Short Fiction by Leo Tolstoy (book reader for pc TXT) 📕

then lit up by the blood-red flame of a cannon; the same beautiful, gay, proud Sevastopol, bounded on the one side by the yellow, smoking hills, on the other by the bright blue water of the sea, glittering in the sunlight⁠—lay on the other side of the Roadstead. Above the sea-line, along which the smoke of some passing steamer left a black trail, floated long white clouds which promised wind. Along the whole line of fortifications, but especially on the high ground on the left side, appeared, several at a time, with lightnings that at times flashed bright even in the noonday sun, puffs of thick, dense, white smoke, that grew, taking various shapes, and appearing darker against the sky. These clouds, showing now here, now there, appeared on the hills, on the enemy’s batteries, in the town, and high up in the sky. The reports of explosions never ceased, but rolled together and rent the air.

Towards noon the puffs appeared more and more rarely, and the air vibrated less with the booming.

“I say, the Second Bastion does not reply at all now!” said the hussar officer on horseback; “it is quite knocked to pieces. Terrible!”

“Yes, and the Maláhof, too, sends hardly one shot in reply to three of theirs,” said he who was looking through the telescope. “Their silence provokes me! They are shooting straight into the Kornílof Battery, and it does not reply.”

“But look there! I told you that they always cease the bombardment about noon. It’s the same today. Come, let’s go to lunch; they’ll be waiting for us already. What’s the good of looking?”

“Don’t! wait a bit!” answered the one who had possession of the telescope, looking very eagerly towards Sevastopol.

“What is it? What?”

“A movement in the entrenchments, thick columns advancing.”

“Yes! They can be seen even without a glass, marching in columns. The alarm must be given,” said the seaman.

“Look! look! They’ve left the trenches!”

And, really, with the naked eye one could see what looked like dark spots moving down the hill from the French batteries across the valley to the bastions. In front of these spots dark stripes were already visibly approaching our line. On the bastions white cloudlets burst in succession as if chasing one another. The wind brought a sound of rapid small-arm firing like the beating of rain against a window. The dark stripes were moving in the midst of the smoke and came nearer and nearer. The sounds of firing, growing stronger and stronger, mingled in a prolonged, rumbling peal. Puffs of smoke rose more and more often, spread rapidly along the line, and at last formed one lilac cloud (dotted here and there with little faint lights and black spots), which kept curling and uncurling; and all the sounds blended into one tremendous clatter.

“An assault!” said the naval officer, turning pale and letting the seaman look through the telescope.

Cossacks galloped along the road, some officers rode by, the Commander-in-Chief passed in a carriage with his suite. Every face showed painful excitement and expectation.

“It’s impossible they can have taken it,” said the mounted officer.

“By God, a standard!⁠ ⁠… Look! look!” said the other, panting, and walked away from the telescope: “A French standard on the Maláhof!”

“It can’t be!”

XXIV

The elder Kozeltsóf, who had during the preceding night won back his money and then again before morning lost everything, including the gold pieces sewn in his cuff, was lying in a heavy, unhealthy, but sound sleep in the Defensive Barracks of the Fifth Bastion, when a fateful cry arose, repeated by many voices⁠—

“The alarm!”

“Why are you sleeping, Michael Semyónitch! We are attacked!” shouted someone.

“It must be a hoax,” he said, opening his eyes incredulously.

But suddenly he saw an officer running, without any apparent object, from one corner of the barrack to the other with such a pale face that he understood it all. The thought that they might take him for a coward who did not wish to be with his company at a critical moment upset him terribly. He rushed as fast as he could to join it. The artillery firing had ceased, but the clatter of musketry was at its height. The bullets did not whistle as single ones do, but came in swarms like a flock of autumn birds flying overhead.

The whole place where his battalion was stationed the day before was hidden in smoke, and angry shouts and exclamations were heard. Crowds of soldiers, wounded and not wounded, met him as he went. Having run another thirty paces he saw his company pressing to the wall.

“The Schwartz Redoubt is taken!” said a young officer. “All is lost!”

“Nonsense!” he said angrily, and drawing his little blunt iron sword, he cried⁠—

“Forward, lads! Hurrah!”

His own loud, clear voice roused Kozeltsóf himself. He ran forward along the traverse, and about fifty soldiers ran shouting after him. From the traverse he ran out into the open ground. The bullets fell just like hailstones. Two hit him, but where, and what they had done⁠—bruised or wounded⁠—him he had no time to determine. Before him, through the smoke, he could already see blue uniforms and red trousers and could hear cries that were not Russian. One Frenchman stood on the breastwork waving his cap and shouting something. Kozeltsóf felt sure he would be killed, and this increased his courage. He ran on and on. Several soldiers outran him, others appeared from somewhere else and also ran. The blue uniforms remained at the same distance from him, running back to their trenches, but there were dead and wounded on the ground under his feet. When he had run to the outer ditch all became blurred to Kozeltsóf’s eyes, and he felt a pain in his chest.

Half-an-hour later he was lying on a stretcher by the Nicholas Barracks, and he knew that he was wounded, but felt hardly any pain. He only wished for something cool to drink and to lie more comfortably.

A little, plump doctor with large black whiskers came up to him and