Before going to join the officers, Kozeltsóf went to greet his company, and to see where it was stationed. The breastworks of gabions, the plan of the trenches, the cannon he passed, and even the fragments and bombs he stumbled over on the way, all lit up incessantly by the flashes of the firing, were quite familiar to him. All this had vividly impressed itself on his memory three months before, when he had spent two consecutive weeks at this same bastion. Though there was much that was dreadful in the recollection, yet there was some charm of old times mixed with it, and he recognised all the familiar places and objects with pleasure, as if the fortnight spent here had been a pleasant one. His company was stationed against the wall of defence on the side towards the Sixth Bastion.