Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 02.djvu/562

524 not to wake the gentlemen who were sleeping in the tent, and so they were both torn to pieces. I remember how, during frontier service in 1852, one of the young soldiers, for some reason, remarked during an action, that he thought the platoon would never come out alive from it, and how the whole platoon angrily upbraided him for such evil words, which they would not even repeat.

Even now, when the thought of Velenchúk ought to have been in everybody's mind, and when any moment a volley might be fired by Tartars creeping up to the camp, everybody was listening to Chíkin's animated story, and nobody recalled the action of the morning, nor the imminent danger, nor the wounded man, as though all that had happened God knows how long ago, or not at all. But it seemed to me that their faces were a little more melancholy than usual; they did not listen very attentively to Chíkin's story, and even Chíkin felt that he was not listened to, and kept talking from mere force of habit.

Maksímov went up to the fire and sat down near me. Chíkin made a place for him, grew silent, and again started sucking his pipe.

"The foot-soldiers have sent to camp for brandy," said Maksímov, after a considerable silence. "They have just returned." He spit into the fire. "An under-officer told me that he saw our man."

"Well, is he still alive?" asked Antónov, turning his kettle.

"No, he is dead."

The recruit in the small red cap suddenly raised his head above the fire, for a moment looked fixedly at Maksímov and at me, then swiftly lowered his head, and wrapped himself in his overcoat.

"You see, death did not come to him for nothing this morning, as I was waking him in the park," said Antónov.

"Nonsense!" said Zhdánov, turning around a glowing stump, and all grew silent.