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

no one else in the room except myself. So that if it is not so, then⁠ ⁠…”

He could not finish, and ran out of the room.

“Ah, may the devil take you and evewybody,” were the last words Rostóv heard.

Rostóv went to Telyánin’s quarters.

“The master is not in, he’s gone to headquarters,” said Telyánin’s orderly. “Has something happened?” he added, surprised at the cadet’s troubled face.

“No, nothing.”

“You’ve only just missed him,” said the orderly.

The headquarters were situated two miles away from Salzeneck, and Rostóv, without returning home, took a horse and rode there. There was an inn in the village which the officers frequented. Rostóv rode up to it and saw Telyánin’s horse at the porch.

In the second room of the inn the lieutenant was sitting over a dish of sausages and a bottle of wine.

“Ah, you’ve come here too, young man!” he said, smiling and raising his eyebrows.

“Yes,” said Rostóv as if it cost him a great deal to utter the word; and he sat down at the nearest table.

Both were silent. There were two Germans and a Russian officer in the room. No one spoke and the only sounds heard were the clatter of knives and the munching of the lieutenant.

When Telyánin had finished his lunch he took out of his pocket a double purse and, drawing its rings aside with his small, white, turned-up fingers, drew out a gold imperial, and lifting his eyebrows gave it to the waiter.

“Please be quick,” he said.

The coin was a new one. Rostóv rose and went up to Telyánin.

“Allow me to look at your purse,” he said in a low, almost inaudible, voice.

With shifting eyes but eyebrows still raised, Telyánin handed him the purse.

“Yes, it’s a nice purse. Yes, yes,” he said, growing suddenly pale, and added, “Look at it, young man.”

Rostóv took the purse in his hand, examined it and the money in it, and looked at Telyánin. The lieutenant was looking about in his usual way and suddenly seemed to grow very merry.

“If we get to Vienna I’ll get rid of it there but in these wretched little towns there’s nowhere to spend it,” said he. “Well, let me have it, young man, I’m going.”

Rostóv did not speak.

“And you? Are you going to have lunch too? They feed you quite decently here,” continued Telyánin. “Now then, let me have it.”

He stretched out his hand to take hold of the purse. Rostóv let go of it. Telyánin took the purse and began carelessly slipping it into the pocket of his riding breeches, with his eyebrows lifted and his mouth slightly open, as if to say, “Yes, yes, I am putting my purse in my pocket and that’s quite simple and is no one else’s business.”

“Well, young man?” he said with a sigh, and from under his lifted brows he glanced into Rostóv’s eyes.

Some flash as of an electric spark shot from Telyánin’s eyes to Rostóv’s and back, and back again and again in an instant.

“Come here,” said Rostóv, catching hold of Telyánin’s arm and almost dragging him to the window. “That money is Denísov’s; you took it⁠ ⁠…” he whispered just above Telyánin’s ear.

“What? What? How dare you? What?” said Telyánin.

But these words came like a piteous, despairing cry and an entreaty for pardon. As soon as Rostóv heard them, an enormous load of doubt fell from him. He was glad, and at the same instant began to pity the miserable man who stood before him, but the task he had begun had to be completed.

“Heaven only knows what the people here may imagine,” muttered Telyánin, taking up his cap and moving toward a small empty room. “We must have an explanation⁠ ⁠…”

“I know it and shall prove it,” said Rostóv.

“I⁠ ⁠…”

Every muscle of Telyánin’s pale, terrified face began to quiver, his eyes still shifted from side to side but with a downward look not rising to Rostóv’s face, and his sobs were audible.

“Count!⁠ ⁠… Don’t ruin a young fellow⁠ ⁠… here is this wretched money, take it⁠ ⁠…” He threw it on the table. “I have an old father and mother!⁠ ⁠…”

Rostóv took the money, avoiding Telyánin’s eyes, and went out of the room without a word. But at the door he stopped and then retraced his steps. “O God,” he said with tears in his eyes, “how could you do it?”

“Count⁠ ⁠…” said Telyánin drawing nearer to him.

“Don’t touch me,” said Rostóv, drawing back. “If you need it, take the money,” and he threw the purse to him and ran out of the inn.

V

That same evening there was an animated discussion among the squadron’s officers in Denísov’s quarters.

“And I tell you, Rostóv, that you must apologize to the colonel!” said a tall, grizzly-haired staff captain, with enormous mustaches and many wrinkles on his large features, to Rostóv who was crimson with excitement.

The staff captain, Kírsten, had twice been reduced to the ranks for affairs of honor and had twice regained his commission.

“I will allow no one to call me a liar!” cried Rostóv. “He told me I lied, and I told him he lied. And there it rests. He may keep me on duty every day, or may place me under arrest, but no one can make me apologize, because if he, as commander of this regiment, thinks it beneath his dignity to give me satisfaction, then⁠ ⁠…”

“You just wait a moment, my dear fellow, and listen,” interrupted the staff captain in his deep bass, calmly stroking his long mustache. “You tell the colonel in the presence of other officers that an officer has stolen⁠ ⁠…”

“I’m not to blame that the conversation began in the presence of other officers. Perhaps I ought not to have spoken before them, but I am not a diplomatist. That’s why I joined the hussars, thinking that here one would not need finesse; and he tells me that I am lying⁠—so let him give me satisfaction⁠ ⁠…”

“That’s all right. No one thinks you a coward, but that’s not the point. Ask Denísov whether it is not out of the question for a