War and Peace: Original Version. Лев Толстой

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СКАЧАТЬ It’s not nice, but what’s to be done, old man, you jumped in with both feet. And now that they want to hush the business up, out of some snobbish ideas of your own, you don’t want to apologise, you want to tell the whole story. You’re offended because you’ll be on duty detail, but what’s it to you to apologise to an old and honest officer? Whatever Bogdanich may be like, he’s still an honest and brave old colonel, what if you are offended, don’t you mind besmirching the regiment?” The staff-captain’s voice was beginning to tremble. “You’ve hardly even been in the regiment two minutes, old man, here today and tomorrow you’ve moved somewhere as a little adjutant, you don’t give a damn that people will say there are thieves among the Pavlogradsk officers! But we do care. Isn’t that right, Denisov? We do care?”

      “Yes, brother, I’d let them chop off my right hand, if only this business had never happened,” said Denisov, banging his fist on the table.

      “Your snobbish ideas mean a lot to you, you don’t want to apologise,” the staff-captain continued, “but we old men have grown up in the regiment and, God willing, we’ll die in it, so the honour of the regiment means a lot to us, and Bogdanich knows it. Oh, it means such a lot, old man! And this is not right, it’s not right. You can take offence if you like, but I always tell the honest truth. It’s not right.”

      And the staff-captain stood up and turned away from Rostov.

      “It’s true, damn it!” shouted Denisov, beginning to get worked up and glancing repeatedly at Rostov. “Come on, Wostov! Come on, Wostov! To hell with false shame, come on!”

      Rostov, turning red and white by turns, looked first at one officer, then at the other.

      “No, gentlemen, no … you, don’t think … I do understand, you’re wrong to think that about me … I … for myself … for the honour of the regiment … but what good is …? I’ll prove it to you in action, and for me the honour of the standard … all right, all the same, it’s true, I’m at fault!” There were tears in his eyes. “I’m at fault, in every way! Well, what else do you want?”

      “That’s the way, count,” cried the staff-captain, turning round and slapping him on the shoulder with a large hand.

      “Didn’t I tell you?” shouted Denisov, “devil take it, but he’s a fine chap.”

      “It’s the best way, count,” repeated the staff-captain, as if rewarding him for his admission by beginning to use his title. “Yes sir, go and apologise, your excellency, do.”

      “Gentlemen, I will do anything, no one will hear a single word from me,” Rostov said in an imploring voice, “but I can’t apologise, honest to God I can’t, no matter what! How am I going to apologise, like a little child asking for forgiveness?”

      Denisov laughed.

      “It’ll be worse for you, Bogdanich never forgives, you’ll pay for your stubbornness.”

      “By God, it’s not stubbornness! I can’t describe to you the kind of feeling it is, I can’t …”

      “Well, as you wish,” said the staff-captain. “Tell me now, where’s that rogue got to?” he asked Denisov.

      “He’s claiming to be sick and the instwuction’s been given to dismiss him from the wegiment tomorrow. Oh, if he just cwosses my path,” said Denisov, “I’ll squash him like a fly.”

      “It’s a sickness, there’s no other way to explain it,” said the staff-captain.

      “Maybe it’s an illness, maybe not, but I’d gladly shoot him,” Denisov shouted in a bloodthirsty voice.

      Zherkov came into the room.

      “What are you doing here?” the officers all asked the new arrival.

      “Action, gentlemen. Mack has surrendered with his entire army and all.”

      “You’re lying!”

      “I’ve seen him myself.”

      “What you saw Mack, alive? With arms and legs?”

      “Action! Action! Give him a bottle for news like that. How do you come to be here?”

      “They’ve sent me back to the regiment again, because of that devil Mack. An Austrian general complained. I congratulated him on Mack’s arrival. What’s wrong with you, Rostov, you look like you’re straight out of the bathhouse.”

      “We’ve got a weal mess going on here, brother, it’s the second day now.”

      The regimental adjutant came in and confirmed the news brought by Zherkov. The order was to advance the next day.

      “Action, gentlemen.”

      “Well, thank God for that. We’ve been sitting here too long.”

      VI

      Kutuzov withdrew towards Vienna, destroying the bridges on the rivers Inn (at Braunau) and Traun (at Linz) behind him. On the 23rd of October the Russian forces crossed the river Enns. By the middle of the day the Russian transports, artillery and troop columns were extended right through the town of Enns, on both sides of the bridge. It was a warm, rainy autumn day. The great panorama that opened out from the elevation on which the Russian batteries were positioned to defend the bridge would suddenly be veiled by a muslin curtain of slanting rain, but then just as suddenly clear again to reveal distant objects shining brightly in the sunlight, as if coated with lacquer. The little town could be seen down below, with its white houses and red roofs, cathedral and bridge, with the massed throng of the Russian troops streaming along on both sides. In the bend of the Danube, ships and an island could be seen, and a castle with a park, surrounded by the watery confluence of the Enns and the Danube; the rocky, pine-clad left bank of the Danube could be seen with its mysterious distant expanse of green tree-tops and bluish ravines. The towers of monasteries could be seen, jutting up out of the apparently virgin, wild pine forest, and also, far ahead, on a mountain on the other side of the Rhine, could the enemy’s mounted patrols.

      Standing at the front, up among the artillery pieces on the elevation, were the commander of the rearguard, a general, and an officer of his retinue, who were examining the locality through a spy-glass. A short distance behind them Prince Nesvitsky, sent to the rearguard by the commander-in-chief, was sitting on the tail of a gun-carriage. The Cossack accompanying Nesvitsky had handed him a bag and a flask and Nesvitsky was now regaling the officers with pies and genuine Doppel-Kümmel. The officers gladly crowded around him, some kneeling, some sitting cross-legged on the wet grass.

      “Yes, the Austrian prince who built a castle over there was no fool. A glorious spot. Why are you not eating, gentlemen?” said Nesvitsky.

      “Thank you so much, prince,” replied one of the officers, pleased to be talking to such an important staff official. “It is a fine spot. We marched right past that park and saw two deer, and the house is quite wonderful!”

      “Look, prince,” said another, who greatly wanted to take another pie, but felt too embarrassed, and therefore pretended to be surveying the locality, “look over there, see how far our infantry have already reached. And over there, on that little meadow beyond the village, three of them are СКАЧАТЬ