Ten minutes later Lavrushka brought the coffee. "He's coming!"
said he. "Now for trouble!" Rostov looked out of the window and saw
Denisov coming home. Denisov was a small man with a red face, sparkling
black eyes, and black tousled mustache and hair. He wore an unfastened
cloak, wide breeches hanging down in creases, and a crumpled shako on the
back of his head. He came up to the porch gloomily, hanging his
head.
"Lavwuska!" he shouted loudly and angrily, "take it off,
blockhead!"
"Well, I am taking it off," replied Lavrushka's
voice.
"Ah, you're up already," said Denisov, entering the
room.
"Long ago," answered Rostov, "I have already been for the hay, and
have seen Fraulein Mathilde."
"Weally! And I've been losing, bwother.
I lost yesterday like a damned fool!" cried Denisov, not pronouncing his r's.
"Such ill luck! Such ill luck. As soon as you left, it began and went on.
Hullo there! Tea!"
Puckering up his face though smiling, and showing his
short strong teeth, he began with stubby fingers of both hands to ruffle up
his thick tangled black hair.
"And what devil made me go to that wat?"
(an officer nicknamed "the rat") he said, rubbing his forehead and whole face
with both hands. "Just fancy, he didn't let me win a single cahd, not one
cahd."
He took the lighted pipe that was offered to him, gripped it in
his fist, and tapped it on the floor, making the sparks fly, while
he continued to shout.
"He lets one win the singles and collahs it as
soon as one doubles it; gives the singles and snatches the
doubles!"
He scattered the burning tobacco, smashed the pipe, and threw
it away. Then he remained silent for a while, and all at once looked
cheerfully with his glittering, black eyes at Rostov.
"If at least we
had some women here; but there's nothing foh one to do but dwink. If we could
only get to fighting soon. Hullo, who's there?" he said, turning to the door
as he heard a tread of heavy boots and the clinking of spurs that came to a
stop, and a respectful cough.
"The squadron quartermaster!" said
Lavrushka.
Denisov's face puckered still more.
"Wetched!" he
muttered, throwing down a purse with some gold in it. "Wostov, deah fellow,
just see how much there is left and shove the purse undah the pillow," he
said, and went out to the quartermaster.
Rostov took the money and,
mechanically arranging the old and new coins in separate piles, began
counting them.
"Ah! Telyanin! How d'ye do? They plucked me last night,"
came Denisov's voice from the next room.
"Where? At Bykov's, at the
rat's... I knew it," replied a piping voice, and Lieutenant Telyanin, a small
officer of the same squadron, entered the room.
Rostov thrust the
purse under the pillow and shook the damp little hand which was offered him.
Telyanin for some reason had been transferred from the Guards just before
this campaign. He behaved very well in the regiment but was not liked; Rostov
especially detested him and was unable to overcome or conceal his groundless
antipathy to the man.
"Well, young cavalryman, how is my Rook behaving?"
he asked. (Rook was a young horse Telyanin had sold to Rostov.)
The
lieutenant never looked the man he was speaking to straight in the face; his
eyes continually wandered from one object to another.
"I saw you riding
this morning..." he added.
"Oh, he's all right, a good horse," answered
Rostov, though the horse for which he had paid seven hundred rubbles was not
worth half that sum. "He's begun to go a little lame on the left foreleg," he
added.
"The hoof's cracked! That's nothing. I'll teach you what to do and
show you what kind of rivet to use."
"Yes, please do," said
Rostov.
"I'll show you, I'll show you! It's not a secret. And it's a
horse you'll thank me for."
"Then I'll have it brought round," said
Rostov wishing to avoid Telyanin, and he went out to give the
order.
In the passage Denisov, with a pipe, was squatting on the
threshold facing the quartermaster who was reporting to him. On seeing
Rostov, Denisov screwed up his face and pointing over his shoulder with
his thumb to the room where Telyanin was sitting, he frowned and gave
a shudder of disgust.
"Ugh! I don't like that fellow," he said,
regardless of the quartermaster's presence.
Rostov shrugged his
shoulders as much as to say: "Nor do I, but what's one to do?" and, having
given his order, he returned to Telyanin.
Telyanin was sitting in the
same indolent pose in which Rostov had left him, rubbing his small white
hands.
"Well there certainly are disgusting people," thought Rostov as
he entered.
"Have you told them to bring the horse?" asked Telyanin,
getting up and looking carelessly about him.
"I have."
"Let us
go ourselves. I only came round to ask Denisov about yesterday's order. Have
you got it, Denisov?"
"Not yet. But where are you off to?"
"I want
to teach this young man how to shoe a horse," said Telyanin.
They went
through the porch and into the stable. The lieutenant explained how to rivet
the hoof and went away to his own quarters.
When Rostov went back there
was a bottle of vodka and a sausage on the table. Denisov was sitting there
scratching with his pen on a sheet of paper. He looked gloomily in Rostov's
face and said: "I am witing to her."
He leaned his elbows on the table
with his pen in his hand and, evidently glad of a chance to say quicker in
words what he wanted to write, told Rostov the contents of his
letter.
"You see, my fwiend," he said, "we sleep when we don't love. We
are childwen of the dust... but one falls in love and one is a God, one
is pua' as on the first day of cweation... Who's that now? Send him to
the devil, I'm busy!" he shouted to Lavrushka, who went up to him not in
the least abashed.
"Who should it be? You yourself told him to come.
It's the quartermaster for the money."
Denisov frowned and was about
to shout some reply but stopped.
"Wetched business," he muttered to
himself. "How much is left in the puhse?" he asked, turning to
Rostov.
"Seven new and three old imperials."
"Oh, it's wetched!
Well, what are you standing there for, you sca'cwow? Call the quahtehmasteh,"
he shouted to Lavrushka.
"Please, Denisov, let me lend you some: I have
some, you know," said Rostov, blushing.
"Don't like bowwowing from my
own fellows, I don't," growled Denisov.
"But if you won't accept money
from me like a comrade, you will offend me. Really I have some," Rostov
repeated.
"No, I tell you."
And Denisov went to the bed to get the
purse from under the pillow.
"Where have you put it,
Wostov?"
"Under the lower pillow."
"It's not
there."
Denisov threw both pillows on the floor. The purse was not
there.
"That's a miwacle."
"Wait, haven't you dropped it?" said
Rostov, picking up the pillows one at a time and shaking them.
He
pulled off the quilt and shook it. The purse was not there.
"Dear me, can
I have forgotten? No, I remember thinking that you kept it under your head
like a treasure," said Rostov. "I put it just here. Where is it?" he asked,
turning to Lavrushka.
"I haven't been in the room. It must be where you
put it."
"But it isn't?..."
"You're always like that; you thwow a
thing down anywhere and forget it. Feel in your pockets."
"No, if I
hadn't thought of it being a treasure," said Rostov, "but I remember putting
it there."
Lavrushka turned all the bedding over, looked under the bed
and under the table, searched everywhere, and stood still in the middle of
the room. Denisov silently watched Lavrushka's movements, and when
the latter threw up his arms in surprise saying it was nowhere to be
found Denisov glanced at Rostov.
"Wostov, you've not been playing
schoolboy twicks..."
Rostov felt Denisov's gaze fixed on him, raised his
eyes, and instantly dropped them again. All the blood which had seemed
congested somewhere below his throat rushed to his face and eyes. He could
not draw breath.
"And there hasn't been anyone in the room except the
lieutenant and yourselves. It must be here somewhere," said
Lavrushka.
"Now then, you devil's puppet, look alive and hunt for it!"
shouted Denisov, suddenly, turning purple and rushing at the man with
a threatening gesture. "If the purse isn't found I'll flog you, I'll
flog you all."
Rostov, his eyes avoiding Denisov, began buttoning his
coat, buckled on his saber, and put on his cap.
"I must have that
purse, I tell you," shouted Denisov, shaking his orderly by the shoulders and
knocking him against the wall.
"Denisov, let him alone, I know who has
taken it," said Rostov, going toward the door without raising his eyes.
Denisov paused, thought a moment, and, evidently understanding what Rostov
hinted at, seized his arm.
"Nonsense!" he cried, and the veins on his
forehead and neck stood out like cords. "You are mad, I tell you. I won't
allow it. The purse is here! I'll flay this scoundwel alive, and it will be
found."
"I know who has taken it," repeated Rostov in an unsteady voice,
and went to the door.
"And I tell you, don't you dahe to do it!"
shouted Denisov, rushing at the cadet to restrain him.
But Rostov
pulled away his arm and, with as much anger as though Denisov were his worst
enemy, firmly fixed his eyes directly on his face.
"Do you understand
what you're saying?" he said in a trembling voice. "There was no one else in
the room except myself. So that if it is not so, then..."
He could not
finish, and ran out of the room.
"Ah, may the devil take you and
evewybody," were the last words Rostov heard.
Rostov went to
Telyanin's quarters.
"The master is not in, he's gone to headquarters,"
said Telyanin's orderly. "Has something happened?" he added, surprised at the
cadet's troubled face.
"No, nothing."
"You've only just missed
him," said the orderly.
The headquarters were situated two miles away
from Salzeneck, and Rostov, without returning home, took a horse and rode
there. There was an inn in the village which the officers frequented. Rostov
rode up to it and saw Telyanin's horse at the porch.
In the second
room of the inn the lieutenant was sitting over a dish of sausages and a
bottle of wine.
"Ah, you've come here too, young man!" he said, smiling
and raising his eyebrows.
"Yes," said Rostov as if it cost him a great
deal to utter the word; and he sat down at the nearest table.
Both
were silent. There were two Germans and a Russian officer in the room. No one
spoke and the only sounds heard were the clatter of knives and the munching
of the lieutenant.
When Telyanin had finished his lunch he took out of
his pocket a double purse and, drawing its rings aside with his small, white,
turned-up fingers, drew out a gold imperial, and lifting his eyebrows gave it
to the waiter.
"Please be quick," he said.
The coin was a new
one. Rostov rose and went up to Telyanin.
"Allow me to look at your
purse," he said in a low, almost inaudible, voice.
With shifting eyes
but eyebrows still raised, Telyanin handed him the purse.
"Yes, it's a
nice purse. Yes, yes," he said, growing suddenly pale, and added, "Look at
it, young man."
Rostov took the purse in his hand, examined it and the
money in it, and looked at Telyanin. The lieutenant was looking about in his
usual way and suddenly seemed to grow very merry.
"If we get to Vienna
I'll get rid of it there but in these wretched little towns there's nowhere
to spend it," said he. "Well, let me have it, young man, I'm
going."
Rostov did not speak.
"And you? Are you going to have
lunch too? They feed you quite decently here," continued Telyanin. "Now then,
let me have it."
He stretched out his hand to take hold of the purse.
Rostov let go of it. Telyanin took the purse and began carelessly slipping it
into the pocket of his riding breeches, with his eyebrows lifted and his
mouth slightly open, as if to say, "Yes, yes, I am putting my purse in
my pocket and that's quite simple and is no one else's
business."
"Well, young man?" he said with a sigh, and from under his
lifted brows he glanced into Rostov's eyes.
Some flash as of an
electric spark shot from Telyanin's eyes to Rostov's and back, and back again
and again in an instant.
"Come here," said Rostov, catching hold of
Telyanin's arm and almost dragging him to the window. "That money is
Denisov's; you took it..." he whispered just above Telyanin's
ear.
"What? What? How dare you? What?" said Telyanin.
But these
words came like a piteous, despairing cry and an entreaty for pardon. As soon
as Rostov heard them, an enormous load of doubt fell from him. He was glad,
and at the same instant began to pity the miserable man who stood before him,
but the task he had begun had to be completed.
"Heaven only knows what
the people here may imagine," muttered Telyanin, taking up his cap and moving
toward a small empty room. "We must have an explanation..."
"I know it
and shall prove it," said Rostov.
"I..."
Every muscle of
Telyanin's pale, terrified face began to quiver, his eyes still shifted from
side to side but with a downward look not rising to Rostov's face, and his
sobs were audible.
"Count!... Don't ruin a young fellow... here is this
wretched money, take it..." He threw it on the table. "I have an old father
and mother!..."
Rostov took the money, avoiding Telyanin's eyes, and
went out of the room without a word. But at the door he stopped and then
retraced his steps. "O God," he said with tears in his eyes, "how could you
do it?"
"Count..." said Telyanin drawing nearer to him.
"Don't
touch me," said Rostov, drawing back. "If you need it, take the money," and
he threw the purse to him and ran out of the inn.
CHAPTER
V
That same evening there was an animated discussion among the
squadron's officers in Denisov's quarters.
"And I tell you, Rostov,
that you must apologize to the colonel!" said a tall, grizzly-haired staff
captain, with enormous mustaches and many wrinkles on his large features, to
Rostov who was crimson with excitement.
The staff captain, Kirsten,
had twice been reduced to the ranks for affairs of honor and had twice
regained his commission.
"I will allow no one to call me a liar!" cried
Rostov. "He told me I lied, and I told him he lied. And there it rests. He
may keep me on duty every day, or may place me under arrest, but no one can
make me apologize, because if he, as commander of this regiment, thinks
it beneath his dignity to give me satisfaction, then..."
"You just
wait a moment, my dear fellow, and listen," interrupted the staff captain in
his deep bass, calmly stroking his long mustache. "You tell the colonel in
the presence of other officers that an officer has stolen..."
"I'm not
to blame that the conversation began in the presence of other officers.
Perhaps I ought not to have spoken before them, but I am not a diplomatist.
That's why I joined the hussars, thinking that here one would not need
finesse; and he tells me that I am lying--so let him give me
satisfaction..."
"That's all right. No one thinks you a coward, but
that's not the point. Ask Denisov whether it is not out of the question for a
cadet to demand satisfaction of his regimental commander?"
Denisov sat
gloomily biting his mustache and listening to the conversation, evidently
with no wish to take part in it. He answered the staff captain's question by
a disapproving shake of his head.
"You speak to the colonel about this
nasty business before other officers," continued the staff captain, "and
Bogdanich" (the colonel was called Bogdanich) "shuts you up."
"He did
not shut me up, he said I was telling an untruth."
"Well, have it so, and
you talked a lot of nonsense to him and must apologize."
"Not on any
account!" exclaimed Rostov.
"I did not expect this of you," said the
staff captain seriously and severely. "You don't wish to apologize, but, man,
it's not only to him but to the whole regiment--all of us--you're to blame
all round. The case is this: you ought to have thought the matter over and
taken advice; but no, you go and blurt it all straight out before
the officers. Now what was the colonel to do? Have the officer tried
and disgrace the whole regiment? Disgrace the whole regiment because of
one scoundrel? Is that how you look at it? We don't see it like that.
And Bogdanich was a brick: he told you you were saying what was not
true. It's not pleasant, but what's to be done, my dear fellow? You
landed yourself in it. And now, when one wants to smooth the thing over,
some conceit prevents your apologizing, and you wish to make the whole
affair public. You are offended at being put on duty a bit, but why
not apologize to an old and honorable officer? Whatever Bogdanich may
be, anyway he is an honorable and brave old colonel! You're quick at
taking offense, but you don't mind disgracing the whole regiment!" The
staff captain's voice began to tremble. "You have been in the regiment next
to no time, my lad, you're here today and tomorrow you'll be
appointed adjutant somewhere and can snap your fingers when it is said 'There
are thieves among the Pavlograd officers!' But it's not all the same to
us! Am I not right, Denisov? It's not the same!"
Denisov remained
silent and did not move, but occasionally looked with his glittering black
eyes at Rostov.
"You value your own pride and don't wish to apologize,"
continued the staff captain, "but we old fellows, who have grown up in and,
God willing, are going to die in the regiment, we prize the honor of
the regiment, and Bogdanich knows it. Oh, we do prize it, old fellow!
And all this is not right, it's not right! You may take offense or not but
I always stick to mother truth. It's not right!"
And the staff captain
rose and turned away from Rostov.
"That's twue, devil take it!"
shouted Denisov, jumping up. "Now then, Wostov, now then!"
Rostov,
growing red and pale alternately, looked first at one officer and then at the
other.
"No, gentlemen, no... you mustn't think... I quite understand.
You're wrong to think that of me... I... for me... for the honor of
the regiment I'd... Ah well, I'll show that in action, and for me the
honor of the flag... Well, never mind, it's true I'm to blame, to blame
all round. Well, what else do you want?..."
"Come, that's right,
Count!" cried the staff captain, turning round and clapping Rostov on the
shoulder with his big hand.
"I tell you," shouted Denisov, "he's a fine
fellow."
"That's better, Count," said the staff captain, beginning to
address Rostov by his title, as if in recognition of his confession. "Go
and apologize, your excellency. Yes, go!"
"Gentlemen, I'll do
anything. No one shall hear a word from me," said Rostov in an imploring
voice, "but I can't apologize, by God I can't, do what you will! How can I go
and apologize like a little boy asking forgiveness?"
Denisov began to
laugh.
"It'll be worse for you. Bogdanich is vindictive and you'll pay
for your obstinacy," said Kirsten.
"No, on my word it's not obstinacy!
I can't describe the feeling. I can't..."
"Well, it's as you like,"
said the staff captain. "And what has become of that scoundrel?" he asked
Denisov.
"He has weported himself sick, he's to be stwuck off the list
tomowwow," muttered Denisov.
"It is an illness, there's no other way
of explaining it," said the staff captain.
"Illness or not, he'd
better not cwoss my path. I'd kill him!" shouted Denisov in a bloodthirsty
tone.
Just then Zherkov entered the room.
"What brings you here?"
cried the officers turning to the newcomer.
"We're to go into action,
gentlemen! Mack has surrendered with his whole army."
"It's not
true!"
"I've seen him myself!"
"What? Saw the real Mack? With
hands and feet?"
"Into action! Into action! Bring him a bottle for such
news! But how did you come here?"
"I've been sent back to the regiment
all on account of that devil, Mack. An Austrian general complained of me. I
congratulated him on Mack's arrival... What's the matter, Rostov? You look as
if you'd just come out of a hot bath."
"Oh, my dear fellow, we're in
such a stew here these last two days."
The regimental adjutant came in
and confirmed the news brought by Zherkov. They were under orders to advance
next day.
"We're going into action, gentlemen!"
"Well, thank God!
We've been sitting here too long!"
CHAPTER VI
Kutuzov
fell back toward Vienna, destroying behind him the bridges over the rivers
Inn (at Braunau) and Traun (near Linz). On October 23 the Russian troops were
crossing the river Enns. At midday the Russian baggage train, the artillery,
and columns of troops were defiling through the town of Enns on both sides of
the bridge.
It was a warm, rainy, autumnal day. The wide expanse that
opened out before the heights on which the Russian batteries stood guarding
the bridge was at times veiled by a diaphanous curtain of slanting rain,
and then, suddenly spread out in the sunlight, far-distant objects could
be clearly seen glittering as though freshly varnished. Down below,
the little town could be seen with its white, red-roofed houses,
its cathedral, and its bridge, on both sides of which streamed
jostling masses of Russian troops. At the bend of the Danube, vessels, an
island, and a castle with a park surrounded by the waters of the confluence
of the Enns and the Danube became visible, and the rocky left bank of
the Danube covered with pine forests, with a mystic background of
green treetops and bluish gorges. The turrets of a convent stood out beyond
a wild virgin pine forest, and far away on the other side of the Enns
the enemy's horse patrols could be discerned.
Among the field guns on
the brow of the hill the general in command of the rearguard stood with a
staff officer, scanning the country through his fieldglass. A little behind
them Nesvitski, who had been sent to the rearguard by the commander-in-chief,
was sitting on the trail of a gun carriage. A Cossack who accompanied him had
handed him a knapsack and a flask, and Nesvitski was treating some officers
to pies and real doppelkummel. The officers gladly gathered round him, some
on their knees, some squatting Turkish fashion on the wet grass.
"Yes,
the Austrian prince who built that castle was no fool. It's a fine place! Why
are you not eating anything, gentlemen?" Nesvitski was saying.
"Thank
you very much, Prince," answered one of the officers, pleased to be talking
to a staff officer of such importance. "It's a lovely place! We passed close
to the park and saw two deer... and what a splendid house!"
"Look,
Prince," said another, who would have dearly liked to take another pie but
felt shy, and therefore pretended to be examining the countryside--"See, our
infantrymen have already got there. Look there in the meadow behind the
village, three of them are dragging something. They'll ransack that castle,"
he remarked with evident approval.
"So they will," said Nesvitski. "No,
but what I should like," added he, munching a pie in his moist-lipped
handsome mouth, "would be to slip in over there."
He pointed with a
smile to a turreted nunnery, and his eyes narrowed and gleamed.
"That
would be fine, gentlemen!"
The officers laughed.
"Just to flutter
the nuns a bit. They say there are Italian girls among them. On my word I'd
give five years of my life for it!"
"They must be feeling dull, too,"
said one of the bolder officers, laughing.
Meanwhile the staff officer
standing in front pointed out something to the general, who looked through
his field glass.
"Yes, so it is, so it is," said the general angrily,
lowering the field glass and shrugging his shoulders, "so it is! They'll be
fired on at the crossing. And why are they dawdling there?"
On the
opposite side the enemy could be seen by the naked eye, and from their
battery a milk-white cloud arose. Then came the distant report of a shot, and
our troops could be seen hurrying to the crossing.
Nesvitski rose,
puffing, and went up to the general, smiling.
"Would not your excellency
like a little refreshment?" he said.
"It's a bad business," said the
general without answering him, "our men have been wasting
time."
"Hadn't I better ride over, your excellency?" asked
Nesvitski.
"Yes, please do," answered the general, and he repeated the
order that had already once been given in detail: "and tell the hussars that
they are to cross last and to fire the bridge as I ordered; and
the inflammable material on the bridge must be reinspected."
"Very
good," answered Nesvitski. |
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