In August 1855 + 

I + 

Towards the end of August, between Douvánka and Bahtchisaráy, through the hot, thick dust of the rocky and hilly highway, an officer’s trap was slowly toiling towards Sevastopol (that peculiar kind of trap you never meet anywhere else, something between a Jewish brítchka, a Russian cart, and a basket). + 

In the front of the trap, pulling at the reins, squatted an orderly in a nankeen coat and wearing a cap that had once belonged to an officer but was now quite limp: behind, on bundles and bales covered with a soldier’s cloak, sat an infantry officer in a summer cloak. The officer, as far as one could judge while he was sitting, was not tall, but was very broad and massive, not so much across the shoulders as from back to chest. His neck and the back of his head were much developed and very solid. He had not what we call a waist, nor was he at all stouter round the stomach: on the contrary, he was rather lean, especially in the face, which was burnt to an unwholesome yellow. He would have been good-looking had it not been for a certain puffiness, and for the broad, soft wrinkles, not due to age, which blurred the outlines of his features, making them seem larger and giving the face a general look of coarseness and lack of freshness. His small eyes were hazel, with a daring and even insolent expression: he had very thick but not broad moustaches, the ends of which were bitten off, and his chin, and especially his jaws, were covered with an exceedingly strong, thick, black, two-days-old beard. + 

This officer had been wounded in the head by a bomb splinter on the 10th of May and still wore a bandage; but having felt well again for the last week, he had left the hospital at Simferópol and was now on his way to rejoin his regiment, stationed somewhere in the direction whence the firing came⁠—but whether in Sevastopol itself, on the North Side, or at Inkerman, no one had yet been able to tell him for certain. Already the frequent firing, especially at times when no hills intercepted it and when the wind carried it this way, sounded exceedingly distinct and seemed quite near. Now an explosion shook the air and made one start involuntarily; now sounds less loud followed each other in quick succession like the roll of drums, broken now and then by a startling boom; now again all these sounds mingled into a kind of rolling crash, like peals of thunder when a storm is raging in all its fury and rain has just begun to fall in torrents. Everyone was saying (and besides one could hear for oneself) that a terrific bombardment was going on. The officer kept telling his orderly to drive faster; he seemed in a hurry to get to his destination. They met a train of Russian peasants’ carts that had taken provisions to Sevastopol and were now on their way back laden with sick and wounded soldiers in grey uniforms, sailors in black cloaks, volunteers with red fezzes on their heads, and bearded militiamen. The officer’s trap had to stand still in the thick, motionless cloud of dust raised by this train of carts, and the officer, frowning and blinking while his eyes filled with dust, sat looking at the faces of the sick and wounded who were passing. + 

“There’s a soldier of our company! That one who is so weak,” said the Orderly, turning to his master and pointing to a cart laden with wounded men then just passing them. + 

A bearded Russian with a felt hat sat sideways in the front of the cart plaiting the lash of a whip, the handle of which he held to his side with his elbow. Behind him in the cart five or six soldiers, lying and sitting in different positions, were being jolted along. One, with a bandaged arm and his cloak thrown loosely over his shirt, though he looked pale and thin, sat upright in the middle of the cart and raised his hand as if to salute the officer, but remembering, probably, that he was wounded, pretended he only meant to scratch his head. A man lay beside him on the bottom of the cart, of whom all that was visible was his two hands holding on to the sides of the cart, and his lifted knees swaying this way and that like rags. A third, with a swollen face and with a soldier’s cap shaking on the top of his bandaged head, sat sideways with his feet hanging out, and, leaning his elbows on his knees, seemed to be dozing. The officer addressed him: “Dolzhnikóf!” he cried. + 

“Here!” said the soldier, opening his eyes and taking off his cap, and answering in such a loud, abrupt bass that it sounded as if twenty soldiers had shouted all together. + 

“When were you wounded, lad?” + 

The soldier’s leaden eyes with their swollen lids brightened up; he had evidently recognised his officer. + 

“Good day, y’r ’onor!” said the soldier in the same abrupt bass. + 

“Where is your regiment stationed now?” + 

“In Sevastopol. We were going to move on Wednesday, y’r ’onor!” + 

“Where to?” + 

“Don’t know, y’r ’onor⁠—to the North Side, maybe.⁠—Now they’re firing right across, y’r ’onor,” he added in a long-drawn tone, replacing his cap: “mostly bombs⁠—they reach right across the bay. He’s giving it us awful hot now⁠ ⁠…” + 

What the soldier said further could not be heard, but the expression of his face and his bearing showed that his words, spoken with the bitterness of one suffering, were not reassuring. + 

The officer in the trap, Lieutenant Kozeltsóf, was not an everyday sort of man. He was not one of those who live and act this way or that because others live and act so; he did what he liked, and others followed his example, and felt sure it was right. He had a nature endowed with many minor gifts: he could sing well, played the guitar, talked smartly and wrote very easily (especially official papers, the knack of writing which he had gained when he was adjutant of his battalion); but the most remarkable characteristic of his nature was his ambitious energy, which, though chiefly founded on those same minor talents, was in itself a marked and striking feature. He had ambition of a kind most often found in male circles, especially military, and this had become so much a part of his life that he could imagine no other line than to dominate or to perish. Ambition was at the root even of his inward impulses, and in his private thoughts he liked to put himself first when he compared himself with others. + 

“It’s likely I should pay attention to the chatter of a Tommy!” muttered the Lieutenant, with a feeling of heaviness and apathy at heart and a certain dimness of thought, left by the sight of the convoy of wounded men, and by the words of the soldier, enforced as they were by the sounds of the cannonade. + 

“Funny fellow that Tommy! Now then, Nikoláyef, get on!⁠ ⁠… are you asleep?” he added rather fretfully, as he arranged the skirt of his cloak. + 

Nikoláyef jerked the reins, clicked his tongue, and the trap rolled on at a trot. + 

“We’ll only stop just to feed the horse, and then we’ll go on at once: today,” said the officer. + 

II + 

At the entrance to a street of remains of ruined stone Tartar houses in Douvánka, Lieutenant Kozeltsóf was stopped by a convoy of bombs and cannonballs on its way to Sevastopol, which blocked the road. + 

Two foot-soldiers sat on the stones of a ruined wall in the midst of a cloud of dust eating a watermelon and bread. + 

“Going far, comrade?” asked one of them, with his mouth full of bread, as another soldier with a little bag on his back stopped near them. + 

“Going to join our regiment,” answered the soldier, looking past the watermelon and readjusting his bag: “We have been nigh on three weeks in the province looking after hay for our company, but now we’ve all been recalled, but we don’t know where the regiment is. Some say it crossed to the Korábelnaya last week. Perhaps you have heard, good people?” + 

“In the town, friend, it’s quartered in the town,” muttered the other, an old convoy soldier, who was digging with a clasp-knife into an unripe, whitish watermelon. “We’ve only come from there since noon. Ah, it’s awful there, my lad!” + 

“How so, good people?” + 

“Why, can’t you hear? They’re firing from all sides today, there’s not a place left whole. As for the likes of us as has been killed⁠—there’s no counting ’em!” And making an expressive gesture with his hand the speaker put his cap straight. + 

The soldier who had stopped shook his head meditatively and clicked his tongue, then he took a pipe out of his bootleg, and, without filling it, merely loosened the scorched tobacco in it, and lit a bit of tinder at the pipe of one of the soldiers. Then he raised his cap and said⁠— + 

“One can’t get away from God, good people! Forgive me.” And straightening his bag with a jerk he went his way. + 

“Ah, it would be far better to wait!” said with conviction he who was digging into the watermelon. + 

“It all comes to the same!” muttered the soldier, squeezing between the wheels of the crowded carts. + 

III + 

The posting-station was full of people when Kozeltsóf drove up. The first person he met in the porch was a very young, lean man, the superintendent, bickering with two officers who were following him. + 

“It’s not three days, but maybe ten you’ll have to wait⁠ ⁠… even generals have to wait, sirs!” said the superintendent, wishing to hurt the travellers’ feelings: “I can’t harness myself for you, can I?” + 

“Then don’t give horses to anybody if you have none! Why did you give them to that lackey with the baggage?” shouted the elder of the officers, who had a tumbler of tea in his hand. + 

“Just consider a moment, Mr. Superintendent,” said the other, a very young officer, hesitatingly: “we are not going for our own pleasure. You see we too must be needed there, since we are summoned. I shall really have to report it to the General. It will never do, you know⁠ ⁠… you, it seems, don’t respect an officer’s position.” + 

But the elder interrupted him crossly. “You always spoil everything! You only hamper me; one must know how to speak to these people. There now, he has lost all respect.⁠ ⁠… Horses, I say, this very minute!” + 

“Willingly, my dear sir, but where am I to get them from?” + 

The superintendent was silent for a few moments. Then he suddenly flared up, and waving his arms he began:⁠— + 

“I know it all very well, my dear sir, and fully understand it, but what’s one to do? You give me but” (a ray of hope appeared on the faces of the officers)⁠ ⁠… “let me but hold out to the end of the month, and I’ll remain here no longer. I’d rather go to the Maláhof Hill than remain here, I swear I would! Let them do what they please. There’s not one sound vehicle in the whole place, and it’s the third day the horses haven’t had a wisp of hay.” And the superintendent disappeared behind the gate. + 

Kozeltsóf entered the room together with the officers. + 

“Well,” said the elder very calmly to the younger, though the moment before he had seemed quite beside himself, “we’ve been three months on our way already; let’s wait a little longer. Where’s the harm? there’s time enough!” + 

The dirty, smoky room was so full of officers and trunks that Kozeltsóf with difficulty found a seat on the windowsill. While observing the faces and listening to the conversation of the others, he began making himself a cigarette. To the right of the door, round a crooked, greasy table on which two samovars stood with verdigris showing here and there, and sugar lay on various bits of paper, sat the principal group. A young moustacheless officer in a new quilted Caucasian coat was filling a teapot, and there were four other such young officers in different parts of the room. One of them with some kind of a fur coat rolled up under his head, was sleeping on the sofa; another was standing cutting up some roast mutton for a one-armed officer who was sitting at the table. Two officers, one in an Aide-de-camp’s cloak, the other in infantry uniform made of fine cloth, and with a satchel across his shoulders, were sitting by the stove; and the way they looked at the others, and the manner in which the one with the satchel smoked his cigarette, proved that they were not infantry officers of the line, and were glad they were not. Their manner did not show contempt, but rather a certain calm self-satisfaction, founded partly on money and partly on intimacy with generals⁠—a consciousness of superiority reaching even to a desire to conceal it. Then there was a thick-lipped young doctor, and an artillery officer who looked like a German⁠—these were sitting on the sofa, almost on the feet of the sleeping officer, counting money. There were also several orderlies, some dozing, others busy with bundles and trunks near the door. Among all these people Kozeltsóf did not recognise a single acquaintance; but he listened with interest to their conversation. The young officers, who, as he at once concluded from their appearance, had come straight from a training-college, pleased him, and reminded him of the fact that his brother, who was also coming straight from the training-college, ought, in a few days’ time, to reach one of the batteries in Sevastopol. But he did not like the officer with the satchel, whose face he had seen somewhere before⁠—everything about him seemed insolent and repulsive. And thinking, “We’ll put him down if he ventures to say anything,” the Lieutenant even moved from the window to the stove, and sat down there. Belonging to a line regiment and being a good officer, he, in general, did not like those “of the Staff,” and such he at once knew these officers to be. + 

IV + 

“I say, isn’t it an awful nuisance that we’re so near and still can’t get there,” said one of the young officers. “There may be an action today and we shan’t be in it.” + 

The piping voice and the fresh rosy spots which appeared on his face betrayed the sweet, youthful bashfulness of one in constant fear that his words may come out wrong. + 

The officer who had lost an arm looked at him with a smile. + 

“You will get there quite soon enough, believe me,” he said. + 

The young man looked with respect at the armless officer⁠—whose emaciated face unexpectedly lit up with a smile⁠—and became silently absorbed in making his tea. And, really, the face, the attitude, and especially the empty sleeve of the officer, expressed a kind of calm indifference, that seemed to reply to every word and action: “All this is excellent, all this I know, and all this I can do if I only wish to.” + 

“Well, and how shall we decide it?” the young officer began again, turning to his comrade in the Caucasian coat. “Shall we stay the night here, or go on with our own horse?” + 

His comrade decided to stay. + 

“Just fancy, Captain,” continued he who was making the tea, addressing the one-armed officer and handing him a knife he had dropped, “we were told that horses were awfully dear in Sevastopol, so we two bought one together in Simferópol.” + 

“I expect they made you pay a stiff price.” + 

“I really don’t know, Captain; we paid ninety roubles for it and the trap. Is that very much?” he said, turning to the company in general, including Kozeltsóf, who was looking at him. + 

“It’s not much if it’s a young horse,” said Kozeltsóf. + 

“You think so?⁠ ⁠… And we were told it was too much. Only it limps a bit, but that will pass. We were told it’s strong.” + 

“What training-college are you from?” asked Kozeltsóf, who wished to get news of his brother. + 

“We are now from the Nobles’ Regiment. There are six of us, and we are all going to Sevastopol⁠—at our own desire,” said the talkative young officer: “only we don’t know where our battery is: some say it is in Sevastopol, but those fellows there say it is in Odessa.” + 

“Couldn’t you find out in Simferópol?” Kozeltsóf asked. + 

“They didn’t know.⁠ ⁠… Just fancy, one of our comrades went to the Chancellery there and got nothing but rudeness. Just fancy how unpleasant! Would you like a ready-made cigarette?” he said to the one-armed officer, who was trying to get out his cigar-case. + 

He attended to this officer’s wants with a kind of servile enthusiasm. + 

“And are you also from Sevastopol?” he continued. “Oh dear, how wonderful it is! How we all in Petersburg used to think about all of you and all our heroes!” he said, addressing Kozeltsóf with respect and cordial endearment. + 

“Well, then you may find you have to go back?” asked the Lieutenant. + 

“That’s just what we are afraid of. Just fancy, when we had bought the horse and got all that we needed⁠—a coffeepot with a spirit-lamp and other necessary little things⁠—we had no money at all left,” he said in a low tone, glancing at his comrade, “so that if we have to return we don’t at all know how we shall manage.” + 

“Didn’t you receive your travelling allowance, then?” asked Kozeltsóf. + 

“No,” answered the young officer in a whisper; “they only promised to give it us here.” + 

“Have you the certificate?” + 

“I know that a certificate is the principal thing, but when I was at his house, a senator in Moscow⁠—he is my uncle⁠—told me that I should get one here; or else he would have given it me himself. But will they give me one in Sevastopol?” + 

“Certainly they will.” + 

“And I also think shall get one there,” he said in a tone which proved that, having asked the same question at some thirty other posting-stations, and having everywhere received different answers, he no longer quite believed anyone. + 

V + 

“Who ordered soup?” demanded the rather dirty landlady, a fat woman of about forty, as she came into the room with a tureen of cabbage-soup. + 

The conversation immediately stopped, and everyone in the room fixed their eyes on the landlady. One officer even winked to another, with a glance at her. + 

“Oh, Kozeltsóf ordered it,” said the young officer. “He’ll have to be woke up.⁠ ⁠… Get up for dinner!” he said, stepping to the sofa and shaking the sleeper’s shoulder. A lad of about seventeen, with merry black eyes and very rosy cheeks, jumped up energetically and stepped into the middle of the room rubbing his eyes. + 

“Oh, I beg your pardon,” he said to the doctor, against whom he had knocked in rising. + 

Lieutenant Kozeltsóf recognised his brother at once and went up to him. + 

“Don’t you know me?” he asked with a smile. + 

“Ah-a-a!” cried the younger Kozeltsóf, “this is wonderful!” and he began kissing his brother. + 

They kissed three times, but hesitated before the third kiss, as if the thought, “Why has it to be just three times?” had struck both of them. + 

“Well, I am glad!” said the elder, looking into his brother’s face: “come out into the porch and let’s have a talk.” + 

“Come, come along. I don’t want any soup: you eat it, Féderson,” he said to his comrade. + 

“But you wanted to eat.” + 

“I don’t want any.” + 

Out in the porch the younger one kept asking his brother, “Well, and how are you? Tell me how things are,” and saying how glad he was to see him, but did not tell him anything about himself. + 

After five minutes, when they had found time to be silent a little, the elder brother asked why the younger had not entered the Guards, as everyone had expected. + 

“I wanted to get to Sevastopol as soon as possible. You see, if things turn out well here, one can get on quicker than in the Guards; there it takes ten years to become a Colonel, and here in a year Todleben from a lieutenant-colonel has become a general. And if one gets killed⁠—well, it can’t be helped.” + 

“So that’s the sort of stuff you are made of!” said his brother, with a smile. + 

“But that’s nothing. The chief thing, you know, brother,” said the younger, smiling and blushing as if he were going to say something very shameful⁠—“the chief thing was that somehow one’s ashamed to be living in Petersburg, while here men are dying for the Fatherland. And besides, I wished to be with you,” he added, still more shyly. + 

The elder did not look at him. “How odd you are!” he said, and took out his cigarette-case. “Only the pity is that we shall not be together.” + 

“I say, tell me quite frankly: is it very dreadful at the bastions?” suddenly asked the younger. + 

“It seems dreadful at first, but one gets used to it. You’ll see for yourself.” + 

“Yes, another thing. Do you think they will take Sevastopol? I think they won’t; I am certain they won’t.” + 

“Heaven only knows.” + 

“It’s so provoking.⁠ ⁠… Just think, what a misfortune: do you know, we’ve had a whole bundle of things stolen on the way, and my shako was inside, so that I am in a terrible position. Whatever shall I appear in?” + 

Kozeltsóf secundus, Vladímir, was very like his brother Michael, but it was the likeness of an opening rosebud to a withered dog-rose. He had the same fair hair as his brother, but it was thick, and curled about his temples, and a little tail of it grew down the delicate white nape of his neck⁠—a sign of luck according to the nurses. The delicate white skin of his face was not always flushed, but the full young blood, rushing to it, betrayed every movement of the soul. He had the same eyes as his brother, but more open and brighter, which was especially noticeable because a slight moisture often made them glisten. Soft, fair down was beginning to appear on his cheeks and above the red lips, on which a shy smile often played, disclosing the white, glistening teeth. Straight, broad-shouldered, the uniform over his red Russian shirt unbuttoned⁠—as he stood there in front of his brother, cigarette in hand, leaning against the banisters of the porch, his face and attitude expressing naive joy, he was such a pleasantly pretty boy that one could not help wishing to look and look at him. He was very pleased to see his brother, and looked at him with respect and pride, imagining him to be a hero; but in some respects, namely, in what in society is considered good form⁠—being able to speak good French, knowing how to behave in the presence of people of high position, dancing, etc., he was rather ashamed of his brother, looked down on him, and even hoped, if possible, to educate him. All his impressions, so far, were from Petersburg, especially from the house of a lady who liked nice-looking lads, with whom he used to spend his holidays, and from the house of a senator in Moscow, where he had once danced at a grand ball. + 

VI + 

Having talked almost their fill, and reached a feeling which often comes when two people find there is little in common between them though they are fond of each other, the brothers remained silent for some time. + 

“Well, then, collect your things and let us be off,” said the elder. + 

The younger suddenly blushed and became confused. + 

“Do we go straight to Sevastopol?” he asked, after a moment’s silence. + 

“Well, of course. You have not got much luggage, I suppose; we’ll get it all in.” + 

“All right! let’s start at once,” said the younger with a sigh, and went towards the room. + 

But he stopped in the passage without opening the door, hung down his head sorrowfully and began thinking. + 

“Now, at once, straight to Sevastopol within reach of the bombs⁠ ⁠… terrible! Ah well, never mind; it had to be sooner or later. And now, at least, it’s with my brother⁠ ⁠…” + 

The thing was, that only now, at the thought that once seated in the trap he would reach Sevastopol before again alighting, and that there were no more chances of anything detaining him, did he clearly realise the danger he had been seeking; and the thought of its nearness staggered him. Having calmed himself as well as he could, he entered the room; but a quarter of an hour passed and he did not return to his brother, so the latter at last opened the door to call him. The younger Kozeltsóf, standing like a guilty schoolboy, was speaking with an officer. When his brother opened the door he seemed quite disconcerted. + 

“Yes, yes, I’m just coming,” he cried, waving his hand to prevent his brother coming in. “Please wait for me there.” + 

A few minutes later he came out and approached his brother with a deep sigh. “Just fancy,” he said; “it turns out that I can’t go with you, brother.” + 

“What? what nonsense!” + 

“I’ll tell you the whole truth, Mísha⁠ ⁠… None of us have any money left, and we are all in debt to that Lieutenant-Captain whom you saw in there. It’s such a shame!” + 

The elder brother frowned, and remained silent for a considerable time. + 

“Do you owe much?” he asked at last, looking at his brother from under his brows. + 

“Much? No, not very much; but I feel terribly ashamed. He paid for me at three post-stations, and the sugar was always his, so that I don’t⁠ ⁠… Yes, and we played at Préférence⁠ ⁠… and I lost a little to him.” + 

“That’s bad, Volódya! Now what would you have done if you had not met me?” the elder remarked sternly, without looking at him. + 

“Well, you see, brother, I thought I’d pay when I got my travelling allowance in Sevastopol. I could do that, couldn’t I?⁠ ⁠… So I’d better drive on with him tomorrow.” + 

The elder brother drew out his purse and with slightly trembling fingers produced two ten-rouble notes and one of three roubles. + 

“There’s the money I have,” he said; “how much do you owe?” + 

Kozeltsóf did not speak quite truly when he made it appear as if this were all the money he had. He had four gold coins sewn into the cuff of his sleeve in case of special need, but he had resolved not to touch them. + 

It turned out that Kozeltsóf secundus only owed eight roubles, including the sugar and the Préférence. The elder brother gave them to him, only remarking that it would never do to go playing Préférence when one has no money. + 

“How high did you play?” + 

The younger did not reply. The question seemed to suggest a doubt of his honour.⁠ ⁠… Vexed with himself, ashamed of having done something that could give rise to such suspicions, and hurt at such offensive words from the brother he so loved, his impressionable nature suffered so keenly that he did not answer. Feeling that he could not suppress the sobs which were gathering in his throat, he took the money without looking at it and returned to his comrades. + 

VII + 

Nikoláyef, who had strengthened himself in Douvánka with two cups of vodka sold by a soldier he had met on the bridge, kept pulling at the reins, and the trap jumped along the stony, and here and there shady, road that leads by the Belbéc to Sevastopol. The two brothers, with their legs touching as they jolted along, sat in obstinate silence, though they never ceased to think about each other. + 

“Why did he offend me?” thought the younger. “Could he not have left that unsaid? Just as if he thought me a thief: and I think he is still angry, so that we have gone apart for good. And how fine it would have been for us to be together in Sevastopol! Two brothers, friends with one another, fighting the enemy side by side: one, the elder, not highly educated but a brave warrior, and the other, young, but⁠ ⁠… also a fine fellow⁠ ⁠… In a week’s time I would have proved to everybody that I am not so very young! I shall leave off blushing, and my face will look manly; my moustaches, too, will have grown by that time⁠—not very big, but quite sufficient,” and he pulled at the short down that showed at the corners of his mouth. “Perhaps when we get there today we may go straight into action, he and I together. And I’m certain he must be steadfast and very brave; a man who says little but does more than others. I wonder whether or not he is pushing me to the very edge of the trap on purpose. He surely feels that I am uncomfortable, and pretends not to notice me.” He continued his meditation, pressing to the edge of the seat, and afraid to stir lest his brother should notice that he was uncomfortable: “So we’ll get there today, and then, maybe, straight to the bastion; I with the guns, and brother with his company, both together. Then supposing the French come down on us, I shall fire and fire. I kill quite a lot of them, but they still keep coming straight at me. I can no longer fire, and of course there is no escape for me; but suddenly my brother rushes to the front with his sword drawn, and I seize a musket and we run on with the soldiers. The French attack my brother: I run forward, kill one Frenchman, then another, and save my brother. I am wounded in one arm; I seize the gun in the other hand and still run on. Then my brother falls at my side, shot dead by a bullet. I stop for a moment, bend sadly over him, draw myself up and cry, ‘Follow me; we will avenge him! I loved my brother more than anything on earth,’ I shall say, ‘I have lost him. Let us avenge him; let us annihilate the foe or let us all die here!’ They will all rush shouting after me. Then all the French army, with Pélissier himself, will advance. We shall slaughter them, but at last I shall be wounded a second and a third time, and shall fall down dying. Then all will rush to me and Gortchakóf himself will come and ask if I want anything. I shall say that I want nothing⁠—only to be laid near my brother: that I wish to die beside him. They will carry me and lay me down by the bloodstained corpse of my brother. I shall raise myself and say only, ‘Yes, you did not know how to value two men who really loved the Fatherland: now they have both fallen. May God forgive you!’ and then I’ll die.” + 

Who knows how much of these dreams will come true? + 

“I say, have you ever been in a hand-to-hand fight?” he suddenly asked, having quite forgotten he was not going to speak to his brother. + 

“No, never,” answered the elder. “We lost two thousand from the regiment, but it was all at the fortifications, and I also was wounded there. War is not carried on at all in the way you imagine, Volódya.” + 

The pet name Volódya touched the younger brother. He longed to put matters right with the elder, who had no idea that he had given offence. + 

“You are not angry with me, Mísha?” he asked after a minute’s pause. + 

“Angry? What for?” + 

“Oh, nothing⁠ ⁠… only because of what passed⁠ ⁠… it’s nothing.” + 

“Not at all,” answered the elder, turning towards him and slapping him on the knee. + 

“Then forgive me if I have pained you, Mísha.” And the younger brother turned away to hide the tears that suddenly filled his eyes. + 

VIII + 

“Can this be Sevastopol already?” asked the younger brother when they reached the top of the hill. + 

Spread out before them they saw the Roadstead with the masts of the ships, the sea with the enemy’s fleet in the distance, the white shore batteries, the barracks, the aqueducts, the docks, and the buildings of the town, the white and purple clouds of smoke that, rising constantly from the yellow hills surrounding the town, floated in the blue sky, lit up by the rosy rays of the sun, which was reflected brilliantly in the sea, towards whose dark horizon it was already sinking. + 

Volódya looked without the slightest trepidation at the dreadful place that had so long been in his mind: he even gazed with concentrated attention at this really splendid and unique sight, feeling aesthetic pleasure and an heroic sense of satisfaction at the thought that in another half-hour he would be there; and he continued gazing until, on the North Side, they came to the commissariat of his brother’s regiment, where they had to ascertain the exact position of the regiment and of the battery. + 

The officer in charge of the commissariat lived near the so-called “new town” (a number of wooden sheds constructed by the sailors’ families) in a tent connected with a good-sized shed constructed of green oak branches that had not yet had time to dry completely. + 

The brothers found the officer seated at a dirty table on which stood a tumbler of cold tea, a tray with a vodka bottle, and bits of dry caviar and bread. He sat in a dirty yellowish shirt, counting, with the aid of a big abacus, an enormous pile of banknotes. But before speaking of the personality of this officer and his conversation, we must examine the interior of the shed more attentively, and see something of his way of living and his occupations. His new-built shed was as big, as strongly wattled, and as conveniently arranged with tables and seats made of turf, as though it were built for a general or the commander of a regiment. To keep the dry leaves from falling in, the top and sides were lined with three carpets, which, though hideous, were new, and must have cost money. On the iron bedstead which stood beneath the most striking carpet (depicting a lady on horseback), lay a bright red velvet-pile bedcover, a torn and dirty pillow, and a racoon fur-lined overcoat. On the table were a looking-glass in a silver frame, an exceedingly dirty silver-backed hairbrush, a broken horn comb full of greasy hair, a silver candlestick, a bottle of liqueur with an enormous red and gold label, a gold watch with a portrait of Peter I, two gold pens, a box of some kind of capsules, a crust of bread, and a scattered pack of old cards. Bottles, full and empty, were stowed away under the bed. This officer was in charge of the regimental commissariat and of the forage for the horses. With him lived his great friend, the commissioner employed on contracts. When the brothers entered, the latter was asleep in the tent, while the commissary officer was making up the regimental accounts for the month. The officer had a very handsome and military appearance: tall, with large moustaches and a portly figure. What was unpleasant about him was only a certain moistness and a puffiness about his face that almost hid his small grey eyes (as if he were filled with porter), and his extreme lack of cleanliness, from his thin greasy hair to his big bare feet slipped into some kind of ermine-lined slippers. + 

“What a heap of money!” said Kozeltsóf primus on entering the shed, as he fixed his eyes eagerly on the pile of banknotes. “Ah, if you’d lend me but half, Vasíly Miháylovitch!” + 

The commissary officer shrank back a little, recognised his visitor, and, gathering up the money, bowed without rising. + 

“Oh, if it were mine! It’s Government money, my dear fellow.⁠ ⁠… And who is that with you?” he said, putting the money into a cashbox that stood near him, and looking at Volódya. + 

“It’s my brother, straight from the training-college. We’ve come to learn from you where our regiment is stationed.” + 

“Take a seat, gentlemen. Won’t you have something to drink? A glass of porter, perhaps?” he said, and without taking any further notice of his visitors he rose and went out into the tent. + 

“I don’t mind if I do, Vasíly Miháylovitch.” + 

Volódya was struck by the grandeur of the commissary officer, his offhand manner, and the respect with which his brother addressed him. + 

“I expect this is one of their best officers, whom they all respect⁠—probably simple-minded, but hospitable and brave,” he thought as he sat down modestly and shyly on the sofa. + 

“Then where is our regiment stationed?” shouted the elder brother across to the tent. + 

“What?” + 

The question was repeated. + 

“Seifert was here this morning: he says the regiment has gone over to the Fifth Bastion.” + 

“Is that certain?” + 

“If I say so, of course it’s certain. However, the devil only knows if he told the truth! He’d not take much to tell a lie either. Well, will you have some porter?” said the commissary officer, still speaking from the tent. + 

“Well, yes, I think I will,” said Kozeltsóf. + 

“And you, Ósip Ignátyevitch, will you have some?” continued the voice from the tent, apparently addressing the sleeping contractor. “Wake up; it’s past four.” + 

“Why do you bother one? I’m not asleep,” answered a thin voice lazily. + 

“Well, get up, it’s dull without you,” and the commissary officer came out to his visitors. + 

“A bottle of Simferópol porter!” he cried. + 

The orderly entered the shed with an expression of pride as it seemed to Volódya, and in getting the porter from under the seat he jostled Volódya. + 

The bottle of porter had been emptied, and the conversation had continued for some time in the same strain, when the flap of the tent opened, and out stepped a rather short, fresh-looking man in a blue dressing-gown with tassels, and a cap with a red band and a cockade. He came twisting his little black moustaches and looking somewhere in the direction of one of the carpets, and answered the greetings of the officers with a scarcely perceptible movement of his shoulders. + 

“I think I’ll also have a glass,” he said, sitting down to the table. + 

“Is it from Petersburg you’ve come, young man?” he remarked, addressing Volódya in a friendly manner. + 

“Yes, sir, and I’m going to Sevastopol.” + 

“At your own request?” + 

“Yes, sir.” + 

“Now, what do you do it for, gentlemen? I don’t understand it,” remarked the commissioner. “I’d be ready to walk to Petersburg on foot, I think, if they’d let me go. My word, I’m sick of this damned life!” + 

“What have you to complain of?” asked the elder Kozeltsóf, “as if you were not well enough off here.” + 

The contractor gave him a look and turned away. + 

“The danger, privations, lack of everything,” continued he, addressing Volódya. “And what induces you to do it? I do not at all understand you, gentlemen. If you got any profit out of it; but no. Now would it be nice, at your age, to be crippled for life?” + 

“Some want to make a profit and others serve for honour’s sake,” said the elder Kozeltsóf crossly, again intervening in the conversation. + 

“Where’s the honour of it if you have nothing to eat?” said the contractor, laughing disdainfully and addressing the commissary officer, who also laughed. “Wind up and let’s have the tune from Lucia,” he said, pointing to the music-box; “I like it.” + 

“What sort of a fellow is that Vasíly Miháylovitch?” asked Volódya when, in the dusk of the evening, he and his brother had left the shed and were driving to Sevastopol. + 

“So-so, only terribly stingy. But that contractor, I can’t bear to look at.⁠ ⁠… I’ll give him a thrashing some day.” + 

IX + 

It was almost night when they reached Sevastopol. Driving towards the large bridge across the Roadstead Volódya was not exactly dispirited, but his heart felt heavy. All he had seen and heard was so different from his past, still recent, experiences⁠—the large, light, parquet-floored examination hall, the jolly, friendly voices and laughter of his comrades, the new uniform, the beloved Tsar whom he had been accustomed to see for the last seven years, and who at parting from them had, with tears in his eyes, called them his children⁠—and all he saw now was so little like his beautiful, radiant, high-souled dreams. + 

“Well, here we are,” said the elder brother when they reached the Michael Battery and dismounted from their trap. “If they let us cross the bridge we will go at once to the Nicholas Barracks. You can stay there till the morning, and I’ll go to the regiment and find out where your battery is and come for you tomorrow.” + 

“Oh, why? Let’s go together,” said Volódya. “I’ll go to the bastion with you. It doesn’t matter; one must get used to it sooner or later. If you go, so can I.” + 

“Better not.” + 

“No, please. I shall at least find out how⁠ ⁠…” + 

“My advice is, don’t go; but however⁠ ⁠…” + 

The sky was clear and dark; the stars, the ever-moving fire of the bombs and the flash of the guns, already showed up brightly in the darkness. The large white building of the battery, and the beginning of the bridge, loomed out in the darkness. Literally every second, several artillery shots and explosions ever more loudly and distinctly shook the air in quick succession. Through this roar, and as if answering it, came the dull murmur of the Roadstead. A slight breeze blew in from the sea and the air smelled moist. The brothers reached the bridge. A recruit, awkwardly striking his gun against his hand, called out, “Who goes there?” + 

“Soldier!” + 

“No one’s allowed to pass!” + 

“How is that? We must.” + 

“Ask the officer.” + 

The officer, who was sitting on an anchor dozing, rose and ordered that they should be allowed to pass. + 

“One may go there, but not back.” + 

“Where are you driving, all of a heap!” he shouted to the regimental wagons, which, laden high with gabions, were crowding the entrance. + 

As the brothers were descending to the first pontoon, they came upon some soldiers going in the opposite direction and talking loudly. + 

“If he’s had his outfit money his account is squared⁠—that’s so.” + 

“Eh, lads,” said another, “when one gets to the North Side one sees light again. My word! it’s different air altogether.” + 

“Get along,” said the first. “Why, the other day a damned shot came flying here and tore off two soldiers’ legs for them, so that⁠ ⁠…” + 

Waiting for the trap, the brothers, after crossing the first pontoon, stopped on the second, on to which the waves washed here and there. The wind, which seemed gentle on land, was strong and gusty here; the bridge swayed, and the waves broke noisily against beams, anchors, and ropes, and washed over the boards. To the right, the sea, divided by a smooth, endless black line from the starry, light, bluish-grey horizon, roared dark, misty, and hostile. Far off in the distance gleamed the lights of the enemy’s fleet. To the left loomed the black bulk of one of our ships, against the sides of which the waves beat audibly. A steamer, too, was visible, moving quickly and noisily from the North Side. The flash of a bomb exploding near the steamer lit up, for a moment, the gabions piled high on its deck, two men standing on the paddle-box, and the white foam and splash of the greenish waves cut by the vessel. On the edge of the bridge, his feet dangling in the water, sat a man in his shirt repairing the pontoon. In front, above Sevastopol, the same fires were flying, and louder and louder came the terrible sounds. A wave flowing in from the sea washed over the right side of the bridge and wetted Volódya’s boots, and two soldiers passed by him splashing their feet through the water. Suddenly something came crashing down which lit up the bridge ahead of them, a cart driving over it, and a horseman; and bomb fragments fell whistling and splashing into the water. + 

“Ah, Michael Semyónitch!” said the rider, stopping his horse in front of the elder Kozeltsóf, “have you recovered?” + 

“As you see. And where is fate taking you?” + 

“To the North Side for cartridges. You see, I’m taking the place of the regimental adjutant today.⁠ ⁠… We are expecting an attack from hour to hour.” + 

“And where is Mártsof?” + 

“His leg was torn off yesterday while he was sleeping in his room in town.⁠ ⁠… Did you know him?” + 

“Is it true the regiment is now at the Fifth Bastion?” + 

“Yes; we have taken the place of the M⁠⸺ regiment. You’d better call at the Ambulance; you’ll find some of our fellows are there; they’ll show you the way.” + 

“Well, and my lodgings in the Morskáya Street, are they safe?” + 

“Eh, my dear fellow! they’ve long since been shattered by the bombs. You’ll not know Sevastopol again; not a woman left, not a restaurant, no music: the last brothel left yesterday. It’s melancholy enough now. Goodbye!” + 

And the officer trotted away. + 

Terrible fear suddenly overcame Volódya; he felt as if a ball or a bomb-splinter would come at once and hit him straight on the head. The damp darkness, all these sounds, especially the murmur of the splashing water⁠—all seemed to tell him to go no farther, that no good awaited him here, that he would never again set foot on this side of the bay, that he should turn back at once and run somewhere, as far as possible from this dreadful place of death. “But perhaps it is too late, it is already now decided,” thought he, shuddering partly at the idea and partly because the water had soaked through his boots and was wetting his feet. + 

Volódya sighed deeply and moved a few steps from his brother. + 

“O Lord! shall I really be killed⁠—just I? Lord, have mercy on me!” he whispered, and made the sign of the cross. + 

“Well, Volódya, come!” said the elder brother when the trap had driven on to the bridge. “Did you see the bomb?” + 

On the bridge the brothers met carts loaded with wounded men, with gabions, and one with furniture driven by a woman. No one stopped them at the further side. + 

Keeping instinctively under the wall of the Nicholas Battery, and listening to the bombs that were here bursting overhead and to the howling of the falling fragments, the brothers came silently to that part of the battery where the icon hangs. Here they heard that the Fifth Light Artillery, to which Volódya was appointed, was stationed at the Korábelnaya, and they decided that Volódya, in spite of the danger, should spend the night with his elder brother at the Fifth Bastion, and go from there to his battery next morning. After turning into a corridor and stepping across the legs of the soldiers who lay sleeping all along the wall of the battery, they at last reached the Ambulance Station. + 

X + 

Entering the first room, lined with beds on which wounded men were lying, and the air of which was permeated with a horribly disgusting hospital smell, they met two Sisters of Mercy just going out. + 

One, a woman of fifty, with black eyes and a stern expression, was carrying bandages and lint and giving orders to a young lad, a medical assistant, who was following her. The other, a very pretty girl of about twenty, whose pale, tender, fair face looked with a peculiarly sweet helplessness from under her white cap, was walking with her hands in her apron pockets by the side of the elder woman, and seemed afraid of being left behind. + 

Kozeltsóf asked them if they knew where Mártsof was, whose leg had been torn off the day before. + 

“He is of the P⁠⸺ regiment, I think?” asked the elder. “Is he a relation of yours?” + 

“No, a comrade.” + 

“Take them to him,” said she in French to the young Sister. “It is this way,” and she herself, followed by the assistant, went to one of the patients. + 

“Come along; what are you looking at?” said Kozeltsóf to Volódya, who stood with raised brows and a look of suffering on his face, unable to tear his eyes from the wounded. “Come now!” + 

Volódya followed his brother, but still kept looking back and repeating unconsciously, “O my God! my God!” + 

“I suppose he has not been here long?” the Sister remarked to Kozeltsóf, with reference to Volódya, who followed them along the corridor with exclamations and sighs. + 

“He has only just come.” + 

The pretty Sister looked at Volódya, and suddenly began to cry. + 

“My God! my God! when will it end?” she said, with despair in her voice. + 

They entered the officers’ ward. Mártsof was lying on his back, his sinewy arms, bare to the elbow, thrown behind his head, and an expression on his yellow face as of a man who has clenched his teeth to keep himself from screaming with pain. His sound leg with a stocking on showed from under the blanket, and one could see the toes moving spasmodically. + 

“Well, how are you?” asked the Sister, raising his slightly bald head with her slender delicate fingers (on one of which Volódya noticed a gold ring) and arranging his pillow. + 

“In pain, of course!” he answered angrily. “That’ll do⁠—the pillow’s all right!” and the toes in the stocking moved still faster. “How d’you do? What’s your name?”⁠—“Excuse me,” he said, when Kozeltsóf had told him. “Ah yes, I beg pardon! one forgets everything here. Why, we lived together,” he added, without any sign of pleasure, and looked inquiringly at Volódya. + 

“This is my brother, arrived today from Petersburg.” + 

“H’m! And I have got my discharge,” said the wounded man, frowning. “Oh, how it hurts; if only it would be over quicker.” + 

He drew up his leg and, moving his toes still more rapidly, covered his face with his hands. + 

“He must be left alone,” said the Sister in a whisper, while tears filled her eyes: “he is very ill.” + 

While yet on the North Side the brothers had decided to go to the Fifth Bastion together, but on leaving the Nicholas Battery it was as though they had agreed not to expose themselves to needless danger, and, without mentioning the matter, they decided to go each his own way. + 

“Only, how will you find it, Volódya?” said the elder. “Look here! Nikoláyef shall take you to the Korábelnaya, and I’ll go on alone and come to you tomorrow.” + 

Nothing more was said at this last parting between the brothers. + 

XI + 

The thunder of the cannonade continued with unabated violence. Ekateríninskaya Street, down which Volódya walked followed by the silent Nikoláyef, was quiet and deserted. In the dark he could distinguish only the broad street with white walls of large houses many of which were in ruins, and the stone pavement along which he was walking. Now and then he met some soldiers and officers. As he was passing by the left side of the Admiralty Building a bright light inside showed him the acacias planted along the sidewalk of the streets, with green stakes to support them, and sickly, dusty leaves. He distinctly heard his own footsteps and those of Nikoláyef, who followed him breathing heavily. He was not thinking of anything: the pretty Sister of Mercy, Mártsof’s foot with the toes moving in the stocking, the darkness, the bombs, and different images of death, floated dimly before his imagination. The whole of his young, impressionable soul was weighed down and crushed by a sense of loneliness, and of the general indifference shown to his fate in these dangerous surroundings. “I shall be killed; I shall suffer, endure torments, and no one will shed a tear!” And all this in place of the hero’s life, full of energy and evoking sympathy, that had figured in his beautiful dreams. The bombs burst and whistled nearer and nearer. Nikoláyef sighed more and more often but did not speak. As they were crossing the bridge that led to the Korábelnaya he saw a whistling something fall and disappear into the water nearby, lighting for a second the lilac waves to a flaming red, and then come splashing up again. + 

“Look there! it was not extinguished,” said Nikoláyef in a hoarse voice. + 

“Yes,” answered Volódya, in an involuntarily high-pitched, plaintive tone which surprised him. + 

They met wounded men carried on stretchers, and more carts loaded with gabions; on the Korábelnaya they met a regiment, and men on horseback rode past. One of these was an officer followed by a Cossack. He was riding at a trot; but seeing Volódya he stopped his horse near him, looked in his face, turned away, and, touching his horse with the whip, rode on. + 

“Alone, alone! no one cares whether I exist or not,” thought the lad, and felt inclined to cry in real earnest. + 

At the top of the hill, past a high wall, he entered a street of small shattered houses continually lit up by the bombs. A dishevelled, tipsy woman, coming out of a gate with a sailor, knocked up against Volódya. + 

“Then if he’sh a man o’ ’onor,” she muttered⁠—“pardon y’r exshensh offisher!” + 

The poor lad’s heart ached more and more. On the dark horizon the lightnings flashed more and more frequently, and the bombs whistled and exploded more and more often around them. Nikoláyef sighed, and suddenly began to speak in an awe-restrained tone, as it seemed to Volódya. + 

“There now, and we were in such a hurry to get here! Always push on and push on! This is a fine place to hurry to!” + 

“Well, but if my brother had recovered his health,” answered Volódya, hoping by conversation to disperse the dreadful feeling that had seized him. + 

“Health indeed! Where’s his health when he’s quite ill? Even them as is really well had best lie in hospital these times. Not much pleasure to be got. All you get is to have a leg or arm carried off! It’s done before you know where you are! Here, even in the town, what horrors! but what’s it like at the baksions! One says all the prayers one knows going there. See the beastly thing how it twangs past you!” he added, listening to the buzzing of a flying fragment. + 

“Now,” continued Nikoláyef, “I’m to show y’r honor the way. Our business is in course to obey orders: what’s ordered has to be done; but the trap’s been left with some Tommie or other, and the bundle’s untied.⁠ ⁠… ‘Go! go!’ but if something’s lost, why Nikoláyef answers for it!” + 

After a few steps more, they came to the square. Nikoláyef was silent, but kept sighing. + 

Then he said suddenly, “There, y’r honor, there’s where your antillary’s stationed. Ask the sentinel, he’ll show you.” + 

Again a few steps, and Volódya no longer heard Nikoláyef sighing behind him. Then he suddenly felt himself quite, utterly, alone. This sense of loneliness, face to face, as it seemed to him, with death, pressed like a heavy, cold stone on his heart. He stopped in the midst of the square, glanced round to see if anyone were looking, grasped his head and thought with horror⁠— + 

“O Lord! am I really a vile, miserable coward⁠ ⁠… when it’s for my Fatherland, for the Tsar, for whom I used to long to die? No! I am a miserable, wretched being!” And Volódya, filled with despair and disappointed with himself, asked the sentinel the way to the house of the Commander of the battery and went where he was directed. + 

XII + 

The dwelling of the Commander of the battery, which the sentinel showed him, was a small two-storied house with an entrance from the yard. The faint light of a candle shone through a window patched up with paper. An orderly sat on the steps smoking his pipe. He went in to inform the battery Commander of Volódya’s arrival, and then showed him into the room. In the room, under a broken mirror between two windows, stood a table littered with official papers, and there were several chairs, and an iron bedstead with clean bedding and a little rug beside it. + 

Just at the door stood a handsome man with large moustaches, a sergeant-major, wearing his side-arms and with a cross and an Hungarian medal on his uniform. A staff-officer, a short man of about forty, in a thin old cloak and with a swollen cheek tied round with a bandage, was pacing up and down the room. + 

“I have the honour to report myself, Ensign Kozeltsóf 2nd, ordered to join the 5th Light Artillery,” said Volódya on entering the room, repeating the sentence he had been taught. + 

The Commander answered his greeting dryly, and, without shaking hands, asked him to take a seat. + 

Volódya sat down shyly on a chair by the writing table, and began playing with a pair of scissors his hand happened to fall on. The Commander, with his hands at his back and with drooping head, continued to pace the room in silence as if trying to remember something, only now and then glancing at the hand that was playing with the scissors. + 

The Commander was a rather stout man, with a large bald patch on his head, thick moustaches hanging straight down over his mouth, and pleasant, hazel eyes. His hands were well shaped, clean and plump, his small feet were much turned out, and he trod with firmness and in a way that indicated that the Commander of the battery was not a diffident man. + 

“Yes,” he said, stopping opposite the Sergeant-major, “the ammunition horses must have an extra peck, beginning from tomorrow; they are getting very thin. Don’t you think so?” + 

“All right! one can add it, your honour! Oats are a bit cheaper now,” answered the Sergeant-major, standing at attention, but moving his fingers, which evidently liked to help his conversation by gestures. “Then our forage-master, Frantchúk, sent me a note from the convoy yesterday that we must be sure, y’r excellency, to buy axles there; they say they can be got cheap. Will you give the order?” + 

“Well, let him buy them⁠—he has money,” and the Commander again began to pace the room. “And where are your things?” he asked, suddenly stopping in front of Volódya. + 

Poor Volódya was so overcome by the thought that he was a miserable coward, that he seemed to see contempt for himself as such in each look and word. He felt as if the Commander of the battery had already discerned his secret and were chaffing him. He was abashed, and replied that his things were at the Gráfskaya, and that his brother had promised to send them on next day. + 

The Commander did not stop to hear him out, but, turning to the Sergeant-major, asked, “Where could we put up the Ensign?” + 

“The Ensign, sir?” said the Sergeant-major, making Volódya still more confused by casting a rapid glance at him, which seemed to ask, “What sort of an Ensign is that?” + 

“Why, downstairs, your Excellency. We can put his honour up in the Lieutenant-Captain’s room;” he continued after a moment’s thought; “the Lieutenant-Captain is at the baksion at present, so there’s his bed empty.” + 

“Well, then, if you don’t mind for the present,” said the Commander. “I should think you are tired, and we’ll make better arrangements tomorrow.” + 

Volódya rose and bowed. + 

“Would you like a glass of tea?” said the Commander of the battery when Volódya had nearly reached the door; “the samovar can be lit.” + 

Volódya bowed and went out. The Orderly showed him downstairs into a bare, dirty room, where, with all sorts of rubbish lying about, stood a bed without sheets or blankets, on which, covered with a thick cloak, a man in a pink shirt was sleeping. Volódya took him for a soldier. + 

“Peter Nikoláyitch,” said the Orderly, shaking the sleeper by the shoulder, “the Ensign will sleep here⁠ ⁠… This is our Cadet,” he added, turning to Volódya. + 

“Oh, please don’t let me disturb you!” said Volódya; but the Cadet, a tall, solid young man, with a handsome but very stupid face, rose from the bed, threw the cloak over his shoulders, and, evidently not yet awake, left the room saying, “Never mind; I shall lie down in the yard.” + 

XIII + 

Left alone with his thoughts, Volódya’s first feeling was one of fear at the disorderly, cheerless state of his own soul. He longed to fall asleep and forget all that surrounded him, but especially himself. Putting out the candle, he took off his cloak and lay down on the bed; and to get rid of the darkness, of which he had been afraid from childhood upwards, he drew the cloak over his head. But suddenly the thought occurred to him that now, immediately, a bomb would crash through the roof and kill him, and he began to listen. Just above his head he heard the steps of the Commander of the battery. + 

“If it does come,” he thought, “it will first kill those upstairs and then me⁠—anyway not me alone.” This thought comforted him a little, and he was about to fall asleep. + 

“But supposing that all of a sudden, tonight, Sevastopol is taken, and the French break in here? What shall I defend myself with?” He rose and went up and down the room. The fear of real danger drove away the fanciful fear of the darkness. A saddle and a samovar were the only hard things in the room. + 

“What a wretch I am⁠—a coward, a despicable coward!” he thought again, and once more the oppressive feeling of contempt, even disgust of himself, came over him. He lay down again, and tried not to think. Then, under the influence of the unceasing noise, which made the panes rattle in the one window of the room, the impressions of the day rose up in his imagination, reminding him of danger. Now he seemed to see wounds and blood, then bombs and splinters flying into the room, then the pretty Sister of Mercy bandaging his wounds and crying over him as he lies dying, then his mother seeing him off in the little country town, and praying fervently with tears in her eyes before the wonder-working icon⁠—and again sleep seemed impossible. But suddenly the thought of God the Almighty, who can do anything and hears every prayer, came clearly into his mind. He knelt down, crossed himself, and folded his hands as he had been taught to do when a child. This attitude suddenly brought back to him an old, long-forgotten sense of comfort. + 

“If I must die, if I must cease to exist, then do it, Lord,” he thought, “do it quickly; but if courage is needed and firmness, which I lack, give them me. Deliver me from the shame and disgrace which are more than I can bear, and teach me what I must do to fulfil Thy will.” + 

The frightened, cramped, childish soul suddenly matured, brightened, and became aware of new, bright, and broad horizons. He thought and felt many things during the short time this state continued, but soon fell into a sweet untroubled sleep, amid the continued booming of the cannonade and the rattle of the window panes. + 

O Lord Almighty! Thou alone hast heard and knowest the simple yet burning and desperate prayers of ignorance, of confused repentance, prayers for bodily health and for spiritual enlightenment, that have risen to Thee from this dreadful place of death: from the General who, an instant after his mind has been absorbed by the Order of St. George upon his neck, with trepidation feels the nearness of Thy presence, to the private soldier prostrate on the bare floor of the Nicholas Battery, who prays for the future reward he dimly expects for all his sufferings. + 

XIV + 

The elder Kozeltsóf, happening to meet a soldier of his regiment in the street, went with him straight to the Fifth Bastion. + 

“Keep to the wall, your honour!” said the soldier. + 

“Why?” + 

“It’s dangerous, your honour: there it is, flying over us,” said the soldier, listening to the sound of a ball that whistled past and fell on the hard ground on the other side of the road. + 

Here were still the same streets, the same or even more frequent firing, the same sounds, the same groans from the wounded one met on the way, and the same batteries, breastworks, and trenches, as when he was in Sevastopol in the spring; but somehow it now all seemed more melancholy and yet more energetic. There were more holes in the houses, no lights in any of the windows except those of Koústchin’s house (a hospital), not a woman to be seen; and the place no longer bore its former customary character and air of unconcern but seemed burdened with heavy suspense and weariness. + 

But the last trench is reached: there is the voice of a soldier of the P⁠⸺ regiment who has recognised his former Company Commander, and there stands the third battalion, pressing against the wall in the darkness, and now and then lit up for an instant by the firing; and sounds are heard of subdued talking and the clatter of muskets. + 

“Where is the Commander of the regiment?” asked Kozeltsóf. + 

“In the naval-officers’ casemate, your honour,” answers an obliging soldier; “let me show you the way.” + 

Passing from trench to trench, the soldier led the way to a little ditch within a trench. A sailor sat in the ditch smoking a pipe. Behind him was a door, through a chink in which a light shone. + 

“Can I go in?” + 

“I’ll announce you directly,” and the sailor went in at the door. + 

Two voices were heard talking inside. + 

“If Prussia remains neutral,” said one voice, “Austria will also⁠ ⁠…” + 

“What matters Austria,” said the other, “when the Slavonic lands⁠ ⁠… Well, ask him in.” + 

Kozeltsóf had never been in this casemate and was struck by its elegance. It had a parquet floor and a screen in front of the door. Two beds stood against the walls; in one of the corners there was a large icon, the Mother of God, with an embossed gilt cover, and a pink lamp burned before her. On one of the beds a naval officer, quite dressed, was lying asleep. On the other, before a table on which stood two uncorked bottles of wine, sat the speakers⁠—the new regimental commander and his adjutant. Though Kozeltsóf was far from being a coward, and was not in the least guilty of any offence against either the government or the Regimental Commander, yet he felt abashed in the presence of his former comrade the Colonel, so proud was the bearing of that Colonel when he rose and listened to Kozeltsóf. + 

“It’s strange,” thought Kozeltsóf, as he looked at his Commander, “it is only seven weeks since he took the command, and now all his surroundings⁠—his dress, manner, looks⁠—already show the power of a regimental commander. It is not long since this same Batrístchef used to hobnob with us, wore one and the same dark cotton print shirt the whole week, ate the rissoles and dumpling every day, never inviting anyone!⁠—but look at him now! What a look of cold pride in his eyes! It seems to say: ‘Though, being a Commander of the new school, I am your comrade, yet, believe me, I know very well that you’d give half your life to be in my place!’ ” + 

“You have been under treatment a long time,” said the Colonel, with a cold look at Kozeltsóf. + 

“I have been ill, Colonel! The wound is not thoroughly closed even now.” + 

“Then it’s a pity you have come,” said the Colonel, looking suspiciously at the officer’s full figure. “But still, you are capable of taking duty?” + 

“Certainly, sir, I am.” + 

“Well, sir, I am very glad. Then you’ll take over from Ensign Záytsef the Ninth Company, that you had before. You will receive your orders at once.” + 

“Yes, sir.” + 

“Be so good, when you go, as to send the regimental adjutant to me.” The Commander finished with a slight bow, thereby intimating that the audience was at an end. + 

On leaving the casemate, Kozeltsóf muttered something to himself several times and shrugged his shoulders as if he were hurt, or uncomfortable, or provoked⁠—and provoked, not with the Colonel (he had no grounds), but with himself; and he felt dissatisfied with everything around him. + 

XV + 

Before going to join the officers, Kozeltsóf went to greet his company, and to see where it was stationed. The breastworks of gabions, the plan of the trenches, the cannon he passed, and even the fragments and bombs he stumbled over on the way, all lit up incessantly by the flashes of the firing, were quite familiar to him. All this had vividly impressed itself on his memory three months before, when he had spent two consecutive weeks at this same bastion. Though there was much that was dreadful in the recollection, yet there was some charm of old times mixed with it, and he recognised all the familiar places and objects with pleasure, as if the fortnight spent here had been a pleasant one. His company was stationed against the wall of defence on the side towards the Sixth Bastion. + 

Kozeltsóf entered a long bombproof, quite open on the entrance side, where he was told he would find the Ninth Company. There was literally no room to put one’s foot in the whole bombproof: it was crowded with soldiers from the very entrance. At one side burned a crooked tallow candle, which a soldier who was lying on the ground held over the book another was reading from, spelling out the words. Round the candle could be seen in the dim light heads uplifted in eager attention to the reader. The book was a primer, and on entering the bombproof Kozeltsóf heard the following: + 

“Pra-yer af-ter les-sons. We thank Thee, O Cre-a-tor⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Snuff the candle!” said a voice. “It’s a fine book.” + 

“Oh-my-God,”⁠ ⁠… continued the reader. + 

When Kozeltsóf asked for the Sergeant-major the reader stopped, and the soldiers began moving, coughing, and blowing their noses, as is usual after a restrained silence. The Sergeant-major, buttoning his uniform, rose from near the reader’s group, and stepping over and on to the legs of those who, for want of room, were unable to move them, he came to the officer. + 

“Good evening, friend! Is this the whole of our company?” + 

“We wish your honour health. Welcome back, your honour!” answered the Sergeant-major with a cheerful and friendly look at Kozeltsóf. “How is your health getting on, your honour? Thank God, you’re better! We have been missing you!” + 

It was easy to see that Kozeltsóf was liked by his company. + 

Far in the bombproof voices were heard saying: “Our old company commander has returned.” “He that was wounded.” “Kozeltsóf.” “Michael Semyónitch,” and so on; some even moved nearer to him, and the drummer greeted him. + 

“How do you do, Obantchoúk?” said Kozeltsóf. “Still whole? Good evening, lads!” he added, raising his voice. + 

The answer, “Wish your honour health!” resounded through the casemate. + 

“How are you getting on, lads?” + 

“Badly, your honour. The French are getting the better of us; they give it us hot from behind their ’trenchments, but don’t come out into the open.” + 

“Perhaps it will be my luck to see them coming out into the open, lads,” said Kozeltsóf. “It won’t be the first time for you and me, and we’ll give them another thrashing.” + 

“We’ll do our best, your honour,” several voices replied. + 

“There now, he’s bold enough for anything!” said a voice. + 

“Awfully bold!” said the drummer to another soldier, not loud, but so as to be heard, and as if to justify the Commander’s words, and to prove that there was nothing boastful or unlikely in what he had said. + 

From the soldiers Kozeltsóf went to join his fellow-officers in the Defensive Barracks. + 

XVI + 

A crowd of people were in the large barrack-room⁠—naval, artillery, and infantry officers. Some slept, others talked, sitting on a chest of some kind and on the carriage of a garrison gun, but the largest and noisiest group sat on two Cossack cloaks spread on the floor beyond the arch, and were drinking porter and playing cards. + 

“Ah, Kozeltsóf! Kozeltsóf!⁠ ⁠… So you’ve come! That’s good.⁠ ⁠… You’re a brick.⁠ ⁠… How’s your wound?” It was evident that here also he was liked, and his return gave pleasure. + 

When he had shaken hands with those he knew, Kozeltsóf joined the noisy group of officers playing cards. With some of them he was acquainted. A thin, dark, handsome man, with a long thin nose and large moustaches which grew out to his cheeks, kept the bank, and dealt the cards with thin, white fingers, on one of which he wore a large seal-ring with a crest. He dealt straight on and carelessly, being evidently excited about something, and only trying to appear at ease. At his right lay a grey-haired Major leaning on his elbows, who, with affected coolness, kept staking half-roubles and paying at once. On his left squatted an officer with a red, perspiring face, smiling unnaturally and joking. When his cards lost, he kept fumbling with one hand in his empty trouser-pocket. He was playing high, but evidently no longer for ready-money, and it was this that upset the handsome dark man. A bald, thin, pale officer with a huge nose and mouth paced the room with a large bundle of paper-money in his hand, and continually staked va-banque for ready money and won. Kozeltsóf drank a glass of vodka and sat down with the players. + 

“Stake something, Michael Semyónitch!” said the banker: “you’ve brought back lots of money, I’m sure.” + 

“How should I get money! On the contrary, what I had I’ve spent in the town.” + 

“Never!⁠ ⁠… You’ve surely cleared someone out in Simferópol!” + 

“I’ve really very little,” said Kozeltsóf, but, evidently not wishing to be believed, he unbuttoned his uniform and took up an old pack of cards. + 

“Well, suppose I have a try; who knows what the devil may do for one! Even a mosquito, you know, wins his battles sometimes. Only I must have a drink to keep up my courage.” + 

And soon, having drunk another glass of vodka and some porter, he lost his last three roubles. + 

A hundred and fifty roubles were noted down against the little perspiring officer. + 

“No, I’ve no luck,” he said carelessly, preparing another card. + 

“I’ll trouble you to send up the money,” said the banker, ceasing for a moment to deal the cards and looking at him. + 

“Allow me to send it tomorrow,” answered the perspiring officer, rising and fumbling with renewed vigour in his empty pocket. + 

“H’m!” bellowed the banker, and angrily throwing to the right and left, he finished the deal. + 

“But this won’t do. I quit the bank. This won’t do, Zahár Ivánitch,” he repeated; “we are playing for ready money and not on credit.” + 

“What! don’t you trust me? It’s really too ridiculous!” + 

“Who is going to pay me?” muttered the Major, who had won some eight roubles. “I have paid up more than twenty roubles and when I win I get nothing.” + 

“How am I to pay,” said the banker, “if there is no money on the board?” + 

“That’s not my business,” shouted the Major, rising; “I’m playing with you, and not with them.” + 

The perspiring officer suddenly flared up: + 

“I shall pay tomorrow, I tell you. How dare you say such things to me?” + 

“I shall say what I please! That’s no way to behave. There now!” shouted the Major. + 

“That’s enough, Fyódor Fyódoritch!” said everyone, restraining the Major. + 

But let us hasten to drop the curtain on this scene. Tomorrow, or today, perhaps each of these men will cheerfully and proudly go to face death, and die steadfastly and calmly; but the only relief in these inhuman conditions, horrible even to the coldest imagination, and from which there is no hope of escape, is to forget and to destroy consciousness. Deep in each soul dwells a noble spark, capable of making him a hero; but the spark wearies of burning⁠—a fateful moment may come when it will flash into flame and illuminate great deeds. + 

XVII + 

The next day the bombardment continued with equal vigour. At about eleven o’clock Volódya Kozeltsóf was sitting among the battery officers, to whom he was already beginning to get used. He was examining the new faces, observing, asking questions, and talking. The modest conversation, with a flavour of erudition, of the artillery officers inspired him with respect and pleased him. On the other hand, Volódya’s bashful, innocent, and good-looking appearance inclined the officers in his favour. The senior of the battery, a Captain, a short man with reddish hair curling over his forehead and smoothed over the temples, brought up in the old artillery traditions, a ladies’ man with a pretence to scientific knowledge, questioned Volódya about what he knew of artillery and of new inventions; joked in a friendly manner about his youth and his pretty face, and in general treated him as a son, and this Volódya liked very much. Sublieutenant Dyádenko, a young officer who spoke with a Little-Russian accent, and had a torn cloak and dishevelled hair, though he talked loudly, snatched every opportunity to begin a cantankerous dispute, and was abrupt in his movements, nevertheless pleased Volódya, for he could not help seeing that a very kind heart, and much that was good, lay beneath this rough exterior. Dyádenko kept offering to be of use to Volódya, and demonstrating to him that none of the guns in Sevastopol were placed according to rule. + 

Lieutenant Tchernovítsky, with high-arched eyebrows, though he was the most polite of all, and his coat was clean enough and neatly patched if not very new, and though he showed a gold chain over his satin waistcoat, did not please Volódya. He kept asking what the Emperor and the Minister of War were doing, told him with unnatural rapture of feats of valour performed in Sevastopol, regretted there were so few real patriots, and in general displayed much knowledge, intelligence, and noble feeling; but, somehow, it all seemed unnatural and unpleasant to Volódya. He noticed especially that the other officers hardly spoke to Tchernovítsky. Junker Vlang, whom Volódya had disturbed the night before, was also there. He did not speak, but, sitting modestly in a corner, laughed when there was anything funny, helped to recall anything that was forgotten, handed the vodka bottle, and made cigarettes for all the officers. Whether it was the modest, courteous manner of Volódya, who behaved to him as to the officers and did not order him about as if he were a boy, or whether his attractive appearance charmed Vlánga (as the soldiers called him, giving a feminine form to his name), at any rate, he did not take his large, kind eyes from the new officer, foresaw and anticipated his wants, and was all the time in a state of enamoured ecstasy, which of course the officers noticed and made fun of. + 

Before dinner the Lieutenant-Captain was relieved from the bastion and joined them. Lieutenant-Captain Kraut was a fair-haired, handsome, and vivacious officer, with big, sandy moustaches and whiskers. He spoke Russian splendidly, but too accurately and elegantly for a Russian. In the service and in his life he was like his speech: he served admirably, was a first-rate comrade, most reliable in money matters; but simply as a man, just because everything was so satisfactory about him, something seemed lacking. Like all Russo-Germans, in strange contradistinction to the idealist German-Germans, he was praktisch in the extreme. + 

“Here he comes⁠—our hero!” said the Captain, as Kraut came into the room swinging his arms and jingling his spurs. “What will you take, Friedrich Christiánitch, tea or vodka?” + 

“I have already ordered some tea,” he answered, “but meanwhile I do not mind taking a drop of vodka as a refreshment to my soul.⁠—Very pleased to make your acquaintance. I hope you will favour us with your company and your friendship,” he said, turning to Volódya, who rose and bowed to him. “Lieutenant-Captain Kraut.⁠ ⁠… At the bastion yesterday, the master-gunner told me you had arrived.” + 

“I am very grateful to you for your bed: I slept on it.” + 

“But were you comfortable? One of the legs is broken: no one has time to mend it in this state of siege; it has to be propped up.” + 

“Well, what luck have you had on duty?” asked Dyádenko. + 

“Oh, all right: only Skvortsóf was hit, and yesterday we had to mend a gun-carriage⁠—the cheek was blown to shivers.” + 

He rose and began to walk up and down. It was evident that he was under the influence of the pleasant feeling experienced by men who have just left a post of danger. + 

“Well, Dmítry Gavrílitch,” he said, shaking the Captain by his knee, “how are you getting on? What of your recommendation⁠—is it still silent?” + 

“There’s no news as yet.” + 

“And there won’t be any,” began Dyádenko: “I told you so before.” + 

“Why won’t there be?” + 

“Because the report was not written properly.” + 

“Ah, you wrangler! you wrangler!” said Kraut, smiling merrily. “A real obstinate Little-Russian! There now, just to spite you, you’ll be made Lieutenant.” + 

“No, I shan’t!” + 

“Vlang! get me my pipe and fill it,” said Kraut, turning to the Junker, who rose at once and readily ran for the pipe. + 

Kraut brightened them all up: he talked of the bombardment, asked what had been going on in his absence, and spoke to everyone. + 

XVIII + 

“Well, have you established yourself satisfactorily among us?” said Kraut to Volódya. “Pardon me! what is your name and patronymic? You know that’s our custom in the artillery.⁠ ⁠… Have you a horse?” + 

“No,” said Volódya; “I don’t know what I am to do. I was telling the Captain⁠ ⁠… I have no horse, nor any money until I get my forage-money and travelling expenses paid. I thought, meanwhile, of asking the Commander of the battery to let me have a horse, but I’m afraid he will refuse.” + 

“Apollón Sergéitch⁠ ⁠… ?” and Kraut made a sound with his lips expressing strong doubt, and looking at the Captain added, “hardly!” + 

“Well, if he does refuse there’ll be no harm done,” said the Captain. “To tell you the truth, a horse is not much wanted here; still, it is worth trying. I will ask him today.” + 

“How little you know him,” Dyádenko put in: “he might refuse anything else, but not that.⁠ ⁠… Will you bet?” + 

“Well, of course we know you can’t help contradicting.” + 

“I contradict because I know: he’s close in other matters, but he’ll give a horse because he gains nothing by refusing.” + 

“Gains nothing when oats are eight roubles?” said Kraut: “the gain is not having to keep an extra horse!” + 

“You ask for Skvoréts, Vladímir Semyónitch,” said Vlang, returning with Kraut’s pipe: “it’s a capital horse.” + 

“Off which you fell into a ditch in Soróki, eh, Vlánga?” remarked the Lieutenant-Captain. + 

“What does it matter if oats are eight roubles when, in his estimates, they figure at ten and a half? That’s where the gain comes in,” said Dyádenko, continuing to argue. + 

“Well, naturally, you can’t expect him to keep nothing. When you are commander of a battery, I dare say you’ll not let one have a horse to ride into town.” + 

“When I am the commander of a battery, my horses will get four measures each, and I shall not make an income, no fear!” + 

“We shall see, if we live⁠ ⁠…” said the Lieutenant-Captain: “you will act in just the same way⁠—and so will he,” pointing to Volódya. + 

“Why do you think that he too would wish to make a profit?” said Tchernovítsky to Kraut: “he may have private means, then why should he make a profit?” + 

“Oh no, I⁠ ⁠… excuse me, Captain,” said Volódya, blushing up to his ears, “but I should think such a thing dishonourable.” + 

“Dear me! what a severe fellow he is!” said Kraut. + 

“No, I only mean that I think that if the money is not mine, I ought not to take it.” + 

“But I’ll just tell you something, young man,” began the Lieutenant-Captain in a more serious tone; “do you know that if you are commanding a battery you have to conduct things properly, and that’s enough. The commander of a battery does not interfere with the soldiers’ supplies; that’s always been the custom in the artillery. If you are a bad manager, you will have no surplus. But you have to spend over and above what’s in the estimates: for shoeing⁠—that’s one” (he bent down one finger), “and for medicine⁠—that’s two” (and he bent down another finger), “for office expenses⁠—that’s three: then for off-horses one has to pay up to 500 roubles, my dear fellow⁠—that’s four: you have to supply the soldiers with new collars, spend a good bit on charcoal for the samovars, and keep open table for the officers. If you are in command of a battery you must live decently: you must have a carriage and a fur coat, and one thing and another.⁠ ⁠… It’s quite plain!” + 

“And above all,” interrupted the Captain, who had been silent all the time, “look here, Vladímir Semyónitch. Imagine a man, like myself say, serving for twenty years, with a pay of first 200, then 300 roubles a year. Can one refuse him a crust of bread in his old age, after all his service?” + 

“Ah, what’s the good of talking,” again began the Lieutenant-Captain: “don’t be in a hurry to judge, but live and serve.” + 

Volódya felt horribly confused and ashamed of what he had so thoughtlessly said; he muttered something, and then listened in silence while Dyádenko began, very irritably, disputing and proving the contrary of what had been said. The dispute was interrupted by the Colonel’s orderly, who came to say that dinner was served. + 

“Ask Apollón Sergéitch to give us some wine today,” said Tchernovítsky to the Captain, buttoning his uniform. “Why is he so stingy? If we get killed it will all be wasted.” + 

“Well, ask him yourself.” + 

“Oh no; you are the senior officer: we must observe order in all things.” + 

XIX + 

The table had been moved away from the wall and covered with a dirty tablecloth in the room where Volódya had presented himself to the Colonel the night before. Today the Commander of the battery shook hands with him, and asked him the Petersburg news and about his journey. + 

“Well, gentlemen, who takes vodka? Please help yourselves⁠—ensigns don’t take any,” added he with a smile. + 

Altogether he did not seem at all as stern as the night before: on the contrary, he seemed a kind and hospitable host, and an elder comrade among his fellow-officers. But, in spite of it all, the officers, from the old Captain down to Ensign Dyádenko, showed him great respect, if only by the way they addressed him, politely looking him straight in the eyes, and by the timid way they came up, one by one, to the side-table to drink their glass of vodka. + 

The dinner consisted of a large tureen of cabbage-soup seasoned with an enormous quantity of pepper and bay-leaves, and in which floated pieces of fat beef; Polish cutlets with mustard, and dumplings with butter that was not very fresh. There were no napkins, the spoons were pewter and wooden; there were only two tumblers, and on the table the only drink was supplied by a water-bottle with a broken neck; but the meal was not dull: the conversation never flagged. At first they talked about the battle of Inkerman, in which the battery had taken part, and each gave his own impressions of it and reasons for the reverse, but all were silent as soon as the Commander spoke. Then the conversation naturally passed on to the insufficient calibre of the field-guns, and to the subject of new lighter cannons, which gave Volódya an opportunity of showing his knowledge of artillery. But the conversation never touched the present terrible condition of Sevastopol: it was as if each one had thought so much on this subject that he did not wish to speak of it. Nor, to Volódya’s great surprise and regret, was there any mention at all of the duties of the service on which he had entered; it was as if he had come to Sevastopol solely to discuss lighter guns and to dine with the Commander of the battery. During the dinner a bomb fell near the house they were in. The floor and walls vibrated as if from an earthquake, and the windows were darkened by powder smoke. + 

“You didn’t see that sort of thing in Petersburg, I fancy; but here we get many such surprises,” said the Commander of the battery. “Vlang, go and see where it burst.” + 

Vlang went out to see, and reported that it had fallen in the square; and no more was said about the bomb. + 

Just before dinner ended, a little old man, the battery-clerk, came into the room with three sealed envelopes and handed them to the Commander: “This one is very important: a Cossack has just brought it from the Chief of the Artillery.” + 

All the officers looked with eager impatience as the Commander, with practised fingers, broke the seal, and drew out the very important paper. “What can it be?” each one asked himself. It might be an order to retire from Sevastopol to recuperate, or the whole battery might be ordered to the bastions. + 

“Again!” said the Commander, angrily throwing the paper on the table. + 

“What is it, Apollón Sergéitch?” asked the senior officer. + 

“They order an officer and men to some mortar-battery or other.⁠ ⁠… As it is, I have only four officers and not men enough for the gun detachments,” grumbled the Commander of the battery; “and here they are taking more away.⁠ ⁠… However, gentlemen, someone will have to go,” said he after a short silence: “the order is, to be at the outposts at seven. Send the Sergeant-major to me. Well, who will go? Decide, gentlemen.” + 

“There⁠—he has not been anywhere yet,” said Tchernovítsky, pointing to Volódya. + 

The Commander of the battery did not answer. + 

“Yes, I should like to go,” said Volódya, and he felt the cold sweat break out on his back and neck. + 

“No, why?” interrupted the Captain. “Of course no one would refuse, but one need not offer oneself either: but if Apollón Sergéitch leaves it to us, let us throw lots, as we did last time.” + 

All agreed. Kraut cut up some paper, rolled up the bits, and threw them into a cap. The Captain joked, and even ventured, on this occasion, to ask the Colonel for some wine⁠—to keep up their courage, as he said. Dyádenko sat looking grim, Volódya smiled at something. Tchernovítsky declared he was sure to draw it. Kraut was perfectly calm. Volódya was allowed to draw first. He took a roll of paper a bit longer than the others, but then decided to change it; and taking a thinner and shorter one, unrolled it and read “Go.” + 

“It’s I,” he said with a sigh. + 

“Well, God be with you; you’ll get your baptism of fire at once,” said the Commander, looking at the Ensign’s perturbed face with a kindly smile: “but make haste and get ready, and so that it shall be pleasanter for you, Vlang shall go with you as gun-sergeant.” + 

XX + 

Vlang was extremely pleased with his appointment, ran off quickly to get ready, and when dressed came to help Volódya: trying to persuade him to take a bed, a fur coat, some back numbers of Fatherland Records, the coffeepot with the spirit lamp, and other unnecessary things. The Captain advised Volódya to read up in the Handbook (Bezák’s Artillery Officer’s Handbook) about firing mortars, and especially to copy out the tables in it. Volódya set to work at once, and to his surprise and joy noticed that his fear of the danger, and, more still, of being a coward, though it still troubled him a little, was far from what it had been the night before. This was partly the effect of daylight and activity, but was chiefly due to the fact that fear, like every strong feeling, cannot long continue with the same intensity. In short, he had already had time to live through the worst of it. At about seven o’clock, just as the sun began to disappear behind the Nicholas Barracks, the Sergeant-major came and announced that the men were ready and waiting. + 

“I have given Vlánga the list; your honour will please receive it from him,” said he. + 

About twenty artillerymen, with only their side-arms, stood behind the corner of the house. Volódya and the Junker walked up to them. “Shall I make them a little speech, or simply say ‘Good day, lads,’ or say nothing at all,” he thought. “But why not say ‘Good day, lads;’ it is even right that I should,” and he cried boldly with his ringing voice, “Good day, lads!” The soldiers answered gaily: the young, fresh voice sounded pleasantly in the ears of each. Volódya went briskly in front of the soldiers, and though his heart beat as fast as if he had run full-speed for miles, his step was light and his face cheerful. When they were approaching the Maláhof Redoubt, mounting the hill, he noticed that Vlang, who kept close to him all the time, and who had seemed so brave before leaving the house, was continually dodging and stooping, as if all the bombs and cannonballs, which here whistled past very frequently, were flying straight at him. Some of the soldiers did the same, and, in general, most of the faces expressed uneasiness, if not exactly alarm. These circumstances completely comforted and emboldened Volódya. + 

“So here I, also, am on the Maláhof mound, which I fancied a thousand times more terrible. And I get along without bowing to the balls, and am even much less frightened than the others. So I am no coward,” thought he, with pleasure and even a certain rapturous self-complacency. + 

This feeling, however, was quickly shaken by a sight he came upon in the twilight at the Kornílof Battery while looking for the Commander of the bastion. Four sailors stood by the breastwork holding by its arms and legs the bloody corpse of a man without boots or coat, swinging it before heaving it over. (On the second day of this bombardment it was found impossible in some parts to clear away the corpses from the bastions, and they were, therefore, thrown out into the ditch, so as not to be in the way at the batteries.) Volódya felt stunned for a moment when he saw the body bump on the top of the breastwork and then roll down into the ditch, but, luckily for him, the Commander of the bastion met him just then and gave him his orders, as well as a guide to show him the way to the battery and to the bombproof assigned to his men. We will not speak of all the dangers and disenchantments our hero lived through that evening; how⁠—instead of the firing he was used to on the Vólkof field, amid conditions of perfect exactitude and order, which he had expected to meet with here also⁠—he found two injured mortars, one with its mouth battered in by a ball, the other standing on the splinters of its shattered platform; how he could not get workmen to mend the platform till the morning; how not a single charge was of the weight specified in the Handbook; how two of the men under him were wounded, and how he was twenty times within a hair’s-breadth of death. Fortunately a gigantic gunner, a seaman who had served with the mortars since the commencement of the siege, had been appointed to assist Volódya, and convinced him of the possibility of using the mortars. By the light of a lantern, this gunner showed him all over the battery as he might have shown him over his own kitchen-garden, and undertook to have everything right by the morning. The bombproof to which his guide led him was an oblong hole dug in the rocky ground, 25 cubic yards in size and covered with oak beams nearly 2½ feet thick. He and all his soldiers installed themselves in it. + 

Vlang first of all, as soon as he discovered the little door, not a yard high, rushed in headlong at the risk of breaking his limbs against the stone bottom, squeezed into the farthest corner and there remained. Volódya, when all the soldiers had settled on the ground along the walls, and some had lit their pipes, made up his bed in a corner, lit a candle, and, after lighting a cigarette, lay down. + 

The reports of the continuous firing could be heard overhead, but not very distinctly, except from one cannon which stood quite close and shook the bombproof with its thunder. In the bombproof all was quiet, except when one or other of the soldiers, still rather shy in the presence of the new officer, spoke, asking a neighbour to move a little, or to give him a light for his pipe, when a rat scratched somewhere among the stones, or when Vlang, who had not yet recovered, and was still looking wildly around him, heaved a deep sigh. + 

Volódya, on his bed in this quiet corner crammed with people and lighted by a solitary candle, experienced a sensation of cosiness such as he had felt as a child when, playing hide-and-seek, he used to creep into the cupboard or under his mother’s skirt and sit listening in breathless silence, afraid of the dark, yet conscious of enjoyment. It felt rather uncanny, yet his spirits were high. + 

XXI + 

After ten minutes or so the soldiers grew bolder and began to talk. The more important people⁠—two noncommissioned officers, an old grey-haired one with all the medals and crosses except that of St. George, and a young one, a Cantonist, who was smoking cigarettes made by himself⁠—had settled nearest to the light and to the officer’s bed. The drummer had, as usual, taken upon himself the duty of waiting upon the officer. The bombardiers and men who had medals came next, and farther on, in the shadow nearer the entrance, sat the meeker folk. It was these last who started the conversation. The cause of it was the noise made by a man who came tumbling hastily into the bombproof. + 

“Hullo, old fellow! how’s it you don’t stay outside? Don’t the lasses play merrily enough out there?” said a voice. + 

“They’re playing such tunes as we never hear in our village,” laughingly answered the man who had just run in. + 

“Ah! Vásin don’t like bombs⁠—ah! he don’t,” said someone in the aristocratic corner. + 

“If there were any need it would be quite a different thing,” slowly replied Vásin; and when he spoke all the others were silent. “On the 24th at least we were working the guns; but what’s there to find fault with now? If we get killed uselessly the authorities won’t thank the likes of us for it.” + 

At these words all laughed. + 

“There’s Mélnikof⁠—he’s out there now, I fancy,” said someone. + 

“Go and send that Mélnikof in here,” said the old sergeant, “or else he’ll really get killed uselessly.” + 

“Who is Mélnikof?” asked Volódya. + 

“Oh, it’s a poor, silly soldier of ours, your honour. He’s just afraid of nothing, and he’s now walking about outside. You should have a look at him; he’s just like a bear.” + 

“He knows a charm,” came Vásin’s long-drawn accents from the other corner. + 

Mélnikof entered the bombproof. He was stout (which is extremely rare among soldiers), red-haired and red-faced, and had an enormous bulging forehead and prominent, clear, blue eyes. + 

“Aren’t you afraid of the bombs?” asked Volódya. + 

“What’s there to be afraid of in them bombs?” answered Mélnikof, shrugging and scratching himself; “they’ll not kill me with a bomb, I know.” + 

“So you would like to live here?” + 

“In course I should. It’s gay here,” he said, and burst out laughing. + 

“Oh, then they should take you for a sortie! Shall I speak to the General about it?” said Volódya, though he did not know a single General here. + 

“Like, indeed! In course I should!” And Mélnikof hid behind the others. + 

“Let’s have a game of ‘noses,’ lads! Who has got cards?” his voice was heard to say hurriedly. + 

And soon the game had started in the far corner: one could hear laughter, noses being smacked, and trumps declared. Volódya drank some tea⁠—the drummer having heated the samovar for him⁠—treated the noncommissioned officers to some, joked and talked with them, wishing to gain popularity, and felt very pleased at the respect paid him. The soldiers also, seeing that the gentleman gave himself no airs, became talkative. One of them explained that the siege of Sevastopol would not last much longer, because a reliable fellow in the fleet had told him that Constantine, the Tsar’s brother, was coming with the ’Merican fleet to help us; and also that there would soon be an agreement not to fire for a fortnight, but to have a rest, and that if anyone did fire he’d have to pay a fine of seventy-five kopecks for each shot. Vásin, who, as Volódya had already observed, was small, and had whiskers and kind, large eyes, related, first amid general silence and then amid roars of laughter, how he had gone home on leave, and at first everyone was glad to see him; but then his father began sending him to work, and the Forester-Lieutenant sent a horse and trap to fetch his wife! All this amused Volódya very much. He not only felt no fear, or discomfort from the overcrowding and bad air in the bombproof, but, on the contrary, felt exceedingly bright and contented. + 

Many of the soldiers were already snoring. Vlang also lay stretched on the floor, and the old sergeant, having spread his cloak on the ground, was crossing himself and muttering prayers before going to sleep, when Volódya felt inclined to go out of the bombproof and see what was going on outside. + 

“Draw in your legs!” the soldiers called to one another as soon as he rose, and the legs, drawing in, made room for him. + 

Vlang, who had seemed to be asleep, suddenly raised his head and seized Volódya by the skirts of his cloak. + 

“Now don’t; don’t go⁠—how can you?” he began in a tearfully persuasive voice. “You do not yet know; out there the cannonballs are falling all the time. It’s better in here.” + 

But in spite of Vlang’s entreaties, Volódya made his way out of the bombproof and sat down on the threshold, where Mélnikof was already sitting. + 

The air was pure and fresh, especially compared with that in the bombproof; the night was clear and calm. Amid the booming of the cannons one could hear the wheels of carts bringing gabions, and the voices of men at work in the powder-vault. High overhead was the starry sky, across which ran the fiery trails of the bombs. To the left was another bombproof, through the small entrance to which the legs and backs of the sailors who lived there could be discerned and their voices heard. In front was the roof of the powder-vault, past which flitted the figures of stooping men, while on it a tall form in a black cloak stood, with his hands in his pockets, under the bullets and bombs that incessantly flew past the spot, and kept treading down with his heel the earth that other men brought there in sacks. Many a bomb flew past and exploded near the vault. The soldiers who were carrying the earth stooped and stepped aside; but the black figure continued calmly to stamp the earth down with his feet, and remained on the spot in the same position. + 

“Who is that black fellow there?” said Volódya to Mélnikof. + 

“Can’t say. I’ll go and see.” + 

“No, don’t; there’s no need.” + 

But Mélnikof rose without heeding him, approached the black figure and for a long time stood by it equally indifferent and immovable. + 

“That’s the powder-master, your honour!” he said when he returned. “The vault has been knocked in by a bomb, so the infantry men are carrying earth there.” + 

Now and then a bomb seemed to fly straight at the door of the bombproof. Then Volódya pressed behind the corner, but soon crept out again, looking up to see if another was coming that way. Though Vlang, from inside the bombproof, again and again entreated him to come in, Volódya sat at the threshold for about three hours, finding a kind of pleasure in tempting fate and in watching the flying bombs. By the end of the evening he knew how many guns were firing, from which positions, and where their shots fell. + 

XXII + 

The next morning, the 27th of August, Volódya, after several hours’ sleep, came out fresh and vigorous to the threshold of the bombproof. Vlang also came out, but at the first sound of a bullet he rushed wildly back through the entrance, pushing his way through the crowd with his head, amid the general laughter of the soldiers, most of whom had also come out into the fresh air. + 

Vlang, the old sergeant, and a few others, only came out into the trench at rare intervals, but the rest could not be kept inside: they all crept out of the stuffy bombproof into the fresh morning air, and in spite of the firing, which continued as violently as on the day before, they settled themselves⁠—some by the threshold of the bombproof, and some under the breastwork. Mélnikof had been strolling about from battery to battery since early dawn, looking calmly upwards. + 

Near the threshold sat two old soldiers and one young, curly-haired one, a Jew transferred to the battery from an infantry regiment. This soldier had picked up one of the bullets that were lying about, and after flattening it out on a stone with the fragment of a bomb, was now carving out a cross like the Order of St. George; the others sat talking and watching his work. The cross was really turning out very handsome. + 

“I say,” said one of them, “if we remain here much longer, then, when there’s peace, we shall all have served our time and get discharged.” + 

“Sure enough! Why, I had only four years left to serve, and here I am five months at Sevastopol.” + 

“That’s not counted specially to the discharge, you know,” said another. + 

At this moment a cannonball flew over the heads of the speakers and fell a couple of feet from Mélnikof, who was approaching them through the trench. + 

“It nearly killed Mélnikof,” said one of them. + 

“It won’t kill me,” said Mélnikof. + 

“Then here you have a cross for your courage,” said the young soldier, giving him the cross he had made. + 

“… No, my lad; a month’s service here counts as a year for everything⁠—that was said in the order,” continued one of the soldiers. + 

“You may say what you like, but when we’ve peace we’re sure to have an Imperial review at Warsaw, and then, if we don’t all get our discharge we shall be put on the permanent reserve.” + 

Just then a shrieking, glancing rifle-ball flew just over the talkers’ heads and struck a stone. + 

“Mind, or you’ll get your discharge in full before tonight,” said one of the soldiers. + 

They all laughed. + 

And not only before night, but before two hours had passed, two of them had got their discharge in full, and five more were wounded; but the rest went on joking just the same. + 

By the morning, sure enough, the two mortars had really been put into such condition that it was possible to fire them. At ten o’clock Volódya, in accordance with the order he had received from the chief of the bastion, called out his company and marched with it to the battery. + 

Among the men not a trace of the fear which had been noticeable the day before remained as soon as they were actively engaged. Only Vlang could not master himself, but hid and ducked in the same old way, and Vásin lost some of his composure and fidgeted and kept dodging. Volódya was in ecstasies; the thought of danger never entered his head. Joy at fulfilling his duty, at finding that he was not only no coward, but was even brave; the sense of commanding and being in the presence of twenty men who were, he knew, watching him with curiosity, made him quite valiant. He was even vain of his courage, and showed off before the soldiers; climbed out on to the banquette, and unfastened his cloak on purpose to be more conspicuous. The Commander of the bastion, making the round of his “household,” as he expressed it, used as he had become in the last eight months to courage of all sorts, could not help admiring this pretty boy, his unbuttoned cloak showing a red shirt closing round his delicate white neck, as with flushed face and glistening eyes he clapped his hands and gave, in ringing tones, the order, “One⁠—two!” and ran lightly on to the breastwork to see where his bombs were falling. At half-past eleven the firing slackened on both sides, and just at twelve commenced the storming of the Maláhof Redoubt, and of the Second, Third (the Redan), and Fifth Bastions. + 

XXIII + 

On the North Side of the Roadstead, at the Star Fort, near noon, two seamen stood on the “telegraph” mound; one of them, an officer, was looking at Sevastopol through the fixed telescope. Another officer, accompanied by a Cossack, had just ridden up to join him at the big Signal-post. + 

The sun stood high and bright above the Roadstead, which, in the glad, warm light, was playing with its ships at anchor, with their sails and with the boats. The light breeze softly rustled among the dying leaves of the oak bushes near the “telegraph,” filled the sails of the boats and rocked the waves. Sevastopol⁠—still the same: with its unfinished church, its column, its quay, its green boulevard on the hill, its elegant library building, its azure creeks filled with masts, its picturesque aqueduct arches, and with blue clouds of powder-smoke now and then lit up by the bloodred flame of a cannon; the same beautiful, gay, proud Sevastopol, bounded on the one side by the yellow, smoking hills, on the other by the bright blue water of the sea, glittering in the sunlight⁠—lay on the other side of the Roadstead. Above the sea-line, along which the smoke of some passing steamer left a black trail, floated long white clouds which promised wind. Along the whole line of fortifications, but especially on the high ground on the left side, appeared, several at a time, with lightnings that at times flashed bright even in the noonday sun, puffs of thick, dense, white smoke, that grew, taking various shapes, and appearing darker against the sky. These clouds, showing now here, now there, appeared on the hills, on the enemy’s batteries, in the town, and high up in the sky. The reports of explosions never ceased, but rolled together and rent the air. + 

Towards noon the puffs appeared more and more rarely, and the air vibrated less with the booming. + 

“I say, the Second Bastion does not reply at all now!” said the hussar officer on horseback; “it is quite knocked to pieces. Terrible!” + 

“Yes, and the Maláhof, too, sends hardly one shot in reply to three of theirs,” said he who was looking through the telescope. “Their silence provokes me! They are shooting straight into the Kornílof Battery, and it does not reply.” + 

“But look there! I told you that they always cease the bombardment about noon. It’s the same today. Come, let’s go to lunch; they’ll be waiting for us already. What’s the good of looking?” + 

“Don’t! wait a bit!” answered the one who had possession of the telescope, looking very eagerly towards Sevastopol. + 

“What is it? What?” + 

“A movement in the entrenchments, thick columns advancing.” + 

“Yes! They can be seen even without a glass, marching in columns. The alarm must be given,” said the seaman. + 

“Look! look! They’ve left the trenches!” + 

And, really, with the naked eye one could see what looked like dark spots moving down the hill from the French batteries across the valley to the bastions. In front of these spots dark stripes were already visibly approaching our line. On the bastions white cloudlets burst in succession as if chasing one another. The wind brought a sound of rapid small-arm firing like the beating of rain against a window. The dark stripes were moving in the midst of the smoke and came nearer and nearer. The sounds of firing, growing stronger and stronger, mingled in a prolonged, rumbling peal. Puffs of smoke rose more and more often, spread rapidly along the line, and at last formed one lilac cloud (dotted here and there with little faint lights and black spots), which kept curling and uncurling; and all the sounds blended into one tremendous clatter. + 

“An assault!” said the naval officer, turning pale and letting the seaman look through the telescope. + 

Cossacks galloped along the road, some officers rode by, the Commander-in-Chief passed in a carriage with his suite. Every face showed painful excitement and expectation. + 

“It’s impossible they can have taken it,” said the mounted officer. + 

“By God, a standard!⁠ ⁠… Look! look!” said the other, panting, and walked away from the telescope: “A French standard on the Maláhof!” + 

“It can’t be!” + 

XXIV + 

The elder Kozeltsóf, who had during the preceding night won back his money and then again before morning lost everything, including the gold pieces sewn in his cuff, was lying in a heavy, unhealthy, but sound sleep in the Defensive Barracks of the Fifth Bastion, when a fateful cry arose, repeated by many voices⁠— + 

“The alarm!” + 

“Why are you sleeping, Michael Semyónitch! We are attacked!” shouted someone. + 

“It must be a hoax,” he said, opening his eyes incredulously. + 

But suddenly he saw an officer running, without any apparent object, from one corner of the barrack to the other with such a pale face that he understood it all. The thought that they might take him for a coward who did not wish to be with his company at a critical moment upset him terribly. He rushed as fast as he could to join it. The artillery firing had ceased, but the clatter of musketry was at its height. The bullets did not whistle as single ones do, but came in swarms like a flock of autumn birds flying overhead. + 

The whole place where his battalion was stationed the day before was hidden in smoke, and angry shouts and exclamations were heard. Crowds of soldiers, wounded and not wounded, met him as he went. Having run another thirty paces he saw his company pressing to the wall. + 

“The Schwartz Redoubt is taken!” said a young officer. “All is lost!” + 

“Nonsense!” he said angrily, and drawing his little blunt iron sword, he cried⁠— + 

“Forward, lads! Hurrah!” + 

His own loud, clear voice roused Kozeltsóf himself. He ran forward along the traverse, and about fifty soldiers ran shouting after him. From the traverse he ran out into the open ground. The bullets fell just like hailstones. Two hit him, but where, and what they had done⁠—bruised or wounded⁠—him he had no time to determine. Before him, through the smoke, he could already see blue uniforms and red trousers and could hear cries that were not Russian. One Frenchman stood on the breastwork waving his cap and shouting something. Kozeltsóf felt sure he would be killed, and this increased his courage. He ran on and on. Several soldiers outran him, others appeared from somewhere else and also ran. The blue uniforms remained at the same distance from him, running back to their trenches, but there were dead and wounded on the ground under his feet. When he had run to the outer ditch all became blurred to Kozeltsóf’s eyes, and he felt a pain in his chest. + 

Half-an-hour later he was lying on a stretcher by the Nicholas Barracks, and he knew that he was wounded, but felt hardly any pain. He only wished for something cool to drink and to lie more comfortably. + 

A little, plump doctor with large black whiskers came up to him and unbuttoned his cloak. Kozeltsóf looked over his chin to see what the doctor was doing to his wound, and at the doctor’s face, but he still felt no pain. The doctor covered the wound with the shirt, wiped his fingers on the skirt of his cloak, and silently, without looking at the wounded man, passed on to another patient. Kozeltsóf watched unconsciously what was going on around him, and remembering what had happened at the Fifth Bastion with an exceedingly joyful feeling of self-satisfaction, thought that he had performed his duty well⁠—that for the first time during his whole service, he had acted as well as was possible and had nothing to reproach himself with. The doctor, bandaging another man, pointed to Kozeltsóf and said something to a priest with a large red beard who stood nearby with a cross. + 

“Am I dying?” asked Kozeltsóf, when the priest approached him. + 

The priest, without replying, said a prayer and held the cross to the lips of the wounded man. + 

Death did not frighten Kozeltsóf. He took the cross with his weak hands, pressed it to his lips and began to weep. + 

“Were the French driven back?” he asked the priest. + 

“The victory is ours at all points,” answered the latter to console the wounded man, hiding from him the fact that from the Maláhof Redoubt the French standard was already waving. + 

“Thank God!” exclaimed the dying man. He did not feel the tears that ran down his cheeks. + 

The thought of his brother flashed through his brain: + 

“God grant him as good a fate,” thought he. + 

XXV + 

But a different fate awaited Volódya. He was listening to a tale Vásin was telling when he heard the cry, “The French are coming!” The blood rushed suddenly to his heart, and he felt his cheeks grow cold and pale. He remained immovable for a moment, but glancing round, he saw the soldiers pretty coolly fastening their uniforms and crawling out one after the other. One of them⁠—Mélnikof probably⁠—even joked, saying, “Let’s meet them with bread and salt.” + 

Volódya and Vlang, who followed him like his shadow, climbed out of the bombproof and ran to the battery. There was no artillery firing at all on either side. The quiet appearance of the soldiers did less to rouse Volódya than the pitiful cowardice of the Junker. “Can I possibly be like him?” he thought, and ran gaily up to the breastwork where his mortars stood. He could plainly see the French running straight towards him across the open ground, and crowds of them moving in the nearer trenches, their bayonets glittering in the sunshine. One short, broad-shouldered fellow in a Zouave uniform ran in front, sword in hand, jumping across the pits. + 

“Fire with case-shot!” cried Volódya, running down from the banquette; but the soldiers had made their arrangements without waiting for his orders, and the metallic ring of the escaping case-shot whistled over his head, first from one mortar and then from the other. “One⁠—Two!” ordered Volódya, running the distance between the two mortars and quite forgetting the danger. From one side, and near at hand, the clatter of the muskets of our supports mingled with excited cries. + 

Suddenly a wild cry of despair arose on the left. “They’re behind us! behind us!” was repeated by several voices. Volódya looked round. About twenty Frenchmen appeared behind him. One of them, a handsome man with a black beard, was ahead of the rest, but when he had run up to within ten paces of the battery he stopped, fired point-blank at Volódya, and then again started running towards him. For a moment Volódya stood petrified, unable to believe his eyes. When he recollected himself and glanced round, he saw French uniforms on the breastwork in front of him; two Frenchmen, about ten paces from him, were even spiking a cannon. No one was near but Mélnikof, who had fallen at his side killed by a bullet, and Vlang, who had seized a linstock and was rushing forward with a furious look on his face, rolling his eyes and shouting. “Follow me, Vladímir Semyónitch!⁠ ⁠… Follow me!” cried Vlang in a desperate voice, brandishing his linstock at the Frenchmen who had come up from behind. The ferocious figure of the Junker perplexed them. Vlang hit the front one on the head; the others involuntarily hesitated, and continually looking back and shouting desperately, “Follow me, Vladímir Semyónitch; why are you stopping? run!” he ran to the trench where our infantry lay firing at the French. Having jumped in, he climbed out again to see what his adored Ensign was doing. Something in a cloak lay prostrate where Volódya had stood, and the whole of that part was covered with Frenchmen firing at our men. + 

XVI + 

Vlang found his company at the second line of defence. Of the twenty soldiers who had gone to the mortar battery, only eight had escaped. + 

Towards nine in the evening Vlang with the battery crossed over to the North Side on a steamer filled with soldiers, cannon, horses, and wounded men. There was no firing anywhere. The stars shone as brightly in the sky as they had done the night before, but a strong wind rocked the waves. On the First and Second Bastions flames kept bursting up along the ground; explosions rent the air and lit up around them strange dark objects and stones flying in the air. Something was burning near the docks, and the red glare was reflected in the water. The bridge, thronged with people, was illuminated by the fire on the Nicholas Battery. A large flame seemed to stand above the water on the distant little headland of the Alexander Battery, lighting up from below the clouds of smoke that hung above it; and quiet, insolent, distant lights gleamed over the sea, as they had done yesterday, from the fleet of the enemy. A fresh wind rocked the Roadstead. By the glaring light of the conflagrations one could see the masts of our sinking ships, which were slowly descending deeper and deeper into the water. No one was talking on board, only the words of command given by the captain, the snorting and stamping of the animals on the vessel, and the moaning of the wounded, were heard above the steam and the regular swish of the parting waters. Vlang, who had not eaten all day, took a piece of bread from his pocket and began munching it; but suddenly remembering Volódya, he began to cry so loud that the soldiers near him heard it. + 

“Look! he has bread to eat, and still he cries, our Vlánga does!” said Vásin. + 

“That’s queer,” said another. “Look! our barrack has been fired as well,” continued he with a sigh; “and how many of the likes of us have perished; and the Frenchmen have got it for nothing.” + 

“At all events, we have got off alive, thank heaven!” said Vásin. + 

“It’s a shame, for all that.” + 

“Where’s the shame? D’you think they’ll get a chance of amusing themselves out there? See if ours don’t take it back. Never mind how many of the likes of us is lost; if the Emperor gives the word, as sure as there’s a God we’ll take it back. You don’t suppose ours will just leave it so? No fear! Here you are; take the bare walls⁠ ⁠… The ’trenchments are all blown up⁠ ⁠… Yes, I daresay⁠ ⁠… He’s stuck his flag on the mound, but he’s not gone and shoved himself into the town. You wait a bit! The real reckoning will come⁠—only wait a bit,” he concluded, admonishing the French. + 

“Of course it will!” said another with conviction. + 

Along the whole line of the Sevastopol bastions, which for so many months had been seething with such amazingly energetic life, for so many months had seen heroes relieved by death as they fell one after another, and for so many months had aroused the fear, the hatred, and at last the admiration of the enemy⁠—on these bastions no one was now to be seen. All was dead, ghastly, terrible, but not silent: the destruction still went on. Everywhere on the earth, blasted and strewn around by fresh explosions, lay shattered gun-carriages, crushing the corpses of foes and Russians alike; cast-iron cannons, silenced forever, thrown with terrific force into holes and half-buried in the earth; bombs, cannonballs and more dead bodies, then holes and splintered beams from the bombproofs, and again silent corpses in grey and blue uniforms. All this still shuddered again and again, and was lit up by the lurid flames of the explosions that continued to shake the air. + 

The enemy saw that something incomprehensible was happening in awe-inspiring Sevastopol. The explosions and the deathly stillness on the bastions made them shudder; but still, under the influence of the strong and firm resistance of that day, they dared not yet believe that their unflinching foe had vanished; and silently, and anxiously immovable, they awaited the end of the sombre night. + 

The Sevastopol army, surging and spreading like the sea on a rough, dark night, anxiously palpitating through all its members, moved through the dense darkness, slowly swaying, by the bridge over the Roadstead, and on to the North Side, away from the place where it was leaving so many brave brothers, from the place saturated with its blood, from the place which it had held for eleven months from a far stronger foe, but which it was now commanded to abandon without a struggle. + 

The first effect this command had on every Russian was one of oppressive bewilderment. The next sensation was fear of pursuit. The men felt helpless as soon as they had left the places where they were accustomed to fight, and they crowded anxiously together in the darkness at the entrance to the bridge, which was rocked by the strong wind. With bayonets clashing one against another⁠—line regiments, ships’ crews, and militiamen jumbled together⁠—those on foot pressed onward, mounted officers bearing orders forced their way, inhabitants and orderlies with loads, which were not allowed to pass, wept and implored, while the artillery with noisy wheels, hurrying to get away, moved towards the bay. Notwithstanding the diversion resulting from their various and varied occupations, the instinct of self-preservation and the desire to get away from this dreadful place of death as quickly as possible was present in the soul of each. It was present in the mortally wounded soldier who lay, among 500 other wounded men, on the pavement of the Pávlof Quay, praying to God for death; and in the militiaman pushing with all his might into the dense crowd to make way for a general who rode past; and in the general who conducted the crossing, firmly restraining the impetuosity of the soldiers; and in the sailor who, having got among the moving battalions, was squeezed by the swaying crowd till he could scarcely breathe; and in the wounded officer whom four soldiers had been carrying on a stretcher, but whom, stopped by the throng, they had been obliged to lay on the ground near the Nicholas Battery; and in the artilleryman who, having served for sixteen years with the same gun, now, in obedience to an officer’s orders, quite incomprehensible to him, was, with the aid of his comrades, pushing that gun down the steep bank into the Roadstead; and in the sailors of the fleet who, having just knocked out the scuttles in the ships, were briskly rowing away from them in their longboats. On reaching the North Side and leaving the bridge, almost every man took off his cap and crossed himself. But behind this feeling there was another, a sad, gnawing, and deeper feeling, which seemed like remorse, shame, and anger. Almost every soldier, looking back from the North Side at the abandoned town, sighed with inexpressible bitterness in his heart, and menaced the enemy. + 