Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 02.djvu/539

 Rh alarmed voice of one of the soldiers, and all eyes were directed to the edge of the far-off forest.

In the distance rose a bluish cloud of smoke, borne upwards by the wind, and constantly growing larger. When I understood that this was a shot which the enemy had aimed at us, everything that was before my eyes, everything suddenly assumed a new and majestic character. The stacked guns, and the smoke of the camp-fires, and the blue sky, and the green gun-carriages, and the sunburnt, whiskered face of Nikoláev,—everything seemed to tell me that the cannon-ball which had emerged from the smoke and which at that moment was flying through space might be directed straight at my breast.

"Where did you get your wine?" I asked Bolkhóv, lazily, while in the depth of my soul two voices were speaking with equal distinctness; one said, "Lord, receive my soul in peace," and the other, "I hope I shall not cower, but smile as the ball flies past me," and at the same instant something dreadfully disagreeable whistled over our heads, and struck the ground within two steps of us.

"Now, if I were a Napoleon or a Frederick," Bolkhóv remarked at that time, turning toward me with extraordinary composure, "I should utter some witticism."

"But you have told one just now," I replied, with difficulty concealing the alarm caused within me by the danger just past.

"Even if I have, nobody will make a note of it."

"I will."

"Yes, if you make a note of it, it will be to put in a critical paper, as Míshchenkov says," he added, smiling.

"Pshaw, you accursed one!" said Antónov, who was sitting behind us, angrily spitting to one side, "just missed my legs."

All my endeavours to appear cool and all our cunning phrases suddenly seemed intolerably stupid after this simple-hearted exclamation.