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“Dear-est!” she repeated again.
“What was he thinking when he uttered that word? What is he thinking now?” This question suddenly presented itself to her, and in answer she saw him before her with the expression that was on his face as he lay in his coffin with his chin bound up with a white handkerchief. And the horror that had seized her when she touched him and convinced herself that that was not he, but something mysterious and horrible, seized her again. She tried to think of something else and to pray, but could do neither. With wide-open eyes she gazed at the moonlight and the shadows, expecting every moment to see his dead face, and she felt that the silence brooding over the house and within it held her fast.
“Dunysha,” she whispered. “Dunysha!” she screamed wildly, and tearing herself out of this silence she ran to the servants’ quarters to meet her old nurse and the maidservants who came running toward her.
On the seventeenth of August Rostv and Ilyn, accompanied by Lavrshka who had just returned from captivity and by an hussar orderly, left their quarters at Yankvo, ten miles from Boguchrovo, and went for a ride—to try a new horse Ilyn had bought and to find out whether there was any hay to be had in the villages.
For the last three days Boguchrovo had lain between the two hostile armies, so that it was as easy for the Russian rearguard to get to it as for the French vanguard; Rostv, as a careful squadron commander, wished to take such provisions as remained at Boguchrovo before the French could get them.
Rostv and Ilyn were in the merriest of moods. On the way to Boguchrovo, a princely estate with a dwelling house and farm where they hoped to find many domestic serfs and pretty girls, they questioned Lavrshka about Napoleon and laughed at his stories, and raced one another to try Ilyn’s horse.
Rostv had no idea that the village he was entering was the property of that very Bolknski who had been engaged to his sister.
Rostv and Ilyn gave rein to their horses for a last race along the incline before reaching Boguchrovo, and Rostv, outstripping Ilyn, was the first to gallop into the village street.
“You’re first!” cried Ilyn, flushed.
“Yes, always first both on the grassland and here,” answered Rostv, stroking his heated Donts horse.
“And I’d have won on my Frenchy, your excellency,” said Lavrshka from behind, alluding to his shabby cart horse, “only I didn’t wish to mortify you.”
They rode at a footpace to the barn, where a large crowd of peasants was standing.
Some of the men bared their heads, others stared at the new arrivals without doffing their caps. Two tall old peasants with wrinkled faces and scanty beards emerged from the tavern, smiling, staggering, and singing some incoherent song, and approached the officers.
“Fine fellows!” said Rostv laughing. “Is there any hay here?”
“And how like one another,” said Ilyn.
“A mo-o-st me-r-r-y co-o-m-pa...!” sang one of the peasants with a blissful smile.
One of the men came out of the crowd and went up to Rostv.
“Who do you belong to?” he asked.
“The French,” replied Ilyn jestingly, “and here is Napoleon himself”—and he pointed to Lavrshka.
“Then you are Russians?” the peasant asked again.
“And is there a large force of you here?” said another, a short man, coming up.
“Very large,” answered Rostv. “But why have you collected here?” he added. “Is it a holiday?”
“The old men have met to talk over the business of the commune,” replied the peasant, moving away.
At that moment, on the road leading from the big house, two women and a man in a white hat were seen coming toward the officers.
“The one in pink is mine, so keep off!” said Ilyn on seeing Dunysha running resolutely toward him.
“She’ll be ours!” said Lavrshka to Ilyn, winking.
“What do you want, my pretty?” said Ilyn with a smile.
“The princess ordered me to ask your regiment and your name.”
“This is Count Rostv, squadron commander, and I am your humble servant.”
“Co-o-om-pa-ny!” roared the tipsy peasant with a beatific smile as he looked at Ilyn talking to the girl. Following Dunysha, Alptych advanced to Rostv, having bared his head while still at a distance.
“May I make bold to trouble your honor?” said he respectfully, but with a shade of contempt for the youthfulness of this officer and with a hand thrust into his bosom. “My mistress, daughter of General in Chief Prince Nicholas Bolknski who died on the fifteenth of this month, finding herself in difficulties owing to the boorishness of these people”—he pointed to the peasants—“asks you to come up to the house.... Won’t you, please, ride on a little farther,” said Alptych with a melancholy smile, “as it is not convenient in the presence of...?” He pointed to the two peasants who kept as close to him as horseflies to a horse.
“Ah!... Alptych... Ah, Ykov Alptych... Grand! Forgive us for Christ’s sake, eh?” said the peasants, smiling joyfully at him.
Rostv looked at the tipsy peasants and smiled.
“Or perhaps they amuse your honor?” remarked Alptych with a staid air, as he pointed at the old men with his free hand.
“No, there’s not much to be amused at here,” said Rostv, and rode on a little way. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I make bold to inform your honor that the rude peasants here don’t wish to let the mistress leave the estate, and threaten to unharness her horses, so that though everything has been packed up since morning, her excellency cannot get away.”
“Impossible!” exclaimed Rostv.
“I have the honor to report to you the actual truth,” said Alptych.
Rostv dismounted, gave his horse to the orderly, and followed Alptych to the house, questioning him as to the state of affairs. It appeared that the princess’ offer of corn to the peasants the previous day, and her talk with Dron and at the meeting, had actually had so bad an effect that Dron had finally given up the keys and joined the peasants and had not appeared when Alptych sent for him; and that in the morning when the princess gave orders to harness for her journey, the peasants had come in a large crowd to the barn and sent word that they would not let her leave the village: that there was an order not to move, and that they would unharness the horses. Alptych had gone out to admonish them, but was told (it was chiefly Karp who did the talking, Dron not showing himself in the crowd) that they could not let the princess go, that there was an order to the contrary, but that if she stayed they would serve her as before and obey her in everything.
