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"What
do you want, my pretty?" said Ilyin with a smile.
"The
princess ordered me to ask your regiment and your name."
"This
is Count Rostov, squadron commander, and I am your humble
servant."
"Co-o-om-pa-ny!"
roared the tipsy peasant with a beatific smile as he
looked
at Ilyin talking to the girl. Following Dunyasha, Alpatych
advanced
to Rostov, having bared his head while still at a distance.
"May
I make bold to trouble your honor?" said he respectfully, but
with
a
shade of contempt for the youthfulness of this officer and with a
hand
thrust
into his bosom. "My mistress, daughter of General in Chief Prince
Nicholas
Bolkonski who died on the fifteenth of this month, finding
herself
in difficulties owing to the boorishness of these people"--he
pointed
to the peasants--"asks you to come up to the house.... Won't
you,
please, ride on a little farther," said Alpatych with a
melancholy
smile,
"as it is not convenient in the presence of...?" He pointed to
the
two peasants who kept as close to him as horseflies to a horse.
"Ah!...
Alpatych... Ah, Yakov Alpatych... Grand! Forgive us for Christ's
sake,
eh?" said the peasants, smiling joyfully at him.
Rostov
looked at the tipsy peasants and smiled.
"Or
perhaps they amuse your honor?" remarked Alpatych with a staid
air,
as
he pointed at the old men with his free hand.
"No,
there's not much to be amused at here," said Rostov, and rode on
a
little
way. "What's the matter?" he asked.
"I
make bold to inform your honor that the rude peasants here don't
wish
to
let the mistress leave the estate, and threaten to unharness her
horses,
so that though everything has been packed up since morning, her
excellency
cannot get away."
"Impossible!"
exclaimed Rostov.
"I
have the honor to report to you the actual truth," said Alpatych.
Rostov
dismounted, gave his horse to the orderly, and followed Alpatych
to
the house, questioning him as to the state of affairs. It
appeared
that
the princess' offer of corn to the peasants the previous day, and
her
talk with Dron and at the meeting, had actually had so bad an
effect
that
Dron had finally given up the keys and joined the peasants and
had
not
appeared when Alpatych sent for him; and that in the morning when
the
princess gave orders to harness for her journey, the peasants had
come
in a large crowd to the barn and sent word that they would not
let
her
leave the village: that there was an order not to move, and that
they
would unharness the horses. Alpatych had gone out to admonish
them,
but
was told (it was chiefly Karp who did the talking, Dron not
showing
himself
in the crowd) that they could not let the princess go, that
there
was an order to the contrary, but that if she stayed they would
serve
her as before and obey her in everything.
At
the moment when Rostov and Ilyin were galloping along the road,
Princess
Mary, despite the dissuasions of Alpatych, her nurse, and the
maids,
had given orders to harness and intended to start, but when the
cavalrymen
were espied they were taken for Frenchmen, the coachman ran
away,
and the women in the house began to wail.
"Father!
Benefactor! God has sent you!" exclaimed deeply moved voices as
Rostov
passed through the anteroom.
Princess
Mary was sitting helpless and bewildered in the large sitting
room,
when Rostov was shown in. She could not grasp who he was and why
he
had come, or what was happening to her. When she saw his Russian
face,
and by his walk and the first words he uttered recognized him as
a
man
of her own class, she glanced at him with her deep radiant look
and
began
speaking in a voice that faltered and trembled with emotion. This
meeting
immediately struck Rostov as a romantic event. "A helpless girl
overwhelmed
with grief, left to the mercy of coarse, rioting peasants!
And
what a strange fate sent me here! What gentleness and nobility
there
are
in her features and expression!" thought he as he looked at her
and
listened
to her timid story.
When
she began to tell him that all this had happened the day after
her
father's
funeral, her voice trembled. She turned away, and then, as if
fearing
he might take her words as meant to move him to pity, looked at
him
with an apprehensive glance of inquiry. There were tears in
Rostov's
eyes.
Princess Mary noticed this and glanced gratefully at him with
that
radiant
look which caused the plainness of her face to be forgotten.
"I
cannot express, Princess, how glad I am that I happened to ride
here
and
am able to show my readiness to serve you," said Rostov, rising.
"Go
when
you please, and I give you my word of honor that no one shall
dare
to
cause you annoyance if only you will allow me to act as your
escort."
And
bowing respectfully, as if to a lady of royal blood, he moved
toward
the
door.
Rostov's
deferential tone seemed to indicate that though he would
consider
himself happy to be acquainted with her, he did not wish to
take
advantage of her misfortunes to intrude upon her.
Princess
Mary understood this and appreciated his delicacy.
"I
am very, very grateful to you," she said in French, "but I hope
it
was
all a misunderstanding and that no one is to blame for it." She
suddenly
began to cry.
"Excuse
me!" she said.
Rostov,
knitting his brows, left the room with another low bow.
CHAPTER
XIV
"Well,
is she pretty? Ah, friend--my pink one is delicious; her name is
Dunyasha...."
But
on glancing at Rostov's face Ilyin stopped short. He saw that his
hero
and commander was following quite a different train of thought.
Rostov
glanced angrily at Ilyin and without replying strode off with
rapid
steps to the village.
"I'll
show them; I'll give it to them, the brigands!" said he to
himself.
Alpatych
at a gliding trot, only just managing not to run, kept up with
him
with difficulty.
"What
decision have you been pleased to come to?" said he.
Rostov
stopped and, clenching his fists, suddenly and sternly turned on
Alpatych.
"Decision?
What decision? Old dotard!..." cried he. "What have you been
about?
Eh? The peasants are rioting, and you can't manage them? You're a
traitor
yourself! I know you. I'll flay you all alive!..." And as if
afraid
of wasting his store of anger, he left Alpatych and went rapidly
forward.
Alpatych, mastering his offended feelings, kept pace with
Rostov
at a gliding gait and continued to impart his views. He said the
peasants
were obdurate and that at the present moment it would be
imprudent
to "overresist" them without an armed force, and would it not
be
better first to send for the military?
"I'll
give them armed force... I'll 'overresist' them!" uttered Rostov
meaninglessly,
breathless with irrational animal fury and the need to
vent
it.
Without
considering what he would do he moved unconciously with quick,
resolute
steps toward the crowd. And the nearer he drew to it the more
Alpatych
felt that this unreasonable action might produce good results.
The
peasants in the crowd were similarly impressed when they saw
Rostov's
rapid, firm steps and resolute, frowning face.
After
the hussars had come to the village and Rostov had gone to see
the
princess,
a certain confusion and dissension had arisen among the crowd.
Some
of the peasants said that these new arrivals were Russians and
might
take it amiss that the mistress was being detained. Dron was of
this
opinion, but as soon as he expressed it Karp and others attacked
their
ex-Elder.
"How
many years have you been fattening on the commune?" Karp shouted
at
him.
"It's all one to you! You'll dig up your pot of money and take it
away
with you.... What does it matter to you whether our homes are
ruined
or not?"
"We've
been told to keep order, and that no one is to leave their homes
or
take away a single grain, and that's all about it!" cried
another.
"It
was your son's turn to be conscripted, but no fear! You begrudged
your
lump of a son," a little old man suddenly began attacking Dron--
"and
so they took my Vanka to be shaved for a soldier! But we all have
to
die."
"To
be sure, we all have to die. I'm not against the commune," said
Dron.
"That's
it--not against it! You've filled your belly...."
The
two tall peasants had their say. As soon as Rostov, followed by
Ilyin,
Lavrushka, and Alpatych, came up to the crowd, Karp, thrusting
his
fingers into his belt and smiling a little, walked to the front.
Dron
on the contrary retired to the rear and the crowd drew closer
together.
"Who
is your Elder here? Hey?" shouted Rostov, coming up to the crowd
with
quick steps.
"The
Elder? What do you want with him?..." asked Karp.
But
before the words were well out of his mouth, his cap flew off and
a
fierce
blow jerked his head to one side.
"Caps
off, traitors!" shouted Rostov in a wrathful voice. "Where's the
Elder?"
he cried furiously.
"The
Elder.... He wants the Elder!... Dron Zakharych, you!" meek and
flustered
voices here and there were heard calling and caps began to
come
off their heads.
"We
don't riot, we're following the orders," declared Karp, and at
that
moment
several voices began speaking together.
"It's
as the old men have decided--there's too many of you giving
orders."
"Arguing?
Mutiny!... Brigands! Traitors!" cried Rostov unmeaningly in a
voice
not his own, gripping Karp by the collar. "Bind him, bind him!"
he
shouted,
though there was no one to bind him but Lavrushka and Alpatych.
Lavrushka,
however, ran up to Karp and seized him by the arms from
behind.
"Shall
I call up our men from beyond the hill?" he called out.
Alpatych
turned to the peasants and ordered two of them by name to come
and
bind Karp. The men obediently came out of the crowd and began
taking
off
their belts.
"Where's
the Elder?" demanded Rostov in a loud voice.
With
a pale and frowning face Dron stepped out of the crowd.
"Are
you the Elder? Bind him, Lavrushka!" shouted Rostov, as if that
order,
too, could not possibly meet with any opposition.
And
in fact two more peasants began binding Dron, who took off his
own
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