War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

  On Kutuzov's staff, among his fellow officers and in the army generally, Prince Andrey was what he had been in Petersburg society, a man with two completely different reputations. Some people - the minority - considered him a cut above themselves and everybody else; they expected a lot from him, they listened to him, admired and imitated him, and with these people Prince Andrey was open and agreeable. Others - the majority - didn't like him at all, seeing him as petulant, aloof and thoroughly unpleasant. But Prince Andrey knew enough to ensure that even these people treated him with respect and sometimes a certain awe.

  He left Kutuzov's room and walked across the ante-room to his comrade, the duty adjutant, Kozlovsky, who was sitting by the window reading.

  'What is it, Prince?' queried Kozlovsky.

  'I've been told to write a note saying why we're not going on.'

  'Well, why aren't we?'

  Prince Andrey shrugged.

  'No news from Mack?' asked Kozlovsky.

  'No.'

  'If he really had been beaten we would have heard by now.'

  'Quite likely,' said Prince Andrey, moving towards the door. But he was confronted on the way out by a tall man who walked into the ante-room and slammed the door behind him. The new arrival was an Austrian general in a long coat, with a black cloth around his head and the Order of Maria Theresa around his neck. Prince Andrey stopped short.

  'Ze Commander-in-Chief Kutuzoff?' asked the general, speaking quickly with a rough German accent. He looked to both sides and walked straight on to the door of the private room.

  'The commander-in-chief is busy,' said Kozlovsky, hurrying over to the unknown general and barring his way to the door. 'Who shall I say has arrived?'

  The newcomer looked down on the diminutive Kozlovsky, apparently surprised not to be recognized.

  'The commander-in-chief is busy,' Kozlovsky repeated calmly.

  The general's face contorted, his lips twitching and trembling. He took out a note-book, jotted something down in pencil, tore the page out and handed it to Kozlovsky, and then strode swiftly to the window, where he threw himself into a small chair and looked around at the others as though wondering why they were watching him. Then he looked up and thrust his neck out as though about to speak, only to start humming with a kind of forced nonchalance, a strange sound which he snapped off almost immediately. The door of the private room opened, and there was Kutuzov in the doorway. As though fleeing from some danger, the general with the bandaged head bent forward and sped towards him on spindly legs.

  'You see before you the unfortunate Mack,' he managed to say in French, his voice breaking.

  Kutuzov's face, as he stood there in the doorway, remained impassive for a few moments. Then a wrinkle rippled across it like a wave, and left his forehead smooth. He bowed his head respectfully, closed his eyes, ushered Mack in without a word and closed the door behind him.

  So, the rumour that had been going round - that the Austrians had been defeated and the whole army had surrendered at Ulm - had turned out to be true. Within half an hour aides had been dispatched in every direction with orders to the effect that the Russian troops which had so far been inactive would soon have to confront the enemy.

  Prince Andrey was one of those few staff officers with a genuine interest in the overall progress of the war. On observing Mack and learning the details of his downfall, he saw immediately that the campaign was half lost. He could sense the enormous difficulty which now faced the Russian troops, and imagine what lay ahead of them; he could also foresee the part that he personally would have to play. He couldn't resist a thrill of real pleasure at the thought of the arrogant Austrians suffering such humiliation, and the prospect of, perhaps in less than a week, witnessing, even taking part in, an encounter between the Russians and the French, the first since Suvorov's day. But he was afraid of Bonaparte's genius - this man might turn out to be stronger than all the brave Russian troops put together; and yet at the same time he couldn't bear to think of his hero being disgraced.

  Excited and unnerved by these thoughts, Prince Andrey decided to go to his room and write to his father, which he did every day, but in the corridor he met his room-mate Nesvitsky and Zherkov the clown. As usual they had found something to laugh at.

  'What are you looking so miserable about?' asked Nesvitsky, noticing Prince Andrey's pale face with its gleaming eyes.

  'There's nothing to celebrate,' answered Bolkonsky.

  Just as Prince Andrey encountered Nesvitsky and Zherkov, down the corridor towards them came the two Austrian generals who had arrived the previous night, Strauch, an attache charged with provisioning the Russian army, and the Hofkriegsrath representative. There was plenty of room in the wide corridor for the generals to pass the three officers with something to spare. Nevertheless Zherkov shoved Nesvitsky to one side and called out breathlessly, 'Mind your backs, please! . . . Make way! . . . Stand aside!'

  The generals walked on looking as if they would have liked to avoid any embarrassing display of respect, but Zherkov the clown suddenly smirked with what seemed to be uncontrollable glee.

  'Your Excellency,' he said in German, moving forward and addressing the Austrian general, 'my compliments to you, sir.' He began bowing and scraping, awkwardly, like a child getting his legs mixed up at a dancing lesson. The Hofkriegsrath man looked at him sharply, but, detecting something serious behind the silly smirk, he couldn't refuse him a moment's attention. He frowned with concentration to show that he was listening.

  'My compliments indeed, sir, on General Mack's arrival. He seems to be well. Just a bit of trouble up here,' he added, tapping his head with an even broader smile.

  The general's frown deepened; he turned away and hurried off.

  'Stupid boy!' he said angrily, a few steps further on.

  Nesvitsky roared with laughter and threw his arms around Prince Andrey, but Bolkonsky, turning even paler, pushed him away with a furious glare and turned to Zherkov. The nervous tension brought on by the sight of Mack, the news of his defeat and the thought of what the Russian army was in for expressed itself in a furious reaction to Zherkov's tasteless joke.

  'Sir, if you insist on acting like a buffoon,' he began cuttingly, with a slight trembling of the jaw, 'it is not for me to stop you, but if you dare play the fool once more in my presence I'll teach you how to behave.' Nesvitsky and Zherkov were so taken aback by this outburst that they gazed in silence at Bolkonsky with wide-open eyes.

  'Huh, I only gave them my compliments,' said Zherkov.

  'I'm not joking, sir! Please be silent!' Bolkonsky roared, and taking Nesvitsky by the arm he walked away from Zherkov, leaving him lost for words.

  'I say, come on, old fellow,' said Nesvitsky, trying to soothe him.

  'Come on?' said Prince Andrey, pausing, still very excited. 'Listen. Either we are officers serving Tsar and country, rejoicing in allied successes and grieving together in defeat, or we're just hired servants who have no interest in our master's business. Forty thousand men massacred and the allied army destroyed, and you think that's funny,' he said, choosing his phrases carefully, in French, to emphasize what he was saying. 'It may be all right for a stupid young idiot like that friend of yours, but it's not all right for you - not for you. Schoolboys joke like that,' Prince Andrey added, going into Russian but saying the word with a French accent. He had noticed that Zherkov was still within hearing, and waited for some response from the cornet. But no, he turned away from them and walked out of the corridor.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Pavlograd hussars were stationed two miles from Braunau. The squadron in which Nikolay Rostov was serving as an ensign was billeted on a German village, Salzeneck. The squadron commander, Captain Denisov, known throughout the cavalry division as Vaska, had been given the best quarters and Ensign Rostov was sharing with him, as he had done ever since he had joined the regiment in Poland.

  On the 8th of October, the day when headquarters was shocked out of its complacency by the news of Mack's de
feat, life in this squadron had been going smoothly in its old routine.

  Denisov had spent all night losing at cards and was still out when Rostov came back early that morning from a foraging expedition. Rostov rode up to the steps in his cadet's uniform, reined in his horse, swung one leg over the saddle with the ease of a fit young man, stood up in the stirrup for a second as though reluctant to let go of the horse, and then leapt down and called for an orderly.

  'Ah, Bondarenko, my dear fellow,' he said to the hussar who came rushing up to his horse. 'Give him a walk, there's a good fellow,' he said, with the kind of cheery familiarity which good-hearted young people show to everyone when they are in a happy mood.

  'Yes, sir,' answered the Ukrainian boy with a cheerful toss of his head.

  'Mind you give him a decent walk!'

  Another hussar had rushed up by now, but Bondarenko had already thrown the reins of the snaffle-bit over the horse's head.

  The young cadet was obviously a good tipper, well worth working for. Rostov stroked the horse on its neck and flank and then paused for a while on the steps.

  'First rate! What a horse he's going to be!' he said to himself with a smile. Holding his sabre up, he ran up the steps with clattering spurs. The German on whom they were billeted, wearing his thick shirt and pointed cap, and holding a fork which he was using for mucking out, glanced out from the cowshed. His face lit up when he saw Rostov. With a cheerful smile and a quick wink he greeted him in German. 'Good morning, a very good morning to you!' He seemed to take pleasure in welcoming the young man.

  'You're out working early!' said Rostov, also in German, with the happy, friendly smile that never left his eager face. 'Hurrah for the Austrians! Hurrah for the Russians! Long live the Emperor Alexander!' he said, using phrases that had often been said before by the German, who now came out of his cowshed, laughing, pulled off his cap and waved it above his head, shouting, 'And long live the whole world!'

  Rostov did the same with his cap and cried out laughingly, 'Yes, long live the whole world!' There was no reason for either of them to celebrate, the German mucking out, or Rostov coming back from foraging for hay, but these two people beamed at each other in sheer delight and brotherly love, wagging their heads at one another to show mutual affection, and then they went off smiling, the German to his cowshed and Rostov to the rough cottage he was sharing with Denisov.

  'Where's your master?' he asked Lavrushka, Denisov's valet, and a well-known rogue.

  'He's been out all night. Must have been losing,' answered Lavrushka. 'I know him by now. If he wins he comes home early and tells us all about it - if he's not back by morning, that means that he's lost. He'll be furious when he does come home. Shall I serve some coffee?'

  'Yes, please.'

  Ten minutes later Lavrushka brought in the coffee.

  'He's coming now!' said he. 'There'll be trouble!'

  Through the window Rostov could see Denisov returning home, a small figure of a man, red in the face, with sparkling black eyes, wayward black moustaches and tousled hair. His long cloak was unfastened, his baggy breeches hung down in folds and his hussar's cap had slid down the back of his head, all crumpled. A picture of gloom, with downcast eyes, he walked to the steps.

  'Lavwushka!' he yelled in a loud angry voice that emphasized his speech impediment, 'Come on, get it off, man!'

  'Yes, that's what I am doing,' came Lavrushka's voice in reply.

  'Oh, you're up then,' said Denisov, coming into the room.

  'Ages ago,' said Rostov. 'I've been out foraging - and I've seen Fraulein Mathilde.'

  'Have you? And I've been losing, bwother, all night long, like a son of a bitch,' cried Denisov. 'Wotten luck? You've never seen anything like it! Since the moment you left, no luck at all. Hey you, bwing me some tea!'

  Denisov's face wrinkled into something like a smile, which showed off his small, strong teeth, and he began working with the short fingers of both hands to ruffle the dense tangled thicket of his tousled black hair.

  'Devil knows why I had to take on that wotten wat,' (one of the officers was nicknamed 'rat') he said, rubbing his forehead and face with both hands. 'Can you believe it? He never dealt me a decent card, not one, not one, not one!' Denisov accepted the lighted pipe that was handed to him, squeezed it in his fist, tapped it on the floor with a shower of sparks, and carried on shouting. 'Lets you win stwaight, and he wins the doubles. Me stwaight, him doubles.'

  He scattered more sparks, the pipe broke and he threw it away. Then he paused and turned his gleaming black eyes sharply on Rostov.

  'If only there were some women! But here you have a dwink and then there's nothing else to do. What we need is some fighting, and soon . . . Hey, who's that?' he called, turning towards the door, hearing someone stop with a clattering of thick boots and clanking spurs, followed by a polite cough.

  'Quartermaster!' called out Lavrushka. Denisov wrinkled his face up more than ever.

  'Oh damn!' he said, flinging down a purse with a few gold coins in it. 'Wostov, dear boy, would you count how much is left, and shove the purse under my pillow?' he said, and went out to see the quartermaster. Rostov took the money and began to sort it automatically into two heaps, old coins and new ones, which he then began to count.

  'Ah, Telyanin! Good morning to you! Cleaned me wight out last night,' he could heard Denisov saying in the other room.

  'Where were you? At Bykov's? At the rat's? . . . I knew it,' said another person's reedy voice, and into the room walked Lieutenant Telyanin, a small fellow officer.

  Rostov stuffed the purse under the pillow, and went to shake the damp little hand that was offered. For some reason Telyanin had been transferred from the guards just before the regiment had marched off. He had behaved well enough with them, but no one liked him and Rostov in particular couldn't abide him or even manage to hide his unreasonable dislike of this officer.

  'Well now, my young cavalryman, how are you getting on with my Little Rook?' (Little Rook was his young horse, well broken-in for riding, that Telyanin had sold to Rostov.) The lieutenant never looked anyone in the eye when he was speaking; his own eyes were continually darting from one object to another. 'I saw you out on him today . . .'

  'Oh, not bad at all. He's a good ride,' answered Rostov, though the horse for which he had paid seven hundred roubles wasn't really worth half that amount. 'He's limping a bit on the left foreleg . . .' he added.

  'Got a cracked hoof! It's nothing. I'll teach you. I'll show you how to put a rivet in.'

  'I'd be glad if you would,' said Rostov.

  'I'll show you, I'll show you. Nothing secret about it. But you'll be glad you bought that horse.'

  'Good, I'll have him brought round,' said Rostov, anxious to get rid of Telyanin, and he went out to arrange for them to get the horse.

  Outside, Denisov was squatting on the threshold with a new pipe, facing the quartermaster, who was reporting to him. Seeing Rostov, Denisov screwed up his face, pointed a thumb over his shoulder towards the room where Telyanin was still sitting, frowned and shuddered with revulsion.

  'Ugh! I can't stand that fellow,' he said, ignoring the quartermaster.

  Rostov shrugged as if to say, 'Neither can I, but what can you do?' He gave his instructions and went back in to Telyanin, who was sitting as before, in the same languid pose, rubbing his little white hands together.

  'Some people are just too awful for words!' thought Rostov as he entered.

  'Well, have you ordered them to fetch the horse?' said Telyanin, getting up and looking around casually.

  'Yes.'

  'Well, you come too. I just dropped in to ask Denisov about yesterday's order. Have you got it, Denisov?'

  'No, not yet. Where are you off to?'

  'I'm going to show this young man how to shoe a horse,' said Telyanin.

  They went out, down the steps and into the stable. The lieutenant showed Rostov how to fix a rivet and then went off to his own quarters.

  When Rostov g
ot back, there on the table stood a bottle of vodka and some sausage. Denisov was sitting there, and his pen was scratching across a sheet of paper. He looked glumly into Rostov's face.

  'I am witing to her,' he said. He leant his elbows on the table, pen in hand, and was obviously so delighted at the prospect of speaking much faster than he could write that he gave Rostov the benefit of his whole letter. 'You see, my dear fellow,' he said, 'we are asleep until we fall in love . . . we are the childwen of dust and ashes . . . but once you have loved you are a god, as pure as on the first day of cweation . . . Who's that? Send him away, dammit! I've no time!' he bawled at Lavrushka, who, nothing daunted, went up to him.

  'Who do you expect? You invited him. It's the quartermaster, come for his money.'

  Denisov scowled and seemed as if he would say something, but didn't.

  'Wotten business altogether!' he said to himself. 'How much was there left in that purse?' he asked Rostov.

  'Seven new, three old.'

  'Well, don't just stand there like a big wag doll! Bwing in the quartermaster!' Denisov shouted to Lavrushka.

  'Denisov, please, here's some money. I've got plenty,' said Rostov, reddening.

  'I don't like bowwowing from fwiends. I weally don't,' growled Denisov.

  'But if you won't accept money from me - a comrade - I'll be offended. I've really got plenty,' repeated Rostov.

  'Oh no.' And Denisov went over to the bed to get the purse out from under the pillow.

  'Where did you put it, Wostov?'

  'Under the bottom pillow.'

  'Well it's not there.' Denisov threw both the pillows down on to the floor. No purse. 'Well, I'm blessed!'

  'Hang on, you must have dropped it,' said Rostov, picking the pillows up one at a time and shaking them. He pulled the quilt off and shook it out. Still no purse.

  'Have I forgotten something? No, I remember thinking you'd be sleeping on a secret treasure,' said Rostov. 'I did put the purse there. Where's it gone?' He turned to Lavrushka.