I was overtaken by a handsome two-seater carriage in which I caught sight of a fashionable bonnet and from which I could hear the sound of French. The strains of some ‘Liza’ or ‘Katenka’ polka played on an out-of-tune piano came from the open window of the commandant’s house. I passed a tavern where some clerks with cigarettes in their hands were sitting over glasses of wine and I could hear one saying to the other, ‘Look here, old chap, when it comes to politics, Marya Grigorevna is first and foremost amongst the ladies here.’ A hunchbacked sickly faced Jew in a threadbare coat was dragging a wheezy old barrel-organ and the whole suburb echoed to the finale from Lucia. Two women in rustling dresses with silk kerchiefs on their heads and brightly coloured parasols in their hands glided past me on the wooden pavement. Two young girls, one in a pink dress, the other in a blue, stood bareheaded outside a low-roofed cottage and broke into shrill, forced laughter, evidently to attract the attention of passing officers. As for the officers, they swaggered up and down the street in new uniforms, with white gloves and glittering epaulettes.

I found my acquaintance on the ground floor of the general’s house. I scarcely had time to explain my wish and to hear that there was no problem in carrying it out when the same handsome carriage I had seen earlier rattled past the window where we were sitting and stopped at the entrance. A tall, well-built man in an infantry major’s uniform climbed out and went into the house.

‘Please excuse me,’ said the aide, getting up. ‘I must go and announce them to the general immediately.’

‘Who is it?’ I asked.

‘The countess,’ he replied, buttoning his uniform as he rushed upstairs. A few minutes later a short but extremely good-looking man in a frock-coat without epaulettes and with a white cross in his buttonhole went out on to the front steps, accompanied by two other officers. The general’s gait, his voice, his every movement, showed that here was a man fully conscious of his own worth.

‘Bonsoir, Madame la Comtesse,’ he said, offering his hand through the carriage window.

A small hand in a kid glove pressed his and a pretty, smiling face in a yellow bonnet appeared at the window. All I could hear of their conversation, which lasted several minutes, was the smiling general saying as I passed, ‘Vous savez que j’ai fait voeu de combattre les infidèles; prenez donc garde de le devenir.’

Laughter came from the carriage.

‘Adieu donc, cher General.’

‘Non, au revoir,’ said the general as he went up the steps. ‘N’oubliez pas que je m’invite pour la soirée de demain.’

The carriage clattered off down the street.

Now there’s a man, I thought as I walked home, who possesses all that Russians strive after: rank, wealth, family. And the day before a battle that could finish God knows how, he can joke with a pretty woman and promise to have tea with her the next day, just as if they had met at a ball!

Later, at the aide-de-camp’s house, I met someone who surprised me even more. He was a young lieutenant from K — Regiment, a man of almost feminine gentleness and timidity, who had called on the aide to give vent to his bitterness and annoyance towards certain people who had apparently intrigued against him to stop him taking part in the forthcoming action. He maintained that it was very caddish of them, not the decent thing at all, that he would not forget it, and so on. The more I scrutinized his face and listened to his voice, the more convinced I became that he was not play-acting, that he was deeply resentful and distressed at not being allowed to go and shoot Circassians and expose himself to their fire. He was as upset as an unfairly beaten child ... I was completely mystified by it all.

6

The troops were to move out at ten that night. At half-past eight I mounted my horse and rode to the general’s house, but on the assumption that the general and his aide would be busy I stopped in the street, tied my horse to a fence and waited for him to come out.

The heat and glare of the sun had already given way to the coolness of night and the soft light of the new moon which was just setting — a pale, shimmering crescent against the dark, starry sky. Lights appeared in the windows of the houses and shone through chinks in the shutters of the mud huts. Beyond those whitewashed moonlit huts with their rush-thatched roofs, the graceful poplars seemed even taller and darker on the horizon.

The long shadows of houses, trees and fences formed pretty patterns on the bright, dusty road ... From the river came the incessant, resonant call of frogs.6 In the streets I could hear hurried footsteps and voices, a galloping horse. Now and then the sound of the barrel-organ playing the song ‘The Winds are Gently Blowing’ or some ‘Aurora’ waltz drifted over from the suburb.

I shall not say what I was thinking about then, firstly because I am too ashamed to admit to the succession of gloomy thoughts that kept nagging at me while all around there was only joy and gaiety, and secondly because they would be quite irrelevant to my narrative. I was so deep in thought that I did not even notice when the bell struck eleven and the general rode past me with his suite. I hurriedly mounted my horse and raced off to catch up with the detachment.

The rearguard was still inside the fortress and I had great difficulty crossing the bridge, with all those guns, ammunition wagons, supply carts, and officers shouting out orders. Once through the gates I trotted past the line of soldiers which stretched in a line almost a mile long and who were silently moving through the darkness, and finally I caught up with the general. As I passed the guns drawn out in single file and the officers riding between them I suddenly heard a voice call in a German accent, ‘A linshtock, you schwein!’ which struck a jarring, discordant note amid the quiet solemn harmony, followed by a soldier hurriedly shouting, ‘Shevchenko! The lieutenant wants a light!’

Most of the sky was overcast with long, dark grey clouds, with only a few dim stars twinkling here and there. The moon had disappeared behind the black mountains on the near horizon to the right and shed a faint, trembling light on their peaks, in sharp contrast to the impenetrable gloom enveloping their foothills. The air was so warm and still that not one blade of grass, not one cloud moved. It was so dark that it was impossible to make out even the closest objects: by the side of the road I thought I could see rocks, animals, strange people and it was only when I heard them rustle and smelled the fresh dew that lay on them that I realized they were only bushes.

Before me I could see a dense, heaving black wall, followed by several dark spots: this was the cavalry vanguard, and the general and his suite.