Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 02.djvu/516

478 eyes, unconsciously pulled the fur coat over me, and again fell asleep. "Please get up!" repeated Dmitri, pitilessly shaking me by the shoulder. "The infantry is starting." I suddenly recalled the actuality, shuddered, and sprang to my feet. Having swallowed in a hurry a glass of tea and washed myself with ice-crusted water, I went out of the tent and walked over to the park (the place where the ordnance is stationed).

It was dark, misty, and cold. The night fires, which glimmered here and there in the camp, lighting up the figures of the drowsy soldiers who were lying about them, only intensified the darkness by their purple glamour. Near by one could hear the even, calm snoring of men; in the distance there was the motion, talking, and clanking of the infantry's weapons, getting ready for the march; there was an odour of smoke, dung, slow-matches, and mist; a morning chill ran down one's back, and one's teeth involuntarily clattered against each other.

By the snorting and occasional stamping alone could one make out, in this impenetrable darkness, where the hitched-up limbers and caissons were standing, and only by the burning dots of the linstocks could one tell where the ordnance was. With the words, "God be with you!" the first gun began to clatter, then the caisson rattled, and the platoon was on the move. We took off our hats and made the sign of the cross. Having taken up its position among the infantry, the platoon stopped, and for about fifteen minutes awaited the drawing up of the whole column and the arrival of the commander.

"We lack one soldier, Nikoláy Petrovich!" said, approaching me, a black figure, which I recognized by the voice only as being that of the platoon gun-sergeant, Maksímоv.

"Who is it?"

"Velenchúk is not here. As we were hitching up, he was here, and I saw him, but now he is gone."