Left alone with his thoughts, Volódya’s first feeling was one of fear at the disorderly, cheerless state of his own soul. He longed to fall asleep and forget all that surrounded him, but especially himself. Putting out the candle, he took off his cloak and lay down on the bed; and to get rid of the darkness, of which he had been afraid from childhood upwards, he drew the cloak over his head. But suddenly the thought occurred to him that now, immediately, a bomb would crash through the roof and kill him, and he began to listen. Just above his head he heard the steps of the Commander of the battery.

“If it does come,” he thought, “it will first kill those upstairs and then me⁠—anyway not me alone.” This thought comforted him a little, and he was about to fall asleep.

“But supposing that all of a sudden, tonight, Sevastopol is taken, and the French break in here? What shall I defend myself with?” He rose and went up and down the room. The fear of real danger drove away the fanciful fear of the darkness. A saddle and a samovar were the only hard things in the room.