fallen leaves that dropped of themselves from that withered tree - the
French army - and sometimes shook that tree itself. By October, when
the French were fleeing toward Smolensk, there were hundreds of such
companies, of various sizes and characters. There were some that adopted
all the army methods and had infantry, artillery, staffs, and the
comforts of life. Others consisted solely of Cossack cavalry. There were
also small scratch groups of foot and horse, and groups of peasants and
landowners that remained unknown. A sacristan commanded one party which
captured several hundred prisoners in the course of a month; and there
was Vasilisa, the wife of a village elder, who slew hundreds of the
French.
The partisan warfare flamed up most fiercely in the latter days of
October. Its first period had passed: when the partisans themselves,
amazed at their own boldness, feared every minute to be surrounded
and captured by the French, and hid in the forests without unsaddling,
hardly daring to dismount and always expecting to be pursued. By the end
of October this kind of warfare had taken definite shape: it had become
clear to all what could be ventured against the French and what could
not. Now only the commanders of detachments with staffs, and moving
according to rules at a distance from the French, still regarded many
things as impossible. The small bands that had started their activities
long before and had already observed the French closely considered
things possible which the commanders of the big detachments did not dare
to contemplate. The Cossacks and peasants who crept in among the French
now considered everything possible.
On October 22, Denisov (who was one of the irregulars) was with his
group at the height of the guerrilla enthusiasm. Since early morning he
and his party had been on the move. All day long he had been watching
from the forest that skirted the highroad a large French convoy of
cavalry baggage and Russian prisoners separated from the rest of the
army, which - as was learned from spies and prisoners - was moving under a
strong escort to Smolensk. Besides Denisov and Dolokhov (who also led
a small party and moved in Denisov’s vicinity), the commanders of some
large divisions with staffs also knew of this convoy and, as Denisov
expressed it, were sharpening their teeth for it. Two of the commanders
of large parties - one a Pole and the other a German - sent invitations
to Denisov almost simultaneously, requesting him to join up with their
divisions to attack the convoy.
"No, bwother, I have gwown mustaches myself," said Denisov on reading
these documents, and he wrote to the German that, despite his heartfelt
desire to serve under so valiant and renowned a general, he had to forgo
that pleasure because he was already under the command of the Polish
general. To the Polish general he replied to the same effect, informing
him that he was already under the command of the German.
Having arranged matters thus, Denisov and Dolokhov intended, without
reporting matters to the higher command, to attack and seize that
convoy with their own small forces. On October 22 it was moving from
the village of Mikulino to that of Shamshevo. To the left of the road
between Mikulino and Shamshevo there were large forests, extending in
some places up to the road itself though in others a mile or more back
from it. Through these forests Denisov and his party rode all day,
sometimes keeping well back in them and sometimes coming to the very
edge, but never losing sight of the moving French. That morning,
Cossacks of Denisov’s party had seized and carried off into the forest
two wagons loaded with cavalry saddles, which had stuck in the mud not
far from Mikulino where the forest ran close to the road. Since then,
and until evening, the party had watched the movements of the French
without attacking. It was necessary to let the French reach Shamshevo
quietly without alarming them and then, after joining Dolokhov who was
to come that evening to a consultation at a watchman’s hut in the forest
less than a mile from Shamshevo, to surprise the French at dawn, falling
like an avalanche on their heads from two sides, and rout and capture
them all at one blow.
In their rear, more than a mile from Mikulino where the forest came
right up to the road, six Cossacks were posted to report if any fresh
columns of French should show themselves.
Beyond Shamshevo, Dolokhov was to observe the road in the same way, to
find out at what distance there were other French troops. They reckoned
that the convoy had fifteen hundred men. Denisov had two hundred, and
Dolokhov might have as many more, but the disparity of numbers did not
deter Denisov. All that he now wanted to know was what troops these were
and to learn that he had to capture a "tongue" - that is, a man from
the enemy column. That morning’s attack on the wagons had been made so
hastily that the Frenchmen with the wagons had all been killed; only a
little drummer boy had been taken alive, and as he was a straggler he
could tell them nothing definite about the troops in that column.
Denisov considered it dangerous to make a second attack for fear of
putting the whole column on the alert, so he sent Tikhon Shcherbaty, a
peasant of his party, to Shamshevo to try and seize at least one of the
French quartermasters who had been sent on in advance.
CHAPTER IV
It was a warm rainy autumn day. The sky and the horizon were both
the color of muddy water. At times a sort of mist descended, and then
suddenly heavy slanting rain came down.
Denisov in a felt cloak and a sheepskin cap from which the rain ran down
was riding a thin thoroughbred horse with sunken sides. Like his horse,
which turned its head and laid its ears back, he shrank from the driving
rain and gazed anxiously before him. His thin face with its short, thick
black beard looked angry.
Beside Denisov rode an esaul, * Denisov’s fellow worker, also in felt
cloak and sheepskin cap, and riding a large sleek Don horse.
* A captain of Cossacks.
Esaul Lovayski the Third was a tall man as straight as an arrow,
pale-faced, fair-haired, with narrow light eyes and with calm
self-satisfaction in his face and bearing. Though it was impossible to
say in what the peculiarity of the horse and rider lay, yet at first
glance at the esaul and Denisov one saw that the latter was wet and
uncomfortable and was a man mounted on a horse, while looking at the
esaul one saw that he was as comfortable and as much at ease as always
and that he was not a man who had mounted a horse, but a man who was one
with his horse, a being consequently possessed of twofold strength.
A little ahead of them walked a peasant guide, wet to the skin and
wearing a gray peasant coat and a white knitted cap.
A little behind, on a poor, small, lean Kirghiz mount with an enormous
tail and mane and a bleeding mouth, rode a young officer in a blue
French overcoat.
Beside him rode an hussar, with a boy in a tattered French uniform and
blue cap behind him on the crupper of his horse. The boy held on to the
hussar with cold, red hands, and raising his eyebrows gazed about him
with surprise. This was the French drummer boy captured that morning.
Behind them along the narrow, sodden, cutup forest road came hussars in
threes and fours, and then Cossacks: some in felt cloaks, some in French
greatcoats, and some with horsecloths over their heads. The horses,
being drenched by the rain, all looked black whether chestnut or bay.
Their necks, with their wet, close-clinging manes, looked strangely
thin. Steam rose from them. Clothes, saddles, reins, were all wet,
slippery, and sodden, like the ground and the fallen leaves that strewed
the road. The men sat huddled up trying not to stir, so as to warm the
water that had trickled to their bodies and not admit the fresh cold
water that was leaking in under their seats, their knees, and at the
back of their necks. In the midst of the outspread line of Cossacks two
wagons, drawn by French horses and by saddled Cossack horses that had
been hitched on in front, rumbled over the tree stumps and branches and
splashed through the water that lay in the ruts.
Denisov’s horse swerved aside to avoid a pool in the track and bumped
his rider’s knee against a tree.
"Oh, the devil!" exclaimed Denisov angrily, and showing his teeth he
struck his horse three times with his whip, splashing himself and his
comrades with mud.
Denisov was out of sorts both because of the rain and also from hunger
(none of them had eaten anything since morning), and yet more because he
still had no news from Dolokhov and the man sent to capture a "tongue"
had not returned.
"There’ll hardly be another such chance to fall on a transport as today.
It’s too risky to attack them by oneself, and if we put it off till
another day one of the big guerrilla detachments will snatch the prey
from under our noses," thought Denisov, continually peering forward,
hoping to see a messenger from Dolokhov.
On coming to a path in the forest along which he could see far to the
right, Denisov stopped.
"There’s someone coming," said he.
The esaul looked in the direction Denisov indicated.
"There are two, an officer and a Cossack. But it is not presupposable
that it is the lieutenant colonel himself," said the esaul, who was fond
of using words the Cossacks did not know.
The approaching riders having descended a decline were no longer
visible, but they reappeared a few minutes later. In front, at a weary
gallop and using his leather whip, rode an officer, disheveled and
drenched, whose trousers had worked up to above his knees. Behind him,
standing in the stirrups, trotted a Cossack. The officer, a very young
lad with a broad rosy face and keen merry eyes, galloped up to Denisov
and handed him a sodden envelope.
"From the general," said the officer. "Please excuse its not being quite
dry."
Denisov, frowning, took the envelope and opened it.
"There, they kept telling us: ‘It’s dangerous, it’s dangerous,’"
said the officer, addressing the esaul while Denisov was reading the
dispatch. "But Komarov and I" - he pointed to the Cossack - "were prepared.
We have each of us two pistols.... But what’s this?" he asked, noticing
the French drummer boy. "A prisoner? You’ve already been in action? May
I speak to him?"
"Wostov! Petya!" exclaimed Denisov, having run through the dispatch.
"Why didn’t you say who you were?" and turning with a smile he held out
his hand to the lad.
The officer was Petya Rostov.
All the way Petya had been preparing himself to behave with Denisov as
befitted a grown-up man and an officer - without hinting at their previous
acquaintance. But as soon as Denisov smiled at him Petya brightened
up, blushed with pleasure, forgot the official manner he had been
rehearsing, and began telling him how he had already been in a battle
near Vyazma and how a certain hussar had distinguished himself there.
"Well, I am glad to see you," Denisov interrupted him, and his face
again assumed its anxious expression.
"Michael Feoklitych," said he to the esaul, "this is again fwom that
German, you know. He" - he indicated Petya - "is serving under him."
And Denisov told the esaul that the dispatch just delivered was a
repetition of the German general’s demand that he should join forces
with him for an attack on the transport.
"If we don’t take it tomowwow, he’ll snatch it fwom under our noses," he
added.
While Denisov was talking to the esaul, Petya - abashed by Denisov’s
cold tone and supposing that it was due to the condition of his
trousers - furtively tried to pull them down under his greatcoat so
that no one should notice it, while maintaining as martial an air as
possible.
"Will there be any orders, your honor?" he asked Denisov, holding his
hand at the salute and resuming the game of adjutant and general for
which he had prepared himself, "or shall I remain with your honor?"
"Orders?" Denisov repeated thoughtfully. "But can you stay till
tomowwow?"
"Oh, please... May I stay with you?" cried Petya.
"But, just what did the genewal tell you? To weturn at once?" asked
Denisov.
Petya blushed.
"He gave me no instructions. I think I could?" he returned, inquiringly.
"Well, all wight," said Denisov.
And turning to his men he directed a party to go on to the halting place
arranged near the watchman’s hut in the forest, and told the officer on
the Kirghiz horse (who performed the duties of an adjutant) to go and
find out where Dolokhov was and whether he would come that evening.
Denisov himself intended going with the esaul and Petya to the edge of
the forest where it reached out to Shamshevo, to have a look at the part
of the French bivouac they were to attack next day.
"Well, old fellow," said he to the peasant guide, "lead us to
Shamshevo."
Denisov, Petya, and the esaul, accompanied by some Cossacks and the
hussar who had the prisoner, rode to the left across a ravine to the
edge of the forest.
CHAPTER V
The rain had stopped, and only the mist was falling and drops from
the trees. Denisov, the esaul, and Petya rode silently, following the
peasant in the knitted cap who, stepping lightly with outturned toes
and moving noiselessly in his bast shoes over the roots and wet leaves,
silently led them to the edge of the forest.
He ascended an incline, stopped, looked about him, and advanced to where
the screen of trees was less dense. On reaching a large oak tree that
had not yet shed its leaves, he stopped and beckoned mysteriously to
them with his hand.
Denisov and Petya rode up to him. From the spot where the peasant was
standing they could see the French. Immediately beyond the forest, on a
downward slope, lay a field of spring rye. To the right, beyond a steep
ravine, was a small village and a landowner’s house with a broken roof.
In the village, in the house, in the garden, by the well, by the pond,
over all the rising ground, and all along the road uphill from the
bridge leading to the village, not more than five hundred yards
away, crowds of men could be seen through the shimmering mist. Their
un-Russian shouting at their horses which were straining uphill with the
carts, and their calls to one another, could be clearly heard.
"Bwing the prisoner here," said Denisov in a low voice, not taking his
eyes off the French.
A Cossack dismounted, lifted the boy down, and took him to Denisov.
Pointing to the French troops, Denisov asked him what these and those
of them were. The boy, thrusting his cold hands into his pockets and
lifting his eyebrows, looked at Denisov in affright, but in spite of
an evident desire to say all he knew gave confused answers, merely
assenting to everything Denisov asked him. Denisov turned away from him
frowning and addressed the esaul, conveying his own conjectures to him.
Petya, rapidly turning his head, looked now at the drummer boy, now
at Denisov, now at the esaul, and now at the French in the village and
along the road, trying not to miss anything of importance.
"Whether Dolokhov comes or not, we must seize it, eh?" said Denisov with
a merry sparkle in his eyes.
"It is a very suitable spot," said the esaul.
"We’ll send the infantwy down by the swamps," Denisov continued.
"They’ll cweep up to the garden; you’ll wide up fwom there with the
Cossacks" - he pointed to a spot in the forest beyond the village - "and I
with my hussars fwom here. And at the signal shot..."
"The hollow is impassable - there’s a swamp there," said the esaul. "The
horses would sink. We must ride round more to the left...."
While they were talking in undertones the crack of a shot sounded
from the low ground by the pond, a puff of white smoke appeared, then
another, and the sound of hundreds of seemingly merry French voices
shouting together came up from the slope. For a moment Denisov and the
esaul drew back. They were so near that they thought they were the cause
of the firing and shouting. But the firing and shouting did not relate
to them. Down below, a man wearing something red was running through the
marsh. The French were evidently firing and shouting at him.
"Why, that’s our Tikhon," said the esaul.
"So it is! It is!"
"The wascal!" said Denisov.
"He’ll get away!" said the esaul, screwing up his eyes.
The man whom they called Tikhon, having run to the stream, plunged in
so that the water splashed in the air, and, having disappeared for an
instant, scrambled out on all fours, all black with the wet, and ran on.
The French who had been pursuing him stopped.
"Smart, that!" said the esaul.
"What a beast!" said Denisov with his former look of vexation. "What has
he been doing all this time?"
"Who is he?" asked Petya.
"He’s our plastun. I sent him to capture a ‘tongue.’"
"Oh, yes," said Petya, nodding at the first words Denisov uttered as if
he understood it all, though he really did not understand anything of
it.
Tikhon Shcherbaty was one of the most indispensable men in their band.
He was a peasant from Pokrovsk, near the river Gzhat. When Denisov had
come to Pokrovsk at the beginning of his operations and had as usual
summoned the village elder and asked him what he knew about the French,
the elder, as though shielding himself, had replied, as all village
elders did, that he had neither seen nor heard anything of them. But
when Denisov explained that his purpose was to kill the French, and
asked if no French had strayed that way, the elder replied that some
"more-orderers" had really been at their village, but that Tikhon
Shcherbaty was the only man who dealt with such matters. Denisov had
Tikhon called and, having praised him for his activity, said a few words
in the elder’s presence about loyalty to the Tsar and the country and
the hatred of the French that all sons of the fatherland should cherish.
"We don’t do the French any harm," said Tikhon, evidently frightened by
Denisov’s words. "We only fooled about with the lads for fun, you know!
We killed a score or so of ‘more-orderers,’ but we did no harm else...."
Next day when Denisov had left Pokrovsk, having quite forgotten about
this peasant, it was reported to him that Tikhon had attached himself
to their party and asked to be allowed to remain with it. Denisov gave
orders to let him do so.
Tikhon, who at first did rough work, laying campfires, fetching water,
flaying dead horses, and so on, soon showed a great liking and aptitude
for partisan warfare. At night he would go out for booty and always
brought back French clothing and weapons, and when told to would bring
in French captives also. Denisov then relieved him from drudgery and
began taking him with him when he went out on expeditions and had him
enrolled among the Cossacks.
Tikhon did not like riding, and always went on foot, never lagging
behind the cavalry. He was armed with a musketoon (which he carried
rather as a joke), a pike and an ax, which latter he used as a wolf uses
its teeth, with equal ease picking fleas out of its fur or crunching
thick bones. Tikhon with equal accuracy would split logs with blows at
arm’s length, or holding the head of the ax would cut thin little pegs
or carve spoons. In Denisov’s party he held a peculiar and exceptional
position. When anything particularly difficult or nasty had to be
done - to push a cart out of the mud with one’s shoulders, pull a horse
out of a swamp by its tail, skin it, slink in among the French, or walk
more than thirty miles in a day - everybody pointed laughingly at Tikhon.
"It won’t hurt that devil - he’s as strong as a horse!" they said of him.
Once a Frenchman Tikhon was trying to capture fired a pistol at him
and shot him in the fleshy part of the back. That wound (which Tikhon
treated only with internal and external applications of vodka) was the
subject of the liveliest jokes by the whole detachment - jokes in which
Tikhon readily joined.
"Hallo, mate! Never again? Gave you a twist?" the Cossacks would banter
him. And Tikhon, purposely writhing and making faces, pretended to be
angry and swore at the French with the funniest curses. The only effect
of this incident on Tikhon was that after being wounded he seldom
brought in prisoners.
He was the bravest and most useful man in the party. No one found more
opportunities for attacking, no one captured or killed more Frenchmen,
and consequently he was made the buffoon of all the Cossacks and hussars
and willingly accepted that role. Now he had been sent by Denisov
overnight to Shamshevo to capture a "tongue." But whether because he
had not been content to take only one Frenchman or because he had slept
through the night, he had crept by day into some bushes right among the
French and, as Denisov had witnessed from above, had been detected by
them.
CHAPTER VI
After talking for some time with the esaul about next day’s attack,
which now, seeing how near they were to the French, he seemed to have
definitely decided on, Denisov turned his horse and rode back.
"Now, my lad, we’ll go and get dwy," he said to Petya.
As they approached the watchhouse Denisov stopped, peering into the
forest. Among the trees a man with long legs and long, swinging arms,
wearing a short jacket, bast shoes, and a Kazan hat, was approaching
with long, light steps. He had a musketoon over his shoulder and an ax
stuck in his girdle. When he espied Denisov he hastily threw something
into the bushes, removed his sodden hat by its floppy brim, and
approached his commander. It was Tikhon. His wrinkled and pockmarked
face and narrow little eyes beamed with self-satisfied merriment. He
lifted his head high and gazed at Denisov as if repressing a laugh.
"Well, where did you disappear to?" inquired Denisov.
"Where did I disappear to? I went to get Frenchmen," answered Tikhon
boldly and hurriedly, in a husky but melodious bass voice.
"Why did you push yourself in there by daylight? You ass! Well, why
haven’t you taken one?"
"Oh, I took one all right," said Tikhon.
"Where is he?"
"You see, I took him first thing at dawn," Tikhon continued, spreading
out his flat feet with outturned toes in their bast shoes. "I took him
into the forest. Then I see he’s no good and think I’ll go and fetch a
likelier one."
"You see?... What a wogue - it’s just as I thought," said Denisov to the
esaul. "Why didn’t you bwing that one?"
"What was the good of bringing him?" Tikhon interrupted hastily and
angrily - "that one wouldn’t have done for you. As if I don’t know what
sort you want!"
"What a bwute you are!... Well?"
"I went for another one," Tikhon continued, "and I crept like this
through the wood and lay down." (He suddenly lay down on his stomach
with a supple movement to show how he had done it.) "One turned up and
I grabbed him, like this." (He jumped up quickly and lightly.) "‘Come
along to the colonel,’ I said. He starts yelling, and suddenly there
were four of them. They rushed at me with their little swords. So I went
for them with my ax, this way: ‘What are you up to?’ says I. ‘Christ
be with you!’" shouted Tikhon, waving his arms with an angry scowl and
throwing out his chest.
"Yes, we saw from the hill how you took to your heels through the
puddles!" said the esaul, screwing up his glittering eyes.
Petya badly wanted to laugh, but noticed that they all refrained from
laughing. He turned his eyes rapidly from Tikhon’s face to the esaul’s
and Denisov’s, unable to make out what it all meant.
"Don’t play the fool!" said Denisov, coughing angrily. "Why didn’t you
bwing the first one?"
Tikhon scratched his back with one hand and his head with the other,
then suddenly his whole face expanded into a beaming, foolish grin,
disclosing a gap where he had lost a tooth (that was why he was called
Shcherbaty - the gap-toothed). Denisov smiled, and Petya burst into a peal
of merry laughter in which Tikhon himself joined.
"Oh, but he was a regular good-for-nothing," said Tikhon. "The clothes
on him - poor stuff! How could I bring him? And so rude, your honor! Why,
he says: ‘I’m a general’s son myself, I won’t go!’ he says."
"You are a bwute!" said Denisov. "I wanted to question..."
"But I questioned him," said Tikhon. "He said he didn’t know much.
‘There are a lot of us,’ he says, ‘but all poor stuff - only soldiers in
name,’ he says. ‘Shout loud at them,’ he says, ‘and you’ll take
them all,’" Tikhon concluded, looking cheerfully and resolutely into
Denisov’s eyes.
"I’ll give you a hundwed sharp lashes - that’ll teach you to play the
fool!" said Denisov severely.
"But why are you angry?" remonstrated Tikhon, "just as if I’d never seen
your Frenchmen! Only wait till it gets dark and I’ll fetch you any of
them you want - three if you like."
"Well, let’s go," said Denisov, and rode all the way to the watchhouse
in silence and frowning angrily.
Tikhon followed behind and Petya heard the Cossacks laughing with him
and at him, about some pair of boots he had thrown into the bushes.
When the fit of laughter that had seized him at Tikhon’s words and smile
had passed and Petya realized for a moment that this Tikhon had killed a
man, he felt uneasy. He looked round at the captive drummer boy and felt
a pang in his heart. But this uneasiness lasted only a moment. He felt
it necessary to hold his head higher, to brace himself, and to question
the esaul with an air of importance about tomorrow’s undertaking, that
he might not be unworthy of the company in which he found himself.
The officer who had been sent to inquire met Denisov on the way with the
news that Dolokhov was soon coming and that all was well with him.
Denisov at once cheered up and, calling Petya to him, said: "Well, tell
me about yourself."
CHAPTER VII
Petya, having left his people after their departure from Moscow, joined
his regiment and was soon taken as orderly by a general commanding a
large guerrilla detachment. From the time he received his commission,
and especially since he had joined the active army and taken part in
the battle of Vyazma, Petya had been in a constant state of blissful
excitement at being grown-up and in a perpetual ecstatic hurry not to
miss any chance to do something really heroic. He was highly delighted
with what he saw and experienced in the army, but at the same time
it always seemed to him that the really heroic exploits were being
performed just where he did not happen to be. And he was always in a
hurry to get where he was not.
When on the twenty-first of October his general expressed a wish to send
somebody to Denisov’s detachment, Petya begged so piteously to be sent
that the general could not refuse. But when dispatching him he recalled
Petya’s mad action at the battle of Vyazma, where instead of riding by
the road to the place to which he had been sent, he had galloped to the
advanced line under the fire of the French and had there twice fired
his pistol. So now the general explicitly forbade his taking part in any
action whatever of Denisov’s. That was why Petya had blushed and grown
confused when Denisov asked him whether he could stay. Before they had
ridden to the outskirts of the forest Petya had considered he must carry
out his instructions strictly and return at once. But when he saw the
French and saw Tikhon and learned that there would certainly be an
attack that night, he decided, with the rapidity with which young people
change their views, that the general, whom he had greatly respected till
then, was a rubbishy German, that Denisov was a hero, the esaul a hero,
and Tikhon a hero too, and that it would be shameful for him to leave
them at a moment of difficulty.
It was already growing dusk when Denisov, Petya, and the esaul rode up
to the watchhouse. In the twilight saddled horses could be seen, and
Cossacks and hussars who had rigged up rough shelters in the glade and
were kindling glowing fires in a hollow of the forest where the French
could not see the smoke. In the passage of the small watchhouse a
Cossack with sleeves rolled up was chopping some mutton. In the room
three officers of Denisov’s band were converting a door into a tabletop.
Petya took off his wet clothes, gave them to be dried, and at once began
helping the officers to fix up the dinner table.
In ten minutes the table was ready and a napkin spread on it. On the
table were vodka, a flask of rum, white bread, roast mutton, and salt.
Sitting at table with the officers and tearing the fat savory mutton
with his hands, down which the grease trickled, Petya was in an ecstatic
childish state of love for all men, and consequently of confidence that
others loved him in the same way.
"So then what do you think, Vasili Dmitrich?" said he to Denisov. "It’s
all right my staying a day with you?" And not waiting for a reply he
answered his own question: "You see I was told to find out - well, I am
finding out.... Only do let me into the very... into the chief... I
don’t want a reward.... But I want..."
Petya clenched his teeth and looked around, throwing back his head and
flourishing his arms.
"Into the vewy chief..." Denisov repeated with a smile.
"Only, please let me command something, so that I may really command..."
Petya went on. "What would it be to you?... Oh, you want a knife?" he
said, turning to an officer who wished to cut himself a piece of mutton.
And he handed him his clasp knife. The officer admired it.
"Please keep it. I have several like it," said Petya, blushing.
"Heavens! I was quite forgetting!" he suddenly cried. "I have some
raisins, fine ones; you know, seedless ones. We have a new sutler and
he has such capital things. I bought ten pounds. I am used to something
sweet. Would you like some?..." and Petya ran out into the passage to
his Cossack and brought back some bags which contained about five pounds
of raisins. "Have some, gentlemen, have some!"
"You want a coffeepot, don’t you?" he asked the esaul. "I bought a
capital one from our sutler! He has splendid things. And he’s very
honest, that’s the chief thing. I’ll be sure to send it to you. Or
perhaps your flints are giving out, or are worn out - that happens
sometimes, you know. I have brought some with me, here they are" - and he
showed a bag - "a hundred flints. I bought them very cheap. Please take as
many as you want, or all if you like...."
Then suddenly, dismayed lest he had said too much, Petya stopped and
blushed.
He tried to remember whether he had not done anything else that was
foolish. And running over the events of the day he remembered the French
drummer boy. "It’s capital for us here, but what of him? Where have they
put him? Have they fed him? Haven’t they hurt his feelings?" he thought.
But having caught himself saying too much about the flints, he was now
afraid to speak out.
"I might ask," he thought, "but they’ll say: ‘He’s a boy himself and so
he pities the boy.’ I’ll show them tomorrow whether I’m a boy. Will it
seem odd if I ask?" Petya thought. "Well, never mind!" and immediately,
blushing and looking anxiously at the officers to see if they appeared
ironical, he said:
"May I call in that boy who was taken prisoner and give him something to
eat?... Perhaps..."
"Yes, he’s a poor little fellow," said Denisov, who evidently saw
nothing shameful in this reminder. "Call him in. His name is Vincent
Bosse. Have him fetched."
"I’ll call him," said Petya.
"Yes, yes, call him. A poor little fellow," Denisov repeated.
Petya was standing at the door when Denisov said this. He slipped in
between the officers, came close to Denisov, and said:
"Let me kiss you, dear old fellow! Oh, how fine, how splendid!"
And having kissed Denisov he ran out of the hut.
"Bosse! Vincent!" Petya cried, stopping outside the door.
"Who do you want, sir?" asked a voice in the darkness.
Petya replied that he wanted the French lad who had been captured that
day.
"Ah, Vesenny?" said a Cossack.
Vincent, the boy’s name, had already been changed by the Cossacks into
Vesenny (vernal) and into Vesenya by the peasants and soldiers. In both
these adaptations the reference to spring (vesna) matched the impression
made by the young lad.
"He is warming himself there by the bonfire. Ho, Vesenya!
Vesenya! - Vesenny!" laughing voices were heard calling to one another in
the darkness.
"He’s a smart lad," said an hussar standing near Petya. "We gave him
something to eat a while ago. He was awfully hungry!"
The sound of bare feet splashing through the mud was heard in the
darkness, and the drummer boy came to the door.
"Ah, c’est vous!" said Petya. "Voulez-vous manger? N’ayez pas peur, on
ne vous fera pas de mal," * he added shyly and affectionately, touching
the boy’s hand. "Entrez, entrez." *(2)
* "Ah, it’s you! Do you want something to eat? Don’t be
afraid, they won’t hurt you."
* (2) "Come in, come in."
"Merci, monsieur," * said the drummer boy in a trembling almost childish
voice, and he began scraping his dirty feet on the threshold.
* "Thank you, sir."
There were many things Petya wanted to say to the drummer boy, but did
not dare to. He stood irresolutely beside him in the passage. Then in
the darkness he took the boy’s hand and pressed it.
"Come in, come in!" he repeated in a gentle whisper. "Oh, what can I do
for him?" he thought, and opening the door he let the boy pass in first.
When the boy had entered the hut, Petya sat down at a distance from
him, considering it beneath his dignity to pay attention to him. But
he fingered the money in his pocket and wondered whether it would seem
ridiculous to give some to the drummer boy.
CHAPTER VIII
The arrival of Dolokhov diverted Petya’s attention from the drummer boy,
to whom Denisov had had some mutton and vodka given, and whom he had had
dressed in a Russian coat so that he might be kept with their band and
not sent away with the other prisoners. Petya had heard in the army many
stories of Dolokhov’s extraordinary bravery and of his cruelty to the
French, so from the moment he entered the hut Petya did not take his
eyes from him, but braced himself up more and more and held his head
high, that he might not be unworthy even of such company.
Dolokhov’s appearance amazed Petya by its simplicity.
Denisov wore a Cossack coat, had a beard, had an icon of Nicholas the
Wonder-Worker on his breast, and his way of speaking and everything he
did indicated his unusual position. But Dolokhov, who in Moscow had worn
a Persian costume, had now the appearance of a most correct officer of
the Guards. He was clean-shaven and wore a Guardsman’s padded coat with
an Order of St. George at his buttonhole and a plain forage cap set
straight on his head. He took off his wet felt cloak in a corner of
the room, and without greeting anyone went up to Denisov and began
questioning him about the matter in hand. Denisov told him of the
designs the large detachments had on the transport, of the message Petya
had brought, and his own replies to both generals. Then he told him all
he knew of the French detachment.
"That’s so. But we must know what troops they are and their numbers,"
said Dolokhov. "It will be necessary to go there. We can’t start the
affair without knowing for certain how many there are. I like to work
accurately. Here now - wouldn’t one of these gentlemen like to ride over
to the French camp with me? I have brought a spare uniform."
"I, I... I’ll go with you!" cried Petya.
"There’s no need for you to go at all," said Denisov, addressing
Dolokhov, "and as for him, I won’t let him go on any account."
"I like that!" exclaimed Petya. "Why shouldn’t I go?"
"Because it’s useless."
"Well, you must excuse me, because... because... I shall go, and that’s
all. You’ll take me, won’t you?" he said, turning to Dolokhov.
"Why not?" Dolokhov answered absently, scrutinizing the face of the
French drummer boy. "Have you had that youngster with you long?" he
asked Denisov.
"He was taken today but he knows nothing. I’m keeping him with me."
"Yes, and where do you put the others?" inquired Dolokhov.
"Where? I send them away and take a weceipt for them," shouted Denisov,
suddenly flushing. "And I say boldly that I have not a single man’s life
on my conscience. Would it be difficult for you to send thirty or
thwee hundwed men to town under escort, instead of staining - I speak
bluntly - staining the honor of a soldier?"
"That kind of amiable talk would be suitable from this young count of
sixteen," said Dolokhov with cold irony, "but it’s time for you to drop
it."
"Why, I’ve not said anything! I only say that I’ll certainly go with
you," said Petya shyly.
"But for you and me, old fellow, it’s time to drop these amenities,"
continued Dolokhov, as if he found particular pleasure in speaking of
this subject which irritated Denisov. "Now, why have you kept this lad?"
he went on, swaying his head. "Because you are sorry for him! Don’t we
know those ‘receipts’ of yours? You send a hundred men away, and thirty
get there. The rest either starve or get killed. So isn’t it all the
same not to send them?"
The esaul, screwing up his light-colored eyes, nodded approvingly.
"That’s not the point. I’m not going to discuss the matter. I do not
wish to take it on my conscience. You say they’ll die. All wight. Only
not by my fault!"
Dolokhov began laughing.
"Who has told them not to capture me these twenty times over? But if
they did catch me they’d string me up to an aspen tree, and with all
your chivalry just the same." He paused. "However, we must get to work.
Tell the Cossack to fetch my kit. I have two French uniforms in it.
Well, are you coming with me?" he asked Petya.
"I? Yes, yes, certainly!" cried Petya, blushing almost to tears and
glancing at Denisov.
While Dolokhov had been disputing with Denisov what should be done with
prisoners, Petya had once more felt awkward and restless; but again he
had no time to grasp fully what they were talking about. "If grown-up,
distinguished men think so, it must be necessary and right," thought he.
"But above all Denisov must not dare to imagine that I’ll obey him and
that he can order me about. I will certainly go to the French camp with
Dolokhov. If he can, so can I!"
And to all Denisov’s persuasions, Petya replied that he too was
accustomed to do everything accurately and not just anyhow, and that he
never considered personal danger.
"For you’ll admit that if we don’t know for sure how many of them there
are... hundreds of lives may depend on it, while there are only two
of us. Besides, I want to go very much and certainly will go, so don’t
hinder me," said he. "It will only make things worse...."
CHAPTER IX
Having put on French greatcoats and shakos, Petya and Dolokhov rode to
the clearing from which Denisov had reconnoitered the French camp,
and emerging from the forest in pitch darkness they descended into the
hollow. On reaching the bottom, Dolokhov told the Cossacks accompanying
him to await him there and rode on at a quick trot along the road to the
bridge. Petya, his heart in his mouth with excitement, rode by his side.
"If we’re caught, I won’t be taken alive! I have a pistol," whispered
he.
"Don’t talk Russian," said Dolokhov in a hurried whisper, and at that
very moment they heard through the darkness the challenge: "Qui vive?" *
and the click of a musket.
* "Who goes there?"
The blood rushed to Petya’s face and he grasped his pistol.
"Lanciers du 6-me," * replied Dolokhov, neither hastening nor slackening
his horse’s pace.
* "Lancers of the 6th Regiment."
The black figure of a sentinel stood on the bridge.
"Mot d’ordre." *
* "Password."
Dolokhov reined in his horse and advanced at a walk.
"Dites donc, le colonel Gerard est ici?" * he asked.
* "Tell me, is Colonel Gerard here?"
"Mot d’ordre," repeated the sentinel, barring the way and not replying.
"Quand un officier fait sa ronde, les sentinelles ne demandent pas le
mot d’ordre..." cried Dolokhov suddenly flaring up and riding straight
at the sentinel. "Je vous demande si le colonel est ici." *
* "When an officer is making his round, sentinels don’t ask
him for the password.... I am asking you if the colonel is
here."
And without waiting for an answer from the sentinel, who had stepped
aside, Dolokhov rode up the incline at a walk.
Noticing the black outline of a man crossing the road, Dolokhov stopped
him and inquired where the commander and officers were. The man,
a soldier with a sack over his shoulder, stopped, came close up to
Dolokhov’s horse, touched it with his hand, and explained simply and in
a friendly way that the commander and the officers were higher up
the hill to the right in the courtyard of the farm, as he called the
landowner’s house.
Having ridden up the road, on both sides of which French talk could be
heard around the campfires, Dolokhov turned into the courtyard of the
landowner’s house. Having ridden in, he dismounted and approached a
big blazing campfire, around which sat several men talking noisily.
Something was boiling in a small cauldron at the edge of the fire and
a soldier in a peaked cap and blue overcoat, lit up by the fire, was
kneeling beside it stirring its contents with a ramrod.
"Oh, he’s a hard nut to crack," said one of the officers who was sitting
in the shadow at the other side of the fire.
"He’ll make them get a move on, those fellows!" said another, laughing.
Both fell silent, peering out through the darkness at the sound of
Dolokhov’s and Petya’s steps as they advanced to the fire leading their
horses.
"Bonjour, messieurs!" * said Dolokhov loudly and clearly.
* "Good day, gentlemen."
There was a stir among the officers in the shadow beyond the fire,
and one tall, long-necked officer, walking round the fire, came up to
Dolokhov.
"Is that you, Clement?" he asked. "Where the devil...?" But, noticing
his mistake, he broke off short and, with a frown, greeted Dolokhov as a
stranger, asking what he could do for him.
Dolokhov said that he and his companion were trying to overtake their
regiment, and addressing the company in general asked whether they knew
anything of the 6th Regiment. None of them knew anything, and Petya
thought the officers were beginning to look at him and Dolokhov with
hostility and suspicion. For some seconds all were silent.
"If you were counting on the evening soup, you have come too late," said
a voice from behind the fire with a repressed laugh.
Dolokhov replied that they were not hungry and must push on farther that
night.
He handed the horses over to the soldier who was stirring the pot and
squatted down on his heels by the fire beside the officer with the long
neck. That officer did not take his eyes from Dolokhov and again asked
to what regiment he belonged. Dolokhov, as if he had not heard the
question, did not reply, but lighting a short French pipe which he took
from his pocket began asking the officer in how far the road before them
was safe from Cossacks.
"Those brigands are everywhere," replied an officer from behind the
fire.
Dolokhov remarked that the Cossacks were a danger only to stragglers
such as his companion and himself, "but probably they would not dare to
attack large detachments?" he added inquiringly. No one replied.
"Well, now he’ll come away," Petya thought every moment as he stood by
the campfire listening to the talk.
But Dolokhov restarted the conversation which had dropped and began
putting direct questions as to how many men there were in the battalion,
how many battalions, and how many prisoners. Asking about the Russian
prisoners with that detachment, Dolokhov said:
"A horrid business dragging these corpses about with one! It would be
better to shoot such rabble," and burst into loud laughter, so strange
that Petya thought the French would immediately detect their disguise,
and involuntarily took a step back from the campfire.
No one replied a word to Dolokhov’s laughter, and a French officer whom
they could not see (he lay wrapped in a greatcoat) rose and whispered
something to a companion. Dolokhov got up and called to the soldier who
was holding their horses.
"Will they bring our horses or not?" thought Petya, instinctively
drawing nearer to Dolokhov.
The horses were brought.
"Good evening, gentlemen," said Dolokhov.
Petya wished to say "Good night" but could not utter a word. The
officers were whispering together. Dolokhov was a long time mounting
his horse which would not stand still, then he rode out of the yard at a
footpace. Petya rode beside him, longing to look round to see whether or
not the French were running after them, but not daring to.
Coming out onto the road Dolokhov did not ride back across the open
country, but through the village. At one spot he stopped and listened.
"Do you hear?" he asked. Petya recognized the sound of Russian voices
and saw the dark figures of Russian prisoners round their campfires.
When they had descended to the bridge Petya and Dolokhov rode past the
sentinel, who without saying a word paced morosely up and down it, then
they descended into the hollow where the Cossacks awaited them.
"Well now, good-by. Tell Denisov, ‘at the first shot at daybreak,’" said
Dolokhov and was about to ride away, but Petya seized hold of him.
"Really!" he cried, "you are such a hero! Oh, how fine, how splendid!
How I love you!"
"All right, all right!" said Dolokhov. But Petya did not let go of him
and Dolokhov saw through the gloom that Petya was bending toward him and
wanted to kiss him. Dolokhov kissed him, laughed, turned his horse, and
vanished into the darkness.
CHAPTER X
Having returned to the watchman’s hut, Petya found Denisov in the
passage. He was awaiting Petya’s return in a state of agitation,
anxiety, and self-reproach for having let him go.
"Thank God!" he exclaimed. "Yes, thank God!" he repeated, listening to
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