War and Peace
the night ten miles from Olmütz and next morning were to come straight
to the review, reaching the field at Olmütz by ten o’clock.
That day Nicholas Rostóv received a letter from Borís, telling him
that the Ismáylov regiment was quartered for the night ten miles from
Olmütz and that he wanted to see him as he had a letter and money for
him. Rostóv was particularly in need of money now that the troops,
after their active service, were stationed near Olmütz and the camp
swarmed with well-provisioned sutlers and Austrian Jews offering
all sorts of tempting wares. The Pávlograds held feast after feast,
celebrating awards they had received for the campaign, and made
expeditions to Olmütz to visit a certain Caroline the Hungarian,
who had recently opened a restaurant there with girls as waitresses.
Rostóv, who had just celebrated his promotion to a cornetcy and bought
Denísov’s horse, Bedouin, was in debt all round, to his comrades and
the sutlers. On receiving Borís’ letter he rode with a fellow officer
to Olmütz, dined there, drank a bottle of wine, and then set off alone
to the Guards’ camp to find his old playmate. Rostóv had not yet had
time to get his uniform. He had on a shabby cadet jacket, decorated with
a soldier’s cross, equally shabby cadet’s riding breeches lined with
worn leather, and an officer’s saber with a sword knot. The Don horse
he was riding was one he had bought from a Cossack during the campaign,
and he wore a crumpled hussar cap stuck jauntily back on one side of his
head. As he rode up to the camp he thought how he would impress Borís
and all his comrades of the Guards by his appearance—that of a
fighting hussar who had been under fire.
The Guards had made their whole march as if on a pleasure trip, parading
their cleanliness and discipline. They had come by easy stages, their
knapsacks conveyed on carts, and the Austrian authorities had provided
excellent dinners for the officers at every halting place. The regiments
had entered and left the town with their bands playing, and by the Grand
Duke’s orders the men had marched all the way in step (a practice on
which the Guards prided themselves), the officers on foot and at their
proper posts. Borís had been quartered, and had marched all the
way, with Berg who was already in command of a company. Berg, who had
obtained his captaincy during the campaign, had gained the confidence of
his superiors by his promptitude and accuracy and had arranged his money
matters very satisfactorily. Borís, during the campaign, had made the
acquaintance of many persons who might prove useful to him, and by
a letter of recommendation he had brought from Pierre had become
acquainted with Prince Andrew Bolkónski, through whom he hoped to
obtain a post on the commander in chief’s staff. Berg and Borís,
having rested after yesterday’s march, were sitting, clean and neatly
dressed, at a round table in the clean quarters allotted to them,
playing chess. Berg held a smoking pipe between his knees. Borís, in
the accurate way characteristic of him, was building a little pyramid of
chessmen with his delicate white fingers while awaiting Berg’s move,
and watched his opponent’s face, evidently thinking about the game as
he always thought only of whatever he was engaged on.
“Well, how are you going to get out of that?” he remarked.
“We’ll try to,” replied Berg, touching a pawn and then removing
his hand.
At that moment the door opened.
“Here he is at last!” shouted Rostóv. “And Berg too! Oh, you
petisenfans, allay cushay dormir!” he exclaimed, imitating his Russian
nurse’s French, at which he and Borís used to laugh long ago.
“Dear me, how you have changed!”
Borís rose to meet Rostóv, but in doing so did not omit to steady and
replace some chessmen that were falling. He was about to embrace his
friend, but Nicholas avoided him. With that peculiar feeling of youth,
that dread of beaten tracks, and wish to express itself in a manner
different from that of its elders which is often insincere, Nicholas
wished to do something special on meeting his friend. He wanted to pinch
him, push him, do anything but kiss him—a thing everybody did. But
notwithstanding this, Borís embraced him in a quiet, friendly way and
kissed him three times.
They had not met for nearly half a year and, being at the age when young
men take their first steps on life’s road, each saw immense changes in
the other, quite a new reflection of the society in which they had taken
those first steps. Both had changed greatly since they last met and both
were in a hurry to show the changes that had taken place in them.
“Oh, you damned dandies! Clean and fresh as if you’d been to a fete,
not like us sinners of the line,” cried Rostóv, with martial swagger
and with baritone notes in his voice, new to Borís, pointing to his own
mud-bespattered breeches. The German landlady, hearing Rostóv’s loud
voice, popped her head in at the door.
“Eh, is she pretty?” he asked with a wink.
“Why do you shout so? You’ll frighten them!” said Borís. “I did
not expect you today,” he added. “I only sent you the note yesterday
by Bolkónski—an adjutant of Kutúzov’s, who’s a friend of mine.
I did not think he would get it to you so quickly.... Well, how are you?
Been under fire already?” asked Borís.
Without answering, Rostóv shook the soldier’s Cross of St. George
fastened to the cording of his uniform and, indicating a bandaged arm,
glanced at Berg with a smile.
“As you see,” he said.
“Indeed? Yes, yes!” said Borís, with a smile. “And we too have
had a splendid march. You know, of course, that His Imperial Highness
rode with our regiment all the time, so that we had every comfort and
every advantage. What receptions we had in Poland! What dinners and
balls! I can’t tell you. And the Tsarévich was very gracious to all
our officers.”
And the two friends told each other of their doings, the one of his
hussar revels and life in the fighting line, the other of the pleasures
and advantages of service under members of the Imperial family.
“Oh, you Guards!” said Rostóv. “I say, send for some wine.”
Borís made a grimace.
“If you really want it,” said he.
He went to his bed, drew a purse from under the clean pillow, and sent
for wine.
“Yes, and I have some money and a letter to give you,” he added.
Rostóv took the letter and, throwing the money on the sofa, put both
arms on the table and began to read. After reading a few lines, he
glanced angrily at Berg, then, meeting his eyes, hid his face behind the
letter.
“Well, they’ve sent you a tidy sum,” said Berg, eying the heavy
purse that sank into the sofa. “As for us, Count, we get along on our
pay. I can tell you for myself...”
“I say, Berg, my dear fellow,” said Rostóv, “when you get a
letter from home and meet one of your own people whom you want to talk
everything over with, and I happen to be there, I’ll go at once, to
be out of your way! Do go somewhere, anywhere... to the devil!” he
exclaimed, and immediately seizing him by the shoulder and looking
amiably into his face, evidently wishing to soften the rudeness of his
words, he added, “Don’t be hurt, my dear fellow; you know I speak
from my heart as to an old acquaintance.”
“Oh, don’t mention it, Count! I quite understand,” said Berg,
getting up and speaking in a muffled and guttural voice.
“Go across to our hosts: they invited you,” added Borís.
Berg put on the cleanest of coats, without a spot or speck of dust,
stood before a looking glass and brushed the hair on his temples
upwards, in the way affected by the Emperor Alexander, and, having
assured himself from the way Rostóv looked at it that his coat had been
noticed, left the room with a pleasant smile.
“Oh dear, what a beast I am!” muttered Rostóv, as he read the
letter.
“Why?”
“Oh, what a pig I am, not to have written and to have given them
such a fright! Oh, what a pig I am!” he repeated, flushing suddenly.
“Well, have you sent Gabriel for some wine? All right let’s have
some!”
In the letter from his parents was enclosed a letter of recommendation
to Bagratión which the old countess at Anna Mikháylovna’s advice had
obtained through an acquaintance and sent to her son, asking him to take
it to its destination and make use of it.
“What nonsense! Much I need it!” said Rostóv, throwing the letter
under the table.
“Why have you thrown that away?” asked Borís.
“It is some letter of recommendation... what the devil do I want it
for!”
“Why ‘What the devil’?” said Borís, picking it up and reading
the address. “This letter would be of great use to you.”
“I want nothing, and I won’t be anyone’s adjutant.”
“Why not?” inquired Borís.
“It’s a lackey’s job!”
“You are still the same dreamer, I see,” remarked Borís, shaking
his head.
“And you’re still the same diplomatist! But that’s not the
point... Come, how are you?” asked Rostóv.
“Well, as you see. So far everything’s all right, but I confess I
should much like to be an adjutant and not remain at the front.”
“Why?”
“Because when once a man starts on military service, he should try to
make as successful a career of it as possible.”
“Oh, that’s it!” said Rostóv, evidently thinking of something
else.
He looked intently and inquiringly into his friend’s eyes, evidently
trying in vain to find the answer to some question.
Old Gabriel brought in the wine.
“Shouldn’t we now send for Berg?” asked Borís. “He would drink
with you. I can’t.”
“Well, send for him... and how do you get on with that German?”
asked Rostóv, with a contemptuous smile.
“He is a very, very nice, honest, and pleasant fellow,” answered
Borís.
Again Rostóv looked intently into Borís’ eyes and sighed. Berg
returned, and over the bottle of wine conversation between the three
officers became animated. The Guardsmen told Rostóv of their march and
how they had been made much of in Russia, Poland, and abroad. They spoke
of the sayings and doings of their commander, the Grand Duke, and told
stories of his kindness and irascibility. Berg, as usual, kept silent
when the subject did not relate to himself, but in connection with the
stories of the Grand Duke’s quick temper he related with gusto how in
Galicia he had managed to deal with the Grand Duke when the latter
made a tour of the regiments and was annoyed at the irregularity of
a movement. With a pleasant smile Berg related how the Grand Duke
had ridden up to him in a violent passion, shouting: “Arnauts!”
(“Arnauts” was the Tsarévich’s favorite expression when he was in
a rage) and called for the company commander.
“Would you believe it, Count, I was not at all alarmed, because I knew
I was right. Without boasting, you know, I may say that I know the Army
Orders by heart and know the Regulations as well as I do the Lord’s
Prayer. So, Count, there never is any negligence in my company, and
so my conscience was at ease. I came forward....” (Berg stood up and
showed how he presented himself, with his hand to his cap, and really
it would have been difficult for a face to express greater respect and
self-complacency than his did.) “Well, he stormed at me, as the saying
is, stormed and stormed and stormed! It was not a matter of life but
rather of death, as the saying is. ‘Albanians!’ and ‘devils!’
and ‘To Siberia!’” said Berg with a sagacious smile. “I knew I
was in the right so I kept silent; was not that best, Count?... ‘Hey,
are you dumb?’ he shouted. Still I remained silent. And what do you
think, Count? The next day it was not even mentioned in the Orders of
the Day. That’s what keeping one’s head means. That’s the way,
Count,” said Berg, lighting his pipe and emitting rings of smoke.
“Yes, that was fine,” said Rostóv, smiling.
But Borís noticed that he was preparing to make fun of Berg, and