Towards the end of the month of August there was slowly moving along the
stony Sebastopol road between Douvanka[E] and Baktchisaraï an officer’s
carriage of peculiar form, unknown elsewhere, which held a middle place
in construction between a basket-wagon, a Jewish britchka, and a Russian
cart.
In this carriage a servant, dressed in linen, with a soft and shapeless
officer’s cap on his head, held the reins. Seated behind him, on parcels
and bags covered with a soldier’s overcoat, was an officer in a summer
cloak, small in stature, as well as could be judged from the position he
was in, who was less remarkable for the massive squareness of his
shoulders than for the thickness of his body between his chest and his
back. His neck from the nape to the shoulder was heavy and largely
developed, and the muscles were firmly extended. What is commonly spoken
of as a waist did not exist, nor the stomach either, although he was far
from being fat; and his face, upon which was spread a layer of yellow
and unhealthy sunburn, was noticeable by its thinness. It would have
passed for an attractive one if it had not been for a certain bloating
of the flesh and a skin furrowed by deep wrinkles, which, interweaving,
distorted the features, took away all freshness, and gave a brutal
expression. His small, brown, extraordinarily keen eyes had an almost
impudent look. His very thick mustache, which he was in the habit of
biting, did not extend much in breadth. His cheeks and his chin, which
he had not shaved for two days, were covered with a black and thick
beard. Wounded on the head by a piece of shell on the 10th of May, and
still wearing a bandage, he felt, nevertheless, entirely cured, and left
the hospital at Sympheropol to join his regiment, posted somewhere there
in the direction where shots could be heard; but he had not been able to
find out whether it was at Sebastopol itself or at Severnaïa or at
Inkerman. The cannonade was distinctly heard, and seemed very near when
the hills did not cut off the sound which was brought by the wind.
Occasionally a tremendous explosion shook the air and made you tremble
in spite of yourself. Now and then less violent noises, like a
drum-beat, followed each other at short intervals, intermingled with a
deafening rumble; or perhaps all was confounded in a hubbub of prolonged
rolls, like peals of thunder at the height of a storm when the rain
begins to fall. Every one said, and indeed it could be heard, that the
violence of the bombardment was terrible. The officer urged his servant
to hasten. They met a line of carts driven by Russian peasants, who had
carried provisions to Sebastopol, and who were on their way back,
bringing sick and wounded soldiers in gray overcoats, sailors in black
pilot-coats, volunteers in red fez caps, and bearded militiamen. The
officer’s carriage was forced to stop, and he, grimacing and squinting
his eyes in the impenetrable and motionless cloud of dust raised by the
carts, which flew into the eyes and ears on all sides, examined the
faces as they passed by.
“There is a sick soldier of our company,” said the servant, turning
towards his master and pointing to a wounded man.
Seated sidewise on the front of his cart a Russian peasant, wearing his
whole beard, a felt cap on his head, was tying a knot in an enormous
whip, which he held by the handle under his elbow. He turned his back to
four or five soldiers shaken and tossed about in the vehicle. One of
them, his arm tied up, his overcoat thrown on over his shirt, seated
erect and firm, although somewhat pale and thin, occupied the middle
place. Perceiving the officer, he instinctively raised his hand to his
cap, but remembering his wound, he made believe he wanted to scratch his
head. Another one was lying down beside him on the bottom of the cart.
All that could be seen of him was his two hands clinging to the wooden
bars, and his two raised knees swinging nervelessly like two hempen
dish-rags. A third, with swollen face, his head wrapped with a cloth on
which was placed his soldier’s cap, seated sidewise, his legs hanging
outside and grazing the wheel, was dozing, his hands resting on his
knees.
“Doljikoff!” the traveller shouted at him.
“Present!” replied the latter, opening his eyes and taking off his cap.
His bass voice was so full, so tremendous, that it seemed to come out of
the chest of twenty soldiers together.
“When were you wounded?”
“Health to your Excellency!”[F] he cried with his strong voice, his
glassy and swollen eyes growing animated at the sight of his superior
officer.
“Where is the regiment?”
“At Sebastopol, your Excellency. They are thinking of going away from
there Wednesday.”
“Where to?”
“They don’t know--to Severnaïa, no doubt, your Excellency. At present,”
he continued, dragging his words, “_he_ is firing straight through
everything, especially with shells, even away into the bay. _He_ is
firing in a frightful manner!--” And he added words which could not be
understood; but from his face and from his position it could be guessed
that, with a suffering man’s sense of injury, he was saying something of
a not very consoling nature.
Sub-lieutenant Koseltzoff, who had just asked these questions, was
neither an officer of ordinary stamp nor among the number of those who
live and act in a certain way because others live and act thus. His
nature had been richly endowed with inferior qualities. He sang and
played the guitar in an agreeable manner, he conversed well, and wrote
with facility, especially official correspondence, of which he had got
the trick during his service as battalion aide-de-camp. His energy was
remarkable, but this energy only received its impulse from self-love,
and although grafted on this second-rate capacity, it formed a salient
and characteristic trait of his nature. That kind of self-love which is
most commonly developed among men, especially among military men, was so
filtered through his existence that he did not conceive a possible
choice between “first or nothing.” Self-love was then the motive force
of his most intimate enthusiasms. Even alone in his own presence he was
fond of considering himself superior to those with whom he compared
himself.
“Come! I am not going to be the one to listen to ‘Moscow’s’[G] chatter!”
murmured the sub-lieutenant, whose thoughts had been troubled somewhat
by meeting the train of wounded; and the soldier’s words, the importance
of which was increased and confirmed at each step by the sound of the
cannonade, weighed heavily on his heart.
“They are curious fellows these ‘Moscows’--Come, Nicolaïeff, forward!
you are asleep, I think,” he angrily shouted at his servant, throwing
back the lappels of his coat.
Nicolaïeff shook the reins, made a little encouraging sound with his
lips, and the wagon went off at a trot.
“We will stop only to feed them,” said the officer, “and then on the
road--forward!”