“Present!” replied the latter, opening his eyes and taking off his cap. His bass voice was so full, so tremendous, that it seemed to come out of the chest of twenty soldiers together.
“When were you wounded?”
“Health to your Excellency!”[F] he cried with his strong voice, his glassy and swollen eyes growing animated at the sight of his superior officer.
“Where is the regiment?”
“At Sebastopol, your Excellency. They are thinking of going away from there Wednesday.”
“Where to?”
“They don’t know—to Severnaïa, no doubt, your Excellency. At present,” he continued, dragging his words, “he is firing straight through everything, especially with shells, even away into the bay. He is firing in a frightful manner!—” And he added words which could not be understood; but from his face and from his position it could be guessed that, with a suffering man’s sense of injury, he was saying something of a not very consoling nature.
Sub-lieutenant Koseltzoff, who had just asked these questions, was neither an officer of ordinary stamp nor among the number of those who live and act in a certain way because others live and act thus. His nature had been richly endowed with inferior qualities. He sang and played the guitar in an agreeable manner, he conversed well, and wrote with facility, especially official correspondence, of which he had got the trick during his service as battalion aide-de-camp. His energy was remarkable, but this energy only received its impulse from self-love, and although grafted on this second-rate capacity, it formed a salient and characteristic trait of his nature. That kind of self-love which is most commonly developed among men, especially among military men, was so filtered through his existence that he did not conceive a possible choice between “first or nothing.” Self-love was then the motive force of his most intimate enthusiasms. Even alone in his own presence he was fond of considering himself superior to those with whom he compared himself.
“Come! I am not going to be the one to listen to ‘Moscow’s’[G] chatter!” murmured the sub-lieutenant, whose thoughts had been troubled somewhat by meeting the train of wounded; and the soldier’s words, the importance of which was increased and confirmed at each step by the sound of the cannonade, weighed heavily on his heart.
“They are curious fellows these ‘Moscows’—Come, Nicolaïeff, forward! you are asleep, I think,” he angrily shouted at his servant, throwing back the lappels of his coat.