At the other end of the boulevard they saw Mikhaïloff’s bandaged head arise. He was coming to meet them. “Are you wounded, captain?” asked Kalouguine. “Slightly--by a stone,” said Mikhaïloff. “_Le pavillon est il déjà amené?_” said Prince Galtzine, looking over the head of the captain, and addressing himself to no one in particular. “_Non pas encore_,” said Mikhaïloff, very anxious to show that he knew French. “Does the armistice still go on?” asked Galtzine, addressing him politely in Russian, as if to say to the captain, “I know you speak French with difficulty, why not simply speak Russian?” Upon this the aides-de-camp went away from Mikhaïloff, who felt, as on the evening before, very lonesome. Not wishing to come in contact with some of them, and not making up his mind to approach others, he limited himself to saluting certain officers, and sat down near the Kazarsky monument to smoke a cigarette. Baron Pesth also made his appearance on the boulevard. He related that he had taken part in the negotiations of the armistice, that he had chatted with the French officers, and that one of them had said to him, “If daylight had come an hour later the ambuscades would have been retaken.” To which he had replied, “Sir, I don’t say they would not have been, so that I shall not contradict you,” and his answer had filled him with pride. In reality, although he had been present at the conclusion of the armistice, and had been very desirous of talking with the French, he had said nothing remarkable. The yunker simply promenaded for a long time in front of the lines, asking the nearest Frenchmen, “What regiment do you belong to?” They answered him, and that was all. As he advanced a little beyond the neutral zone, a French sentinel, who did not imagine that the Russian understood his language, flung a formidable curse at him. “He is coming to examine our works, this damned--” Indeed, after that the yunker returned home, composing along the road the French phrases he had just retailed to his acquaintances. Captain Zobkine was also seen on the promenade, shouting with a loud voice; Captain Objogoff, with his torn uniform; the captain of artillery, who asked no favors of any one; the yunker, in love--in a word, all the personages of the day before, swayed by the same eternal moving forces. Praskoukine, Neferdoff, and several others were alone absent. Nobody thought of them. Nevertheless, their bodies were neither washed, nor dressed, nor buried in the earth. XV. White flags are flying on our fortifications and in the French intrenchments. In the blossom-covered valley mutilated bodies, clothed in blue or in gray, with bare feet, lie in heaps, and the men are carrying them off to place them in carts. The air is poisoned by the odor of the corpses. Crowds of people pour out of Sebastopol and out of the French camp to witness this spectacle. The different sides meet each other on this ground with eager and kindly curiosity.