‘Yes, of a new generation! He’ll be just as close-fisted as the battalion-commander was. How he used to shout when he was in command! But now he sings a different tune.’
‘Can’t be helped, old fellow. It just is so.’
The younger brother understood nothing of what was being said, but vaguely felt that his brother was not expressing what he thought, and spoke in that way only because he was drinking the commissariat officer’s porter.]
The bottle of porter was already 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 satin dressing-gown with tassels and a cap with a red band and a cockade. He came in twisting his little black moustaches, looking somewhere in the direction of one of the carpets, and answered the greetings of the officers with a scarcely perceptible movement of the shoulders.
‘I think I’ll have a glass too,’ he said, sitting down to the table.
‘Have you come from Petersburg, young man?’ he remarked, addressing Volodya in a friendly manner.
‘Yes, sir, and I’m going to Sevastopol’
‘At your own request?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Now why do you do it, gentlemen? I don’t under-stand it,’ remarked the commissioner. ‘I’d be ready to walk to Petersburg on foot, I think, if they’d let me go. My God, I’m sick of this damned life!’
‘What have you to complain of?’ asked the elder Kozeltsov— ‘As if you weren’t well enough off here!’
The contractor gave him a look and turned away.
‘The danger, privations, lack of everything,’ he continued, addressing Volodya. ‘Whatever induces you to do it? I don’t at all understand you, gentlemen. If you got any profit out of it — but no! Now would it be pleasant, at your age, to be crippled for life?’
‘Some want to make a profit and others serve for honour,’ said the elder Kozeltsov crossly, again intervening in the conversation.
‘Where does the honour come in if you’ve nothing to eat?’ said the contractor, laughing disdainfully and addressing the commissariat officer, who also laughed. ‘Wind up and let’s have the tune from Lucia j he added, pointing to a musical box. T like it.’
‘What sort of a fellow is that Vasili Mikhaylovich?’ asked Volodya when he and his brother had left the shed and were driving to Sevastopol in the dusk of the evening.
‘So-so, but terribly stingy! [You know he gets at least three hundred rubles a month, but lives like a pig, as you saw.] But that contractor I can’t bear to look at. I’ll give him a thrashing some day! [Why, that rascal carried off some twelve thousand rubles from Turkey. . . .’
And Kozeltsov began to enlarge on the subject of usury, rather (to tell the truth) with the bitterness of one who condemns it not because it is an evil, but because he is vexed that there are people who take advantage of it.]
X
It was almost night when they reached Sevastopol. Driving towards the large bridge across the Roadstead Volodya was not exactly dispirited, but his heart was heavy. All he saw and heard was so different from his past, still recent, experience: the large, light examination hall with its parquet floor, the jolly, friendly voices and laughter of his comrades, the new uniform, the beloved Tsar he had been accustomed to see for the past seven years, and who at Parting from them with tears in his eyes had called them his children — 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 to-morrow.’
‘Oh,why? Let’s go together,’ said Volodya. ‘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.’
‘Yes, please! I shall at least find out how. . . .’
‘My advice is don’t go . . . however— ‘
The sky was clear and dark. The stars, the flash of the guns and the continual flare of the bombs already showed up brightly in the darkness, and the large white building of the battery and the entry to the bridge1 loomed out. The air was shaken every
1 This pontoon bridge was erected during the summer of 1855. At first it was feared that the water was too rough in the Roadstead for a secure bridge to be built, but it served its purpose, and later on even stood the strain put upon it by the retreat of the Russian army to the North Side. second by a quick succession of artillery shots and explosions which became ever louder and more distinct. 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 smelt 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.
‘You 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 the other way and talking loudly.
‘If he’s had his outfit money his account is squared — that’s so.’
‘Ah, lads,’ said another, ‘when one gets to the North Side one sees light again. It’s a different air altogether.’
‘Is it though?’ said the first. ‘Why, only the other day a damned ball flew over and tore two soldiers’ legs off for them, even there. . . .’
Waiting for the trap the brothers after crossing the first pontoon stopped on the second, which was washed here and there by the waves. 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, divided from the light blue-grey starry horizon by a smooth, endless black line, was the sea, dark, misty, and with a hostile sullen roar. Far off in the distance gleamed the lights of the enemy’s fleet. To the left loomed the black hulk of one of our ships, against whose sides 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, a man in his shirt sat chopping something on the pontoon. In front, above Sevastopol, similar flashes were seen, and the terrible sounds became louder and louder. A wave flowing in from the sea washed over the right side of the bridge and wetted Volodya’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 fragments of a bomb fell whistling and splashing into the water.
‘Ah, Michael Semenich!’1 said the rider, stopping his horse in front of the elder Kozeltsov. ‘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 to-day. . . . We’re expecting an attack from hour to hour.’
‘And where is Martsov?’
1 In addressing anyone in Russian, it is usual to employ the Christian name and patronymic: i.e. to the Christian name (in this case Michael) the father’s Christian name is joined (in this case Semen) with the termination vich (o-vich or e-vich) which means ‘son of’. The termination is often shortened to ich, and colloquially toych. Surnames are less used than in English, for the patronymic is suitable for all circumstances of life — both for speaking to and of any one — except that people on very intimate terms use only the Christian name, or a pet name. ‘His leg was torn off yesterday while he was sleeping in his room in town. . . . Did you know him?’
‘Is it true that the regiment is at the Fifth Bastion now?’
‘Yes, we have replaced the M — regiment. You’d better call at the Ambulance, you’ll find some of our fellows there — they’ll show you the way.’
‘And my lodgings in the Morskaya Street, are they safe?’
‘Safe, my dear fellow! They’ve long since been shattered by bombs. You won’t know Sevastopol again. Not a woman left, not a restaurant, no music! The last brothel left yesterday. It’s melancholy enough now. Good-bye!’
And the officer trotted away.
Terrible fear suddenly overcame Volodya. He felt as if a ball or a bomb-splinter would come the next moment 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
