Part 9

Let us drop the curtain on this scene. To-morrow, perhaps to-day, each of these men will go to meet death gayly, proudly, and will die calmly and firmly. The only consolation of a life the conditions of which freeze with horror the coldest imagination, of a life which has nothing human in it, to which all hope is interdicted, is forgetfulness, annihilation of the consciousness of the reality. In the soul of every man lies dormant the noble spark which at the proper time will make a hero of him; but this spark grows tired of shining always. Nevertheless, when the fatal moment comes, it will burst into a flame which will illumine grand deeds.

XVII.

The next day the bombardment continued with the same violence. About eleven o’clock in the forenoon Volodia Koseltzoff joined the officers of his battery. He became accustomed to these new faces, asked them questions, and, in his turn, shared his impressions with them. The modest but slightly pedantic conversation of the artillery-men pleased him and inspired his respect. On the other hand, his own sympathetic appearance, his timid manner, and his simplicity predisposed these gentlemen in his favor. The oldest officer of the battery, a short, red-haired captain with a foretop, and with well-smoothed locks on his temples, brought up in the old traditions of artillery, amiable with ladies, and posing for a savant, asked him questions about his acquaintance with this science or that, about the new inventions, joked in an affectionate way about his youth and his handsome face, and treated him like a son, all of which charmed Volodia. Sub-lieutenant Dedenko, a young officer with an accent of Little Russia, with shaggy hair and a torn overcoat, pleased him also, in spite of his loud voice, his frequent quarrels, and his brusque movements, for under this rude exterior Volodia saw a brave and worthy man. Dedenko eagerly offered his services to Volodia, and tried to prove to him that the cannon at Sebastopol had not been placed according to rule. On the other hand, Lieutenant Tchernovitzky, with high-arched eyebrows, who wore a well-cared-for but worn and mended overcoat, and a gold chain on a satin waistcoat, did not inspire him with any sympathy, although superior to the others in politeness. He continually asked Volodia details about the emperor, the minister of war, related with factitious enthusiasm the heroic exploits accomplished at Sebastopol, expressed his regrets at the small number of true patriots, made a show of a great deal of knowledge, of wit, of exceedingly noble sentiments, but in spite of all that, and without being able to tell why, all these discourses sounded false in his ears, and he even noticed that the officers in general avoided speaking to Tchernovitzky. The yunker, Vlang, whom he had waked up the evening before, sat modestly in a corner, kept silent, laughed sometimes at a joke, always ready to recall what had been forgotten, presented to the officers in turn the small glass of brandy, and rolled cigarettes for all. Charmed by the simple and polite manners of Volodia, who did not treat him like a boy, and by his agreeable appearance, his great, fine eyes never left the face of the new-comer. Urged by a feeling of great admiration, he divined and forestalled all his wishes, a fact which the officers immediately noticed, and which furnished the subject of unsparing jokes.

A little before dinner second-captain Kraut, relieved from duty on the bastion, joined the little company. A blond, fine-looking fellow, of a lively turn of mind, proud possessor of a pair of red mustaches, and side-whiskers of the same color, he spoke the language to perfection, but too correctly and too elegantly for a pure-blooded Russian. Quite as irreproachable in duty as in his private life, perfection was his failing. A perfect comrade, to be counted on beyond proof in all affairs of interest, he lacked something as a man, just because everything in him was an accomplishment. In striking contrast with the ideal Germans of Germany, he was, after the example of the Russian Germans, in the highest degree practical.

“Here he is! here’s our hero!” shouted the captain at the moment Kraut came in, gesticulating and clanking his spurs. “What’ll you have, Frederic Christianovitch--tea or brandy?”

“I am having some tea made, but I won’t refuse brandy while I am waiting, for my soul’s consolation! Happy to make your acquaintance! Please get fond of us, and be well-disposed towards us,” he said to Volodia, who had arisen to salute him. “Second-captain Kraut! The artificer told me you came last evening.”

“Allow me to thank you for your bed, which I profited by last night.”

“Did you at least sleep comfortably there? Because one of the legs is gone, and no one can repair it during the siege. You have to keep wedging it up.”

“So then you got out of it safely?” Dedenko asked him.

“Yes, thank God! but Skvortzoff was hit. We had to repair one of the carriages; the side of it was smashed to pieces.”

He suddenly arose and walked up and down. It could be seen that he felt the agreeable sensation of a man who has just come safe and sound out of great danger.

“Now, Dmitri Gavrilovitch,” he said, tapping the captain’s knee in a friendly manner, “how are you, brother? What has become of your presentation for advancement? Has it finally been settled?”

“No; nothing has come of it.”

“And nothing will come of it,” said Dedenko; “I’ve proved it to you already.”

“Why will nothing come of it?”

“Because your statement is badly made.”

“Ah, what a violent wrangler!” said Kraut, gayly. “A truly obstinate Little Russian. All right; you will see that they will make you lieutenant to pay for your mortification.”

“No, they won’t do anything.”

“Vlang,” added Kraut, speaking to the yunker, “fill my pipe and bring it to me, please.”

Kraut’s presence had waked them all up. Chatting with each one, he gave the details of the bombardment, and asked questions about what had taken place during his absence.

XVIII.

“Now, then, are you settled?” Kraut asked of Volodia. “But, pardon me, what is your name--both your names? It’s our custom in the artillery. Have you a saddle-horse?”

“No,” answered Volodia, “and I am much troubled about it. I have spoken to the captain. I shall have neither horse nor money until I get my forage-money and my travelling expenses. I would like to ask the commander of the battery to lend me his horse, but I am afraid he will refuse.”

“You would like to ask this of Apollo Serguéïtch?” said Kraut, looking at the captain, while he made a sound with his lips which expressed doubt.

“Well,” said the latter, “if he refuses, there is no great harm done. To tell the truth, there is seldom need of a horse here. I will undertake to ask him to-day even.”

“You don’t know him,” said Dedenko. “He would refuse anything else, but he wouldn’t refuse his horse to this gentleman. Would you like to bet on it?”

“Oh, I know you are ripe for contradiction, you--”

“I contradict when I know a thing! He isn’t generous usually, but he will lend his horse, because he has no interest in refusing it.”

“How no interest? When oats cost eight rubles here it is evidently in his interest. He will have one horse the less to keep.”

“Vladimir Semenovitch!” cried Vlang, coming back with Kraut’s pipe. “Ask for the spotted one; it is a charming horse.”

“That’s the one you fell into the ditch with, eh, Vlang?” observed the second-captain.

“But you are mistaken in saying that oats are eight rubles,” maintained Dedenko, in the mean time, continuing the discussion. “According to the latest news they are ten-fifty. It is evident that there is no profit in--”

“You would like to leave him nothing, then? If you were in his place you would not lend your horse to go into town either. When I am commander of the battery my horses, brother, will have four full measures to eat every day! I sha’n’t think of making an income, rest assured!”

“He who lives will see,” replied the second-captain. “You will do the same when you have a battery, and he also,” pointing to Volodia.

“Why do you suppose, Frederic Christianovitch, that this gentleman would also like to reserve for himself some small profit? If he has a certain amount of money, what will he do it for?” Tchernovitzky asked in his turn.

“No--I--excuse me, captain,” said Volodia, blushing up to his ears. “That would be dishonest in my eyes.”

“Oh! oh! what milk porridge!” Kraut said to him.

“This is another question, captain, but it seems to me that I couldn’t take money for myself which doesn’t belong to me.”

“And I will tell you something else,” said the second-captain, in a more serious tone. “You must learn that, being battery commander, there is every advantage in managing affairs well. You must know that the soldier’s food doesn’t concern him. It has always been that way with us in the artillery. If you don’t succeed in making both ends meet, you will have nothing left. Let us count up your expenses. You have first the forage”--and the captain bent one finger; “next the medicine”--he bent a second one; “then the administration--that makes three; then the draft-horses, which certainly cost five hundred rubles--that makes four; then the refitting of the soldiers’ collars; then the charcoal, which is used in great quantities, and at last the table of your officers; lastly, as chief of the battery you must live comfortably, and you need a carriage, a cloak, etc.”

“And the principal thing is this, Vladimir Semenovitch,” said the captain, who had been silent up to this moment. “Look at a man like me, for example, who has served twenty years, receiving at first two, then three hundred rubles pay. Well, then, why shouldn’t the Government reward him for his years of service by giving him a morsel of bread for his old days.”

“It can’t be discussed,” rejoined the second-captain; “so don’t be in a hurry to judge. Serve a little while and you will see.”

Volodia, quite ashamed of the remark which he had thrown out without stopping to reflect, murmured a few words, and listened in silence how Dedenko set about defending the opposite thesis. The discussion was interrupted by the entrance of the colonel’s orderly announcing that dinner was ready.

“You ought to tell Apollo Serguéïtch to give us wine to-day,” said Captain Tchernovitzky, buttoning his coat. “Devil take his avarice! He will be shot, and no one will get any.”

“Tell him yourself.”

“Oh no, you are my elder; the hierarchy before everything!”

XIX.

A table, covered with a stained tablecloth, was placed in the middle of the room in which Volodia had been received by the colonel the evening before. The latter gave him his hand, and asked him questions about Petersburg and about his journey.

“Now, gentlemen, please come up to the brandy. The ensigns don’t drink,” he added, with a smile.

The commander of the battery did not seem as stern to-day as the day before; he had rather the air of a kind and hospitable host than that of a comrade among his officers. In spite of that, all, from the old captain to Ensign Dedenko, evinced respect for him which betrayed itself in the timid politeness with which they spoke to him and came up in line to drink their little glass of brandy.

The dinner consisted of cabbage-soup, served in a great tureen in which swam lumps of meat with fat attached, laurel leaves, and a good deal of pepper, Polish _zrasi_ with mustard, _koldouni_ with slightly rancid butter; no napkins; the spoons were of pewter and of wood, the glasses were two in number. On the table was a single water decanter with broken neck. The conversation did not flag. They first spoke of the battle of Inkerman, in which the battery took a part. Each related his impressions, his opinions on the causes of the failure, keeping silent as soon as the battery commander spoke. Then they complained of the lack of cannon of a certain calibre; they talked of certain other improvements, which gave Volodia an opportunity of showing his knowledge. The curious part was that the talk did not even touch upon the frightful situation of Sebastopol, which seemed to mean that each one, on his part, thought too much about it to speak of it.

Volodia, very much astonished, and even vexed, that there was no question of the duties of his service, said to himself that he seemed to have come to Sebastopol only in order to give the details about the new cannon and to dine with the battery commander.

During the repast a shell burst very near the house. The floor and the wall were shaken by it as by an earthquake, and powder-smoke spread over the window outside.

“You certainly didn’t see that at Petersburg, but here we often have these surprises. Go, Vlang,” added the commander, “and see where the shell burst.”

Vlang went to look, and announced that it had burst in the yard. After that they did not speak of it again.

A little before the end of the dinner one of the military clerks came in to give to his chief three sealed envelopes. “This one is very urgent. A Cossack has just brought it from the commander of the artillery,” he said. The officers watched the practised fingers of their superior with anxious impatience while he broke the seal of the envelope, which bore the words “in haste,” and drew a paper from it.

“What can that be?” each one thought. “Can it be the order to leave Sebastopol for a rest, or the order to bring out the whole battery upon the bastion?”

“Once more!” cried the commander, angrily, throwing the sheet of paper on the table.

“What is it, Apollo Serguéïtch?” asked the oldest of the officers.

“They want an officer and men for a mortar battery. I have only four officers, and my men are not up to the full number,” he growled, “and now they ask for some of them. However, some one must go, gentlemen,” he continued, after a moment; “they must be there at seven o’clock. Send me the sergeant-major. Now, gentlemen, who will go? Decide it among yourselves.”

“But here is this gentleman who hasn’t yet served,” said Tchernovitzky, pointing to Volodia.

“Yes; I wouldn’t ask for anything better,” said Volodia, feeling a cold sweat moisten his neck and his backbone.

“No--why not?” interrupted the captain. “No one ought to refuse; but it is useless to ask him to go; and since Apollo Serguéïtch leaves us free, we will draw lots, as we did the other time.”

All consented to this. Kraut carefully cut several little paper squares, rolled them up, and threw them into a cap. The captain cracked a few jokes and profited by this occasion to ask the colonel for wine, “to give us courage,” he added. Dedenko had a depressed air, Volodia smiled, Tchernovitzky declared that he would be chosen by the lot. As to Kraut, he was perfectly calm.

They offered Volodia the first chance. He took one of the papers, the longest, but immediately changed it for another, shorter and smaller, and unrolling it, read the word “Go.”

“It is I,” he said, with a sigh.

“All right. May God protect you! It will be your baptism of fire,” said the commander, looking with a pleasant smile at the disturbed face of the ensign. “But get ready quickly, and in order that it may be pleasanter, Vlang will go with you in the place of the artificer.

XX.

Vlang, delighted with his mission, ran away to dress, and came back at once to assist Volodia to make up his bundles, advising him to take his bed, his fur cloak, an old number of the “Annals of the Country,” a coffee-pot with an alcohol lamp, and other useless articles. The captain, in his turn, advised Volodia to read in the “Manual for the use of Artillery Officers” the passage relating to firing mortars, and to copy it at once! Volodia set himself to work at it immediately, happy and surprised to feel that the dread of danger, especially the fear of passing for a coward, was less strong than on the evening before. His impressions of the day and his occupation had partly contributed to diminish the violence of this; and then it is well known that an acute sensation cannot last long without weakening. In a word, his fear was being cured. At seven in the evening, at the moment the sun was setting behind the Nicholas barracks, the sergeant-major came to tell him that the men were ready, and were waiting for him.

“I have given the list to Vlang, your Excellency; you can ask him for it,” he said.

“Must I make a little speech to them?” thought Volodia, on his way, accompanied by the yunker, to join the twenty artillery-men who, swords by their sides, were waiting for him outside--“or must I simply say to them, ‘How do you do, children?’ or, indeed, say nothing at all? Why not say ‘How do you do, children?’ I think I ought to;” and with his full and sonorous voice he cried boldly, “How do you do, children?” The soldiers replied cheerfully to his salutation; his young and fresh voice sounded agreeably in their ears. He put himself at their head, and although his heart was beating as if he had just run several furlongs, his walk was light and his face was smiling. When they got near the Malakoff mamelon, he noticed, while climbing up it, that Vlang, who did not leave his heels, and who had seemed so courageous down below in their quarters, stooped and ducked his head as if the bullets and shells which were whistling without cessation were coming straight towards him. Several soldiers did the same, and the majority of the faces expressed, if not fear, at least disquiet. This circumstance reassured him and revived his courage.

“Here I am, then, I also, on the Malakoff mamelon. I imagined it a thousand times more terrible, and I am walking, I am advancing, without saluting the bullets! I am less afraid than the others, and I am not a coward, then,” he said to himself joyfully, with the enthusiasm of satisfied self-love.

This feeling was, however, shaken by the spectacle that presented itself to his eyes. When he reached in the twilight the Korniloff battery, four sailors, some holding by the legs, others by the arms, the bloody corpse of a man with bare feet and no coat, were in the act of throwing him over the parapet. (The second day of the bombardment they threw the dead into the ditch, because they had no time to carry them off.) Volodia, stupefied, saw the corpse strike the upper part of the rampart, and slide from there into the ditch. Fortunately for him, he met at this very moment the commander of the bastion, who gave him a guide to lead him to the battery and into the bomb-proof quarters of the men. We will not relate how often our hero was exposed to danger during that night. We will say nothing of how he was undeceived when he noticed that instead of finding them firing here according to the precise rules such as they practise at Petersburg on the plain of Volkovo, he saw himself in front of two broken mortars, one with its muzzle bruised by a shell, the other still upright on the pieces of a destroyed platform. We will not tell how it was impossible for him to get the soldiers in order to repair it before daylight, how he found no charge of the calibre indicated in the “Manual,” nor describe his feelings at seeing two of his soldiers fall, hit before his eyes, nor how he himself, even, escaped death twenty times by a hair’s-breadth. Happily for him, the captain of the mortar, who had been given him for an assistant, a tall sailor attached to these mortars since the beginning of the siege, assured him that they could make use of them still, and promised him while he was walking on the bastion, lantern in hand, as calmly as if he were in his kitchen-garden, to put them in good condition before morning.

The bomb-proof reduct into which his guide conducted him was only a great, long cavern dug in the rocky earth, two fathoms deep, protected by oaken timbers eighteen inches thick. There he established himself with his soldiers.

As soon as Vlang noticed the little low door which led into it, he threw himself in the first with such haste that he nearly fell on the stone-paved floor, cowered down in a corner, and did not care to come out of it. The soldiers placed themselves on the ground along the wall. Some of them lighted their pipes, and Volodia arranged his bed in a corner, stretched himself on it, lighted a candle in his turn, and smoked a cigarette. Over their heads could be heard, deadened by the bomb-proof, the uninterrupted roar of the discharges. A single cannon close beside them shook their shelter every time it thundered. In the interior everything was quiet. The soldiers, still intimidated by the presence of the new officer, only exchanged a word with each other now and then to ask for a light or a little room. A rat was scratching somewhere among the stones, and Vlang, who had not yet recovered from his emotion, occasionally sighed deeply as he looked about him. Volodia, on his bed in this peaceful corner crammed with people, lighted by a single candle, gave himself up to the feeling of comfort which he had often had as a child when, playing hide-and-seek, he slipped into a wardrobe or under his mother’s skirt, holding his breath, stretching his ears, being very much afraid of the dark, and feeling at the same time an unconscious impression of well-being.

In the same way here, without being altogether at his ease, he felt rather disposed to be cheerful.

XXI.

At the end of ten minutes the soldiers got bold and began to talk. Near the officer’s bed, in the circle of light, were placed the highest in rank--the two artificers, one an old gray-haired man, his breast adorned with a mass of medals and crosses, among which the cross of Saint George was wanting, however, the other a young man, smoking cigarettes which he was rolling, and the drummer, who placed himself, as is the custom, at the orders of the officer, in the background. In the shadow of the entrance, behind the bombardier and the medalled soldiers seated in front, the “humbles” kept themselves. They were the first to break silence. One of them, running in frightened from outside, served as a theme for their conversation.

“Eh! say there, you didn’t stay long in the street. Young girls are not playing there, hey?” said a voice.

“On the contrary, they are singing wonderful songs. You don’t hear such ones in the village,” replied the new-comer, with a laugh, and all out of breath.

“Vassina doesn’t like the shells; no, he doesn’t like them!” some one cried from the aristocratic side.

“When it is necessary it is another story,” slowly replied Vassina, whom everybody listened to when he spoke. “The twenty-fourth, for example, they fired so that it was a blessing, and there is no harm in that. Why let us be killed for nothing? Do the chiefs thank us for that?”

These words provoked a general laugh.

“Nevertheless, there is Melnikoff, who is outside all the time,” said some one.

“It is true. Make him come in,” added the old artificer, “otherwise he will get killed for nothing.”

“Who is this Melnikoff?” asked Volodia.

“He is, your Excellency, an animal who is afraid of nothing. He is walking about outside. Please examine him; he looks like a bear.”

“He practises witchcraft,” added Vassina, in his calm voice.

Melnikoff, a very corpulent soldier (a rare thing), with red hair, a tremendously bulging forehead, and light blue projecting eyes, came in just at this moment.

“Are you afraid of bomb-shells?” Volodia asked him.

“Why should I be afraid of them?” repeated Melnikoff, scratching his neck. “No bomb-shell will kill me, I know.”

“Do you like to live here?”

“To be sure I do; it is very entertaining,” and he burst out laughing.

“Then you must be sent out in a sortie. Would you like to? I will speak to the general,” said Volodia, although he knew no general.

“Why not like to? I should like to very much!” and Melnikoff disappeared behind his comrades.