Rosenkranz kept firing his musket and incessantly shouted in a hoarse voice at the soldiers, and galloped from one end of the cordon to the other. He was rather pale, and this was very becoming to his warrior countenance.
The good-looking young Ensign was in raptures: his beautiful dark eyes shone with daring, his lips were slightly smiling, and he kept riding up to the Captain and begging permission to charge. “We will repel them,” he said persuasively, “we certainly will.”
“It’s not necessary,” abruptly replied the Captain. “We must retreat.”
The Captain’s company held the skirts of the wood, the men lying down and replying to the enemy’s fire.
The Captain, in his shabby coat and shabby cap, sat silent on his white horse, with loose reins, bent knees, his feet in the stirrups, and did not stir from his place. (The soldiers knew and did their work so well that there was no need to give them any orders.) Only at rare intervals he raised his voice to shout at those who exposed their heads.
There was nothing very martial about the Captain’s appearance, but there was something so true and simple in it, that I was extremely struck by it. > “It is he who is really brave,” I involuntarily said to myself. He was just the same as I had always seen him: the same calm movements, the same guileless expression on his plain but frank face; only his eyes, which were lighter than usual, showed the concentration of one quietly engaged on his duties. “As I had always seen him,” is easily said, but how many different variations have I noticed in the behaviour of others; one wishing