Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

hill he turned to the left, and a few steps farther on found himself quite alone. A splinter of a bomb whizzed near him, and fell into the trench. Another bomb rose in front of him and seemed flying straight at him. He suddenly felt frightened; he ran a few steps at full speed and lay down flat. When the bomb burst a considerable distance off, he felt exceedingly vexed with himself, and rose looking round to see if anyone had noticed his downfall, but no one was near.

But when fear has once entered the soul it does not easily yield to any other feeling. He, who always boasted that he never even stooped, now hurried along the trench almost on all fours. He stumbled, and thought, “Oh! it’s awful! they’ll kill me for certain,” his breath came with difficulty, and perspiration broke out all over his body; he was surprised at himself, but no longer strove to master his feeling.

Suddenly he heard footsteps in front. Quickly straightening himself, he raised his head and, boldly clanking his sabre, went on more deliberately. He could not recognise himself again. When he met a sapper-officer and a sailor, and the officer shouted to him to lie down, pointing to a bright spot which, growing brighter and brighter, approached more and more swiftly and came crashing down close to the trench, he only bent slightly, involuntarily influenced by the frightened cry, and went on.

“There’s a brave ’un,” said the sailor, looking quite calmly at the bomb, and at once deciding with experienced eye that the splinters could not fly into the trench, “he won’t even lie down.”

It was only a few steps across open ground to the bombproof of the Commander of the bastion, when Kaloúgin’s mind again became clouded and the same stupid terror seized him; his heart beat more violently, the blood rushed to his head, and he had to constrain himself with an effort in order to run to the bombproof.

“Why are you so out of breath?” said the General, when Kaloúgin had reported his instructions.

“I walked very fast, your Excellency!”

“Won’t you have a glass of wine?”

Kaloúgin drank a glass, and lit a cigarette. The action was over, only a fierce cannonade still continued from both sides. In the bombproof sat General N⁠⸺, the Commander of the bastion, and some six other officers, among whom was Praskoúhin. They were discussing various details of the action. Sitting in this comfortable room with blue wallpaper, a sofa, a bed, a table with papers on it, a wall-clock, with a lamp burning before it, and an icon46⁠—looking at these signs of habitation, at the beams more than two feet thick that formed the ceiling, and listening to the shots that here, in the bombproof, sounded faintly, Kaloúgin could not at all understand how he had allowed himself to be twice overcome by such unpardonable weakness. He was angry with himself, and wished for danger, in order to test his nerve once more.

“Ah! I’m glad you are here, Captain,” said he to a naval officer with big moustaches who wore a Staff-Officer’s coat with a St. George’s Cross, and who had just entered the bombproof and asked the General to give him some men to repair two embrasures of his battery which had become blocked. When the General had finished speaking to the Captain, Kaloúgin said: “The Commander-in-Chief told me to ask if your guns can fire case-shot into the trenches.”

“Only one of them can,” said the Captain sullenly.

“All the same, let’s go and see.”

The Captain, who was in command of the battery, frowned and gave an angry grunt.

“I have been standing there all night, and have come in to get a bit of rest.⁠—Couldn’t you go alone?” he added. “My assistant, Lieutenant Kartz, is there, and can show you everything.”

The Captain had already been more than six months in command of this, one of the most dangerous batteries. From the time the siege began, even before the bombproofs were erected, he had lived continuously on the bastion, and had a great reputation for courage among the sailors. That is why his refusal struck and surprised Kaloúgin. “So much for reputation,” thought he.

“Well, then, I will go alone, if I may,” he said in a slightly sarcastic tone to the Captain, who, however, paid no attention to his words.

Kaloúgin did not realise that whereas he had, all in all, spent some fifty hours, at different times, on the bastions, the Captain had lived there for six months. Kaloúgin was still actuated by vanity, the wish to shine, the hope of rewards, of gaining a reputation, the charm of running risks. But the Captain had already lived through all that: at first he felt vain, showed off his courage, was foolhardy, hoped for rewards and reputation, and even gained them; but now all these incentives had lost their power over him, and he saw things differently. He fulfilled his duty accurately, but, quite understanding how much the chances of life were against him after six months at the bastion, he no longer ran risks without serious need; and so the young Lieutenant, who joined the battery a week ago and was now showing it to Kaloúgin, with whom he vied in uselessly leaning out of the embrasures and climbing out on the banquette, seemed ten times braver than the Captain.

Returning to the bombproof after examining the battery, Kaloúgin, in the dark, came upon the General, who, accompanied by his staff officers, was going to the watchtower.

“Captain Praskoúhin,” he heard the General say, “please go to the right lodgment and tell the second battalion of the M⁠⸺ Regiment, which is at work there, to cease their work, leave the place, and noiselessly rejoin their regiment, which is stationed at the foot of the hill in reserve. Do you understand? Lead them yourself to the regiment.”

“Yes, sir.”

And Praskoúhin started at full speed towards lodgments.

The firing was now becoming less frequent.

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