. In reality, Maksimov was far from being stupid, and understood his work thoroughly; but he had the unfortunate peculiarity of sometimes purposely speaking so that there was no possibility of understanding him, and so that, I am convinced, he did not understand his own words. He was particularly fond of the words “as it occurs” and “continues,” so that when I heard him say “as it occurs” or “continues,” I knew beforehand that I should understand nothing of what followed. The soldiers, on the other hand, as far as I could judge, liked to hear his “as it occurs,” and suspected it of being fraught with deep meaning, though they did not understand a word of it any more than I did. This they attributed entirely to their own stupidity, and respected Theodor Maksimov all the more. In a word, Maksimov was one of the diplomatic domineering.

The soldier next to him, who had bared his sinewy red legs and was putting on his boots again by the fire, was Antonov⁠—that same Corporal Antonov, who in 1837, remaining with only two others in charge of an exposed gun, persisted in firing back at a powerful enemy, and, with two bullets in his leg, continued to serve his gun and to reload it.