While on my way I heard two more shots fired at our camp, but they did not reach the place where the staff was stationed. The Chief of Artillery ordered not to fire, especially now that the enemy had ceased firing; so I returned, leading my horse and making my way on foot among the infantry tents. More than once, while passing a soldiers’ tent in which I saw a light, I slackened my pace to listen to a tale told by some wag, or to a book read out by some “literate” person, to whom a whole division listened, tightly packed inside and crowding outside the tent, and now and then interrupting the reader with their remarks; or I caught merely some scrap of conversation about an expedition, about home, or about the officers.

Passing one of the tents of the 3rd Battalion, I heard Guskov’s loud voice speaking very merrily and confidently. He was answered by young voices, not of privates but of gentlemen, as merry as his own. This was evidently a cadet’s or sergeant-major’s tent. I stopped.

“I have long known him,” Guskov was saying. “When I was in Petersburg he often came to see me, and I visited him. He belonged to very good society.”