Although this shame detracts in no wise from the forcefulness and realism of the narrative, the choice of characters shows plainly enough where lie the sympathies of the writer. The epic of Malakoff and its heroic fall is told as affecting two rare and touching figures: two brothers, of whom the elder, Kozeltoff, has some of the characteristics of Tolstoy. Who can forget the younger, the ensign Volodya, timid and enthusiastic, with his feverish monologues, his dreams, his tears?--tears that rise to his eyes for a mere nothing; tears of tenderness, tears of humiliation--his fear during the first hours passed in the bastion (the poor boy is still afraid of the dark, and covers his head with his cloak when he goes to bed); the oppression caused by the feeling of his own solitude and the indifference of others; then, when the hour arrives, his joy in danger. He belongs to the group of poetic figures of youth (of whom are Petia in _War and Peace_, and the sub-lieutenant in _The Invasion_), who, their hearts full of affection, make war with laughter on their lips, and are broken suddenly, uncomprehending, on the wheel of death. The two brothers fall wounded, both on the same day--the last day of the defence. The novel ends with these lines, in which we hear the muttering of a patriotic anger: "The army was leaving the town; and each soldier, as he looked upon deserted Sebastopol, sighed, with an inexpressible bitterness in his heart, and shook his fist in the direction of the enemy."[9] [1] _Journal._ [2] We notice this manner also in _The Woodcutters_, which was completed at the same period. For example: "There are three kinds of love: 1. æsthetic love; 2. devoted love; 3. active love," &c. (_Youth_). "There are three kinds of soldiers: 1. the docile and subordinate; 2. the authoritative; 3. the boasters--who themselves are subdivided into: (a) The docile who are cool and lethargic; (b) those who are earnestly docile; (c) docile soldiers who drink," &c. (_The Woodcutters_). [3] _Youth,_ xxxii. [4] Sent to the review _Sovremennik_ and immediately published. [5] Tolstoy refers to them again at a much later date, in his _Conversations_ with his friend Teneromo. He tells him of a crisis of terror which assailed him one night when he was lying down in the "lodgement" dug out of the body of the rampart, under the protective plating. This _Episode of the Siege of Sebastopol_ will be found in the volume entitled _The Revolutionaries._ [6] Droujinine, a little later, wrote him a friendly letter in which he sought to put him on his guard against this danger: "You have a tendency to an excessive minuteness of analysis; it may become a serious fault. Sometimes you seem on the point of saying that so-and-so's calf indicated a desire to travel in the Indies.... You must restrain this tendency: but do not for the world suppress it." (Letter dated 1856 cited by P. Birukov.) [7] Mutilated by the censor. [8] 1 September 2, 1855.