Part 6

In this carriage a servant, dressed in linen, with a soft and shapeless officer’s cap on his head, held the reins. Seated behind him, on parcels and bags covered with a soldier’s overcoat, was an officer in a summer cloak, small in stature, as well as could be judged from the position he was in, who was less remarkable for the massive squareness of his shoulders than for the thickness of his body between his chest and his back. His neck from the nape to the shoulder was heavy and largely developed, and the muscles were firmly extended. What is commonly spoken of as a waist did not exist, nor the stomach either, although he was far from being fat; and his face, upon which was spread a layer of yellow and unhealthy sunburn, was noticeable by its thinness. It would have passed for an attractive one if it had not been for a certain bloating of the flesh and a skin furrowed by deep wrinkles, which, interweaving, distorted the features, took away all freshness, and gave a brutal expression. His small, brown, extraordinarily keen eyes had an almost impudent look. His very thick mustache, which he was in the habit of biting, did not extend much in breadth. His cheeks and his chin, which he had not shaved for two days, were covered with a black and thick beard. Wounded on the head by a piece of shell on the 10th of May, and still wearing a bandage, he felt, nevertheless, entirely cured, and left the hospital at Sympheropol to join his regiment, posted somewhere there in the direction where shots could be heard; but he had not been able to find out whether it was at Sebastopol itself or at Severnaïa or at Inkerman. The cannonade was distinctly heard, and seemed very near when the hills did not cut off the sound which was brought by the wind. Occasionally a tremendous explosion shook the air and made you tremble in spite of yourself. Now and then less violent noises, like a drum-beat, followed each other at short intervals, intermingled with a deafening rumble; or perhaps all was confounded in a hubbub of prolonged rolls, like peals of thunder at the height of a storm when the rain begins to fall. Every one said, and indeed it could be heard, that the violence of the bombardment was terrible. The officer urged his servant to hasten. They met a line of carts driven by Russian peasants, who had carried provisions to Sebastopol, and who were on their way back, bringing sick and wounded soldiers in gray overcoats, sailors in black pilot-coats, volunteers in red fez caps, and bearded militiamen. The officer’s carriage was forced to stop, and he, grimacing and squinting his eyes in the impenetrable and motionless cloud of dust raised by the carts, which flew into the eyes and ears on all sides, examined the faces as they passed by.

“There is a sick soldier of our company,” said the servant, turning towards his master and pointing to a wounded man.

Seated sidewise on the front of his cart a Russian peasant, wearing his whole beard, a felt cap on his head, was tying a knot in an enormous whip, which he held by the handle under his elbow. He turned his back to four or five soldiers shaken and tossed about in the vehicle. One of them, his arm tied up, his overcoat thrown on over his shirt, seated erect and firm, although somewhat pale and thin, occupied the middle place. Perceiving the officer, he instinctively raised his hand to his cap, but remembering his wound, he made believe he wanted to scratch his head. Another one was lying down beside him on the bottom of the cart. All that could be seen of him was his two hands clinging to the wooden bars, and his two raised knees swinging nervelessly like two hempen dish-rags. A third, with swollen face, his head wrapped with a cloth on which was placed his soldier’s cap, seated sidewise, his legs hanging outside and grazing the wheel, was dozing, his hands resting on his knees.

“Doljikoff!” the traveller shouted at him.

“Present!” replied the latter, opening his eyes and taking off his cap. His bass voice was so full, so tremendous, that it seemed to come out of the chest of twenty soldiers together.

“When were you wounded?”

“Health to your Excellency!”[F] he cried with his strong voice, his glassy and swollen eyes growing animated at the sight of his superior officer.

“Where is the regiment?”

“At Sebastopol, your Excellency. They are thinking of going away from there Wednesday.”

“Where to?”

“They don’t know--to Severnaïa, no doubt, your Excellency. At present,” he continued, dragging his words, “_he_ is firing straight through everything, especially with shells, even away into the bay. _He_ is firing in a frightful manner!--” And he added words which could not be understood; but from his face and from his position it could be guessed that, with a suffering man’s sense of injury, he was saying something of a not very consoling nature.

Sub-lieutenant Koseltzoff, who had just asked these questions, was neither an officer of ordinary stamp nor among the number of those who live and act in a certain way because others live and act thus. His nature had been richly endowed with inferior qualities. He sang and played the guitar in an agreeable manner, he conversed well, and wrote with facility, especially official correspondence, of which he had got the trick during his service as battalion aide-de-camp. His energy was remarkable, but this energy only received its impulse from self-love, and although grafted on this second-rate capacity, it formed a salient and characteristic trait of his nature. That kind of self-love which is most commonly developed among men, especially among military men, was so filtered through his existence that he did not conceive a possible choice between “first or nothing.” Self-love was then the motive force of his most intimate enthusiasms. Even alone in his own presence he was fond of considering himself superior to those with whom he compared himself.

“Come! I am not going to be the one to listen to ‘Moscow’s’[G] chatter!” murmured the sub-lieutenant, whose thoughts had been troubled somewhat by meeting the train of wounded; and the soldier’s words, the importance of which was increased and confirmed at each step by the sound of the cannonade, weighed heavily on his heart.

“They are curious fellows these ‘Moscows’--Come, Nicolaïeff, forward! you are asleep, I think,” he angrily shouted at his servant, throwing back the lappels of his coat.

Nicolaïeff shook the reins, made a little encouraging sound with his lips, and the wagon went off at a trot.

“We will stop only to feed them,” said the officer, “and then on the road--forward!”

II.

Just as he entered the street of Douvanka, where everything was in ruins, Sub-lieutenant Koseltzoff was stopped by a wagon-train of cannon-balls and shells going towards Sebastopol, which was halted in the middle of the road.

Two infantrymen, seated in the dust on the stones of an overthrown wall, were eating bread and watermelon.

“Are you going far, fellow-countryman?” said one of them, chewing his mouthful. He was speaking to a soldier standing near them with a small knapsack on his shoulder.

“We are going to join our company; we have come from the country,” replied the soldier, turning his eyes from the watermelon and arranging his knapsack. “For three weeks we have been guarding the company’s hay, but now they have summoned everybody, and we don’t know where our regiment is to-day. They tell us that since last week our fellows have been at Korabelnaïa. Do you know anything about it, gentlemen?”

“It is in the city, brother, in the city,” replied an old soldier of the wagon-train, busy cutting with his pocket-knife the white meat of an unripe melon. “We just came from there. What a terrible business, brother!”

“What is that, gentlemen?”

“Don’t you hear how he is firing now? No shelter anywhere! It is frightful how many of our men _he_ has killed!” added the speaker, making a gesture, and straightening up his cap.

The soldier on his travels pensively shook his head, clacked his tongue, took his short pipe out of its box, stirred up the half-burned tobacco with his finger, lighted a bit of tinder from the pipe of a comrade who was smoking, and lifting his cap, said,

“There is no one but God, gentlemen. We say good-by to you;” and putting his knapsack in place, went his way.

“Ah! it is better worth while to wait,” said the watermelon eater, with tone of conviction.

“It is all the same,” murmured the soldier, settling the knapsack on his back, and worming his way between the wheels of the halted carts.

III.

At the station for horses Koseltzoff found a crowd of people, and the first figure he perceived was the postmaster in person, very young and very thin, quarrelling with two officers.

“You will not only wait twenty-four hours but ten times twenty-four hours. Generals wait too,” he said, with the evident wish to stir them up in a lively manner. “And I am not going to hitch myself in, you understand!”

“If this is so, if there are no horses, they can’t be given to any one. Why, then, are they given to a servant who is carrying baggage?” shouted one of the two soldiers, holding a glass of tea in his hand.

Although he carefully avoided using personal pronouns, it could easily be guessed that he would have liked to say thee and thou to his interlocutor.

“I want you to understand, Mr. Postmaster,” hesitatingly said the other officer, “that we are not travelling for our pleasure. If we have been summoned it is because we are necessary. You can be sure I will tell the general, for it really seems as if you have no respect for the rank of officer.”

“You spoil my work every time, and you are in my way,” rejoined his comrade, half vexed. “Why do you talk to him about respect? You have to speak to him in another manner. Horses!” he suddenly shouted, “horses, this instant!”

“I wouldn’t ask better than to give them to you, but where can I get them? I understand very well, my friend,” continued the postmaster, after a moment of silence, and warming up by degrees as he gesticulated, “but what do you want me to do? Let me just”--and the officers’ faces at once had a hopeful expression--“keep soul and body together to the end of the month, and then I won’t be seen any longer. I would rather go to the Malakoff than remain here, God knows! Do what you like--but I haven’t a single wagon in good condition, and for three days the horses haven’t seen a handful of hay.”

At these words he disappeared. Koseltzoff and the two officers entered the house.

“So!” said the elder to the younger with a calm tone, which strongly contrasted with his recent wrath. “We are already three months on the road. Let’s wait. It is no misfortune; there isn’t any hurry.”

Koseltzoff with difficulty found in the room of the post-house, all smoky, dirty, and filled with officers and trunks, an empty corner near the window. He sat down there, and, rolling a cigarette, began to examine faces and to listen to conversations. The chief group was placed on the right of the entrance door, around a shaky and greasy table on which two copper tea-urns, stained here and there with verdigris, were boiling; lump-sugar was strewn about in several paper wrappings. A young officer without a mustache, in a new Circassian coat, was pouring water into a teapot; four others of about his own age were scattered in different corners of the room. One of them, his head placed on a cloak which served him as a pillow, was sleeping on a divan; another, standing near a table, was cutting roast mutton into small mouthfuls for a one-armed comrade. Two officers, one in an aide-de-camp’s overcoat, the other in a fine cloth infantry overcoat, and carrying a saddle-bag, were sitting beside the stove; and it could be readily divined by the way they looked at the others, by the manner the one with the saddle-bag was smoking, that they were not officers of the line, and that they were very glad of it. Their manner did not betray scorn but a certain satisfaction with themselves, founded partly on their relations with the generals, and on a feeling of superiority developed to such a point that they tried to conceal it from others. There was also in the place a doctor with fleshy lips, and an artilleryman with a German physiognomy, seated almost on the feet of the sleeper, busily counting money. Four men-servants, some dozing, some fumbling in the trunks and the packets heaped up near the door, completed the number of those present, among whom Koseltzoff found not a face he knew. The young officers pleased him. He guessed at once from their appearance that they had just come out of school, and this called to his mind that his young brother was also coming straight therefrom to serve in one of the Sebastopol batteries. On the other hand, the officer with the saddle-bag, whom he believed he had met somewhere, altogether displeased him. He found him to have an expression of face so antipathetic and so insolent that he was going to sit down on the large base of the stove, with the intention of putting him in his proper place if he happened to say anything disagreeable. In his quality of brave and honorable officer at the front he did not like the staff-officers, and for such he took these at the first glance.

IV.

“It is bad luck,” said one of the young fellows, “to be so near the end and not be able to get there. There will perhaps be a battle to-day, even, and we will not be in it.”

The sympathetic timidity of a young man who fears to say something out of place could be guessed from the slightly sharp sound of his voice, and from the youthful rosiness which spread in patches over his fresh face.

The one-armed officer looked at him with a smile.

“You will have time enough, believe me,” he said.

The young officer respectfully turning his eyes upon the thin face of the latter suddenly lighted up by a smile, continued to pour the tea in silence. And truly the figure, the position of the wounded man, and, above all, the fluttering sleeve of his uniform, gave him that appearance of calm indifference which seemed to reply to everything said and done about him, “All this is very well, but I know it all, and I could do it if I wanted to.”

“What shall we decide to do?” asked the young officer of his comrade with the Circassian coat. “Shall we pass the night here, or shall we push on with our single horse?

“Just think of it, captain,” he continued, when his companion had declined his suggestion (he spoke to the one-armed man, picking up a knife he had dropped), “since they told us that horses could not be had at Sebastopol at any price, we bought one out of the common purse at Sympheropol.”

“Did they skin you well?”

“I don’t know anything about it, captain. We paid for the whole thing, horse and wagon, ninety rubles. Is it very dear?” he added, addressing all who looked at him, Koseltzoff included.

“It isn’t too dear if the horse is young,” said the latter.

“Isn’t it? Nevertheless, we have been assured it was dear. He limps a little, it is true, but that will go off. They told us he was very strong.”

“What institution are you from?” Koseltzoff asked him, wishing to get news of his brother.

“We belonged to the regiment of the nobility. There are six of us who are going of our own accord to Sebastopol,” replied the loquacious little officer, “but we don’t exactly know where our battery is. Some say at Sebastopol, but this gentleman says it is at Odessa.”

“Wouldn’t you have been able to find out at Sympheropol?” asked Koseltzoff.

“They didn’t know anything there. Imagine it. They insulted one of our comrades who went to the government office for information! It was very disagreeable. Wouldn’t you like to have this cigarette, already rolled?” he continued, offering it to the one-armed officer, who was looking for his cigar-case.

The young man’s enthusiasm even entered into the little attentions he showered on him.

“You have also just come from Sebastopol?” he rejoined. “Heavens, how astonishing! At Petersburg we did nothing but think of you all, you heroes!” he added, turning to Koseltzoff with good-fellowship and respect.

“What if you are obliged to go back there?” asked the latter.

“That’s just what we are afraid of; for after having bought the horse and what we had to get--this coffee-pot, for example, and a few other trifles--we are left without a penny,” he said, in a lower tone, casting a look at his companion on the sly, “so that we don’t know how we are going to get out of it.”

“You haven’t received money on the road, then?” Koseltzoff asked him.

“No,” murmured the young man, “but they promised to give it to us here.”

“Have you the certificate?”

“I know the certificate is the chief thing. One of my uncles, a Senator at Moscow, could have given it to me, but I was assured I should receive it here without fail.”

“Doubtless.”

“I believe it also,” replied the young officer, in a tone which proved that after having repeated the same question in thirty different places, and having received different replies everywhere, he no longer believed any one.

V.

“Who ordered beet soup?” shouted the house-keeper at this moment, a stout, slovenly dressed wench, about forty years old, who was bringing in a great earthen dish.

There was a general silence, and every eye was turned towards the woman. One of the officers even winked, exchanging with his comrade a look which plainly referred to the matron.

“But it was Koseltzoff who ordered it,” rejoined the young officer; “we must wake him up. Halloo! come and eat,” he added, approaching the sleeper and shaking him by the shoulder.

A youth of seventeen years, with black, lively, sparkling eyes and red cheeks, rose with a bound, and having involuntarily pushed against the doctor, said, “A thousand pardons!” rubbing his eyes and standing in the middle of the room.

Sub-lieutenant Koseltzoff immediately recognized his younger brother and went up to him.

“Do you know me?” he asked.

“Oh, oh, what an astonishing thing!” cried the younger, embracing him.

Two kisses were heard, but just as they were about to give each other a third, as the custom is, they hesitated a moment. It might have been said that each asked himself why he must kiss three times.

“How glad I am to see you!” said the elder, leading his brother outside. “Let’s chat a bit.”

“Come, come! I don’t want any soup now. Eat it up, Féderson,” said the youth to his comrade.

“But you were hungry--”

“No, I don’t want it now.”

Once outside on the piazza, after the first joyous outbursts of the youth, who went on to ask his brother questions without speaking to him of that which concerned himself, the latter, profiting by a moment of silence, asked him why he had not gone into the guard, as they had expected him to do.

“Because I wanted to go to Sebastopol. If everything comes out all right, I shall gain more than if I had remained in the guard. In that branch of the service you have to count ten years to the rank of colonel, while here Todtleben has gone from lieutenant-colonel to general in two years. And if I am killed, well, then, what’s to be done?”

“How you do argue,” said the elder brother, with a smile.

“And then, that I have just told you is of no importance. The chief reason”--and he stopped, hesitating, smiling in his turn, and blushing as if he were going to say something very shameful--“the chief reason is that my conscience bothered me. I felt scruples at living in Petersburg while men are dying here for their country. I counted also on being with you,” he added, still more bashfully.

“You are a curious fellow,” said the brother, without looking at him, hunting for his cigar-case. “I am sorry we can’t stay together.”

“Come, pray tell me the truth about the bastions. Are they horribly frightful?”

“Yes, at first; then one gets used to it. You will see.”

“Tell me also, please, do you think Sebastopol will be taken? It seems to me that such a thing cannot happen.”

“God only knows!”

“Oh, if you only knew how annoyed I am! Imagine my misfortune. On the road I have been robbed of different things, among others my helmet, and I am in a fearful position. What will I do when I am presented to my chief?”

Vladimir Koseltzoff, the younger, looked very much like his brother Michael, at least as much as a half-open columbine can resemble one which has lost its flower. He had similar blond hair, but thicker, and curled around the temples; while one long lock strayed down the white and delicate back of his neck; a sign of happiness, as the old women say. Rich young blood suddenly tinged his habitually dull complexion at each impression of his soul; a veil of moisture often swept over his eyes, which were like his brother’s, but more open and more limpid; a fine blond down began to show on his cheeks and on his upper lip, which, purplish red in color, often extended in a timid smile, exposing teeth of dazzling whiteness. As he stood there in his unbuttoned coat, under which could be seen a red shirt with Russian collar; slender, broad-shouldered, a cigarette between his fingers, leaning against the balustrade of the piazza, his face lighted up by unaffected joy, his eyes fixed on his brother, he was really the most charming and most sympathetic youth possible to see, and one looked away from him reluctantly. Frankly happy to find his brother, whom he considered with pride and respect as a hero, he was, nevertheless, a little ashamed of him on account of his own more cultivated education, of his acquaintance with French, of his association with people in high places, and finding himself superior to him, he hoped to succeed in civilizing him. His impressions, his judgments, were formed at Petersburg under the influence of a woman who, having a weakness for pretty faces, made him pass his holidays in her house. Moscow had also contributed its part, for he had danced there at a great ball at the house of his uncle the Senator.

VI.

After having chatted so long as to prove, what often happens, that, while loving each other very much, they had few common interests, the brothers were silent for a moment or two.

“Come, get your traps and we’ll go,” said the elder.

The younger blushed and was confused.

“Straight away to Sebastopol?” he asked, at length.

“Of course. I don’t believe you have many things with you; we will find a place for them.”

“All right, we’ll go,” replied the younger, as he went into the house sighing.

Just as he was opening the door of the hall he stopped and held down his head.

“Go straight to Sebastopol,” he said to himself, “be exposed to shells--it is terrible! However, isn’t it all the same whether it is to-day or later? At least with my brother--”

To tell the truth, at the thought that the carriage would carry him as far as Sebastopol in a single trip, that no new incident would delay him longer on the road, he began to appreciate the danger he had come to meet, and the proximity of it profoundly moved him. Having succeeded in calming himself at last, he rejoined his comrades, and remained such a long time with them that his brother, out of patience, opened the door to call him, and saw him standing before the officer, who was scolding him like a school-boy. At the sight of his brother his countenance fell.

“I’ll come at once,” he shouted, making a gesture with his hand; “wait for me, I’m coming!”

A moment later he went to find him.

“Just think,” he said, with a deep sigh, “I can’t go off with you.”

“Stuff and nonsense! Why not?”

“I am going to tell you the truth, Micha. We haven’t a penny; on the other hand, we owe money to that captain. It is horribly shameful!”

The elder brother scowled and kept silent.

“Do you owe much?” he asked at last, without looking at him.

“No, not much; but it worries me awfully. He paid three posts for me. I used his sugar, and then we played the game of preference, and I owe him a trifle on that.”