Now the shrapnel rose, breaking on the dark sky in flashes of fire.

Suddenly some house was burning! The flames rose in a column, breaking into tongues that advanced and retreated, climbed and fell again.

In the farthest distance other houses had caught and their glow trembled in faint yellow light fading into shadow when the projector found them.

With a roar at our back our own cannon began; the world bellowed and shook and trembled at our feet.
We reached the top of the hill.

I caught one final vision, the picture seeming to sway with all its lights, its shadows, its giant eye that governed it, its colours and its mist, like a tapestry blown by wind.
I saw in our wagon, their faces lighted by the fire, Semyonov and Marie Ivanovna.