All at once, he felt himself entirely and finally alone. This consciousnes'5 of solitude in danger, before death, as it seemed to him, lay upon his heart like a terribly cold and heavy stone.
He halted in the middle of the square, glanced about him, to see whether he could catch sight of any one, grasped his head, and uttered his thought aloud in his terror: — " Lord! Can it be that I am a coward, a vile, disgusting, worthless coward... can it be that I so lately dreamed of dying with joy for my father-land, my tsar.? No, I am a wretched, an unfortunate, a wretched being! " And Volodya, with a genuine sentiment of despair and disenchantment with himself, inquired of the sentinel for the house of the commander of the battery, and set out in the direction indicated.
1
XII.
The residence of the commander of the battery, which the sentinel had pointed out to him, was a small, two-story house, with an entrance on the court-yard. In one of the windows, which was pasted over with paper, burned the feeble flame of a candle. A servant was seated on the porch, smoking his pipe; he went in and announced Volodya to the commander, and then led him in. In the room, between the two windows, and beneath a shattered mirror, stood a table, heaped with official documents, several chairs, and an iron bedstead, with a clean pallet, and a small bed-rug by its side.
Near the door stood a handsome man, with a large moustache, — a sergeant, in sabre and cloak, on the latter of which hung a cross and a Hungarian medal. Back and forth in the middle of the room paced a short staff-officer of forty, with swollen cheeks bound up, and dressed in a thin old coat.
"I have the honor to report myself, Cornet Kozeltzoff, 2d, ordered to the fifth light battery," said Volodya, uttering the phrase which he had learned by heart, as he entered the room.
The commander of the battery responded dryly to his greeting, and, without offering his hand, invited him to be seated.
Volodya dropped timidly into a chair, beside the writing-table, and began to twist in his fingers the scissors, which his hand happened to light upon. The commander of the battery put his hands behind his back, and, dropping his head, pursued his walk up and down the room, ia silence, only bestowing an occasional glance at the hands which were twirling the scissors, with the aspect of a man who is trying to recall something.
The battery commander was a rather stout man, with a large bald spot on the crown of his head, a thick moustache, which drooped straight down and concealed his mouth, and pleasant brown eyes. His hands were handsome, clean, and plump; his feet small and well turned, and they stepped out in a confident and rather dandified manner, proving that the commander was not a timid man.
** Yes," he said, coming to a halt in front of the
1
sergeant; " a measure must be added to the grain to-morrow, or our horses will be getting thin. What do you think?"
"Of course, it is possible to do so, Your Excellency! Oats are very cheap just now," replied the sergeant, twitching his fingers, which he held on the seams of his trousers, but which evidently liked to assist in the conversation. ** Our forage-master, Franchuk, sent me a note yesterday, from the transports. Your Excellency, saying that we should certainly be obliged to purchase oats; they say they are cheap. Therefore, what are your orders } "
"To buy, of course. He has money, surely." And the commander resumed his tramp through the room. "And where are your things.-*" he suddenly inquired of Volodya, as he paused in front of him.
Poor Volodya was so overwhelmed by the thought that he was a coward, that he espied scorn for himself in every glance, in every word, as though they had been addressed to a pitiable poltroon. It seemed to him that the commander of the battery had already divined his secret, and was making sport of him. He answered, with embarrass-
N AUGUST, 185
ment, that his effects were on the Grafskaya, and that his brother had promised to send them to him on the morrow.
But the lieutenant-colonel was not listening to him, and, turning to the sergeant, he inquired: —
" Where are we to put the ensign? "
" The ensign, sir? " said the sergeant, throwing Volodya into still greater confusion by the fleeting glance which he cast upon him, and which seemed to say, ** What sort of an ensign is this? " — " He can be quartered downstairs, with the staff-captain, Your Excellency," he continued, after a little reflection. "The captain is at the bastion just now, and his cot is empty."