On his way to the bastion, Kalugin met numerous wounded men; but,
knowing from experience that such a spectacle has a bad effect on the
spirits of a man on the verge of an action, he not only did not pause
to interrogate them, but, on the contrary, he tried not to pay any heed
to them. At the foot of the hill he encountered an orderly, who was
galloping from the bastion at full speed.
“Zobkin! Zobkin! Stop a minute!”
“Well, what is it?”
“Where are you from?”
“From the lodgements.”
“Well, how are things there! Hot?”
“Ah, frightfully!”
And the orderly galloped on.
In fact, although there was not much firing from the rifles, the
cannonade had begun with fresh vigor and greater heat than ever.
“Ah, that's bad!” thought Kalugin, experiencing a rather unpleasant
sensation, and there came to him also a presentiment, that is to say, a
very usual thought—the thought of death.
But Kalugin was an egotist and gifted with nerves of steel; in a word,
he was what is called brave. He did not yield to his first sensation,
and began to arouse his courage; he recalled to mind a certain adjutant
of Napoleon, who, after having given the command to advance, galloped
up to Napoleon, his head all covered with blood.
“You are wounded?” said Napoleon to him. “I beg your pardon, Sire, I am
dead,”—and the adjutant fell from his horse, and died on the spot.
This seemed very fine to him, and he fancied that he somewhat resembled
this adjutant; then he gave his horse a blow with the whip; and assumed
still more of that knowing Cossack bearing, glanced at his orderly, who
was galloping behind him, standing upright in his stirrups, and thus in
dashing style he reached the place where it was necessary to dismount.
Here he found four soldiers, who were smoking their pipes as they sat
on the stones.
“What are you doing here?” he shouted at them.
“We have been carrying a wounded man from the field, Your Honor, and
have sat down to rest,” one of them replied, concealing his pipe behind
his back, and pulling off his cap.
“Resting indeed! March off to your posts!”
And, in company with them, he walked up the hill through the trenches,
encountering wounded men at every step.
On attaining the crest of the hill, he turned to the left, and, after
taking a few steps, found himself quite alone. Splinters whizzed near
him, and struck in the trenches. Another bomb rose in front of him, and
seemed to be flying straight at him. All of a sudden he felt terrified;
he ran off five paces at full speed, and lay down on the ground. But
when the bomb burst, and at a distance from him, he grew dreadfully
vexed at himself, and glanced about as he rose, to see whether any one
had perceived him fall, but there was no one about.
When fear has once made its way into the mind, it does not speedily
give way to another feeling. He, who had boasted that he would
never bend, hastened along the trench with accelerated speed, and
almost on his hands and knees. “Ah! this is very bad!” he thought,
as he stumbled. “I shall certainly be killed!” And, conscious of how
difficult it was for him to breathe, and that the perspiration was
breaking out all over his body, he was amazed at himself, but he no
longer strove to conquer his feelings.
All at once steps became audible in advance of him. He quickly
straightened himself up, raised his head, and, boldly clanking his
sword, began to proceed at a slower pace than before. He did not know
himself. When he joined the officer of sappers and the sailor who
were coming to meet him, and the former called to him, “Lie down,”
pointing to the bright speck of a bomb, which, growing ever brighter
and brighter, swifter and swifter, as it approached, crashed down
in the vicinity of the trench, he only bent his head a very little,
involuntarily, under the influence of the terrified shout, and went his
way.
“Whew! what a brave man!” ejaculated the sailor, who had calmly watched
the exploding bomb, and, with practised glance, at once calculated
that its splinters could not strike inside the trench; “he did not even
wish to lie down.”
Only a few steps remained to be taken, across an open space, before
Kalugin would reach the casemate of the commander of the bastion, when
he was again attacked by dimness of vision and that stupid sensation of
fear; his heart began to beat more violently, the blood rushed to his
head, and he was obliged to exert an effort over himself in order to
reach the casemate.
“Why are you so out of breath?” inquired the general, when Kalugin had
communicated to him his orders.
“I have been walking very fast, Your Excellency!”
“Will you not take a glass of wine?”
Kalugin drank the wine, and lighted a cigarette. The engagement had
already come to an end; only the heavy cannonade continued, going on
from both sides.
In the casemate sat General N., the commander of the bastion, and six
other officers, among whom was Praskukhin, discussing various details
of the conflict. Seated in this comfortable apartment, with blue
hangings, with a sofa, a bed, a table, covered with papers, a wall
clock, and the holy pictures, before which burned a lamp, and gazing
upon these signs of habitation, and at the arshin-thick (twenty-eight
inches) beams which formed the ceiling, and listening to the shots,
which were deadened by the casemate, Kalugin positively could not
understand how he had twice permitted himself to be overcome with such
unpardonable weakness. He was angry with himself, and he longed for
danger, in order that he might subject himself to another trial.
“I am glad that you are here, captain,” he said to a naval officer,
in the cloak of staff-officer, with a large moustache and the cross
of St. George, who entered the casemate at that moment, and asked the
general to give him some men, that he might repair the two embrasures
on his battery, which had been demolished. “The general ordered me to
inquire,” continued Kalugin, when the commander of the battery ceased
to address the general, “whether your guns can fire grape-shot into
the trenches.”
“Only one of my guns will do that,” replied the captain, gruffly.
“Let us go and see, all the same.”