Kalúgin and the colonel in fact, though they were first-rate fellows, were ready to see such an affair every day if they could gain a gold sword and be made major-general each time. It is all very well to call some conqueror a monster because he destroys millions to gratify his ambition, but go and ask any Ensign Petrúshev or Sub-Lieutenant Antónov on their conscience, and you will find that every one of us is a little Napoleon, a petty monster ready to start a battle and kill a hundred men merely to get an extra medal or one-third additional pay.
‘No, I beg your pardon,’ said the colonel. ‘It began first on the left side. I was there myself.’
‘Well, perhaps,’ said Kalúgin. ‘I spent more time on the right. I went there twice: first to look for the general, and then just to see the lodgements. It was hot there, I can tell you!’
‘Kalúgin ought to know,’ said Gáltsin. ‘By the way, V— told me to-day that you are a trump —’
‘But the losses, the losses are terrible!’ said the colonel. ‘In my regiment we had four hundred casualties. It is astonishing that I’m still alive.’
Just then the figure of Mikháylov, with his head bandaged, appeared at the end of the boulevard walking towards these gentlemen.
‘What, are you wounded, Captain?’ said Kalúgin.
‘Yes, slightly, with a stone,’ answered Mikháylov.
‘Est-ce que le pavillon est baissé déjà?’13 asked Prince Gáltsin, glancing at the lieutenant-captain’s cap and not addressing anyone in particular.
‘Non, pas encore,’14 answered Mikháylov, wishing to show that he understood and spoke French.
‘Do you mean to say the truce still continues?’ said Gáltsin, politely addressing him in Russian and thereby (so it seemed to the lieutenant-captain) suggesting: ‘It must no doubt be difficult for you to have to speak French, so hadn’t we better simply …’ and with that the adjutants went away. The lieutenant-captain again felt exceedingly lonely, just as he had done the day before. After bowing to various people – some of whom he did not wish and some of whom he did not venture to join – he sat down near the Kazárski monument and smoked a cigarette.
Baron Pesth also turned up on the boulevard. He mentioned that he had been at the parley and had spoken to the French officers. According to his account one of them had said to him: ‘S’il n’avait pas fait clair encore pendant une demi-heure, les ambuscades auraient été reprises,’15 and he replied, ‘Monsieur, je ne dis pas non, pour ne pas vous donner un démenti,’16 and he told how pat it had come out, and so on.
But though he had been at the parley he had not really managed to say anything in particular, though he much wished to speak with the French (‘for it’s awfully jolly to speak to those fellows’). He had paced up and down the line for a long time asking the Frenchmen near him: ‘De quel régiment êtes-vous?’17 and had got his answer and nothing more. When he went too far beyond the line, the French sentry, not suspecting that ‘that soldier’ knew French, abused him in the third person singular: ‘Il vient regarder nos travaux, ce sacré —’18 in consequence of which Cadet Baron Pesth, finding nothing more to interest him at the parley, rode home, and on his way back composed the French phrases he now repeated.
On the boulevard was Captain Zóbov talking very loud, and Captain Obzhógov, the artillery captain who never curried favour with anyone, was there too, in a dishevelled condition, and also the cadet who was always fortunate in his love affairs, and all the same people as yesterday, with the same motives as always. Only Praskúkhin, Nefërdov, and a few more were missing, and hardly anyone now remembered or thought of them, though there had not yet been time for their bodies to be washed, laid out, and put into the ground.
XVI
WHITE flags are hung out on our bastions and on the French trenches, and in the flowery valley between them lie heaps of mangled corpses without boots, some clad in blue and others in grey, which workmen are removing and piling onto carts. The air is filled with the smell of decaying flesh. Crowds of people have poured out from Sevastopol and from the French camp to see the sight, and with eager and friendly curiosity draw near to one another.
Listen to what these people are saying.
Here, in a circle of Russians and Frenchmen who have collected round him, a young officer, who speaks French badly but sufficiently to be understood, is examining a guardsman’s pouch.
‘Eh sussy, poor quah se waso lié?’19‘Parce que c’est une giberne d’un régiment de la garde, monsieur, qui porte l’aigle impérial.’20‘Eh voo de la guard?’21‘Pardon, monsieur, du 6−ème de ligne.’22‘Eh sussy oo ashtay?’23 pointing to a cigarette-holder of yellow wood, in which the Frenchman is smoking a cigarette.
‘A Balaclava, monsieur. C’est tout simple en bois de palme.’24‘Joli,’25 says the officer, guided in his remarks not so much by what he wants to say as by the French words he happens to know.
‘Si vous voulez bien garder cela comme souvenir de cette rencontre, vous m’obligerez.’26
And the polite Frenchman puts out his cigarette and presents the holder to the officer with a slight bow. The officer gives him his, and all present, both French and Russian, smile and seem pleased. Here is a bold infantryman in a pink shirt with his cloak thrown over his shoulders, accompanied by other soldiers standing near him with their hands folded behind their backs and with merry inquisitive faces. He has approached a Frenchman and asked for a light for his pipe. The Frenchman draws at and stirs up the tobacco in his own short pipe and shakes a light into that of the Russian.
‘Tabac boon?’ says the soldier in the pink shirt, and the spectators smile. ‘Oui, bon tabac, tabac turc,’ says the Frenchman. ‘Chez vous autres tabac – Russe? Bon?’27‘Roos boon,’ says the soldier in the pink shirt while the onlookers shake with laughter. ‘Fransay not boon. Bongjour, mossier!’, and having let off his whole stock of French at once, he slaps the Frenchman on the stomach and laughs. The French also laugh.
‘Ils ne sont pas jolis ces b— de Russes,’28 says a Zouave among the French.
‘De quoi est-ce qu’ils rient donc?’29 says another with an Italian accent, a dark man, coming up to our men.
‘Coat boon,’ says the cheeky soldier, examining the embroidery of the Zouave’s coat, and everybody laughs again.
‘Ne sors pas de ta ligne, à vos places, sacré nom!’30 cries a French corporal, and the soldiers separate with evident reluctance.
And here, in the midst of a group of French officers, one of our young cavalry officers is gushing. They are talking about some Count Sazónov, ‘que j’ai beaucoup connu, monsieur,’ says a French officer with only one epaulette – ‘c’est un de ces vrais comtes russes, comme nous les aimons.’31‘Il y a un Sazónqff, que j’ai connu,’ says the cavalry officer, ‘mais il n’est pas comte, à moins que je sache, un petit brun de votre âge à peu près.’32‘C’est ça, monsieur, c’est lui. Oh! que je voudrais le voir, ce cher comte. Si vous le voyez, je vous prie bien de lui faire mes compliments – Capitaine Latour,’33 he said, bowing.