No sooner had Mikhaïloff crossed his own threshold than entirely
different thoughts came into his mind. He again saw his little room,
where beaten earth took the place of a wooden floor, his warped windows,
in which the broken panes were replaced by paper, his old bed, over
which was nailed to the wall a rug with the design of a figure of an
amazon, his pair of Toula pistols, hanging on the head-board, and on one
side a second untidy bed with an Indian coverlet belonging to the
yunker, who shared his quarters. He saw his valet Nikita, who rose from
the ground where he was crouching, scratching his head bristling with
greasy hair. He saw his old cloak, his second pair of boots, and the
bundle prepared for the night in the bastion, wrapped in a cloth from
which protruded the end of a piece of cheese and the neck of a bottle
filled with brandy. Suddenly he remembered he had to lead his company
into the casemates that very night.
“I shall be killed, I’m sure,” he said to himself; “I feel it. Besides,
I offered to go myself, and one who does that is certain to be killed.
And what is the matter with this sick man, this cursed Nepchissetzky?
Who knows? Perhaps he isn’t sick at all. And, thanks to him, a man will
get killed--he’ll get killed, surely. However, if I am not shot I will
be put on the list for promotion. I noticed the colonel’s satisfaction
when I asked permission to take the place of Nepchissetzky if he was
sick. If I don’t get the rank of major, I shall certainly get the
Vladimir Cross. This is the thirteenth time I go on duty in the bastion.
Oh, oh, unlucky number! I shall be killed, I’m sure; I feel it.
Nevertheless, some one must go. The company cannot go with an ensign;
and if anything should happen, the honor of the regiment, the honor of
the army would be assailed. It is my duty to go--yes, my sacred duty. No
matter, I have a presentiment--”
The captain forgot that he had this presentiment, more or less strong,
every time he went to the bastion, and he did not know that all who go
into action have this feeling, though in very different degrees. His
sense of duty which he had particularly developed calmed him, and he sat
down at his table and wrote a farewell letter to his father. In the
course of ten minutes the letter was finished. He arose with moist eyes,
and began to dress, repeating to himself all the prayers which he knew
by heart. His servant, a dull fellow, three-quarters drunk, helped him
put on his new coat, the old one he was accustomed to wear in the
bastion not being mended.
“Why hasn’t that coat been mended? You can’t do anything but sleep, you
beast!”
“Sleep!” growled Nikita, “when I am running about like a dog all day
long. I tire myself to death, and after that am not allowed to sleep!”
“You are drunk again, I see.”
“I didn’t drink with your money; why do you find fault with me?”
“Silence, fool!” cried the captain, ready to strike him.
He was already nervous and troubled, and Nikita’s rudeness made him lose
patience. Nevertheless, he was very fond of the fellow, he even spoiled
him, and had kept him with him a dozen years.
“Fool! fool!” repeated the servant. “Why do you abuse me, sir--and at
this time? It isn’t right to abuse me.”
Mikhaïloff thought of the place he was going to, and was ashamed of
himself.
“You would make a saint lose patience, Nikita,” he said, with a softer
voice. “Leave that letter addressed to my father lying on the table.
Don’t touch it,” he added, blushing.
“All right,” said Nikita, weakening under the influence of the wine he
had taken, at his own expense, as he said, and blinking his eyes, ready
to weep.
Then when the captain shouted, on leaving the house, “Good-by, Nikita!”
he burst forth in a violent fit of sobbing, and seizing the hand of his
master, kissed it, howling all the while, and saying, over and over
again, “Good-by, master!”
An old sailor’s wife at the door, good woman as she was, could not help
taking part in this affecting scene. Rubbing her eyes with her dirty
sleeve, she mumbled something about masters who, on their side, have to
put up with so much, and went on to relate for the hundredth time to the
drunken Nikita how she, poor creature, was left a widow, how her husband
had been killed during the first bombardment and his house ruined, for
the one she lived in now did not belong to her, etc., etc. After his
master was gone, Nikita lighted his pipe, begged the landlord’s daughter
to fetch him some brandy, quickly wiped his tears, and ended up by
quarrelling with the old woman about a little pail he said she had
broken.
“Perhaps I shall only be wounded,” the captain thought at nightfall,
approaching the bastion at the head of his company. “But where--here or
there?”
He placed his finger first on his stomach and then on his chest.
“If it were only here,” he thought, pointing to the upper part of his
thigh, “and if the ball passed round the bone! But if it is a fracture
it’s all over.”
Mikhaïloff, by following the trenches, reached the casemates safe and
sound. In perfect darkness, assisted by an officer of the sappers, he
put his men to work; then he sat down in a hole in the shelter of the
parapet. They were firing only at intervals; now and again, first on our
side and then on _his_, a flash blazed forth, and the fuse of a shell
traced a curve of fire on the dark, starlit sky. But the projectiles
fell far off, behind or to the right of the quarters in which the
captain hid at the bottom of a pit. He ate a piece of cheese, drank a
few drops of brandy, lighted a cigarette, and having said his prayers,
tried to sleep.