Before going to find his officers he went to look up his company. The
parapets built of gabions, the trenches, the cannon in front of which he
passed, even the fragments and the shells themselves over which he
stumbled, and which the flashes of the discharges lighted up without
pause or relaxation, everything was familiar to him, and had been deeply
engraven on his memory three months before, during the fortnight he had
lived in the bastion. Notwithstanding the dismal side of these memories,
a certain inherent charm of the past came out of them, and he recognized
the places and things with an unaffected pleasure, as if the two weeks
had been full of only agreeable impressions. His company was placed
along the covered way which led to the sixth bastion.
Entering the shelter open on one side, he found so many soldiers there
that he could scarcely find room to pass. At one end burned a wretched
candle, which a reclining soldier was holding over a book that his
comrade was spelling out. Around him, in the twilight of a thick and
heavy atmosphere, several heads could be seen turned towards the reader,
listening eagerly. Koseltzoff recognized the A B C of this sentence:
“P-r-a-y-e-r a-f-t-e-r s-t-u-d-y. I give Thee thanks, my Cre-a-tor.”
“Snuff the candle!” some one shouted. “What a good book!” said the
reader, preparing to go on. But at the sound of Koseltzoff’s voice
calling the sergeant-major it was silent. The soldiers moved, coughed,
and blew their noses, as always happens after an enforced silence. The
sergeant-major arose from the middle of the group, buttoning his
uniform, stepping over his comrades, and trampling on their feet, which
for lack of room they did not know where to stow, approached the
officer.
“How do you do, my boy? Is this our company?”
“Health to your Excellency! We congratulate you on your return,” replied
the sergeant-major, gayly and good-naturedly. “You are cured,
Excellency? God be praised for that! for we missed you a good deal.”
Koseltzoff, it was evident, was beloved by his company. Voices could
immediately be heard spreading the news that the old company chief had
come back, he who had been wounded--Mikhaïl Semenovitch Koseltzoff.
Several soldiers, the drummer among others, came to greet him.
“How do you do, Obanetchouk?” said Koseltzoff. “Are you safe and sound?
How do you do, children?” he then added, raising his voice.
The soldiers replied in chorus,
“Health to your Excellency!”
“How goes it, children?”
“Badly, your Excellency. The French have the upper hands. He fires from
behind the intrenchments, but he doesn’t show himself outside.”
“Now, then, who knows? perhaps I shall have the chance of seeing him
come out of the intrenchments, children. It won’t be the first time we
have fought him together.”
“We are ready to do our best, your Excellency,” said several voices at
the same time.
“He is very bold, then?”
“Terribly bold,” replied the drummer in a low tone, but so as to be
heard, and speaking to another soldier, as if to justify his chief for
having made use of the expression, and to persuade his comrade that
there was nothing exaggerated nor untrue in it.
Koseltzoff left the soldiers in order to join the officers in the
barracks.