War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy [interesting novels to read .TXT] 📗

sixteen,” said Dólokhov 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 Pétya shyly.

“But for you and me, old fellow, it’s time to drop these amenities,” continued Dólokhov, as if he found particular pleasure in speaking of this subject which irritated Denísov. “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!”

Dólokhov 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 Pétya.

“I? Yes, yes, certainly!” cried Pétya, blushing almost to tears and glancing at Denísov.

While Dólokhov had been disputing with Denísov what should be done with prisoners, Pétya 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 Denísov 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 Dólokhov. If he can, so can I!”

And to all Denísov’s persuasions, Pétya 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.⁠ ⁠…”

IX

Having put on French greatcoats and shakos, Pétya and Dólokhov rode to the clearing from which Denísov had reconnoitered the French camp, and emerging from the forest in pitch darkness they descended into the hollow. On reaching the bottom, Dólokhov told the Cossacks accompanying him to await him there and rode on at a quick trot along the road to the bridge. Pétya, 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 Dólokhov in a hurried whisper, and at that very moment they heard through the darkness the challenge: “Qui vive?”120 and the click of a musket.

The blood rushed to Pétya’s face and he grasped his pistol.

“Lanciers du 6-me,”121 replied Dólokhov, neither hastening nor slackening his horse’s pace.

The black figure of a sentinel stood on the bridge.

“Mot d’ordre.”122

Dólokhov reined in his horse and advanced at a walk.

“Dites donc, le colonel Gérard est ici?”123 he asked.

“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 Dólokhov suddenly flaring up and riding straight at the sentinel. “Je vous demande si le colonel est ici.”124

And without waiting for an answer from the sentinel, who had stepped aside, Dólokhov rode up the incline at a walk.

Noticing the black outline of a man crossing the road, Dólokhov 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 Dólokhov’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, Dólokhov 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 Dólokhov’s and Pétya’s steps as they advanced to the fire leading their horses.

“Bonjour, messieurs!”125 said Dólokhov loudly and clearly.

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 Dólokhov.

“Is that you, Clément?” he asked. “Where the devil⁠ ⁠… ?” But, noticing his mistake, he broke off short and, with a frown, greeted Dólokhov as a stranger, asking what he could do for him.

Dólokhov 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 Pétya thought the officers were beginning to look at him and Dólokhov with hostility and suspicion. For some seconds all were silent.

“If you were counting on the evening soup, you have come