“Who ordered beet soup?” shouted the house-keeper at this moment, a
stout, slovenly dressed wench, about forty years old, who was bringing
in a great earthen dish.
There was a general silence, and every eye was turned towards the woman.
One of the officers even winked, exchanging with his comrade a look
which plainly referred to the matron.
“But it was Koseltzoff who ordered it,” rejoined the young officer; “we
must wake him up. Halloo! come and eat,” he added, approaching the
sleeper and shaking him by the shoulder.
A youth of seventeen years, with black, lively, sparkling eyes and red
cheeks, rose with a bound, and having involuntarily pushed against the
doctor, said, “A thousand pardons!” rubbing his eyes and standing in the
middle of the room.
Sub-lieutenant Koseltzoff immediately recognized his younger brother and
went up to him.
“Do you know me?” he asked.
“Oh, oh, what an astonishing thing!” cried the younger, embracing him.
Two kisses were heard, but just as they were about to give each other a
third, as the custom is, they hesitated a moment. It might have been
said that each asked himself why he must kiss three times.
“How glad I am to see you!” said the elder, leading his brother outside.
“Let’s chat a bit.”
“Come, come! I don’t want any soup now. Eat it up, Féderson,” said the
youth to his comrade.
“But you were hungry--”
“No, I don’t want it now.”
Once outside on the piazza, after the first joyous outbursts of the
youth, who went on to ask his brother questions without speaking to him
of that which concerned himself, the latter, profiting by a moment of
silence, asked him why he had not gone into the guard, as they had
expected him to do.
“Because I wanted to go to Sebastopol. If everything comes out all
right, I shall gain more than if I had remained in the guard. In that
branch of the service you have to count ten years to the rank of
colonel, while here Todtleben has gone from lieutenant-colonel to
general in two years. And if I am killed, well, then, what’s to be
done?”
“How you do argue,” said the elder brother, with a smile.
“And then, that I have just told you is of no importance. The chief
reason”--and he stopped, hesitating, smiling in his turn, and blushing
as if he were going to say something very shameful--“the chief reason is
that my conscience bothered me. I felt scruples at living in Petersburg
while men are dying here for their country. I counted also on being with
you,” he added, still more bashfully.
“You are a curious fellow,” said the brother, without looking at him,
hunting for his cigar-case. “I am sorry we can’t stay together.”
“Come, pray tell me the truth about the bastions. Are they horribly
frightful?”
“Yes, at first; then one gets used to it. You will see.”
“Tell me also, please, do you think Sebastopol will be taken? It seems
to me that such a thing cannot happen.”
“God only knows!”
“Oh, if you only knew how annoyed I am! Imagine my misfortune. On the
road I have been robbed of different things, among others my helmet, and
I am in a fearful position. What will I do when I am presented to my
chief?”
Vladimir Koseltzoff, the younger, looked very much like his brother
Michael, at least as much as a half-open columbine can resemble one
which has lost its flower. He had similar blond hair, but thicker, and
curled around the temples; while one long lock strayed down the white
and delicate back of his neck; a sign of happiness, as the old women
say. Rich young blood suddenly tinged his habitually dull complexion at
each impression of his soul; a veil of moisture often swept over his
eyes, which were like his brother’s, but more open and more limpid; a
fine blond down began to show on his cheeks and on his upper lip, which,
purplish red in color, often extended in a timid smile, exposing teeth
of dazzling whiteness. As he stood there in his unbuttoned coat, under
which could be seen a red shirt with Russian collar; slender,
broad-shouldered, a cigarette between his fingers, leaning against the
balustrade of the piazza, his face lighted up by unaffected joy, his
eyes fixed on his brother, he was really the most charming and most
sympathetic youth possible to see, and one looked away from him
reluctantly. Frankly happy to find his brother, whom he considered with
pride and respect as a hero, he was, nevertheless, a little ashamed of
him on account of his own more cultivated education, of his acquaintance
with French, of his association with people in high places, and finding
himself superior to him, he hoped to succeed in civilizing him. His
impressions, his judgments, were formed at Petersburg under the
influence of a woman who, having a weakness for pretty faces, made him
pass his holidays in her house. Moscow had also contributed its part,
for he had danced there at a great ball at the house of his uncle the
Senator.