Sevastopol Page 11

Sub-Lieutenant Antonoff, and so on, on their word of honor, andevery one of them is a petty Napoleon, a petty monster, and ready tobring on a battle on the instant, to murder a hundred men, merely forthe sake of receiving an extra cross or an increase of a third in hispay.

  "No, excuse me," said the colonel; "it began first on the left flank._I was there myself._"

  "Possibly," answered Kalugin. "_I was farther on the right; I wentthere twice. Once I was in search of the general, and the second time Iwent merely to inspect the lodgements. It was a hot place._"

  "Yes, of course, Kalugin knows," said Prince Galtsin to the colonel."You know that V. told me to-day that you were a brave fellow...."

  "But the losses, the losses were terrible," said the colonel. "_I lostfour hundred men from my regiment. It's a wonder that I escaped fromthere alive._"

  At this moment, the figure of Mikhailoff, with his head bandaged,appeared at the other extremity of the boulevard, coming to meet thesegentlemen.

  "What, are you wounded, captain?" said Kalugin.

  "Yes, slightly, with a stone," replied Mikhailoff.

  "Has the flag been lowered yet?"[H] inquired Prince Galtsin, gazingover the staff-captain's cap, and addressing himself to no one inparticular.

  [H] This sentence is in French.

  "Non, pas encore," answered Mikhailoff, who wished to show that heunderstood and spoke French.

  "Is the truce still in force?" said Galtsin, addressing him courteouslyin Russian, and thereby intimating--so it seemed to the captain--Itmust be difficult for you to speak French, so why is it not better totalk in your own tongue simply?... And with this the adjutants lefthim. The staff-captain again felt lonely, as on the preceding evening,and, exchanging salutes with various gentlemen,--some he did not care,and others he did not dare, to join,--he seated himself near Kazarsky'smonument, and lighted a cigarette.

  Baron Pesth also had come to the boulevard. He had been telling how hehad gone over to arrange the truce, and had conversed with the Frenchofficers, and he declared that one had said to him, "If daylight hadheld off another half-hour, these ambushes would have been retaken;"and that he had replied, "Sir, I refrain from saying no, in order notto give you the lie," and how well he had said it, and so on.

  But, in reality, although he had had a hand in the truce, he had notdared to say anything very particular there, although he had been verydesirous of talking with the French (for it is awfully jolly to talkwith Frenchmen). Yunker Baron Pesth had marched up and down the linefor a long time, incessantly inquiring of the Frenchmen who were nearhim: "To what regiment do you belong?" They answered him; and that wasthe end of it.

  When he walked too far along the line, the French sentry, notsuspecting that this soldier understood French, cursed him. "Hehas come to spy out our works, the cursed ..." said he; and, inconsequence, Yunker Baron Pesth, taking no further interest in thetruce, went home, and thought out on the way thither those Frenchphrases, which he had now repeated. Captain Zoboff was also on theboulevard, talking loudly, and Captain Obzhogoff, in a very dishevelledcondition, and an artillery captain, who courted no one, and was happyin the love of the yunkers, and all the faces which had been there onthe day before, and all still actuated by the same motives. No one wasmissing except Praskukhin, Neferdoff, and some others, whom hardly anyone remembered or thought of now, though their bodies were not yetwashed, laid out, and interred in the earth.

  XVI.

  White flags had been hung out from our bastion, and from the trenchesof the French, and in the blooming valley between them lay disfiguredcorpses, shoeless, in garments of gray or blue, which laborers wereengaged in carrying off and heaping upon carts. The odor of the deadbodies filled the air. Throngs of people had poured out of Sevastopol,and from the French camp, to gaze upon this spectacle, and they pressedone after the other with eager and benevolent curiosity.

  Listen to what these people are saying.

  Here, in a group of Russians and French who have come together, is ayoung officer, who speaks French badly, but well enough to make himselfunderstood, examining a cartridge-box of the guards.

  "And what is this bird here for?" says he.

  "Because it is a cartridge-box belonging to a regiment of the guards,Monsieur, and bears the Imperial eagle."

  "And do you belong to the guard?"

  "Pardon, Monsieur, I belong to the sixth regiment of the line."

  "And this--bought where?" asks the officer, pointing to a cigar-holderof yellow wood, in which the Frenchman was smoking his cigarette.

  "At Balaklava, Monsieur. It is very plain, of palm-wood."

  "Pretty!" says the officer, guided in his conversation not so much byhis own wishes as by the words which he knows.

  "If you will have the kindness to keep it as a souvenir of thismeeting, you will confer an obligation on me."

  And the polite Frenchman blows out the cigarette, and hands the holderover to the officer with a little bow. The officer gives him his, andall the members of the group, Frenchmen as well as Russians, appearvery much pleased and smile.

  Then a bold infantryman, in a pink shirt, with his cloak thrown overhis shoulders, accompanied by two other soldiers, who, with theirhands behind their backs, were standing behind him, with merry, curiouscountenances, stepped up to a Frenchman, and requested a light for hispipe. The Frenchman brightened his fire, stirred up his short pipe, andshook out a light for the Russian.

  "Tobacco good!" said the soldier in the pink shirt; and the spectatorssmile.

  "Yes, good tobacco, Turkish tobacco," says the Frenchman. "And yourtobacco--Russian?--good?"

  "Russian, good," says the soldier in the pink shirt: whereuponthose present shake with laughter. "The French not good--_bon jour,Monsieur_," says the soldier in the pink shirt, letting fly his entirecharge of knowledge in the language at once, as he laughs and taps theFrenchman on the stomach. The French join in the laugh.

  "They are not handsome, these beasts of Russians," says a zouave, amidthe crowd of Frenchmen.

  "What are they laughing about?" says another black-complexioned one,with an Italian accent, approaching our men.

  "Caftan good," says the audacious soldier, staring at the zouave'sembroidered coat-skirts, and then there is another laugh.

  "Don't leave your lines; back to your places, _sacre nom_!" shouts aFrench corporal, and the soldiers disperse with evident reluctance.

  In the meantime, our young cavalry officer is making the tour of theFrench officers. The conversation turns on some Count Sazonoff, "withwhom I was very well acquainted, Monsieur," says a French officer, withone epaulet--"he is one of those real Russian counts, of whom we are sofond."

  "There is a Sazonoff with whom I am acquainted," said the cavalryofficer, "but he is not a count, so far as I know, at least; a littledark-complexioned man, of about your age."

  "Exactly, Monsieur, that is the man. Oh, how I should like to see thatdear count! If you see him, pray, present my compliments to him--CaptainLatour," says he, bowing.

  "Isn't this a terrible business that we are conducting here? It washot work last night, wasn't it?" says the cavalry officer, wishing tocontinue the conversation, and pointing to the dead bodies.

  "Oh, frightful, Monsieur! But what brave fellows your soldiers are--whatbrave fellows! It is a pleasure to fight with such valiant fellows."

  "It must be admitted that your men do not hang back, either," says thecavalry-man, with a bow, and the conviction that he is very amiable.

  But enough of this.

  Let us rather observe this lad of ten, clad in an ancient cap, hisfather's probably, shoes worn on bare feet, and nankeen breeches, heldup by a single suspender, who had climbed over the wall at the verybeginning of the truce, and has been roaming about the ravine, staringwith dull curiosity at the French, and at the bodies which are lyingon the earth, and plucking the blue wild-flowers with which the valleyis studded. On his way home with a large bouquet, he held his nosebecause of the odor which the wind wafted to him, and pa
used besidea pile of corpses, which had been carried off the field, and staredlong at one terrible headless body, which chanced to be the nearest tohim. After standing there for a long while, he stepped up closer, andtouched with his foot the stiffened arm of the corpse which protruded.The arm swayed a little. He touched it again, and with more vigor.The arm swung back, and then fell into place again. And at once theboy uttered a shriek, hid his face in the flowers, and ran off to thefortifications as fast as he could go.

  Yes, white flags are hung out from the bastion and the trenches, theflowery vale is filled with dead bodies, the splendid sun sinks intothe blue sea, and the blue sea undulates and glitters in the goldenrays of the sun. Thousands of people congregate, gaze,