“That’s him firing from the new battery today,” adds the old man calmly, spitting on his hand. “Now then, pull away, Míshka, we’ll get ahead of that longboat there.” And your skiff travels faster over the broad swells of the Roadstead, really overtakes the heavy longboat laden with sacks and rowed by clumsy sailors who do not keep stroke, and—making its way among all sorts of boats moored there—reaches the Gráfskaya landing.
On the quay, soldiers in grey, sailors in black, and women in many colours throng noisily. Women are selling rolls, peasants with samovars are calling “hot sbíten ,” and here, on the very first steps, lie rusty cannonballs, bombs, grapeshot, and cast-iron cannons of various calibres. A little beyond is a large open space where huge beams, gun-carriages, and sleeping soldiers are lying; horses, carts, green cannons, ammunition-wagons, and stacked muskets are standing; soldiers, sailors, officers, women, children, and dealers are moving about, and here and there a Cossack and an officer ride along, or a general drives by in a trap. To the right the street is blocked by a barricade with small cannon mounted in embrasures, and near them sits a sailor smoking away at his pipe. To the left is a handsome building with a date in Roman figures on the frontal, and near it stand soldiers with bloodstained stretchers—everywhere you see unpleasant indications of a war camp. Your first impressions are sure to be most unpleasant: the strange combination of camp and urban life, of a fine town and a dirty bivouac, is not only ugly, but looks like horrible disorder; it even seems to you that everyone is frightened and in commotion, not knowing what to do. But look closer into the faces of these people moving about you, and you will come to quite a different conclusion. Take, for instance, this convoy soldier going to water those three bay horses and muttering something to himself, and doing it all so quietly that it is evident he will not lose himself in this motley crowd (which does not even exist for him), but will fulfil his duty, whatever it may be—watering a horse, or helping to drag cannon—as calmly, confidently, and with as much equanimity as if it were all happening in Toúla or Saránsk. You will read the same in the face of that