"If you were to fire a volley from all the guns, nobody would stir.
They are all asleep. One could go up and bind them all. Just now I
passed quite close to the sentry. He looked at me and did not say a
word, never stirred. I suppose he was asleep too. It's a wonder he does
not fall down."
He who spoke yawned and his clothes rustled, evidently he was
stretching himself. I leant against the side of the carriage, intending
to climb up--and was instantly overcome by sleep. Somebody lifted me
up from behind and laid me down, while I began pushing him away with
my feet, without knowing why, and again I fell asleep, hearing as in a
dream fragments of a conversation:
"At the seventh verst."
"Have you forgotten the lanterns?"
"No, he won't go."
"Give them here. Back a little. That's it."
The carriages were jerking backwards and forwards, something was
rattling. And gradually, because of all these sounds and because I
was lying comfortably and quietly, sleep deserted me. But the doctor
was sound asleep, and when I took him by the hand, it was like the
hand of a corpse, heavy and limp. The train was now moving slowly and
cautiously, shaking slightly, as if groping its way. The student acting
as hospital orderly lighted the candle in the lantern, lighting up the
walls and the black aperture of the entrance, and said angrily,--
"D--n it! Much they need us by this time. But you had better wake him,
before he falls into a sound sleep, for then you won't be able to do
anything with him. I know by myself."
We roused the doctor and he sat up, rolling his eyes vacantly. He tried
to lie down again, but we did not let him.
"It would be good to have a drop of vodki now," said the student.
We drank a mouthful of brandy, and all sleepiness disappeared
entirely. The big black square of the door began to grow pink, then
red--somewhere from behind the hills appeared an enormous mute flare of
a conflagration: as if the sun was rising in the middle of the night.
"It's far away. About twenty versts."
"I feel cold," said the doctor, snapping his teeth.
The student looked out of the door and beckoned me to come up to him.
I looked out: at different points of the horizon motionless flares of
similar conflagration stood out in a mute row: as if dozens of suns
were rising simultaneously. And now the darkness was not so great.
The distant hills were growing more densely black, sharply outlined
against the sky in a broken and wavy contour, while in the foreground
all was flooded with a red soft glow, silent and motionless. I glanced
at the student; his face was tinged by the same red fantastic colour of
blood, that had changed itself into air and light.
"Are there many wounded?" asked I.
He waved his hand.
"A great many madmen. More so than wounded."
"Real madmen?"
"What others can there be?"
He was looking at me, and his eyes wore the same fixed, wild
expression, full of cold horror, that the soldier's had, who died of
sunstroke.
"Stop that," said I, turning away.
"The doctor is mad also. Just look at him."
The doctor had not heard. He was sitting cross-legged, like a Turk,
swaying to and fro, soundlessly moving his lips and finger-tips. And
in his gaze there was the same fixed, stupefied, blunt, stricken
expression.
"I feel cold," said he, and smiled.
"Hang you all!" cried I, moving away into a corner of the carriage.
"What did you call me up for?"
Nobody answered. The student stood gazing out at the mute spreading
glow, and the back of his head with its curly hair was youthful; and
when I looked at him, I do not know why, but I kept picturing to myself
a delicate woman's hand passing through that hair. And this image was
so unpleasant, that a feeling of hatred sprang up in my breast, and I
could not look at him without a feeling of loathing.
"How old are you?" I asked, but he did not turn his head and did not
answer.
The doctor kept on rocking himself.
"I feel cold."
"When I think," said the student, without turning round, "when I think
that there are streets, houses, a University...."
He broke off, as if he had said all and was silent. Suddenly the train
stopped almost instantaneously, making me knock myself against the
wall, and voices were to be heard. We jumped out. In front of the very
engine upon the rails lay something, a not very large lump, out of
which a leg was projecting.
"Wounded?"
"No, dead. The head is torn off. Say what you will, but I will light
the head-light. Otherwise we shall be crushing somebody."
The lump with the protruding leg was thrown aside; for an instant the
leg lifted itself up, as if it wanted to run through the air, and all
disappeared in a black ditch. The head-light was lit and the engine
instantly grew black.
"Listen!" whispered somebody, full of silent terror.
How was it that we had not heard it before! From everywhere--the exact
place could not be defined--a groan, unbroken and scraping, wonderfully
calm in its breadth, and even indifferent, as it seemed, was borne upon
us. We had heard many cries and groans, but this resembled none of
those heard before. On the dim reddish surface our eyes could perceive
nothing, and therefore the very earth and sky, lit up by a never-rising
sun, seemed to be groaning.
"The fifth verst," said the engine-driver.
"That is where it comes from," and the doctor pointed forwards. The
student shuddered, and slowly turned towards us.
"What is it? It's terrible to listen to!"
"Let's move on."
We walked along in front of the engine, throwing a dense shadow upon
the rails, but it was not black but of a dim red colour, lit up by the
soft motionless flares, that stood out mutely at the different points
of the black sky. And with each step we made, that wild unearthly
groan, that had no visible source, grew ominously, as if it was the red
air, the very earth and sky, that were groaning. In its ceaselessness
and strange indifference it recalled at times the noise of grasshoppers
in a meadow--the ceaseless noise of grasshoppers in a meadow on a
warm summer day. And we came upon dead bodies oftener and oftener. We
examined them rapidly and threw them off the rails--those indifferent,
calm, limp bodies, that left dark oily stains where the blood had
soaked into the earth where they had lain. At first we counted them,
but soon got muddled, and ceased. They were many--too many for that
ominous night, that breathed cold and groans from each fibre of its
being.
"What does it mean?" cried the doctor, and threatened somebody with his
fist. "Just listen...."
We were nearing the sixth verst, and the groans were growing distinct
and sharp, and we could almost feel the distorted mouths, from which
those terrible sounds were issuing.
We looked anxiously into the rosy gloom, so deceitful in its fantastic
light, when suddenly, almost at our feet, beside the rails, somebody
gave a loud, calling, crying, groan. We found him instantly, that
wounded man, whose face seemed to consist only of two eyes, so big they
appeared, when the light of the lantern fell on his face. He stopped
groaning, and rested his eyes on each of us and our lanterns in turn,
and in his glance there was a mad joy at seeing men and lights--and a
mad fear that all would disappear like a vision. Perhaps he had seen
men with lanterns bending over him many times, but they had always
disappeared in a bloody confused nightmare.
We moved on, and almost instantly stumbled against two more wounded,
one lying on the rails, the other groaning in a ditch. As we were
picking them up, the doctor, trembling with anger, said to me: "Well?"
and turned away. Several steps farther on we met a man wounded
slightly, who was walking alone, supporting one arm with the other. He
was walking with his head thrown back, straight towards us, but seemed
not to notice us, when we drew aside to let him pass. I believe he did
not see us. He stopped for an instant near the engine, turned aside,
and went past the train.
"You had better get in!" cried the doctor, but he did not answer.
These were the first that we found, and they horrified us. But later
on we came upon them oftener and oftener along the rails or near
them, and the whole field, lit up by the motionless red flare of the
conflagrations, began stirring as if it were alive, breaking out into
loud cries, wails, curses and groans. All those dark mounds stirred
and crawled about like half-dead lobsters let out of a basket, with
outspread legs, scarcely resembling men in their broken, unconscious
movements and ponderous immobility. Some were mute and obedient, others
groaned, wailed, swore and showed such a passionate hate towards us
that were saving them, as if _we_ had brought about that bloodly,
indifferent night, and been the cause of all those terrible wounds and
their loneliness amidst the night and dead bodies.
The train was full, and our clothes were saturated with blood, as if
we had stood for a long time under a rain of blood, while the wounded
were still being brought in, and the field, come to life, was stirring
wildly as before.
Some of the wounded crawled up themselves, some walked up tottering and
falling. One soldier almost ran up to us. His face was smashed, and
only one eye remained, burning wildly and terribly, and he was almost
naked, as if he had come from the bath-room. Pushing me aside, he
caught sight of the doctor, and rapidly seized him by the chest with
his left hand.
"I'll smash your snout!" he cried, shaking the doctor, and added slowly
and mordantly a coarse oath. "I'll smash your snouts! you rabble!"
The doctor broke away from the soldier, and advancing towards him,
cried chokingly,--
"I will have you court-martialled, you scoundrel! To prison with you!
You're hindering my work! Scoundrel! Brute!"
We pulled them apart, but the soldier kept on crying out for a long
time: "Rabble! I'll smash your snout!"
I was beginning to get exhausted, and went a little way off to have
a smoke and rest a bit. The blood, dried to my hands, covered them
like a pair of black gloves, making it difficult for me to bend my
fingers, so that I kept dropping my cigarettes and matches. And when
I succeeded in lighting my cigarette, the tobacco smoke struck me as
novel and strange, with quite a peculiar taste, the like of which I
never experienced before or after. Just then the ambulance student with
whom I had travelled came up to me, and it seemed to me as if I had
met with him several years back, but where I could not remember. His
tread was firm as if he were marching, and he was staring through me at
something farther on and higher up.
"And they are sleeping," said he, as it seemed, quite calmly.