prince Galtsin all at once became frightfully ashamed of his unjust

suspicions. He felt that he was growing crimson, and turned away,

without questioning the wounded men further, and, without looking after

them, he went to the place where the injured men were being cared for.

Having forced his way with difficulty to the porch, through the wounded

men who had come on foot, and the stretcher-bearers, who were entering

with the wounded and emerging with the dead, Galtsin entered the first

room, glanced round, and involuntarily turned back, and immediately ran

into the street. It was too terrible.

VIII.

The vast, dark, lofty hall, lighted only by the four or five candles,

which the doctors were carrying about to inspect the wounded, was

literally full. The stretcher-bearers brought in the wounded, ranged

them one beside another on the floor, which was already so crowded that

the unfortunate wretches hustled each other and sprinkled each other

with their blood, and then went forth for more. The pools of blood which

were visible on the unoccupied places, the hot breaths of several

hundred men, and the steam which rose from those who were toiling with

the stretchers produced a peculiar, thick, heavy, offensive atmosphere,

in which the candles burned dimly in the different parts of the room.

The dull murmur of diverse groans, sighs, death-rattles, broken now and

again by a shriek, was borne throughout the apartment. Sisters of

charity, with tranquil faces, and with an expression not of empty,

feminine, tearfully sickly compassion, but of active, practical

sympathy, flitted hither and thither among the blood-stained cloaks and

shirts, stepping over the wounded, with medicine, water, bandages, lint.

Doctors, with their sleeves rolled up, knelt beside the wounded, beside

whom the assistant surgeons held the candles, inspecting, feeling, and

probing the wounds, in spite of the terrible groans and entreaties of

the sufferers. One of the doctors was seated at a small table by the

door, and, at the moment when Galtsin entered the room, he was just

writing down “No. 532.”

“Iván Bogaeff, common soldier, third company of the S—— regiment,

fractura femoris complicata!” called another from the extremity of the

hall, as he felt of the crushed leg.... “Turn him over.”

“O-oi, my fathers, good fathers!” shrieked the soldier, beseeching them

not to touch him.

“Perforatio capitis.”

“Semyon Neferdoff, lieutenant-colonel of the N—— regiment of infantry.

Have a little patience, colonel: you can only be attended to this way; I

will let you alone,” said a third, picking away at the head of the

unfortunate colonel, with some sort of a hook.

“Ai! stop! Oi! for God’s sake, quick, quick, for the sake a-a-a-a!...”

“Perforatio pectoris ... Sevastyan Sereda, common soldier ... of what

regiment? however, you need not write that: moritur. Carry him away,”

said the doctor, abandoning the soldier, who was rolling his eyes, and

already emitting the death-rattle.

Forty stretcher-bearers stood at the door, awaiting the task of

transporting to the hospital the men who had been attended to, and the

dead to the chapel, and gazed at this picture in silence, only uttering

a heavy sigh from time to time....

IX.

On his way to the bastion, Kalugin met numerous wounded men; but,

knowing from experience that such a spectacle has a bad effect on the

spirits of a man on the verge of an action, he not only did not pause to

interrogate them, but, on the contrary, he tried not to pay any heed to

them. At the foot of the hill he encountered an orderly, who was

galloping from the bastion at full speed.

“Zobkin! Zobkin! Stop a minute!”

“Well, what is it?”

“Where are you from?”

“From the lodgements.”

“Well, how are things there! Hot?”

“Ah, frightfully!”

And the orderly galloped on.

In fact, although there was not much firing from the rifles, the

cannonade had begun with fresh vigor and greater heat than ever.

“Ah, that’s bad!” thought Kalugin, experiencing a rather unpleasant

sensation, and there came to him also a presentiment, that is to say, a

very usual thought—the thought of death.

But Kalugin was an egotist and gifted with nerves of steel; in a word,

he was what is called brave. He did not yield to his first sensation,

and began to arouse his courage; he recalled to mind a certain adjutant

of Napoleon, who, after having given the command to advance, galloped up

to Napoleon, his head all covered with blood.

“You are wounded?” said Napoleon to him. “I beg your pardon, Sire, I am

dead,”—and the adjutant fell from his horse, and died on the spot.

This seemed very fine to him, and he fancied that he somewhat resembled

this adjutant; then he gave his horse a blow with the whip; and assumed

still more of that knowing Cossack bearing, glanced at his orderly, who

was galloping behind him, standing upright in his stirrups, and thus in

dashing style he reached the place where it was necessary to dismount.

Here he found four soldiers, who were smoking their pipes as they sat on

the stones.

“What are you doing here?” he shouted at them.

“We have been carrying a wounded man from the field, Your Honor, and

have sat down to rest,” one of them replied, concealing his pipe behind

his back, and pulling off his cap.

“Resting indeed! March off to your posts!”

And, in company with them, he walked up the hill through the trenches,

encountering wounded men at every step.

On attaining the crest of the hill, he turned to the left, and, after

taking a few steps, found himself quite alone. Splinters whizzed near

him, and struck in the trenches. Another bomb rose in front of him, and

seemed to be flying straight at him. All of a sudden he felt terrified;

he ran off five paces at full speed, and lay down on the ground. But

when the bomb burst, and at a distance from him, he grew dreadfully

vexed at himself, and glanced about as he rose, to see whether any one

had perceived him fall, but there was no one about.

When fear has once made its way into the mind, it does not speedily give

way to another feeling. He, who had boasted that he would never bend,

hastened along the trench with accelerated speed, and almost on his

hands and knees. “Ah! this is very bad!” he thought, as he stumbled. “I

shall certainly be killed!” And, conscious of how difficult it was for

him to breathe, and that the perspiration was breaking out all over his

body, he was amazed at himself, but he no longer strove to conquer his

feelings.

All at once steps became audible in advance of him. He quickly

straightened himself up, raised his head, and, boldly clanking his

sword, began to proceed at a slower pace than before. He did not know

himself. When he joined the officer of sappers and the sailor who were

coming to meet him, and the former called to him, “Lie down,” pointing

to the bright speck of a bomb, which, growing ever brighter and

brighter, swifter and swifter, as it approached, crashed down in the

vicinity of the trench, he only bent his head a very little,

involuntarily, under the influence of the terrified shout, and went his

way.

“Whew! what a brave man!” ejaculated the sailor, who had calmly watched

the exploding bomb, and, with practised glance, at once calculated that

its splinters could not strike inside the trench; “he did not even wish

to lie down.”

Only a few steps remained to be taken, across an open space, before

Kalugin would reach the casemate of the commander of the bastion, when

he was again attacked by dimness of vision and that stupid sensation of

fear; his heart began to beat more violently, the blood rushed to his

head, and he was obliged to exert an effort over himself in order to

reach the casemate.

“Why are you so out of breath?” inquired the general, when Kalugin had

communicated to him his orders.

“I have been walking very fast, Your Excellency!”

“Will you not take a glass of wine?”

Kalugin drank the wine, and lighted a cigarette. The engagement had

already come to an end; only the heavy cannonade continued, going on

from both sides.

In the casemate sat General N., the commander of the bastion, and six

other officers, among whom was Praskukhin, discussing various details of

the conflict. Seated in this comfortable apartment, with blue hangings,

with a sofa, a bed, a table, covered with papers, a wall clock, and the

holy pictures, before which burned a lamp, and gazing upon these signs

of habitation, and at the arshin-thick (twenty-eight inches) beams which

formed the ceiling, and listening to the shots, which were deadened by

the casemate, Kalugin positively could not understand how he had twice

permitted himself to be overcome with such unpardonable weakness. He was

angry with himself, and he longed for danger, in order that he might

subject himself to another trial.

“I am glad that you are here, captain,” he said to a naval officer, in

the cloak of staff-officer, with a large moustache and the cross of St.

George, who entered the casemate at that moment, and asked the general

to give him some men, that he might repair the two embrasures on his

battery, which had been demolished. “The general ordered me to inquire,”

continued Kalugin, when the commander of the battery ceased to address

the general, “whether your guns can fire grape-shot into the trenches.”

“Only one of my guns will do that,” replied the captain, gruffly.

“Let us go and see, all the same.”

The captain frowned, and grunted angrily:—

“I have already passed the whole night there, and I came here to try and

get a little rest,” said he. “Cannot you go alone? My assistant,

Lieutenant Kartz, is there, and he will show you everything.”

The captain had now been for six months in command of this, one of the

most dangerous of the batteries—and even when there were no casemates he

had lived, without relief, in the bastion and among the sailors, from

the beginning of the siege, and he bore a reputation among them for

bravery. Therefore his refusal particularly struck and amazed Kalugin.

“That’s what reputation is worth!” he thought.

“Well, then, I will go alone, if you will permit it,” he said, in a

somewhat bantering tone to the captain, who, however, paid not the

slightest heed to his words.

But Kalugin did not reflect that he had passed, in all, at different

times, perhaps fifty hours on the bastion, while the captain had lived

there for six months. Kalugin was actuated, moreover, by vanity, by a

desire to shine, by the hope of reward, of reputation, and by the charm

of risk; but the captain had already gone through all that: he had been

vain at first, he had displayed valor, he had risked his life, he had

hoped for fame and guerdon, and had even obtained them, but these

actuating motives had already lost their power over him, and he regarded

the matter in another light; he fulfilled his duty with punctuality, but

understanding quite well how small were the chances for his life which

were left him, after a six-months residence in the bastion, he no longer

risked these casualties, except in case of stern necessity, so that the

young lieutenant, who had entered the battery only a week previous, and

who was now showing it to Kalugin, in company with whom he took turns in

leaning out of the embrasure, or climbing out on the ramparts, seemed

ten times as brave as the captain.

After inspecting the battery, Kalugin returned to the casemate, and ran

against the general in the dark, as the latter was ascending to the

watch-tower with his staff-officers.

“Captain Praskukhin!” said the general, “please to go to the first

lodgement and say to the second battery of the M—— regiment, which is at

work there, that they are to abandon their work, to evacuate the place

without making any noise, and to join their regiment, which is standing

at the foot of the hill in reserve.... Do you understand? Lead them to

their regiment yourself.”

“Yes, sir.”

And Praskukhin set out for the lodgement on a run.

The firing was growing more infrequent.

X.

“Is this the second battalion of the M—— regiment?” asked Praskukhin,

hastening up to the spot, and running against the soldiers who were

carrying earth in sacks.

“Exactly so.”

“Where is the commander?”

Mikhaïloff, supposing that the inquiry was for the commander of the

corps, crawled out of his pit, and, taking Praskukhin for the colonel,

he stepped up to him with his hand at his visor.

“The general has given orders ... that you ... are to be so good as to

go ... as quickly as possible ... and, in particular, as quietly as

possible, to the rear ... not to the rear exactly, but to the reserve,”

said Praskukhin, glancing askance at the enemy’s fires.

On recognizing Praskukhin and discovering the state of things,

Mikhaïloff dropped his hand, gave his orders, and the battalion started

into motion, gathered up their guns, put on their cloaks, and set out.

No one who has not experienced it can imagine the delight which a man

feels when he takes his departure, after a three-hours bombardment, from

such a dangerous post as the lodgements. Several times in the course of

those three hours, Mikhaïloff had, not without reason, considered his

end as inevitable, and had grown accustomed to the conviction that he

should infallibly be killed, and that he no longer belonged to this

world. In spite of this, however, he had great difficulty in keeping his

feet from running away with him when he issued from the lodgements at

the head of his corps, in company with Praskukhin.

“Au revoir,” said the major, the commander of another battalion, who was

to remain in the lodgements, and with whom he had shared his cheese, as

they sat in the pit behind the breastworks—“a pleasant journey to you.”

“Thanks, I hope you will have good luck after we have gone. The firing

seems to be holding up.”

But no sooner had he said this than the enemy, who must have observed

the movement in the lodgements, began to fire faster and faster. Our

guns began to reply to him, and again a heavy cannonade began. The stars

were gleaming high, but not brilliantly in the sky. The night was

dark—you could hardly see your hand before you; only the flashes of the

discharges and the explosions of the bombs illuminated objects for a

moment. The soldiers marched on rapidly, in silence, involuntarily

treading close on each other’s heels; all that was audible through the

incessant firing was the measured sound of their footsteps on the dry

road, the noise of their bayonets as they came in contact, or the sigh

and prayer of some young soldier, “Lord, Lord! what is this!” Now and

then the groan of a wounded man arose, and the shout, “Stretcher!” (In

the company commanded by Mikhaïloff, twenty-six men were killed in one

night, by the fire of the artillery alone.) The lightning flashed

against the distant horizon, the sentry in the bastion shouted,

“Can-non!” and the ball, shrieking over the heads of the corps, tore up

the earth, and sent the stones flying.

“Deuce take it! how slowly they march,” thought Praskukhin, glancing

back continually, as he walked beside Mikhaïloff. “Really, it will be

better for me to run on in front; I have already given the order.... But

no, it might be said later on that I was a coward. What will be will be;

I will march with them.”

“Now, why is he walking behind me?” thought Mikhaïloff, on his side. “So

far as I have observed, he always brings ill-luck. There it comes,

flying straight for us, apparently.”

After traversing several hundred paces, they encountered Kalugin, who

was going to the casemates, clanking his sword boldly as he walked, in

order to learn, by the general’s command, how the work was progressing

there. But on meeting Mikhaïloff, it occurred to him that, instead of

going thither, under that terrible fire, which he was not ordered to do,

he could make minute inquiries of the officer who had been there. And,

in fact, Mikhaïloff furnished him with a detailed account of the work.

After walking a short distance with them, Kalugin turned into the

trench, which led to the casemate.

“Well, what news is there?” inquired the officer, who was seated alone

at the table, and eating his supper.

“Well, nothing, apparently, except that there will not be any further

conflict.”

“How so? On the contrary, the general has but just gone up to the top of

the works. A regiment has already arrived. Yes, there it is ... do you

hear? The firing has begun again. Don’t go. Why should you?” added the

officer, perceiving the movement made by Kalugin.

“But I must be there without fail, in the present instance,” thought

Kalugin, “but I have already subjected myself to a good deal of danger

to-day; the firing is terrible.”

“Well, after all, I had better wait for him here,” he said.

In fact, the general returned, twenty minutes later, accompanied by the

officers, who had been with him; among their number was the yunker,

Baron Pesth, but Praskukhin was not with them. The lodgements had been

captured and occupied by our forces.

After receiving a full account of the engagement, Kalugin and Pesth went

out of the casemates.

XI.

“There is blood on your cloak; have you been having a hand-to-hand

fight?” Kalugin asked him.

“Oh, ‘tis frightful! Just imagine....”

And Pesth began to relate how he had led his company, how the commander

of the company had been killed, how he had spitted a Frenchman, and how,

if it had not been for him, the battle would have been lost.

The foundations for this tale, that the company commander had been

killed, and that Pesth had killed a Frenchman, were correct; but, in

giving the details, the yunker had invented facts and bragged.

He bragged involuntarily, because, during the whole engagement, he had

been in a kind of mist, and had forgotten himself to such a degree that

everything which happened seemed to him to have happened somewhere,

sometime, and with some one, and very naturally he had endeavored to

bring out these details in a light which should be favorable to himself.

But what had happened in reality was this:—

The battalion to which the yunker had been ordered for the sortie had

stood under fire for two hours, near a wall; then the commander of the

battalion said something, the company commanders made a move, the

battalion got under way, issued forth from behind the breastworks,

marched forward a hundred paces, and came to a halt in columns. Pesth

had been ordered to take his stand on the right flank of the second

company.

The yunker stood his ground, absolutely without knowing where he was, or

why he was there, and, with restrained breath, and with a cold chill

running down his spine, he had stared stupidly straight ahead into the

dark beyond, in the expectation of something terrible. But, since there

was no firing in progress, he did not feel so much terrified as he did

queer and strange at finding himself outside the fortress, in the open

plain. Again the battalion commander ahead said something. Again the

officers had conversed in whispers, as they communicated the orders, and

the black wall of the first company suddenly disappeared. They had been

ordered to lie down. The second company lay down also, and Pesth, in the

act, pricked his hand on something sharp. The only man who did not lie

down was the commander of the second company. His short form, with the

naked sword which he was flourishing, talking incessantly the while,

moved about in front of the troop.

“Children! my lads! ... look at me! Don’t fire at them, but at them with

your bayonets, the dogs! When I shout, Hurrah! follow me close ... the

chief thing is to be as close together as possible ... let us show what

we are made of! Do not let us cover ourselves with shame—shall we, hey,

my children? For our father the Tsar!”

“What is our company commander’s surname?” Pesth inquired of a yunker,

who was lying beside him. “What a brave fellow he is!”

“Yes, he’s always that way in a fight ...” answered the yunker. “His

name is Lisinkovsky.”

At that moment, a flame flashed up in front of the company. There was a

crash, which deafened them all, stones and splinters flew high in the

air (fifty seconds, at least, later a stone fell from above and crushed

the foot of a soldier). This was a bomb from an elevated platform, and

the fact that it fell in the midst of the company proved that the French

had caught sight of the column.

“So they are sending bombs!... Just let us get at you, and you shall

feel the bayonet of a three-sided Russian, curse you!” shouted the

commander of the company, in so loud a tone that the battalion commander

was forced to order him to be quiet and not to make so much noise.

After this the first company rose to their feet, and after it the

second. They were ordered to fix bayonets, and the battalion advanced.

Pesth was so terrified that he absolutely could not recollect whether

they advanced far, or whither, or who did what. He walked like a drunken

man. But all at once millions of fires flashed from all sides, there was

a whistling and a crashing. He shrieked and ran, because they were all

shrieking and running. Then he stumbled and fell upon something. It was

the company commander (who had been wounded at the head of his men and

who, taking the yunker for a Frenchman, seized him by the leg). Then

when he had freed his leg, and risen to his feet, some man ran against

his back in the dark and almost knocked him down again; another man

shouted, “Run him through! what are you staring at!”

Then he seized a gun, and ran the bayonet into something soft. “Ah,

Dieu!” exclaimed some one in a terribly piercing voice, and then only

did Pesth discover that he had transfixed a Frenchman. The cold sweat

started out all over his body. He shook as though in a fever, and flung

away the gun. But this lasted only a moment; it immediately occurred to

him that he was a hero. He seized the gun again, and, shouting “Hurrah!”

with the crowd, he rushed away from the dead Frenchman. After having

traversed about twenty paces, he came to the trench. There he found our

men and the company commander.

“I have run one man through!” he said to the commander.

“You’re a brave fellow, Baron.”

XII.

“But, do you know, Praskukhin has been killed,” said Pesth, accompanying

Kalugin, on the way back.

“It cannot be!”

“But it can. I saw him myself.”

“Farewell; I am in a hurry.”

“I am well content,” thought Kalugin, as he returned home; “I have had

luck for the first time when on duty. That was a capital engagement, and

I am alive and whole. There will be some fine presentations, and I shall

certainly get a golden sword. And I deserve it too.”

After reporting to the general all that was necessary, he went to his

room, in which sat Prince Galtsin, who had returned long before, and who

was reading a book, which he had found on Kalugin’s table, while waiting

for him.

It was with a wonderful sense of enjoyment that Kalugin found himself at

home again, out of all danger, and, having donned his night-shirt and

lain down on the sofa, he began to relate to Galtsin the particulars of

the affair, communicating them, naturally, from a point of view which

made it appear that he, Kalugin, was a very active and valiant officer,

to which, in my opinion, it was superfluous to refer, seeing that every

one knew it and that no one had any right to doubt it, with the

exception, perhaps, of the deceased Captain Praskukhin, who, in spite of

the fact that he had considered it a piece of happiness to walk arm in

arm with Kalugin, had told a friend, only the evening before, in

private, that Kalugin was a very fine man, but that, between you and me,

he was terribly averse to going to the bastions.

No sooner had Praskukhin, who had been walking beside Mikhaïloff, taken

leave of Kalugin, and, betaking himself to a safer place, had begun to

recover his spirits somewhat, than he caught sight of a flash of

lightning behind him flaring up vividly, heard the shout of the

sentinel, “Mortar!” and the words of the soldiers who were marching

behind, “It’s flying straight at the bastion!”

Mikhaïloff glanced round. The brilliant point of the bomb seemed to be

suspended directly over his head in such a position that it was

absolutely impossible to determine its course. But this lasted only for

a second. The bomb came faster and faster, nearer and nearer, the sparks

of the fuse were already visible, and the fateful whistle was audible,

and it descended straight in the middle of the battalion.

“Lie down!” shouted a voice.

Mikhaïloff and Praskukhin threw themselves on the ground. Praskukhin

shut his eyes, and only heard the bomb crash against the hard earth

somewhere in the vicinity. A second passed, which seemed an hour—and the

bomb had not burst. Praskukhin was alarmed; had he felt cowardly for

nothing? Perhaps the bomb had fallen at a distance, and it merely seemed

to him that the fuse was hissing near him. He opened his eyes, and saw

with satisfaction that Mikhaïloff was lying motionless on the earth, at

his very feet. But then his eyes encountered for a moment the glowing

fuse of the bomb, which was twisting about at a distance of an arshin

from him.

A cold horror, which excluded every other thought and feeling, took

possession of his whole being. He covered his face with his hands.

Another second passed—a second in which a whole world of thoughts,

feelings, hopes, and memories flashed through his mind.

“Which will be killed, Mikhaïloff or I? Or both together? And if it is

I, where will it strike? If in the head, then all is over with me; but

if in the leg, they will cut it off, and I shall ask them to be sure to

give me chloroform,—and I may still remain among the living. But perhaps

no one but Mikhaïloff will be killed; then I will relate how we were

walking along together, and how he was killed and his blood spurted over

me. No, it is nearer to me ... it will kill me!”

Then he remembered the twenty rubles which he owed Mikhaïloff, and

recalled another debt in Petersburg, which ought to have been paid long

ago; the gypsy air which he had sung the previous evening recurred to

him. The woman whom he loved appeared to his imagination in a cap with

lilac ribbons, a man who had insulted him five years before, and whom he

had not paid off for his insult, came to his mind, though inextricably

interwoven with these and with a thousand other memories the feeling of

the moment—the fear of death—never deserted him for an instant.

“But perhaps it will not burst,” he thought, and, with the decision of

despair, he tried to open his eyes. But at that instant, through the

crevice of his eyelids, his eyes were smitten with a red fire, and

something struck him in the centre of the breast, with a frightful

crash; he ran off, he knew not whither, stumbled over his sword, which

had got between his legs, and fell over on his side.

“Thank God! I am only bruised,” was his first thought, and he tried to

touch his breast with his hands; but his arms seemed fettered, and

pincers were pressing his head. The soldiers flitted before his eyes,

and he unconsciously counted them: “One, two, three soldiers; and there

is an officer, wrapped up in his cloak,” he thought. Then a flash passed

before his eyes, and he thought that something had been fired off; was

it the mortars, or the cannon? It must have been the cannon. And there

was still another shot; and there were more soldiers; five, six, seven

soldiers were passing by him. Then suddenly he felt afraid that they

would crush him. He wanted to shout to them that he was bruised; but his

mouth was so dry that his tongue clove to his palate and he was tortured

by a frightful thirst.

He felt that he was wet about the breast: this sensation of dampness

reminded him of water, and he even wanted to drink this, whatever it

was. “I must have brought the blood when I fell,” he thought, and,

beginning to give way more and more to terror, lest the soldiers who

passed should crush him, he collected all his strength, and tried to

cry: “Take me with you!” but, instead of this, he groaned so terribly

that it frightened him to hear himself. Then more red fires flashed in

his eyes—and it seemed to him as though the soldiers were laying stones

upon him; the fires danced more and more rarely, the stones which they

piled on him oppressed him more and more.

He exerted all his strength, in order to cast off the stones; he

stretched himself out, and no longer saw or heard or thought or felt

anything. He had been killed on the spot by a splinter of shell, in the

middle of the breast.

XIII.

Mikhaïloff, on catching sight of the bomb, fell to the earth, and, like

Praskukhin, he went over in thought and feeling an incredible amount in

those two seconds while the bomb lay there unexploded. He prayed to God

mentally, and kept repeating: “Thy will be done!”

“And why did I enter the military service?” he thought at the same time;

“and why, again, did I exchange into the infantry, in order to take part

in this campaign? Would it not have been better for me to remain in the

regiment of Uhlans, in the town of T., and pass the time with my friend

Natasha? And now this is what has come of it.”

And he began to count, “One, two, three, four,” guessing that if it

burst on the even number, he would live, but if on the uneven number,

then he should be killed. “All is over; killed,” he thought, when the

bomb burst (he did not remember whether it was on the even or the uneven

number), and he felt a blow, and a sharp pain in his head. “Lord,

forgive my sins,” he murmured, folding his hands, then rose, and fell

back senseless.

His first sensation, when he came to himself, was the blood which was

flowing from his nose, and a pain in his head, which had become much

less powerful. “It is my soul departing,” he thought.—“What will it be

like there? Lord, receive my soul in peace!—But one thing is strange,”

he thought,—“and that is that, though dying, I can still hear so plainly

the footsteps of the soldiers and the report of the shots.”

“Send some bearers ... hey there ... the captain is killed!” shouted a

voice over his head, which he recognized as the voice of his drummer

Ignatieff.

Some one grasped him by the shoulders. He made an effort to open his

eyes, and saw overhead the dark blue heavens, the clusters of stars, and

two bombs, which were flying over him, one after the other; he saw

Ignatieff, the soldiers with the stretcher, the walls of the trench, and

all at once he became convinced that he was not yet in the other world.

He had been slightly wounded in the head with a stone. His very first

impression was one resembling regret; he had so beautifully and so

calmly prepared himself for transit yonder that a return to reality,

with its bombs, its trenches, and its blood, produced a disagreeable

effect on him; his second impression was an involuntary joy that he was

alive, and the third a desire to leave the bastion as speedily as

possible. The drummer bound up his commander’s head with his

handkerchief, and, taking him under the arm, he led him to the place

where the bandaging was going on.

“But where am I going, and why?” thought the staff-captain, when he

recovered his senses a little.—“It is my duty to remain with my men,—the

more so as they will soon be out of range of the shots,” some voice

whispered to him.

“Never mind, brother,” he said, pulling his arm away from the obliging

drummer. “I will not go to the field-hospital; I will remain with my

men.”

And he turned back.

“You had better have your wound properly attended to, Your Honor,” said

Ignatieff. “In the heat of the moment, it seems as if it were a trifle;

but it will be the worse if not attended to. There is some inflammation

rising there ... really, now, Your Honor.”

Mikhaïloff paused for a moment in indecision, and would have followed

Ignatieff’s advice, in all probability, had he not called to mind how

many severely wounded men there must needs be at the field-hospital.

“Perhaps the doctor will smile at my scratch,” thought the

staff-captain, and he returned with decision to his men, wholly

regardless of the drummer’s admonitions.

“And where is Officer Praskukhin, who was walking with me?” he asked the

lieutenant, who was leading the corps when they met.

“I don’t know—killed, probably,” replied the lieutenant, reluctantly.

“How is it that you do not know whether he was killed or wounded? He was

walking with us. And why have you not carried him with you?”

“How could it be done, brother, when the place was so hot for us!”

“Ah, how could you do such a thing, Mikhaïl Ivánowitch!” said

Mikhaïloff, angrily.—“How could you abandon him if he was alive; and if

he was dead, you should still have brought away his body.”

“How could he be alive when, as I tell you, I went up to him and saw!”

returned the lieutenant.—“As you like, however! Only, his own men might

carry him off. Here, you dogs! the cannonade has abated,” he added....

Mikhaïloff sat down, and clasped his head, which the motion caused to

pain him terribly.

“Yes, I must go and get him, without fail; perhaps he is still alive,”

said Mikhaïloff. “It is our duty, Mikhaïl Ivánowitch!”

Mikhaïl Ivánowitch made no reply.

“He did not take him at the time, and now the soldiers must be sent

alone—and how can they be sent? their lives may be sacrificed in vain,

under that hot fire,” thought Mikhaïloff.

“Children! we must go back—and get the officer who was wounded there in

the ditch,” he said, in not too loud and commanding a tone, for he felt

how unpleasant it would be to the soldiers to obey his order,—and, in

fact, as he did not address any one in particular by name, no one set

out to fulfil it.

“It is quite possible that he is already dead, and it is not worth while

to subject the men to unnecessary danger; I alone am to blame for not

having seen to it. I will go myself and learn whether he is alive. It is

my duty,” said Mikhaïloff to himself.

“Mikhaïl Ivánowitch! Lead the men forward, and I will overtake you,” he

said, and, pulling up his cloak with one hand, and with the other

constantly touching the image of Saint Mitrofaniy, in which he cherished

a special faith, he set off on a run along the trench.

Having convinced himself that Praskukhin was dead, he dragged himself

back, panting, and supporting with his hand the loosened bandage and his

head, which began to pain him severely. The battalion had already

reached the foot of the hill, and a place almost out of range of shots,

when Mikhaïloff overtook it. I say, almost out of range, because some

stray bombs struck here and there.

“At all events, I must go to the hospital to-morrow, and put down my

name,” thought the staff-captain, as the medical student assisting the

doctors bound his wound.

XIV.

Hundreds of bodies, freshly smeared with blood, of men who two hours

previous had been filled with divers lofty or petty hopes and desires,

now lay, with stiffened limbs, in the dewy, flowery valley which

separated the bastion from the trench, and on the level floor of the

chapel for the dead in Sevastopol; hundreds of men crawled, twisted, and

groaned, with curses and prayers on their parched lips, some amid the

corpses in the flower-strewn vale, others on stretchers, on cots, and on

the blood-stained floor of the hospital.

And still, as on the days preceding, the dawn glowed, over Sapun

Mountain, the twinkling stars paled, the white mist spread abroad from

the dark sounding sea, the red glow illuminated the east, long crimson

cloudlets darted across the blue horizon; and still, as on days

preceding, the powerful, all-beautiful sun rose up, giving promise of

joy, love, and happiness to all who dwell in the world.

XV.

On the following day, the band of the chasseurs was playing again on the

boulevard, and again officers, cadets, soldiers, and young women were

promenading in festive guise about the pavilion and through the

low-hanging alleys of fragrant white acacias in bloom.

Kalugin, Prince Galtsin, and some colonel or other were walking

arm-in-arm near the pavilion, and discussing the engagement of the day

before. As always happens in such cases, the chief governing thread of

the conversation was not the engagement itself, but the part which those

who were narrating the story of the affair took in it.

Their faces and the sound of their voices had a serious, almost

melancholy expression, as though the loss of the preceding day had

touched and saddened them deeply; but, to tell the truth, as none of

them had lost any one very near to him, this expression of sorrow was an

official expression, which they merely felt it to be their duty to

exhibit.

On the contrary, Kalugin and the colonel were ready to see an engagement

of the same sort every day, provided that they might receive a gold

sword or the rank of major-general—notwithstanding the fact that they

were very fine fellows.

I like it when any warrior who destroys millions to gratify his ambition

is called a monster. Only question any Lieutenant Petrushkoff, and

Sub-Lieutenant Antonoff, and so on, on their word of honor, and every

one of them is a petty Napoleon, a petty monster, and ready to bring on

a battle on the instant, to murder a hundred men, merely for the sake of

receiving an extra cross or an increase of a third in his pay.

“No, excuse me,” said the colonel; “it began first on the left flank. I

was there myself.”

“Possibly,” answered Kalugin. “I was farther on the right; I went there

twice. Once I was in search of the general, and the second time I went

merely to inspect the lodgements. It was a hot place.”

“Yes, of course, Kalugin knows,” said Prince Galtsin to the colonel.

“You know that V. told me to-day that you were a brave fellow....”

“But the losses, the losses were terrible,” said the colonel. “I lost

four hundred men from my regiment. It’s a wonder that I escaped from

there alive.”

At this moment, the figure of Mikhaïloff, with his head bandaged,

appeared at the other extremity of the boulevard, coming to meet these

gentlemen.

“What, are you wounded, captain?” said Kalugin.

“Yes, slightly, with a stone,” replied Mikhaïloff.

“Has the flag been lowered yet?”[8] inquired Prince Galtsin, gazing over

the staff-captain’s cap, and addressing himself to no one in particular.

“Non, pas encore,” answered Mikhaïloff, who wished to show that he

understood and spoke French.

“Is the truce still in force?” said Galtsin, addressing him courteously

in Russian, and thereby intimating—so it seemed to the captain—It must

be difficult for you to speak French, so why is it not better to talk in

your own tongue simply?... And with this the adjutants left him. The

staff-captain again felt lonely, as on the preceding evening, and,

exchanging salutes with various gentlemen,—some he did not care, and

others he did not dare, to join,—he seated himself near Kazarsky’s

monument, and lighted a cigarette.

Baron Pesth also had come to the boulevard. He had been telling how he

had gone over to arrange the truce, and had conversed with the French

officers, and he declared that one had said to him, “If daylight had

held off another half-hour, these ambushes would have been retaken;” and

that he had replied, “Sir, I refrain from saying no, in order not to

give you the lie,” and how well he had said it, and so on.

But, in reality, although he had had a hand in the truce, he had not

dared to say anything very particular there, although he had been very

desirous of talking with the French (for it is awfully jolly to talk

with Frenchmen). Yunker Baron Pesth had marched up and down the line for

a long time, incessantly inquiring of the Frenchmen who were near him:

“To what regiment do you belong?” They answered him; and that was the

end of it.

When he walked too far along the line, the French sentry, not suspecting

that this soldier understood French, cursed him. “He has come to spy out

our works, the cursed ...” said he; and, in consequence, Yunker Baron

Pesth, taking no further interest in the truce, went home, and thought

out on the way thither those French phrases, which he had now repeated.

Captain Zoboff was also on the boulevard, talking loudly, and Captain

Obzhogoff, in a very dishevelled condition, and an artillery captain,

who courted no one, and was happy in the love of the yunkers, and all

the faces which had been there on the day before, and all still actuated

by the same motives. No one was missing except Praskukhin, Neferdoff,

and some others, whom hardly any one remembered or thought of now,

though their bodies were not yet washed, laid out, and interred in the

earth.

XVI.

White flags had been hung out from our bastion, and from the trenches of

the French, and in the blooming valley between them lay disfigured

corpses, shoeless, in garments of gray or blue, which laborers were

engaged in carrying off and heaping upon carts. The odor of the dead

bodies filled the air. Throngs of people had poured out of Sevastopol,

and from the French camp, to gaze upon this spectacle, and they pressed

one after the other with eager and benevolent curiosity.

Listen to what these people are saying.

Here, in a group of Russians and French who have come together, is a

young officer, who speaks French badly, but well enough to make himself

understood, examining a cartridge-box of the guards.

“And what is this bird here for?” says he.

“Because it is a cartridge-box belonging to a regiment of the guards,

Monsieur, and bears the Imperial eagle.”

“And do you belong to the guard?”

“Pardon, Monsieur, I belong to the sixth regiment of the line.”

“And this—bought where?” asks the officer, pointing to a cigar-holder of

yellow wood, in which the Frenchman was smoking his cigarette.

“At Balaklava, Monsieur. It is very plain, of palm-wood.”

“Pretty!” says the officer, guided in his conversation not so much by

his own wishes as by the words which he knows.

“If you will have the kindness to keep it as a souvenir of this meeting,

you will confer an obligation on me.”

And the polite Frenchman blows out the cigarette, and hands the holder

over to the officer with a little bow. The officer gives him his, and

all the members of the group, Frenchmen as well as Russians, appear very

much pleased and smile.

Then a bold infantryman, in a pink shirt, with his cloak thrown over his

shoulders, accompanied by two other soldiers, who, with their hands

behind their backs, were standing behind him, with merry, curious

countenances, stepped up to a Frenchman, and requested a light for his

pipe. The Frenchman brightened his fire, stirred up his short pipe, and

shook out a light for the Russian.

“Tobacco good!” said the soldier in the pink shirt; and the spectators

smile.

“Yes, good tobacco, Turkish tobacco,” says the Frenchman. “And your

tobacco—Russian?—good?”

“Russian, good,” says the soldier in the pink shirt: whereupon those

present shake with laughter. “The French not good—bon jour, Monsieur,”

says the soldier in the pink shirt, letting fly his entire charge of

knowledge in the language at once, as he laughs and taps the Frenchman

on the stomach. The French join in the laugh.

“They are not handsome, these beasts of Russians,” says a zouave, amid

the crowd of Frenchmen.

“What are they laughing about?” says another black-complexioned one,

with an Italian accent, approaching our men.

“Caftan good,” says the audacious soldier, staring at the zouave’s

embroidered coat-skirts, and then there is another laugh.

“Don’t leave your lines; back to your places, sacré nom!” shouts a

French corporal, and the soldiers disperse with evident reluctance.

In the meantime, our young cavalry officer is making the tour of the

French officers. The conversation turns on some Count Sazonoff, “with

whom I was very well acquainted, Monsieur,” says a French officer, with

one epaulet—“he is one of those real Russian counts, of whom we are so

fond.”

“There is a Sazonoff with whom I am acquainted,” said the cavalry

officer, “but he is not a count, so far as I know, at least; a little

dark-complexioned man, of about your age.”

“Exactly, Monsieur, that is the man. Oh, how I should like to see that

dear count! If you see him, pray, present my compliments to him—Captain

Latour,” says he, bowing.

“Isn’t this a terrible business that we are conducting here? It was hot

work last night, wasn’t it?” says the cavalry officer, wishing to

continue the conversation, and pointing to the dead bodies.

“Oh, frightful, Monsieur! But what brave fellows your soldiers are—what

brave fellows! It is a pleasure to fight with such valiant fellows.”

“It must be admitted that your men do not hang back, either,” says the

cavalry-man, with a bow, and the conviction that he is very amiable.

But enough of this.

Let us rather observe this lad of ten, clad in an ancient cap, his

father’s probably, shoes worn on bare feet, and nankeen breeches, held

up by a single suspender, who had climbed over the wall at the very

beginning of the truce, and has been roaming about the ravine, staring

with dull curiosity at the French, and at the bodies which are lying on

the earth, and plucking the blue wild-flowers with which the valley is

studded. On his way home with a large bouquet, he held his nose because

of the odor which the wind wafted to him, and paused beside a pile of

corpses, which had been carried off the field, and stared long at one

terrible headless body, which chanced to be the nearest to him. After

standing there for a long while, he stepped up closer, and touched with

his foot the stiffened arm of the corpse which protruded. The arm swayed

a little. He touched it again, and with more vigor. The arm swung back,

and then fell into place again. And at once the boy uttered a shriek,

hid his face in the flowers, and ran off to the fortifications as fast

as he could go.

Yes, white flags are hung out from the bastion and the trenches, the

flowery vale is filled with dead bodies, the splendid sun sinks into the

blue sea, and the blue sea undulates and glitters in the golden rays of

the sun. Thousands of people congregate, gaze, talk, and smile at each

other. And why do not Christian people, who profess the one great law of

love and self-sacrifice, when they behold what they have wrought, fall

in repentance upon their knees before Him who, when he gave them life,

implanted in the soul of each of them, together with a fear of death, a

love of the good and the beautiful, and, with tears of joy and

happiness, embrace each other like brothers? No! But it is a comfort to

think that it was not we who began this war, that we are only defending

our own country, our father-land. The white flags have been hauled in,

and again the weapons of death and suffering are shrieking; again

innocent blood is shed, and groans and curses are audible.

I have now said all that I wish to say at this time. But a heavy thought

overmasters me. Perhaps it should not have been said; perhaps what I

have said belongs to one of those evil truths which, unconsciously

concealed in the soul of each man, should not be uttered, lest they

become pernicious, as a cask of wine should not be shaken, lest it be

thereby spoiled.

Where is the expression of evil which should be avoided? Where is the

expression of good which should be imitated in this sketch? Who is the

villain, who the hero? All are good, and all are evil.

Neither Kalugin, with his brilliant bravery—bravoure de gentilhomme—and

his vanity, the instigator of all his deeds; nor Praskukhin, the

empty-headed, harmless man, though he fell in battle for the faith, the

throne, and his native land; nor Mikhaïloff, with his shyness; nor

Pesth, a child with no firm convictions or principles, can be either the

heroes or the villains of the tale.

The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the strength of my soul, whom

I have tried to set forth in all his beauty, and who has always been,

is, and always will be most beautiful, is—the truth.

Sevastopol in August, 1855.

I.

At the end of August, along the rocky highway to Sevastopol, between

Duvanka and Bakhtchisaraï, through the thick, hot dust, at a foot-pace,

drove an officer’s light cart, that peculiar telyezhka, not now to be

met with, which stands about half-way between a Jewish britchka, a

Russian travelling-carriage, and a basket-wagon. In the front of the

wagon, holding the reins, squatted the servant, clad in a nankeen coat

and an officer’s cap, which had become quite limp; seated behind, on

bundles and packages covered with a military coat, was an infantry

officer, in a summer cloak.

As well as could be judged from his sitting position, the officer was

not tall in stature, but extremely thick, and that not so much from

shoulder to shoulder as from chest to back; he was broad and thick, and

his neck and the base of the head were excessively developed and

swollen. His waist, so called, a receding strip in the centre of the

body, did not exist in his case; but neither had he any belly; on the

contrary, he was rather thin than otherwise, particularly in the face,

which was overspread with an unhealthy yellowish sunburn. His face would

have been handsome had it not been for a certain bloated appearance, and

the soft, yet not elderly, heavy wrinkles that flowed together and

enlarged his features, imparting to the whole countenance a general

expression of coarseness and of lack of freshness. His eyes were small,

brown, extremely searching, even bold; his moustache was very thick, but

the ends were kept constantly short by his habit of gnawing them; and

his chin, and his cheek-bones in particular were covered with a

remarkably strong, thick, and black beard, of two days’ growth.

The officer had been wounded on the 10^(th) of May, by a splinter, in

the head, on which he still wore a bandage, and, having now felt

perfectly well for the last week, he had come out of the Simferopol

Hospital, to rejoin his regiment, which was stationed somewhere in the

direction from which shots could be heard; but whether that was in

Sevastopol itself, on the northern defences, or at Inkermann, he had not

so far succeeded in ascertaining with much accuracy from any one.

Shots were still audible near at hand, especially at intervals, when the

hills did not interfere, or when borne on the wind with great

distinctness and frequency, and apparently near at hand. Then it seemed

as though some explosion shook the air, and caused an involuntary

shudder. Then, one after the other, followed less resounding reports in

quick succession, like a drum-beat, interrupted at times by a startling

roar. Then, everything mingled in a sort of reverberating crash,

resembling peals of thunder, when a thunder-storm is in full force, and

the rain has just begun to pour down in floods, every one said; and it

could be heard that the bombardment was progressing frightfully.

The officer kept urging on his servant, and seemed desirous of arriving

as speedily as possible. They were met by a long train of the

Russian-peasant type, which had carried provisions into Sevastopol, and

was now returning with sick and wounded soldiers in gray coats, sailors

in black paletots, volunteers in red fezes, and bearded militia-men. The

officer’s light cart had to halt in the thick, immovable cloud of dust

raised by the carts, and the officer, blinking and frowning with the

dust that stuffed his eyes and ears, gazed at the faces of the sick and

wounded as they passed.

“Ah, there’s a sick soldier from our company,” said the servant, turning

to his master, and pointing to the wagon which was just on a line with

them, full of wounded, at the moment.

On the cart, towards the front, a bearded Russian, in a lamb’s-wool cap,

was seated sidewise, and, holding the stock of his whip under his elbow,

was tying on the lash. Behind him in the cart, about five soldiers, in

different positions, were shaking about. One, though pale and thin, with

his arm in a bandage, and his cloak thrown on over his shirt, was

sitting up bravely in the middle of the cart, and tried to touch his cap

on seeing the officer, but immediately afterwards (recollecting,

probably, that he was wounded) he pretended that he only wanted to

scratch his head. Another, beside him, was lying flat on the bottom of

the wagon; all that was visible was two hands, as they clung to the

rails of the wagon, and his knees uplifted limp as mops, as they swayed

about in various directions. A third, with a swollen face and a bandaged

head, on which was placed his soldier’s cap, sat on one side, with his

legs dangling over the wheel, and, with his elbows resting on his knees,

seemed immersed in thought. It was to him that the passing officer

addressed himself.

“Dolzhnikoff!” he exclaimed.

“Here,” replied the soldier, opening his eyes, and pulling off his cap,

in such a thick and halting bass voice that it seemed as though twenty

soldiers had uttered an exclamation at one and the same time.

“When were you wounded, brother?”

The leaden and swimming eyes of the soldier grew animated; he evidently

recognized his officer.

“I wish Your Honor health!” he began again, in the same abrupt bass as

before.

“Where is the regiment stationed now?”

“It was stationed in Sevastopol, but they were to move on Wednesday,

Your Honor.”

“Where to?”

“I don’t know; it must have been to the Sivernaya, Your Honor! To-day,

Your Honor,” he added, in a drawling voice, as he put on his cap, “they

have begun to fire clear across, mostly with bombs, that even go as far

as the bay; they are fighting horribly to-day, so that—”

It was impossible to hear what the soldier said further; but it was

evident, from the expression of his countenance and from his attitude,

that he was uttering discouraging remarks, with the touch of malice of a

man who is suffering.

The travelling officer, Lieutenant Kozeltzoff, was no common officer. He

was not one of those that live so and so and do thus and so because

others live and do thus; he did whatever he pleased, and others did the

same, and were convinced that it was well. He was rather richly endowed

by nature with small gifts: he sang well, played on the guitar, talked

very cleverly, and wrote very easily, particularly official documents,

in which he had practised his hand in his capacity of adjutant of the

battalion; but the most noticeable trait in his character was his

egotistical energy, which, although chiefly founded on this array of

petty talents, constituted in itself a sharp and striking trait. His

egotism was of the sort that is most frequently found developed in

masculine and especially in military circles, and which had become a

part of his life to such a degree that he understood no other choice

than to domineer or to humiliate himself; and his egotism was the

mainspring even of his private impulses; he liked to usurp the first

place over people with whom he put himself on a level.

“Well! it’s absurd of me to listen to what a Moskva[9] chatters!”

muttered the lieutenant, experiencing a certain weight of apathy in his

heart, and a dimness of thought, which the sight of the transport full

of wounded and the words of the soldier, whose significance was

emphasized and confirmed by the sounds of the bombardment, had left with

him. “That Moskva is ridiculous! Drive on, Nikolaeff! go ahead! Are you

asleep?” he added, rather fretfully, to the servant, as he re-arranged

the skirts of his coat.

The reins were tightened, Nikolaeff clacked his lips, and the wagon

moved on at a trot.

“We will only halt a minute for food, and will proceed at once, this

very day,” said the officer.

II.

As he entered the street of the ruined remains of the stone wall,

forming the Tatar houses of Duvanka, Lieutenant Kozeltzoff was stopped

by a transport of bombs and grape-shot, which were on their way to

Sevastopol, and had accumulated on the road. Two infantry soldiers were

seated in the dust, on the stones of a ruined garden-wall by the

roadside, devouring a watermelon and bread.

“Have you come far, fellow-countryman?” said one of them, as he chewed

his bread, to the soldier, with a small knapsack on his back, who had

halted near them.

“I have come from my government to join my regiment,” replied the

soldier, turning his eyes away from the watermelon, and readjusting the

sack on his back. “There we were, two weeks ago, at work on the hay, a

whole troop of us; but now they have drafted all of us, and we don’t

know where our regiment is at the present time. They say that our men

went on the Korabelnaya last week. Have you heard anything, gentlemen?”

“It’s stationed in the town, brother,” said the second, an old soldier

of the reserves, digging away with his clasp-knife at the white, unripe

melon. “We have just come from there, this afternoon. It’s terrible, my

brother!”

“How so, gentlemen?”

“Don’t you hear how they are firing all around to-day, so that there is

not a whole spot anywhere? It is impossible to say how many of our

brethren have been killed.” And the speaker waved his hand and adjusted

his cap.

The passing soldier shook his head thoughtfully, gave a clack with his

tongue, then pulled his pipe from his boot-leg, and, without filling it,

stirred up the half-burned tobacco, lit a bit of tinder from the soldier

who was smoking, and raised his cap.

“There is no one like God, gentlemen! Good-bye,” said he, and, with a

shake of the sack on his back, he went his way.

“Hey, there! you’d better wait,” said the man who was digging out the

watermelon, with an air of conviction.

“It makes no difference!” muttered the traveller, threading his way

among the wheels of the assembled transports.

III.

The posting-station was full of people when Kozeltzoff drove up to it.

The first person whom he encountered, on the porch itself, was a thin

and very young man, the superintendent, who continued his altercation

with two officers, who had followed him out.

“It’s not three days only, but ten that you will have to wait. Even

generals wait, my good sirs!” said the superintendent, with a desire to

administer a prick to the travellers; “and I am not going to harness up

for you.”

“Then don’t give anybody horses, if there are none! But why furnish them

to some lackey or other with baggage?” shouted the elder of the two

officers, with a glass of tea in his hand, and plainly avoiding the use

of pronouns,[10] but giving it to be understood that he might very

easily address the superintendent as “thou.”

“Judge for yourself, now, Mr. Superintendent,” said the younger officer,

with some hesitation. “We don’t want to go for our own pleasure. We must

certainly be needed, since we have been called for. And I certainly

shall report to the general. But this, of course,—you know that you are

not paying proper respect to the military profession.”

“You are always spoiling things,” the elder man interrupted, with

vexation. “You only hinder me; you must know how to talk to them. Here,

now, he has lost his respect. Horses this very instant, I say!”

“I should be glad to give them to you, bátiushka,[11] but where am I to

get them?”

After a brief silence, the superintendent began to grow irritated, and

to talk, flourishing his hands the while.

“I understand, bátiushka. And I know all about it myself. But what are

you going to do? Only give me”—here a ray of hope gleamed across the

faces of the officers—“only give me a chance to live until the end of

the month, and you won’t see me here any longer. I’d rather go on the

Malakhoff tower, by Heavens! than stay here. Let them do what they

please about it! There’s not a single sound team in the station this

day, and the horses haven’t seen a wisp of hay these three days.” And

the superintendent disappeared behind the gate.

Kozeltzoff entered the room in company with the officers.

“Well,” said the elder officer, quite calmly, to the younger one,

although but a second before he had appeared to be greatly irritated,

“we have been travelling these three weeks, and we will wait a little

longer. There’s no harm done. We shall get there at last.”

The dirty, smoky apartment was so filled with officers and trunks that

it was with difficulty that Kozeltzoff found a place near the window,

where he seated himself; he began to roll himself a cigarette, as he

glanced at the faces and lent an ear to the conversations.

To the right of the door, near a crippled and greasy table, upon which

stood two samovárs, whose copper had turned green in spots, here and

there, and where sugar was portioned out in various papers, sat the

principal group. A young officer, without moustache, in a new, short,

wadded summer coat, was pouring water into the teapot.

Four such young officers were there, in different corners of the room.

One of them had placed a cloak under his head, and was fast asleep on

the sofa. Another, standing by the table, was cutting up some roast

mutton for an officer without an arm, who was seated at the table.

Two officers, one in an adjutant’s cloak, the other in an infantry

cloak, a thin one however, and with a satchel strapped over his

shoulder, were sitting near the oven bench, and it was evident, from the

very way in which they stared at the rest, and from the manner in which

the one with the satchel smoked his cigar, that they were not line

officers on duty at the front, and that they were delighted at it.

Not that there was any scorn apparent in their manner, but there was a

certain self-satisfied tranquillity, founded partly on money and partly

on their close intimacy with generals, a certain consciousness of

superiority which even extended to a desire to hide it.

A thick-lipped young doctor and an officer of artillery, with a German

cast of countenance, were seated almost on the feet of the young officer

who was sleeping on the sofa, and counting over their money.

There were four officers’ servants, some dozing and others busy with the

trunks and packages near the door.

Among all these faces, Kozeltzoff did not find a single familiar one;

but he began to listen with curiosity to the conversation. The young

officers, who, as he decided from their looks alone, had but just come

out of the military academy, pleased him, and, what was the principal

point, they reminded him that his brother had also come from the

academy, and should have joined recently one of the batteries of

Sevastopol.

But the officer with the satchel, whose face he had seen before

somewhere, seemed bold and repulsive to him. He even left the window,

and, going to the stove-bench, seated himself on it, with the thought

that he would put the fellow down if he took it into his head to say

anything. In general, purely as a brave “line” officer, he did not like

“the staff,” such as he had recognized these two officers to be at the

first glance.

IV.

“But this is dreadfully annoying,” said one of the young officers, “to

be so near, and yet not be able to get there. Perhaps there will be an

action this very day, and we shall not be there.”

In the sharp voice and the mottled freshness of the color that swept

across the youthful face of this officer as he spoke there was apparent

the sweet young timidity of the man who is constantly afraid lest his

every word shall not turn out exactly right.

The one-armed officer glanced at him with a smile.

“You will get there soon enough, I assure you,” he said.

The young officer looked with respect at the haggard face of the armless

officer, so unexpectedly illuminated by a smile, held his peace for a

while, and busied himself once more with his tea. In fact, the one-armed

officer’s face, his attitude, and, most of all, the empty sleeve of his

coat, expressed much of that tranquil indifference that may be explained

in this way—that he looked upon every conversation and every occurrence

as though saying, “That is all very fine; I know all about that, and I

can do a little of that myself, if I only choose.”

“What is our decision to be?” said the young officer again to his

companion in the short coat. “Shall we pass the night here, or shall we

proceed with our own horses?”

His comrade declined to proceed.

“Just imagine, captain,” said the one who was pouring the tea, turning

to the one-armed man, and picking up the knife that the latter had

dropped, “they told us that horses were frightfully dear in Sevastopol,

so we bought a horse in partnership at Simferopol.”

“They made you pay pretty high for it, I fancy.”

“Really, I do not know, captain; we paid ninety rubles for it and the

team. Is that very dear?” he added, turning to all the company, and to

Kozeltzoff, who was staring at him.

“It was not dear, if the horse is young,” said Kozeltzoff.

“Really! but they told us that it was dear. Only, she limps a little,

but that will pass off. They told us that she was very strong.”

“What academy are you from?” asked Kozeltzoff, who wished to inquire for

his brother.

“We are just from the academy of the nobility; there are six of us, and

we are on our way to Sevastopol at our own desire,” said the talkative

young officer. “But we do not know where our battery is; some say that

it is in Sevastopol, others that it is at Odessa.”

“Was it not possible to find out at Simferopol?” asked Kozeltzoff.

“They do not know there. Just imagine, one of our comrades went to the

headquarters there, and they were impertinent to him. You can imagine

how disagreeable that was! Would you like to have me make you a

cigarette,” he said at that moment to the one-armed officer, who was

just pulling out his cigarette-machine.

He waited on the latter with a sort of servile enthusiasm.

“And are you from Sevastopol also?” he went on. “Oh, good Heavens, how

wonderful that is! How much we did think of you, and of all our heroes,

in Petersburg,” he said, turning to Kozeltzoff with respect and

good-natured flattery.

“And now, perhaps, you may have to go back?” inquired the lieutenant.

“That is just what we are afraid of. You can imagine that, after having

bought the horse, and provided ourselves with all the necessaries,—a

coffee-pot with a spirit-lamp, and other indispensable trifles,—we have

no money left,” he said, in a low voice, as he glanced at his

companions; “so that, if we do have to go back, we don’t know what is to

be done.”

“Have you received no money for travelling expenses?” inquired

Kozeltzoff.

“No,” replied he, in a whisper; “they only promised to give it to us

here.”

“Have you the certificate?”

“I know that—the principal thing—is the certificate; but a senator in

Moscow,—he’s my uncle,—when I was at his house, said that they would

give it to us here; otherwise, he would have given me some himself. So

they will give it to us here?”

“Most certainly they will.”

“I too think that they will,” he said, in a tone which showed that,

after having made the same identical inquiry in thirty posting-stations,

and having everywhere received different answers, he no longer believed

any one implicitly.

V.

“Who ordered beet-soup?” called out the slatternly mistress of the

house, a fat woman of forty, as she entered the room with a bowl of

soup.

The conversation ceased at once, and all who were in the room fixed

their eyes on the woman.

“Ah, it was Kozeltzoff who ordered it,” said the young officer. “He must

be waked. Get up for your dinner,” he said, approaching the sleeper on

the sofa, and jogging his elbow.

A young lad of seventeen, with merry black eyes and red cheeks, sprang

energetically from the sofa, and stood in the middle of the room,

rubbing his eyes.

“Ah, excuse me, please,” he said to the doctor, whom he had touched in

rising.

Lieutenant Kozeltzoff recognized his brother immediately, and stepped up

to him.

“Don’t you know me?” he said with a smile.

“A-a-a-!” exclaimed the younger brother; “this is astonishing!” And he

began to kiss his brother.

They kissed twice, but stopped at the third repetition as though the

thought had occurred to both of them:—

“Why is it necessary to do it exactly three times?”

“Well, how delighted I am!” said the elder, looking at his brother. “Let

us go out on the porch; we can have a talk.”

“Come, come, I don’t want any soup. You eat it, Federsohn!” he said to

his comrade.

“But you wanted something to eat.”

“I don’t want anything.”

When they emerged on the porch, the younger kept asking his brother:

“Well, how are you; tell me all about it.” And still he kept on saying

how glad he was to see him, but he told nothing himself.

When five minutes had elapsed, during which time they had succeeded in

becoming somewhat silent, the elder brother inquired why the younger had

not gone into the guards, as they had all expected him to do.

He wanted to get to Sevastopol as speedily as possible, he said; for if

things turned out favorably there, he could get advancement more rapidly

there than in the guards. There it takes ten years to reach the grade of

colonel, while here Todleben had risen in two years from

lieutenant-colonel to general. Well, and if one did get killed, there

was nothing to be done.

“What a fellow you are!” said his brother, smiling.

“But the principal thing, do you know, brother,” said the younger,

smiling and blushing as though he were preparing to say something very

disgraceful, “all this is nonsense, and the principal reason why I asked

it was that I was ashamed to live in Petersburg when men are dying for

their country here. Yes, and I wanted to be with you,” he added, with

still greater shamefacedness.

“How absurd you are!” said the elder brother, pulling out his

cigarette-machine, and not even glancing at him. “It’s a pity, though,

that we can’t be together.”

“Now, honestly, is it so terrible in the bastions?” inquired the younger

man, abruptly.

“It is terrible at first, but you get used to it afterwards. It’s

nothing. You will see for yourself.”

“And tell me still another thing. What do you think?—will Sevastopol be

taken? I think that it will not.”

“God knows!”

“But one thing is annoying. Just imagine what bad luck! A whole bundle

was stolen from us on the road, and it had my shako in it, so that now I

am in a dreadful predicament; and I don’t know how I am to show myself.”

The younger Kozeltzoff, Vladímir, greatly resembled his brother Mikháïl,

but he resembled him as a budding rose-bush resembles one that is out of

flower. His hair was chestnut also, but it was thick and lay in curls on

his temples. On the soft white back of his neck there was a blond lock;

a sign of good luck, so the nurses say. The full-blooded crimson of

youth did not stand fixed on the soft, white hue of his face, but

flashed up and betrayed all the movements of his mind. He had the same

eyes as his brother, but they were more widely opened, and clearer,

which appeared the more peculiar because they were veiled frequently by

a slight moisture. A golden down was sprouting on his cheeks, and over

his ruddy lips, which were often folded into a shy smile, displaying

teeth of dazzling whiteness. He was a well formed and broad-shouldered

fellow, in unbuttoned coat, from beneath which was visible a red shirt

with collar turned back. As he stood before his brother, leaning his

elbows on the railing of the porch, with cigarette in hand and innocent

joy in his face and gesture, he was so agreeable and comely a youth that

any one would have gazed at him with delight. He was extremely pleased

with his brother, he looked at him with respect and pride, fancying him

his hero; but in some ways, so far as judgments on worldly culture,

ability to talk French, behavior in the society of distinguished people,

dancing, and so on, he was somewhat ashamed of him, looked down on him,

and even cherished a hope of improving him if such a thing were

possible.

All his impressions, so far, were from Petersburg, at the house of a

lady who was fond of good-looking young fellows, and who had had him

spend his holidays with her, and from Moscow, at the house of a senator,

where he had once danced at a great ball.

VI.

Having nearly talked their fill and having arrived at the feeling that

you frequently experience, that there is little in common between you,

though you love one another, the brothers were silent for a few moments.

“Pick up your things and we will set out at once,” said the elder.

The younger suddenly blushed, stammered, and became confused.

“Are we to go straight to Sevastopol?” he inquired, after a momentary

pause.

“Why, yes. You can’t have many things, and we can manage to carry them,

I think.”

“Very good! we will start at once,” said the younger, with a sigh, and

he went inside.

But he paused in the vestibule without opening the door, dropped his

head gloomily, and began to reflect.

“Straight to Sevastopol, on the instant, within range of the

bombs—frightful! It’s no matter, however; it must have come sometime.

Now, at all events, with my brother—”

The fact was that it was only now, at the thought that, once seated in

the cart, he should enter Sevastopol without dismounting from it, and

that no chance occurrence could any longer detain him, that the danger

which he was seeking clearly presented itself to him, and he was

troubled at the very thought of its nearness. He managed to control

himself in some way, and entered the room; but a quarter of an hour

elapsed, and still he had not rejoined his brother, so that the latter

opened the door at last, in order to call him. The younger Kozeltzoff,

in the attitude of a naughty school-boy, was saying something to an

officer named P. When his brother opened the door, he became utterly

confused.

“Immediately. I’ll come out in a minute!” he cried, waving his hand at

his brother. “Wait for me there, please.”

A moment later he emerged, in fact, and approached his brother, with a

deep sigh.

“Just imagine! I cannot go with you, brother,” he said.

“What? What nonsense is this?”

“I will tell you the whole truth, Misha! Not one of us has any money,

and we are all in debt to that staff-captain whom you saw there. It is

horribly mortifying!”

The elder brother frowned, and did not break the silence for a long

while.

“Do you owe much?” he asked, glancing askance at his brother.

“A great deal—no, not a great deal; but I am dreadfully ashamed of it.

He has paid for me for three stages, and all his sugar is gone, so that

I do not know—yes, and we played at preference. I am a little in his

debt there, too.”

“This is bad, Volodya! Now, what would you have done if you had not met

me?” said the elder, sternly, without looking at his brother.

“Why, I was thinking, brother, that I should get that travelling-money

at Sevastopol, and that I would give him that. Surely, that can be done;

and it will be better for me to go with him to-morrow.”

The elder brother pulled out his purse, and, with fingers that shook a

little, he took out two ten-ruble notes and one for three rubles.

“This is all the money I have,” said he. “How much do you owe?”

Kozeltzoff did not speak the exact truth when he said that this was all

the money he had. He had, besides, four gold pieces sewn into his cuff,

in case of an emergency; but he had taken a vow not to touch them.

It appeared that Kozeltzoff, what with preference and sugar, was in debt

to the amount of eight rubles only. The elder brother gave him this sum,

merely remarking that one should not play preference when one had no

money.

“What did you play for?”

The younger brother answered not a word. His brother’s question seemed

to him to cast a reflection on his honor. Vexation at himself, a shame

at his conduct, which could give rise to such a suspicion, and the

insult from his brother, of whom he was so fond, produced upon his

sensitive nature so deeply painful an impression that he made no reply.

Sensible that he was not in a condition to restrain the sobs which rose

in his throat, he took the money without glancing at it, and went back

to his comrades.

VII.

Nikolaeff, who had fortified himself at Duvanka, with two jugs of vodka,

purchased from a soldier who was peddling it on the bridge, gave the

reins a jerk, and the team jolted away over the stony road, shaded here

and there, which led along the Belbek to Sevastopol; but the brothers,

whose legs jostled each other, maintained a stubborn silence, although

they were thinking of each other every instant.

“Why did he insult me?” thought the younger. “Could he not have held his

tongue about that? It is exactly as though he thought that I was a

thief; yes, and now he is angry, apparently, so that we have quarrelled

for good. And how splendid it would have been for us to be together in

Sevastopol. Two brothers, on friendly terms, both fighting the foe! one

of them, the elder, though not very cultivated, yet a valiant warrior,

and the other younger, but a brave fellow too. In a week’s time I would

have showed them that I am not such a youngster after all! I shall cease

to blush, there will be manliness in my countenance, and, though my

moustache is not very large now, it would grow to a good size by that

time;” and he felt of the down which was making its appearance round the

edges of his mouth. “Perhaps we shall arrive to-day, and get directly

into the conflict, my brother and I. He must be obstinate and very

brave, one of those who do not say much, but act better than others. I

should like to know,” he continued, “whether he is squeezing me against

the side of the wagon on purpose or not. He probably is conscious that I

feel awkward, and he is pretending not to notice me. We shall arrive

to-day,” he went on with his argument, pressing close to the side of the

wagon, and fearing to move lest his brother should observe that he was

uncomfortable, “and, all at once, we shall go straight to the bastion.

We shall both go together, I with my equipments, and my brother with his

company. All of a sudden, the French throw themselves on us. I begin to

fire, and fire on them. I kill a terrible number; but they still

continue to run straight at me. Now, it is impossible to fire any

longer, and there is no hope for me; all at once my brother rushes out

in front with his sword, and I grasp my gun, and we rush on with the

soldiers. The French throw themselves on my brother. I hasten up; I kill

one Frenchman, then another, and I save my brother. I am wounded in one

arm; I seize my gun with the other, and continue my flight; but my

brother is slain by my side by the bullets. I halt for a moment, and

gaze at him so sorrowfully; then I straighten myself up and shout:

‘Follow me! We will avenge him! I loved my brother more than any one in

the world,’ I shall say, ‘and I have lost him. Let us avenge him! Let us

annihilate the foe, or let us all die together there!’ All shout, and

fling themselves after me. Then the whole French army makes a sortie,

including even Pelissier himself. We all fight; but, at last, I am

wounded a second, a third time, and I fall, nearly dead. Then, all rush

up to me. Gortchakoff comes up and asks what I would like. I say that I

want nothing—except that I may be laid beside my brother; that I wish to

die with him. They carry me, and lay me down by the side of my brother’s

bloody corpse. Then I shall raise myself, and merely say: ‘Yes, you did

not understand how to value two men who really loved their father-land;

now they have both fallen,—and may God forgive you!’ and I shall die.

Who knows in what measure these dreams will be realized?

“Have you ever been in a hand to hand fight?” he suddenly inquired of

his brother, quite forgetting that he had not meant to speak to him.

“No, not once,” answered the elder. “Our regiment has lost two thousand

men, all on the works; and I, also, was wounded there. War is not

carried on in the least as you fancy, Volodya.”

The word “Volodya” touched the younger brother. He wanted to come to an

explanation with his brother, who had not the least idea that he had

offended Volodya.

“You are not angry with me, Misha?” he said, after a momentary silence.

“What about?”

“No, because—because we had such a—nothing.”

“Not in the least,” replied the elder, turning to him, and slapping him

on the leg.

“Then forgive me, Misha, if I have wounded you.”

And the younger brother turned aside, in order to hide the tears that

suddenly started to his eyes.

VIII.

“Is this Sevastopol already?” asked the younger brother, as they

ascended the hill.

And before them appeared the bay, with its masts of ships, its shipping,

and the sea, with the hostile fleet, in the distance; the white

batteries on the shore, the barracks, the aqueducts, the docks and the

buildings of the town, and the white and lilac clouds of smoke rising

incessantly over the yellow hills, which surrounded the town and stood

out against the blue sky, in the rosy rays of the sun, which was

reflected by the waves, and sinking towards the horizon of the shadowy

sea.

Volodya, without a shudder, gazed upon this terrible place of which he

had thought so much; on the contrary, he did so with an æsthetic

enjoyment, and a heroic sense of self-satisfaction at the idea that here

he was—he would be there in another half-hour, that he would behold that

really charmingly original spectacle—and he stared with concentrated

attention from that moment until they arrived at the north

fortification, at the baggage-train of his brother’s regiment, where

they were to ascertain with certainty the situations of the regiment and

the battery.

The officer in charge of the train lived near the so-called new town

(huts built of boards by the sailors’ families), in a tent, connecting

with a tolerably large shed, constructed out of green oak-boughs, that

were not yet entirely withered.

The brothers found the officer seated before a greasy table, upon which

stood a glass of cold tea, a tray with vodka, crumbs of dry sturgeon

roe, and bread, clad only in a shirt of a dirty yellow hue, and engaged

in counting a huge pile of bank-bills on a large abacus.

But before describing the personality of the officer, and his

conversation, it is indispensable that we should inspect with more

attention the interior of his shed, and become a little acquainted, at

least, with his mode of life and his occupations. The new shed, like

those built for generals and regimental commanders, was large, closely

wattled, and comfortably arranged, with little tables and benches, made

of turf. The sides and roof were hung with three rugs, to keep the

leaves from showering down, and, though extremely ugly, they were new,

and certainly costly.

Upon the iron bed, which stood beneath the principal rug, with a young

amazon depicted on it, lay a plush coverlet, of a brilliant crimson, a

torn and dirty pillow, and a raccoon cloak. On the table stood a mirror,

in a silver frame, a silver brush, frightfully dirty, a broken horn

comb, full of greasy hair, a silver candlestick, a bottle of liqueur,

with a huge gold and red label, a gold watch, with a portrait of Peter

I., two gold pens, a small box, containing pills of some sort, a crust

of bread, and some old, castaway cards, and there were bottles, both

full and empty, under the bed.

This officer had charge of the commissariat of the regiment and the

fodder of the horses. With him lived his great friend, the commissioner

who had charge of the operations.

At the moment when the brothers entered, the latter was asleep in the

booth, and the commissary officer was making up his accounts of the

government money, in anticipation of the end of the month. The

commissary officer had a very comely and warlike exterior. His stature

was tall, his moustache huge, and he possessed a respectable amount of

plumpness. The only disagreeable points about him were a certain

perspiration and puffiness of the whole face, which almost concealed his

small gray eyes (as though he was filled up with porter), and an

excessive lack of cleanliness, from his thin, greasy hair to his big,

bare feet, thrust into some sort of ermine slippers.

“Money, money!” said Kozeltzoff number one, entering the shed, and

fixing his eyes, with involuntary greed, upon the pile of bank-notes.

“You might lend me half of that, Vasíly Mikhaïlitch!”

The commissary officer cringed at the sight of his visitors, and,

sweeping up his money, he bowed to them without rising.

“Oh, if it only belonged to me! It’s government money, my dear fellow.

And who is this you have with you?” said he, thrusting the money into a

coffer which stood beside him, and staring at Volodya.

“This is my brother, who has just come from the military academy. We

have both come to learn from you where our regiment is stationed.”

“Sit down, gentlemen,” said the officer, rising, and going into the

shed, without paying any heed to his guests. “Won’t you have something

to drink? Some porter, for instance?” said he.

“Don’t put yourself out, Vasíly Mikhaïlitch.”

Volodya was impressed by the size of the commissary officer, by his

carelessness of manner, and by the respect with which his brother

addressed him.

“It must be that this is one of their very fine officers, whom every one

respects. Really, he is simple, but hospitable and brave,” he thought,

seating himself in a timid and modest manner on the sofa.

“Where is our regiment stationed, then?” called out his elder brother

into the board hut.

“What?”

He repeated his query.

“Zeifer has been here to-day. He told me that they had removed to the

fifth bastion.”

“Is that true?”

“If I say so, it must be true; but the deuce only knows anyway! He would

think nothing of telling a lie. Won’t you have some porter?” said the

commissary officer, still from the tent.

“I will if you please,” said Kozeltzoff.

“And will you have a drink, Osip Ignatievitch?” went on the voice in the

tent, apparently addressing the sleeping commissioner. “You have slept

enough; it’s five o’clock.”

“Why do you worry me? I am not asleep,” answered a shrill, languid

little voice.

“Come, get up! we find it stupid without you.”

And the commissary officer came out to his guests.

“Fetch some Simferopol porter!” he shouted.

A servant entered the booth, with a haughty expression of countenance,

as it seemed to Volodya, and, having jostled Volodya, he drew forth the

porter from beneath the bench.

The bottle of porter was soon emptied, and the conversation had

proceeded in the same style for rather a long time when the flap of the

tent flew open and out stepped a short, fresh-colored man, in a blue

dressing-gown with tassels, in a cap with a red rim and a cockade. At

the moment of his appearance, he was smoothing his small black

moustache, and, with his gaze fixed on the rugs, he replied to the

greetings of the officer with a barely perceptible movement of the

shoulders.

“I will drink a small glassful too!” said he, seating himself by the

table. “What is this, have you come from Petersburg, young man?” he

said, turning courteously to Volodya.

“Yes, sir, I am on my way to Sevastopol.”

“Did you make the application yourself?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What queer tastes you have, gentlemen! I do not understand it!”

continued the commissioner. “It strikes me that I should be ready just

now to travel on foot to Petersburg, if I could get away. By Heavens, I

am tired of this cursed life!”

“What is there about it that does not suit you?” said the elder

Kozeltzoff, turning to him. “You’re the very last person to complain of

life here!”

The commissioner cast a look upon him, and then turned away.

“This danger, these privations, it is impossible to get anything here,”

he continued, addressing Volodya. “And why you should take such a freak,

gentlemen, I really cannot understand. If there were any advantages to

be derived from it, but there is nothing of the sort. It would be a nice

thing, now, wouldn’t it, if you, at your age, were to be left a cripple

for life!”

“Some need the money, and some serve for honor’s sake!” said the elder

Kozeltzoff, in a tone of vexation, joining the discussion once more.

“What’s the good of honor, when there’s nothing to eat!” said the

commissioner with a scornful laugh, turning to the commissary, who also

laughed at this. “Give us something from ‘Lucia’; we will listen,” he

said, pointing to the music-box. “I love it.”

“Well, is that Vasíly Mikhaïlitch a fine man?” Volodya asked his brother

when they emerged, at dusk, from the booth, and pursued their way to

Sevastopol.

“Not at all; but such a niggard that it is a perfect terror! And I can’t

bear the sight of that commissioner, and I shall give him a thrashing

one of these days.”

IX.

Volodya was not precisely out of sorts when, nearly at nightfall, they

reached the great bridge over the bay, but he felt a certain heaviness

at his heart. All that he had heard and seen was so little in consonance

with the impressions which had recently passed away; the huge, light

examination hall, with its polished floor, the kind and merry voices and

laughter of his comrades, the new uniform, his beloved tsar, whom he had

been accustomed to see for the last seven years, and who, when he took

leave of them, had called them his children, with tears in his eyes,—and

everything that he had seen so little resembled his very beautiful,

rainbow-hued, magnificent dreams.

“Well, here we are at last!” said the elder brother, when they arrived

at the Mikhaïlovsky battery, and dismounted from their cart. “If they

let us pass the bridge, we will go directly to the Nikolaevsky barracks.

You stay there until morning, and I will go to the regiment and find out

where your battery is stationed, and to-morrow I will come for you.”

“But why? It would be better if we both went together,” said Volodya; “I

will go to the bastion with you. It won’t make any difference; I shall

have to get used to it. If you go, then I can too.”

“Better not go.”

“No, if you please; I do know, at least, that....”

“My advice is, not to go; but if you choose....”

The sky was clear and dark; the stars, and the fires of the bombs in

incessant movement and discharges, were gleaming brilliantly through the

gloom. The large white building of the battery, and the beginning of the

bridge stood out in the darkness. Literally, every second several

discharges of artillery and explosions, following each other in quick

succession or occurring simultaneously, shook the air with increasing

thunder and distinctness. Through this roar, and as though repeating it,

the melancholy dash of the waves was audible. A faint breeze was drawing

in from the sea, and the air was heavy with moisture. The brothers

stepped upon the bridge. A soldier struck his gun awkwardly against his

arm, and shouted:—

“Who goes there?”

“A soldier.”

“The orders are not to let any one pass!”

“What of that! We have business! We must pass!”

“Ask the officer.”

The officer, who was drowsing as he sat on an anchor, rose up and gave

the order to let them pass.

“You can go that way, but not this. Where are you driving to, all in a

heap!” he cried to the transport wagons piled high with gabions, which

had clustered about the entrance.

As they descended to the first pontoon, the brothers encountered

soldiers who were coming thence, and talking loudly.

“If he has received his ammunition money, then he has squared his

accounts in full—that’s what it is!”

“Eh, brothers!” said another voice, “when you get over on the Severnaya

you will see the world, by heavens! The air is entirely different.”

“You may say more!” said the first speaker. “A cursed shell flew in

there the other day, and it tore the legs off of two sailors, so

that....”

The brothers traversed the first pontoon, while waiting for the wagon,

and halted on the second, which was already flooded with water in parts.

The breeze, which had seemed weak inland, was very powerful here, and

came in gusts; the bridge swayed to and fro, and the waves, beating

noisily against the beams, and tearing at the cables and anchors,

flooded the planks. At the right the gloomily hostile sea roared and

darkled, as it lay separated by an interminable level black line from

the starry horizon, which was light gray in its gleam; lights flashed

afar on the enemy’s fleet; on the left towered the black masts of one of

our vessels, and the waves could be heard as they beat against her hull;

a steamer was visible, as it moved noisily and swiftly from the

Severnaya.

The flash of a bomb, as it burst near it, illuminated for a moment the

lofty heaps of gabions on the deck, two men who were standing on it, and

the white foam and the spurts of greenish waves, as the steamer ploughed

through them. On the edge of the bridge, with his legs dangling in the

water, sat a man in his shirt-sleeves, who was repairing something

connected with the bridge. In front, over Sevastopol, floated the same

fires, and the terrible sounds grew louder and louder. A wave rolled in

from the sea, flowed over the right side of the bridge, and wet

Volodya’s feet; two soldiers passed them, dragging their feet through

the water. Something suddenly burst with a crash and lighted up the

bridge ahead of them, the wagon driving over it, and a man on horseback.

The splinters fell into the waves with a hiss, and sent up the water in

splashes.

“Ah, Mikhaïlo Semyónitch!” said the rider, stopping, reining in his

horse in front of the elder Kozeltzoff, “have you fully recovered

already?”

“As you see. Whither is God taking you?”

“To the Severnaya, for cartridges; I am on my way to the adjutant of the

regiment ... we expect an assault to-morrow, at any hour.”

“And where is Martzoff?”

“He lost a leg yesterday; he was in the town, asleep in his room....

Perhaps you know it?”

“The regiment is in the fifth bastion, isn’t it?”

“Yes; it has taken the place of the M—— regiment. Go to the

field-hospital; some of our men are there, and they will show you the

way.”

“Well, and are my quarters on the Morskaya still intact?”

“Why, my good fellow, they were smashed to bits long ago by the bombs.

You will not recognize Sevastopol now; there’s not a single woman there

now, nor any inns nor music; the last establishment took its departure

yesterday. It has become horribly dismal there now.... Farewell!”

And the officer rode on his way at a trot.

All at once, Volodya became terribly frightened; it seemed to him as

though a cannon-ball or a splinter of bomb would fly in their direction,

and strike him directly on the head. This damp darkness, all these

sounds, especially the angry splashing of the waves, seemed to be saying

to him that he ought not to go any farther, that nothing good awaited

him yonder, that he would never again set foot on the ground upon this

side of the bay, that he must turn about at once, and flee somewhere or

other, as far as possible from this terrible haunt of death. “But

perhaps it is too late now, everything is settled,” thought he,

trembling partly at this thought and partly because the water had soaked

through his boots and wet his feet.

Volodya heaved a deep sigh, and went a little apart from his brother.

“Lord, will they kill me—me in particular? Lord, have mercy on me!” said

he, in a whisper, and he crossed himself.

“Come, Volodya, let us go on!” said the elder brother, when their little

cart had driven upon the bridge. “Did you see that bomb?”

On the bridge, the brothers met wagons filled with the wounded, with

gabions, and one loaded with furniture, which was driven by a woman. On

the further side no one detained them.

Clinging instinctively to the walls of the Nikolaevsky battery, the

brothers listened in silence to the noise of the bombs, exploding

overhead, and to the roar of the fragments, showering down from above,

and came to that spot in the battery where the image was. There they

learned that the fifth light battery, to which Volodya had been

assigned, was stationed on the Korabelnaya, and they decided that he

should go, in spite of the danger, and pass the night with the elder in

the fifth bastion, and that he should from there join his battery the

next day. They turned into the corridor, stepping over the legs of the

sleeping soldiers, who were lying all along the walls of the battery,

and at last they arrived at the place where the wounded were attended

to.

X.

As they entered the first room, surrounded with cots on which lay the

wounded, and permeated with that frightful and disgusting hospital odor,

they met two Sisters of Mercy, who were coming to meet them.

One woman, of fifty, with black eyes, and a stern expression of

countenance, was carrying bandages and lint, and was giving strict

orders to a young fellow, an assistant surgeon, who was following her;

the other, a very pretty girl of twenty, with a pale and delicate little

fair face, gazed in an amiably helpless way from beneath her white cap,

held her hands in the pockets of her apron, as she walked beside the

elder woman, and seemed to be afraid to quit her side.

Kozeltzoff addressed to them the question whether they knew where

Martzoff was—the man whose leg had been torn off on the day before.

“He belonged to the P—— regiment, did he not?” inquired the elder. “Is

he a relative of yours?”

“No, a comrade.”

“Show them the way,” said she, in French, to the young sister. “Here,

this way,” and she approached a wounded man, in company with the

assistant.

“Come along; what are you staring at?” said Kozeltzoff to Volodya, who,

with uplifted eyebrows and somewhat suffering expression of countenance,

could not tear himself away, but continued to stare at the wounded.

“Come, let us go.”

Volodya went off with his brother, still continuing to gaze about him,

however, and repeating unconsciously:—

“Ah, my God! Ah, my God!”

“He has probably not been here long?” inquired the sister of Kozeltzoff,

pointing at Volodya, who, groaning and sighing, followed them through

the corridor.

“He has but just arrived.”

The pretty little sister glanced at Volodya, and suddenly burst out

crying. “My God! my God! when will there be an end to all this?” she

said, with the accents of despair. They entered the officer’s hut.

Martzoff was lying on his back, with his muscular arms, bare to the

elbow, thrown over his head, and with the expression on his yellow face

of a man who is clenching his teeth in order to keep from shrieking with

pain. His whole leg, in its stocking, was thrust outside the coverlet,

and it could be seen how he was twitching his toes convulsively inside

it.

“Well, how goes it, how do you feel?” asked the sister, raising his bald

head with her slender, delicate fingers, on one of which Volodya noticed

a gold ring, and arranging his pillow. “Here are some of your comrades

come to inquire after you.”

“Badly, of course,” he answered, angrily. “Let me alone! it’s all

right,”—the toes in his stocking moved more rapidly than ever. “How do

you do? What is your name? Excuse me,” he said, turning to

Kozeltzoff.... “Ah, yes, I beg your pardon! one forgets everything

here,” he said, when the latter had mentioned his name. “You and I lived

together,” he added, without the slightest expression of pleasure,

glancing interrogatively at Volodya.

“This is my brother, who has just arrived from Petersburg to-day.”

“Hm! Here I have finished my service,” he said, with a frown. “Ah, how

painful it is!... The best thing would be a speedy end.”

He drew up his leg, and covered his face with his hands, continuing to

move his toes with redoubled swiftness.

“You must leave him,” said the sister, in a whisper, while the tears

stood in her eyes; “he is in a very bad state.”

The brothers had already decided on the north side to go to the fifth

bastion; but, on emerging from the Nikolaevsky battery, they seemed to

have come to a tacit understanding not to subject themselves to

unnecessary danger, and, without discussing the subject, they determined

to go their ways separately.

“Only, how are you to find your way, Volodya?” said the elder. “However,

Nikolaeff will conduct you to the Korabelnaya, and I will go my way

alone, and will be with you to-morrow.”

Nothing more was said at this last leave-taking between the brothers.

XI.

The thunder of the cannon continued with the same power as before, but

Yekaterinskaya street, along which Volodya walked, followed by the

taciturn Nikolaeff, was quiet and deserted. All that he could see,

through the thick darkness, was the wide street with the white walls of

large houses, battered in many places, and the stone sidewalk beneath

his feet; now and then, he met soldiers and officers. As he passed along

the left side of the street, near the Admiralty building, he perceived,

by the light of a bright fire burning behind the wall, the acacias

planted along the sidewalk, with green guards beneath, and the

wretchedly dusty leaves of these acacias.

He could plainly hear his own steps and those of Nikolaeff, who followed

him, breathing heavily. He thought of nothing; the pretty little Sister

of Mercy, Martzoff’s leg with the toes twitching in its stocking, the

bombs, the darkness, and divers pictures of death floated hazily through

his mind. All his young and sensitive soul shrank together, and was

borne down by his consciousness of loneliness, and the indifference of

every one to his fate in the midst of danger.

“They will kill me, I shall be tortured, I shall suffer, and no one will

weep.” And all this, instead of the hero’s life, filled with energy and

sympathy, of which he had cherished such glorious dreams. The bombs

burst and shrieked nearer and ever nearer. Nikolaeff sighed more

frequently, without breaking the silence. On crossing the bridge leading

to the Korabelnaya, he saw something fly screaming into the bay, not far

from him, which lighted up the lilac waves for an instant with a crimson

glow, then disappeared, and threw on high a cloud of foam.

“See there, it was not put out!” said Nikolaeff, hoarsely.

“Yes,” answered Volodya, involuntarily, and quite unexpectedly to

himself, in a thin, piping voice.

They encountered litters with wounded men, then more regimental

transports with gabions; they met a regiment on Korabelnaya street; men

on horseback passed them. One of them was an officer, with his Cossack.

He was riding at a trot, but, on catching sight of Volodya, he reined in

his horse near him, looked into his face, turned and rode on, giving the

horse a blow of his whip.

“Alone, alone; it is nothing to any one whether I am in existence or

not,” thought the lad, and he felt seriously inclined to cry.

After ascending the hill, past a high white wall, he entered a street of

small ruined houses, incessantly illuminated by bombs. A drunken and

dishevelled woman, who was coming out of a small door in company with a

sailor, ran against him.

“If he were only a fine man,” she grumbled,—“Pardon, Your Honor the

officer.”

The poor boy’s heart sank lower and lower, and more and more frequently

flashed the lightnings against the dark horizon, and the bombs screamed

and burst about him with ever increasing frequency. Nikolaeff sighed,

and all at once he began to speak, in what seemed to Volodya a

frightened and constrained tone.

“What haste we made to get here from home. It was nothing but

travelling. A pretty place to be in a hurry to get to!”

“What was to be done, if my brother was well again,” replied Volodya, in

hope that he might banish by conversation the frightful feeling that was

taking possession of him.

“Well, what sort of health is it when he is thoroughly ill! Those who

are really well had better stay in the hospital at such a time. A vast

deal of joy there is about it, isn’t there? You will have a leg or an

arm torn off, and that’s all you will get! It’s not far removed from a

downright sin! And here in the town it’s not at all like the bastion,

and that is a perfect terror. You go and you say your prayers the whole

way. Eh, you beast, there you go whizzing past!” he added, directing his

attention to the sound of a splinter of shell whizzing by near them.

“Now, here,” Nikolaeff went on, “I was ordered to show Your Honor the

way. My business, of course, is to do as I am bid; but the cart has been

abandoned to some wretch of a soldier, and the bundle is undone.... Go

on and on; but if any of the property disappears, Nikolaeff will have to

answer for it.”

After proceeding a few steps further, they came out on a square.

Nikolaeff held his peace, but sighed.

“Yonder is your artillery, Your Honor!” he suddenly said. “Ask the

sentinel; he will show you.”

And Volodya, after he had taken a few steps more, ceased to hear the

sound of Nikolaeff’s sighs behind him.

All at once, he felt himself entirely and finally alone. This

consciousness of solitude in danger, before death, as it seemed to him,

lay upon his heart like a terribly cold and heavy stone.

He halted in the middle of the square, glanced about him, to see whether

he could catch sight of any one, grasped his head, and uttered his

thought aloud in his terror:—“Lord! Can it be that I am a coward, a

vile, disgusting, worthless coward ... can it be that I so lately

dreamed of dying with joy for my father-land, my tsar? No, I am a

wretched, an unfortunate, a wretched being!” And Volodya, with a genuine

sentiment of despair and disenchantment with himself, inquired of the

sentinel for the house of the commander of the battery, and set out in

the direction indicated.

XII.

The residence of the commander of the battery, which the sentinel had

pointed out to him, was a small, two-story house, with an entrance on

the court-yard. In one of the windows, which was pasted over with paper,

burned the feeble flame of a candle. A servant was seated on the porch,

smoking his pipe; he went in and announced Volodya to the commander, and

then led him in. In the room, between the two windows, and beneath a

shattered mirror, stood a table, heaped with official documents, several

chairs, and an iron bedstead, with a clean pallet, and a small bed-rug

by its side.

Near the door stood a handsome man, with a large moustache,—a sergeant,

in sabre and cloak, on the latter of which hung a cross and a Hungarian

medal. Back and forth in the middle of the room paced a short

staff-officer of forty, with swollen cheeks bound up, and dressed in a

thin old coat.

“I have the honor to report myself, Cornet Kozeltzoff, 2d, ordered to

the fifth light battery,” said Volodya, uttering the phrase which he had

learned by heart, as he entered the room.

The commander of the battery responded dryly to his greeting, and,

without offering his hand, invited him to be seated.

Volodya dropped timidly into a chair, beside the writing-table, and

began to twist in his fingers the scissors, which his hand happened to

light upon. The commander of the battery put his hands behind his back,

and, dropping his head, pursued his walk up and down the room, in

silence, only bestowing an occasional glance at the hands which were

twirling the scissors, with the aspect of a man who is trying to recall

something.

The battery commander was a rather stout man, with a large bald spot on

the crown of his head, a thick moustache, which drooped straight down

and concealed his mouth, and pleasant brown eyes. His hands were

handsome, clean, and plump; his feet small and well turned, and they

stepped out in a confident and rather dandified manner, proving that the

commander was not a timid man.

“Yes,” he said, coming to a halt in front of the sergeant; “a measure

must be added to the grain to-morrow, or our horses will be getting

thin. What do you think?”

“Of course, it is possible to do so, Your Excellency! Oats are very

cheap just now,” replied the sergeant, twitching his fingers, which he

held on the seams of his trousers, but which evidently liked to assist

in the conversation. “Our forage-master, Franchuk, sent me a note

yesterday, from the transports, Your Excellency, saying that we should

certainly be obliged to purchase oats; they say they are cheap.

Therefore, what are your orders?”

“To buy, of course. He has money, surely.” And the commander resumed his

tramp through the room. “And where are your things?” he suddenly

inquired of Volodya, as he paused in front of him.

Poor Volodya was so overwhelmed by the thought that he was a coward,

that he espied scorn for himself in every glance, in every word, as

though they had been addressed to a pitiable poltroon. It seemed to him

that the commander of the battery had already divined his secret, and

was making sport of him. He answered, with embarrassment, that his

effects were on the Grafskaya, and that his brother had promised to send

them to him on the morrow.

But the lieutenant-colonel was not listening to him, and, turning to the

sergeant, he inquired:—

“Where are we to put the ensign?”

“The ensign, sir?” said the sergeant, throwing Volodya into still

greater confusion by the fleeting glance which he cast upon him, and

which seemed to say, “What sort of an ensign is this?”—“He can be

quartered downstairs, with the staff-captain, Your Excellency,” he

continued, after a little reflection. “The captain is at the bastion

just now, and his cot is empty.”

“Will that not suit you, temporarily?” said the commander.—“I think you

must be tired, but we will lodge you better to-morrow.”

Volodya rose and bowed.

“Will you not have some tea?” said the commander, when he had already

reached the door. “The samovár can be brought in.”

Volodya saluted and left the room. The lieutenant-colonel’s servant

conducted him downstairs, and led him into a bare, dirty chamber, in

which various sorts of rubbish were lying about, and where there was an

iron bedstead without either sheets or coverlet. A man in a red shirt

was fast asleep on the bed, covered over with a thick cloak.

Volodya took him for a soldier.

“Piotr Nikolaïtch!” said the servant, touching the sleeper on the

shoulder. “The ensign is to sleep here.... This is our yunker,” he

added, turning to the ensign.

“Ah, don’t trouble him, please,” said Volodya; but the yunker, a tall,

stout, young man, with a handsome but very stupid face, rose from the

bed, threw on his cloak, and, evidently not having had a good sleep,

left the room.

“No matter; I’ll lie down in the yard,” he growled out.

XIII.

Left alone with his own thoughts, Volodya’s first sensation was a fear

of the incoherent, forlorn state of his own soul. He wanted to go to

sleep, and forget all his surroundings, and himself most of all. He

extinguished the candle, lay down on the bed, and, taking off his coat,

he wrapped his head up in it, in order to relieve his terror of the

darkness, with which he had been afflicted since his childhood. But all

at once the thought occurred to him that a bomb might come and crush in

the roof and kill him. He began to listen attentively; directly

overhead, he heard the footsteps of the battery commander.

“Anyway, if it does come,” he thought, “it will kill any one who is

upstairs first, and then me; at all events, I shall not be the only

one.”

This thought calmed him somewhat.

“Well, and what if Sevastopol should be taken unexpectedly, in the

night, and the French make their way hither? What am I to defend myself

with?”

He rose once more, and began to pace the room. His terror of the actual

danger outweighed his secret fear of the darkness. There was nothing

heavy in the room except the samovár and a saddle. “I am a scoundrel, a

coward, a miserable coward!” the thought suddenly occurred to him, and

again he experienced that oppressive sensation of scorn and disgust,

even for himself. Again he threw himself on the bed, and tried not to

think.

Then the impressions of the day involuntarily penetrated his

imagination, in consequence of the unceasing sounds, which made the

glass in the solitary window rattle, and again the thought of danger

recurred to him: now he saw visions of wounded men and blood, now of

bombs and splinters, flying into the room, then of the pretty little

Sister of Mercy, who was applying a bandage to him, a dying man, and

weeping over him, then of his mother, accompanying him to the provincial

town, and praying, amid burning tears, before the wonder-working images,

and once more sleep appeared an impossibility to him.

But suddenly the thought of Almighty God, who can do all things, and who

hears every supplication, came clearly into his mind. He knelt down,

crossed himself, and folded his hands as he had been taught to do in his

childhood, when he prayed. This gesture, all at once, brought back to

him a consoling feeling, which he had long since forgotten.

“If I must die, if I must cease to exist, ‘thy will be done, Lord,’” he

thought; “let it be quickly; but if bravery is needed, and the firmness

which I do not possess, give them to me; deliver me from shame and

disgrace, which I cannot bear, but teach me what to do in order to

fulfil thy will.”

His childish, frightened, narrow soul was suddenly encouraged; it

cleared up, and caught sight of broad, brilliant, and new horizons.

During the brief period while this feeling lasted, he felt and thought

many other things, and soon fell asleep quietly and unconcernedly, to

the continuous sounds of the roar of the bombardment and the rattling of

the window-panes.

Great Lord! thou alone hast heard, and thou alone knowest those ardent,

despairing prayers of ignorance, of troubled repentance, those petitions

for the healing of the body and the enlightenment of the mind, which

have ascended to thee from that terrible precinct of death, from the

general who, a moment before, was thinking of his cross of the George on

his neck, and conscious in his terror of thy near presence, to the

simple soldier writhing on the bare earth of the Nikolaevsky battery,

and beseeching thee to bestow upon him there the reward, unconsciously

presaged, for all his sufferings.

XIV.

The elder Kozeltzoff, meeting on the street a soldier belonging to his

regiment, betook himself at once, in company with the man, to the fifth

bastion.

“Keep under the wall, Your Honor,” said the soldier.

“What for?”

“It’s dangerous, Your Honor; there’s one passing over,” said the

soldier, listening to the sound of a screaming cannon-ball, which struck

the dry road, on the other side of the street.

Kozeltzoff, paying no heed to the soldier, walked bravely along the

middle of the street.

These were the same streets, the same fires, even more frequent now, the

sounds, the groans, the encounters with the wounded, and the same

batteries, breastworks, and trenches, which had been there in the

spring, when he was last in Sevastopol; but, for some reason, all this

was now more melancholy, and, at the same time, more energetic, the

apertures in the houses were larger, there were no longer any lights in

the windows, with the exception of the Kushtchin house (the hospital),

not a woman was to be met with, the earlier tone of custom and freedom

from care no longer rested over all, but, instead, a certain impress of

heavy expectation, of weariness and earnestness.

But here is the last trench already, and here is the voice of a soldier

of the P—— regiment, who has recognized the former commander of his

company, and here stands the third battalion in the gloom, clinging

close to the wall, and lighted up now and then, for a moment, by the

discharges, and a sound of subdued conversation, and the rattling of

guns.

“Where is the commander of the regiment?” inquired Kozeltzoff.

“In the bomb-proofs with the sailors, Your Honor,” replied the soldier,

ready to be of service. “I will show you the way, if you like.”

From trench to trench the soldier led Kozeltzoff, to the small ditch in

the trench. In the ditch sat a sailor, smoking his pipe; behind him a

door was visible, through whose cracks shone a light.

“Can I enter?”

“I will announce you at once,” and the sailor went in through the door.

Two voices became audible on the other side of the door.

“If Prussia continues to observe neutrality,” said one voice, “then

Austria also....”

“What difference does Austria make,” said the second, “when the Slavic

lands ... well, ask him to come in.”

Kozeltzoff had never been in this casemate. He was struck by its

elegance. The floor was of polished wood, screens shielded the door. Two

bedsteads stood against the wall, in one corner stood a large ikon of

the mother of God, in a gilt frame, and before her burned a rose-colored

lamp.

On one of the beds, a naval officer, fully dressed, was sleeping. On the

other, by a table upon which stood two bottles of wine, partly empty,

sat the men who were talking—the new regimental commander and his

adjutant.

Although Kozeltzoff was far from being a coward, and was certainly not

guilty of any wrongdoing so far as his superior officers were concerned,

nor towards the regimental commander, yet he felt timid before the

colonel, who had been his comrade not long before, so proudly did this

colonel rise and listen to him.

“It is strange,” thought Kozeltzoff, as he surveyed his commander, “it

is only seven weeks since he took the regiment, and how visible already

is his power as regimental commander, in everything about him—in his

dress, his bearing, his look. Is it so very long,” thought he, “since

this Batrishtcheff used to carouse with us, and he wore a cheap cotton

shirt, and ate by himself, never inviting any one to his quarters, his

eternal meat-balls and curd-patties? But now! and that expression of

cold pride in his eyes, which says to you, ‘Though I am your comrade,

because I am a regimental commander of the new school, yet, believe me,

I am well aware that you would give half your life merely for the sake

of being in my place!’”

“You have been a long time in recovering,” said the colonel to

Kozeltzoff, coldly, with a stare.

“I was ill, colonel! The wound has not closed well even now.”

“Then there was no use in your coming,” said the colonel, casting an

incredulous glance at the captain’s stout figure. “You are,

nevertheless, in a condition to fulfil your duty?”

“Certainly I am, sir.”

“Well I’m very glad of that, sir. You will take the ninth company from

Ensign Zaitzoff—the one you had before; you will receive your orders

immediately.”

“I obey, sir.”

“Take care to send me the regimental adjutant when you arrive,” said the

regimental commander, giving him to understand, by a slight nod, that

his audience was at an end.

On emerging from the casemate, Kozeltzoff muttered something several

times, and shrugged his shoulders, as though pained, embarrassed, or

vexed at something, and vexed, not at the regimental commander (there

was no cause for that), but at himself, and he appeared to be

dissatisfied with himself and with everything about him.

XV.

Before going to his officers, Kozeltzoff went to greet his company, and

to see where it was stationed.

The breastwork of gabions, the shapes of the trenches, the cannons which

he passed, even the fragments of shot, bombs, over which he stumbled in

his path—all this, incessantly illuminated by the light of the firing,

was well known to him, all this had engraved itself in vivid colors on

his memory, three months before, during the two weeks which he had spent

in this very bastion, without once leaving it. Although there was much

that was terrible in these reminiscences, a certain charm of past things

was mingled with it, and he recognized the familiar places and objects

with pleasure, as though the two weeks spent there had been agreeable

ones. The company was stationed along the defensive wall toward the

sixth bastion.

Kozeltzoff entered the long casemate, utterly unprotected at the

entrance side, in which they had told him that the ninth company was

stationed. There was, literally, no room to set his foot in the

casemate, so filled was it, from the very entrance, with soldiers. On

one side burned a crooked tallow candle, which a recumbent soldier was

holding to illuminate the book which another one was spelling out

slowly. Around the candle, in the reeking half-light, heads were

visible, eagerly raised in strained attention to the reader. The little

book in question was a primer. As Kozeltzoff entered the casemate, he

heard the following:

“Pray-er af-ter lear-ning. I thank Thee, Crea-tor ...”

“Snuff that candle!” said a voice. “That’s a splendid book.” “My ... God

...” went on the reader.

When Kozeltzoff asked for the sergeant, the reader stopped, the soldiers

began to move about, coughed, and blew their noses, as they always do

after enforced silence. The sergeant rose near the group about the

reader, buttoning up his coat as he did so, and stepping over and on the

feet of those who had no room to withdraw them, and came forward to his

officer.

“How are you, brother? Do all these belong to our company?”

“I wish you health! Welcome on your return, Your Honor!” replied the

sergeant, with a cheerful and friendly look at Kozeltzoff. “Has Your

Honor recovered your health? Well, God be praised. It has been very dull

for us without you.”

It was immediately apparent that Kozeltzoff was beloved in the company.

In the depths of the casemate, voices could be heard. Their old

commander, who had been wounded, Mikhaïl Semyónitch Kozeltzoff, had

arrived, and so forth; some even approached, and the drummer

congratulated him.

“How are you, Obantchuk?” said Kozeltzoff. “Are you all right? Good-day,

children!” he said, raising his voice.

“We wish you health!” sounded through the casemate.

“How are you getting on, children?”

“Badly, Your Honor. The French are getting the better of us.—Fighting

from behind the fortifications is bad work, and that’s all there is

about it! and they won’t come out into the open field.”

“Perhaps luck is with me, and God will grant that they shall come out

into the field, children!” said Kozeltzoff. “It won’t be the first time

that you and I have taken a hand together: we’ll beat them again.”

“We’ll be glad to try it, Your Honor!” exclaimed several voices.

“And how about them—are they really bold?”

“Frightfully bold!” said the drummer, not loudly, but so that his words

were audible, turning to another soldier, as though justifying before

him the words of the commander, and persuading him that there was

nothing boastful or improbable in these words.

From the soldiers, Kozeltzoff proceeded to the defensive barracks and

his brother officers.

XVI.

In the large room of the barracks there was a great number of men;

naval, artillery, and infantry officers. Some were sleeping, others were

conversing, seated on the shot-chests and gun-carriages of the cannons

of the fortifications; others still, who formed a very numerous and

noisy group behind the arch, were seated upon two felt rugs, which had

been spread on the floor, and were drinking porter and playing cards.

“Ah! Kozeltzoff, Kozeltzoff! Capital! it’s a good thing that he has

come! He’s a brave fellow!... How’s your wound?” rang out from various

quarters. Here also it was evident that they loved him and were rejoiced

at his coming.

After shaking hands with his friends, Kozeltzoff joined the noisy group

of officers engaged in playing cards. There were some of his

acquaintances among them. A slender, handsome, dark-complexioned man,

with a long, sharp nose and a huge moustache, which began on his cheeks,

was dealing the cards with his thin, white, taper fingers, on one of

which there was a heavy gold seal ring. He was dealing straight on, and

carelessly, being evidently excited by something,—and merely desirous of

making a show of heedlessness. On his right, and beside him, lay a

gray-haired major, supporting himself on his elbow, and playing for half

a ruble with affected coolness, and settling up immediately. On his left

squatted an officer with a red, perspiring face, who was laughing and

jesting in a constrained way. When his cards won, he moved one hand

about incessantly in his empty trousers pocket. He was playing high, and

evidently no longer for ready money, which displeased the handsome,

dark-complexioned man. A thin and pallid officer with a bald head, and a

huge nose and mouth, was walking about the room, holding a large package

of bank-notes in his hand, staking ready money on the bank, and winning.

Kozeltzoff took a drink of vodka, and sat down by the players.

“Take a hand, Mikhaïl Semyónitch!” said the dealer to him; “you have

brought lots of money, I suppose.”

“Where should I get any money! On the contrary, I got rid of the last I

had in town.”

“The idea! Some one certainly must have fleeced you in Simpferopol.”

“I really have but very little,” said Kozeltzoff, but he was evidently

desirous that they should not believe him; then he unbuttoned his coat,

and took the old cards in his hand.

“I don’t care if I do try; there’s no knowing what the Evil One will do!

queer things do come about at times. But I must have a drink, to get up

my courage.”

And within a very short space of time he had drunk another glass of

vodka and several of porter, and had lost his last three rubles.

A hundred and fifty rubles were written down against the little,

perspiring officer.

“No, he will not bring them,” said he, carelessly, drawing a fresh card.

“Try to send it,” said the dealer to him, pausing a moment in his

occupation of laying out the cards, and glancing at him.

“Permit me to send it to-morrow,” repeated the perspiring officer,

rising, and moving his hand about vigorously in his empty pocket.

“Hm!” growled the dealer, and, throwing the cards angrily to the right

and left, he completed the deal. “But this won’t do,” said he, when he

had dealt the cards. “I’m going to stop. It won’t do, Zakhár Ivánitch,”

he added, “we have been playing for ready money and not on credit.”

“What, do you doubt me? That’s strange, truly!”

“From whom is one to get anything?” muttered the major, who had won

about eight rubles. “I have lost over twenty rubles, but when I have

won—I get nothing.”

“How am I to pay,” said the dealer, “when there is no money on the

table?”

“I won’t listen to you!” shouted the major, jumping up, “I am playing

with you, but not with him.”

All at once the perspiring officer flew into a rage.

“I tell you that I will pay to-morrow; how dare you say such impertinent

things to me?”

“I shall say what I please! This is not the way to do—that’s the truth!”

shouted the major.

“That will do, Feódor Feodoritch!” all chimed in, holding back the

major.

But let us draw a veil over this scene. To-morrow, to-day, it may be,

each one of these men will go cheerfully and proudly to meet his death,

and he will die with firmness and composure; but the one consolation of

life in these conditions, which terrify even the coldest imagination in

the absence of all that is human, and the hopelessness of any escape

from them, the one consolation is forgetfulness, the annihilation of

consciousness. At the bottom of the soul of each lies that noble spark,

which makes of him a hero; but this spark wearies of burning

clearly—when the fateful moment comes it flashes up into a flame, and

illuminates great deeds.

XVII.

On the following day, the bombardment proceeded with the same vigor. At

eleven o’clock in the morning, Volodya Kozeltzoff was seated in a circle

of battery officers, and, having already succeeded to some extent in

habituating himself to them, he was surveying the new faces, taking

observations, making inquiries, and telling stories.

The discreet conversation of the artillery officers, which made some

pretensions to learning, pleased him and inspired him with respect.

Volodya’s shy, innocent, and handsome appearance disposed the officers

in his favor.

The eldest officer in the battery, the captain, a short,

sandy-complexioned man, with his hair arranged in a topknot, and smooth

on the temples, educated in the old traditions of the artillery, a

squire of dames, and a would-be learned man, questioned Volodya as to

his acquirements in artillery and new inventions, jested caressingly

over his youth and his pretty little face, and treated him, in general,

as a father treats a son, which was extremely agreeable to Volodya.

Sub-Lieutenant Dyadenko, a young officer, who talked with a Little

Russian accent, had a tattered cloak and dishevelled hair, although he

talked very loudly, and constantly seized opportunities to dispute

acrimoniously over some topic, and was very abrupt in his movements,

pleased Volodya, who, beneath this rough exterior, could not help

detecting in him a very fine and extremely good man. Dyadenko was

incessantly offering his services to Volodya, and pointing out to him

that not one of the guns in Sevastopol was properly placed, according to

rule.

Lieutenant Tchernovitzky, with his brows elevated on high, though he was

more courteous than any of the rest, and dressed in a coat that was

tolerably clean, but not new, and carefully patched, and though he

displayed a gold watch-chain on a satin waistcoat, did not please

Volodya. He kept inquiring what the Emperor and the minister of war were

doing, and related to him, with unnatural triumph, the deeds of valor

which had been performed in Sevastopol, complained of the small number

of true patriots, and displayed a great deal of learning, and sense, and

noble feeling in general; but, for some reason, all this seemed

unpleasant and unnatural to Volodya. The principal thing which he

noticed was that the other officers hardly spoke to Tchernovitzky.

Yunker Vlang, whom he had waked up on the preceding evening, was also

there. He said nothing, but, seated modestly in a corner, laughed when

anything amusing occurred, refreshed their memories when they forgot

anything, handed the vodka, and made cigarettes for all the officers.

Whether it was the modest, courteous manners of Volodya, who treated him

exactly as he did the officers, and did not torment him as though he

were a little boy, or his agreeable personal appearance which captivated

Vlanga, as the soldiers called him, declining his name, for some reason

or other, in the feminine gender, at all events, he never took his big,

kind eyes from the face of the new officer. He divined and anticipated

all his wishes, and remained uninterruptedly in a sort of lover-like

ecstasy, which, of course, the officers perceived, and made fun of.

Before dinner, the staff-captain was relieved from the battery, and

joined their company. Staff-Captain Kraut was a light-complexioned,

handsome, dashing officer, with a heavy, reddish moustache, and

side-whiskers; he spoke Russian capitally, but too elegantly and

correctly for a Russian. In the service and in his life, he had been the

same as in his language; he served very well, was a capital comrade, and

the most faithful of men in money matters; but simply as a man something

was lacking in him, precisely because everything about him was so

excellent. Like all Russian-Germans, by a strange contradiction with the

ideal German, he was “praktisch” to the highest degree.

“Here he is, our hero makes his appearance!” said the captain, as Kraut,

flourishing his arms and jingling his spurs, entered the room. “Which

will you have, Friedrich Krestyanitch, tea or vodka?”

“I have already ordered my tea to be served,” he answered, “but I may

take a little drop of vodka also, for the refreshing of the soul. Very

glad to make your acquaintance; I beg that you will love us, and lend us

your favor,” he said to Volodya, who rose and bowed to him.

“Staff-Captain Kraut.... The gun-sergeant on the bastion informed me

that you arrived last night.”

“Much obliged for your bed; I passed the night in it.”

“I hope you found it comfortable? One of the legs is broken; but no one

can stand on ceremony—in time of siege—you must prop it up.”

“Well, now, did you have a fortunate time on your watch?” asked

Dyadenko.

“Yes, all right; only Skvortzoff was hit, and we mended one of the

gun-carriages last night. The cheek was smashed to atoms.”

He rose from his seat, and began to walk up and down; it was plain that

he was wholly under the influence of that agreeable sensation which a

man experiences who has just escaped a danger.

“Well, Dmitri Gavrilitch,” he said, tapping the captain on the knee,

“how are you getting on, my dear fellow? How about your promotion?—no

word yet?”

“Nothing yet.”

“No, and there will be nothing,” interpolated Dyadenko: “I proved that

to you before.”

“Why won’t there?”

“Because the story was not properly written down.”

“Oh, you quarrelsome fellow, you quarrelsome fellow!” said Kraut,

smiling gayly; “a regular obstinate Little Russian! Now, just to provoke

you, he’ll turn out your lieutenant.”

“No, he won’t.”

“Vlang! fetch me my pipe, and fill it,” said he, turning to the yunker,

who at once hastened up obligingly with the pipe.

Kraut made them all lively; he told about the bombardment, he inquired

what had been going on in his absence, and entered into conversation

with every one.

XVIII.

“Well, how are things? Have you already got settled among us?” Kraut

asked Volodya.... “Excuse me, what is your name and patronymic? that’s

the custom with us in the artillery, you know. Have you got hold of a

saddle-horse?”

“No,” said Volodya; “I do not know what to do. I told the captain that I

had no horse, and no money, either, until I get some for forage and

travelling expenses. I want to ask the battery commander for a horse in

the meantime, but I am afraid that he will refuse me.”

“Apollon Sergiéitch, do you mean?” he produced with his lips a sound

indicative of the strongest doubt, and glanced at the captain; “not

likely.”

“What’s that? If he does refuse, there’ll be no harm done,” said the

captain. “There are horses, to tell the truth, which are not needed, but

still one might try; I will inquire to-day.”

“What! Don’t you know him?” Dyadenko interpolated. “He might refuse

anything, but there is no reason for refusing this. Do you want to bet

on it?...”

“Well, of course, everybody knows already that you always contradict.”

“I contradict because I know. He is niggardly about other things, but he

will give the horse because it is no advantage to him to refuse.”

“No advantage, indeed, when it costs him eight rubles here for oats!”

said Kraut. “Is there no advantage in not keeping an extra horse?”

“Ask Skvoretz yourself, Vladímir Semyónitch!” said Vlang, returning with

Kraut’s pipe. “It’s a capital horse.”

“The one you tumbled into the ditch with, on the festival of the forty

martyrs, in March? Hey! Vlang?” remarked the staff-captain.

“No, and why should you say that it costs eight rubles for oats,”

pursued Dyadenko, “when his own inquiries show him that it is ten and a

half; of course, he has no object in it.”

“Just as though he would have nothing left! So when you get to be

battery commander, you won’t let any horses go into the town?”

“When I get to be battery commander, my dear fellow, my horses will get

four measures of oats to eat, and I shall not accumulate an income,

never fear!”

“If we live, we shall see,” said the staff-captain; “and you will act

just so, and so will he when he commands a battery,” he added, pointing

at Volodya.

“Why do you think, Friedrich Krestyanitch, that he would turn it to his

profit?” broke in Tchernovitzky. “Perhaps he has property of his own;

then why should he turn it to profit?”

“No, sir, I ... excuse me, captain,” said Volodya, reddening up to his

ears, “that strikes me as insulting.”

“Oh ho, ho! What a madcap he is!” said Kraut.

“That has nothing to do with it; I only think that if the money were not

mine, I should not take it.”

“Now, I’ll tell you something right here, young man,” began the

staff-captain in a more serious tone, “you are to understand that when

you command a battery, if you manage things well, that’s sufficient; the

commander of a battery does not meddle with provisioning the soldiers;

that is the way it has been from time immemorial in the artillery. If

you are a bad manager, you will have nothing left. Now, these are the

expenditures in conformity with your position: for shoeing your

horse,—one (he closed one finger); for the apothecary,—two (he closed

another finger); for office work,—three (he shut a third); for extra

horses, which cost five hundred rubles, my dear fellow,—that’s four; you

must change the soldiers’ collars, you will use a great deal of coal,

you must keep open table for your officers. If you are a

battery-commander, you must live decently; you need a carriage, and a

fur coat, and this thing and that thing, and a dozen more ... but what’s

the use of enumerating them all!”

“But this is the principal thing, Vladímir Semyónitch,” interpolated the

captain, who had held his peace all this time; “imagine yourself to be a

man who, like myself, for instance, has served twenty years, first for

two hundred, then for three hundred rubles pay; why should he not be

given at least a bit of bread, against his old age?”

“Eh! yes, there you have it!” spoke up the staff-captain again, “don’t

be in a hurry to pronounce judgment, but live on and serve your time.”

Volodya was horribly ashamed and sorry for having spoken so

thoughtlessly, and he muttered something and continued to listen in

silence, when Dyadenko undertook, with the greatest zeal, to dispute it

and to prove the contrary.

The dispute was interrupted by the arrival of the colonel’s servant, who

summoned them to dinner.

“Tell Apollon Sergiéitch that he must give us some wine to-day,” said

Tchernovitzky, to the captain, as he buttoned up his uniform.—“Why is he

so stingy with it? He will be killed, and no one will get the good of

it.”

“Tell him yourself.”

“Not a bit of it. You are my superior officer. Rank must be regarded in

all things.”

XIX.

The table had been moved out from the wall, and spread with a soiled

table-cloth, in the same room in which Volodya had presented himself to

the colonel on the preceding evening. The battery commander now offered

him his hand, and questioned him about Petersburg and his journey.

“Well, gentlemen, I beg the favor of a glass with any of you who drink

vodka. The ensigns do not drink,” he added, with a smile.

On the whole, the battery commander did not appear nearly so stern

to-day as he had on the preceding evening; on the contrary, he had the

appearance of a kindly, hospitable host, and an elder comrade among the

officers. But, in spite of this, all the officers, from the old captain

down to Ensign Dyadenko, by their very manner of speaking and looking

the commander straight in the eye, as they approached, one after the

other, to drink their vodka, exhibited great respect for him.

The dinner consisted of a large wooden bowl of cabbage-soup, in which

floated fat chunks of beef, and a huge quantity of pepper and

laurel-leaves, mustard, and Polish meat-balls in a cabbage leaf,

turnover patties of chopped meat and dough, and with butter, which was

not perfectly fresh. There were no napkins, the spoons were of pewter

and wood, there were only two glasses, and on the table stood a decanter

of water with a broken neck; but the dinner was not dull; conversation

never halted.

At first, their talk turned on the battle of Inkerman, in which the

battery had taken part, as to the causes of failure, of which each one

gave his own impressions and ideas, and held his tongue as soon as the

battery commander himself began to speak; then the conversation

naturally changed to the insufficiency of calibre of the light guns, and

upon the new lightened cannons, in which connection Volodya had an

opportunity to display his knowledge of artillery.

But their talk did not dwell upon the present terrible position of

Sevastopol, as though each of them had meditated too much on that

subject to allude to it again. In the same way, to Volodya’s great

amazement and disappointment, not a word was said about the duties of

the service which he was to fulfil, just as though he had come to

Sevastopol merely for the purpose of telling about the new cannon and

dining with the commander of the battery.

While they were at dinner, a bomb fell not far from the house in which

they were seated. The walls and the floor trembled, as though in an

earthquake, and the window was obscured with the smoke of the powder.

“You did not see anything of this sort in Petersburg, I fancy; but these

surprises often take place here,” said the battery commander.

“Look out, Vlang, and see where it burst.”

Vlang looked, and reported that it had burst on the square, and then

there was nothing more said about the bomb.

Just before the end of the dinner, an old man, the clerk of the battery,

entered the room, with three sealed envelopes, and handed them to the

commander.

“This is very important; a messenger has this moment brought these from

the chief of the artillery.”

All the officers gazed, with impatient curiosity, at the commander’s

practised fingers as they broke the seal of the envelope and drew forth

the very important paper. “What can it be?” each one asked himself.

It might be that they were to march out of Sevastopol for a rest, it

might be an order for the whole battery to betake themselves to the

bastions.

“Again!” said the commander, flinging the paper angrily on the table.

“What’s it about, Apollon Sergiéitch?” inquired the eldest officer.

“An officer and crew are required for a mortar battery over yonder, and

I have only four officers, and there is not a full gun-crew in the

line,” growled the commander: “and here more are demanded of me. But

some one must go, gentlemen,” he said, after a brief pause: “the order

requires him to be at the barrier at seven o’clock.... Send the

sergeant! Who is to go, gentlemen? decide,” he repeated.

“Well, here’s one who has never been yet,” said Tchernovitzky, pointing

to Volodya. The commander of the battery made no reply.

“Yes, I should like to go,” said Volodya, as he felt the cold sweat

start out on his back and neck.

“No; why should you? There’s no occasion!” broke in the captain. “Of

course, no one will refuse, but neither is it proper to ask any one; but

if Apollon Sergiéitch will permit us, we will draw lots, as we did once

before.”

All agreed to this. Kraut cut some paper into bits, folded them up, and

dropped them into a cap. The captain jested, and even plucked up the

audacity, on this occasion, to ask the colonel for wine, to keep up

their courage, he said. Dyadenko sat in gloomy silence, Volodya smiled

at something or other, Tchernovitzky declared that it would infallibly

fall to him, Kraut was perfectly composed.

Volodya was allowed to draw first; he took one slip, which was rather

long, but it immediately occurred to him to change it; he took another,

which was smaller and thinner, unfolded it, and read on it, “I go.”

“It has fallen to me,” he said, with a sigh.

“Well, God be with you. You will get your baptism of fire at once,” said

the commander of the battery, gazing at the perturbed countenance of the

ensign with a kindly smile; “but you must get there as speedily as

possible. And, to make it more cheerful for you, Vlang shall go with you

as gun-sergeant.”

XX.

Vlang was exceedingly well pleased with the duty assigned to him, and

ran hastily to make his preparations, and, when he was dressed, he went

to the assistance of Volodya, and tried to persuade the latter to take

his cot and fur coat with him, and some old “Annals of the Country,” and

a spirit-lamp coffee-pot, and other useless things. The captain advised

Volodya to read up his “Manual,”[12] first, about mortar-firing, and

immediately to copy the tables out of it.

Volodya set about this at once, and, to his amazement and delight, he

perceived that, though he was still somewhat troubled with a sensation

of fear of danger, and still more lest he should turn out a coward, yet

it was far from being to that degree to which it had affected him on the

preceding evening. The reason for this lay partly in the daylight and in

active occupation, and partly, principally, also, in the fact that fear

and all powerful emotions cannot long continue with the same intensity.

In a word, he had already succeeded in recovering from his terror.

At seven o’clock, just as the sun had begun to hide itself behind the

Nikolaevsky barracks, the sergeant came to him, and announced that the

men were ready and waiting for him.

“I have given the list to Vlanga. You will please to ask him for it,

Your Honor!” said he.

Twenty artillery-men, with side-arms, but without loading-tools, were

standing at the corner of the house. Volodya and the yunker stepped up

to them.

“Shall I make them a little speech, or shall I simply say, ‘Good day,

children!’ or shall I say nothing at all?” thought he. “And why should I

not say, ‘Good day, children!’ Why, I ought to say that much!” And he

shouted boldly, in his ringing voice:—

“Good day, children!”

The soldiers responded cheerfully. The fresh, young voice sounded

pleasant in the ears of all. Volodya marched vigorously at their head,

in front of the soldiers, and, although his heart beat as if he had run

several versts at the top of his speed, his step was light and his

countenance cheerful.

On arriving at the Malakoff mound, and climbing the slope, he perceived

that Vlang, who had not lagged a single pace behind him, and who had

appeared such a valiant fellow at home in the house, kept constantly

swerving to one side, and ducking his head, as though all the

cannon-balls and bombs, which whizzed by very frequently in that

locality, were flying straight at him. Some of the soldiers did the

same, and the faces of the majority of them betrayed, if not fear, at

least anxiety. This circumstance put the finishing touch to Volodya’s

composure and encouraged him finally.

“So here I am also on the Malakoff mound, which I imagined to be a

thousand times more terrible! And I can walk along without ducking my

head before the bombs, and am far less terrified than the rest! So I am

not a coward, after all?” he thought with delight, and even with a

somewhat enthusiastic self-sufficiency.

But this feeling was soon shaken by a spectacle upon which he stumbled

in the twilight, on the Kornilovsky battery, in his search for the

commander of the bastion. Four sailors standing near the breastworks

were holding the bloody body of a man, without shoes or coat, by its

arms and legs, and staggering as they tried to fling it over the

ramparts.

(On the second day of the bombardment, it had been found impossible, in

some localities, to carry off the corpses from the bastions, and so they

were flung into the trench, in order that they might not impede action

in the batteries.)

Volodya stood petrified for a moment, as he saw the corpse waver on the

summit of the breastworks, and then roll down into the ditch; but,

luckily for him, the commander of the bastion met him there,

communicated his orders, and furnished him with a guide to the battery

and to the bomb-proofs designated for his service. We will not enumerate

the remaining dangers and disenchantments which our hero underwent that

evening: how, instead of the firing, such as he had seen on the Volkoff

field, according to the rules of accuracy and precision, which he had

expected to find here, he found two cracked mortars, one of which had

been crushed by a cannon-ball in the muzzle, while the other stood upon

the splinters of a ruined platform; how he could not obtain any workmen

until the following morning in order to repair the platform; how not a

single charge was of the weight prescribed in the “Manual;” how two

soldiers of his command were wounded, and how he was twenty times within

a hair’s-breadth of death.

Fortunately, there had been assigned for his assistant a gun-captain of

gigantic size, a sailor, who had served on the mortars since the

beginning of the siege, and who convinced him of the practicability of

using them, conducted him all over the bastion, with a lantern, during

the night, exactly as though it had been his own kitchen-garden, and who

promised to put everything in proper shape on the morrow.

The bomb-proof to which his guide conducted him was excavated in the

rocky soil, and consisted of a long hole, two cubic fathoms in extent,

covered with oaken planks an arshin in thickness. Here he took up his

post, with all his soldiers. Vlang was the first, when he caught sight

of the little door, twenty-eight inches high, of the bomb-proof, to rush

headlong into it, in front of them all, and, after nearly cracking his

skull on the stone floor, he huddled down in a corner, from which he did

not again emerge.

And Volodya, when all the soldiers had placed themselves along the wall

on the floor, and some had lighted their pipes, set up his bed in one

corner, lighted a candle, and lay upon his cot, smoking a cigarette.

Shots were incessantly heard, over the bomb-proof, but they were not

very loud, with the exception of those from one cannon, which stood

close by and shook the bomb-proof with its thunder. In the bomb-proof

itself all was still; the soldiers, who were a little shy, as yet, of

the new officer, only exchanged a few words, now and then, as they

requested each other to move out of the way or to furnish a light for a

pipe. A rat scratched somewhere among the stones, or Vlang, who had not

yet recovered himself, and who still gazed wildly about him, uttered a

sudden vigorous sigh.

Volodya, as he lay on his bed, in his quiet corner, surrounded by the

men, and illuminated only by a single candle, experienced that sensation

of well-being which he had known as a child, when, in the course of a

game of hide-and-seek, he used to crawl into a cupboard or under his

mother’s skirts, and listen, not daring to draw his breath, and afraid

of the dark, and yet conscious of enjoying himself. He felt a little

oppressed, but cheerful.

XXI.

After the lapse of about ten minutes, the soldiers began to change about

and to converse together. The most important personages among them—the

two gun-sergeants—placed themselves nearest the officer’s light and

bed;—one was old and gray-haired, with every possible medal and cross

except the George;—the other was young, a militia-man, who smoked

cigarettes, which he was rolling. The drummer, as usual, assumed the

duty of waiting on the officer. The bombardiers and cavalrymen sat next,

and then farther away, in the shadow of the entrance, the underlings

took up their post. They too began to talk among themselves. It was

caused by the hasty entrance of a man into the casemate.

“How now, brother! couldn’t you stay in the street? Didn’t the girls

sing merrily?” said a voice.

“They sing such marvellous songs as were never heard in the village,”

said the man who had fled into the casemate, with a laugh.

“But Vasin does not love bombs—ah, no, he does not love them!” said one

from the aristocratic corner.

“The idea! It’s quite another matter when it’s necessary,” drawled the

voice of Vasin, who made all the others keep silent when he spoke:

“since the 24^(th), the firing has been going on desperately; and what

is there wrong about it? You’ll get killed for nothing, and your

superiors won’t so much as say ‘Thank you!’ for it.”

At these words of Vasin, all burst into a laugh.

“There’s Melnikoff, that fellow who will sit outside the door,” said

some one.

“Well, send him here, that Melnikoff,” added the old gunner; “they will

kill him, for a fact, and that to no purpose.”

“Who is this Melnikoff?” asked Volodya.

“Why, Your Honor, he’s a stupid soldier of ours. He doesn’t seem to be

afraid of anything, and now he keeps walking about outside. Please to

take a look at him; he looks like a bear.”

“He knows a spell,” said the slow voice of Vasin, from the corner.

Melnikoff entered the bomb-proof. He was fat (which is extremely rare

among soldiers), and a sandy-complexioned, handsome man, with a huge,

bulging forehead and prominent, light blue eyes.

“Are you afraid of the bombs?” Volodya asked him.

“What is there about the bombs to be afraid of!” replied Melnikoff,

shrugging his shoulders and scratching his head, “I know that I shall

not be killed by a bomb.”

“So you would like to go on living here?”

“Why, of course, I would. It’s jolly here!” he said, with a sudden

outburst of laughter.

“Oh, then you must be detailed for the sortie! I’ll tell the general so,

if you like?” said Volodya, although he was not acquainted with a single

general there.

“Why shouldn’t I like! I do!”

And Melnikoff disappeared behind the others.

“Let’s have a game of noski,[13] children! Who has cards?” rang out his

brisk voice.

And, in fact, it was not long before a game was started in the back

corner, and blows on the nose, laughter, and calling of trumps were

heard.

Volodya drank some tea from the samovár, which the drummer served for

him, treated the gunners, jested, chatted with them, being desirous of

winning popularity, and felt very well content with the respect which

was shown him. The soldiers, too, perceiving that the gentleman put on

no airs, began to talk together.

One declared that the siege of Sevastopol would soon come to an end,

because a trustworthy man from the fleet had said that the emperor’s

brother Constantine was coming to our relief with the ‘Merican fleet,

and there would soon be an agreement that there should be no firing for

two weeks, and that a rest should be allowed, and if any one did fire a

shot, every discharge would have to be paid for at the rate of

seventy-five kopeks each.

Vasin, who, as Volodya had already noticed, was a little fellow, with

large, kindly eyes, and side-whiskers, related, amid a general silence

at first, and afterwards amid general laughter, how, when he had gone

home on leave, they had been glad at first to see him, but afterwards

his father had begun to send him off to work, and the lieutenant of the

foresters’ corps sent his drozhki for his wife.

All this amused Volodya greatly. He not only did not experience the

least fear or inconvenience from the closeness and heavy air in the

bomb-proof, but he felt in a remarkably cheerful and agreeable frame of

mind.

Many of the soldiers were already snoring. Vlang had also stretched

himself out on the floor, and the old gun-sergeant, having spread out

his cloak, was crossing himself and muttering his prayers, preparatory

to sleep, when Volodya took a fancy to step out of the bomb-proof, and

see what was going on outside.

“Take your legs out of the way!” cried one soldier to another, as soon

as he rose, and the legs were pressed aside to make way for him.

Vlang, who appeared to be asleep, suddenly raised his head, and seized

Volodya by the skirt of his coat.

“Come, don’t go! how can you!” he began, in a tearfully imploring tone.

“You don’t know about things yet; they are firing at us out there all

the time; it is better here.”

But, in spite of Vlang’s entreaties, Volodya made his way out of the

bomb-proof, and seated himself on the threshold, where Melnikoff was

already sitting.

The air was pure and fresh, particularly after the bomb-proof—the night

was clear and still. Through the roar of the discharges could be heard

the sounds of cart-wheels, bringing gabions, and the voices of the men

who were at work on the magazine. Above their heads was the lofty,

starry sky, across which flashed the fiery streaks caused by the bombs;

an arshin away, on the left, a tiny opening led to another bomb-proof,

through which the feet and backs of the soldiers who lived there were

visible, and through which their voices were audible; in front, the

elevation produced by the powder-vault could be seen, and athwart it

flitted the bent figures of men, and upon it, at the very summit, amid

the bullets and the bombs which whistled past the spot incessantly,

stood a tall form in a black paletot, with his hands in his pockets, and

feet treading down the earth, which other men were fetching in sacks.

Often a bomb would fly over, and burst close to the cave. The soldiers

engaged in bringing the earth bent over and ran aside; but the black

figure never moved; went on quietly stamping down the dirt with his

feet, and remained on the spot in the same attitude as before.

“Who is that black man?” inquired Volodya of Melnikoff.

“I don’t know; I will go and see.”

“Don’t go! it is not necessary.”

But Melnikoff, without heeding him, walked up to the black figure, and

stood beside him for a tolerably long time, as calm and immovable as the

man himself.

“That is the man who has charge of the magazine, Your Honor!” he said,

on his return. “It has been pierced by a bomb, so the infantry-men are

fetching more earth.”

Now and then, a bomb seemed to fly straight at the door of the

bomb-proof. On such occasions, Volodya shrank into the corner, and then

peered forth again, gazing upwards, to see whether another was not

coming from some direction. Although Vlang, from the interior of the

bomb-proof, repeatedly besought Volodya to come back, the latter sat on

the threshold for three hours, and experienced a sort of satisfaction in

thus tempting fate and in watching the flight of the bombs. Towards the

end of the evening, he had learned from what point most of the firing

proceeded, and where the shots struck.

XXII.

On the following day, the 27^(th), after a ten-hours sleep, Volodya,

fresh and active, stepped out on the threshold of the casement; Vlang

also started to crawl out with him, but, at the first sound of a bullet,

he flung himself backwards through the opening of the bomb-proof,

bumping his head as he did so, amid the general merriment of the

soldiers, the majority of whom had also come out into the open air.

Vlang, the old gun-sergeant, and a few others were the only ones who

rarely went out into the trenches; it was impossible to restrain the

rest; they all scattered about in the fresh morning air, escaping from

the fetid air of the bomb-proof, and, in spite of the fact that the

bombardment was as vigorous as on the preceding evening, they disposed

themselves around the door, and some even on the breastworks. Melnikoff

had been strolling about among the batteries since daybreak, and staring

up with perfect coolness.

Near the entrance sat two old soldiers and one young, curly-haired

fellow, a Jew, who had been detailed from the infantry. This soldier

picked up one of the bullets which were lying about, and, having

smoothed it against a stone with a potsherd, with his knife he carved

from it a cross, after the style of the order of St. George; the others

looked on at his work as they talked. The cross really turned out to be

quite handsome.

“Now, if we stay here much longer,” said one of them, “then, when peace

is made, the time of service will be up for all of us.”

“Nothing of the sort; I have at least four years service yet before my

time is up, and I have been in Sevastopol these five months.”

“It is not counted towards the discharge, do you understand,” said

another.

At that moment, a cannon-ball shrieked over the heads of the speakers,

and struck only an arshin away from Melnikoff, who was approaching them

from the trenches.

“That came near killing Melnikoff,” said one man.

“I shall not be killed,” said Melnikoff.

“Here’s the cross for you, for your bravery,” said the young soldier,

who had made the cross, handing it to Melnikoff.

“No, brother, a month here counts for a year, of course—that was the

order,” the conversation continued.

“Think what you please, but when peace is declared, there will be an

imperial review at Orshava, and if we don’t get our discharge, we shall

be allowed to go on indefinite leave.”

At that moment, a shrieking little bullet flew past the speakers’ heads,

and struck a stone.

“You’ll get a full discharge before evening—see if you don’t,” said one

of the soldiers.

They all laughed.

Not only before evening, but before the expiration of two hours, two of

them received their full discharge, and five were wounded; but the rest

jested on as before.

By morning, the two mortars had actually been brought into such a

condition that it was possible to fire them. At ten o’clock, in

accordance with the orders which he had received from the commander of

the bastion, Volodya called out his command, and marched to the battery

with it.

In the men, as soon as they proceeded to action, there was not a drop of

that sentiment of fear perceptible which had been expressed on the

preceding evening. Vlang alone could not control himself; he dodged and

ducked just as before, and Vasin lost some of his composure, and fussed

and fidgeted and changed his place incessantly.

But Volodya was in an extraordinary state of enthusiasm; the thought of

danger did not even occur to him. Delight that he was fulfilling his

duty, that he was not only not a coward, but even a valiant fellow, the

feeling that he was in command, and the presence of twenty men, who, as

he was aware, were surveying him with curiosity, made a thoroughly brave

man of him. He was even vain of his valor, put on airs before his

soldiers, climbed up on the banquette, and unbuttoned his coat expressly

that he might render himself the more distinctly visible.

The commander of the bastion, who was going the rounds of his

establishment as he expressed it, at the moment, accustomed as he had

become during his eight-months experience to all sorts of bravery, could

not refrain from admiring this handsome lad, in the unbuttoned coat,

beneath which a red shirt was visible, encircling his soft white neck,

with his animated face and eyes, as he clapped his hands and shouted:

“First! Second!” and ran gayly along the ramparts, in order to see where

his bomb would fall.

At half-past eleven the firing ceased on both sides, and at precisely

twelve o’clock the storming of the Malakoff mound, of the second, third,

and fifth bastions began.

XXIII.

On this side of the bay, between Inkerman and the northern

fortifications, on the telegraph hill, about midday, stood two naval

men; one was an officer, who was engaged in observing Sevastopol through

a telescope, and the other had just arrived at the signal-station with

his orderly.

The sun stood high and brilliant above the bay, and played with the

ships which floated upon it, and with the moving sails and boats, with a

warm and cheerful glow. The light breeze hardly moved the leaves of the

dry oak-shrubs which stood about the signal-pole, puffed out the sails

of the boats, and ruffled the waves.

Sevastopol, with her unfinished church, her columns, her line of shore,

her boulevard showing green against the hill, and her elegant library

building, with her tiny azure inlets, filled with masts, with the

picturesque arches of her aqueducts, and the clouds of blue smoke,

lighted up now and then by red flashes of flame from the firing; the

same beautiful, proud, festive Sevastopol, hemmed in on one side by

yellow, smoke-crowned hills, on the other by the bright blue sea, which

glittered in the sun, was visible the same as ever, on the other side of

the bay.

Over the horizon-line of the sea, along which floated a long wreath of

black smoke from some steamer, crept long white clouds, portending a

gale. Along the entire line of the fortifications, especially over the

hills on the left, rose columns of thick, dense, white smoke; suddenly,

abruptly, and incessantly illuminated by flashes, lightnings, which

shone even amid the light of high noon, and which constantly increased

in volume, assuming divers forms, as they swept upwards, and tinged the

heavens. These puffs of smoke flashing now here, now there, took their

birth on the hills, in the batteries of the enemy, in the city, and high

against the sky. The sound of the discharges never ceased, but shook the

air with their mingled roar.

At twelve o’clock, the puffs of smoke began to occur less and less

frequently, and the atmosphere quivered less with the roar.

“But the second bastion is no longer replying at all,” said the officer

of hussars, who sat there on horseback; “it is utterly destroyed!

Horrible!”

“Yes, and the Malakoff only sends one shot to their three,” replied the

officer who was looking through his glass. “It enrages me to have them

silent. They are firing straight on the Kornilovsky battery, and it is

not answering at all.”

“But you see that they always cease the bombardment at twelve o’clock,

just as I said. It is the same to-day. Let us go and get some breakfast

... they are already waiting for us ... there’s nothing to see.”

“Stop, don’t interfere,” said the officer with the glass, gazing at

Sevastopol with peculiar eagerness.

“What’s going on there? What is it?”

“There is a movement in the trenches, and heavy columns are marching.”

“Yes, that is evident,” said the other. “The columns are under way. We

must give the signal.”

“See, see! They have emerged from the trenches.”

In truth, it was visible to the naked eye that dark masses were moving

down the hill, across the narrow valley, from the French batteries to

the bastions. In front of these specks, dark streaks were visible, which

were already close to our lines. White puffs of smoke of discharges

burst out at various points on the bastions, as though the firing were

running along the line.

The breeze bore to them the sounds of musketry-shots, exchanged briskly,

like rain upon the window-pane. The black streaks moved on, nearer and

nearer, into the very smoke. The sounds of firing grew louder and

louder, and mingled in a lengthened, resounding roar.

The smoke, rising more and more frequently, spread rapidly along the

line, flowed together in one lilac-hued cloud, which dispersed and

joined again, and through which, here and there, flitted flames and

black points—and all sounds were commingled in one reverberating crash.

“An assault,” said the officer, with a pale face, as he handed the glass

to the naval officer.

Orderlies galloped along the road, officers on horseback, the

commander-in-chief in a calash, and his suite passed by. Profound

emotion and expectation were visible on all countenances.

“It cannot be that they have taken it!” said the mounted officer.

“By Heavens, there’s the standard! Look, look!” said the other, sighing

and abandoning the glass. “The French standard on the Malakoff!”

“It cannot be!”

XXIV.

The elder Kozeltzoff, who had succeeded in winning back his money and

losing it all again that night, including even the gold pieces which

were sewed into his cuffs, had fallen, just before daybreak, into a

heavy, unhealthy, but profound slumber, in the fortified barracks of the

fifth battalion, when the fateful cry, repeated by various voices, rang

out:—

“The alarm!”

“Why are you sleeping, Mikhaïl Semyónitch! There’s an assault!” a voice

shouted to him.

“That is probably some school-boy,” he said, opening his eyes, but

putting no faith in it.

But all at once he caught sight of an officer running aimlessly from one

corner to the other, with such a pale face that he understood it all.

The thought that he might be taken for a coward, who did not wish to go

out to his company at a critical moment, struck him with terrible force.

He ran to his corps at the top of his speed. Firing had ceased from the

heavy guns; but the crash of musketry was at its height. The bullets

whistled, not singly like rifle-balls, but in swarms, like a flock of

birds in autumn, flying past overhead. The entire spot on which his

battalion had stood the night before was veiled in smoke, and the shouts

and cries of the enemy were audible. Soldiers, both wounded and

unwounded, met him in throngs. After running thirty paces further, he

caught sight of his company, which was hugging the wall.

“They have captured Schwartz,” said a young officer. “All is lost!”

“Nonsense!” said he, angrily, grasping his blunt little iron sword, and

he began to shout:—

“Forward, children! Hurrah!”

His voice was strong and ringing; it roused even Kozeltzoff himself. He

ran forward along the traverse; fifty soldiers rushed after him,

shouting as they went. From the traverse he ran out upon an open square.

The bullets fell literally like hail. Two struck him,—but where, and

what they did, whether they bruised or wounded him, he had not the time

to decide.

In front, he could already see blue uniforms and red trousers, and could

hear shouts which were not Russian; one Frenchman was standing on the

breastworks, waving his cap, and shouting something. Kozeltzoff was

convinced that he was about to be killed; this gave him courage.

He ran on and on. Some soldiers overtook him; other soldiers appeared at

one side, also running. The blue uniforms remained at the same distance

from him, fleeing back from him to their own trenches; but beneath his

feet were the dead and wounded. When he had run to the outermost ditch,

everything became confused before Kozeltzoff’s eyes, and he was

conscious of a pain in the breast.

Half an hour later, he was lying on a stretcher, near the Nikolaevsky

barracks, and knew that he was wounded, though he felt hardly any pain;

all he wanted was something cooling to drink, and to be allowed to lie

still in peace.

A plump little doctor, with black side-whiskers, approached him, and

unbuttoned his coat. Kozeltzoff stared over his chin at what the doctor

was doing to his wound, and at the doctor’s face, but he felt no pain.

The doctor covered his wound with his shirt, wiped his fingers on the

skirts of his coat, and, without a word or glance at the wounded man,

went off to some one else.

Kozeltzoff’s eyes mechanically took note of what was going on before

him, and, recalling the fact that he had been in the fifth bastion, he

thought, with an extraordinary feeling of self-satisfaction, that he had

fulfilled his duty well, and that, for the first time in all his

service, he had behaved as handsomely as it was possible for any one,

and had nothing with which to reproach himself. The doctor, after

bandaging the other officer’s wound, pointed to Kozeltzoff, and said

something to a priest, with a huge reddish beard, and a cross, who was

standing near by.

“What! am I dying?” Kozeltzoff asked the priest, when the latter

approached him.

The priest, without making any reply, recited a prayer and handed the

cross to the wounded man.

Death had no terrors for Kozeltzoff. He grasped the cross with his weak

hands, pressed it to his lips, and burst into tears.

“Well, were the French repulsed?” he inquired of the priest, in firm

tones.

“The victory has remained with us at every point,” replied the priest,

in order to comfort the wounded man, concealing from him the fact that

the French standard had already been unfurled on the Malakoff mound.

“Thank God!” said the wounded man, without feeling the tears which were

trickling down his cheeks.

The thought of his brother occurred to his mind for a single instant.

“May God grant him the same good-fortune,” he said to himself.

XXV.

But the same fate did not await Volodya. He was listening to a tale

which Vasin was in the act of relating to him, when there was a

cry,—“The French are coming!” The blood fled for a moment to Volodya’s

heart, and he felt his cheeks turn cold and pale. For one second he

remained motionless, but, on glancing about him, he perceived that the

soldiers were buttoning up their coats with tolerable equanimity, and

crawling out, one after the other. One even, probably Melnikoff,

remarked, in a jesting way:—

“Go out and offer them the bread and salt of hospitality, children!”

Volodya, in company with Vlang, who never separated from him by so much

as a step, crawled out of the bomb-proof, and ran to the battery.

There was no artillery firing whatever in progress on either side. It

was not so much the sight of the soldiers’ composure which aroused his

courage as the pitiful and undisguised cowardice of Vlang. “Is it

possible for me to be like him?” he said to himself, and he ran on gayly

up to the breastworks, near which his mortars stood. It was clearly

apparent to him that the French were making straight for him through an

open space, and that masses of them, with their bayonets glittering in

the sun, were moving in the nearest trenches.

One, a short, broad-shouldered fellow, in zouave uniform, and armed with

a sword, ran on in front and leaped the ditch.

“Fire grape-shot!” shouted Volodya, hastening from the banquette; but

the soldiers had already made their preparations without waiting for his

orders, and the metallic sound of the grape-shot which they discharged

shrieked over his head, first from one and then from the other mortar.

“First! second!” commanded Volodya, running from one mortar to the

other, and utterly oblivious of danger.

On one side, and near at hand, the crash of musketry from our men under

shelter, and anxious cries, were heard.

All at once a startling cry of despair, repeated by several voices, was

heard on the left: “They are surrounding us! They are surrounding us!”

Volodya looked round at this shout. Twenty Frenchmen made their

appearance in the rear. One of them, a handsome man with a black beard,

was in front of all; but, after running up to within ten paces of the

battery, he halted, and fired straight at Volodya, and then ran towards

him once more.

For a second, Volodya stood as though turned to stone, and did not

believe his eyes. When he recovered himself and glanced about him, there

were blue uniforms in front of him on the ramparts; two Frenchmen were

even spiking a cannon not ten paces distant from him.

There was no one near him, with the exception of Melnikoff, who had been

killed by a bullet beside him, and Vlang, who, with a handspike clutched

in his hand, had rushed forwards, with an expression of wrath on his

face, and with eyes lowered.

“Follow me, Vladímir Semyónitch! Follow me!” shouted the desperate voice

of Vlang, as he brandished his handspike over the French, who were

pouring in from the rear. The yunker’s ferocious countenance startled

them. He struck the one who was in advance, on the head; the others

involuntarily paused, and Vlang continued to glare about him, and to

shout in despairing accents: “Follow me, Vladímir Semyónitch! Why do you

stand there? Run!” and ran towards the trenches in which lay our

infantry, firing at the French. After leaping into the trench, he came

out again to see what his adored ensign was doing. Something in a coat

was lying prostrate where Volodya had been standing, and the whole place

was filled with Frenchmen, who were firing at our men.

XXVI.

Vlang found his battery on the second line of defence. Out of the twenty

soldiers who had been in the mortar battery, only eight survived.

At nine o’clock in the evening, Vlang set out with the battery on a

steamer loaded down with soldiers, cannon, horses, and wounded men, for

Severnaya.

There was no firing anywhere. The stars shone brilliantly in the sky, as

on the preceding night; but a strong wind tossed the sea. On the first

and second bastions, lightnings flashed along the earth; explosions rent

the atmosphere, and illuminated strange black objects in their vicinity,

and the stones which flew through the air.

Something was burning near the docks, and the red glare was reflected in

the water. The bridge, covered with people, was lighted up by the fire

from the Nikolaevsky battery. A vast flame seemed to hang over the

water, from the distant promontory of the Alexandrovsky battery, and

illuminated the clouds of smoke beneath, as it rose above them; and the

same tranquil, insolent, distant lights as on the preceding evening

gleamed over the sea, from the hostile fleet.

The fresh breeze raised billows in the bay. By the red light of the

conflagrations, the masts of our sunken ships, which were settling

deeper and deeper into the water, were visible. Not a sound of

conversation was heard on deck; there was nothing but the regular swish

of the parted waves, and the steam, the neighing and pawing of the

horses, the words of command from the captain, and the groans of the

wounded. Vlang, who had had nothing to eat all day, drew a bit of bread

from his pocket, and began to chew it; but all at once he recalled

Volodya, and burst into such loud weeping that the soldiers who were

near him heard it.

“See how our Vlanga[14] is eating his bread and crying too,” said Vasin.

“Wonderful!” said another.

“And see, they have fired our barracks,” he continued, with a sigh. “And

how many of our brothers perished there; and the French got it for

nothing!”

“At all events, we have got out of it alive—thank God for that!” said

Vasin.

“But it’s provoking, all the same!”

“What is there provoking about it? Do you suppose they are enjoying

themselves there? Not exactly! You wait, our men will take it away from

them again. And however many of our brethren perish, as God is holy, if

the emperor commands, they will win it back. Can ours leave it to them

thus? Never! There you have the bare walls; but they have destroyed all

the breastworks. Even if they have planted their standard on the hill,

they won’t be able to make their way into the town.”

“Just wait, we’ll have a hearty reckoning with you yet, only give us

time,” he concluded, addressing himself to the French.

“Of course we will!” said another, with conviction.

Along the whole line of bastions of Sevastopol, which had for so many

months seethed with remarkably vigorous life, which had for so many

months seen dying heroes relieved one after another by death, and which

had for so many months awakened the terror, the hatred, and finally the

admiration of the enemy,—on the bastions of Sevastopol, there was no

longer a single man. All was dead, wild, horrible,—but not silent.

Destruction was still in progress. On the earth, furrowed and strewn

with the recent explosions, lay bent gun-carriages, crushing down the

bodies of Russians and of the foe; heavy iron cannons silenced forever,

bombs and cannon-balls hurled with horrible force into pits, and

half-buried in the soil, then more corpses, pits, splinters of beams,

bomb-proofs, and still more silent bodies in gray and blue coats. All

these were still frequently shaken and lighted up by the crimson glow of

the explosions, which continued to shock the air.

The foe perceived that something incomprehensible was going on in that

menacing Sevastopol. Those explosions and the death-like silence on the

bastions made them shudder; but they dared not yet believe, being still

under the influence of the calm and forcible resistance of the day, that

their invincible enemy had disappeared, and they awaited motionless and

in silence the end of that gloomy night.

The army of Sevastopol, like the gloomy, surging sea, quivering

throughout its entire mass, wavering, ploughing across the bay, on the

bridge, and at the north fortifications, moved slowly through the

impenetrable darkness of the night; away from the place where it had

left so many of its brave brethren, from the place all steeped in its

blood, from the place which it had defended for eleven months against a

foe twice as powerful as itself, and which it was now ordered to abandon

without a battle.

The first impression produced on every Russian by this command was

inconceivably sad. The second feeling was a fear of pursuit. The men

felt that they were defenceless as soon as they abandoned the places on

which they were accustomed to fight, and they huddled together uneasily

in the dark, at the entrance to the bridge, which was swaying about in

the heavy breeze.

The infantry pressed forward, with a clash of bayonets, and a thronging

of regiments, equipages, and arms; cavalry officers made their way about

with orders, the inhabitants and the military servants accompanying the

baggage wept and besought to be permitted to cross, while the artillery,

in haste to get off, forced their way to the bay with a thunder of

wheels.

In spite of the diversions created by the varied and anxious demands on

their attention, the instinct of self-preservation and the desire to

escape as speedily as possible from that dread place of death were

present in every soul. This instinct existed also in a soldier mortally

wounded, who lay among the five hundred other wounded, upon the stone

pavement of the Pavlovsky quay, and prayed God to send death; and in the

militia-man, who with his last remaining strength pressed into the

compact throng, in order to make way for a general who rode by, and in

the general in charge of the transportation, who was engaged in

restraining the haste of the soldiers, and in the sailor, who had become

entangled in the moving battalion, and who, crushed by the surging

throng, had lost his breath, and in the wounded officer, who was being

borne along in a litter by four soldiers, who, stopped by the crowd, had

placed him on the ground by the Nikolaevsky battery, and in the

artillery-man, who had served his gun for sixteen years, and who, at his

superior’s command, to him incomprehensible, to throw overboard the

guns, had, with the aid of his comrades, sent them over the steep bank

into the bay; and in the men of the fleet, who had just closed the

port-holes of the ships, and had rowed lustily away in their boats. On

stepping upon the further end of the bridge, nearly every soldier pulled

off his cap and crossed himself.

But behind this instinct there was another, oppressive and far deeper,

existing along with it; this was a feeling which resembled repentance,

shame, and hatred. Almost every soldier, as he gazed on abandoned

Sevastopol, from the northern shore, sighed with inexpressible

bitterness of heart, and menaced the foe.

[1] The vessel Constantine.

[2] A drink made of water, molasses, laurel-leaves or salvia, which is

drunk like tea, especially by the lower classes.

[3] Sea.

[4] Military Gazette.

[5] A civilian, without military training, attached to a regiment as a

non-commissioned officer, who may eventually become a regular officer.

[6] A polite way of referring to the general in the plural.

[7] A The Russian soldiers, who had been fighting the Turks, were so

accustomed to this cry of the enemy that they always declared that the

French also cried “Allah.”—Author’s Note.

[8] This sentence is in French.

[9] In many regiments the officers call a soldier, half in scorn, half

caressingly, Moskva (Moscovite), or prisyaga (an oath).

[10] This effect cannot be reproduced in English.

[11] “My good sir,” a familiarly respectful mode of address.

[12] “Manual for Artillery Officers,” by Bezak.

[13] A game in which the loser is rapped on the nose with the cards.

[14] The feminine form, as previously referred to.