“How glad I am to see you!” said the elder, leading his brother outside. “Let’s chat a bit.”
“Come, come! I don’t want any soup now. Eat it up, Féderson,” said the youth to his comrade.
“But you were hungry—”
“No, I don’t want it now.”
Once outside on the piazza, after the first joyous outbursts of the youth, who went on to ask his brother questions without speaking to him of that which concerned himself, the latter, profiting by a moment of silence, asked him why he had not gone into the guard, as they had expected him to do.
“Because I wanted to go to Sebastopol. If everything comes out all right, I shall gain more than if I had remained in the guard. In that branch of the service you have to count ten years to the rank of colonel, while here Todtleben has gone from lieutenant-colonel to general in two years. And if I am killed, well, then, what’s to be done?”
“How you do argue,” said the elder brother, with a smile.
“And then, that I have just told you is of no importance. The chief reason”—and he stopped, hesitating, smiling in his turn, and blushing as if he were going to say something very shameful—“the chief reason is that my conscience bothered me. I felt scruples at living in Petersburg while men are dying here for their country. I counted also on being with you,” he added, still more bashfully.
“You are a curious fellow,” said the brother, without looking at him, hunting for his cigar-case. “I am sorry we can’t stay together.”
“Come, pray tell me the truth about the bastions. Are they horribly frightful?”