War and Peace (25 page)

“What?… what?… How dare you? What?” … said Telyanin. But the words sounded like a plaintive, despairing cry and prayer for forgiveness. As soon as Rostov heard the sound of his voice, a great weight of suspense, like a stone, rolled off his heart. He felt glad, and at the same instant he pitied the luckless creature standing before him, but he had to carry the thing through to the end.

“God knows what the people here may think,” muttered Telyanin, snatching up his forage-cap and turning towards a small empty room. “You must explain …”

“I know that, and I’ll prove it,” said Rostov.

“I …”

The terrified, white face of Telyanin began twitching in every muscle; his eyes still moved uneasily, but on the ground, never rising to the level of Rostov’s face, and tearful sobs could be heard.

“Count!… don’t ruin a young man … here is the wretched money, take it.” … He threw it on the table. “I’ve an old father and mother!”

Rostov took the money, avoiding Telyanin’s eyes, and without uttering a word, he went out of the room. But in the doorway he stopped and turned back.

“My God!” he said, with tears in his eyes, “how could you do it?”

“Count,” said Telyanin, coming nearer to the ensign.

“Don’t touch me,” said Rostov, drawing back. “If you’re in need take the money.”

He thrust a purse on him and ran out of the restaurant.

In the evening of the same day a lively discussion was taking place in Denisov’s quarters between some officers of the squadron.

“But I tell you, Rostov, that you must apologise to the colonel,” the tall staff-captain was saying, addressing Rostov, who was crimson with excitement. The staff-captain, Kirsten, a man with grizzled hair, immense whiskers, thick features and a wrinkled face, had been twice degraded to the ranks for affairs of honour, and had twice risen again to holding a commission.

“I permit no one to tell me I’m lying!” cried Rostov. “He told me I was lying and I told him he was lying. And there it rests. He can put me on duty every day, he can place me under arrest, but no one can compel me to apologise, because if he, as the colonel, considers it beneath his dignity to give me satisfaction, then …”

“But you wait a bit, my good fellow; you listen to me,” interrupted the staff-captain in his bass voice, calmly stroking his long whiskers. “You tell the colonel in the presence of other officers that an officer has stolen—”

“I’m not to blame for the conversation being in the presence of other officers. Possibly I ought not to have spoken before them, but I’m not a diplomatist. That’s just why I went into the hussars; I thought that here I should have no need of such finicky considerations, and he tells me I’m a liar … so let him give me satisfaction.”

“That’s all very fine, no one imagines that you’re a coward; but that’s not the point. Ask Denisov if it’s not utterly out of the question for an ensign to demand satisfaction of his colonel?”

Denisov was biting his moustache with a morose air, listening to the conversation, evidently with no desire to take part in it. To the captain’s question, he replied by a negative shake of the head.

“You speak to the colonel in the presence of other officers of this dirty business,” pursued the staff-captain. “Bogdanitch” (Bogdanitch was what they called the colonel) “snubbed you …”

“No, he didn’t. He said I was telling an untruth.”

“Quite so, and you talked nonsense to him, and you must apologise.”

“Not on any consideration!” shouted Rostov.

“I shouldn’t have expected this of you,” said the staff-captain seriously and severely. “You won’t apologise, but, my good sir, it’s not only him, but all the regiment, all of us, that you’ve acted wrongly by; you’re to blame all round. Look here; if you’d only thought it over, and taken advice how to deal with the matter, but you must go and blurt it all straight out before the officers. What was the colonel to do then? Is he to bring the officer up for trial and disgrace the whole regiment? On account of one scoundrel is the whole regiment to be put to shame? Is that the thing for him to do, to your thinking? It is not to our thinking. And Bogdanitch did the right thing. He told you that you were telling an untruth. It’s unpleasant, but what could he do? you brought it on yourself. And now when they try to smooth the thing over, you’re so high and mighty, you won’t apologise, and want to have the whole story out.
You’re huffy at being put on duty, but what is it for you to apologise to an old and honourable officer! Whatever Bogdanitch may be, any way he’s an honourable and gallant old colonel; you’re offended at that, but disgracing the regiment’s nothing to you.” The staff-captain’s voice began to quaver. “You, sir, have been next to no time in the regiment; you’re here to-day, and to-morrow you’ll be passed on somewhere as an adjutant; you don’t care a straw for people saying: ‘There are thieves among the Pavlograd officers!’ But we do care! Don’t we, Denisov? Do we care?”

Denisov still did not speak or stir; his gleaming black eyes glanced now and then at Rostov.

“Your pride is dear to you, you don’t want to apologise,” continued the staff-captain, “but we old fellows, as we grew up in the regiment and, please God, we hope to die in it, it’s the honour of the regiment is dear to us, and Bogdanitch knows that. Ah, isn’t it dear to us! But this isn’t right; it’s not right! You may take offence or not; but I always speak the plain truth. It’s not right!”

And the staff-captain got up and turned away from Rostov.

“That’s the truth, damn it!” shouted Denisov, jumping up. “Come, Rostov, come!”

Rostov, turning crimson and white again, looked first at one officer and then at the other.

“No, gentlemen, no … you mustn’t think … I quite understand, you’re wrong in thinking that of me … I … for me … for the honour of the regiment I’d … but why talk? I’ll prove that in action and for me the honour of the flag … well, never mind, it’s true, I’m to blame!” … There were tears in his eyes. “I’m wrong, wrong all round! Well, what more do you want?” …

“Come, that’s right, count,” cried the staff-captain, turning round and clapping him on the shoulder with his big hand.

“I tell you,” shouted Denisov, “he’s a capital fellow.”

’That’s better, count,” repeated the captain, beginning to address him by his title as though in acknowledgment of his confession. “Go and apologise, your excellency.”

“Gentlemen, I’ll do anything, no one shall hear a word from me,” Rostov protested in an imploring voice, “but I can’t apologise, by God, I can’t, say what you will! How can I apologise, like a little boy begging pardon!”

Denisov laughed.

“It’ll be the worse for you, if you don’t. Bogdanitch doesn’t forget things; he’ll make you pay for your obstinacy,” said Kirsten.

“By God, it’s not obstinacy! I can’t describe the feeling it gives me. I can’t do it.”

“Well, as you like,” said the staff-captain. “What has the scoundrel done with himself?” he asked Denisov.

“He has reported himself ill; to-morrow the order’s given for him to be struck off,” said Denisov.

“It is an illness, there’s no other way of explaining it,” said the staff-captain.

“Whether it’s illness or whether it’s not, he’d better not cross my path—I’d kill him,” Denisov shouted bloodthirstily.

Zherkov walked into the room.

“How do you come here?” the officers cried to the newcomer at once.

“To the front, gentlemen. Mack has surrendered with his whole army.”

“Nonsense!”

“I’ve seen him myself.”

“What? Seen Mack alive, with all his arms and legs?”

“To the front! to the front! Give him a bottle for such news. How did you come here?”

“I’ve been dismissed back to the regiment again on account of that devil, Mack. The Austrian general complained of me. I congratulated him on Mack’s arrival.… What is it, Rostov, you look as if you’d just come out of a hot bath?”

“We’ve been in such a mess these last two days, old boy.”

The regimental adjutant came in and confirmed the news brought by Zherkov. They were under orders to advance next day.

“To the front, gentlemen!”

“Well, thank God! we’ve been sticking here too long.”

Kutuzov fell back to Vienna, destroying behind him the bridges over the river Inn (in Braunau) and the river Traun (in Linz). On the 23rd of October the Russian troops crossed the river Enns. The Russian baggage-waggons and artillery and the columns of troops were in the middle of that day stretching in a long string across the town of Enns on
both sides of the bridge. The day was warm, autumnal, and rainy. The wide view that opened out from the heights where the Russian batteries stood guarding the bridge was at times narrowed by the slanting rain that shut it in like a muslin curtain, then again widened out, and in the bright sunlight objects could be distinctly seen in the distance, looking as if covered with a coat of varnish. The little town could be seen below with its white houses and its red roofs, its cathedral and its bridge, on both sides of which streamed masses of Russian troops, crowded together. At the bend of the Danube could be seen ships and the island and a castle with a park, surrounded by the waters formed by the Enns falling into the Danube, and the precipitous left bank of the Danube, covered with pine forest, with a mysterious distance of green tree-tops and bluish gorges. Beyond the pine forest, that looked wild and untouched by the hand of man, rose the turrets of a nunnery; and in the far distance in front, on the hill on the further side of the Enns, could be seen the scouts of the enemy.

Between the cannons on the height stood the general in command of the rear-guard and an officer of the suite scanning the country through a field-glass. A little behind them, there sat on the trunk of a cannon, Nesvitsky, who had been despatched by the commander-in-chief to the rear-guard. The Cossack who accompanied Nesvitsky had handed him over a knapsack and a flask, and Nesvitsky was regaling the officers with pies and real doppel-kümmel. The officers surrounded him in a delighted circle, some on their knees, some sitting cross-legged, like Turks, on the wet grass.

“Yes, there was some sense in that Austrian prince who built a castle here. It’s a magnificent spot. Why aren’t you eating, gentlemen?” said Nesvitsky.

“Thank you very much, prince,” answered one of the officers, enjoying the opportunity of talking to a staff-official of such importance. “It’s a lovely spot. We marched right by the park; we saw two deer and such a splendid house!”

“Look, prince,” said another, who would dearly have liked to take another pie, but was ashamed to, and therefore affected to be gazing at the countryside; “look, our infantry have just got in there. Over there, near the meadow behind the village, three of them are dragging something. They will clean out that palace nicely,” he said, with evident approval.

“No doubt,” said Nesvitsky. “No; but what I should like,” he added,
munching a pie in his moist, handsome mouth, “would be to slip in there.” He pointed to the turreted nunnery that could be seen on the mountainside. He smiled, his eyes narrowing and gleaming. “Yes, that would be first-rate, gentlemen!” The officers laughed.

“One might at least scare the nuns a little. There are Italian girls, they say, among them. Upon my word, I’d give five years of my life for it!”

“They must be bored, too,” said an officer who was rather bolder, laughing.

Meanwhile the officer of the suite, who was standing in front, pointed something out to the general; the general looked through the field-glass.

“Yes, so it is, so it is,” said the general angrily, taking the field-glass away from his eye and shrugging his shoulders; “they are going to fire at them at the crossing of the river. And why do they linger so?”

With the naked eye, looking in that direction, one could discern the enemy and their batteries, from which a milky-white smoke was rising. The smoke was followed by the sound of a shot in the distance, and our troops were unmistakably hurrying to the place of crossing.

Nesvitsky got up puffing and went up to the general, smiling.

“Wouldn’t your excellency take some lunch?” he said.

“It’s a bad business,” said the general, without answering him; “our men have been too slow.”

“Shouldn’t I ride over, your excellency?” said Nesvitsky.

“Yes, ride over, please,” said the general, repeating an order that had already once before been given in detail; “and tell the hussars that they are to cross last and to burn the bridge, as I sent orders, and that they’re to overhaul the burning materials on the bridge.”

“Very good,” answered Nesvitsky. He called the Cossack with his horse, told him to pick up the knapsack and flask, and lightly swung his heavy person into the saddle.

“Upon my word, I am going to pay a visit to the nuns,” he said to the officers who were watching him, smiling, and he rode along the winding path down the mountain.

“Now then, captain, try how far it’ll carry,” said the general, turning to the artillery officer. “Have a little fun to pass the time.”

“Men, to the guns!” commanded the officer, and in a moment the gunners ran gaily from the camp fires and loaded the big guns.

“One!” they heard the word of command. Number one bounded back nimbly. The cannon boomed with a deafening metallic sound, and whistling over the heads of our men under the mountainside, the
grenade flew across, and falling a long way short of the enemy showed by the rising smoke where it had fallen and burst.

The faces of the soldiers and officers lightened up at the sound. Every one got up and busily watched the movements of our troops below, which could be seen as in the hollow of a hand, and the movements of the advancing enemy. At the same instant, the sun came out fully from behind the clouds, and the full note of the solitary shot and the brilliance of the bright sunshine melted into a single inspiriting impression of light-hearted gaiety.

Over the bridge two of the enemy’s shots had already flown and there was a crush on the bridge. In the middle of the bridge stood Nesvitsky. He had dismounted and stood with his stout person jammed against the railings. He looked laughingly back at his Cossack, who was standing several paces behind him holding the two horses by their bridles. Every time Nesvitsky tried to move on, the advancing soldiers and waggons bore down upon him and shoved him back against the railings. There was nothing for him to do but to smile.