rooks hopping about in them. If one looked ahead,
one saw dust and the backs of men's heads; if one looked back, one
saw the same dust and faces. . . . Foremost of all marched four men
with sabres--this was the vanguard. Next, behind, the crowd of
singers, and behind them the trumpeters on horseback. The vanguard
and the chorus of singers, like torch-bearers in a funeral procession,
often forgot to keep the regulation distance and pushed a long way
ahead. . . . Ryabovitch was with the first cannon of the fifth
battery. He could see all the four batteries moving in front of
him. For any one not a military man this long tedious procession
of a moving brigade seems an intricate and unintelligible muddle;
one cannot understand why there are so many people round one cannon,
and why it is drawn by so many horses in such a strange network of
harness, as though it really were so terrible and heavy. To Ryabovitch
it was all perfectly comprehensible and therefore uninteresting.
He had known for ever so long why at the head of each battery there
rode a stalwart bombardier, and why he was called a bombardier;
immediately behind this bombardier could be seen the horsemen of
the first and then of the middle units. Ryabovitch knew that the
horses on which they rode, those on the left, were called one name,
while those on the right were called another--it was extremely
uninteresting. Behind the horsemen came two shaft-horses. On one
of them sat a rider with the dust of yesterday on his back and a
clumsy and funny-looking piece of wood on his leg. Ryabovitch knew
the object of this piece of wood, and did not think it funny. All
the riders waved their whips mechanically and shouted from time to
time. The cannon itself was ugly. On the fore part lay sacks of
oats covered with canvas, and the cannon itself was hung all over
with kettles, soldiers' knapsacks, bags, and looked like some small
harmless animal surrounded for some unknown reason by men and horses.
To the leeward of it marched six men, the gunners, swinging their
arms. After the cannon there came again more bombardiers, riders,
shaft-horses, and behind them another cannon, as ugly and unimpressive
as the first. After the second followed a third, a fourth; near the
fourth an officer, and so on. There were six batteries in all in
the brigade, and four cannons in each battery. The procession covered
half a mile; it ended in a string of wagons near which an extremely
attractive crea