“It is dangerous, Excellency. He is already passing over us,” replied the soldier, listening to the whistling of the ball, which struck with a dry sound the other side of the hard road. But Koseltzoff continued on in the middle of the road without heeding this advice. There were the same streets, the same but more frequent flashes, the same sounds and the same groans, the same meeting of wounded men, the same batteries, parapet, and trenches, just as he had seen them in the spring. But now their aspect was more dismal, more sombre and more martial, so to speak. A greater number of houses was riddled, and there were no more lights in the windows—the hospital was the only exception—no more women in the street; and the character of the accustomed, careless life formerly imprinted on everything was effaced, and was replaced by the element of anxious, weary expectation, and of redoubled and incessant effort.
He came at last to the farthermost intrenchment, and a soldier of the P—— regiment recognized his former company chief. There was the third battalion, as could be guessed in the darkness by the constrained murmur of voices and the clicks of the muskets placed against the wall, which the flash of the discharges lit up at frequent intervals.
“Where is the commander of the regiment?” asked Koseltzoff.
“In the bomb-proof with the marines, your Excellency,” replied the obliging soldier. “If you would like to go I will show you the way.”
Passing from one trench to another, he led Koseltzoff to the ditch, where a sailor was smoking his pipe. Behind him was a door, through the cracks of which shone a light.
“Can we go in?”
“I will announce you;” and the sailor entered the bomb-proof, where two voices could be heard.
“If Prussia continues to keep neutral, then Austria—” said one of them.
“What is Austria good for when the slavs—” said the other.—“Ah yes! ask him to come in,” added this same voice.
Koseltzoff, who had never before put his foot in these bomb-proof quarters, was struck by their elegance. A polished floor took the place of boards, a screen hid the entrance door. In a corner was a great icon representing the holy Virgin, with its gilt frame lighted by a small pink glass lamp. Two beds were placed along the wall, on one of which a naval officer was sleeping in his clothes, on the other, near a table on which two open bottles of wine were standing, sat the new regimental chief and an aide-de-camp. Koseltzoff, who was not bashful, and who felt himself in nowise guilty, either towards the State or towards the chief of the regiment, felt, nevertheless, at the sight of the latter—his comrade until very recently—a certain apprehension.