XV
The next evening the Chasseurs’ band was again playing on the boulevard, and again officers, junkers, soldiers, and young women promenaded round the pavilion and along the sidewalks under the sweet, white, blooming acacias.
Kaloúgin, Prince Gáltsin, and a Colonel were walking arm-in-arm near the pavilion and talking of last night’s affair. The main clue to the talk, as always in such cases, was not the affair itself but the part the speaker had taken in it. Their faces and tones were serious, almost sorrowful, as if the losses of the night had touched and saddened every one of them. But, to tell the truth, as none of them had lost anyone very dear to him, this sorrowful expression was only an official one they considered it their duty to exhibit.
Kaloúgin and the Colonel, though they were first-rate fellows, were, in fact, ready to see such an affair every day if they could have a gold sword, and be made Major-General each time. It is very well to call some conqueror a monster because he destroys millions to gratify his ambition. But go and ask any Ensign Petroúshef or Sublieutenant Antónof, on their conscience, and you will find that every one of us is a little Napoleon, a little monster, ready to start a battle and kill a hundred men, only to get an extra medal or one-third additional pay.
“No, I beg pardon,” said the Colonel, “it began first on the left side. I was there myself.”
“Well, perhaps,” said Kaloúgin. “I spent more time on the right. I went there twice: first to look for the General, and then just to see the lodgments. That’s where it was hot!”
“Kaloúgin must know,” said Gáltsin. “By the way, V⸺ told me today that you are a trump—”
“But the losses, the losses are terrible!” said the Colonel. “In my regiment we had four hundred casualties. It is astonishing that I am still alive.”
Just then the figure of Miháylof, with his head bandaged, appeared at the end of the boulevard and came towards these gentlemen.
“What, are you wounded, Captain?” said Kaloúgin.
“Yes, slightly, with a stone,” answered Miháylof.
“Est-ce que le pavillon est baissé déja?” asked Prince Gáltsin, glancing at the Lieutenant-Captain’s cap, and not addressing anyone in particular.
“Non, pas encore,” answered Miháylof, who wished to show that he understood and spoke French.
“Do you mean to say the truce still continues?” said Gáltsin, politely addressing him in Russian, and thereby intimating (so it seemed to the Lieutenant-Captain): “It must, no doubt, be difficult for you to have to speak French, so hadn’t we better simply …” and thereupon the Adjutants left him. The Lieutenant-Captain again felt exceedingly lonely, as he had done the day before. After bowing to various people—some of whom he did not wish, and some of whom he did not venture, to join—he sat down near Kazársky’s monument and smoked a cigarette.
Baron Pesth also turned up on the boulevard. He related that he had been present at the parley, and how he had spoken with the French officers. According to his account, one of them had said to him, “Sil n’avait pas fait clair encore pendant une demi-heure, les embuscades auraient été reprises,” and he replied, “Monsieur! je ne dis pas non, pour ne pas vous donner un démenti,” and he told how well it had come out, etc. etc.
In reality, though he had been at the parley, he had not managed to say anything particular, though he much wished to speak with the French (for it’s awfully jolly to speak with those fellows). Junker Baron Pesth had long paced up and down the line asking the Frenchmen near to him, “De quel régiment éles-vous?” He got his answer and nothing more. When he went too far beyond the line, the French sentry, not suspecting that “that soldier” knew French, abused him in the third person singular: “Il vient regarder nos travaux, ce sacré—” In consequence of which Junker Baron Pesth, finding nothing more to interest him at the parley, rode home, and on his way back composed the French phrases he was now repeating.
Captain Zóbof, who spoke so loud, was on the boulevard, the shabbily-dressed Captain Obzhógof, the artillery captain who never curried favour with anyone, a Junker fortunate in his love affairs—all the same faces as the day before, and all with the same recurring motives.
Only Praskoúhin, Nefyórdof, and a few more were missing, and hardly anyone now remembered or thought of them, though there had not been time for their bodies to be washed, laid out, and put into the ground.