'Oh, his descriptions! He writes with such style!' she said, rereading the descriptive passages. 'And such a dear soul! Not a word about himself . . . not a word! There's a lot about a man called Denisov, though I wouldn't be surprised if he himself was the bravest of them all. He doesn't say anything about his suffering. Such a kind heart! How like him it is! He's thought of everyone! No one forgotten. I've always said it, always, when he was that high I always used to say . . .'
It took them more than a week of hard work on rough drafts and fair copies to compose letters to Nikolay from all the household. Under the eagle eye of the countess and with the count's careful assistance, cash to cover the outfit of a young officer and various necessary items were put together. The pragmatic Anna Mikhaylovna had succeeded in obtaining special patronage for herself and her son while he was in the army, and this even extended to correspondence. Any letters from her could be addressed to the Grand Duke Konstantin, who was in command of the guards. The Rostovs assumed that 'The Russian Guards Serving Abroad' was an adequate address, and if a letter reached the grand duke in command of the guards there was no reason why it shouldn't get through to the Pavlograd regiment, which must surely be serving somewhere not too far away. And so it was decided to send the letters and the money to Boris via the grand duke's special messenger, and it would be up to Boris to have them forwarded to Nikolay. There were letters from the count, the countess, Petya, Vera, Natasha and Sonya, six thousand roubles for his kitting out and a few other bits and pieces that the count wanted his son to have.
CHAPTER 7
On the 12th of November, Kutuzov's fighting forces were camped near Olmutz, getting ready to be inspected the following day by the two Emperors - of Russia and Austria. The guards, who had only just marched in from Russia, had spent the night ten miles outside Olmutz, and by ten o'clock the next morning they stood ready for inspection in the town square.
That day Nikolay Rostov had received a note from Boris informing him that the Izmailov regiment was bivouacked for the night ten miles outside Olmutz, and he hoped to see him so he could hand over a letter and some money. The money would be particularly welcome just now, with the troops back from the front garrisoned near Olmutz and the camp swarming with well-stocked hawkers and Austrian Jews offering tempting wares of every kind. The Pavlograd hussars had held a string of good dinners celebrating honours received in the field, and not a few trips into Olmutz, where a certain Hungarian lady by the name of Caroline had recently opened a restaurant with girls as waitresses. Rostov was fresh from celebrating his commission as a cornet. He had also bought Denisov's horse, Bedouin, and borrowed extensively from comrades and camp hawkers. On receiving Boris's note, Rostov rode to Olmutz with a friend, had dinner, drank a bottle of wine and then rode on alone to the guards' camp to seek out his childhood friend. Rostov had not yet got his uniform. He was wearing a shabby cadet's jacket with a private's cross, equally shabby riding breeches lined with worn leather, and an officer's sword with the usual ribbon. The Don horse he was riding had been bought from a Cossack during the campaign. He wore a crumpled hussar's cap rakishly shoved back and to one side. As he rode towards the Izmailov camp he was thinking of the fine figure he would cut for Boris and his friends by looking every inch the hussar recently under fire at the front.
The guards had treated their march like a pleasant excursion, flaunting their smartness and discipline. They had come by easy stages, their knapsacks being carried for them in wagons, and at every halt the Austrian government had ensured that the officers dined well. The regiments paraded into and out of every town to the music of a military band, and the guards prided themselves on having followed the grand duke's order to the letter by having the men march in step every inch of the way, with the officers also on foot and properly spaced.
Throughout the march Boris had walked and bivouacked beside Berg, now a captain. Berg, who had been promoted during the march, had ingratiated himself with his superior officers by hard work and a punctilious attitude, and had set up financial arrangements much to his advantage. Boris meanwhile had made a number of useful contacts, and had used a reference from Pierre to make the acquaintance of Prince Andrey Bolkonsky, through whom he aspired to a post on the staff of the commander-in-chief. Well rested from the previous day's march, Berg and Boris were playing chess at a round table in their spotless quarters, nicely turned out in their smart uniforms. Berg had a hookah gripped between his knees. It was Berg's move and without taking his eyes off his opponent's face, Boris was building a neat little pyramid of draughtsmen with his slender white fingers. Totally absorbed in the game, he was as always concentrating on the thing in hand.
'Well, how are you going to get out of that?' he said.
'We'll do what we can,' answered Berg, touching a pawn and immediately taking away his hand.
At that instant the door opened.
'Found you at last!' shouted Rostov. 'And Berg too. Hey you petizanfan, alley cooshey dormir!'4 he cried, mimicking the French of their old nurse - a joke that he had once shared with Boris.
'My, how you've changed!' Boris got up to welcome Rostov, and as he rose, he held on to the board and put back some pieces that had been knocked over. He was about to embrace his friend, but Nikolay drew back. With a young person's dislike of well-trodden ways, the urge to avoid imitation, to express oneself in a personal and original way, not to do the conventional things that older people did, often hypocritically, Nikolay felt like doing something special on meeting his friend. He wanted somehow to pinch his arm or give him a little shove, anything rather than kiss him, which was what people always did on these occasions. Boris was quite the opposite - he embraced Rostov in an easy, friendly manner and gave him the usual three kisses.
They hadn't seen each other for nearly six months. Young as they were, just setting out on life's journey, they now saw immense changes in each other, new reflections of the differing social circumstances in which they had taken their first steps. Both had indeed changed considerably since their last meeting, and both were desperately keen to show just how much they had changed.
'Well, you damned floor-polishers! All neat and tidy as if you've been out for a little stroll,' said Rostov, pointing to his own mud-stained riding breeches. He spoke in a rich baritone and looked a military man, which was new to Boris. The German landlady looked round the door at the sound of Rostov's loud voice.
'Pretty little thing, eh?' said he with a wink.
'You're a bit too loud. It frightens them,' said Boris. 'I didn't expect you today,' he added. 'I only sent the note yesterday - through a friend of mine called Bolkonsky - he's one of Kutuzov's adjutants. I didn't expect him to get it to you so quickly. Well, how are you? You've been under fire, then?' asked Boris.
Instead of answering, Rostov, now the complete soldier, dangled the George Cross hanging from the braid of his uniform, and pointed to his bandaged arm before glancing at Berg with a smile.
'As you see,' he said.
'Yes, indeed,' said Boris, smiling, 'and we have had a splendid march too. You probably know the Tsarevich came along with us all the way, so we did have a few extras and advantages. In Poland - oh, the parties, the dinners, the balls! - I can't begin to tell you. And the Tsarevich was very gracious to all our officers.' And both friends began telling their stories, the one describing the hussars and their high jinks, and then what it was like to be at the front, while the other went on about the pleasures and luxuries of service under people of the highest rank.
'Oh, you guards!' said Rostov. 'Anyway, do send for some wine.' Boris frowned.
'Well, if you really want some,' he said. And he went over to the bed, took a purse out from under the clean pillows and ordered some wine. 'Oh yes, I ought to give you your letter and money,' he added.
Rostov took the letter, threw the money down on the sofa, propped both elbows on the table and started to read. He had only read a line or two when he turned and gave Berg an angry look. Meeting his eyes, Rostov stuck
the letter in front of his face.
'I see they sent you a decent lot of money,' said Berg, looking at the heavy purse that sank into the sofa. 'I suppose we just about manage on our pay, Count. Take me, for instance . . .'
'I say, Berg, old fellow,' said Rostov, 'when you get a letter from home and meet somebody close who you want to talk things over with, well, if I'm on the scene I'll clear off straightaway so as not to get in the way. Listen, please go - anywhere, anywhere at all . . . I don't damn well care where you go!' he cried, but then he took Berg by the shoulder, gave him the warmest of looks, obviously keen to soften his rudeness, and added, 'Don't be angry with me, old fellow. I'm just talking straight to someone I've known for a long time.'
'Don't worry, Count, I quite understand,' said Berg, getting to his feet and speaking half to himself in a kind of muffled, throaty growl.
'Go and see the people of the house. You've been invited,' put in Boris.
Berg put on an immaculately clean coat without a mark on it, looked in the mirror to brush his hair up at the temples in the style made fashionable by the Emperor himself, watched Rostov's face until he was sure that his coat had been noticed and left the room with a sweet smile on his face.
'Oh dear, I've behaved like an animal,' said Rostov, turning to the letter.
'What do you mean?'
'Oh, I've been a real swine, not writing, and giving them such a scare. What a swine I am!' he repeated, his face all flushed. 'Anyway, did you send Gavrilo for some wine? Come on, then, let's have a drink!' he said.
The letters from home included a note of recommendation to Prince Bagration, suggested by Anna Mikhaylovna, obtained through various contacts by Countess Rostov and now sent on to her son for him to deliver and make use of.
'Stupid nonsense! A fat lot of good that is,' said Rostov, throwing the letter under the table.
'Why did you throw it away?' asked Boris.
'Oh, it's some sort of reference. What the devil do I need a letter like that for?'
'What the devil do you need it for?' said Boris, picking it up and reading the heading. 'This letter could be very useful to you.'
'I've got everything I need, and I'm not going to be anybody's adjutant.'
'Why not?' asked Boris.
'It's a flunkey's job.'
'Still the great thinker, I see,' said Boris, with a shake of his head.
'And you're still the great diplomat. But that's not the point . . . Anyway, how have you been getting on?' asked Rostov.
'Well, you can see. So far everything's fine, but I don't mind admitting I'd be very glad to make adjutant and not get stuck in the front line.'
'Why?'
'Well, if you go in for a military career you might as well try and make it as brilliant a career as you can.'
'Oh, I see,' said Rostov, obviously miles away. He was staring closely into his friend's eyes, thinking about something else, looking in vain for the solution to some question or other.
Old Gavrila brought in the wine.
'Shall we send for Alphonse now?' said Boris. 'He'll drink with you. I can't.'
'Yes, do. How are you getting on with our Teutonic friend?' asked Rostov, with a disdainful smile.
'He's a very, very nice, decent, pleasant fellow,' said Boris.
Rostov stared again into Boris's face and sighed. Berg came back in, and over a bottle the conversation between the three officers grew animated. The guardsmen told Rostov about their march and how they had been celebrated in Russia, in Poland and abroad. They talked of the sayings and doings of their commander, the grand duke, and told stories about his kind-heartedness and his short temper. Berg held back, as usual, when the subject didn't concern him personally, but when it came to the grand duke's temper he enjoyed telling how he had once fallen foul of the grand duke in Galicia, when his Highness was doing the rounds of the regiments and had got himself worked up over some irregularity in the troop movements. With the same sweet smile on his face he described how the grand duke had ridden up to him in a towering rage, shouting 'Arnauts!' (this insult, normally reserved for Albanians serving in the Turkish army, being the Tsarevich's favourite term of abuse when he lost his temper) . . . and how he had asked for the captain . . . 'Believe it or not, Count, I wasn't terribly bothered because I knew I was in the right. I don't mean to boast, you understand, Count, but I think I can claim to know the regimental rule-book backwards, and the standing orders too. I know them as well as I know the Lord's Prayer. So you see, Count, in my company nothing gets overlooked. And I had nothing on my conscience. So I stepped forward.' (Berg stood up and rehearsed how he had come forward with his hand at the salute. You couldn't have imagined anything more deferential on a man's face - or anything more confident.) 'Well, then he laid into me, on and on for dear life - dear death for me - yelling "Arnauts!", "Damn and blast!", "Siberia!" ' said Berg, with a knowing smile. 'I knew I was in the right so I kept quiet - wouldn't you have done, Count? "Have you lost your tongue?" he roared at me. I just kept quiet and - you know what, Count? - next day there wasn't a word about it in the orders of the day. It just shows - all you have to do is keep cool,' said Berg, pulling at his pipe and sending up smoke rings.
'Oh yes, well done,' said Rostov with a smile, but Boris could see that Rostov was preparing to make fun of Berg so he shrewdly changed the subject by asking Rostov to tell them how and where he had been wounded. That pleased Rostov and he launched into his story, getting more and more excited as he told it. His version of the battle at Schongrabern was the usual version of a man who has been in a battle: he tells it as he would have liked it to have been, or as described by someone else, or in a version that just sounds good, anything but the way it really happened. Rostov was an honest young man who would never tell a deliberate lie. He set out with every intention of describing exactly what had occurred, but imperceptibly, unconsciously and inevitably he drifted into falsehood. If he had told the truth to these two, who had heard as many descriptions of cavalry charges as he had, had their own clear idea of what a charge was like and were expecting something similar, either they wouldn't have believed him, or worse still, they would have assumed it was Rostov's fault for not managing to do what was normally done by narrators of cavalry charges. He couldn't just tell them that they'd been trotting forward together when he fell off his horse, sprained his arm and then ran as hard as he could into a wood to get away from a Frenchman. Besides, to tell everything exactly as it happened would have demanded enough self-control to say only what happened and nothing else. To tell the truth is a very difficult thing, and young people are hardly ever capable of it. His listeners were expecting to hear him describe how he had felt himself burning with excitement, stormed the enemy's square defences, oblivious to everything, hacked his way in, mown men down right, left and centre, tasted blood with his sabre before collapsing from exhaustion, and all the rest. And that's what he did describe.
He was in mid-story and had got to the point where he was saying, 'You can't imagine that feeling of fury during the charge,' when in walked Prince Andrey Bolkonsky, whom Boris had been expecting. Prince Andrey liked to help and encourage younger men and was flattered when they wanted his patronage. He was well disposed to Boris, who had impressed him the day before, and he was now keen to do whatever the young man wanted him to do. Fresh from delivering some documents from Kutuzov to the Tsarevich, he had called in on Boris, hoping to find him alone. When he came into the room and saw the hussar holding forth about his exploits in the field (Prince Andrey couldn't stand the kind of man who liked doing this), he gave Boris a warm smile, but frowned and screwed up his features as he turned to Rostov with a slight bow. He then eased his tired body languidly down on to a sofa, regretting that he had dropped in on such disagreeable company. Rostov saw all this and flared up, but it didn't matter - this man was nothing to him. One glance at Boris told him that he too seemed embarrassed by the battle-scarred hussar. Despite Prince Andrey's offhand, sneering manner, and the contempt in whic
h Rostov, a fighting man who knew what action was, held staff adjutants in general - and the newcomer was clearly one of them - he still felt embarrassed, blushed and stopped talking. Boris inquired what the latest news was at staff headquarters - without being indiscreet surely he could say something about future developments.
'They seem likely to advance,' answered Bolkonsky, clearly reluctant to say more in front of other people. Berg took the opportunity to ask with great deference whether the company captains' forage allowance was to be doubled as he had heard. To this Prince Andrey replied with a smile that he could offer no opinion on such vital matters of state, and Berg laughed with delight.
'Oh, about that little matter of yours,' said Prince Andrey turned back to Boris, 'we'll have a word later,' and he glanced at Rostov. 'Come and see me after the inspection and we'll see what can be done.' Then looking around the room he picked out Rostov, who was in a desperate state of childish pique bordering on truculence which until now he had seen fit to ignore. 'I believe you were talking about Schongrabern? Were you there?'
'Yes I was,' Rostov said aggressively - an obvious insult to the adjutant. Bolkonsky could see the state he was in, and it seemed to amuse him. There was mockery in his smile.
'Oh yes, they do go on about that engagement, don't they?'
'Yes they do!' said Rostov in a loud voice, glaring at Boris as well as Bolkonsky with sudden fury in his eyes. 'Maybe they do go on a bit, but the ones who are going on about it are men who've been under fire, they have something to go on about, not like nobodies on the staff who pick up honours for doing nothing.'
'A category to which you assume I belong,' said Prince Andrey, with a relaxed manner and a particularly pleasant smile.
Rostov felt moved by a strange feeling of hostility tempered with respect for the tranquil bearing of this person.
'Well, I don't know about you,' he said. 'I don't know you, and frankly I don't want to. I'm talking about staff officers in general.'