infallibly choose the path on the hill, the more so as you see that every one uses the path. After traversing a couple of hundred paces, you emerge upon a muddy expanse, all ploughed up, and surrounded on all sides by gabions, earthworks, platforms, earth huts, upon which great cast-iron guns stand, and cannon-balls lie in symmetrical heaps. All these seem to be heaped up without any aim, connection, or order. Here in the battery sit a knot of sailors; there in the middle of the square, half buried in mud, lies a broken cannon; further on, a foot-soldier, with his gun, is marching through the battery, and dragging his feet with difficulty through the sticky soil. But everywhere, on all sides, in every spot, you see broken dishes, unexploded bombs, cannon-balls, signs of encampment, all sunk in the liquid, viscous mud. You seem to hear not far from you the thud of a cannon-ball; on all sides, you seem to hear the varied sounds of balls, — humming like bees, whistling sharply, or in a whine like a cord — you hear the frightful roar of the fusillade, which seems to shake you all through with some horrible fright.
"So this is it, the fourth bastion, this is it that terrible, really frightful place! " you think to yourself, and you experience a little sensation of pride, and a very large sensation of suppressed terror. But you are mistaken, this is not the fourth bastion. It is the Yazonovsky redoubt — a place which is comparatively safe, and not at all dreadful.
In order to reach the fourth bastion, you turn to the right, through this narrow trench, through which the foot-soldier has gone. In this trench you will perhaps meet stretchers again, sailors and soldiers with shovels; you will see the superintendent of the mines, mud huts, into which only two men can crawl- by bending down, and there you will see sharpshooters of the Black Sea battalions, who are changing their shoes, eating, smoking their pipes, and living; and you will still see everywhere that same stinking mud, traces of a camp, and cast-off iron debris in every possible form. Proceeding yet three hundred paces, you will emerge again upon a battery, — on an open space, all cut up into holes and surrounded by gabions, covered with earth, cannon, and earthworks. Here you will perhaps see five sailors playing cards under the shelter of the
breastworks, and a naval officer who, perceiving that you are a new-comer, and curious, will with pleasure show his household arrangements, and everything which may be of interest to you.
This officer rolls himself a cigarette of yellow paper, with so much composure as he sits on a gun, walks so calmly from one embrasure to another, converses with you so quietly, without the slightest affectation, that, in spite of the bullets which hum above you even more thickly than before, you become cool yourself, question attentively, and listen to the officer's replies.
This officer will tell you, but only if you ask him, about the bombardment on the 5th, he will tell you how only one gun in his battery could be used, and out of all the gunners who served it only eight remained, and how, nevertheless, on the next morning, the 6th, he fired all the guns; he will tell you how a bomb fell upon a sailor's earth hut on the 5th, and laid low eleven men; he will point out to you, from the embrasures, the enemy's batteries and entrenchments, which are not more than thirty or forty fathoms distant from this point. I fear, however, that, under the influence of the whizzing bullets, you may thrust yourself out of the embrasure in order to view the enemy; you will see nothing, and, if you do see anything, you will be very much surprised that that white stone wall, which is so near you and from which white smoke rises in puffs, — that that white wall is the enemy — he, as the soldiers and sailors say.
It is even quite possible that the naval officer will want to discharge a shot or two in your presence, out of vanity or simply for his own pleasure. " Send the captain and his crew to the cannon; " and fourteen sailors step up briskly and merrily to the gun and load it — one thrusting his pipe into his pocket, another one chewing a biscuit, still another clattering his heels on the platform.
Observe the faces, the bearing, the movements of these men. In every wrinkle of that sunburned face, with its high cheek-bones, in every muscle, in the breadth of those shoulders, in the stoutness of those legs shod in huge boots, in every calm, firm, deliberate gesture, these chief traits which constitute the power of Russia — simplicity and straightforwardness — are visible; but here, on every face, it seems to you that the danger, misery, and the sufferings of war have, in addition to these principal characteristics, left traces of consciousness of personal worth, emotion, and exalted thought.