Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 1

by Leo Tolstoy

  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 over his whole body. He was surprised at himself but no longer strove to master his feelings.

  Suddenly he heard footsteps in front. Quickly straightening himself he raised his head, and boldly clanking his sabre went on more deliberately. He felt himself quite a different man. When he met an officer of the Engineers 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 a little, involuntarily influenced by the frightened cry, and went on.

  ‘That’s a brave one,’ said the sailor, looking quite calmly at the bomb and with experienced eye deciding at once 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 shelter of the commander of the bastion, when Kalúgin’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 make an effort to force himself to run to the bomb-proof.

  ‘Why are you so out of breath?’ said the general, when Kalúgin had reported his instructions.

  ‘I walked very fast, your Excellency!’

  ‘Won’t you have a glass of wine?’

  Kalúgin drank a glass of wine and lit a cigarette. The action was over, only a fierce cannonade still continued from both sides. In the bomb-proof sat General N—, the commander of the bastion, and some six other officers among whom was Praskúkhin. They were discussing various details of the action. Sitting in this comfortable room with blue wall-paper, a sofa, a bed, a table with papers on it, a wall-clock with a lamp burning before it, and an icon12 – looking at these signs of habitation, at the beams more than two feet thick that formed the ceiling, and listening to the shots that sounded faint here in the shelter, Kalúgin could not understand how he had twice allowed himself to be 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 had just entered the shelter 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, Kalúgin 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 us go and see.’

  The captain 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 bomb-proof shelters were constructed, 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 Kalúgin. ‘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.

  Kalúgin did not realize that whereas he had spent some fifty hours all in all at different times on the bastions, the captain had lived there for six months. Kalúgin was still actuated by vanity, the wish to shine, the hope of rewards, of gaining a reputation, and the charm of running risks. But the captain had already lived through all that: at first he had felt vain, had shown off his courage, had been foolhardy, had hoped for rewards and reputation and had even gained them, but now all these incentives had lost their power over him and he saw things differently. He fulfilled his duty exactly, 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 had joined the battery a week ago and was now showing it to Kalúgin, 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 shelter after examining the battery, Kalúgin in the dark came upon the general, who accompanied by his staff-officers was going to the watch-tower.

  ‘Captain Praskúkhin,’ he heard the general say, ‘please go to the right lodgement 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 in reserve at the foot of the hill. Do you understand? Lead them yourself to the regiment.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  And Praskúkhin started at full speed towards the lodgements.

  The firing was now becoming less frequent.

  X

  ‘IS this the second battalion of the M— Regiment?’ asked Praskúkhin, having run to his destination and coming across some soldiers carrying earth in sacks.

  ‘It is, your Honour.’

  ‘Where is the commander?’

  Mikháylov, thinking that the commander of the company was being asked for, got out of his pit and taking Praskúkhin for a commanding officer saluted and approached him.

  ‘The general’s orders are … that you … should go … quickly … and above all quietly … back – no, not back, but to the reserves,’ said Praskúkhin, looking askance in the direction of the enemy’s fire.

  Having recognized Praskúkhin and made out what was wanted, Mikháylov dropped his hand and passed on the order. The battalion became alert, the men took up their muskets, put on their cloaks, and set out.

  No one without experiencing it can imagine the delight a man feels when, after three hours’ bombardment, he leaves so dangerous a spot as the lodgements. During those three hours Mikháylov, who more than once and not without reason had thought his end at hand, had had time to accustom himself to the conviction that he would certainly be killed and that he no longer belonged to this world. But in spite of that he had great difficulty in keeping his legs from running away with him when, leading the company with Praskúkhin at his side, he left the lodgement.

  ‘Au revoir!’ said a major with whom Mikháylov had eaten bread and cheese sitting in the pit under the breastwork and who was remaining at the bastion in command of another battalion. ‘I wish you a lucky journey.’

  ‘And I wish you a lucky defence. It seems to be getting quieter now.’

  But scarcely had he uttered these words before the enemy, probably observing the movement in the lodgement, began to fire more and more frequently. Our guns replied and a heavy firing recommenced.

  The stars were high in the sky but shone feebly. The night was pitch dark, only the flashes of the guns and the bursting bombs made things around suddenly visible. The soldiers walked quickly and silently, involuntarily outpacing one another; only their measured footfall on the dry road was heard besides the incessant roll of the guns, the ringing of bayonets when they touched one another, a sigh, or the prayer of some poor soldier lad: ‘Lord, O Lord! What does it mean?’ Now and again the moaning of a man who was hit could be heard, and the cry, ‘Stretchers!’ (In the company Mikháylov commanded artillery fire alone carried off twenty-six men that night.) A flash on the dark and distant horizon, the cry, ‘Can-n-on!’ from the sentinel on the bastion, and a ball flew buzzing above the company and plunged into the earth, making the stones fly.

  ‘What the devil are they so slow for?’ thought Praskúkhin, continually looking back as he marched beside Mikháylov. ‘I’d really better run on. I’ve delivered the order.… But no, they might
afterwards say I’m a coward. What must be will be. I’ll keep beside him.’

  ‘Now why is he walking with me?’ thought Mikháylov on his part. ‘I have noticed over and over again that he always brings ill luck. Here it comes, I believe, straight for us.’

  After they had gone a few hundred paces they met Kalúgin, who was walking briskly towards the lodgements clanking his sabre. He had been ordered by the general to find out how the works were progressing there. But when he met Mikháylov he thought that instead of going there himself under such a terrible fire – which he was not ordered to do – he might just as well find out all about it from an officer who had been there. And having heard from Mikháylov full details of the work and walked a little way with him, Kalúgin turned off into a trench leading to the bombproof shelter.

  ‘Well, what news?’ asked an officer who was eating his supper there all alone.

  ‘Nothing much. It seems that the affair is over.’

  ‘Over? How so? On the contrary, the general has just gone again to the watch-tower and another regiment has arrived. Yes, there it is. Listen! The muskets again! Don’t you go – why should you?’ added the officer, noticing that Kalúgin made a movement.

  ‘I certainly ought to be there,’ thought Kalúgin, ‘but I have already exposed myself a great deal to-day: the firing is awful!’

  ‘Yes, I think I’d better wait here for him,’ he said.

  And really about twenty minutes later the general and the officers who were with him returned. Among them was Cadet Baron Pesth but not Praskúkhin. The lodgements had been retaken and occupied by us.

  After receiving a full account of the affair Kalúgin, accompanied by Pesth, left the bomb-proof shelter.

  XI

  ‘THERE’S blood on your coat! You don’t mean to say you were in the hand-to-hand fight?’ asked Kalúgin.

  ‘Oh, it was awful! Just fancy —’

  And Pesth began to relate how he had led his company, how the company-commander had been killed, how he himself had stabbed a Frenchman, and how if it had not been for him we should have lost the day.

  This tale was founded on fact: the company-commander had been killed and Pesth had bayoneted a Frenchman, but in recounting the details the cadet invented and bragged.

  He bragged unintentionally, because during the whole of the affair he had been as it were in a fog and so bewildered that all he remembered of what had happened seemed to have happened somewhere, at some time, and to somebody. And very naturally he tried to recall the details in a light advantageous to himself. What really occurred was this:

  The battalion the cadet had been ordered to join for the sortie stood under fire for two hours close to some low wall. Then the battalion-commander in front said something, the company-commanders became active, the battalion advanced from behind the breastwork, and after going about a hundred paces stopped to form into company columns. Pesth was told to take his place on the right flank of the second company.

  Quite unable to realize where he was and why he was there, the cadet took his place, and involuntarily holding his breath while cold shivers ran down his back he gazed into the dark distance expecting something dreadful. He was however not so much frightened (for there was no firing) as disturbed and agitated at being in the field beyond the fortifications.

  Again the battalion-commander in front said something. Again the officers spoke in whispers passing on the order, and the black wall, formed by the first company, suddenly sank out of sight. The order was to lie down. The second company also lay down and in lying down Pesth hurt his hand on a sharp prickle. Only the commander of the second company remained standing. His short figure brandishing a sword moved in front of the company and he spoke incessantly.

  ‘Mind lads! Show them what you’re made of! Don’t fire, but give it them with the bayonet – the dogs! – when I cry “Hurrah!” Altogether, mind, that’s the thing! We’ll let them see who we are. We won’t disgrace ourselves, eh lads? For our father the Tsar!’

  ‘What’s your company-commander’s name?’ asked Pesth of a cadet lying near him. ‘How brave he is!’

  ‘Yes he always is, in action,’ answered the cadet. ‘His name is Lisinkóvski.’

  Just then a flame suddenly flashed up right in front of the company, who were deafened by a resounding crash. High up in the air stones and splinters clattered. (Some fifty seconds later a stone fell from above and severed a soldier’s leg.) It was a bomb fired from an elevated stand, and the fact that it reached the company showed that the French had noticed the column.

  ‘You’re sending bombs, are you? Wait a bit till we get at you, then you’ll taste a three-edged Russian bayonet, damn you!’ said the company-commander so loud that the battalion-commander had to order him to hold his tongue and not make so much noise.

  After that the first company got up, then the second. They were ordered to fix bayonets and the battalion advanced. Pesth was in such a fright that he could not in the least make out how long it lasted, where he went, or who was who. He went on as if he were drunk. But suddenly a million fires flashed from all sides, and something whistled and clattered. He shouted and ran somewhere, because everyone shouted and ran. Then he stumbled and fell over something. It was the company-commander, who had been wounded at the head of his company, and who taking the cadet for a Frenchman had seized him by the leg. Then when Pesth had freed his leg and got up, someone else ran against him from behind in the dark and nearly knocked him down again. ‘Run him through!’ someone else shouted. ‘Why are you stopping?’ Then someone seized a bayonet and stuck it into something soft. ‘Ah Dieu!’ came a dreadful, piercing voice and Pesth only then understood that he had bayoneted a Frenchman. A cold sweat covered his whole body, he trembled as in a fever and threw down his musket. But this lasted only a moment; the thought immediately entered his head that he was a hero. He again seized his musket, and shouting ‘Hurrah!’ ran with the crowd away from the dead Frenchman. Having run twenty paces he came to a trench. Some of our men were there with the battalion-commander.

  ‘And I have killed one!’ said Pesth to the commander.

  ‘You’re a fine fellow, Baron!’

  XII

  ‘DO you know Praskúkhin is killed?’ said Pesth, while accompanying Kalúgin on his way home.

  ‘Impossible!’

  ‘It is true. I saw him myself.’

  ‘Well, good-bye … I must be off.’

  ‘This is capital!’ thought Kalúgin, as he came to his lodgings. ‘It’s the first time I have had such luck when on duty. It’s first-rate. I am alive and well, and shall certainly get an excellent recommendation and am sure of a gold sabre. And I really have deserved it.’

  After reporting what was necessary to the general he went to his room, where Prince Gáltsin, long since returned, sat awaiting him, reading a book he had found on Kalúgin’s table.

  It was with extraordinary pleasure that Kalúgin found himself safe at home again, and having put on his night-shirt and got into bed he gave Gáltsin all the details of the affair, telling them very naturally from a point of view where those details showed what a capable and brave officer he, Kalúgin, was (which it seems to me it was hardly necessary to allude to, since everybody knew it and had no right or reason to question it, except perhaps the deceased Captain Praskúkhin who, though he had considered it an honour to walk arm in arm with Kalúgin, had privately told a friend only yesterday that though Kalúgin was a first-rate fellow, yet, ‘between you and me, he was awfully disinclined to go to the bastions’).

  Praskúkhin, who had been walking beside Mikháylov after Kalúgin had slipped away from him, had scarcely begun to revive a little on approaching a safer place, than he suddenly saw a bright light flash up behind him and heard the sentinel shout ‘Mortar!’ and a soldier walking behind him say: ‘That’s coming straight for the bastion!’

  Mikháylov looked round. The bright spot seemed to have stopped at its zenith, in the position which makes it absolutely imposs
ible to define its direction. But that only lasted a moment: the bomb, coming faster and faster, nearer and nearer, so that the sparks of its fuse were already visible and its fatal whistle audible, descended towards the centre of the battalion.

  ‘Lie down!’ shouted someone.

  Mikháylov and Praskúkhin lay flat on the ground. Praskúkhin, closing his eyes, only heard the bomb crash down on the hard earth close by. A second passed which seemed an hour: the bomb had not exploded. Praskúkhin was afraid. Perhaps he had played the coward for nothing. Perhaps the bomb had fallen far away and it only seemed to him that its fuse was fizzing close by. He opened his eyes and was pleased to see Mikháylov lying immovable at his feet. But at that moment he caught sight of the glowing fuse of the bomb which was spinning on the ground not a yard off. Terror, cold terror excluding every other thought and feeling, seized his whole being. He covered his face with his hands.

  Another second passed – a second during which a whole world of feelings, thoughts, hopes, and memories flashed before his imagination.

  ‘Whom will it hit – Mikháylov or me? Or both of us? And if it’s me, where? In the head? Then I’m done for. But if it’s the leg, they’ll cut it off (I’ll certainly ask for chloroform) and I may survive. But perhaps only Mikháylov will be hit. Then I will tell how we were going side by side and how he was killed and I was splashed with his blood. No, it’s nearer to me … it will be I.’

  Then he remembered the twelve rubles he owed Mikháylov, remembered also a debt in Petersburg that should have been paid long ago, and the gipsy song he had sung that evening. The woman he loved rose in his imagination wearing a cap with lilac ribbons. He remembered a man who had insulted him five years ago and whom he had not yet paid out. And yet, inseparable from all these and thousands of other recollections, the present thought, the expectation of death, did not leave him for an instant. ‘Perhaps it won’t explode,’ and with desperate decision he resolved to open his eyes. But at that instant a red flame pierced through the still closed lids and something struck him in the middle of his chest with a terrible crash. He jumped up and began to run, but stumbling over the sabre that got between his legs he fell on his side.