“Have you ever been in a hand-to-hand fight?” he suddenly asked his brother, entirely forgetting that he did not want to speak to him again. “No, never. We have lost two thousand men in our regiment, but always in the works. I also was wounded there. War is not carried on as you imagine, Volodia.” This familiar name softened the younger. He wished to explain himself to his brother, who did not imagine he had offended him. “Are you angry with me, Micha?” he asked, after a few moments. “Why?” “Because--nothing. I thought there had been between us--” “Not at all,” rejoined the elder, turning towards him and giving him a friendly tap on the knee. “I ask pardon, Micha, if I have offended you,” said the younger, turning aside to hide the tears which filled his eyes. VIII. “Is this really Sebastopol?” asked Volodia, when they had reached the top of the hill. Before them appeared the bay with its forest of masts, the sea, with the hostile fleet in the distance, the white shore batteries, the barracks, the aqueducts, the docks, the buildings of the city. Clouds of white and pale lilac-colored smoke continually rose over the yellow hills that surrounded the city, and came out sharp against the clear blue sky, lighted by the rosy rays, brilliantly reflected by the waves; while at the horizon the sun was setting into the sombre sea. It was without the least thrill of horror that Volodia looked upon this terrible place he had thought so much about. He experienced, on the contrary, an æsthetic joy, a feeling of heroic satisfaction at thinking that in half an hour he would be there himself, and it was with profound attention that he looked uninterruptedly, up to the very moment they arrived at Severnaïa, at this picture of such original charm. There was the baggage of his brother’s regiment, and there also he had to find out where his own regiment and his battery was.