Part 7

“That’s bad, Volodia! What would you have done if you hadn’t met me?” said the elder, in a stern tone, never looking at him.

“But you know I count on receiving my travelling expenses at Sebastopol, and then I shall pay him. That can still be done; and so I had rather go there with him to-morrow.”

At this moment the elder brother took a purse out of his pocket, from which his trembling fingers drew two notes of ten rubles each and one of three.

“Here’s all I have,” said he. “How much do you want?” He exaggerated a little in saying that it was all his fortune, for he still had four gold-pieces sewn in the seams of his uniform, but he had promised himself not to touch them.

It was found, on adding up, that Koseltzoff owed only eight rubles--the loss on the game and the sugar together. The elder brother gave them to him, making the remark that one never ought to play when he had not the wherewithal to pay. The younger said nothing; for his brother’s remark seemed to throw a doubt on his honesty. Irritated, ashamed of having done something which could lead to suspicions or reflections on his character on the part of his brother, of whom he was fond, his sensitive nature was so violently agitated by it that, feeling it impossible to stifle the sobs which choked him, he took the note without a word and carried it to his comrade.

VII.

Nikolaïeff, after refreshing himself at Douvanka with two glasses of brandy which he bought from a soldier who was selling it on the bridge, shook the reins, and the carriage jolted over the stony road which, with spots of shadow at rare intervals, led along Belbek to Sebastopol; while the brothers, seated side by side, their legs knocking together, kept an obstinate silence, each thinking about the other.

“Why did he offend me?” thought the younger. “Does he really take me for a thief? He seems to be still angry. Here we have quarrelled for good, and yet we two, how happy we could have been at Sebastopol! Two brothers, intimate friends, and both fighting the enemy--the elder lacking cultivation a little, but a brave soldier, and the younger as brave as he, for at the end of a week I shall have proved to all that I am no longer so young. I sha’n’t blush any more; my face will be manly and my mustache will have time to grow so far,” he thought, pinching the down which was visible at the corners of his mouth. “Perhaps we will get there to-day, even, and will take part in a battle. My brother must be very headstrong and very brave; he is one of those who talk little and do better than others. Is he continually pushing me on purpose towards the side of the carriage? He must see that it annoys me, and he makes believe he does not notice it. We will surely get there to-day,” he continued to himself, keeping close to the side of the carriage, fearing if he stirred that he would show his brother he was not well seated. “We go straight to the bastion--I with the artillery, my brother with his company. Suddenly the French throw themselves upon us. I fire on the spot, I kill a crowd of them, but they run just the same straight upon me. Impossible to fire--I am lost! but my brother dashes forward, sword in hand. I seize my musket and we run together; the soldiers follow us. The French throw themselves on my brother. I run up; I kill first one, then another, and I save Micha. I am wounded in the arm; I take my musket in the other hand and run on. My brother is killed at my side by a bullet; I stop a moment, I look at him sadly, I rise and cry, ‘Forward with me! let us avenge him!’ I add, ‘I loved my brother above everything; I have lost him. Let us avenge ourselves, kill our enemies, or all die together!’ All follow me, shouting. But there is the whole French army, Pélissier at their head. We kill all of them, but I am wounded once, twice, and the third time mortally. They gather around me. Gortschakoff comes and asks what I wish for. I reply that I wish for nothing--I wish for only one thing, to be placed beside my brother and to die with him. They carry me and lay me down beside his bloody corpse. I raise myself up and say, ‘Yes, you could not appreciate two men who sincerely loved their country. They are killed--may God pardon you!’ and thereupon I die.”

Who could tell to what point these dreams were destined to be realized?

“Have you ever been in a hand-to-hand fight?” he suddenly asked his brother, entirely forgetting that he did not want to speak to him again.

“No, never. We have lost two thousand men in our regiment, but always in the works. I also was wounded there. War is not carried on as you imagine, Volodia.”

This familiar name softened the younger. He wished to explain himself to his brother, who did not imagine he had offended him.

“Are you angry with me, Micha?” he asked, after a few moments.

“Why?”

“Because--nothing. I thought there had been between us--”

“Not at all,” rejoined the elder, turning towards him and giving him a friendly tap on the knee.

“I ask pardon, Micha, if I have offended you,” said the younger, turning aside to hide the tears which filled his eyes.

VIII.

“Is this really Sebastopol?” asked Volodia, when they had reached the top of the hill.

Before them appeared the bay with its forest of masts, the sea, with the hostile fleet in the distance, the white shore batteries, the barracks, the aqueducts, the docks, the buildings of the city. Clouds of white and pale lilac-colored smoke continually rose over the yellow hills that surrounded the city, and came out sharp against the clear blue sky, lighted by the rosy rays, brilliantly reflected by the waves; while at the horizon the sun was setting into the sombre sea.

It was without the least thrill of horror that Volodia looked upon this terrible place he had thought so much about. He experienced, on the contrary, an æsthetic joy, a feeling of heroic satisfaction at thinking that in half an hour he would be there himself, and it was with profound attention that he looked uninterruptedly, up to the very moment they arrived at Severnaïa, at this picture of such original charm. There was the baggage of his brother’s regiment, and there also he had to find out where his own regiment and his battery was.

The officer of the wagon-train lived near to what they called the new little town, composed of board shanties built by sailors’ families. In a tent adjoining a shed of considerable size, made of leafy oak branches which had not yet time to wither, the brothers found the officer sitting down in a shirt of dirty yellow color before a rather slovenly table, on which a cup of tea was cooling beside a plate and a decanter of brandy. A few crumbs of bread and of caviare had fallen here and there. He was carefully counting a package of notes. But before bringing him on the stage, we must necessarily examine closer the interior of his camp, his duties, and his mode of life. The new hut was large, solid, and conveniently built, provided with turf tables and seats, the same as they build for the generals; and in order to keep the leaves from falling, three rugs, in bad taste, although new, but probably very dear, were stretched on the walls and the ceiling of the building. On the iron bed placed under the principal rug, which represented the everlasting amazon, could be seen a red coverlid of shaggy stuff, a soiled torn pillow, and a cloak of cat-skin. On a table were, helter-skelter, a mirror in a silver frame, a brush of the same metal in a frightfully dirty state, a candlestick, a broken horn comb full of greasy hair, a bottle of liquor ornamented by an enormous red and gold label, a gold watch with the portrait of Peter the Great, gilt pen-holders, boxes holding percussion-caps, a crust of bread, old cards thrown about in disorder, and finally, under the bed, bottles, some empty, others full. It was the duty of this officer to look out for the wagon-train and the forage for the horses. One of his friends, occupied with financial work, shared his dwelling, and was asleep in the tent at this moment, while he was making out the monthly accounts with Government money. He had an agreeable and martial appearance. He was distinguished by his great size, a large mustache, and a fair state of corpulence. But there were two unpleasant things in him which met the eye at once. First, a constant perspiration on his face, joined with a puffiness which almost hid his little gray eyes and gave him the look of a leather bottle full of porter, and, second, extreme slovenliness, which reached from his thin gray hair to his great naked feet, shod in ermine-trimmed slippers.

“What a lot of money!--heavens, what a lot of money!” said Koseltzoff the first, who, on entering, cast a hungry look on the notes. “If you would lend me half, Vassili Mikhaïlovitch!”

The officer of the wagon-train looked sour at the sight of the visitors, and gathering up the money, saluted them without rising.

“Oh, if it were mine, but it is money belonging to the Crown, brother! But whom have you there?”

He looked at Volodia while he piled up the papers and put them in an open chest beside him.

“It is my brother just out of school. We come to ask where the regiment is.”

“Sit down, gentlemen,” he said, rising to go into the tent. “Can I offer you a little porter?”

“I agree to porter, Vassili Mikhaïlovitch.”

Volodia, on whom a profound impression was produced by the grand airs of the officer, as well as by his carelessness and by the respect his brother showed him, said to himself timidly, sitting on the edge of the lounge, “This officer, whom everybody respects, is doubtless a good fellow, hospitable, and probably very brave.”

“Where is our regiment, then?” asked the elder brother from the officer, who had disappeared in the tent.

“What do you say?” shouted the latter.

The other repeated his question.

“I saw Seifer to-day,” he replied; “he told me it was in the fifth bastion.”

“Is it, sure?”

“If I say so it is sure. However, devil take him! he lies cheaply enough! Say,” he added, “will you have some porter?”

“I would gladly take a drink,” replied Koseltzoff.

“And you, Ossip Ignatievitch,” continued the same voice in the tent, addressing the sleeping commissary, “will you have a drink? You have slept enough; it is almost five o’clock.”

“Enough of that old joke. You see well enough that I am not asleep,” replied a shrill and lazy voice.

“Get up, then, for I am tired of it,” and the officer rejoined his guests. “Give us some Sympheropol porter!” he shouted to his servant.

The latter, pushing against Volodia proudly, as it appeared to the young man, pulled out from under the bench a bottle of the porter called for.

The bottle had been empty some time, but the conversation was still going on, when the flap of the tent was put aside to let pass a small man in a blue dressing-gown with cord and tassel, and a cap trimmed with red braid and ornamented with a cockade.

With lowered eyes, and twisting his black mustache, he only replied to the officer’s salute by an imperceptible movement of the shoulders.

“Give me a glass,” he said, sitting down near the table. “Surely you have just come from Petersburg, young man?” he said, addressing Volodia with an amiable air.

“Yes, and I am going to Sebastopol.”

“Of your own accord?”

“Yes.”

“Why in the devil are you going, then? Gentlemen, really I don’t understand that,” continued the commissary. “It seems to me, if I could, I would go back to Petersburg on foot. I have had my bellyful of this cursed existence.”

“But what are you grumbling at?” asked the elder Koseltzoff. “You are leading a very enviable life here.”

The commissary, surprised, cast a look at him, turned around, and addressing Volodia, said, “This constant danger, these privations, for it is impossible to get anything--all that is terrible. I really cannot understand you, gentlemen. If you only got some advantage out of it! But is it agreeable, I ask you, to become at your age good-for-nothing for the rest of your days?”

“Some try to make money, some serve for honor,” replied Koseltzoff the elder, vexed.

“What is honor when there is nothing to eat?” rejoined the commissary, with a disdainful smile, turning towards the officer of the wagon-train, who followed his example. “Wind up the music-box,” he said, pointing to a box. “We’ll hear ‘Lucia;’ I like that.”

“Is this Vassili Mikhaïlovitch a brave man,” Volodia asked his brother, when, twilight having fallen, they rolled again along the Sebastopol road.

“Neither good nor bad, but a terribly miserly fellow. As to the commissary, I can’t bear to see even his picture. I shall knock him down some day.”

IX.

When they arrived, at nightfall, at the great bridge over the bay, Volodia was not exactly in bad humor, but a terrible weight lay on his heart. Everything he saw, everything he heard, harmonized so little with the last impressions that had been left in his mind by the great, light examination-hall with polished floor, the voices of his comrades and the gayety of their sympathetic bursts of laughter, his new uniform, the well-beloved Czar, whom he was accustomed to see during seven years, and who, taking leave of them with tears in his eyes, had called them “his children”--yes, everything he saw little harmonized with his rich dreams sparkling from a thousand facets.

“Here we are!” said his brother, getting out of the carriage in front of the M---- battery. “If they let us cross the bridge we will go straight to the Nicholas barracks. You will stop there until to-morrow morning. As for me, I shall go back to my regiment to find out where the battery is, and to-morrow I will go and hunt you up.”

“Why do that? rather let’s go together,” said Volodia. “I will go to the bastion with you; won’t that be the same thing? One must get accustomed to it. If you go there, why can’t I go?”

“You would do better not to go.”

“Let me go--please do. At least I will see what it is--”

“I advise you not to go there; but, nevertheless--”

The cloudless sky was sombre, the stars, and the flashes of the cannon, and the bombs flying in space, shone in the darkness. The _tête du pont_ and the great white pile of the battery came out sharply in the dark night. Every instant reports, explosions, shook the air, together or separately, ever louder, ever more distinct. The mournful murmur of the waves played an accompaniment to this incessant roll. A fresh breeze filled with moisture blew from the sea. The brothers approached the bridge. A soldier awkwardly shouldered arms and shouted,

“Who comes there?”

“A soldier.”

“You can’t pass.”

“Impossible--we must pass!”

“Ask the officer.”

The officer was taking a nap, seated on an anchor. He arose and gave the order to let them pass.

“You can go in, but you can’t come out. Attention! Where are you getting to all together?” he shouted to the wagons piled up with gabions, which were stopping at the entrance to the bridge.

On the first pontoon they met some soldiers talking in a loud voice.

“He has received his outfit; he has received it all.”

“Ah! friends,” said another voice, “when a fellow gets to Severnaïa he begins to revive. There is quite another air here, by heavens!”

“What nonsense are you talking there?” said the first. “The other day a cursed bomb-shell carried away the legs of two sailors. Oh! oh!”

The water in several places was dashing into the second pontoon, where the two brothers stopped to await their carriage. The wind, which had appeared light on land, blew here with violence and in gusts. The bridge swayed, and the waves, madly dashing against the beams, broke upon the anchors and the ropes and flooded the flooring. The sea roared with a hollow sound, forming a black, uniform, endless line, which separated it from the starry horizon, now lighted by a silvery glow. In the distance twinkled the lights of the hostile fleet. On the left rose the dark mass of a sailing ship, against the sides of which the water dashed violently; on the right, a steamer coming from Severnaïa, noisily and swiftly advanced. A bomb-shell burst, and lighted up for a second the heaps of gabions, revealing two men standing on the deck of the ship, a third in shirt-sleeves, sitting with swinging legs, busy repairing the deck, and showing the white foam and the dashing waves with green reflections made by the steamer in motion.

The same lights continued to furrow the sky over Sebastopol, and the fear-inspiring sounds came nearer. A wave driven from the sea broke into foam on the right side of the bridge and wet Volodia’s feet. Two soldiers, noisily dragging their legs through the water, passed by. Suddenly something burst with a crash and lighted up before them the part of the bridge along which was passing a carriage, followed by a soldier on horseback. The pieces fell whistling into the water, which spouted up in jets.

“Ah, Mikhaïl Semenovitch!” said the horseman, drawing up before Koseltzoff the elder, “here you are--well again?”

“Yes, as you see. Where in God’s name are you going?”

“To Severnaïa for cartridges. They send me in place of the aide-de-camp of the regiment. They are expecting an assault every moment.”

“And Martzeff, where’s he?”

“He lost a leg yesterday in the city; in his room. He was asleep. You know him, perhaps.”

“The regiment is in the fifth, isn’t it?”

“Yes; it relieved the M----. Stop at the field-hospital, you will find our fellows there; they will show you the way.”

“Have my quarters in the Morskaïa been kept?”

“Ah, brother, the shells destroyed them long since! You wouldn’t recognize Sebastopol any longer. There isn’t a soul there; neither women, nor band, nor eating-house. The last café closed yesterday. It is now so dismal! Good-by!” and the officer went away on the trot.

A terrible fear suddenly seized Volodia. It seemed to him that a shell was going to fall on him, and that a piece would surely strike him on the head. The moist darkness, the sinister sounds, the constant noise of the wrathful waves, all seemed to urge him to take not another step, and to tell him that no good awaited him there; that his foot would never touch the solid earth on the other side of the bay; that he would do well to turn back, to flee as quickly as possible this terrible place where death reigns. “Who knows? Perhaps it is too late. My lot is fixed.” He said this to himself, trembling at the thought, and also on account of the water which was running into his boots. He sighed deeply, and kept away from his brother a little.

“My God! shall I really be killed--I? Oh, my God, have mercy on me!” he murmured, making the sign of the cross.

“Now we will push on, Volodia,” said his companion, when their carriage had rejoined them. “Did you see the shell?”

Farther on they met more wagons carrying wounded men and gabions. One of them, filled with furniture, was driven by a woman. On the other side no one stopped their passage.

Instinctively hugging the wall of the Nicholas battery the two brothers silently went along it, with ears attentive to the noise of the shells which exploded over their heads and to the roar of the pieces thrown down from above; and at last they reached the part of the battery where the holy image was placed. There they learned that the Fifth Light Artillery Regiment, which Volodia was to join, was at Korabelnaïa. They consequently made up their minds in spite of the danger to go and sleep in the fifth bastion, and to go from there to their battery on the next day. Passing through the narrow passage, stepping over the soldiers who were sleeping along the wall, they at last reached the hospital.

X.

Entering the first room, filled with beds on which the wounded were lying, they were struck by the heavy and nauseating odor which is peculiar to hospitals. Two Sisters of Charity came to meet them. One of them, about fifty years old, had a stern face; she held in her hands a bundle of bandages and lint, and was giving orders to a very young assistant-surgeon who was following her. The other, a pretty girl of twenty, had a blond, pale, and delicate face. She appeared particularly gentle and timid under her little white cap; she followed her companion with her hands in her apron-pockets, and it could be seen that she was afraid of stopping behind. Koseltzoff asked them to show him Martzeff, who had lost a leg the day before.

“Of the P---- regiment?” asked the elder of the two sisters. “Are you a relative?”

“No, a comrade.”

“Show them the way,” she said in French to the younger sister, and left them, accompanied by the assistant-surgeon, to go to a wounded man.

“Come, come, what are you looking like that for?” said Koseltzoff to Volodia, who had stopped with raised eyebrows, and whose eyes, full of painful sympathy, could not leave the wounded, whom he watched without ceasing, at the same time following his brother, and repeating, in spite of himself, “Oh, my God! my God!”

“He has just come in, has he not?” the young sister asked Koseltzoff, pointing to Volodia.

“Yes, he has just come.”

She looked at him again and burst into tears, despairingly repeating, “My God! my God! when will it end?”

They entered the officers’ room. Martzeff was there, lying on his back, his muscular arms bare to the elbow and held under his head. The expression on his yellow visage was that of a man who shuts his teeth tightly so as not to cry out with pain. His well leg, with a stocking on, stuck out from under the coverlid, and the toes worked convulsively.

“Well, how do you feel?” asked the young sister, raising the wounded man’s hot head and arranging his pillow with her thin fingers, on one of which Volodia espied a gold ring. “Here are your comrades come to see you.”

“I am suffering, you know,” he replied, with an irritated air. “Don’t touch me; it is well as it is,” and the toes in the stocking moved with a nervous action. “How do you do? What’s your name? Ah, pardon!” when Koseltzoff had told his name. “Here everything is forgotten. Nevertheless we lived together,” he added, without expressing the least joy, and looking at Volodia with a questioning air.

“It is my brother; he has just come from Petersburg.”

“Ah! and I have done with it, I believe. Heavens, how I am suffering! If that would only stop quicker!”

He pulled his leg in with a convulsive movement. His toes worked with double restlessness. He covered his face with both hands.

“He must be left in quiet; he is very ill,” the sister whispered to them. Her eyes were full of tears.

The brothers, who had decided to go to the fifth bastion, changed their minds on coming out of the hospital, and concluded, without telling each other the true reason, to separate, in order to not expose themselves to useless danger.

“Will you find your way, Volodia?” asked the elder. “However, Nikolaïeff will lead you to Korabelnaïa. Now I am going alone, and to-morrow I will be with you.”

That was all they said in this last interview.

XI.