“Take it, if you like,” said the officer, giving the girl an apple. The girl smiled and took it. Nesvitsky, like all the men on the bridge, never took his eyes off the women till they had passed by. When they had passed by, again there moved by the same soldiers, with the same talk, and at last all came to a standstill. As often happens, the horses in a convoy-waggon became unmanageable at the end of the bridge, and the whole crowd had to wait.
“What are they standing still for？ There’s no order kept！” said the soldiers. “Where are you shoving？” “Damn it！” “Can’t you wait a little？” “It’ll be a bad look-out if he sets light to the bridge.”
“Look, there’s an officer jammed in too,” the soldiers said in different parts of the stationary crowd, as they looked about them and kept pressing forward to the end of the bridge. Looking round at the waters of the Enns under the bridge, Nesvitsky suddenly heard a sound new to him, the sound of something rapidly coming nearer … something big, and then a splash in the water.
“Look where it reaches to！” a soldier standing near said sternly, looking round at the sound.
“He’s encouraging us to get on quicker,” said another uneasily. The crowd moved again. Nesvitsky grasped that it was a cannon ball.
“Hey, Cossack, give me my horse！” he said. “Now then, stand aside！ stand aside！ make way！”
With a mighty effort he succeeded in getting to his horse. Shouting continually, he moved forward. The soldiers pressed together to make way for him, but jammed upon him again, so that they squeezed his leg, and those nearest him were not to blame, for they were pressed forward even more violently from behind.
“Nesvitsky！ Nesvitsky！ You, old chap！” he heard a husky voice shouting from behind at that instant.
Nesvitsky looked round and saw, fifteen paces away, separated from him by a living mass of moving infantry, the red and black and tousled face of Vaska Denisov with a forage-cap on the back of his head, and a pelisse swung jauntily over his shoulder.
“Tell them to make way, the damned devils！” roared Denisov, who was evidently in a great state of excitement. He rolled his flashing, coal-black eyes, showing the bloodshot whites, and waved a sheathed sword, which he held in a bare hand as red as his face.
“Eh！ Vaska！” Nesvitsky responded joyfully. “But what are you about？”
“The squadron can’t advance！” roared Vaska Denisov, viciously showing his white teeth, and spurring his handsome, raven thoroughbred “Bedouin,” which, twitching its ears at the bayonets against which it pricked itself, snorting and shooting froth from its bit, tramped with metallic clang on the boards of the bridge, and seemed ready to leap over the railings, if its rider would let it.
“What next！ like sheep！ for all the world like sheep; back … make way！ … Stand there！ go to the devil with the waggon！ I’ll cut you down with my sword！” he roared, actually drawing his sword out of the sheath and beginning to brandish it.
The soldiers, with terrified faces, squeezed together, and Denisov joined Nesvitsky.
“How is it you’re not drunk to-day？” said Nesvitsky, when he came up.
“They don’t even give us time to drink！” answered Vaska Denisov. “They’ve been dragging the regiment to and fro the whole day. Fighting’s all very well, but who the devil’s to know what this is！”
“How smart you are to-day！” said Nesvitsky, looking at his new pelisse and fur saddle-cloth.
Denisov smiled, pulled out of his sabretache a handkerchief that diffused a smell of scent, and put it to Nesvitsky’s nose.
“To be sure, I’m going into action！ I’ve shaved, and cleaned my teeth and scented myself！”
Nesvitsky’s imposing figure, accompanied by his Cossack, and the determination of Denisov, waving his sword and shouting desperately, produced so much effect that they stopped the infantry and got to the other end of the bridge. Nesvitsky found at the entry the colonel, to whom he had to deliver the command, and having executed his commission he rode back.
Having cleared the way for him, Denisov stopped at the entrance of the bridge. Carelessly holding in his horse, who neighed to get to his companions, and stamped with its foot, he looked at the squadron moving towards him. The clang of the hoofs on the boards of the bridge sounded as though several horses were galloping, and the squadron, with the officers in front, drew out four men abreast across the bridge and began emerging on the other side.
The infantry soldiers, who had been forced to stop, crowding in the trampled mud of the bridge, looked at the clean, smart hussars, passing them in good order, with that special feeling of aloofness and irony with which different branches of the service usually meet.
“They’re a smart lot！ They ought to be on the Podnovinsky！”
“They’re a great deal of use！ They’re only for show！” said another.
“Infantry, don’t you kick up a dust！” jested a hussar, whose horse, prancing, sent a spurt of mud on an infantry soldier.
“I should like to see you after two long marches with the knapsack on your shoulder. Your frogs would be a bit shabby,” said the foot-soldier, rubbing the mud off his face with his sleeve; “perched up there you’re more like a bird than a man！”
“Wouldn’t you like to be popped on a horse, Zikin; you’d make an elegant rider,” jested a corporal at a thin soldier, bowed down by the weight of his knapsack.
“Put a stick between your legs and you’d have a horse to suit you,” responded the hussar.