“Pick up your things and we will set out at once,” said the elder.
The younger suddenly blushed, stammered, and became confused.
“Are we to go straight to Sevastopol?” he inquired, after a momentary pause.
“Why, yes. You can't have many things, and we can manage to carry them, I think.”
“Very good! we will start at once,” said the younger, with a sigh, and he went inside.
But he paused in the vestibule without opening the door, dropped his head gloomily, and began to reflect.
“Straight to Sevastopol, on the instant, within range of the bombs—frightful! It's no matter, however; it must have come sometime. Now, at all events, with my brother—”
The fact was that it was only now, at the thought that, once seated in the cart, he should enter Sevastopol without dismounting from it, and that no chance occurrence could any longer detain him, that the danger which he was seeking clearly presented itself to him, and he was troubled at the very thought of its nearness. He managed to control himself in some way, and entered the room; but a quarter of an hour elapsed, and still he had not rejoined his brother, so that the latter opened the door at last, in order to call him. The younger Kozeltzoff, in the attitude of a naughty school-boy, was saying something to an officer named P. When his brother opened the door, he became utterly confused.
“Immediately. I'll come out in a minute!” he cried, waving his hand at his brother. “Wait for me there, please.”