V
Prince Galtsin, Lieutenant-Colonel Neferdov, and Praskukhin — whom no one had invited and to whom no one spoke, but who still stuck to them — went to Kalugin’s to tea.
‘But you did not finish telling me about Vaska Mendel,’ said Kalugin, when he had taken off his cloak and sat in a soft easy chair by the window unbuttoning the collar of his clean starched shirt. ‘How did he get married?’
‘It was a joke, my boy! . . . Je vous dis, il y avait un temps, on ne parlait que de ga d Petersbourg,’I said Prince
1 ‘I tell you, at one time it was only the only thing talked of in Petersburg.’ Galtsin, laughing as he jumped up from the piano-stool and sat down near Kalugin on the window-sill,1 ‘a capital joke. I know all about it.’
And he told, amusingly, cleverly, and with animation, a love story which, as it has no interest for us, we will omit.
It was noticeable that not only Prince Galtsin but each of these gentlemen who established themselves, one on the window-sill, another with his legs in the air, and a third by the piano, seemed quite different people now from what they had been on the boulevard. There was none of the absurd arrogance and haughtiness they had shown towards the infantry officers; here among themselves they were natural, and Kalugin and Prince Galtsin in Particular showed themselves very pleasant, merry, and good-natured young fellows. Their conversation was about their Petersburg fellow officers and acquaintances.
‘What of Maslovski?’
‘Which one — the Leib-Uhlan, or the Horse Guard?’
‘I know them both. The one in the Horse Guards I knew when he was a boy just out of school. But the eldest — is he a captain yet?’
‘Oh yes, long ago.’
‘Is he still fussing about with his gipsy?’
‘No, he has dropped her. . . And so on in the same strain.
Later on Prince Galtsin went to the piano and gave an excellent rendering of a gipsy song. Praskukhin, claiming in unasked, put in a second and did it so well that he was invited to continue, and this delighted him.
A servant brought tea, cream, and cracknels on a silver tray.
‘Serve the prince,’ said Kalugin.
‘Isn’t it strange to think that we’re in a besieged
1 The thick walls of Russian houses allow ample space to sit or lounge at the windows. town,’ said Galtsin, taking his tea to the window, ‘and here’s a pianerforty, tea with cream, and a house such as I should really be glad to have in Petersburg?’
‘Well, if we hadn’t even that much,’ said the old and ever-dissatisfied lieutenant-colonel, ‘the constant uncertainty we are living in — seeing people killed day after day and no end to it — would be intolerable. And to have dirt and discomfort added to it —
‘But our infantry officers live at the bastions with their men in the bomb-proofs and eat the soldiers’ soup’, said Kalugin, ‘what of them?’
‘What of them? Well, though it’s true they don’t change their shirts for ten days at a time, they are heroes all the same — wonderful fellows.’
Just then an infantry officer entered the room.
‘I … I have orders . . . may I see the Gen … his Excellency? I have come with a message from General N.,’ he said with a timid bow.
Kalugin rose and without returning the officer’s greeting asked with an offensive, affected, official smile if he would not have the goodness to wait; and without asking him to sit down or taking any further notice of him he turned to Galtsin and began talking French, so that the poor officer left alone in the middle of the room did not in the least know what to do with himself.
‘It is a matter of the utmost urgency, sir,’ he said after a short silence.
‘Ah! Well then, please come with me,’ said Kalugin, putting on his cloak and accompanying the officer to the door.
‘Eh bien, messieurs, je crois que cela chauffer a cette mat,’1 said Kalugin when he returned from the General’s.
‘Ah! What is it — a sortie?’ asked the others.
1 ‘Well, gentlemen, I think there will be warm work to-night.’ ‘That I don’t know. You will see for yourselves,’ replied Kalugin with a mysterious smile.
‘And my commander is at the bastion, so I suppose I must go too,’ said Praskukhin, buckling on his sabre.
No one replied, it was his business to know whether he had to go or not.
Praskukhin and Neferdov left to go to their appointed posts.
‘Good-bye gentlemen. Au revolt! We’ll meet again before the night is over,’ shouted Kalugin from the window as Praskukhin and Neferdov, stooping on their Cossack saddles, trotted past. The tramp of their Cossack horses soon died away in the dark street.
‘Non, dites-moi, est-ce qu’il y aura veritablement quelque chose cette nuit ?’1 said Galtsin as he lounged in the window-sill beside Kalugin and watched the bombs that rose above the bastions.
‘I can tell you, you see . . . you have been to the bastions?’ (Galtsin nodded, though he had only been once to the Fourth Bastion). ‘You remember just in front of our lunette there is a trench,’ — and Kalugin, with the air of one who without being a specialist considers his military judgement very sound, began, in a rather confused way and misusing the technical terms, to explain the position of the enemy, and of our own works, and the plan of the intended action.
‘But I say, they’re banging away at the lodgements! Oho! I wonder if that’s ours or his? . . . Now it’s burst,’ said they as they lounged on the window-sill looking at the fiery trails of the bombs crossing one another in the air, at flashes that for a moment lit up the dark sky, at puffs of white smoke, and listened to the more and more rapid reports of the firing.
‘Quel charmant coup d’ail! a?’2 said Kalugin, drawing his guest’s attention to the really beautiful sight. ‘Do
1 ‘No, tell me, will there really be anything to-night?’
2 ‘What a charming sight, eh?’ you know, you sometimes can’t distinguish a bomb from a star.’
‘Yes, I thought that was a star just now and then saw it fall . . . there! it’s burst. And that big star — what do you call it? — looks just like a bomb.’
‘Do you know I am so used to these bombs that I am sure when I’m back in Russia I shall fancy I see bombs every starlight night — one gets so used to them.’
‘But hadn’t I better go with this sortie?’ said Prince Galtsin after a moment’s pause.
‘Humbug, my dear fellow! Don’t think of such a thing. Besides, I won’t let you,’ answered Kalugin. ‘You will have plenty of opportunities later on.’
‘Really? You think I need not go, eh?’
At that moment, from the direction in which these gentlemen were looking, amid the boom of the cannon came the terrible rattle of musketry, and thousands of little fires flaming up in quick succession flashed all along the line.
‘There! Now it’s the real thing!’ said Kalugin. 6I can’t keep cool when I hear the noise of muskets. It seems to seize one’s very soul, you know. There’s an hurrah!’ he added, listening intently to the distant and prolonged roar of hundreds of voices— ‘Ah — ah — ah’ — which came from the bastions.
‘Whose hurrah was it? Theirs or ours?’
‘I don’t know, but it’s hand-to-hand fighting now, for the firing has ceased.’
At that moment an officer followed by a Cossack galloped under the window and alighted from his horse at the porch.
‘Where are you from?’
‘From the bastion. I want the General.’
‘Come along. Well, what’s happened?’
‘The lodgements have been attacked — and occupied. The French brought up tremendous reserves — attacked us — we had only two battalions,’ said the officer, panting. He was the same officer who had been there that evening, but though he was now out of breath he walked to the door with full self-possession.
‘Well, have we retired?’ asked Kalugin.
‘No,’ angrily replied the officer, ‘another battalion came up in time — we drove them back, but the colonel is killed and many officers. I have orders to ask for reinforcements.’
And saying this he went with Kalugin to the General’s, where we shall not follow him.
Five minutes later Kalugin was already on his Cossack horse (again in the semi-Cossack manner which I have noticed that all adjutants, for some reason, seem to consider the proper thing), and rode off at a trot towards the bastion to deliver some orders and await the final result of the affair. Prince Galtsin, under the influence of that oppressive excitement usually produced in a spectator by proximity to an action in which he is not engaged, went out, and began aimlessly pacing up and down the street.
VI
Soldiers passed carrying the wounded on stretchers or supporting them under their arms. It was quite dark in the streets, lights could be seen here and there, but only in the hospital windows or where some officers were sitting up. From the bastions still came the thunder of cannon and the rattle of muskets,1 and flashes kept on lighting up the dark sky
