Classic Audiobook Collection - Sevastopol by Leo Tolstoy ~ Full Audiobook [history]

Starting point is 00:00:00 sebastopol by leo tolstoy part one sebastopol in december eighteen fifty four the flush of morning has but just begun to tinge the sky above sap and mountain the dark blue surface of the sea has already cast aside the shades of night and awaits the first ray to begin a play of merry gleams cold and mist are wafted from the bay there is no snow all is black but-and-obeyed by the bay there is no snow all is black but the morning frost pinches the face and crackles under foot and the far-off unceasing roar of the sea broken now and then by the thunder of the firing in sebastopol alone disturbs the calm of the morning it is dark on board the ships it has just struck eight bells toward the north the activity of the day begins gradually to replace the nocturnal quiet here the relief guard has passed clanking their arms there the doctor is already hastening to the hospital further on the soldier has crept out of his earth-hut and is washing his sun-burnt face in ice-encrusted water and turning towards the crimsoning east crosses himself quickly as he prays to god here a tall and heavy camel-wagon has dragged creaking to the cemetery to bury the bloody dead with whom it is laden nearly to the top you go to the wharf a peculiar odor of coal manure dampness and of beef strikes you thousands of objects of all sorts wood meat gabbians flour iron and so forth lie in heaps about the wharf soldiers of various regiments with knapsacks and muskets without knapsacks and without muskets throng thither smoke coral drag weights aboard the steamer which lies smoke smoke

Starting point is 00:01:57 moking beside the key unattached two oared boats filled with all sorts of people soldiers sailors merchants women land at and leave the wharf to the grassy your excellency be so good two or three retired sailors rise in their boats and offer you their services you select the one who is nearest to you you step over the half-decomposed carcass of a brown horse which lies there in the mud beside the boat and reach the stern you quit the shore all about you is the sea already glittering in the morning sun in front of you is an aged sailor in a camel's hair coat and a young white-headed boy who work zealously and in silence at the oars you gaze at the motley vastness of the vessels scattered far and near over the bay and at the small black dots of boats moving about on the shining azure and at the bright and beautiful buildings of the city tented with the rosy rays of the morning sun which are visible in one direction and at the foaming white line of the quay and the sunken ships from which black tips of masts rise sadly here and there and at the distant fleet of the enemy faintly visible as they rock on the crystal horizon of the sea and at the streaks of foam on which leap salt bubbles beaten up up by the oars. You listen to the monotonous sound of voices which fly to you over the water, and the grand sounds of firing, which, as it seems to you, is increasing in Sebastopol.

Starting point is 00:03:40 It cannot be that, at the thought that you too are in Sebastopol, a certain feeling of manliness, of pride, has not penetrated your soul, and that the blood has not begun to flow more swiftly through your bains. Your Excellency, you are steering straight into the Kistenton, says your old sailor to you, as he turns round to make sure of the direction which you are imparting to the boat, with the rudder to the right. And all the cannon are still on it, remarks the white-headed boy, casting a glance over the ship as we pass.

Starting point is 00:04:14 Of course, it's new. Cornelof lived on board of it, said the old man, also glancing at the ship. See where it has burst, says the boy, after the old. a long silence looking at a white cloud of spreading smoke which has suddenly appeared high over the south bay accompanied by the sharp report of an exploding bomb he is firing to-day with his new battery adds the old man calmly spitting on his hands now give way mishka will overtake the barge and your boat moves forward more swiftly over the broad swells of the bay and you actually do overtake the heavy barge upon which some bad are piled and which is rowed by awkward soldiers and it touches the grafski wharf amid a multitude of boats of every sort which are landing throngs of gray soldiers black sailors and women of various colours move noisily along the shore the women are selling rolls russian peasants with samovars are crying hush-bibin and here upon the first steps are strewn rusted cannonballs bombs grapeshot and cast-iron cannon of various calibers a little further on is a large square upon which lie huge beams gun-carriages sleeping soldiers there stand horses wagons green guns ammunition chests and stacks of arms

Starting point is 00:05:41 soldiers sailors officers women children and merchants are moving about carts are arriving with hay bags and casks here and there cossacks make their way through or officers on horseback or a general in a droski to the right the street is hemmed in by a barricade in whose embrasures stand some small cannon and besides these sits a sailor smoking his pipe on the left a handsome house with roman ciphers on the pediment beneath which stand soldiers and blood-stained litters everywhere you behold the unpleasant signs of a war encampment your first impression is inevitably of the most disagreeable sort the strange mixture of camp and town life of a beautiful city and a dirty bivouac is not only not beautiful but seems repulsive disorder it even seems to you that every one is thoroughly frightened and is fussing about without knowing what he is doing but look more closely at the faces of these people who are moving about you and you will gain an entirely different idea look at this little soldier from the provinces for example who is leading a troika of brown horses to water and is purring something to himself so composedly that he evidently will not go astray in this motley crowd which does not exist for for him but he is fulfilling his duty whatever that may be watering the horses or carrying arms with just as much composure self-confidence and equanimity as though it were taking place in tula or sarinsk you will read the same expression on the face of this officer who passes by in immaculate white gloves and in the face of the sailor who is smoking as he sits on the barricade and in the faces of the working soldiers waiting with their litters on the steps of the former club and in the face of yonder girl who fearing to wet her pink gown skips across the street on the little stones

Starting point is 00:07:49 yes disenchantment certainly awaits you if you are entering sebastopol for the first time in vain will you seek on even a single countenance for traces of anxiety discomposure or even of enthusiasm readiness for death decision there is nothing of the sort you will see the tradespeople quietly engaged in the duties of their callings so that possibly you may reproach yourself for superfluous raptures you may entertain some doubt as to the justice of the ideas regarding the heroism of the defenders of sebastopol which you have formed from stories descriptions and the sights and sounds on the northern side but before you doubt go upon the bastions observe the defenders of savastable on the very scene of the defence or better still go straight across into that house which was formerly the sebastable assembly house and upon whose roof stander's soldiers with litters there you will behold the defenders of sebastopol there you will behold frightful and sad great and laughable but wonderful sights which elevate the soul you enter the great hall of assembly you have but just opened the door when the sight and smell of forty or fifty seriously wounded men and of those who have undergone amputation some in hammocks the majority upon the floor suddenly striking you. Trust not to the feeling which detained you upon the threshold of the hall. Be not ashamed of having come to look at the sufferers. Be not ashamed to approach and address them. The

Starting point is 00:09:31 unfortunates like to see a sympathizing human face, they like to tell of their sufferings, and to hear words of love and interest. You walk along between the beds, and seek a face less stern and suffering, which you decide to approach with the object of conversion. where are you wounded you inquire timidly and with indecision of an old gaunt soldier who seated in his hammock is watching you with a good-natured glance and seems to invite you to approach him i say you ask timidly because these sufferings inspire you over and above the feeling of profound sympathy with a fear of offending and with a lofty reverence for the man who has undergone them in the leg replies the soldier but at the same time you perceive by the foals of the coverlet that he has lost his leg above the knee god be thanked now he adds i shall get my discharge were you wounded long ago it was six weeks ago your excellency does it still pain you no there's no pain now only there's a sort of gnawing in my calf when the weather is bad but that's nothing how did you come to be wounded on the fifth bastion during the first bombardment i had just trained a cannon and was on the point of going away so to another embrasure when it struck me in the leg just as if i had stepped into a hole and had no leg

Starting point is 00:11:04 was it not painful at the first moment not at all only as though something boiling hot had struck my leg well and then and then nothing only the skin began to draw as though it had struck my leg well and then nothing only the skin began to draw as though it had been been rubbed hard. The first thing of all, your excellency, is not to think at all. If you don't think about a thing, it amounts to nothing. Men suffer from thinking more than from anything else. At that moment a woman in a grey-striped dress and a black kerchief bound about her head approaches you. She joins in your conversation with the sailor, and begins to tell about him, about his sufferings, his desperate condition for the space of four weeks, and how, when he was wounded, he made the litter halt that he might see the volley from our battery, how the Grand Duke spoke to him and gave him twenty-five roubles, and how he said to him that he wanted

Starting point is 00:12:00 to go back to the bastion to direct the younger men, even if he could not work himself. As she says all this, in a breath, the woman glances now at you, now at the sailor, who has turned away as though he did not hear her, and plucks some lint from his pillow, and her eyes sparkle with peculiar enthusiasm. "'This is my housewife, your excellency,' the sailor says to you, with an expression which seems to say, "'You must excuse her. Everyone knows it's a woman's way. She's talking nonsense.'

Starting point is 00:12:34 You begin to understand the defenders of Sebastopol. For some reason you feel ashamed of yourself in the presence of this man. You would like to say a very good deal to him in order to express to him your sympathy and admiration. But you find no words, or you are dissatisfied with those which come into your head, and you do reverence in silence before this taciturn unconscious grandeur and firmness of soul, this modesty in the face of his own merits. Well, God grant you a speedy recovery, you say to him, and you halt before another. another invalid who is lying on the floor and appears to be awaiting death in intolerable agony he is a blonde man with pale swollen face he is lying on his back with his left arm thrown out in a position which is expressive of cruel suffering

Starting point is 00:13:29 his parched open mouth with difficulty emits his stertorous breathing his blue leaden eyes are rolled up and from beneath the wadded coverlet the remains of his right arm enveloped in bandage is protrude the oppressive odor of a corpse strikes you forcibly and the consuming internal fire which has penetrated every limb of the sufferer seems to penetrate you also is he unconscious you inquire of the woman who comes up to you and gazes at you tenderly as at a relative no he can still hear but he's very bad she adds in a whisper i gave him some tea to-day what if he is a stranger one must still have pity and he hardly tasted it how do you feel you ask him the wounded man turns his eyeballs at the sound of your voice but he neither sees nor understands you there's a gnawing at my heart a little further on you see an old soldier changing his linen his face and body are of a sort of cinnamon brown colour and gaunt as a skeleton he has no arm at all it has been cut off off at the shoulder he is sitting with a wide-awake air he puts himself to rights but you see by his dull corpse-like gaze his frightful gauntness and the wrinkles on his face that he is a being who has suffered for the best part of his life on the other side you behold in a cot the pale suffering and delicate face of a woman upon whose cheek plays a feverish flush that's our little sailor lass who was struck in the leg by a bomb on the fifth your guide tells you she was carrying her husband's dinner to him in the bastion has it been amputated they cut it off above the knee now if your nerves are strong pass through the door on the left

Starting point is 00:15:26 in yonder room they are applying bandages and performing operations there you will see doctors with their arms blood-stained above the elbow and with pale stern faces busied about a cot upon which with eyes widely opened, and uttering, as in delirium, incoherent, sometimes simple and touching words, lies a wounded man under the influence of chloroform. The doctors are busy with the repulsive but beneficent work of amputation. You see the sharp, curved knife enter the healthy white body. You see the wounded man suddenly regain consciousness with a piercing cry and curses. You see the army surgeon fling the amputated arm into a corner. you see another wounded man lying in a litter in the same apartment shrink convulsively and groan as he gazes at the operation upon his comrade not so much from physical pain as from the moral torture of anticipation

Starting point is 00:16:29 you behold the frightful soul-stirring scenes you behold war not from its conventional beautiful and brilliant side with music and drum-beat with fluttering flags and galloping general but you behold war in its real phase in blood in suffering in death on emerging from this house of pain you will infallibly experience a sensation of pleasure you will inhale the fresh air more fully you will feel satisfaction in the consciousness of your health but at the same time you will draw from the sight of these sufferings a consciousness of your nothingness and you will go calmly and without any indecision to the bastion what do the death and sufferings of such an insignificant worm as i signify in comparison with so many deaths and such great sufferings but the sight of the clear sky the brilliant sun the fine city the open church and the soldiers moving about in various directions soon restores your mind to its normal condition of frivolity petty cares and absorption in the present alone perhaps you meet the funeral procession of some officer coming from the church with rose-coloured coffin and music and fluttering banners perhaps the sounds of firing reached your ear from the bastion but this does not lead you back to your former thoughts the funeral seems to you a very fine military spectacle and you do not connect with this spectacle or with the sounds any clear idea of suffering and death as you did at the point where the bandaging was going on passing the barricade and the church you come to the most lively part of the city on both sides hang the signs of shops and inns merchants women in bonnets and kerchiefs dandified officers

Starting point is 00:18:27 everything speaks to you of the firmness of spirit of the independence and the security of the inhabitants enter the inn on the right if you wish to hear the conversations of sailors and officers stories of the preceding night are sure to be in progress there and of fenca and the affair of the twenty-fourth and of the dearness and badness of cutlets and of such and such a comrade who has been killed devil take it how bad things are with us to-day ejaculates the base voice of a beardless naval officer with white brows and lashes in a green knitted sash where asks another in the fourth bastion replies the young officer and you are certain to look at the white-lashed officer with great attention and even with some respect at the words in the fourth bastion his excessive ease of manner the way he flourishes his hands his loud laugh and his voice which seem to you insolent reveal to you that peculiar boastful frame of mind which some very young men acquire after danger. Nevertheless, you think he is about to tell you how bad the condition of things on the fourth bastion is because of the bombs and balls. Nothing of the sort. Things are bad because it is muddy. It's impossible to pass through the battery, says he, pointing at his boots which are covered with mud above the calf. And my best gun captain was killed today.

Starting point is 00:20:00 He was struck plump in the forehead, says another. Who's that, Matukin? no what now are they going to give me any veal the villains he adds to the servant of the inn not mitchin but ambrosimov such a fine young fellow he was in the sixth sally at another corner of the table over a dish of cutlets with peas and a bottle of sour crimean wine called bordeaux sit two infantry officers one with a red collar who is young and has two stars on his coat is telling the other with a black collar and no stars about the affair at alma the former has already drunk a good deal and it is evident from the breaks in his narrative from his undecided glance expressive of doubt as to whether he is believed and chiefly from the altogether too prominent part which he has played in it all and from the excessive horror of it all that he is strongly disinclined to bear strict witness to the truth but these tales which you will hear for a long time to come in every corner of russia are nothing to you you prefer to go to the bastions especially to the fourth of which you have heard so many and such diverse things when any one says that he has been in the fourth bastion he says it with a peculiar air of pride and satisfaction when any one says i am going to the fourth bastion either a little agitation or a very great indifference is infallibly perceptible in him when any one wants to jest about another he says you must be stationed in the fourth bastion when you meet litters and inquire whence they come the answer is generally

Starting point is 00:21:51 from the fourth bastion on the whole two totally different opinions exist with regard to this terrible bastion one is held by those who have never been in it and who are convinced that the fourth bastion is a regular grave for every one who enters it and the other by those who live in it like the white-lashed midshipman and who when they mention the fourth bastion will tell you whether it is dry or muddy there whether it is warm or cold in the mud hut and so forth during the half-hour which you have passed in the inn the weather has changed a fog which before spread over the sea has collected into damp heavy grey clouds and has veiled the sun a kind of melancholy frozen mist sprinkles from above and wets the roofs the sidewalks and the soldier's overcoats passing by yet another barricade you emerge from the door at the right and the and ascend the principal street. Behind this barricade the houses are unoccupied on both sides of the street. There are no signs, the doors are covered with boards, the windows are broken in, here the corners are broken away, there the roofs are pierced.

Starting point is 00:23:09 The buildings seem to be old, to have undergone every sort of vicissitude and deprivation characteristic of veterans, and appear to gaze proudly and somewhat scornfully upon you. you stumble over the cannon-balls which drew the way and into holes filled with water which have been excavated in the stony ground by the bombs in the street you meet and overtake bodies of soldiers sharpshooters officers now and then you encounter a woman or a child but it is no longer a woman in a bonnet but a sailor's daughter in an old fur cloak and soldier's boots as you proceed along the street and descend a small declivity you observe that there are no longer any houses about you but only some strange heaps of ruined stones boards clay and beams ahead of you upon a steep hill you perceive a black muddy expanse intersected by canals and this that is in front is the fourth bastion here you meet still fewer people no women are visible the soldiers walk briskly you come across drops of blood on the road and you will certainly encounter there four soldiers with a stretcher and upon the stretcher a pale yellowish face and a blood-stained overcoat if you inquire where is he wounded the bearers will say angrily without turning towards you in the leg or in the arm if he is slightly wounded or they will preserve a gloomy silence if no head is visible on the stretcher and he is already wounded or he is already wounded or they will preserve a gloomy silence if no head is visible on the stretcher and he is already

Starting point is 00:24:48 dead or badly hurt. The shriek of a cannonball or a bomb close by surprises you unpleasantly as you ascend the hill. You understand all at once, and quite differently from what you have before, the significance of those sounds of shots which you heard in the city. A quiet, cheerful memory flashes suddenly before your fancy. Your own personality begins to occupy you more than your observations, your attention to all that surrounds you diminishes, and a certain disagreeable feeling of uncertainty suddenly overmasters you. In spite of this decidedly base voice, which suddenly speaks within you, at the sight

Starting point is 00:25:32 of danger, you force it to be silent, especially when you glance at a soldier who runs laughing past you at a trot, waving his hands, and slipping down the hill in the mud, and you involuntarily expand your chest, throw up your head a little higher. and climb the slippery clayey hill. As soon as you have reached the top, rifle balls begin to whizz to the right and left of you, and possibly you begin to reflect whether you will not go into the trench which runs parallel with the road. But this trench is full of such yellow, liquid, foul-smelling mud, more than knee-deep, that

Starting point is 00:26:11 you will infallibly choose the path on the hill the more so as you see that everyone uses the path. After traversing a couple of hundred paces, you emerge upon a muddy expanse, all plowed up and surrounded on all sides by gabbians, earthworks, platforms, earth-huts upon which great cast-iron guns stand, and cannon-balls lie in symmetrical heaps. All these seem to be heaped up without any aim, connection, or order. Here in the battery sit a knot of sailors, there, in the middle of the square, half buried in mud, lies a broken cannon. Further on, a foot soldier with his gun is marching through the battery and dragging his feet with difficulty through the sticky soil. But everywhere, on all sides in every spot, you see broken dishes, unexploded bombs,

Starting point is 00:27:07 cannonballs, signs of encampment, all sunk in the liquid, viscous mud. You seem to hear not far from you the thud of a cannonball. On all sides you seem to hear the varied sounds of balls, humming like bees, whistling sharply, or in a whine like a chord, you hear the frightful roar of the fusillade, which seems to shake you all through with some horrible fright. So this is it, the fourth bastion, this is it, that terrible, really frightful place, you think to yourself, and you experience a little sensation of pride and a very large sensation of suppressed terror but you are mistaken this is not the fourth bastion it is the jasolnovsky redoubt a place which is comparatively safe and not at all dreadful in order to reach the fourth bastion you turn to the right through this narrow trench through which the foot-soldier has gone in this trench you will perhaps meet stretchers again sailors and soldiers and soldiers with shovels, you will see the superintendent of the mines, mud huts, into which only two men can

Starting point is 00:28:19 crawl by bending down, and there you will see sharpshooters of the Black Sea battalions who are changing their shoes, eating, smoking, their pipes, and living, and you will still see everywhere that same stinking mud, traces of a camp and cast-off iron debris in every possible Form. Proceeding yet 300 paces, you will emerge again upon a battery, on an open space, all cut up into holes and surrounded by Gapians covered with earth, cannon, and earthworks. Here you will perhaps see five sailors playing cards under the shelter of the breastworks, and a naval officer who, perceiving that you are a newcomer and curious, will with pleasure

Starting point is 00:29:06 show his household arrangements and everything which may be of interest to you. This officer rolls himself a cigarette of yellow paper, with so much composure as he sits on a gun, walks so calmly from one embrasure to another, converses with you so quietly, without the slightest affectation, that, in spite of the bullets which hum above you, even more thickly than before, you become cool yourself. Question attentively. and listen to the officer's replies. This officer will tell you, but only if you ask him, about the bombardment on the fifth. He will tell you how only one gun in his battery could be used, and out of all the gunners

Starting point is 00:29:51 who served it, only eight remained, and how, nevertheless, on the next morning, the sixth, he fired all the guns. He will tell you how a bomb fell upon a sailor's earth-hut on the fifth and laid low eleven men. He will point out to you from the embrasures, the enemy's batteries, and entrenchments, which are not more than thirty or forty fathoms distant from this point. I fear, however, that under the influence of the whizzing bullets you may thrust yourself out of the embrasure in order to view the enemy. You will see nothing, and if you do see anything, you will be very much surprised, that

Starting point is 00:30:32 that white stone wall which is so near you and from which white smoke rises in puffs, that that white wall is the enemy, he, as the soldiers and sailors say, it is even quite possible that the naval officer will want to discharge a shot or two in your presence, out of vanity, or simply for his own pleasure. Send the captain and his crew to the cannon, and fourteen sailors step up briskly and merrily to the gun and load it, one thrusting his pipe into his pocket another one chewing a biscuit still another clattering his heels on the platform observe the faces the bearing the movements of these men in every wrinkle of that sunburned face with its high cheek-bones in every muscle in the breath of those shoulders in the stoutness of those legs shod in huge boots in every calm firm deliberate gesture these chief traits which constitute the pipe-shoulders the power of Russia, simplicity, and straightforwardness, are visible. But here, on every face, it seems

Starting point is 00:31:41 to you that the danger, misery, and the sufferings of war, have, in addition to these principal characteristics, left traces of consciousness of personal worth, emotion, and exalted thought. All at once, a frightful roar which shakes not your organs of hearing alone, but your whole being startles you so that you tremble all over. Then you hear the distant shriek of the shot as it pursues its course, and the dense smoke of the powder conceals from you the platform and the black figures of the sailors who are moving about upon it. You hear various remarks of the sailors in reference to this shot, and you see their animation, and an exhibition of a feeling which you had not expected to behold, perhaps, a feeling of malice, of revenge against the enemy, which lies hidden

Starting point is 00:32:38 in the soul of each man. It struck the embrasure itself. It seems to have killed two men. See, they've carried them off, you hear in joyful exclamation. And now they are angry. They'll fire at us directly, says someone, and, in fact, shortly after you see a flash in front and smoke. The sentry who was standing on the breast-beck.

Starting point is 00:33:00 work shouts, Cannon! And then the ball shrieks past you, strikes the earth, and scatters a shower of dirt and stones about it. This ball enrages the commander of the battery. He orders a second and a third gun to be loaded. The enemy also begins to reply to us, and you experience a sensation of interest. You hear and see interesting things. Again the sentry shouts, cannon! And you hear the same report and blow, the same shower. Or he shouts, Mortar! And you hear the monotonous, even rather pleasant whistle of the bomb, with which it is difficult to connect the thought of horror. You hear this whistle approaching you, and increasing in swiftness, then you see the black sphere, the impact on the ground, the resounding explosion of the bomb which can

Starting point is 00:33:55 be felt. With the whistle and shriek, splinters fly again, Stone swizz through the air, and mud showers over you. At these sounds you experience a strange feeling of enjoyment, and at the same time of terror. At the moment when you know that the projectile is flying towards you, it will infallibly occur to you that this shot will kill you, but the feeling of self-love upholds you, and no one perceives the knife which is cutting your heart.

Starting point is 00:34:26 But when the shot has flown past without touching you, you grow animated and a certain cheerful inexpressibly pleasant feeling overpowers you but only for a moment so that you discover a peculiar sort of charm in danger in this game of life and death you want cannon-balls or bombs to strike nearer to you but again the sentry has shouted in his loud thick voice mortar again there is a shriek and a bomb bursts but with this noise comes the groan of a man you approach the wounded man at the same moment with the bearers he has a strange inhuman aspect covered as he is with blood and mud a part of the sailor's breast has been torn away during the first moments there is visible on his mud-stained face only fear and a certain simulated premature expression of suffering peculiar to men in that condition but at the same time as the stretcher is brought to him and he is laid upon it on his sound side you observe this expression is replaced by an expression of a sort of exultation and lofty inexpressible thought his eyes shine more brilliantly his teeth are clenched his head is held higher with difficulty and as they lift him up he stops the bearers and says to his comrades with difficulty and in a trembling voice farewell Well, brothers.

Starting point is 00:35:57 He tries to say something more, and it is plain that he wants to say something touching, but he repeats once more, farewell, brothers. At that moment one of his fellow sailors steps up to him, puts the cap on the head which the wounded man holds towards him, and waving his hand indifferently, returns calmly to his gun. That's the way with seven or eight men every day, says the naval officer to you, in reply to the expression of horror which has appeared upon your countenance as he yawns and rolls a cigarette of yellow paper. Thus you have seen the defenders of Sevastopol on the very scene of the defense, and you go back paying no attention, for some reason or other, to the cannon-balls

Starting point is 00:36:45 and bullets which continue to shriek the whole way until you reach the ruined theatre. You proceed with composure and with your soul in a state of exultation the principle and cheering conviction which you have brought away is the conviction of the impossibility of the russian people wavering anywhere whatever and this impossibility you have discerned not in the multitude of traverses breastworks artfully interlaced trenches mines and ordnance piled one upon the other of which you have comprehended nothing but you have discerned it in the eyes the speech the manners in what is called the spirit of the defenders of sebastopol what they are doing they do so simply with so little effort and exertion that you are convinced that they can do a hundred times more that they can do anything you understand that the feeling which makes them work is not a feeling of pettiness ambition forgetfulness which you have yourself experienced but a different sentiment one more powerful and one which has made of them men who live with their ordinary composure under the fire of cannon amid hundreds of chances of death, instead of the one to which all men are subject, who live under these conditions amid incessant labor, poverty, and dirt.

Starting point is 00:38:14 Men will not accept these frightful conditions for the sake of a cross or a title, nor because of threats. There must be another lofty incentive as a cause, and this will not accept these frightful conditions for the sake of a cross or a title, nor because of threats. there must be another lofty incentive as a cause and this cause is the feeling which rarely appears of which a russian is ashamed that which lies at the bottom of each man's soul love for his country only now have the tales of the early days of the siege of sebastopol when there were no fortifications there no army no physical possibility of holding it and when at the same time there was not the slightest doubt that it would not surrender to the enemy of the days when that hero worthy of ancient greece kornilov said as he reviewed the army we will die children but we will not surrender sebastopol and our russians who are not fitted to be phrase-makers replied we will die hurrah only now have tales of that time cease to be for you the most beautiful historical legends and have become real facts and worthy of belief You comprehend clearly, you figure to yourself, those men whom you have just seen, as the very heroes of those grievous times, who have not fallen, but have been raised by the spirit,

Starting point is 00:39:33 and have joyfully prepared for death, not for the sake of the city, but of the country. This epos of Sebastopol, whose hero was the Russian people, will leave mighty traces in Russia for a long time to come. night is already falling the sun has emerged from the gray clouds which cover the sky just before its setting and has suddenly illuminated with a crimson glow the purple vapors the greenish sea covered with ships and boats rocking on the regular swell and the white buildings of the city and the people who are moving through its streets sounds of some old waltz played by the regimental band on the boulevard and the sounds of firing from the bastions which echo them strangely are borne across the water end of part one chapters one and two of sebastopol by leo tolstoy this librivox recording is in the public domain chapters one and two of part two sebastopol in may eighteen fifty five six months have already passed since the first cannon-ball whistled from the bastions of sebastopol and ploughed the earth in the works of the enemy and since that day thousands of bombs cannon-balls and rifle-balls

Starting point is 00:41:07 have been flying incessantly from the bastions into the trenches and from the trenches into the bastions and the angel of death has never ceased to hover over them thousands of men have been disappointed in satisfying their ambition thousands have succeeded in satisfying theirs in becoming swollen with pride thousands repose in the embrace of death how many red coffins and canvas canopies there have been and still the same sound are echoed from the bastions and still on clear evenings the french peer from their camp with involuntary tremor at the yellow furrowed bastions of sebastopol at the black forms of our sailors moving about upon them and count the embrasures and the iron cannon which project angrily from them the under-officer still gazes through his telescope from the heights of the telegraph station at the dark figures of the french at their battery at their tents, at the columns, moving over the green hill, and at the puffs of smoke, which issue forth from the trenches, and a crowd of men, formed of diverse races, still streams in throngs, from various quarters, with the same ardor as ever, and with desires differing even more greatly than their races, towards this fateful spot. And the question, unsolved by

Starting point is 00:42:33 the diplomats, has still not been solved by powder and blood. flood chapter two on the boulevard of the besieged city of sebastopol not far from the pavilion the regimental band was playing and throngs of military men and of women moved gaily through the streets the brilliant sun of spring had risen in the morning over the works of the english had passed over the bastions then over the city over the nikolovsky barracks and illuminating all with equal cheer had now sunk into the blue and distant sea, which was lighted with a silvery gleam as it heaved in peace. A tall, rather bent infantry officer, who was drawing upon his hand a glove which was presentable, if not entirely white, came out of one of the small naval huts, built on the left side of the Morskaya Street, and, staring thoughtfully at the ground, took his way up the slope to the boulevard. The expression of this officer's homely countenance did not indicate any great mental capacity but rather simplicity judgment honor and a tendency to solid worth he was badly built not graceful and he seemed to be constrained in his movements

Starting point is 00:43:53 he was dressed in a little worn cap a cloak of a rather peculiar shade of lilac from beneath whose edge the gold of a watch-chain was visible in trousers with straps and brilliantly polished calf-skin boots He must have been either a German, but his features clearly indicate his purely Russian descent, or an adjutant, or a regimental quartermaster, only in that case he would have had spurs, or an officer who had exchanged from the cavalry for the period of the campaign, or possibly from the guards. He was, in fact, an officer who had exchanged from the cavalry, and as he ascended the boulevard at the present moment, he was meditating upon a lot of letter which he had just received from a former comrade now a retired landowner in the government of tea and his wife pale blue-eyed natasha his great friend he recalled one passage of the letter in which his comrade said when our invalid that is military gazette arrives pupca this was the name by which the retired ulan called his wife rushes headlong into the vestibule seizes the paper and

Starting point is 00:45:07 runs with it to the seat in the arbor in the drawing-room in which if you remember you and i passed such delightful winter evenings when the regiment was stationed in our town and reads your heroic deeds with such ardour as it is impossible for you to imagine she often speaks of you there is mickrullough she says he's such a love of a man i am ready to kiss him when i see him he fights on the bastions and he will surely receive the cross of st george and he will be talked about in the newspapers and so on and so on so that i am really beginning to be jealous of you in another place he writes the papers reach us frightfully late and although there is plenty of news conveyed by word of mouth not a little bit of the papers reach us frightfully late and although there is plenty of news conveyed by word of mouth not all of it can be trusted. For instance, the young ladies with the music, acquaintances of yours, were saying yesterday that Napoleon was already captured by our Cossacks, and that he had been sent to Petersburg. But you will comprehend how much I believe of this. Moreover, a traveller from Petersburg told us, he has been sent on special business by the minister, is a very agreeable person, and now that there is no one in town, he is more of a

Starting point is 00:46:25 a resource to us than you can well imagine well he declares it to be a fact that our troops have taken upatoria so that the french have no communication whatever with balaclava and that in this engagement two hundred of hours were killed but that the french lost fifteen thousand my wife was in such raptures over this that she caroused all night and she declares that her instinct tells her that you certainly took part in that affair and that you certainly took part in that affair and that you you distinguished yourself. In spite of these words and of the expressions which I have purposely put in italics and the whole tone of the letter, staff-captain Mikhailov recalled, with inexpressibly sad delight, his pale friend in the provinces, and how she had sat with him in the arbor in the evening, and talked about sentiment, and he thought of his good comrade, the Ulan, and of how the latter had grown angry, and had lost the game when they had played cards for

Starting point is 00:47:25 kopeck's takes in his study and how the wife had laughed at them he recalled the friendship of these two people for himself perhaps it seemed to him to lie chiefly on the side of his pale feminine friend all these faces with their surroundings flitted before his mind's eye in a wonderfully sweet cheerfully rosy light and smiling at his reminiscences he placed his hand on the pocket which contained the letter so dear to him from reminiscences captain mickoloff involuntarily proceeded to dreams and hopes and what will be the joy and amazement of natasha he thought as he paced along the narrow lane when she suddenly reads in the imbalide a description of how i was the first to climb upon the canon and that i have received the george i shall certainly be promoted to a full captaincy by virtue of seniority then it is quite possible that i may get the grade of major in the line this very year because many of our brothers have already been killed and many more will be in this campaign and after that there will be more affairs on hand and a regiment will be entrusted to me since i am an experienced man lieutenant colonel the order of st anna on my neck colonel and he was already a general granting an interview to natuette and he was already a general granting an interview to natasha the widow of his comrade who according to his dreams would have died by that time when the sounds of the music on the boulevard penetrated more distinctly to his ears the crowds of people caught his eye and he found himself on the boulevard a staff-captain of infantry as before end of chapters one and two

Starting point is 00:49:23 chapters three and four of sebastopol by leo tolstoy this libervox recording is in the public domain chapters three and four of part two sebastopol in may eighteen fifty five he went first of all to the pavilion near which were standing the musicians for whom other soldiers of the same regiment were holding the notes in the absence of stands and about whom a ring of cadets nurses and children had formed intent rather on seeing than on hearing. Around the pavilion stood, sat, or walked sailors, adjudants, and officers in white gloves. Along the Grand Avenue of the boulevard paste officers of every sort and women of every description, rarely in bonnets, mostly with kerchiefs on their heads.

Starting point is 00:50:19 Some had neither bonnets nor kerchiefs, but no one was old and it was worthy of note that all were gay young creatures. Beyond, in the shady and fragrant alleys of white acacia, isolated groups walked and sat. No one was especially delighted to encounter Captain Mikhailov on the boulevard, with the exception possibly of the captain of his regiment, Obzikov and Captain Suslikov, who pressed his hand warmly,

Starting point is 00:50:49 but the former was dressed in camel's hair trousers, no gloves, a threadbare coat, and his face was very red and covered with perspiration, and the second shouted so loudly and incoherently that it was mortifying to walk with them, particularly in the presence of the officers in white gloves, with one of whom an adjutant staff-captain Mikhailov exchanged bows, and he might have bowed to another staff officer, since he had met him twice at the house of a mutual acquaintance. what pleasure was it to him to promenade with these two gentlemen obzikov and suslakov when he had met with them and shaken hands with them six times that day already it was not for this that he had come

Starting point is 00:51:37 he wanted to approach the adjutant with whom he had exchanged bows and to enter into conversation with these officers not for the sake of letting captains obzikov and suslakov and lieutenant pashetschki see him talking with them but simply because they were agreeable people and what was more they knew the news and would have told it but why is captain mikhilov afraid and why cannot he make up his mind to approach them what if they should all at once refuse to recognise me he thinks or having bowed to me what if they continue their conversation among themselves as though i did not exist or walk away from me entirely and leave me standing there alone among the aristocrats the word aristocrats in the sense of a higher select circle in any rank of life has acquired for some time past with us in russia a great popularity and has penetrated into every locality and into every class of society whither vanity has penetrated among merchants among officials writers and officers to saratov to mamadv to mahmadwish to venice to venice every one where men exist to captain obsocof staff captain micoloff was an aristocrat to staff captain mikhilov adjutant kalugin was an aristocrat because he was an adjutant and was on such a footing with the other adjutants as to call them thou to adjutant kalugin count nordoff was an aristocrat because he was an adjutant on the emperor's staff vanity vanity and vanity every everywhere even on the brink of the grave and among men ready to die for the highest convictions vanity it must be that it is a characteristic trait and a peculiar malady of our century why was nothing ever heard among the men of former days of this passion any more than of the smallpox or the cholera why did homer and shakespeare talk of love of glory of suffering while the literature

Starting point is 00:53:52 of our age is nothing but an endless narrative of snobs and vanity the staff-captain walked twice in indecision past the group of his aristocrats and the third time he exerted an effort over himself and went up to them this group consisted of four officers adjutant kalugin an acquaintance of mikhilov's adjutant prince gaultsin who was something of an aristocrat even for kalugin himself colonel nefferdof one of the so-called hundred and twenty-two men of the world who had entered the service for this campaign from the retired list and captain of cavalry preschukin also one of the hundred and twenty-two luckily for michelov kalugan was in a very fine humour the general had just been talking to him in a very confidential way and prince gaultson who had just arrived from petersburg was stopping with him he did not consider it beneath his dignity to give his hand to captain mikhilov which pashkushkin however could not make up his mind to do though he had met mikhilov very frequently on the bastion had drunk the latter's wine and vodka and was even indebted to him twenty roubles and a half at preference as he did not yet know prince galtzen very well he did not wish to convict himself in the latter's presence of an acquaintance with a simple staff-time but he did not wish to convict himself in the latter's presence of an acquaintance with a simple staff-toff

Starting point is 00:55:22 captain of infantry he bowed slightly to the latter well captain said kalugin when are we to go to the bastion again do you remember how we met each other on the schvarts redoubt it was hot there yes it was hot said mikhilov recalling how he had that night as he was making his way along the trenches to the bastion encountered kalugan who was walking along like a hero valiantly clanking his sword i ought to have gone there to-morrow according to present arrangements but we have a sick man pursued mikhilov one officer as he was about to relate how it was not his turn but as the commander of the eighth company was ill and the company had only a cornet left he had regarded it as his duty to offer himself in the place of lieutenant nepshipsky and was therefore going to the bastion to-day but kalugan did not hear him out i have a feeling that something is going to happen within a few days he said to prince gultson and won't there be something to-day asked mikhilov glancing first at calugan then at no one made him any reply prince gultson merely frowned a little sent his eyes past the other's cap and after maintaining silence for a moment said that's a magnificent girl in the red kerchief you don't know her do you captain she lives near my quarters she is the daughter of a sailor replied the staff-captain come on let's have a good look at her and prince guldson linked one arm in that of calugan the other and that of the staff-captain being convinced in advance that he could afford the latter no greater gratification which was in fact quite true the staff-captain was superstitious and considered it a great sin to occupy himself with women before

Starting point is 00:57:21 a battle, but on this occasion he feigned to be a vicious man, which Prince Galtson and Calugan evidently did not believe, and which greatly amazed the girl in the red kerchief, who had more than once observed how the staff-captain blushed as he passed her little window. Prashkuchen walked behind and kept touching Prince Galtson with his hand and making various remarks in the French tongue, but as a fourth person could not walk on the small path, he was obliged to walk alone and it was only on the second round that he took the arm of the brave and well-known naval officer sir vaguen who had stepped up and spoken to him and who was also desirous of joining the circle of aristocrats and the gallant and famous beau joyfully thrust his honest and muscular hand through the elbow of a man who was known to all and even well known to sir vicaran as not to too nice when prashkuchen exclaimed to the prince his acquaintance with that sailor whispered to him that the latter was well known for his bravery prince coltson having been on the fourth bastion on the previous evening having seen a bomb burst twenty paces from him

Starting point is 00:58:39 considering himself no less a hero than this gentleman and thinking that many a reputation is acquired undeservedly paid no particular attention to serve it was so agreeable to staff-captain mickelov to walk about in this company that he forgot the dear letter from tea and the gloomy thoughts which had assailed him in connection with his impending departure for the bastion he remained with them until they began to talk exclusively among themselves avoiding his glances thereby giving him to understand that he might go and finally deserted him entirely but the staff-captain was content nevertheless and as he passed yunco varroen pesch who had been particularly haughty and self-conceited since the preceding night which was the first that he had spent in the bomb-proof of the fifth bastion and consequently considered himself a hero he was not in the least offended at the presumptuous expression with which the yunker straightened himself up and doffed his hat before him chapter four when later the staff-captain crossed the threshold of his quarters entirely different thoughts entered his mind he looked around his little chamber with its uneven earth floor and saw the windows all awry pasted over with paper his old bed with a rug nailed over it upon which was depicted a lady on horseback and over which hung two tula pistols the dirty couch of a cadet who lived with him and which was depicted a lady on horseback and over which hung two tula pistols the dirty couch of a cadet who lived with him and which was a was covered with a chintz coverlet he saw his nikita who with untidy tallowed hair rose from the floor scratching his head he saw his ancient cloak his extra pair of boots and a little bundle from which peeped a bit of cheese and the neck of a porter-bottle filled with vodka

Starting point is 01:00:38 which had been prepared for his use on the bastion and all at once he remembered that he was obliged to go with his company that night to the fortifications it is certainly foreordained that i am to be killed to-night thought the captain i do feel it and the principal point is that i need not have gone but that i offered myself and the man who thrusts himself forward is always killed and what's the matter with that a cursed nepschitzky it is quite possible that he is not sick at all and they will kill another man for his sake they will infallibly kill him however if they don't kill me i shall be promoted probably i saw how delighted the regimental commander was when i asked him to allow me to go if lieutenant knapschepski was ill if i don't turn out a major then i shall certainly get the vladimir cross this is the thirteenth time that i have been to the bastion ah the thirteenth is an unlucky number they will surely kill me i feel that i shall be killed but some one had to go it was impossible for the lieutenant of the corps to go and whatever happens the honour of the regiment the honour of the army depends on it it was my duty to go yes my sacred duty but i have a foreboding the captain forgot that this was not the first time that a similar foreboding had assailed him in a greater or less degree when it had been necessary to go to the bastion and he did not know that every one who sets out on an affair experiences this foreboding with more or less force having calmed himself with this conception of duty which was especially and strongly developed in the staff-captain he seated himself with this conception of duty which was especially and strongly developed in the staff-captain he seated himself

Starting point is 01:02:35 himself at the table and began to write a farewell letter to his father ten minutes later having finished his letter he rose from the table his eyes wet with tears and mentally reciting all the prayers he knew he set about dressing his coarse drunken servant indolently handed him his new coat the old one which the captain generally wore when going to the bastion was not mended why is not my coat mended you never do anything but sleep you good for nothing said mikhilov angrily sleep grumbled nikita you run like a dog all day long perhaps you stop but you must not sleep even then you are drunk again i see i didn't get drunk on your money so you needn't scold hold your tongue blockhead shouted the captain who was ready to strike the man he had been absent-minded at first he had been absent-minded at first but now he was at last out of patience and embittered by the rudeness of Nikita whom he loved even spoiled and who had lived with him for twelve years blockhead blockhead repeated the servant why do you call me blockhead sir is this a time for that sort of a thing it is not good to curse mickilov recalled whither he was on the point of going and felt ashamed of himself you are enough to put a saint out of patience Nikita he said in a gentle voice leave that letter to my father on the table and don't touch it he added turning red yes sir said Nikita melting under

Starting point is 01:04:16 the influence of the wine which he had drunk as he had said at his own expense and winking his eyes with a visible desire to weep but when the captain said goodbye Nikita on the porch Nikita suddenly broke down into repress sobbs and ran to kiss his master's hand farewell master he exclaimed sobbing the old sailor's wife who was standing on the porch could not in her capacity of a woman refrain from joining in this touching scene so she began to wipe her eyes with her dirty sleeve and to say something about even gentlemen having their trials to bear and that she poor creature had been left a widow and she related for the hundredth time to drunken nekita the story of her woes how her husband had been killed in the first bombardment and how her little house had been utterly ruined the one in which she was now living did not belong to her and so on when his master had departed nekita lighted his pipe requested the daughter of their landlord to go for some vodka and very soon ceased to weep but on the contrary got into a quarrel with the old woman about some small bucket which he declared she had broken but perhaps i shall only be wounded meditated the captain as he marched through the twilight to the bastion with his company

Starting point is 01:05:41 but where how here or here he thought indicating his belly and his breast if it should be here he thought of the upper portion of his leg it might run round well but if it were here and by a splinter that would finish me the captain reached the fortification safely through the trenches set his men to work with the assistance of an officer of sappers in the darkness which was complete and seated himself in a pit behind the breastworks there was not much firing only once in a while the lightning flashed from our batteries then from his and the brilliant fuse of a bomb traced an arc of flame against the dark starry heavens but all the bombs fell far far in the rear and to the right of the rifle-pits in which the captain sat he drank his vodka ate his cheese lit his cigarette and after saying his prayers he tried to get a little sleep end of chapters three and four chapters five and six of savastable by leo tolstoy this liber box recording is in the public domain chapters five and six of part two savastable in may eighteen fifty prince galtzen lieutenant-colon neffredoff and prescuchin whom no one had invited to whom no one spoke but who never left them all went to drink tea with adjutant kalugin well you did not finish telling me about vaska mendel said kalugin as he took off his cloak seated himself by the window in a soft lounging-chair and unbuttoned the collar of his fresh stiffly starched cambric shirt how did he come to marry that's a joke my dear fellow there was a time i assure you when nothing else was talked of in petersburg said prince galtson with a laugh as he sprang up from the piano and seated himself on the window beside

Starting point is 01:07:52 it is simply ludicrous and i know all the details of the affair and he began to relate in a merry and skilful manner a love-story which we will omit because he began to relate in a merry and skilful manner a love-story which we will omit because it possesses no interest for us but it is worthy of note that not only prince gaultson but all the gentlemen who had placed themselves here one on the window-sill another with his legs coiled up under him a third at the piano seemed totally different persons from what they were when on the boulevard there was nothing of that absurd arrogance and haughtiness which they and their kind exhibit in public to the infantry officers here they there was nothing of that absurd arrogance and haughtiness which they and their kind exhibit in public to the infantry officers here they they were among their own set and natural especially kalugan and prince gultson and were like very good amiable and merry children the conversation turned on their companions in the service in petersburg and on their acquaintances what of masloffsky which the ulan of the body-guard or of the horse-guard why no both of them the one in the horse-guards was with me when he was a little boy and had only just left school what is the elder one a captain of cavalry oh yes long ago and is he still going about with his gipsy-maid oh no he has deserted her and so forth and so forth in the same strain then prince goulson seated himself at the piano and sang a gipsy song in magnificent style prashkuchen began to sing second although no one had asked him and he did it so well that they requested him to accompany the prince again which he gladly consented to do the servant came in with the tea cream and cracknels on a silver salver serve the prince said calugan really it is strange to think said

Starting point is 01:09:50 said Galtson, taking a glass, and walking to the window, that we are in a beleaguered city, tea with cream, and such quarters as I should be only too happy to get in Petersburg. Yes, if it were not for that, said the old lieutenant-colonel, who was dissatisfied with everything, this constant waiting for something would be simply unendurable, and to see how men are killed, killed every day, and there is no end to it, and under such circumstances it would not be comfortable to live in the mud and how about our infantry officers said kalugan they live in the bastions with the soldiers and the casemates and eat beet soup with the soldiers how about them how about them they don't change their linen for ten days at a time and they are heroes wonderful men at this moment an officer of infantry entered the room i i was ordered may i present myself to the gen to his excellency from general inn he inquired bowing with an air of embarrassment

Starting point is 01:10:59 kalugan rose but without returning the officer's salute he asked him with insulting courtesy and strained official smile whether they would not wait a while and without inviting him to be seated or paying any further attention to him he turned to prince gultson and began to speak to him in french so that the unhappy officer who remained standing in the middle of the room absolutely did not know what to do with himself it is on very important business sir said the officer after a momentary pause ah very well then said calugan putting on his cloak and accompanying him to the door eh bien messieurs i think there will be a hot work to-night said calugin in french on his return from the generals hey what a sortie they all began to question him i don't know yet you will see for yourselves replied calugan with a sortie they all began to question him i don't know yet you will see for yourselves replied calugan with a mysterious smile and my commander is on the bastion of course i shall have to go said prescuchin buckling on his sword but no one answered him he must know for himself whether he had to go or not prashkuchen and nephrodolf went off in order to betake themselves to their posts farewell gentlemen oh ravois gentlemen we shall meet again to-night shouted kalugin from the window when prashkuchen and nephrodolf trotted down the street bending over the bows of their cossack saddles the trampling of their cossack horses soon died away in the dusky street no tell me is something really going to take place to-night said galtzen in french as he leaned with calugan on the window-seal and gazed at the bombs which were flying over the bastions

Starting point is 01:12:51 i can tell you you see you have been on the bastions of course gueltson made a sign of assent although he had been only once to the fourth bastion well there was a trench opposite our lunette said kalugin who was not a specialist although he considered his judgment on military affairs particularly accurate began to explain the position of our troops and of the enemy's works and the plan of the proposed affair mixing up the technical terms of fortifications a good deal in the process but they are beginning to hammer away at our casements ho ho was that ours or his there it has burst they said as they leaned on the window-seal gazing at the fiery line of the bomb which exploded in the air at the lightning of the discharges at the dark-blue sky momentarily illuminated and at the white smoke of the powder and listened to the sounds of the firing which grew louder and louder what a charming sight is it not said calugan in french directing the attention of his guest to the really beautiful spectacle do you know you cannot distinguish the stars from the bombs at times yes i was just thinking that that was a star but it darted down there it has burst now and that big star yonder what is it called it is it called it is just thinking that that was a star but it darted down there it has burst now and that big star yonder what is it called it called it is is just exactly like a bomb do you know i have grown so used to these bombs that i am convinced that a starlight night in russia will always seem to me to be all bombs one gets so accustomed to them but am not i to go on this sorty inquired gaultson after a momentary silence enough of that brother don't think of such a thing i won't let you go replied kalugan your turn will come brother seriously

Starting point is 01:14:50 so you think it is not necessary to go eh at that moment a frightful crash of rifles was heard in the direction in which these gentlemen were looking above the roar of the cannon and thousands of small fires flaring up incessantly without intermission flashed along the entire line that's it when the real work has begun said kalugin that is the sound of the rifles and i cannot hear it in cold blood it takes a sort of hold on your soul you know and there is the hurrah he added listening to the prolonged and distant roar of hundreds of voices ah which reached him from the bastion what is this hurrah theirs or ours i don't know but it has come to a hand-to-hand fight for the fireman which reached him from the bastion what is this hurrah theirs or ours i don't know but it has come to a hand-to-hand fight for the fire has ceased at that moment an officer followed by his cossack galloped up to the porch and slipped down from his horse where from the bastion the general is wanted let us go well now what is it they have attacked the lodgments have taken them the french have brought up their heavy reserves they have attacked our forces there were only two battalions said the panting officer who was the same that had come in the evening drawing his breath with difficulty but stepping to the door with perfect unconcern well have they retreated inquired galtzen no answered the officer angrily the battalion came up and beat them back but the commander of the regiment is killed and many officers and i have been ordered to ask for reinforcements and with these words he and kalugan went off to the general whither we will not follow them five minutes later kalugan was mounted on the cossacks horse and with that peculiar quasi-cosax seat in which as i have observed all the adjutants find something especially captivating for some reason or other

Starting point is 01:16:53 and rode at a trot to the bastion in order to give some orders and to await the news of the final result of the affair and prince galtzen under the influence of that oppressive emotion which the signs of a battle near at hand usually produce on a specting who takes no part in it went out into the street and began to pace up and down there without any object chapter six the soldiers were bearing the wounded on stretchers and supporting them by their arms it was completely dark in the streets now and then a rare light flashed in the hospital or from the spot where the officers were seated the same thunder of cannon and exchange of rifle shots was borne from the bastions and the same thunder of cannon and exchange of rifle shots was borne from the bastions and the same fires flashed against the dark heavens now and then you could hear the trampling hoofs of an orderly's horse the groan of a wounded man the footsteps and voices of the stretcher-bearers or the conversation of some of the frightened female inhabitants who had come out on their porches to view the cannonade among the latter were our acquaintances nikita the old sailor's widow with whom he had already made his peace and her ten-year-old daughter lord most holy mother of god whispered the old woman to herself with a sigh as she watched the bombs which like balls of fire sailed incessantly from one side to the other what a shame what a shame i i was so it was not so in the first bombardment see there it has burst the cursed thing right above our house in the suburbs no it is farther off in aunt arinka's garden that they all fall said the little girl and where where is my master now said nikita with a drawl for he was still rather drunk oh how i love that master of mine i don't know myself i love him so that if which god forbid they should kill him in this sinful fight

Starting point is 01:19:01 then if you will believe it auntie i don't know myself what i might do to myself in that case by heavens i don't he is such a master that words will not do him justice would i exchange him for one of those who play cards that is simply whew that's all there is to say concluded nikita pointing at the lighted window of his master's room in which as the staff-captain was absent yunker zavetschki had invited his friends to a carouse on the occasion of his receiving the cross sub-lieutenant ugravitch and sub-lutinit nebjewski who was ill with a cold in the head those little stars they dart through the sky like stars like stars said the little girl breaking the silence which succeeded nekita's words there there another has dropped why do they do it mamma they will ruin our little cabin entirely said the old woman sighing and not replying to her little daughter's question and when uncle and i went there to-day mamma continued the little girl in a shrill voice there was such a big cannon-ball lying in the room near the cupboard it had broken through the wall and into the room and it is so big that you couldn't lift it those who had husbands and money have gone away said the old woman and now they have ruined my last little house see see how they are firing the wretches lord lord and as soon as we came out a bomb flew at us and burst and scattered the earth about and a piece of the shell came near striking uncle and me

Starting point is 01:20:49 end of chapters five and six chapters seven and eight of sevastopol by leo tolstoy this liber box recording is in the public domain chapters seven and eight of part two sebastopol in may eighteen fifty five prince gualtson met more and more wounded men in stretchers and on foot supporting each other and talking loudly when they rushed up brothers said one tall soldier who had two guns on his shoulder in a base voice when they rushed up and shouted allah allah they pressed each other on you kill one and another takes his place you can do nothing you never saw such numbers as there were of them but at this point in his story gultson interrupted him you come from the bastion just so your honour well what has been going on there tell me why what has been going on they attacked in force your honour they climbed over the wall and that's the end of it they conquered completely your honor how conquered you repulsed them surely how could we repulsed them when he came up with his whole force they killed all our men and there was no help given us the soldier was mistaken for the trenches were behind our forces but this is a peculiar thing which any one may observe a soldier who has been wounded in an engagement always thinks that the day has been lost and that the encounter has been a frightfully bloody one then what did they mean by telling me that you had repulsed them said Galtson with irritation perhaps the enemy was repulsed after you left

Starting point is 01:22:47 is it long since you came away I have this instant come from there your honor replied the soldier it is hardly possible the trenches remain in his hands he won a complete victory well and are you not ashamed to have surrendered the trenches this is horrible said gultson angered by such indifference what when he was there in force growled the soldier and your honour said a soldier on a stretcher who had just come up with them how could we help surrendering when nearly all of us had been killed if we had been in force we would only have surrendered with our lives but what was there to do i ran one man through and then i was struck oh so softly brothers steady brother brothers. Go more steadily, oh, groaned the wounded man. There really seemed to be a great many extra men coming this way, said Galtzen, again stopping the tall soldier with the two rifles. Why are you walking off? Hey there, halt! The soldier halted and removed his cap with his left hand.

Starting point is 01:23:57 Where are you going? And why? he shouted at him sternly. But approaching the soldier very closely at that moment, he perceived that the the latter's right arm was bandaged and covered with blood far above the elbow i am wounded your honor wounded how it must have been a bullet here said the soldier pointing at his arm but i cannot tell yet my head has been broken by something and bending over he showed the hair upon the back of it all clotted together with blood and whose gun is that second one you have a choice french one your honor i captured it and i should not have come away if it had not been to accompany this soldier he might fall down he added pointing at the soldier who was walking a little in front leaning upon his gun and dragging his left foot heavily after him prince gultson all at once became frightfully ashamed of his unjust suspicions he felt that he was growing crimson and turned away without questioning the wounded men further and without looking after them, he went to the place where the injured men were being cared for. Having forced his way with difficulty to the porch, through the wounded men who had come on foot, and the

Starting point is 01:25:17 stretcher-bearers who were entering with the wounded and emerging with the dead, Galtzen entered the first room, glanced round, and involuntarily turned back, and immediately ran into the street. It was too terrible. the vast dark lofty hall lighted only by the four or five candles which the doctors were carrying about to inspect the wounded was literally full the stretcher-bearers brought in the wounded ranged them one beside another on the floor which was already so crowded that the unfortunate wretches hustled each other and sprinkled each other with their blood and then went forth for more the pools of blood which were visible on the unoccupied places the hot breaths of several hundred men and the steam which rose from those who were toiling with the stretchers produced a peculiar thick heavy offensive atmosphere in which the candles burned dimly in the different parts of the room the dull murmur of divers groans sighs sighs death-rattles broken now and again by a shriek was borne throughout the apartment sisters of charity with tranquil faces and with an expression not of empty feminine tearfully sickly compassion but of active practical sympathy

Starting point is 01:26:44 flitted hither and thither among the blood-stained cloaks and shirts stepping over the wounded with medicine water bandages lent doctors with their sleeves rolled up knelt beside the wounded beside whom the assistant surgeons held the candles inspecting feeling and probing the wounds in spite of the terrible groans and entreaties of the sufferers one of the doctors was seated at a small table by the door and at the moment when gultson entered the room he was just writing down number five three two ivan bogeth common soldier third company of the s regiment fractura femores complicata called another from the extremity of the hall as he felt of the crushed leg turn him over oi my father's good fathers shrieked the soldier beseeching them not to touch him petheratio capitis semyon neferdhof lieutenant-colonel of the en regiment of infantry have a little patience colonel you can only be attended to this way i will let you alone said a third picking away at the head of the unfortunate colonel with some sort of a hook ay stop ah for god's sake quick quick for the sake ptferratio pectoris sebastian nisereda common soldier of what regiment however you need not write that moritur carry him away said the doctor abandoning the soldier who was rolling his eyes and already emitting the death-rattle forty stretcher-bearers stood at the door awaiting the task of transporting to the heart hospital the men who had been attended to and the dead to the chapel, and gazed at this

Starting point is 01:28:41 picture in silence, only uttering a heavy sigh from time to time. End of chapters 7 and 8. Chapters 9 and 10 of Sevastopol by Leo Tolstoy. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Chapters 9 and 10 of Part 2, Sebastopol in May 1855. on his way to the bastion kalugin met numerous wounded men but knowing from experience that such a spectacle has a bad effect on the spirits of a man on the verge of an action he not only did not pause to interrogate them but on the contrary he tried not to pay any heed to them at the foot of the hill he encountered an orderly who was galloping from the bastion at full speed zobkin zopkin stop a minute well what is it where are you from from the lodgments well how are things there hot oh frightfully and the orderly galloped on

Starting point is 01:29:49 in fact although there was not much firing from the rifles the cannonade had begun with fresh vigor and greater heat than ever ah that's bad thought kalugan experiencing a rather unpleasant sensation and there came to him also a pretty unpleasant sensation and there came to him also a presentiment, that is to say, a very usual thought, the thought of death. But Calugan was an egotist and gifted with nerves of steel. In a word, he was what is called brave. He did not yield to his first sensation, and began to arouse his courage. He recalled to mind a certain adjutant of Napoleon, who, after having given the command to advance, galloped up to Napoleon, his head all covered with blood. You, are wounded said Napoleon to him I beg your pardon sire I am dead and the adjutant fell from his horse and died on the spot this seemed very fine to him and he fancied that he

Starting point is 01:30:50 somewhat resembled this adjutant then he gave his horse a blow with a whip and assumed still more of that knowing cossack bearing glanced at his orderly who was galloping behind him standing upright in his stirrups and thus in dashing style, he reached the place where it was necessary to dismount. Here he found four soldiers who was smoking their pipes as they sat on the stones. "'What are you doing here?' he shouted at them. "'We have been carrying a wounded man from the field, Your Honor, and have sat down to rest,' one of them replied, concealing his pipe behind his back and pulling off his cap.

Starting point is 01:31:29 "'Resting, indeed! March off to your posts!' And in company with them, he walked up. the hill through the trenches encountering wounded men at every step on attaining the crest of the hill he turned to the left and after taking a few steps found himself quite alone splinters whizzed near him and struck in the trenches another bomb rose in front of him and seemed to be flying straight at him all of a sudden he felt terrified he ran off five paces at full speed and lay down on the ground. But when the bomb burst and at a distance from him, he grew dreadfully vexed at himself and glanced about as he rose to see whether anyone had perceived him fall,

Starting point is 01:32:15 but there was no one about. When fear has once made its way into the mind, it does not speedily give way to another feeling. He, who had boasted that he would never bend, hastened along the trench with accelerated speed and almost on his hands and knees, Ah, this is very bad, he thought, as he stumbled, I shall certainly be killed. And, conscious of how difficult it was for him to breathe, and that the perspiration was breaking out all over his body, he was amazed at himself, but he no longer strove to conquer his feelings. All at once steps became audible in advance of him. He quickly straightened himself up, raised his head, and, boldly clanking his sword, began to proceed at a

Starting point is 01:33:03 slower pace than before. He did not know himself. When he joined the officer of the sappers and the sailor who were coming to meet him, and the former called to him, lie down, pointing to the bright speck of a bomb, which, growing ever brighter and brighter, swifter and swifter, as it approached, crashed down in the vicinity of the trench. He only bent his head a very little, involuntarily, under the influence of the terrified shout, and went his way. Woo! What a brave man! ejaculated the sailor, who had calmly watched the exploding bomb, and with practised glance at once calculated that its splinters could not strike inside the trench. He did not even wish to lie down. Only a few steps remained to be taken across an open space,

Starting point is 01:33:55 before Kalugan would reach the casement of the commander of the bastion, when he was again attacked by dimness of vision and that stupid sensation of fear. His heart began to beat more violently, the blood rushed to his head, and he was obliged to exert an effort over himself in order to reach the casement. Why are you so out of breath? inquired the general, when Kalugan had communicated to him his orders. I've been walking very fast, your excellency. will you not take a glass of wine kalugan drank the wine and lighted a cigarette the engagement had already come to an end only the heavy cannonade continued going on from both sides

Starting point is 01:34:39 in the casement sat general inn the commander of the bastion and six other officers among whom was prashkuchen discussing various details of the conflict seated in this comfortable apartment with blue hangings with a sofa, a bed, a table, covered with papers, a wall clock, and the holy pictures, before which burned a lamp, and gazing upon these signs of habitation, and at the Arshintech, twenty-eight inches, beams which formed the ceiling, and listening to the shots, which were deadened by the casement, Kalugan positively could not understand how he had twice permitted himself to be overcome with such unpardonable weakness he was angry with himself and he longed for danger in order that he might subject himself to another trial i am glad that you are here captain he said to a naval officer in the cloak of staff officer with a large moustache and the cross of st george who entered the casement at that moment and asked the general to give him some men that he might repair the two embrasures on his battery which had been demolished the general ordered me to inquire continued kalugan when the commander of the battery ceased to address the general whether your guns can fire grape-shot into the trenches

Starting point is 01:36:02 only one of my guns will do that replied the captain gruffly let us go and see all the same the captain frowned and grunted angrily i have already passed the whole night there and i came here to try and get a little rest said he cannot you go alone my assistant lieutenant carts is there and he will show you everything the captain had now been for six months in command of this one of the most dangerous of the batteries and even when there were no casements he had lived without relief in the bastion and among the sailors from the beginning of the siege and he bore a reputation among them for bravery therefore his refusal particularly struck and amazed galugan that's what reputation is worth he thought well then i will go alone if you will permit it he said in a somewhat bantering tone to the captain who however paid not the slightest heed to his words but kalugan did not reflect that he had passed in all at different times perhaps fifty hours on the bastion while the captain had lived there for six months kalugan was actuated moreover by vanity by a desire to shine by the hope of reward of reputation and by the charm of risk but the captain had already gone through all that he had been vain at first he had displayed valour he had risked his life he had hoped for fame and gerardin and had even obtained them but these actuating motives had already lost their power over him and he regarded the matter in another light he fulfilled his duty with punctuality but understanding quite well how small were the chances for his life which were left him after a six months residence in the bastion

Starting point is 01:37:57 he no longer risked these casualties except in case of stern necessity so that the young lieutenant who had entered the battery only a week previous and who was now showing it to kalugan in company with whom he took turns in leaning out of the embrasure or climbing out on the ramparts seemed ten times as brave as the captain after inspecting the battery kalugin returned to the casement and ran against the general in the dark as the latter was ascending to the watch-tower with his staff officers captain praskooken said the general pleased to go to the first lodgment and say to the second battery of the m regiment which is at work there that they are to abandon their work to evacuate the place without making any noise and to join their regiment which is standing at the foot of the hill in reserve. Do you understand? Lead them to their regiment yourself. Oh, yes, sir. And Praskushkin set out for the lodgment on a run.

Starting point is 01:39:00 The firing was growing more infrequent. Chapter 10 Is this the second battalion of the M-regiment? Asked Prashkushkin, hastening up to the spot and running against the soldiers who were carrying earth in sacks. Exactly so. Where is the commander? Mikhailov, supposing that the inquiry was for the commander of the corps,

Starting point is 01:39:25 crawled out of his pit, and taking Prashkushkin for the colonel, he stepped up to him with his hand at his visor. The general has given orders that you are to be so good as to go as quickly as possible, and in particular as quietly as possible, to the rear, not to the rear exactly, but to the reserve, said Praskushkin, glancing askance at the enemy's fires. On recognizing Prashkushkin and discovering the state of things, Mikhailov dropped his hands, gave his orders, and the battalion started into motion, gathered up their guns, put on their cloaks, and set out.

Starting point is 01:40:05 No one who has not experienced it can imagine the delight which a man feels when he takes his departure after a three-hour's bombardment from such a dangerous post as the lodgments. Several times in the course of those three hours, Mikhailov had not without reason considered his end as inevitable and had grown accustomed to the conviction that he should infallibly be killed and that he no longer belonged to this world. In spite of this, however, he had great difficulty in keeping his feet from running away with him when he issued from the lodgments at the head of his corps in company with prashkuken oh revoy said the major the commander of another battalion who was to remain in the lodgments and with whom he had shared his cheese as they sat in the pit behind the breastworks a pleasant journey to you thanks i hope you will have good luck after we have gone the firing seems to be holding up but no sooner had he said this than the enemy who must have observed the movement in the lodgments began to fire faster and faster our guns began to reply to him and again a heavy cannonade began the stars were gleaming high but not brilliantly in the sky the night was dark you could hardly see your hand before you only the flashes of the discharges and the explosions of the bombs illuminated objects for a moment

Starting point is 01:41:35 the soldiers marched on rapidly in silence involuntarily treading close on each other's heels all that was audible through the incessant firing was the measured sound of their footsteps on the dry road the noise of their bayonets as they came in contact or the sigh and prayer of some young soldier lord lord what is this now and then the groan of a wounded man arose and the shout stretcher in the company commanded by mikhailov twenty-six men were killed in one night by the fire of the artillery alone the lightning flashed against the distant horizon the sentry in the bastion shouted cannon and the ball shrieking over the heads of the corps tore up the earth and sent the stones flying deuce take it how slowly they march thought prescuchkin glancing back continually as he walked beside mikhailup really it will be better for me to run on in front i have already given the order but no it might be said later on that i was a coward what will be will be i will march with them now why is he walking behind me thought mikhailov on his side so far as i have observed he always brings ill luck there it comes flying straight for us apparently after traversing several hundred paces they encountered kelugan who was going to the casemates clanking his sword boldly as he walked in order to learn by the general's command how the work was progressing there but on mili mikhailov it occurred to him that instead of going thither under that terrible fire which he was not ordered to do he could make minute inquiries of the officer who had been there and in fact mackayloff furnished him with a detailed account of the work

Starting point is 01:43:28 after walking a short distance with them kalugan turned into the trench which led to the casemate well what news is there inquired the officer who was seated alone at the table and eating his supper well nothing apparently except that there will not be any further conflict how so on the contrary the general has but just gone up to the top of the works a regiment has already arrived yes there it is do you hear the firing has begun again don't go why should you added the officer perceiving the movement made by kalugin but i must be there without fail in the present instance thought kalugan but i have already subjected myself to a great deal of danger to-day the firing is terrible well after all i had better wait for him here he said in fact the general returned twenty minutes later accompanied by the officers who had been with him among their number was the yunker baron pesch but prescchkushkin was not with them the lodgments had been captured and occupied by our forces after receiving a full account of the engagement kalugin and peh went out of the casemates end of chapters nine and ten chapters eleven and twelve of sebastopol by leo tolstoy this liber box recording is in the public domain chapters eleven and twelve of part two sebastopol in may eighteen fifty five there is blood on your cloak have you been having a hand-to-hand fight kalugan asked him oh tis frightful just imagine and pesh began to relate how he had led his company how the commander of the company had been killed how he had spitted a frenchman and how if it had not been for him the battle would have been lost

Starting point is 01:45:32 the foundations for this tale that the company commander had been killed and that pesht had killed a frenchman were correct but in giving the details the yunker had invented facts and bragged he bragged involuntarily because during the whole engagement he had been in a kind of mist and had forgotten himself to such a degree that everything which happened seemed to him to have happened somewhere some time and with some one and very naturally he had endeavoured to bring out these details in a light which should be favourable to himself but what had happened in reality was this the battalion to which the yonker had been ordered for the sortie had stood under fire for two hours near a wall then the commander of the battalion said something the company commanders made a move the battalion got under way issued forth from behind the breastworks marched forward a hundred paces and came to a halt in columns pesch had been ordered to take his stand on the right flank of the second company the yonker stood his ground absolutely without knowing where he was or why he was there and with restrained breath and with a cold chill running down his spine he had stared stupidly straight ahead into the dark beyond in the expectation of something terrible but since there was no firing in progress he did not feel so much terrified as he did queer and strange at finding himself outside the fortress in the open plain again the battalion commander ahead said something again the officers had conversed in whispers as they communicated the orders

Starting point is 01:47:17 and the black wall of the first company suddenly disappeared they had been ordered to lie down the second company lay down also and pesh in the act pricked his hand on something sharp the only man who did not lie down was the commander of the second company. His short form, with the naked sword, which he was flourishing, talking incessantly the while, moved about in front of the troops. Children, my lads, look at me. Don't fire at them, but at them with your bayonets, the dogs. When I shout hurrah, follow me close. The chief thing is to be as close together as possible. Let us show what we are made of. Do not let us cover ourselves with shame. Shall we, eh, my children, our father the czar what is our company commander's surname pesh inquired of a yunker who was lying beside him what a brave fellow he is yes he's always that way in a fight answered the yonker his name is lisenkowski

Starting point is 01:48:21 at that moment a flame flashed up in front of the company there was a crash which deafened them all stones and splinters flew high in the air fifty seconds at least later a stone fell from above and crushed the foot of a soldier this was a bomb from an elevated platform and the fact that it fell in the midst of the company proved that the french had caught sight of the column so they are sending bombs just let us get at you and you shall feel the bayonet of a three-sided russian curse you shouted the commander of the company in so loud a tone that the battalion commander was forced to order him to be quiet and not to make so much known noise after this the first company rose to their feet and after it the second they were ordered to fix bayonets and the battalion advanced pesh was so terrified that he absolutely could not recollect whether they advanced far or whither or who did what he walked like a drunken man but all at once millions of fires flashed from all sides there was a whistling and a crashing he shrieked and ran because they were all shrieking and running. Then he stumbled and fell upon something. It was the company commander, who had been wounded at the head of his men, and who, taking the yunker for a Frenchman, seized him by the leg. Then, when he had freed his leg and risen to his feet, some man ran against his back in the dark,

Starting point is 01:49:53 and almost knocked him down again. Another man shouted, Run him through! What are you staring at? then he seized a gun and ran the bayonet into something soft ah je exclaimed some one in a terribly piercing voice and then only did pesh discover that he had transfixed a frenchman the cold sweat started out all over his body he shook as though in a fever and flung away the gun but this lasted only a moment it immediately occurred to him that he was a hero he seized the gun again and shouting hurrah with the crowd he rushed away from the dead frenchman after having travelled about twenty paces he came to the trench there he found our men and the company commander i have run one man through he said to the commander you're a brave fellow baron chapter twelve but do you know praskushkowskin has been killed said pash a company in kalugin on the way back oh it cannot be but it can i saw him myself farewell i am in a hurry i am well content thought kalugin as he returned home i have had luck for the first time when on duty that was a capital engagement and i am alive and whole there will be some fine presentations and i shall certainly get a golden sword and i deserve it too after reporting to the general all that was necessary he went to his room in which sat prince gultson who had returned long before and who was reading a book which he had found on calugan's table while waiting for him

Starting point is 01:51:38 it was with a wonderful sense of enjoyment that calugan found himself at home again out of all danger and having donned his night-shirt and laying down on the sofa he began to relate to galtzen the particulars of the affair communicating them naturally from a point of view which made it appear that he kalugan was a very active and valiant officer to which in my opinion it was superfluous to refer seeing that every one knew it and that no one had any right to doubt it with the exception perhaps of the deceased captain praskushkin who in spite of the fact that he had considered it a piece of happiness to walk arm in arm with kalugin had told a friend only the evening before in private that kalugan was a very fine man but that between you and me he was terribly averse to going to the bastions no sooner had praskushkin who had been walking beside mikhailov taken leave of kalugin and that between you and me he was terribly averse to going to the bastions no sooner had praskushkin who had been walking beside mikhailov taken leave of kalugan and betaking himself to a safer place had begun to recover his spirit somewhat than he caught sight of a flash of lightning behind him flaring up vividly heard the shout of the sentinel mortar and the words of the soldiers who were marching behind it's flying straight at the bastion mikhailov glanced round the brilliant point of the bomb seemed to be suspended directly over his head in such a position that it was absolutely impossible to determine its course but this lasted only for a second the bomb came faster and faster nearer and nearer the sparks of the fuse were already visible and the fateful whistle was audible and it descended straight in the middle of the battalion lie down shouted a voice mikhailov and praskushkin threw themselves on the ground praskushkin shut his eyes and only heard the bomb crash against the hard earth somewhere in the vicinity

Starting point is 01:53:39 a second passed which seemed an hour and the bomb had not burst praskushkin was alarmed had he felt cowardly for nothing perhaps the bomb had fallen at a distance and it merely seemed to him that the fuse was hissing near him he opened his eyes and saw with satisfaction that mikhailov was lying motionless on the earth at his very feet but then his eyes encountered for a moment the glowing fuse of the bomb which was twisting about at a distance of an archen from him a cold horror which excluded every other thought and feeling took possession of his whole being he covered his face with his hands another second passed a second in which a whole world of thought thoughts, feelings, hopes, and memories flashed through his mind. Which will be killed, Mikhailov, or I, or both together? And if it is I, where will it strike? If in the head, then all is over with me. But if in the leg they will cut it off, and I shall ask them to be sure to give me chloroform,

Starting point is 01:54:46 and I may still remain among the living. But perhaps no one but Mikhailov will be killed. Then I will relate how we were walking along together, and how he would killed and his blood spurted over me no it is nearer to me it will kill me then he remembered the twenty roubles that he owed mikhailoff and recalled another debt in petersburg which ought to have been paid long ago the gipsy air which he had sung the previous evening recurred to him the woman whom he loved appeared to his imagination in a cap with lilac ribbons a man who had insulted him five years before and whom he had not paid off for his insult came to his mind though inextricably interwoven with these and with a thousand other memories the feeling of the moment the fear of death never deserted him for an instant but perhaps it will not burst he thought and with a decision of despair he tried to open his eyes but at that instant through the crevice of his eyelids his eyes were smitten with a red fire and something struck him in the centre of the breast with a frightful crash he ran off he knew not whither stumbled over his sword which had got between his legs and fell over on his side

Starting point is 01:56:07 thank god i am only bruised was his first thought and he tried to touch his breast with his hands but his arms seemed fettered and pincers were pressing his head the soldiers flitted before his eyes and he unconsciously counted them one two three soldiers and there is an officer wrapped up in his cloak he thought then a flash passed before his eyes and he thought that something had been fired off was it the mortars or the cannon it must have been the cannon and there was still another shot and there were more soldiers five six seven soldiers were passing by him then suddenly he felt afraid that they would crush him he wanted to shout to them that he was bruised but his mouth was so dry that his tongue clove to his palate and he was tortured by a frightful thirst he felt that he was wet about the breast this sensation of dampness reminded him of water and he even wanted to drink this whatever it was i must have brought the blood when i fell he thought and beginning to give way more and more to terror lest the soldiers who passed should crush him he'd collect all his strength and tried to cry, Take me with you! But instead of this, he groaned so terribly that it frightened him to hear himself.

Starting point is 01:57:31 Then more red fires flashed in his eyes, and it seemed to him as though the soldiers were laying stones upon him. The fires danced more and more rarely, and the stones which they piled on him, oppressed him more and more. He exerted all his strength in order to cast off the stones. he stretched himself out and no longer saw or heard or thought or felt anything he had been killed on the spot by a splinter of shell in the middle of the breast end of chapters eleven and twelve chapters thirteen and fourteen of sebastopol by leal tolstoy this libervox recording is in the public domain chapters thirteen and fourteen of part two sebastopol in may 1555.

Starting point is 01:58:28 Mikhailif, on a catching sight of the bomb, fell to the earth, and like Praskushkin, he went over in thought and feeling an incredible amount in those two seconds, while the bomb lay there unexploded. He prayed to God mentally, and kept repeating, Thigh will be done. And why did I enter the military service, he thought, at the same time, and why again did I exchange into the infantry in order to take part in this service? campaign. Would it not have been better for me to remain in the regiment of Ulan's in the town of T, and pass the time with my friend Natasha? And now this is what has come of it.

Starting point is 01:59:09 And he began to count, one, two, three, four, guessing that if it burst on the even number he would live, but if on the uneven number, then he should be killed. All is over, killed, he thought, when the bomb burst, he did not remember whether it was on the even, or for the uneven number and he fell to blow and a sharp pain in his head lord forgive my sins he murmured folding his hands then rose and fell back senseless his first sensation when he came to himself was the blood which was flowing from his nose and a pain in his head which had become much less powerful it is my soul departing he thought what will it be like there lord receive my soul in peace but one thing is strange he thought and that is that though dying i can still hear so plainly the footsteps of the soldiers and the report of the shots send some bearers hey there the captain is killed shouted a voice over his head which he recognized as the voice of his drummer some one grasped him by the shoulders he made an attempt to open his eyes and saw overhead the dark blue heavens the clusters of stars and two bombs which were flying over him one after the other he saw ignitya the soldiers with the stretcher the walls of the trench and all at once he became convinced that he was not yet in the other world he had been slightly wounded in the head with a stone his very first impression was one

Starting point is 02:00:47 resembling regret he had so beautifully and so calmly prepared himself for transit yonder that a return to reality with its bombs its trenches and its blood produced a disagreeable effect on him his second impression was an involuntary joy that he was alive and the third a desire to leave the bastion as speedily as possible the drummer bound up his commander's head with his handkerchief and taking him under the arm he led him to the place where the bandaging was going on. But where am I going, and why, thought the staff-captain, when he recovered his senses a little, it is my duty to remain with my men, the more so as they will soon be out of range of the shots, some voice whispered to him.

Starting point is 02:01:37 "'Never mind, brother,' he said, pulling his arm away from the obliging drummer, "'I will not go to the field-house-tel, I will remain with my men.' and he turned back you had better have your wound properly attended to your honour said ignatyev in the heat of the moment it seems as if it were a trifle but it will be the worse if not attended to there is some inflammation rising there really now your honour mikhilov paused for a moment an indecision and would have followed ignatius's advice in all probability had he not called to mind how many severely wounded men there must needs be at the field hospital perhaps the doctor will smile at my scratch thought the staff-captain and he returned with decision to his men wholly regardless of the drummer's admonitions and where is officer prescuchkin who was walking with me he asked the lieutenant who was leading the corps when they met i don't know killed probably replied the lieutenant reluctantly how is it that you do not know whether he was killed or wounded he was walking with us and why have you not carried him with you how could it be done brother when the place was so hot for us ah how could you do such a thing mikhail ivanovitch said mikhailov angrily how could you abandon him if he was alive and if he was dead you should still have brought away his body how could he be alive when as i tell you i went up to him and saw returned the lieutenant as you like however

Starting point is 02:03:16 only his own men might carry him off here you dogs the cannonade has abated he added mikhailov sat down and clasped his head which the motion caused to pain him terribly yes i must go and get him without fail perhaps he is still alive said mikhailov it is our duty mikhail ivanovitch mikhail ivanovitch made no reply he did not take him at the time and now the soldiers must be sent alone and how can they be sent their lives may be sacrificed in vain under that hot fire thought michaelov children we must go back and get the officer who was wounded there in the ditch he said in not too loud and commanding a tone for he felt how unpleasant it would be to the soldiers to obey his order and in fact as he did not address any one in particular by name no one set out to fulfil it it is quite possible that he is already dead and it is not worth while to subject the men to unnecessary danger i alone am to blame for not having seen to it i will go myself and learn whether he is alive it is my duty said mikhailov to himself mikhail ivanovitch lead the men forward and i will overtake you he said and pulling up his cloak with one hand and with the other constantly touching the image of st mitrophany in which he cherished a special faith he set off on a run along the trench having convinced himself that praskushkun was dead he dragged himself back panting and supporting with his hand the loosened bandage and his head which began to pain him severely the peterskin was dead he dragged himself back panting and supporting with his hand the loosened bandage and his head which began to pain him severely the battalion had already reached the foot of the hill and a place almost out of range of shots when mikhailoff overtook it i say almost out of range because some stray bombs struck here and there

Starting point is 02:05:14 at all events i must go to the hospital to-morrow and put down my name thought the staff-captain as the medical student assisting the doctors bound his wound chapter fourteen hundreds of bodies freshly smeared with blood of men who two hours previous had been filled with divers lofty or petty hopes and desires now lay with stiffened limbs in the dewy flowery valley which separated the bastion from the trench and on the level floor of the chapel for the dead in sebastopol hundreds of men crawled twisted and groaned with curses and prayers on their parched lips some amid the corpses in the flower strewn veil, others on stretchers, on cots, and on the blood-stained floor of the hospital. And still, as on the days preceding, the dawn glowed over Sapwin Mountain, the twinkling stars paled, the white mist spread abroad from the dark-sounding sea, the red glow illuminated the east, long crimson cloudlets darted across the blue horizon, and still as on days preceding, the powerful all-beautiful sun rose up giving promise of joy love and happiness to all who dwell in the world end of chapters thirteen and fourteen

Starting point is 02:06:40 chapters fifteen and sixteen of sebastopol by leal tolstoy this librivox recording is in the public domain chapters fifteen and sixteen of part two sebastopol in may eighteen fifty five on the following day the band of the chaucers was playing again on the boulevard and again officers cadets soldiers and young women were promenading in festive guise about the pavilion and through the low-hanging alleys of fragrant white acacias in bloom kalugan prince gultson and some colonel or other were walking arm and arm near the pavilion and discussing the engagement of the day before as always happens in such cases the chief governing thread of the conversation was not the engagement itself but the part which those who were narrating the story of the affair took in it their faces and the sound of their voices had a serious almost melancholy expression as though the loss of the preceding day had touched and saddened them deeply but to tell the truth as none of them had lost any one very near to him this expression of sorrow was an official expression which they merely felt it to be their duty to exhibit on the contrary calugan and the colonel were ready to see an engagement of the same sort every day provided that they might receive a gold sword or the rank of major-general notwithstanding the fact that they were very fine fellows. I like it when any warrior who destroys millions to gratify his ambition is called a monster. Only question any Lieutenant Petruskov and sub-Lieutenant Antonov, and so on,

Starting point is 02:08:34 on their word of honor, and every one of them is a petty Napoleon, a petty monster, and ready to bring on a battle on the instant, to murder a hundred men, merely for the sake of receiving an extra cross, or an increase of a third in his pace. no excuse me said the colonel it began first on the left flank i was there myself possibly answered calugan i was farther on the right i went there twice once i was in search of the general and the second time i went merely to inspect the lodgments it was a hot place yes of course calugan knows said prince galtzon to the colonel you know that b told me to-day that you were a brave fellow but the losses the losses were terrible said the colonel i lost four hundred men from my regiment it's a wonder that i escaped from there alive at this moment the figure of mikhailov with his head bandaged appeared at the other extremity of the boulevard coming to meet these gentlemen what are you wounded captain said kalugin yes slightly with a stone replied mikhilov has the flag been lowered yet inquired prince gultson this sentence is in french gazing over the staff-captain's cap and addressing himself to no one in particular

Starting point is 02:09:59 no pas encore answered mikhilov who wished to show that he understood and spoke french is the truth still in force said galtzen addressing him courteously in russian and thereby intimating so it seemed to the captain it must be difficult for you to speak french so why is it not better to talk in your own tongue simply and with this the adjudice left him the staff-captain again felt lonely as on the preceding evening and exchanging salutes with various gentlemen some he did not care and others he did not dare to join he seated himself near kazartski's monument and lighted a cigarette baron pesch also had come to the boulevard he had been telling how he had gone over to arrange the truce and had conversed with the French officers and he declared that one had said to him, If daylight had held off another half-hour, these ambushes would have been retaken. And then he had replied, Sir, I refrain from saying no, in order not to give you the lie, and how well he had said it, and so on.

Starting point is 02:11:09 But in reality, although he had had a hand in the truce, he had not dared to say anything very particular there, although he had been very desirous of talking with the French, for it is awfully jolly to talk with Frenchmen. Juncker Barong Pesh had marched up and downed the line for a long time, incessantly inquiring of the Frenchmen who were near him, to what regiment do you belong? They answered him, and that was the end of it. When he walked too far along the line, the French sentry, not suspecting that this soldier understood French, cursed him. He has come to spy out our works that cursed, said he, and

Starting point is 02:11:49 in consequence, Yulbaron Pesh, taking no further interest in the truce, went home, and thought out on the way thither those French phrases which he had now repeated. Captain Zoboff was also on the boulevard, talking loudly, and Captain Obzegov, in a very dishevelled condition, and an artillery captain, who courted no one and was happy in the love of the Juncker's, and all the faces which had been there on the day before, and all still actuated by the same motives. No one was missing except Prashkushkin, Nederdov, and some others, whom hardly anyone remembered or thought of now, though their bodies were not yet washed, laid out, and interred in the earth.

Starting point is 02:12:39 White flags had been hung out from our bastion and from the trenches of the French, and in the blooming valley between them lay disfigured corpses, shoeless, in garments of grey or blue, which labourers were engaged in carrying off and heaping upon carts. The odour of the dead bodies fill the air. Thongs of people had poured out of Sebastopol, and from the French camp, to gaze upon this spectacle, and they pressed one after the other, with eager and benevolent curiosity listen to what these people are saying here in a group of russians and french who have come together is a young officer who speaks french badly but well enough to make himself understood examining a cartridge-box of the guards and what is this bird here for says he because it is a cartridge-box belonging to a regiment of the guards monsieur and bears the imperial eagle and do you belong to the guard pardon monsieur i belong to the sixth regiment of the line and this bought where asked the officer pointing to a cigar-holder of yellow wood in which the frenchman was smoking his cigarette at balaclava monsieur it is very plain of palmwood pretty says the officer guided in his conversation not so much by his own wishes as by the words which he knows if you you will have the kindness to keep it as a souvenir of this meeting you will confer an obligation on me and the polite frenchman blows out the cigarette and hands the holder over to the officer with a little bow the officer gives him his and all the members of the group frenchmen as well as russians appear very much pleased and smile then a bold infantryman in a pink shirt with his cloak thrown over his shoulders accompanied by his own by his own two other soldiers, who, with their hands behind their backs, were standing behind him, with

Starting point is 02:14:45 merry, curious countenances, stepped up to a Frenchman and requested a light for his pipe. The Frenchman brightened his fire, stirred up his short pipe, and shook out a light for the Russian. "'Tabacco good,' said the soldier in the pink shirt, and the spectators smiled. "'Yes, good tobacco. Turkish tobacco,' says the Frenchman. your tobacco russian good russian good says the soldier in the pink shirt whereupon those present shake with laughter the french not good monjeieu monsieur says the soldier in the pink shirt letting fly his entire charge of knowledge in the language at once as he laughs and taps the frenchman on the stomach the french join in the laugh they are not handsome these beasts of russians says a zouave a

Starting point is 02:15:39 the crowd of frenchmen what are they laughing about says another black-complexioned one with an italian accent approaching our men captain goode says the audacious soldier staring at the zuwov's embroidered coat-skirts and then there is another laugh don't leave your lines back to your places succour non shouts a french corporal and the soldiers disperse with evident reluctance in the meantime our young cavalry officer is making the tour of the French officers. The conversation turns on some Count Zazanov, with whom I was very well acquainted, monsieur, says a French officer with one epaulet. He is one of those real Russian counts of whom we are so fond. There is a Sazanov with whom I am acquainted, said the cavalry officer, but he is not a count, so far as I know at least, a little dark-complexioned man of about your age oh exactly monsieur that is the man oh how i should like to see that dear count if you see him pray present my compliments to him captain le tour says he bowing isn't this a terrible business that we are conducting here it was hot work last night wasn't it says the cavalry officer wishing to continue the conversation and pointing to the dead bodies

Starting point is 02:17:06 oh frightful monsieur but what brave fellows your soldiers are what brave fellows it is a pleasure to fight with such valiant fellows it must be admitted that your men do not hang back either says the cavalryman with a bow and the conviction that he is very amiable ah but enough of this let us rather observe this lad of tin clad in an ancient cap his father's probably shoes worn on bare feet and Nanking Bridges, held up by a single suspender, who had climbed over the wall at the very beginning of the truce, and has been roaming about the ravine, staring with dull curiosity at the French, and at the bodies which are lying on the earth, and plucking the blue wild flowers with which the valley is studded. On his way home, with a large bouquet, he held his nose because of the odor which the wind wafted to him, and paused beside a pile of corpses.

Starting point is 02:18:06 which had been carried off the field, and stared long at one terrible headless body, which chanced to be the nearest to him. After standing there for a long while, he stepped up closer and touched with his foot the stiffened arm of the corpse which protruded. The arm swayed a little. He touched it again, and with more vigor. The arm swung back and then fell into place again. And at once the boy uttered a shriek, hid his his head.

Starting point is 02:18:36 face in the flowers and ran off to the fortifications as fast as he could go. Yes, white flags are hung out from the bastions and the trenches, the flowery veil is filled with dead bodies, the splendid sun sinks into the blue sea, and the blue sea undulates and glitters in the golden rays of the sun. Thousands of people congregate, gaze, talk, and smile at each other, and why do not Christian people who profess the one great law of love and self-sacrifice, when they behold what they have wrought, fall in repentance upon their knees, before him who, when he gave them life, implanted in the soul of each of them, together with a fear of death, a love of the good and the beautiful,

Starting point is 02:19:23 and with tears of joy and happiness, embrace each other like brothers. No, but it is a comfort to think that it was not we who began. this war that we are only defending our own country our fatherland the white flags have been hauled in and again the weapons of death and suffering are shrieking again innocent blood is shed and groans and curses are audible i have now said all that i wish to say at this time but a heavy thought overmasters me perhaps it should not have been said perhaps what i have said belongs to one of those evil truths which unconsciously concealed in the soul of each man should not be uttered lest they become pernicious as a cask of wine should not be shaken lest it be thereby spoiled where is the expression of evil which should be avoided where is the expression of good which should be imitated in this sketch who is the villain who the hero all are good and all are evil neither kalugin with his brilliant bravery bravour de gentiome and his vanity the instigator of all his deeds nor praskushkin the empty-headed harmless man though he fell in battle for the faith the throne and his native land nor michelof with his shyness nor pesh a child with no firm convictions or principles can be either the heroes or the villains of the tale the hero of my tale the hero of my tale the hero of my tale

Starting point is 02:21:02 whom i love with all the strength of my soul whom i have tried to set forth in all his beauty and who has always been is and always will be most beautiful is the truth end of chapters fifteen and sixteen chapters one and two of savastopol by leo tolstoy this liber box recording is in the public domain chapters one and two of part three sebastopol in august eighteen fifty five at the end of august along the rocky highway to sebastopol between duvanka and bachdhieri through the thick hot dust at a foot pace drove an officer's light heart that peculiar teclarra not now to be met with which stands about half-way between a jewish brichka a russian travelling carriage and a basket-wagon in the front of the wagon holding the reins squatted the servant clad in a nankeen coat and an officer's cap which had become quite limp seated behind on bundles and packages covered with a military coat was an infantry officer in a summer cloak. As well as could be judged from his sitting position, the officer was not tall in stature, but extremely thick, and that not so much from shoulder to shoulder as from chest to back. He was broad and thick, and his neck and the base of the head were

Starting point is 02:22:47 excessively developed and swollen. His waist, so called, a receding strip in the center of the body, did not exist in his case, but neither had he any belly. On the contrary, he was rather thin than otherwise, particularly in the face, which was overspread with an unhealthy yellowish sunburn. His face would have been handsome had it not been for a certain bloated appearance, and the soft, yet not elderly, heavy wrinkles that flowed together and enlarged his features, imparting to the whole countenance a general expression of course. and of lack of freshness. His eyes were small, brown, extremely searching, even bold. His mustache was very thick, but the ends were kept constantly short by his habit of gnawing them, and his chin, and his cheekbones in particular, were covered with a remarkably strong, thick, and black beard of two days' growth.

Starting point is 02:23:49 the officer had been wounded on the tenth of may by a splinter in the head on which he still wore a bandage and having now felt perfectly well for the past week he had come out of the cimphorupil hospital to rejoin his regiment which was stationed somewhere in the direction from which shots could be heard but whether that was in sebastopol itself on the northern defences or at inkermann he had not so far succeeded and ascertaining with much accuracy from anyone shots were still audible near at hand especially at intervals when the hills did not interfere or when born on the wind with great distinctness and frequency and apparently near at hand then it seemed as though some explosion shook the air and caused an involuntary shudder then one after the other followed less resounding reports in quick succession like a drum-beat interrupted at times by a startling roar then everything mingled in a sort of reverberating crash resembling peals of thunder when a thunder-storm is in full force and the rain had just begun to pour down in floods every once said and it could be heard that the bombardment was progressing frightfully the officer kept urging on his servant and seemed desirous of arriving as speedily as possible they were met by a long train of the russian peasant present type which had carried provisions into sebastopol and were now returning with sick and wounded soldiers in gray coats sailors in black palatots volunteers in red fezzas and bearded militiamen the officer's light cart had to halt in the thick immovable cloud of dust raised by the carts and the officer blinking and frowning with the dust that stuffed his eyes and ears gazed at the faces of the sick and wounded

Starting point is 02:25:53 as they passed. Ah, there's a sick soldier from our company, said the servant, turning to his master, and pointing to the wagon which was just on a line with them full of wounded at the moment. On the cart, towards the front, a bearded Russian in a lamb's wool cap was seated sideways and holding the stock of his whip under his elbow was tying on the lash. Behind him in the cart about five soldiers in different positions were shaking a about. One, though pale and thin, with his arm in a bandage and his cloak thrown on over his shirt, was sitting up bravely in the middle of the cart, and tried to touch his cap on seeing the

Starting point is 02:26:35 officer, but immediately afterwards, recollecting probably that he was wounded, he pretended that he only wanted to scratch his head. Another, beside him, was lying flat on the bottom of the wagon. All that was visible was two hands, as they clung to the rail-and-and-and-a-row-row-row, of the wagon and his knees uplifted limp as mops as they swayed about in various directions a third with a swollen face and a bandaged head on which was placed his soldier's cap sat on one side with his legs dangling over the wheel and with his elbows resting on his knees seeming immersed in thought it was to him that the passing officer addressed himself dolchnikov he exclaimed here replied the soldier opening his eyes and pulling off his cap in such a thick and halting bass voice that it seemed as though twenty soldiers had uttered an exclamation at one and the same time when were you wounded brother the leaden and swimming eyes of the soldier grew animated he evidently recognized his officer i wish your honor health he began again in the same abrupt base says before. Where is the regiment stationed now? It was stationed in Sebastopol, but they were to move on Wednesday, Your Honor. Where, too? I don't know. It must have been to the Savarnia, your honor.

Starting point is 02:28:03 Today, Your Honor, he added, in a drawling voice, as he put on his cap, they have begun to fire clear across, mostly with bombs, that even go as far as the bay. They are fighting horribly today, so that it was impossible to hear what the soldier said further but it was evident from the expression of his countenance and from his attitude that he was uttering discouraging remarks with the touch of malice of a man who is suffering the travelling officer lieutenant kosseltoff was no common officer he was not one of those that live so and so and do thus and so because others live and do thus he did whatever he pleased and others did the same and were convinced that it was well. He was rather richly endowed by nature with small gifts. He sang well, played on the guitar, talked very cleverly, and wrote very easily, particularly official documents in which he had practiced his hand in his capacity of adjutant of the battalion. But the most noticeable trait in his character was his egotistical energy, which,

Starting point is 02:29:15 although chiefly founded on this array of petty talents, constituted in itself a sharp and striking trait. His egotism was of the sort that is most frequently found developed in masculine and especially in military circles, and which had become a part of his life to such a degree that he understood no other choice than to domineer or to humiliate himself, and his egotism was the main spring even of his private impulses. he liked to usurp the first place over people with whom he put himself on a level well it's absurd of me to listen to what a moskva chatters muttered the lieutenant experiencing a certain weight of apathy in his heart and a dimness of thought which the sight of the transport full of wounded and the words of the soldier whose significance was emphasized and confirmed by the sounds of the bombardment had left with him that moskva is ridiculous drive on nikolaev go ahead are you asleep he added rather fretfully to the servant as he rearranged the skirts of his coat the reins were tightened nikola clacked his lips and the wagon moved on at a trot we will only halt a minute for food and will proceed at once this very day said the officer two

Starting point is 02:30:43 as he entered the street of the ruined remains of the stone wall forming the tatar houses of dubanka lieutenant koltzltoff was stopped by a transport of bombs and grape-shot which were on their way to sebastopol and had accumulated on the road two infantry soldiers were seated in the dusk on the stones of a ruined garden wall by the roadside debowering a water-mellon and bread have you come far fellow countrymen said one of them as he chewed his bread to the soldier with a small knapsack on his back who had halted near them i have come from my government to join my regiment replied the soldier turning his eyes away from the watermelon and readjusting the sack on his back there we were two weeks ago at work on the hay a whole troop of us but now they have drafted all of us and we don't know where our regiment is at the present time they say that our men went on the cora balea last week have you heard anything gentlemen it's stationed in the town brother said the second an old soldier of the reserves digging away with his clasp-knife at the white unripe melon we have just come from there this afternoon it's terrible my brother how so gentlemen don't you hear how they are firing all around to-day so that there is not a whole spot anywhere it is impossible to say how many of our brethren have been killed and the speaker waved his hand and adjusted his cap the passing soldier shook his head thoughtfully gave a clack with his tongue then pulled his pipe from his boot-leg and without filling it stirred up the half-burned tobacco lit a bit of tender from the soldier who was smoking and raised his cap there is no one like god gentlemen good-bye said he and with the shake of the sack on his back he went his way hey there you'd better wait said the man who was digging out the water-mellon with an air of conviction

Starting point is 02:32:45 it makes no difference muttered the traveller threading his way among the wheels of the assembled transports end of chapters one and two chapters three and four of savastopol by leo tolstoy this librivox recording is in the public domain chapters three and four of part three sebastopol in august eighteen fifty five the posting station was full of people when kuzltov drove up to it the first person whom he encountered on the porch itself was a thin and very young man the superintendent who continued his altercation with two officers who had followed him out it's not three days only but ten that you will have to wait even generals wait my good sirs said the superintendent with a desire to administer a prick to the travellers and i am not going to harness up for you then don't give anybody horses if there are none but why furnish them to some lackey or other with baggage shouted the elder of the two officers with a glass of tea in his hand and plainly avoiding the use of pronouns but giving it to be understood that he might very easily address the superintendent as thou judge for yourself now mr superintendent said the younger officer with some hesitation we don't want to go for our own pleasure we must certainly be needed since we have been called for and i certainly shall report to the general but this of course you know that you are not paying proper respect to the military profession you are always spoiling things the elder man interrupted with vexation you only hinder me you must know how to talk to them here now he has lost his respect horses this very instant i say

Starting point is 02:34:47 i should be glad to give them to you baddhaushka but where am i to get them after a brief silence the superintendent began to grow irritated and to talk flourishing his hands the wild I understand Batisika, and I know all about it myself, but what are you going to do? Only give me, here a ray of hope gleamed across the faces of the officers, only give me a chance to live until the end of the month, and you won't see me here any longer. I'd rather go on the Malikov's Tower by heavens, than stay here. Let them do what they please about it. There's not a single sound team in the station this day, and the horses haven't seen a wisp of hay these three days and the superintendent disappeared behind the gate koseltoff entered the room in company with the officers

Starting point is 02:35:43 well said the elder officer quite calmly to the younger one although but a second before he had appeared to be greatly irritated we have been travelling these three weeks and we will wait a little longer there's no harm done we shall get there at last the dirty smoky apartment was so filled with officers and trunks that it was with difficulty that kosseltoff found a place near the window where he seated himself he began to roll himself a cigarette as he glanced at the faces and lent an ear to the conversations to the right of the door near a crippled and greasy table upon which stood two samovars whose copper had turned green in spots here and there and where sugar was portioned out in various papers sat the principal group a young officer without moustache in a new short wadded summer cloak was pouring water into the teapot four such young officers were there in different corners of the room one of them had placed a cloak under his head and was fast asleep on the sofa another standing by the table was cutting up some roast mutton for an officer without an arm who was seated at the table two officers one in an adjutant's cloak the other in an infantry cloak a thin one however and with a satchel strapped over his shoulder were sitting near the oven bench and it was evident from the very way in which they stared at the rest and from the manner in which the one with the satchel smoked his cigar that they were not line officers on duty at the front and that they were delighted at it not that there was any scorn apparent in their manner but there was a certain self-satisfied tranquillity founded part of it on money and partly on their close intimacy with generals a certain consciousness of superiority which even extended to a desire to hide it

Starting point is 02:37:44 a thick-lipped young doctor and an officer of artillery with a german cast of countenance were seated almost on the feet of the young officer who was sleeping on the sofa and counting over their money there were four officers servants some dozing and others busy with the trunks and passengers packages near the door. Among all these faces, Kozltov did not find a single familiar one, but he began to listen with curiosity to the conversation. The young officers, who, as he decided from their looks alone, had but just come out of the military academy, pleased him, and what was the principal point, they reminded him that his brother had also come from the academy, and should have joined recently one of the batteries of sebastopol but the officer with the satchel whose face he had seen before somewhere seemed bold and repulsive to him he even left the window and going to the stove-bench seated himself on it with the thought that he would put the fellow down if he took it into his head to say anything in general purely as a brave line officer he did not like the staff such as he had recognised these two officers to be at the first glance four but this is dreadfully annoying said one of the young officers to be so near and yet not be able to get there

Starting point is 02:39:13 perhaps there will be an action this very day and we shall not be there in the sharp voice and the mottled freshness of the colour that swept across the youthful face of this officer as he spoke there was apparent the sweet young timidity of the man who is constantly afraid lest his every word shall not turn out exactly right the one-armed officer glanced at him with a smile you will get there soon enough i assure you he said the young officer looked with respect at the haggard face of the armless officer so unexpectedly illuminated by a smile held his peace for a while and busied himself once more with his tea in fact the one-armed officer's face his attitude and most of all the empty sleeve of his coat expressed much of that tranquil indifference that may be explained in this way that he looked upon every conversation and every occurrence as though saying that is all very fine i know all about that and i can do a little of that myself if i only choose what is our decision to be said the young officer again to his companion in the short coat shall we pass the night here or shall we proceed with our own horses his comrade declined to proceed just imagine captain said the one who was pouring the tea turning to the one-armed man and picking up the knife that the latter had dropped they told us that horses were frightfully dear in sebastopol so we bought a horse in partnership at they made you pay pretty high for it i fancy really i do not know captain we paid ninety roubles for it and the team is that very dear he added turning to all the company and to kuzletov who was staring at him it was not dear if the horse is young said kosseltov really but they told us that it was dear only she limps a little but that will pass off they told us that she was very strong

Starting point is 02:41:21 what academy are you from asked goseltoff who wished to inquire for his brother we are just from the academy of the nobility there are six of us and we are on our way to sebastopol at our own desire said the talkative young officer but we do not know where our battery is some say that it is in sebastopol others that it is at odessa was it not possible to find out at cipheropal asked they do not know there just imagine one of our comrades went to the headquarters there and they were impertinent to him you can imagine how disagreeable that was would you like to have me make you a cigarette he said at that moment to the one-armed officer who was just pulling out his cigarette machine he waited on the ladder with a sort of servile enthusiasm and are you from sebastopol also he went on oh good heavens how wonderful that is how much we did think of you and of all our heroes in petersburg he said turning to klauseltoff with respect and good-natured flattery and now perhaps you may have to go back inquired the lieutenant that is just what we are afraid of you can imagine that after having bought the horse and provided ourselves with all the necessaries a coffee-pot with a spirit lamp and other indispensable trifles we have no money left he said in a low voice as he glanced at his companions so that if we do have to go back we don't know what is to be done have you received no money for travelling expenses inquired no replied he in a whisper they only promised to give it to us here have you the certificate i know that the principal thing is the certificate

Starting point is 02:43:12 but a senator in moscow he's my uncle when i was at his house said that they would give it to us here otherwise he would have given me some himself so they will give it to us here oh most certainly they will i too think that they will he said in a tone which showed that after having made the same identical inquiry in thirty posting stations and having everywhere received different answers he no longer believed any one implicitly end of chapters three and four chapters five and six of sebastopol by leal tolstoy this liber box recording is in the public domain chapters five and six of part three sebastopol in august eighteen fifty five who ordered beet soup called out the slatternly mistress of the house a fat woman of forty as she entered the room with a bowl of soup the conversation ceased at once and all who were in the room fixed their eyes on the woman ah it was gosothoff who ordered it said the young officer he must be waked get up for your dinner he said approaching the sleeper on the sofa and jogging his elbow a young lad of seventeen with merry black eyes and red cheeks sprang energetically from the sofa and stood in the middle of the room rubbing his eyes ah excuse me please he said to the doctor whom he had touched in rising lieutenant kosseltov recognized his brother immediately and stepped up to him don't you know me he said with a smile ah exclaimed the younger brother this is astonishing and he began to kiss his brother they kissed twice but stopped at the third repetition as though the thought had occurred to both of them why is it necessary to do it exactly three times well how delighted i am said the elder looking at his brother let us go out on the porch we can have a talk

Starting point is 02:45:20 come come i don't want any soup you eat it fetterson he said to his comrade but you wanted something to eat i don't want anything when they emerged on the porch the younger kept asking his brother well how are you tell me all about it and still he kept on saying how glad he was to see him but he told nothing himself when five minutes had elapsed during which time they had succeeded in becoming somewhat silent the elder brother inquired why the younger one had not gone into the guards as they had all expected him to do he wanted to get to sebastopol as speedily as possible he said for if things turned out favourably there he could get advancement more rapidly there than in the guards there it takes ten years to reach the grade of colonel while here todleben had risen in two years from lieutenant-colonel to general well and if one did get killed there was nothing to be done what a fellow you are said his brother smiling but the principal thing do you know brother it says his brother it said the younger smiling and blushing as though he were preparing to say something very disgraceful all this is nonsense and the principal reason why i asked it was that i was ashamed to live in petersburg when men are dying for their country here yes and i wanted to be with you he added with still greater shamefacedness how absurd you are said the elder brother pulling out his cigarette machine and not even glancing at him it's a pity though that we can't be together now honestly is it so terrible in the bastions inquired the younger man abruptly oh it is terrible at first but you get used to it afterwards it's nothing you will see for yourself

Starting point is 02:47:10 and tell me still another thing what do you think will sebastopol be taken i think that it will not god knows but one thing is annoying just imagine what bad luck a whole bundle was stolen from us on the road and it had my shackle in it so that now i am in a dreadful predicament and i don't know how i am to show myself the uncle tovv vladimir greatly resembled his brother mikhail but he resembled him as a budding rose-bush resembles one that is out of flower his hair was chestnut also but it was thick and lay in curls on his temples on the soft white back of his neck there was a blond lock a sign of good luck so the nurses say the full-blooded crimson of youth did not stand fixed on the soft white hue of his face but flashed up and betrayed all the movements of his mind he had the same eyes as his brother but they had the same eyes as his brother but they had had the same eyes as his brother but they had had the same eyes as his brother but they were were more widely opened and clearer, which appeared the more peculiar because they were veiled frequently by a slight moisture. A golden down was sprouting on his cheeks and over his ruddy lips, which were often folded into a shy smile, displaying teeth of dazzling whiteness. He was a well-formed and broad-shouldered fellow, in unbuttoned coat, from beneath which

Starting point is 02:48:35 was visible a red shirt with collar turned back. As he stood before his brother, he stood before his brother, leaning his elbows on the railing of the porch with cigarette in hand and innocent joy in his face and gesture he was so agreeable and comely a youth that any one would have gazed at him with delight he was extremely pleased with his brother he looked at him with respect and pride fancying him his hero but in some ways so far as judgments on worldly culture ability to talk french behavior in the society of distinguished people dancing and so on he was somewhat ashamed of him looked down on him and even cherished a hope of improving him if such a thing were possible all his impressions so far were from petersburg at the house of a lady who was fond of good-looking young fellows and who had had him spend his holidays with her and from moscow at the house of a senator where he had once danced at a great ball six having nearly talked their fill and having arrived at the feeling that you frequently experience that there is little in common between you though you love one another the brothers were silent for a few moments 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 sebastopol he inquired after a momentary pause why yes you can't have many things and we can manage to carry them i think oh very good we shall start at once said the younger with a sigh and he went inside but he paused at the vestibule without opening the door dropped his head gloomily and began to reflect straight to sebastopol on the inside but he paused at the vestibule without opening the door dropped his head gloomily and began to reflect straight to sebastopol on the

Starting point is 02:50:27 instant within range of the bombs frightful it's no matter however it must have come some time 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 sebastopol 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 young koltletoff in the attitude of a naughty schoolboy was saying something to an officer named b 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. A moment later he emerged, in fact, and approached his brother with a deep sigh. Just imagine I cannot go with you, brother, he said. What? What nonsense is this? I will tell you the whole truth, Misha. Not one of us has any money, and we are all in debt to that staff-captain

Starting point is 02:51:45 whom you saw there. It is horribly mortifying. The other one of us. elder brother frowned and did not break the silence for a long while. Do you owe much? he asked, glancing askance at his brother. Oh, a great deal? No, not a great deal. But I am dreadfully ashamed of it. He has paid for me for three stages, and all his sugar is gone, so that I do not know—' Yes, we played at preference. I am a little in his debt there, too. This is bad, Volodya. Now, for you. Now, for you. We play, we played at preference. I am a little in his debt there, too. This is bad, "'Now what would you have done if you had not met me?' said the elder, sternly,

Starting point is 02:52:24 without looking at his brother. "'Why, I was thinking, brother, that I should get that travelling money at Sevastopol, and that I would give him that. Surely that can be done, and it will be better for me to go with him to-morrow.' The elder brother pulled out his purse, and with fingers that shook a little, he took out two ten ruple notes and one for three roubles. this is all the money i have said he how much do you owe kosseltoff did not speak the exact truth when he said that this was all the money he had he had besides four gold pieces sown into his cuff in case of an emergency but he had taken a vow not to touch them it appeared that kosseltov what with preference and sugar was in debt to the amount of eight roubles only the elder brother gave him this sum merely remarking that one should not play preference when one had no money

Starting point is 02:53:20 what did you play for the younger brother answered not a word his brother's question seemed to him to cast a reflection on his honour vexation at himself a shame at his conduct which could give rise to such a word-auchessing at his own suspicion and the insult from his brother of whom he was so fond produced upon his sensitive nature so deeply painful an impression that he made no reply sensible that he was not in a condition to restrain the sobs which rose in his throat he took the money without glancing at it and went back to his comrades end of chapters five and six chapters seven and eight of Sevastopol by leal holstoy this liverbox recording is in the public domain chapter seven and eight of part three sebastopol in august eighteen fifty five nicolayov who had fortified himself at duvanka with two judas of vodka

Starting point is 02:54:26 purchased from a soldier who was peddling it on the bridge gave the reins a jerk and the team jolted away over the stony road shaded here and there which led along the belbeck to sebastopol but the brothers whose last legs jostled each other, maintained a stubborn silence, although they were thinking of each other every instant. Why did he insult me, thought the younger? Could he not have held his tongue about that? It is exactly as though he thought that I was a thief. Yes, and now he is angry, apparently, so that we have quarrelled for good.

Starting point is 02:55:00 And how splendid it would have been for us to be together in Sevastopol! Two brothers, on friendly terms, both fighting the foe, one of them, the two, the one of them the elder though not very cultivated yet a valiant warrior and the other younger but a brave fellow too in a week's time i would have showed them that i am not such a youngster after all i shall cease to blush there will be manliness in my countenance and though my moustache is not very large now it would grow to a good size by that time and he felt of the down which was making its appearance round the edges of his mouth perhaps we shall arrive to-day and get directly into the conflict my brother and i he must be obstinate and very brave one of those who do not say much but act better than the others i should like to know he continued whether he is squeezing me against the side of the wagon on purpose or not he probably is conscious that i feel awkward and he is pretending not to notice me we shall arrive to-day he went on with his argument pressing close to the side of the wagon and fearing to move lest his brothers should observe that he was uncomfortable and all at once we shall go straight to the bastion we shall both go together i with my equipments and my brother with his company all of a sudden the french throw themselves at us i begin to fire and fire on them i kill a terrible number but they still continue to run straight at me now it is impossible to fire any longer and there is no hope for me all at once my brother rushes out in front with his sword and i grasp my gun

Starting point is 02:56:43 and we rush on with the soldiers the french throw themselves on my brother i hasten up i kill one frenchman then another and i save my brother i am wounded in one arm i seize my gun with the other and continue my fight but my brother is slain by my side by the bullets i halt for a moment and gaze at him so sorrowfully then i straighten myself up and shout follow me we will avenge him i i loved my brother more than any one in the world i shall say and i have lost him let us avenge him let us annihilate the foe or let us all die together there all shout and fling themselves after me then the whole french army makes a sortie including even pelisier himself we all fight but at last i am wounded a second a third time and i fall nearly dead then all rush up to me gotchikov comes up and asks what i would like i say that i want nothing except that i may be laid beside my brother that i wish to die with him they carry me and lay me down by the side of my brother's bloody corpse then i shall raise myself and merely say yes you did not understand how to value two men who really loved their fatherland now they have both fallen and may god forgive you and i shall die who knows in what measure these dreams will be realized have you ever been in a hand-to-hand fight he suddenly inquired of his brother quite forgetting that he had not meant to speak to him.

Starting point is 02:58:26 No, not once, answered the elder. Our regiment has lost two thousand men, all on the works, and I also was wounded there. War is not carried on in the least as you fancy Velodgna. The word Volodyna touched the younger brother. He wanted to come to an explanation with his brother, who had not the least idea that he had offended Volodya. You are not angry with me, Misha, he said after a momentary silence. what about no because because we had such a nothing not in the least replied the elder turning to him and slapping him on the leg

Starting point is 02:59:07 then forgive me mehia if i have wounded you and the younger brother turned aside in order to hide the tears that suddenly started to his eyes is this sebastopol already asked the younger brother as they ascended the hill and before them appeared the bay with its masts of ships its shipping and the sea with a hostile fleet in the distance the white batteries on the shore the barracks the aqueducts the docks the docks and the buildings of the town and the white and lilac clouds of smoke rising incessantly over the yellow hills which surrounded the town and stood out against the blue sky in the rosy rays of the sun which was reflected by the waves and sinking towards the horizon of the shadowy sea valedna without a shudder gazed upon this terrible place of which he had thought so much on the contrary he did so with an aesthetic enjoyment and a heroic sense of self-satisfaction at the idea that here he was he would be there in another half-hour that he would behold that really charmingly original spectacle and he stared with concentrated attention from that moment until they arrived at the north fortification at the baggage train of his brother's regiment where they were to ascertain with certainty the situations of the regiment and the battery the officer in charge of the train lived near the so-called new town huts built of boards by the sailors families in a tent connecting with a tolerably large shed constructed out of green oak boughs that were not yet entirely withered the brothers found the officer seated before a greasy table upon which stood a glass of cold tea, a tray with vodka, crumbs of dry sturgeon row, and bread, clad only in a shirt of a dirty

Starting point is 03:01:03 yellow hue, and engaged in counting a huge pile of bank bills on a large abacus. But before describing the personality of the officer and his conversation, it is indispensable that we should inspect with more attention the interior of his shed and become a little acquainted at least with his mode of life and his occupations the new shed like those built for generals and regimental commanders was large closely wattled and comfortably arranged with little tables and benches made of turf the sides and roof were hung with three rugs to keep the leaves from showering down and though extremely ugly they were new and certainly costly upon the iron bed which stood beneath the principal rug with a young amazon depicted on it lay a plush coverlet of a brilliant crimson a torn and dirty pillow and a raccoon cloak on the table stood a mirror in a silver frame a silver brush frightfully dirty a broken horncomb full of greasy hair a silver candlestick a bottle of liqueur with a huge gold and red label a gold watch with a portrait of peter the first two gold pens a small box containing pills of some sort a crust of bread and some old castaway cards and there were bottles both full and empty under the bed

Starting point is 03:02:32 this officer had charge of the commissariat of the regiment and the father of the horses with him lived his great friend the commissioner who had charge of the operations at the moment when the brothers entered the latter was asleep in the booth and the commissary officer was making up his accounts of the government money in anticipation of the end of the month the commissary officer had a very comely and warlike exterior his stature was tall his moustache huge huge, and he possessed a respectable amount of plumpness. The only disagreeable points about him were a certain perspiration and puffiness of the whole face, which almost concealed his small grey eyes, as though he was filled up with porter, and an excessive lack of cleanliness from his thin, greasy hair to his big bare feet, thrust into some sort of ermine slippers. "'Money, money!' said Kozletov, number one, entering the shed and fixing his eyes.

Starting point is 03:03:32 eyes, with involuntary greed upon the pile of bank-notes, you might lend me half of that, Vasily McAulich?' The commissary officer cringed at the sight of his visitors, and, sweeping up his money, he bowed to them without rising. Oh, if it only belonged to me, it's government money, my dear fellow. And who is this you have with you? said he, thrusting the money into a coffer, which stood beside him, and staring at Velodja. this is my brother who has just come from the military academy we have both come to learn from you where our regiment is stationed sit down gentlemen said the officer rising and going into the shed without paying any heed to his guests won't you have something to drink some porter for instance said he

Starting point is 03:04:19 don't put yourself out vasili mackaylevitch volanya was impressed by the size of the commissary officer by his carelessness of manner and by the respect with which his brother addressed him it must be that this is one of their very fine officers whom every one respects really he is simple but hospitable and brave he thought seating himself in a timid and modest manner on the sofa where is our regiment station then called out his elder brother into the board hut what he repeated his query zyfer has been here to-day he told me that they had removed to the fifth bastion is that true if i say so it must be true but the deuce only knows anyway he would think nothing of telling a lie won't you have some porter said the commissary officer still from the tent i will if you please said cosletop and will you have a drink ossev ignatievitch went on the voice in the tent apparently addressing the sleeping commissioner you have slept enough it's five o'clock why do you worry me i'm not asleep answered a shrill languid little boys come get up we find it stupid without you and the commissary officer came out to his guests fetch some simpheropo porter he shouted a servant entered the booth with a haughty expression of countenance as it seemed to volonia and having jostled valagna he drew forth the porter from beneath the bench the bottle of porter was soon emptied and the conversation had proceeded in the same style for rather a long time when the flap of the tent flew open and out stepped a short fresh-coloured man in a blue dressing-gown with tassels in a cap with a red rim and a cockade at the moment of his appearance he was smoothing his small black moustache and with his gaze fixed on the rugs he replied to the greetings of the officer with a barely perceptible movement of the shoulders i will drink a small glassful too said he seating himself by the table what is this have you come from

Starting point is 03:06:29 from petersburg young man he said turning courteously to voluagia yes sir i'm on my way to sebastopol did you make the application yourself yes sir what queer taste you have gentlemen i do not understand it continued the commissioner it strikes me that i should be ready just now to travel on foot to petersburg if i could get away by heavens i am tired of this cursed life what is there about it that does not suit you said the elder kosseltoff turning to him you're the very last person to complain of life here the commissioner cast a look about him and then turned away oh this danger these privations it is impossible to get anything here he continued addressing volonia and why you should take such a freak gentleman i really cannot understand if there were any advantages to be derived from it but there is nothing of the sort it would be a nice thing now wouldn't it if you at your age were to be left a cripple for life some need the money and some sir for honour's sake said the elder gausel talk in a tone of vexation joining the discussion once more oh what's the good of honour when there's nothing to eat said the commissioner with a scornful laugh turning to the commissary who also laughed at this give us something from lucia we will listen he said pointing to the music-box I love it. Well, is that Vasily Mikhailovich a fine man?

Starting point is 03:08:01 Pellonia asked his brother when they emerged at dusk from the booth and pursued their way to Sevastopol. Not at all, but such a niggered that it is a perfect terror, and I can't bear the sight of that commissioner, and I shall give him a thrashing one of these days. End of chapters seven and eight. by leo tolstoy this libervox recording is in the public domain chapters nine and ten of part three sebastopol in august eighteen fifty five belogne was not precisely out of sorts when nearly at nightfall they reached the great bridge over the bay but he felt a certain heaviness at his heart all that he had heard and seen was so little in consonance with the impressions which had recently passed away the huge light examination hall with its polished floor the kind and merry voices and laughter of his comrades the new uniform his beloved czar

Starting point is 03:09:14 whom he had been accustomed to see for the last seven years and who when he took leave of them had called them his children with tears in his eyes and everything that he had seen so little resembled his very beautiful rainbow-hued magnificent dreams well here we are at last said the elder brother when they arrived at the mikaloski battery and dismounted from their cart if they let us pass the bridge we will go to the old brother when they arrived at the mikaloski battery and dismounted from their cart if they let us pass the bridge we will go to directly to the nicolaskay barracks you stay there until morning and i will go to the regiment and find out where your battery is stationed and to-morrow i will come for you but why it would be better if we both went together said voludna i will go to the bastion with you it won't make any difference i shall have to get used to it if you go then i can too better not go no if you please i do know at least that my advice is not to go but if you choose the sky was clear and dark the stars and the fires of the bombs in incessant movement and discharges were gleaming brilliantly through the gloom the large white building of the battery and the beginning of the bridge stood out in the darkness literally every second several discharges of artillery and explosions following each other in quick succession or occurring simultaneously shook the air with increasing thunder and distinctness. Through this roar, and as though repeating it,

Starting point is 03:10:51 the melancholy dash of the waves was audible. A faint breeze was drawing in from the sea, and the air was heavy with moisture. The brothers stepped upon the bridge. A soldier struck his gun awkwardly against his arm, and shouted, Who goes there? A soldier!

Starting point is 03:11:08 The orders are not to let anyone pass. What of that? We have business. We must. pass ask the officer the officer who was drowsing as he sat on an anchor rose up and gave the order to let them pass you can go that way but not this where are you driving to all in a heap he cried to the transport wagons piled high with gabions which had clustered about the entrance as they descended to the first pontoon the brothers encountered soldiers who were coming thence and talking loudly if he has received his ammunition money then he has squared his accounts in full that's what it is ah brothers said another voice when you get over on the savagna you will see the world by heavens the air is entirely different you may say more said the first speaker a cursed shell flew in there the other day and it tore the legs off two sailors so that the brothers traversed the first pontoon while waiting for the wagon and halted on the second which was already flooded with water in parts the breeze which had seemed weak inland was very powerful here and came in gusts the bridge swayed to and fro and the waves beating noisily against the beams and tearing at the cables and anchors flooded the planks at the right the gloomily hostile sea roared in the waves beating noisily against the beams and tearing at the right the gloomily hostile sea roared in the waves

Starting point is 03:12:34 darkled as it lay separated by an interminable level black line from the starry horizon which was light gray in its gleam lights flashed afar on the enemy's fleet on the left towered the black masts of one of our vessels and the waves could be heard as they beat against her a steamer was visible as it moved noisily and swiftly from the savannah the flash of a bomb as it burst near it illuminated for a moment it illuminated for a moment it moment the lofty heaps of gabbians on the deck two men who were standing on it and the white foam and the spurts of greenish waves as the steamer ploughed through them on the edge of the bridge with his legs dangling in the water sat a man in his shirt-sleeves who was repairing something connected with the bridge in front over sebastopol floated the same fires and the terrible sounds grew louder and louder a wave rolled in from the sea flowed over the right side of the bridge and wet velagna's feet two soldiers passed them dragging their feet through the water something suddenly burst with a crash and lighted up the water something suddenly burst with a crash and lighted up the bridge ahead of them the wagon driving over it and a man on horseback the splinters fell into the waves with a hiss and sent up the water and splashes oh mackayo semyonovitch said the rider stopping reigning in his horse in front of the elder koseltov have you fully recovered already as you see whither is god taking you to the sabernia for cartridges i am on my way to the adjutant of the regiment we expect an assault to-morrow at any hour and where is marzoth he lost a leg yesterday he was in the town asleep in his room perhaps you know it

Starting point is 03:14:26 the regiment is in the fifth bastion isn't it yes it has taken the place of the m regiment go to the field hospital some of our men are there and they will show you the way well and are my quarters on the marcia still intact why my good fellow they were smashed to bits long ago by the bombs you will not recognize sebastopol now there's not a single woman there now nor any ends nor music the last establishment took its departure yesterday it has become horribly dismal there now farewell and the officer rode on his way at a trot all at once valedna became terribly frightened all at once valedna became terribly frightened it seemed to him as though a cannon-ball or a splinter of bomb would fly in their direction and strike him directly on the head this damp darkness all these sounds especially the angry splashing of the waves seemed to be saying to him that he ought not to go any farther that nothing good awaited him yonder that he would never again set foot on the ground upon this side of the bay that he must turn about at once and flee somewhere or other as far as possible from this terrible haunt of death but perhaps it is too late now everything is settled thought he trembling partly at this thought and partly because the water had soaked through his boots and wet his feet valedia heaved a deep sigh and went a little apart from his brother lord will they kill me me in particular lord have mercy on me said he in a whisper and he crossed himself

Starting point is 03:16:07 come balaa let us go on said the elder brother when their little cart had driven upon the bridge did you see that bomb on the bridge the brothers met wagons filled with the wounded with gabians and one loaded with furniture which was driven by a woman on the further side no one detained them clinging instinctively to the walls of the nikolovsky battery the brothers listened in silence to the noise of the bombs exploding overhead and to the roar of the fragments showering down from above and came to that spot in the battery where the image was there they learned that the fifth light battery to which valodnya had been assigned was stationed on the corabena and they decided that he should go in spite of the danger and past the night with the old night with the old elder in the fifth bastion and that he should from there join his battery the next day they turned into the corridor stepping over the legs of the sleeping soldiers who were lying all along the walls of the battery and at last they arrived at the place where the wounded were attended to ten as they entered the first room surrounded with cots on which lay the wounded and permeated with that frightful and disgusting hospital odor they met two sisters of mercy who were coming to meet them one woman of fifty with black eyes and a stern expression of countenance was carrying bandages and lint and was giving strict orders to a young fellow an assistant surgeon who was following her the other a very pretty girl of twenty with a pale and delicate little fair face gazed in an amiable helpless way from beneath her white cap held her hands in the pockets of her apron as she walked beside the elder woman and seemed to be afraid to quit her side cosletoff addressed to them the question whether they knew where marzoff was the man whose leg had been torn off on the day before

Starting point is 03:18:12 he belonged to the p regiment did he not inquired the elder is he a relative of yours no a comrade show him the way said she in french to the young sister here this way and she approached a wounded man in company with the assistant come along what are you staring at said kuzletov to vallagna who with uplifted eyebrows and somewhat suffering expression of countenance could not tear himself away but continued to stare at the wound it come let us go balaagna went off with his brother still continuing to gaze about him however and repeating unconsciously ah my god oh my god he has probably not been here long inquired the sister of kosseltoff pointing at volodya who groaning and sighing followed them through the corridor he has but just arrived the pretty little sister glanced at valedna and suddenly burst out crying my god my god when will there be an end to all this she said with the accents of despair they entered the officer's hut marzoff was lying on his back with his muscular arms bare to the elbow thrown over his head and with the expression on his yellow face of a man who was clenching his teeth in order to keep from shrieking with pain his whole leg in its stocking was thrust outside the coverlet and it could be seen how he was twitching his toes convulsively inside it well how goes it how do you feel asked the sister raising his bald head with her slender delicate fingers on one of which valonia noticed a gold ring and arranged his pillow here are some of your comrades come to inquire after you badly of course he answered angrily let me alone it's all right the toes in his stocking moved more rapidly than ever how do you do what is your name excuse me he said turning to kosseltoff ah yes i beg your pardon one forgets everything here he said when the latter had mentioned his name

Starting point is 03:20:22 you and i live together he added without the slightest expression of pleasure glancing interrogatively at volagna this is my brother who has just arrived from petersburg to-day hum here i have finished my service he said with a frown ah how painful it is the best thing would be a speedy end he drew up his leg and covered his face with his hands continuing to move his toes with redoubled swiftness you must leave him said the sister in a whisper while the tears stood in her eyes he is in a very bad state the brothers had already decided on the north side to go to the fifth bastion but on emerging from the nikoleseke battery they seemed to have come to a tacit understanding not to subject themselves to unnecessary danger and without discussing the subject they determined to go their way separately only how are you to find your way volonia said the elder however nikolaev will conduct you to the corabegna and i will go my way alone and will be with you to-morrow nothing more was said at this last leave-taking between the brothers end of chapters nine and ten chapters eleven and twelve of sevastopol by leo tolstoy this libervox recording is in the public domain chapters eleven and twelve of part three sebastopol in august eighteen fifty five the thunder of the cannon continued with the same power as before but yekaterenskaya street along which velodnia walked followed by the taciturn nicolayev was quiet and deserted all that he could see through the thick darkness was the wide street with the white walls of large houses battered in many places

Starting point is 03:22:21 and the stone sidewalk beneath his feet now and then he met soldiers and officers as he passed along the left side of the street near the admiralty building he perceived by the light of a bright fire burning behind the wall the acacias planted along the sidewalk with green guards beneath and the wretchedly dusty leaves of these acacias he could plainly hear his own steps and those of nicolayev who followed him breathing heavily he thought of nothing the pretty little sister of mercy marzoff's leg with the toes twitching in its stockings the bombs the darkness and diverse pictures of death floated hazily through his mind all his young and sensitive soul shrank together and was borne down by his consciousness of loneliness and the indifference of every one to his fate in the midst of danger they will kill me i shall be tortured i shall suffer and no one will be tortured i shall suffer and no one will weep. And all this, instead of the hero's life, filled with energy and sympathy, of which he had cherished such glorious dreams, the bombs burst and shrieked nearer and ever nearer. Nikolaev sighed more frequently, without breaking the silence. On crossing the bridge leading to the Corabagna, he saw something fly screaming into the bay, not far from him, which lighted up the

Starting point is 03:23:49 lilac waves for an instant with a crimson. glow, then disappeared, and threw on high a cloud of foam. See there, it was not put out, said Nikolayev hoarsely. Yes, answered Belagno, involuntarily, and quite unexpectedly to himself, in a thin, piping voice. They encountered litters with wounded men, then more regimental transports with gabians. They met a regiment on Corabianne Street, men on horseback passed them. one of them was an officer with his cossack he was riding at a trot but on catching sight of volodya he reigned in his horse near him looked into his face turned and rode on giving the horse a blow of his whip alone alone

Starting point is 03:24:36 it is nothing to any one whether i am in existence or not thought the lad and he felt seriously inclined to cry after ascending the hill past a high white wall he entered a street of small ruined houses incessantly illuminated by bombs a drunk and disheveled woman who was coming out of a small door in company with a sailor ran against him if he were only a fine man she grumbled pardon your honor the officer the poor boy's heart sank lower and lower and more and more frequently flashed the lightnings against the dark horizon and the bombs screamed and burst about him with ever-increasing frequency nicolayev sighed and all at once he began to speak in what seemed to volonia a frightened and constrained tone what haste we made to get here from home it was nothing but travelling a pretty place to be in a hurry to get to What was to be done if my brother was well again, replied Velodnya, in hope that he might banish by conversation the frightful feeling that was taking possession of him? Well, what sort of health is it when he is thoroughly ill? Those who are really well had better stay in the hospital at such a time.

Starting point is 03:25:57 A vast deal of joy there is about it, isn't there? You will have a leg or an arm torn off, that's all you will get. It's not far removed from a downright sin. and here in the town it's not at all like the bastion and that is a perfect terror you go and you say your prayers the whole way eh you beast there you go whizzing past he added directing his attention to the sound of a splinter of shell whizzing by near them now here nikolaev went on i was ordered to show your honour the way my business of course is to do as i am bid but the cart has been abandoned to some wretch of a soldier and the bundle is undone. Go on and on, but if any of the property disappears,

Starting point is 03:26:44 Nicolaev will have to answer for it. After proceeding a few steps further, they came out on a square. Nicolaev held his peace, but sighed. Yonder is your artillery, Your Honor, he suddenly said. Ask the sentinel. He will show you.

Starting point is 03:27:01 And Volodya, after he had taken a few steps more, ceased to hear the sound of Nicolayev's sighs behind him. all at once he felt himself entirely and finally alone this consciousness of solitude in danger before death as it seemed to him lay upon his heart like a terribly cold and heavy stone he halted in the middle of the square glanced about him to see whether he could catch sight of any one grasped his head and uttered his thought aloud in his terror lord can it be that i am a coward a vile disgust worthless coward can it be that i so lately dreamed of dying with joy for my fatherland my czar no i am a wretch an unfortunate a wretched being and bellogne with a genuine sentiment of despair and disenchantment with himself inquired of the sentinel for the house of the commander of the battery and set out in the direction indicated twelve the residence of the commander of the battery which the sentinel had pointed out to him was a small two-story house with an entrance on the courtyard in one of the windows which was pasted over with paper burned the feeble flame of a candle a servant was seated on the porch smoking his pipe he went in and announced philogne to the commander and then let him in in the room between the two windows and beneath a shattered mirror stood a table heaped with official

Starting point is 03:28:37 documents, several chairs, and an iron bedstead with a clean pallet and a small bed-rug by its side. Near the door stood a handsome man with a large moustache, a sergeant in saber and cloak, on the latter of which hung across and a Hungarian medal. Back and forth in the middle of the room paced a short staff officer of forty, with swollen cheeks bound up and dressed in a thin, old coat. I have the honor to report myself, Cornay Kozletov, second, ordered to fifth-light battery, said Vologna, uttering the phrase which he had learned by heart as he entered the room. The commander of the battery responded dryly to his greeting, and, without offering his hand, invited him to be seated.

Starting point is 03:29:27 Valadna dropped timidly into a chair beside the writing-table, and began to twist in his fingers the scissors, which his hand happened to light upon. The commander of the battery put his hands behind his back, and, dropping his head, pursued his walk up and down the room, in silence, only bestowing an occasional glance at the hands which were twirling the scissors with the aspect of a man who was trying to recall something. The battery commander was a rather stout man, with a large bald spot on the crown of his head,

Starting point is 03:30:01 a thick moustache which drooped straight down and considered, sealed his mouth and pleasant brown eyes his hands were handsome clean and plump his feet small and well turned and they stepped out in a confident and rather dandified manner proving that the commander was not a timid man yes he said coming to a halt in front of the sergeant a measure must be added to the grain to-morrow or our horses will be getting thin what do you think oh of course it is possible to do so your excellent "'Oats are very cheap just now,' replied the sergeant, twisting his fingers, which he held on the seams of his trousers, but which evidently liked to assist in the conversation. "'Our forage-master, Franchick, sent me a note yesterday, from the transport, Your Excellency, saying that we should certainly be obliged to purchase oats. They say they are cheap. Therefore, what are your orders?' "'Oh, to buy, of course. He has money, surely.' and the commander resumed his tramp through the room and where are your things he suddenly inquired of valagna as he paused in front of him poor valagna was so overwhelmed by the thought that he was a coward that he espied scorn for himself in every glance

Starting point is 03:31:19 in every word as though they had been addressed to a pitiable poltroon it seemed to him that the commander of the battery had already divined his secret and was making sport of him he answered with him embarrassment that his effects were on the Grafskaja, and that his brother had promised to send them to him on the morrow. But the lieutenant-colon was not listening to him, and turning to the sergeant, he inquired, Where are we to put the ensign? The ensign, sir, said the sergeant, throwing Vologna into still greater confusion, by the fleeting glance which he cast upon him, and which seemed to say, what sort of an ensign is this? He can be quartered downstairs with the staff-captain, Your Excellency, he continued after a little reflection, the captain is at the bastion just now, and his cot is empty.

Starting point is 03:32:11 Will that not suit you temporarily, said the commander? I think you must be tired, but we will lodge you better to-morrow. Valadnear rose and bowed. Will you not have some tea, said the commander, when he had already reached the door, the samovar can be brought in. Valadna saluted and left the room. the lieutenant-colonel's servant conducted him downstairs and led him into a bare dirty chamber in which various sorts of rubbish were lying about and where there was an iron bedstead without either sheets or coverlet a man in a red shirt was fast asleep on the bed covered over with a thick cloak volonia took him for a soldier pietor nicolaitre said the servant touching the sleeper on the shoulder the ensign is to sleep here

Starting point is 03:33:00 this is our yonker he added turning to the ensign ah don't trouble him please said valagna but the yonker a tall stout young man with a handsome but very stupid face rose from the bed threw on his cloak and evidently not having had a good sleep left the room no matter i'll lie down in the yard he growled out end of chapters eleven and twelve chapters thirteen and fourteen of sebastopol by leo tolstoy this liber vogue's recording is in the public domain chapters thirteen and fourteen of part three sebastopol in august eighteen fifty five left alone with his own thoughts valagno's first sensation was a fear of the incoherent forlorn state of his own soul he wanted to go to sleep and forget all his surroundings and himself most of all he extinguished the candle lay down on the bed and taking off his coat he wrapped his head up in it in order to relieve his terror of the darkness with which he had been afflicted since his childhood but all at once the thought occurred to him that a bomb might come and crush in the roof and kill him he began to listen attentively directly overhead he heard the footsteps of the battery commander anyway if it does come he thought it will kill any one who is upstairs first and then me at all events i shall not be the only one this thought calmed him somewhat well and what is sebastopol should be taken unexpectedly in the night and the french make their way hither what am i to defend myself with he rose once more and began to pace the room

Starting point is 03:34:52 his terror of the actual danger outweighed his secret fear of the darkness there was nothing heavy in the room except the samovar and a saddle i am a scoundrel a coward a miserable coward the thought suddenly occurred to him and again he experienced that oppressive sensation of scorn and disgust even for himself again he threw himself on the bed and tried not to think then the impressions of the day involuntarily penetrated his imagination in consequence of the unceasing sounds which made the glass in the solitary window rattle and again the thought of danger recurred to him now he saw visions of wounded men and blood now of bombs and splinters flying into the room then of the pretty little sister of mercy who was applying a bandage to him a dying man and weeping over him then of his mother accompanying him to him to his mother accompanying him to him to his mother accompanying him to him to his mother accompanying him to him to his mother accompanying him to his the provincial town and praying amid burning tears before the wonder-working images and once more sleep appeared an impossibility to him but suddenly the thought of almighty god who can do all things and who hears every supplication came clearly into his mind he knelt down crossed himself and folded his hands as he had been taught to do in his childhood when he prayed this gesture all at once brought back to him a

Starting point is 03:36:18 consoling feeling which he had long since forgotten if i must die if i must cease to exist thy will be done lord he thought let it be quickly but if bravery is needed and the firmness which i do not possess give them to me deliver me from shame and disgrace which i cannot bear but teach me what to do in order to fulfill thy will his childish frightened narrow soul was suddenly encouraged it cleared up and caught sight of broad brilliant and new horizons during the brief period while this feeling lasted he felt and thought many other things and soon fell asleep quietly and unconcernedly to the continuous sounds of the roar of the bombardment and the rattling of the window-panes great lord thou alone hast heard and thou alone knowest those ardent despairing prayers of ignorance of trouble repentance those petitions for the healing of the body and the enlightenment of the mind which have ascended to thee from that terrible precinct of death from the general who a moment before was thinking of his cross of the george on his neck and conscious in his terror of thy near presence to the simple soldier writhing on the bare earth of the nephalaski battery and beseeching thee to bestow upon him there the reward unconsciously presaged for all

Starting point is 03:37:47 his sufferings. 14. The elder Kozletov, meeting on the street a soldier belonging to his regiment, betook himself at once, in company with the man, to the fifth bastion. Keep under the wall, Your Honor, said the soldier. What for? It's dangerous, Your Honor, there's one passing over, said the soldier, listening to the sound of a screaming cannon-ball which struck the dry road on the other side of the street.

Starting point is 03:38:16 cosletoff paying no heed to the soldier walked bravely along the middle of the street these were the same streets the same fires even more frequent now the sounds the groans the encounters with the wounded and the same batteries breastworks and trenches which had been there in the spring when he was last in sebastopol but for some reason all this was now more melancholy and at the same time more energetic the apertures in the houses were larger, there were no longer any lights in the windows, with the exception of the Cushkin House, the hospital. Not a woman was to be met with. The earlier tone of custom and freedom from care no longer rested over all, but instead a certain impress of heavy expectation of weariness and earnestness. But here is the last trench already, and here is the voice of a soldier of the P-regiment, who has recognized the former commander of his company and here stands the third battalion in the gloom clinging close to the wall and light it up now and then for a moment by the discharges and a sound of subdued conversation and the rattling of guns where is the commander of the regiment inquired

Starting point is 03:39:34 in the bomb proofs with the sailors your honor replied the soldier ready to be of service i will show you the way if you like from trench to trench the soldier led kuzletov to the small ditch in the trench in the ditch sat a sailor smoking his pipe behind him a door was visible through whose cracks shone alight can i enter i will announce you at once and the sailor went in through the door two voices became audible on the other side of the door if prussia continues to observe neutrality said one voice then austria also what difference is the door what difference does austria make said the second when the slavic lands well ask him to come in kosletov had never been in this case mate he was struck by its elegance the floor was of polished wood screens shielded the door two bedsteads stood against the wall in one corner stood a large icon of the mother of god in a gilt frame and before her burned a rose-coloured lamp on one of the beds a naval officer fully dressed was sleeping on the other by a table upon which stood two bottles of wine partly empty sat the men who were talking the new regimental commander and his adjutant although kosseltoff was far from being a coward and was certainly not guilty of any wrongdoing so far as his superior officers were concerned nor towards the regimental commander yet he felt timid before the colonel who had been his comrade not long before so proudly did this colonel rise and listen to him it is strange thought kosseltoff as he surveyed his commander it is only seven weeks since he took the regiment and how visible already is his power as regimental commander in everything about him in his dress his bearing his look

Starting point is 03:41:29 is it so very long thought he since this batrisheth used to carouse with us and he wore a cheap cotton shirt and ate by himself never inviting any one to his quarters his eternal meatballs and curd paddies but now and that expression of cold pride in his eyes which says to you though i am your comrade because i am a regimental commander of the new school yet believe me i am well aware that you would give half your life merely for the sake of being in my place you have been a long time in recovering said the colonel to kosseltov coldly with a stare i was ill colonel the wound has not closed well even now then there was no use in your coming said the colonel casting an incredulous glance at the captain's stout figure you are nevertheless in a condition to fulfil your duty certainly i am sir well i'm very glad of that sir you will take the ninth company from ensign zytsoff the one you had before you will receive your orders immediately i obey sir take care to send me the regiment when you arrive said the regimental commander giving him to understand by a slight nod that his audience was at an end on emerging from the casemate kosseltov muttered something several times and shrugged his shoulders as though pained embarrassed or vexed at something and vexed not at the regimental commander there was no cause for that but at himself and he appeared to be dissatisfied with himself and he appeared to be dissatisfied with himself and with everything about him.

Starting point is 03:43:16 End of chapters 13 and 14. Chapters 15 and 16 of Sevastopol by Leal Tolstoy. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Chapters 15 and 16 of Part 3, Sevastopol in August 1855. Before going to his officers, Kozletov went to greet his company and to see where it was stationed. The breastwork of gabions, the shapes of the trenches, the cannons which he passed, even the fragments of shots, bombs, over which he stumbled in his path, all this incessantly illuminated by the light of the firing, was well known to him. All this had engraved itself

Starting point is 03:44:04 in vivid colors on his memory three months before during the two weeks which he had spent in this very bastion without once leaving it. Although there was much that was terrible in these reminiscences a certain charm of past things was mingled with it and he recognized the familiar places and objects with pleasure as though the two weeks spent there had been agreeable ones the company was stationed along the defensive wall toward the sixth bastion kosseltoff entered the long casemate utterly unprotected at the entrance side in which they had told him that the ninth company was stationed there was literally no room to set his foot in the casemate so filled was it from the very entrance with soldiers on one side burned a crooked tallow candle which a recumbent soldier was holding to illuminate the book which another one was spelling out slowly around the candle in the reeking half-light heads were visible eagerly raised and strained attention to the reader the little book in question was a primer as koseltov entered the casemate he heard the following prayer after learning i thank thee creed i e a door snuff that candle said a voice that's a splendid book my god went on the reader when kosseltov asked for the sergeant the reader stopped the soldiers began to move about coughed and blew their noses as they always do after enforced silence the sergeant rose near the group about the reader buttoning up his coat as he did so and stepping over and on the feet of those who had no room to

Starting point is 03:45:52 withdraw them and came forward to his officer how are you brother do all these belong to our company i wish you health welcome on your return your honor replied the sergeant with a cheerful and friendly look at koltov has your honor recovered your health well god be praised it has been very dull for us without you it was immediately apparent that kossletov was beloved in the company in the depths of the casemate voices could be heard their old commander who had been wounded mikhail semyetjewitch koltov had arrived and so forth some even approached and the drummer congratulated him how are you o boncic said kalsletov are you all right good-day children he said raising his voice we wish you health sounded through the casemate how are you getting on children badly your honor the french are getting the better of us fighting from behind the fortifications is bad work and that's all there is about it and they won't come out into the open field perhaps luck is with me and god will grant that they shall come out into the field children said kosseltov it won't be the first time that you and i have taken a hand together we'll beat them again we'll be glad to try it your honour exclaimed several voices and how about them are they really bold frightfully bold said the drummer not loudly but so that his words were audible turning to another soldier as though justifying before him the words of the commander and persuading him that there was nothing boastful or improbable in these words from the soldiers kuzletov proceeded to the defensive barracks and his brother officers sixteen in the large room of the barracks there was a great number of men naval artillery and infantry officers some were sleeping others were conversing seated on the shot-chests and gun-garriages of the cannons of the fortifications

Starting point is 03:47:54 others still who formed a very numerous and noisy group behind the arch were seated upon two felt rugs which had been spread on the floor and were drinking porter and playing cards a kosseltoff kosseltoff capital it's a good thing that he has come he's a brave fellow how's you wound rang out from various quarters here also it was evident that they loved him and were rejoiced at his coming after shaking hands with his friends kosseltov joined the noisy group of officers engaged in playing cards there were some of his acquaintances among them a slender handsome dark-complexioned man with a long sharp nose and a huge moustache stash, which began on his cheeks, was dealing the cards with his thin, white taper fingers, on one of which there was a heavy gold seal ring. He was dealing straight on, and carelessly, being evidently excited by something, and merely desirous of making a show of heedlessness. On his right and beside him lay a grey-haired major, supporting himself on his elbow, and playing for half a ruble with affected coolness, and settling up.

Starting point is 03:49:05 up immediately. On his left squatted an officer with a red perspiring face who was laughing and jesting in a constrained way. When his cars won, he moved one hand about incessantly in his empty trousers pocket. He was playing high and evidently no longer for ready money, which displeased the handsome dark-complexioned man. A thin and pallid officer with a bald head and a huge nose and mouth was walking about the room, holding a large a large package of bank-nose in his hand, staking ready money on the bank, and winning. Kozlethoff took a drink of vodka and sat down by the players. Take a hand, Mikhail Semyevich, said the dealer to him.

Starting point is 03:49:51 You have brought lots of money, I suppose. Where would I get any money? On the contrary, I got rid of the last I had in town. The idea. Someone certainly must have fleeced you in Semperaple. i really have but very little said kosseltoff but he was evidently desirous that they should not believe him then he unbuttoned his coat and took the old cards in his hand i don't care if i do try there's no knowing what the evil one will do queer things do come about at times but i must have a drink to get up my courage and within a very short space of time he had drunk another glass of vodka and several of porter and had lost his last three roubles a hundred and fifty roubles were written down against the little perspiring officer no he will not bring them said he carelessly drawing a fresh card

Starting point is 03:50:45 try to send it said the dealer to him pausing a moment in his occupation of laying out the cards and glancing at him permit me to send it to-morrow repeated the perspiring officer rising and moving his hand about vigorously in his empty pocket hum growled the dealer and throwing the cards angrily to the right and left he completed the deal but this won't do said he when he had dealt the cards i'm going to stop it won't do zakhar ivanovitch he added we have been playing for ready money and not on credit what do you doubt me that's strange truly from whom is one to get anything muttered the major who had won about eight roubles i have lost over twenty roubles but when i have won i get nothing how am i to pay said the dealer when there is no money on the table i won't listen to you shouted the major jumping up i am playing with you and not with him all at once the perspiring officer flew into a rage i tell you that i will pay to-morrow how dare you say such impertinent things to me i shall say what i please this is not the way to do that's the truth shouted the major that will do feodor feodor feodorovitch all chimed in holding back the major but let us draw a veil over this scene to-morrow to-day it may be each one of these men will go cheerfully and proudly to meet his death and he will die with firmness and composure but the one consolation of life in these conditions which terrify even the coldest imagination in the absence of all that is human and the hopelessness of any escape from them the one consolation is forgetfulness the annihilation of consciousness at the bottom of the soul of each lies that noble spark which makes of him a hero

Starting point is 03:52:46 but this spark wearies of burning clearly when the fateful moment comes it flashes up into a flame and illuminates great deeds end of chapters fifteen and sixteen chapters seventeen and eighteen of sebastopol by leal tolstoy this livervox recording is in the public domain chapters seventeen and eighteen of part three sebastopol in august eighteen fifty five on the following day the bombardment proceeded with the same vigor at eleven o'clock in the morning the Vladnya Kozlkov was seated in a circle of battery officers and having already succeeded to some extent in habituating himself to them he was surveying the new faces taking observations making inquiries and telling stories the discreet conversation of the artillery officers which made some pretensions to learning, pleased him and inspired him with respect.

Starting point is 03:53:53 Vologna's shy, innocent, and handsome appearance disposed the officers in his favor. The eldest officer in the battery, the captain, a short sandy-complexioned man, with his hair arranged in a top-knot and smooth on the temples, educated in the old traditions of the artillery, a squire of dames and a would-be learned man, questioned Vylagna as to his acquirements in artillery and new inventions, jested caressingly over his youth and his pretty little face, and treated him in general as a father treats a son, which was extremely agreeable to Vlagna. Sub-Lieutenant Diyodenko, a young officer, who talked with a little Russian accent, had a tattered cloak and dishevelled hair, although he talked very loudly and constantly

Starting point is 03:54:43 seized opportunities to dispute acrimoniously over some topic. and was very abrupt in his movements pleased valedna who beneath this rough exterior could not help detecting in him a very fine and extremely good man d'yodenko was incessantly offering his services to valedna and pointing out to him that not one of the guns in sebastopol was properly placed according to rule lieutenant chernovitsky with his brows elevated on high though he was more courteous than any of the rest and and dressed in a coat that was tolerably clean but not new and carefully patched and though he displayed a gold watch-chain on a satin waistcoat did not please he kept inquiring what the emperor and the minister of war were doing and related to him with unnatural triumph the deeds of valor which had been performed in sebastopol complaining of the small number of true patriots and displayed a great deal of learning and sense and noble feeling in general but for some reason all this seemed unpleasant and unnatural to volodyna the principal thing which he noticed was that the other officers hardly spoke to chernovetsky yunkerv lang whom he had waked up on the preceding evening was also there he said nothing but seated modestly in a corner laughed when anything amusing occurred refreshed their memories when they forgot anything handed the vodka and made cigarette for all the officers whether it was the modest courteous manners of valagna who treated him exactly as he did the officers and did not torment him as though he were a little boy or his agreeable personal appearance which captivated langa as the soldiers called him

Starting point is 03:56:36 declining his name for some reason or other in the feminine gender at all events he never took his big kind eyes from the face of the new officer he divined and anticipated all his wishes and remained uninterruptedly in a sort of lover-like ecstasy, which of course the officers perceived and made fun of. Before dinner, the staff-captain was relieved from the battery and joined their company. Staff-captain Kraut was a light-complexioned, handsome dashing officer with a heavy reddish mustache and side-whiskers. He spoke Russian capitally, but too elegantly and correctly for a Russian. in the service and in his life he had been the same as in his language he served very well was a capital comrade and the most faithful of men in money matters but simply as a man something was lacking in him precisely because everything about him was so excellent

Starting point is 03:57:37 like all russian germans by a strange contradiction with the ideal german he was practish to the highest degree here he is our hero makes his appearance said the captain as kraut flourishing his arms and jingling his spurs entered the room which will you have friedrich krestunevitch tea or vodka i have already ordered my tea to be served he answered but i may take a little drop of vodka also for the refreshing of the soul very glad to make your acquaintance i beg that you will love us and lend us your favour he said to volonia who rose and bowed to him staff captain kraut the gun-sarge on the bastion informed me that you arrived last night much obliged for your bed i passed the night in it i hope you found it comfortable one of the legs is broken but no one can stand on ceremony in time of siege you must prop it up well now did you have a fortunate time on your watch asked diodino go oh yes all right only sversov was hit and we mended one of the gun-carriages last night the cheek was smashed to adams he rose from his seat and began to walk up and down it was plain that he was wholly under the influence of that agreeable sensation which a man experiences who has just escaped a danger well dmitri gaverlitch he said tapping the captain on the knee how are you getting on my dear fellow how about your promotion no word yet nothing yet no and there will be nothing interpolated diodenko i prove that to you before why won't there because the story was not properly written down oh you quarrelsome fellow you quarrelsome fellow said kraut smiling gaily a regular obstinate little russian now just to provoke you he'll turn out your lieutenant

Starting point is 03:59:34 no you won't blang fetch me my pipe and fill it said he turning to the yunker who at once hastened up obligingly with the pipe kraut made them all lively he told about the bombardment he inquired what had been going on in his absence and entered into conversation with every one eighteen well how are things have you already got settled among us kraut asked excuse me what is your name and patronymic that's the custom with us in the artillery you know have you got hold of a saddle-horse no said valagna i do not know what to do i told the captain that i had no horse and no money either until i could get some for forage and travelling expenses i want to ask the battery commander for a horse in the meantime but i am afraid that he will refuse me apollon sir guillethe do you mean he produced me he produced me with his lips a sound indicative of the strongest doubt and glanced at the captain not likely what's that if he does refuse there'll be no harm done said the captain there are horses to tell the truth which are not needed but still one might try i will inquire to-day what don't you know him diodenko interpolated he might refuse anything but there is no reason for refusing this do you want to bet on it well of course every everybody knows already that you always contradict i contradict because i know he is niggardly about other things but he will give the horse because it is no advantage to him to refuse no advantage indeed when it costs him eight roubles here for oates said kraut is there no advantage in not keeping an extra horse ask scrovorich yourself l'adimir semyitch said vlang returning with kraut's pipe it's a capital horse the one you're going to-hehrush the one you're not keeping an extra horse the one you're going tommyitch the one you're

Starting point is 04:01:32 you tumbled into the ditch with on the festival of the forty martyrs in march eh vlang remarked the staff-captain no and why should you say that it costs eight roubles for oats pursued diodenko when his own inquiry show him that it is ten and a half of course he has no object in it just as though he would have nothing left so when you get to be battery commander you won't let any horses go into the town when i get to be battery commander you won't let any horses go into the town when i get to be battery commander my dear fellow my horses will get four measures of oats to eat and i shall not accumulate an income never fear if we live we shall see said the staff captain and you will act just so and so will he when he commands a battery he added pointing at why do you think friedrich christianovich that he would turn it to his profit broke in chernetsky perhaps he has property of his own then why should he turn it to a profit no sir i excuse me captain said valagna reddening up to his ears that strikes me as insulting oh ho what a madcap he is said kraut that has nothing to do with it i only think that if the money were not mine i should not take it now i'll tell you something right here young man began the staff captain in a more serious tone you are to understand that when you command a battery if you manage things well that's sufficient the commander of a battery does not meddle with provisioning the soldiers that is the way it has been from time immemorial in the artillery if you are a bad manager you will have nothing left now these are the expenditures in conformity with your position for shoeing your horse one he closed one finger for the apothecary two he closed another finger for office work three he shut a third for extra horses which cost five hundred

Starting point is 04:03:32 rubles, my dear fellow. That's four. You must change the soldier's collars. You will use a great deal of coal. You must keep open table for your officers. If you are a battery commander, you must live decently. You need a carriage and a fur coat, and this thing and that thing, and a dozen more. Ah, but what's the use of enumerating them all? But this is the principal thing, Vladimir Simovitch, interpolated the captain who had held his peace all this time, imagine yourself to be a man who, like myself, for instance, has served twenty years, first for two hundred, then for three hundred roubles pay. Why should he not be given at least a bit of bread against his old age? Yes, there you have it, spoke up the staff-captain again.

Starting point is 04:04:21 Don't be in a hurry to pronounce judgment, but live on, and serve your time. belodgna was horribly ashamed and sorry for having spoken so thoughtlessly and he muttered something and continued to listen in silence when diodenko undertook with the greatest zeal to dispute it and to prove the contrary the dispute was interrupted by the arrival of the colonel's servant who summoned them to dinner tell apollon sergeyitch that he must give us some wine to-day said chernofsky to the captain as he buttoned up his uniform why is he something so stingy with it he will be killed and no one will get the good of it tell him yourself not a bit of it you or my superior officer rank must be regarded in all things end of chapters seventeen and eighteen chapters nineteen and twenty of sebastopol by leo tolstoy this liver-box recording is in the public domain chapters nineteen and twenty of part three sebastopol in allostoy this liver-box recording is in the public domain chapter nineteen and twenty of part three sebastopol in all august eighteen fifty five the table had been moved out from the wall and spread with a soiled tablecloth in the same room in which volonia had presented himself to the colonel on the preceding evening the battery commander now offered him his hand and questioned him about petersburg and his journey well gentlemen i beg the favor of a glass with any of you who drink vodka the incense do not drink he added with a smile on the whole the battery commander did not appear nearly so stern to-day as he had on the preceding evening on the contrary he had the appearance of a kindly hospitable host and an elder comrade among the officers

Starting point is 04:06:13 but in spite of this all the officers from the old captain down to ensign dyodenko by their very manner of speaking and looking the commander straight in the eye as they approached one after the other to drink their vodka exhibited great respect for him the dinner consisted of a large wooden bowl of cabbage soup in which floated fat chunks of beef and a huge quantity of pepper and laurel leaves mustard and polish meatballs in a cabbage leaf turn over patties of chopped meat and dough and with butter which was not perfectly fresh there were no napkins the spoons were of pewter and wood there were only two glasses and on the table stood a decanter of water with a broken neck but the dinner was not dull conversation never halted. At first their talk turned on the battle of Inkermann in which the battery had taken part as to the causes of failure of which each one gave his own impressions and ideas and held his tongue as soon as the battery commander himself began to speak. Then the conversation naturally changed to the insufficiency of caliber of the light guns and upon the now lightened cannons in which connection Volodya had an opportunity to display his knowledge of our

Starting point is 04:07:30 artillery but their talk did not dwell upon the present terrible position of sebastopol as though each of them had meditated too much on that subject to allude to it again in the same way to volodya's great amazement and disappointment not a word was said about the duties of the service which he was to fulfil just as though he had come to sebastopol merely for the purpose of telling about the new cannon and dining with the commander of the battery while they were at dinner a bomb fell not far from the house in which they were seated the walls and the floor trembled as though in an earthquake and the window was obscured with the smoke of the powder you did not see anything of this sort in petersburg i fancy but these surprises often take place here said the battery commander look out flang and see where it burst flang looked and reported that it had burst on the square and then there was nothing more said about the bomb just before the end of the dinner an old man the clerk of the battery entered the room with three sealed envelopes and handed them to the commander this is very important a messenger has this moment brought these from the chief of the artillery all the officers gazed with impatient curiosity at the commander's practised fingers as they broke the seal of the envelope and drew forth the very important paper what can it be each one asked himself it might be that they were to march out of savastable for a rest it might be in order for the whole battery to betake themselves to the bastions again said the commander flinging the paper angrily on the table what's it about apollon soge inquired the eldest officer an officer and crew are required for a mortar battery over yonder and i have only four officers and there is not a full gun crew in the line growled the commander

Starting point is 04:09:27 and here more are demanded of me but some one must go gentlemen he said after a brief pause the order requires him to be at the barrier at seven o'clock send the sergeant who is to go gentlemen decide he repeated well here's one who has never been yet said chernovitsky pointing to volignan the commander of the battery made no reply yes i would like to go said valodne as he felt the cold sweat start out on his back and neck no why should you there's no occasion broke in the captain of course no one will refuse but neither is it proper to ask any one but if apollon sogeitch will permit us we will draw lots as we did once before all agreed to this kraut cut some paper into bits folded them up and dropped them into a cap the captain jested and even plucked up the audacity on this occasion to ask the colonel for wine to keep up their courage he said diodino said in gloomy silence bologna smiled at something or other chernivitsky declared that it would infallibly fall to him kraout was perfectly composed valonia was allowed to draw first he took one slip which was rather long but it immediately occurred to him to change it he took another which was smaller and thinner unfolded it and read on it i go it has fallen to me he said with a sigh well god be with you you will get your baptism of fire at once said the commander of the battery gazing at the perturbed countenance of the ensign with a kindly smile but you must get there as speedily as possible and to make it more cheerful for you flang will go with you as gun sergeant twenty vang was exceedingly well pleased with a duty assigned to him and ran hastily to make his preparations and when he was dressed he was well pleased with a duty assigned to him and ran hastily to make his preparations and when he was dressed he was dressed he was

Starting point is 04:11:26 went to the assistance of volodyna and tried to persuade the latter to take his cot and fur coat with him and some old annals of the country and a spirit-lamp coffee-pot and other useless things the captain advised valedia to read up his manual first about mortar firing and immediately to copy the tables out of it belogne said about this at once and to his amazement and delight he perceived that though he was still somewhat troubled with a sensation of fear of danger and still more lest he should turn out a coward yet it was far from being to that degree to which it had affected him on the previous evening the reason for this lay partly in the daylight and in active occupation and partly principally also in the fact that fear and all-powerful emotion cannot long continue with the same intensity in a word he had already succeeded in recovering from his terror at seven o'clock just as the sun had begun to hide itself behind the nikolhevsky barracks the sergeant came to him and announced that the men were ready and waiting for him i have given the list to vlanga you will please to ask for it your honor said he twenty artillery men with side-arms but without loading-tools were standing at the corn of the house. Volodyna and the Juncker stepped up to them. Shall I make them a little speech, or shall I simply say good-day children? Or shall I say nothing at all, thought he? And why should I

Starting point is 04:12:59 not say good-day-children? Why, I ought to say that much, and he shouted boldly in his ringing voice, good-day children! The soldiers responded cheerfully. The fresh young voice sounded pleasant in the ears of all. Volodyna marched vigorously at their head in front of the soldiers, and although his heart beat as if he had run several bursts at the top of his speed his step was light and his countenance cheerful on arriving at the malachoff mound and climbing the slope he perceived that lang who had not lagged a single pace behind him and who had appeared such a valiant fellow at home in the house kept constantly swerving to one side and ducking his head as though all the cannon-balls and bombs which whizzed by very frequently in that locality were flying straight at him some of the soldiers did the same and the faces of the majority of them betrayed if not fear at least anxiety this circumstance put the finishing touch to volodnya's composure and encouraged him finally so here i am also on the malikov mound which i imagine to be a thousand times more terrible and i can walk along without ducking my head before the bombs and am far less terrified than the rest so i am not a coward after all he thought with delight and even with a somewhat enthusiastic self-sufficiency but this feeling was soon shaken by a spectacle upon which he stumbled in the twilight on the cornelofsky battery in his search for the commander of the bastion

Starting point is 04:14:36 four sailors standing near the breastworks were holding the bloody body of a man without shoes or coat by its arms and legs and staggering as they tried to fling it over the rampant on the second day of the bombardment it had been found impossible in some localities to carry off the corpses from the bastions and so they were flung into the trench in order that they might not impede action in the batteries volagna stood petrified for a moment as he saw the corpse waver on the summit of the breastworks and then rowed down into the ditch but luckily for him the commander of the bastion met him there communicated his orders and furnished him with a guide to the battery and to the bomb proofs designated for his service we will not enumerate the remaining dangers and disenchantments which our hero underwent that evening how instead of the firing such as he had seen on the volko field according to the rules of accuracy and precision which he had expected to find here he found two cracked mortars one of which had been crushed by a cannon-ball in the muzzle while the other stood upon the splinters of a ruined platform how he could not obtain any workmen until the following morning in order to repair the platform how not a single charge was of the weight prescribed in the manual how two soldiers of his command were wounded and how he was twenty times within a hair's breath of death fortunately there had been assigned for his assistant a gun-captain of gigantic size a sailor who had served on the mortars since the beginning of his assistant a gun-captain of gigantic size a sailor who had served on the mortars since the beginning of the siege and who convinced him of the practicality of using them conducted him all over the bastion with a lantern during the night exactly as though it had been his own kitchen-garden and who promised to put everything in proper shape on the marl

Starting point is 04:16:33 the bomb-proof to which his guide conducted him was excavated in the rocky soil and consisted of a long hole two cubic fathoms in extent covered with oaken planks and archen in thick here he took up his post with all his soldiers blang was the first when he caught sight of the little door twenty-eight inches high of the bomb-proof to rush headlong into it in front of them all and after nearly cracking his skull on the stone floor he huddled down in a corner from which he did not again emerge and volodyna when all the soldiers had placed themselves along the wall on the floor and some had lighted their pipes set up his bed in one corner like a candle and lay upon his cot smoking a cigarette shots were incessantly heard over the bomb-proof but they were not very loud with the exception of those from one cannon which stood close by and shook the bomb-proof with its thunder in the bomb-proof itself all was still the soldiers who were a little shy as yet of the new officer only exchanged a few words now and then as they requested each other to move out of the way or to to furnish a light for a pipe a rat scratched somewhere among the stones or of lang who had not yet recovered himself and who still gazed wildly about him uttered a sudden vigorous sigh belogne as he lay on his bed in his quiet corner surrounded by the men and illuminated only by a single candle experienced that sensation of well-being which he had known as a child when in the course of a game of hide and seek he used to crawl into a cupboard or under his mother's skirts and listen not daring to draw his breath and afraid of the dark and yet conscious of enjoying himself he felt a little oppressed but cheerful

Starting point is 04:18:31 end of chapters nineteen and twenty two chapters twenty one and twenty two of sebastopol by leal tolstoy this librivox recording is in the public domain chapters twenty one and twenty two of part three sebastopol in august eighteen fifty five after the lapse of about ten minutes the soldiers began to change about and to converse together the most important personages among them the two gun sergeants placed themselves nearest the officers light and bed one was old and grey-haired with every possible medal and cross except the george the other was young a militia man who smoked cigarettes which he was rolling the drummer as usual assumed the duty of waiting on the officer the bombardiers and cavalrymen sat next and then farther away in the shadow of the entrance the underlings took up their post they too began to talk among themselves it was caused by the hasty entrance of a man into the casemate how now brother couldn't you stay in the street didn't the girls sing merrily said a voice they sing such marvellous songs as were never heard in the village said the man who had fled into the casemate with a laugh but vason does not love bombs ah no he does not love them said one from the aristocratic corner the idea it's quite another matter when it's necessary drawl the voice of vasson who made all the others keep silent when he spoke since the twenty-fourth the firing has been going on desperately and what is there wrong about it you'll get killed for nothing and your superiors won't so much as say thank you for it at these words of vasen all burst into a laugh there's melnikov that fellow who will sit outside the door said some one well send him here that melnikov added the old gunner they will kill him for a fact and that to no purpose

Starting point is 04:20:36 who is this melnikov asked valedna why your honour he's a stupid soldier of ours he doesn't seem to be afraid of anything and now he keeps walking about outside pleased to take a look at him he looks like a bear he knows a spell said the slow voice of besen from the corner melnikov entered the bomb-proof he was fat which is extremely rare among soldiers and a sandy complexioned handsome man with a huge bulging forehead and prominent light-blue eyes are you afraid of the bombs valedna asked him what is there about the bombs to be afraid up replied melnikov shrugging his shoulders and scratching his head i know that i shall not be killed by a bomb so you would like to go on living here why of course i would it's jolly here he said with a sudden outburst of laughter oh then you must be detailed for the sortie i'll tell the general so if you like said although he was not acquainted with a single general there why shouldn't i like i do and melnikov disappeared behind the others let's have a game of noski children who has cards rang out his brisk voice and in fact it was not long before a game was started in the back corner and blows on the nose laughter and calling of trumps were heard valedia drank some tea from the samovar which the drummers served for him treated the gunners jested chatted with them being desirous of winning popularity and felt very well content with the respect which was shown him the soldiers too perceiving that the gentlemen put on no airs began to talk together one declared that the siege of sebastopol would soon come to an end because a trustworthy man from the fleet had said that the emperor's brother constantine was coming to their relief with the american fleet

Starting point is 04:22:35 and there would soon be an agreement that there should be no firing for two weeks and that arrest should be allowed and if any one did fire a shot every discharge would have to be paid for a-for-weeks and that arrest should be allowed and if any one did fire a shot every discharge would have to be paid for for at the rate of seventy-five copax each. Bassen, who, as Vlagna had already noticed, was a little fellow, with large kindly eyes and side-whiskers, related amid a general silence at first, and afterwards amid a general laughter, how when he had gone home on leave, they had been glad at first to see him, but afterwards his father had begun to send him off to work, and the lieutenant of the Forrester's corps sent his drotchky for his wife all this amused baladne greatly he not only did not experience the least fear or inconvenience from the closeness and heavy air in the bomb-proof but he felt in a remarkably cheerful and agreeable frame of mind many of the soldiers were already snoring lang had also stretched himself out on the floor and the old gun sergeant having spread out his cloak was crossing himself and muttering his prayers

Starting point is 04:23:44 preparatory to sleep, when Velodnia took a fancy to step out of the bomb-proof and see what was going on outside. "'Take your legs out of the way,' cried one soldier to another, as soon as he rose, and the legs were pressed aside to make way for him. Blang, who appeared to be asleep, suddenly raised his head, and seized Velodnia by the skirt of his coat. "'Come, don't go. How can you?' he began in a tearfully imploring tone.

Starting point is 04:24:12 "'You don't know about things yet. they are firing at us out there all the time it is better here but in spite of lang's entreaties volodya made his way out of the bomb-proof and seated himself on the threshold where melnikov was already sitting the air was pure and fresh particularly after the bomb-proof the night was clear and still through the roar of the discharges could be heard the sounds of cart-wheels bringing gabbians and the voices of the men who were at work on the magazine above their heads was the lofty starry sky across which flashed the fiery streaks caused by the bombs and archen away on the left a tiny opening led to another bomb proof through which the feet and backs of the soldiers who lived there were visible and through which their voices were audible in front the elevation produced by the powder vault could be seen and athwart it flitted the bent figures of men and upon it at the very summit amid the bullets and the bombs which was which was seen the forwarded the footed the bent figures of men and upon it at the very summit amid the bullets and the bombs which was whistled past the spot incessantly stood a tall form in a black palatoth with his hands in his pockets and feet treading down the earth which other men were fetching in sacks often a bomb would fly over and burst close to the cave the soldiers engaged in bringing the earth bent over and ran aside but the black figure never moved went on quietly stamping down the dirt with his feet and remained on the spot in the same attitude as before for who is that black man inquired valed valedia of melnikov i don't know i will go and see don't go it is not necessary but melnikov without heeding him walked up to the black figure and stood beside him for a tolerably long time as calm and immovable as the man himself

Starting point is 04:26:04 that is the man who has charge of the magazine your honor he said on his return it has been pierced by a bomb so the infantrymen are fetching more earth now and then a bomb seemed to fly straight at the door of the bomb-proof. On such occasions Valodnia shrank into the corner and then peered forth again, gazing upwards to see whether another was not coming from some direction. Although flying from the interior of the bomb-proof repeatedly besought Valadne to come back, the latter sat on the threshold for three hours and experienced a sort of satisfaction in thus tempting fate and in watching the flight of the bomb-es. bombs towards the end of the evening he had learned from what point most of the firing proceeded and where the shots struck twenty two

Starting point is 04:26:55 on the following day the twenty seventh after a ten hour sleep valagna fresh and active stepped out on the threshold of the casement lang also started to crawl out with him but at the first sound of a bullet he flung himself backwards through the opening of the bomb-proof bumping his head as he did so amid the general merriment of the soldiers the majority of whom had also come out into the open air lang the old gun sergeant and a few others were the only ones who rarely went out into the trenches it was impossible to restrain the rest they all scattered about in the fresh morning air escaping from the fetid air of the bonproof and in spite of the fact that the bombardment was as vigorous as on the preceding evening they disposed themselves around the door and some even on the breastworks melnikov had been strolling about among the batteries since daybreak and staring up with perfect coolness near the entrance sat two old soldiers and one young curly-haired fellow a jew who had been detailed from the infantry this soldier picked up one of the bullets which were lying about and having smoothed it against a stone with a pot-shirt with his knife he carved from it a cross after the style of the order of st george the others looked on at his work as they talked the cross really turned out to be quite handsome now if we stay here much longer said one of them then when peace is made the time of service will be up for all of us ah nothing of the sort i have at least four years service yet before my time is up and i have been in sebastopol these five months it is not counted towards the discharge do you understand said another at that moment a cannon-ball shrieked over the heads of the speakers and struck only an archen away from melnikov who was approaching from the trenches that came near killing melnokov said one man

Starting point is 04:28:56 i shall not be killed said melnikov here's the cross for you for your bravery said the young soldier who had made the cross handing it to melnikov no brother a month here counts for a year of course that was the order the conversation continued think what you please but when peace is declared there will be an imperial review at orsaba and if we don't get our discharge we shall be allowed to go on indefinite leave at that moment a shrieking little bullet flew past the speaker's heads and struck a stone you'll get a full discharge before evening see if you don't said one of the soldiers they all laughed not only before evening but before the expiration of two hours two of them received their full discharge, and five were wounded, but the rest jested on as before. By morning the two mortars had actually been brought into such a condition that it was possible to fire them. At ten o'clock, in accordance with the orders which had been received from the commander of the bastion, Fologna called out his command and marched to the battery with it. In the men, as soon as they proceeded to action, there was not a drop of that sentiment of fear

Starting point is 04:30:13 perceptible which had been expressed on the preceding evening vlang alone could not control himself he dodged and ducked just as before and vezen lost some of his composure and fussed and fidgeted and changed his place incessantly but vola was in an extraordinary state of enthusiasm the thought of danger did not even occur to him delight that he was fulfilling his duty that he was not only not a coward but even a valiant fellow the feeling of the feeling of his duty that he was not a coward but even a valiant fellow the feeling that he was in command and the presence of twenty men who as he was aware were surveying him with curiosity made a thoroughly brave man of him he was even vain of his valor put on airs before his soldiers climbed up on the banquette and unbuttoned his coat expressly that he might render himself the more distinctly visible the commander of the bastion who was going the rounds of his establishment as he expressed it at the moment accustomed as he had to become during his eight months experience to all sorts of bravery could not refrain from admiring this handsome lad in the unbuttoned coat beneath which a red shirt was visible encircling his soft white neck with his animated face and eyes as he clapped his hands and shouted first second

Starting point is 04:31:33 and ran gaily along the ramparts in order to see where his bomb would fall at half-past eleven the firing ceased on both sides and at precisely twelve o'clock the storming of the malacoff mound of the second third and fifth bastions began end of chapters twenty one and twenty two chapters twenty three and twenty four of sebastopol by leo tolstoy this liber box recording is in the public domain chapters twenty three and twenty four of part three sebastopol in august eighteen fifty five on this side of the bay between inkerman and the northern fortifications on the telegraph hill about midday stood two naval men one was an officer who was engaged in observing sebastopol through a telescope and the other had just arrived at the signal station with his orderly the sun stood high and brilliant above the bay and played with the ships which floated upon it and with the moving sails and boats with a warm and cheerful glow the light breeze hardly moved the leaves of the dry oak shrubs which stood about the signal pole puffed out the sails of the boats and ruffled the waves sebastopol with her unfinished church her columns her line of shore her boulevard showing green against the hill and her elegant library building with her tiny azure inlets filled with masts with the picturesque arches of her aqueducts and the clouds of blue smoke lighted up now and then by red flashes of flame from the firing the same beautiful proud festive sebastopol hemmed in on one side by yellow smoke-crowned hills on the other by the bright blue sea which glittered in the sun was visible the same as ever on the other side

Starting point is 04:33:37 of the bay. Over the horizon line of the sea, along which floated a long wreath of black smoke from some steamer, crept long white clouds portending a gale. Along the entire line of the fortifications, especially over the hills on the left, rose columns of thick, dense white smoke, suddenly, abruptly, and incessantly illuminated by flashes, lightnings, which shone even amid the light of high noon, and which constantly increased in volume, assuming diverse forms as they swept upwards and tinged the heavens. These puffs of smoke, flashing now here and now there, took their berth on the hills in the batteries of the enemy, in the city, and high against the sky. The sound of the discharges never ceased, but shook the air with their mingled roar. At twelve o'clock the puffs of smoke began to

Starting point is 04:34:35 occur less and less frequently and the atmosphere quivered less with the roar but the second bastion is no longer replying at all said the officer of hussars who sat there on horseback it is utterly destroyed horrible yes and the malikov only sends one shot to their three replied the officer who was looking through his glass it enrages me to have them silent they are firing straight on the cornelofsky battery and it is not answering at all but you see that they always cease the bombardment at twelve o'clock just as i said it is the same to-day let us go and get some breakfast they are already waiting for us there's nothing to see stop don't interfere said the officer with the glass gazing at sebastopol with peculiar eagerness what's going on there what is it there is a movement in the trenches and heavy columns are marching yes though that is evident said the other the columns are under way we must give the signal see see they have emerged from the trenches in truth it was visible to the naked eye that dark masses were moving down the hill across the narrow valley from the french batteries to the bastions in front of these specks dark streaks were visible which were already close to our lines white puffs of smoke of discharges burst out at various points on the back as though the firing were running along the line the breeze bore to them the sounds of musketry shots exchanged briskly like rain upon the window-pane the black streaks moved on nearer and nearer into the very smoke the sounds of firing grew louder and louder and mingled in a lengthened resounding roar the smoke rising more and more frequently spread rapidly along the line flowing together in one lilac-hued cloud which dispersed and joined again

Starting point is 04:36:35 and through which here and there flitted flames and black points and all sounds were commingled with one reverberating crash an assault said the officer with a pale face as he handed the glass to the naval officer orderlies galloped along the road officers on horseback the commander-in-chief in a calesh and his suite passed by profound emotion and expectation were visible on all countenances it cannot be that they have taken it said the mounted officer by heavens there's the standard look look said the other sighing and abandoning the glass the french standard on the malacoff it cannot be twenty four the elder kosseltoff who had succeeded in winning back his money and losing it all again that night including even the gold pieces which were sewed into his cuffs had fallen just before daybreak into a heavy unhealthy but profound slumber in the fortified barracks of the fifth battalion when the fateful cry repeated by various voices rang out the alarm why are you sleeping mikhail semyovitch there's an assault of which shouted at him that is probably some schoolboy he said opening his eyes but putting no faith in it but all at once he caught sight of an officer running aimlessly from one corner to the other with such a pale face that he understood it all. The thought that he might be taken for a coward, who did not wish to go out to his company at a critical moment, struck him with terrible force. He ran to his core at the top of his

Starting point is 04:38:18 speed. Firing had ceased from the heavy guns, but the crash of musketry was at its height. The bullets whistled, not singly like rifle-balls, but in swarms like a flock of birds in autumn, flying past overhead. The entire spot on which his battalion had stood the night before, was veiled in smoke and the shouts and cries of the enemy were audible soldiers both wounded and unwounded met him in throngs after running thirty paces further he caught sight of his company which was hugging the wall they have captured swarts said a young officer all is lost nonsense said he angrily grasping his blunt little iron sword and he began to shout forward children hurrah his voice was strong and re-re ringing, it rouse even Kozletoff himself. He ran forward along the traverse, fifty soldiers rushed after him, shouting as they went. From the traverse he ran out upon an open square. The bullets fell literally like hail. Two struck him, but where and what they did, whether

Starting point is 04:39:25 they bruised or wounded him, he had not the time to decide. In front he could already see blue uniforms and red trousers, and could hear shouts which were not Russian. one frenchman was standing on the breastworks waving his cap and shouting something cosletoff was convinced that he was about to be killed this gave him courage he ran on and on some soldiers overtook him other soldiers appeared at one side also running the blue uniforms remained at the same distance from him fleeing back from him to their own trenches but beneath his feet were the dead and wounded when he had run to the outermost ditch everything became confused before kosseltoff's eyes and he was conscious of a pain in the breast half an hour later he was lying on a stretcher near the nikolovsky barracks and knew that he was wounded though he felt hardly any pain all he wanted was something cooling to drink and to be allowed to lie still in peace a plump little doctor with black side whiskers approached him and unbuttoned his coat koseltoff stared over his chin at what the doctor was doing to his wound and at the doctor's face but he felt no pain the doctor covered his wound with his shirt wiped his fingers on the skirts of his coat and without a word or glance at the wounded man went off to some one else goseltoff's eyes mechanically took note of what was going on before him and recalling the fact that he had been in the fifth bastion he thought with an extraordinary feeling of self-satisfaction that he had fulfilled his duty well and that for the first time in all his first time in all his station he thought with an extraordinary feeling of self-satisfaction that he had fulfilled his duty well and that for the first time in all his

Starting point is 04:41:06 service he had behaved as handsomely as it was possible for anyone and had nothing with which to reproach himself the doctor after bandaging the other officer's wound pointed to kuzletov and said something to a priest with a huge reddish beard and a cross who was standing near by what am i dying kuzltov asked the priest when the latter approached him the priest without making any reply recited a prayer and handed the cross to the wounded man death had no terrors for kuzletoth he grasped the cross with his weak hands pressed it to his lips and burst into tears well were the french repulsed he inquired of the priest in firm tones the victory has remained with us at every point replied the priest in order to comfort the wounded man concealing from him the fact that the french standard had already been unfurled on the malacov mound thank god said the wounded man without feeling the tears which were trickling down his cheeks. The thought of his brother occurred to his mind for a single instant, may God grant him the same good fortune, he said to himself. End of chapters 23 and 24. Chapter 25 and 26 of Sebastopol by Leo Tolstoy. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 25 and 26 of Part 3, Sebastian

Starting point is 04:42:41 in August 1855. But the same fate did not await Vlodja. He was listening to a tale which Vason was in the act of relating to him when there was a cry, The French are coming! The blood fled for a moment to Valajia's heart, and he felt his cheeks turned cold and pale. For one second he remained motionless, but on glancing about him he perceived that the soldiers were buttoning up their coats with tolerable equanimity.

Starting point is 04:43:11 and crawling out one after the other one even probably melnikov remarked in a jesting way go out and offer them the bread and salt of hospitality children belardya in company with lang who never separated from him by so much as the step crawled out of the bomb proof and ran to the battery there was no artillery firing whatever in progress on either side it was not so much the sight of the soldier's composure which aroused his courage as the pitiful and undisguised cowardice of lang is it possible for me to be like him he said to himself and he ran on gaily up to the breastworks near which his mortar stood it was clearly apparent to him that the french were making straight for him through an open space and that masses of them with their bayonets glittering in the sun were moving in the nearest trenches one a short broad-shouldered fellow in zoov uniform and armed with a sword ran on in front and and leaped the ditch. Fire grape-shot! shouted Valagna, hastening from the banquette, but the soldiers had already made their preparations without waiting for his orders, and the metallic sound of the grape-shot which they discharged shrieked over his head, first from one and then from the other mortar.

Starting point is 04:44:30 First, second, commanded Valagna, running from one mortar to the other, and utterly oblivious of danger. On one side and near at hand the crash of musketry from our from our men under shelter and anxious cries were heard all at once a startling cry of despair repeated by several voices was heard on the left they are surrounding us they are surrounding us valedna looked round at this shout twenty frenchmen made their appearance in the rear one of them a handsome man with a black beard was in front of all but after running up to within ten paces of the battery he halted and fired straight at valodna and then ran towards him once more for a second valedna stood as though turned to stone and did not believe his eyes when he recovered himself and glanced about him there were blue uniforms in front of him on the ramparts two frenchmen were even even spiking a cannon not ten paces distant from him there was no one near him with the exception of melnikov who had been killed by a bullet beside him and vang who with a hand-spike clutched in his hand had rushed forwards with an expression of wrath on his face and with eyes lowered follow me vladimirzegovitch follow me shouted the desperate voice of lang as he brandished his hand-spike over the french who were pouring in from the rear the yunker's

Starting point is 04:45:54 ferocious countenance startled them. He struck the one who was in advance on the head. The others involuntarily paused, and Vlang continued to glare about him, and to shout in despairing accents, follow me, Vladimir Semyvich. Why do you stand there? Run! And ran towards the trenches, in which lay our infantry firing at the French. After leaping into the trench, he came out again to see what his adored ensign was doing. something in a coat was lying prostrate where vlardia had been standing and the whole place was filled with frenchmen who were firing at our men twenty six vlang found his battery on the second line of defence out of the twenty soldiers who had been in the mortar battery only eight survived at nine o'clock in the evening vlang set out with the battery on a steamer loaded down with soldiers cannon horses and wounded men for seven o'clock in the evening vlang set out with the battery on a steamer loaded down with soldiers cannon horses and wounded men for seven Severnia. There was no firing anywhere. The stars shone brilliantly in the sky, as on the

Starting point is 04:46:57 preceding night, but a strong wind tossed the sea. On the first and second bastions, lightnings flashed along the earth. Explosions rent the atmosphere and illuminated strange black objects in their vicinity, and the stones which flew through the air. Something was burning near the docks, and the red glare was reflected on the water. The bridge, covered with people, was lighted up by the fire from the Nikoleseki battery. A vast flame seemed to hang over the water, from the distant promontory of the Alessandroski battery, and illuminated the clouds of smoke beneath, as it rose above them, and the same tranquil, insolent, distant lights as on the preceding evening gleamed over the sea from the hostile fleet.

Starting point is 04:47:45 the fresh breeze raised billows in the bay by the red light of the conflagrations the masts of our sunken ships which were settling deeper and deeper into the water were visible not a sound of conversation was heard on deck there was nothing but the regular swish of the parted waves and the steam the neighing and pawing of the horses the words of command from the captain and the groans of the wounded blang who had had nothing to eat all day drew a bit of bread from his pocket and began to chew it but all at once he recalled valagna and burst into such loud weeping that the soldiers who were near him heard it see how our blanga is eating his bread and crying too said wonderful said another and see they have fired our barracks he continued with a sigh and how many of our brothers perished there and the french got it for nothing at all events we have got out of it alive thank god for that said vason but it's provoking all the same what is there provoking about it do you suppose they are enjoying themselves there not exactly you wait our men will take it away from them again and however many of our brethren perish as god is holy if the emperor commands they will win it back can ours leave it to them thus never there you have the bearer walls but they have destroyed all the breastworks even if they have planted their standard on the hill they won't be able to make their way into the town just wait we'll have a hearty reckoning with you yet only give us time he concluded addressing himself to the french of course we will said another with conviction along the whole line of bastions of sebastopol which had for so many months seethed with remarkably vigorous life

Starting point is 04:49:40 which had for so many months seen dying heroes relieved one after another by death and which had for so many months awakened the terror the hatred and finally the admiration of the enemy on the bastions of sebastopol there was no longer a single man all was dead wild horrible but not silent destruction was still in progress on the earth furrowed and strewn with the recent explosions lay bent gun-carriages crushing down the bodies of russians and of the foe heavy iron cannons silenced forever bombs and cannon-balls hurled with horrible force into pits and half buried in the soil then more corpses pits splinters of beams bomb proofs and still more silent bodies in grey and blue coats all these were still frequently shaken and lighted up by the crimson glow of the explosions which continued to shock the air the foe perceived that something incomprehensible was going on in the menacing sebastopol those explosions and the death-like silence on the bastions made him shudder but they dared not yet believe being still under the influence of the calm and forcible resistance of the day that their invincible enemy had disappeared and they awaited motionless and in silence the end of that gloomy night the army of sebastopol like the gloomy surging sea quivering throughout its entire mass wavering ploughing across the bay on the bridge and at the north fortifications moved slowly through the impenetrable darkness of the night away from the place where it had left so many of its brave brethren from the place all steeped in its blood from the place which it had defended for eleven months against a foe twice as powerful as itself and which it was now ordered to abandon without a battle the first impression produced on every russian by this command was inconceivably sad the second feeling was a fear of pursuit the men felt that they were defenceless as soon as they abandoned the places

Starting point is 04:51:54 on which they were accustomed to fight and they huddled together uneasily in the dark at the entrance to the bridge which was swaying about in the heavy breeze the infantry pressed forward with a clash of bayonets and a thronging of regiments equipitious and arms cavalry officers made their way about with orders the inhabitants and the military servants accompanying the baggage wept and besought to be permitted to cross while the artillery in haste to get off, forced their way to the bay with a thunder of wheels. In spite of the diversions created by the varied and anxious demands on their attention, the instinct of self-preservation and the desire to escape as speedily as possible from that dread place of death were present in every soul. This instinct existed also in a soldier mortally wounded, who lay among the five hundred other wounded upon the stone pavement of the Pavlowski-key, and prayed god to send death and in the militiaman who with his last remaining strength pressed into the compact throng in order to make way for a general who rode by

Starting point is 04:53:06 and in the general in charge of the transportation who was engaged in restraining the haste of the soldiers and in the sailor who had become entangled in the moving battalion and who crushed by the surging throng had lost his breath and in the wounded officer who was being borne along in a litter by four soldiers who stopped by the crowd had placed him on the ground by the nicholaski battery and in the artilleryman who had served his gun for sixteen years and who at his superior's command to him incomprehensible to throw overboard the guns had with the aid of his comrades sent them over the steep bank into the bay and in the men of the fleet who had just closed the port-holes of the ships and had rode lustily away in their boats on stepping upon the further end of the bridge nearly every soldier pulled off his cap and crossed himself but behind this instinct there was another oppressive and far deeper existing along with it this was a feeling which resembled repentance shame and hatred almost every soldier as he gazed on abandoned sebastopol from the northern shore sighed with inexpressible bitterness of heart and menaced the foe end of chapters twenty five and twenty six End of Sebastopol by Leo Tolstoy

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