“Hum—a bad business!” thought Kalouguine. He had an indefinite but very disagreeable feeling; he had even a presentiment, that is to say, a very common thought—the thought of death.
Kalouguine possessed self-love and nerves of steel. He was, in a word, what is commonly called a brave man. He did not give way to this first impression; he raised his courage by recalling the story of one of Napoleon’s aides-de-camp, who came to his chief with his head bloody, after having carried an order with all speed.
“Are you wounded?” asked the emperor.
“I crave pardon, sire, I am dead!” replied the aide-de-camp, and falling from his horse, died on the spot.
This anecdote pleased him. Putting himself in imagination in the place of the aide-de-camp, he lashed his horse, put on a still more “Cossack” gait, and rising in his stirrups to cast a look upon the platoon that followed him on a trot, he reached the place where they had to dismount. There he found four soldiers sitting on some rocks, smoking their pipes.
“What are you doing there?” he cried.
“We have been carrying a wounded man, your Excellency, and we are resting,” said one of them, hiding his pipe behind his back and taking off his cap.
“That’s it—you are resting! Forward! to your post!”
He put himself at their head and proceeded with them along the trench, meeting wounded men at every step. On the top of the plateau he turned to the left and found himself, a few steps farther on, completely isolated. A piece of a shell whistled near him and buried itself in the trenches; a mortar-bomb rising in the air seemed to fly straight for his breast. Seized by a sudden terror, he rushed on several steps and threw himself down. When the bomb had burst some distance off he was very angry with himself and got up. He looked around to see if any one had noticed him lying down; no one was near.
Let fear once get possession of the soul, and it does not readily yield its place to another sentiment. He who had boasted of never bowing his head, went along the trenches at a rapid pace, and almost on his hands and feet.