“Why did he offend me?” thought the younger. “Does he really take me for a thief? He seems to be still angry. Here we have quarrelled for good, and yet we two, how happy we could have been at Sebastopol! Two brothers, intimate friends, and both fighting the enemy—the elder lacking cultivation a little, but a brave soldier, and the younger as brave as he, for at the end of a week I shall have proved to all that I am no longer so young. I sha’n’t blush any more; my face will be manly and my mustache will have time to grow so far,” he thought, pinching the down which was visible at the corners of his mouth. “Perhaps we will get there to-day, even, and will take part in a battle. My brother must be very headstrong and very brave; he is one of those who talk little and do better than others. Is he continually pushing me on purpose towards the side of the carriage? He must see that it annoys me, and he makes believe he does not notice it. We will surely get there to-day,” he continued to himself, keeping close to the side of the carriage, fearing if he stirred that he would show his brother he was not well seated. “We go straight to the bastion—I with the artillery, my brother with his company. Suddenly the French throw themselves upon us. I fire on the spot, I kill a crowd of them, but they run just the same straight upon me. Impossible to fire—I am lost! but my brother dashes forward, sword in hand. I seize my musket and we run together; the soldiers follow us. The French throw themselves on my brother. I run up; I kill first one, then another, and I save Micha. I am wounded in the arm; I take my musket in the other hand and run on. My brother is killed at my side by a bullet; I stop a moment, I look at him sadly, I rise and cry, ‘Forward with me! let us avenge him!’ I add, ‘I loved my brother above everything; I have lost him. Let us avenge ourselves, kill our enemies, or all die together!’ All follow me, shouting. But there is the whole French army, Pélissier at their head. We kill all of them, but I am wounded once, twice, and the third time mortally. They gather around me. Gortschakoff comes and asks what I wish for. I reply that I wish for nothing—I wish for only one thing, to be placed beside my brother and to die with him. They carry me and lay me down beside his bloody corpse. I raise myself up and say, ‘Yes, you could not appreciate two men who sincerely loved their country. They are killed—may God pardon you!’ and thereupon I die.”
Who could tell to what point these dreams were destined to be realized?
“Have you ever been in a hand-to-hand fight?” he suddenly asked his brother, entirely forgetting that he did not want to speak to him again.
“No, never. We have lost two thousand men in our regiment, but always in the works. I also was wounded there. War is not carried on as you imagine, Volodia.”
This familiar name softened the younger. He wished to explain himself to his brother, who did not imagine he had offended him.
“Are you angry with me, Micha?” he asked, after a few moments.
“Why?”
“Because—nothing. I thought there had been between us—”
“Not at all,” rejoined the elder, turning towards him and giving him a friendly tap on the knee.
“I ask pardon, Micha, if I have offended you,” said the younger, turning aside to hide the tears which filled his eyes.