But it was not long before he began to conjure up fresh pictures in his imagination. The cruel war with Prussia and Austria, long expected and prepared for, had come. An enormous battlefield, corpses everywhere, havoc, annihilation, blood, and death. It was the chief battle, on the issue of which the whole war depended. The decisive moment had arrived. The last reserves had been brought up, and one was waiting anxiously for the Russian flanking column to arrive in time to attack the enemy in the rear. At any cost the enemy's frantic attack must be met without flinching. The most important and threatened position on the field was occupied by the Kerenski regiment, which was being decimated by the concentrated fire of the enemy. The soldiers fight like lions without yielding an inch, although the whole line is being mowed down by a murderous fire of shells. Every one feels that he is passing through an historical moment. A few more seconds of heroic endurance and victory will be snatched out of the enemy's hands. But Colonel Shulgovich wavers. He is a brave man--that must be admitted--but the perils of a fight like this are too much for his nerves. He turns pale and trembles. The next moment he signals to the bugler to sound the retreat, and the latter has already put the bugle to his lips, when, that very moment, Colonel Romashov, chief of the Staff, comes dashing from behind the hill on his foaming Arab steed. "Colonel, we dare not retreat. The fate of Russia will be decided here." Shulgovich begins blustering. "Colonel Romashov, it is I who am in command and must answer to God and the Tsar. The regiment must retire--blow the bugle." But Romashov snatches the bugle from the bugler's hand and hurls it to the ground. "Forward, my children!" he shouts; "the eyes of your Emperor and your fellow-countrymen are fixed on you." "Hurrah!" With a deafening shout of joy the soldiers, led by Romashov, rush at the foe. Everything disappears in a chasm of fire and smoke. The enemy wavers, and soon his lines are broken; but behind him gleam the Russian bayonets. "The victory is ours! Hurrah, comrades"---- Romashov, who no longer walked but ran, gesticulating wildly, at last stopped and gradually became himself again. It seemed to him as if some one with fingers cold as ice had suddenly passed them over his back, arms, and legs, his hair bristled, and his strong excitement had brought tears to his eyes. He had no notion how he suddenly found himself near his quarters, and, as he recovered from his mad fancies, he gazed with astonishment at the street door he knew so well, at the neglected fruit-garden within which stood the little whitewashed wing where he lodged. "How does all this nonsense get into my head?" said he, with a sense of shame and a shrug of his shoulders in self-contempt. III