In this carriage a servant, dressed in linen, with a soft and shapeless officer’s cap on his head, held the reins. Seated behind him, on parcels and bags covered with a soldier’s overcoat, was an officer in a summer cloak, small in stature, as well as could be judged from the position he was in, who was less remarkable for the massive squareness of his shoulders than for the thickness of his body between his chest and his back. His neck from the nape to the shoulder was heavy and largely developed, and the muscles were firmly extended. What is commonly spoken of as a waist did not exist, nor the stomach either, although he was far from being fat; and his face, upon which was spread a layer of yellow and unhealthy sunburn, was noticeable by its thinness. It would have passed for an attractive one if it had not been for a certain bloating of the flesh and a skin furrowed by deep wrinkles, which, interweaving, distorted the features, took away all freshness, and gave a brutal expression. His small, brown, extraordinarily keen eyes had an almost impudent look. His very thick mustache, which he was in the habit of biting, did not extend much in breadth. His cheeks and his chin, which he had not shaved for two days, were covered with a black and thick beard. Wounded on the head by a piece of shell on the 10th of May, and still wearing a bandage, he felt, nevertheless, entirely cured, and left the hospital at Sympheropol to join his regiment, posted somewhere there in the direction where shots could be heard; but he had not been able to find out whether it was at Sebastopol itself or at Severnaïa or at Inkerman. The cannonade was distinctly heard, and seemed very near when the hills did not cut off the sound which was brought by the wind. Occasionally a tremendous explosion shook the air and made you tremble in spite of yourself. Now and then less violent noises, like a drum-beat, followed each other at short intervals, intermingled with a deafening rumble; or perhaps all was confounded in a hubbub of prolonged rolls, like peals of thunder at the height of a storm when the rain begins to fall. Every one said, and indeed it could be heard, that the violence of the bombardment was terrible. The officer urged his servant to hasten. They met a line of carts driven by Russian peasants, who had carried provisions to Sebastopol, and who were on their way back, bringing sick and wounded soldiers in gray overcoats, sailors in black pilot-coats, volunteers in red fez caps, and bearded militiamen. The officer’s carriage was forced to stop, and he, grimacing and squinting his eyes in the impenetrable and motionless cloud of dust raised by the carts, which flew into the eyes and ears on all sides, examined the faces as they passed by. “There is a sick soldier of our company,” said the servant, turning towards his master and pointing to a wounded man.