He, too, passed on. After him came a waggon unlike all that had passed over before. It was a German Vorspann with two horses, loaded, it seemed, with the goods of a whole household. The horses were led by a German, and behind was fastened a handsome, brindled cow with an immense udder. On piled-up feather-beds sat a woman with a small baby, an old woman, and a good-looking, rosy-cheeked German girl. They were evidently country people, moving, who had been allowed through by special permit. The eyes of all the soldiers were turned upon the women, and, while the waggon moved by, a step at a time, all the soldiers’ remarks related to the two women. Every face wore almost the same smile, reflecting indecent ideas about the women.
‘Hey, the sausage, he’s moving away!’
‘Sell us your missis,’ said another soldier, addressing the German, who strode along with downcast eyes, looking wrathful and alarmed.
‘See how she’s dressed herself up! Ah, you devils!’
‘I say, wouldn’t you like to be billeted on them, Fedotov!’
‘I know a thing o v two, mate!’
‘Where are you going?’ asked the infantry officer, who was eating an apple. He too was half smiling and staring at the handsome girl. The German, shutting his eyes, signified that he did not understand.
‘Take it, if you like,’ said the officer, giving the girl an apple. The girl smiled and took it. Nesvitsky, like all the men on the bridge, never itook his eyes off the women till they had passed by. When they had passed by, again there moved by the same soldiers, with the same talk, and at last all came to a standstill. As often happens, the horses in a convoy-waggon became unmanageable at the end of the bridge, and the whole crowd had to wait.
‘What are they standing still for? There’s no order kept!’ said the soldiers. ‘Where are you shoving?’ ‘Damn it!’ ‘Can’t you wait a little?.’ It’ll be a bad look-out if he sets light to the bridge.’
‘Look, there’s an officer jammed in too,’ the soldiers said in different parts of the stationary crowd, as they looked about them and kept Pressing forward to the end of the bridge. Looking round at the waters of the Enns under the bridge, Nesvitsky suddenly heard a sound new iO him, the sound of something rapidly coming nearer . . . something )ig, and then a splash in the water.
1 ‘Look where it reaches to!’ a soldier standing near said sternly, look- ng round at the sound.
‘He’s encouraging us- to get on quicker,’ said another uneasily. The rowd moved again. Nesvitsky grasped that it was a cannon ball.
‘Hey, Cossack, give me my horse!’ he said. ‘Now then, stand aside! stand aside! make way!’
With a mighty effort he succeeded in getting to his horse. Shouting continually, he moved forward. The soldiers pressed together to make way for him, but jammed upon him again, so that they squeezed his leg, and those nearest him were not to blame, for they were pressed forward even more violently from behind.
‘Nesvitsky! Nesvitsky! You, old chap!’ he heard a husky voice shouting from behind at that instant.
Nesvitsky looked round and saw, fifteen paces away, separated from him by a living mass of moving infantry, the red and black and towzled face of Vaska DenisoV with a forage-cap on the back of his head, and a pelisse swung jauntily over his shoulder.
‘Tell them to make way, the damned devils!’ roared Denisov, who was evidently in a great state of excitement. He rolled his flashing, coal- black eyes, showing the bloodshot whites, and waved a sheathed sword, which he held in a bare hand as red as his face. '
‘Eh! Vaska! ’ Nesvitsky responded joyfully. ‘But what are you about?’
‘The squadron can’t advance!’ roared Vaska Denisov, viciously show- j ing his white teeth, and spurring his handsome, raven thoroughbred ‘Bedouin,’ which, twitching its ears at the bayonets against which it pricked itself, snorting and shooting froth from its bit, tramped with metallic clang on the boards of the bridge, and seemed ready to leap over the railings, if its rider would let it..
‘What next! like sheep! for all the world like sheep! back . . . make way! . . . Stand there! go to the devil with the waggon! I’ll cut you down with my sword!’ he roared, actually drawing his sword out of the sheath and beginning to brandish it.
The soldiers, with terrified faces, squeezed together, and Denisov joined Nesvitsky.
‘How is it you’re not drunk to-day?’ said Nesvitsky, when he came up.
‘They don’t even give us time to drink!’ answered Vaska Denisov. ‘They’ve been dragging the regiment to and fro the whole day. Fighting’s all very well, but who the devil’s to know what this is!’
‘How smart you are to-day!’ said Nesvitsky, looking at his new pelisse and fur saddle-cloth.
Denisov smiled, pulled out of his sabretache a handkerchief that diffused a smell of scent, and put it to Nesvitsky’s nose.
‘To be sure, I’m going into action! I’ve shaved, and cleaned my teeth and scented myself!’
