Page 404 of 470
“But I questioned him,” said Tkhon. “He said he didn’t know much. ‘There are a lot of us,’ he says, ‘but all poor stuff—only soldiers in name,’ he says. ‘Shout loud at them,’ he says, ‘and you’ll take them all,’” Tkhon concluded, looking cheerfully and resolutely into Densov’s eyes.
“I’ll give you a hundwed sharp lashes—that’ll teach you to play the fool!” said Densov severely.
“But why are you angry?” remonstrated Tkhon, “just as if I’d never seen your Frenchmen! Only wait till it gets dark and I’ll fetch you any of them you want—three if you like.”
“Well, let’s go,” said Densov, and rode all the way to the watchhouse in silence and frowning angrily.
Tkhon followed behind and Ptya heard the Cossacks laughing with him and at him, about some pair of boots he had thrown into the bushes.
When the fit of laughter that had seized him at Tkhon’s words and smile had passed and Ptya realized for a moment that this Tkhon had killed a man, he felt uneasy. He looked round at the captive drummer boy and felt a pang in his heart. But this uneasiness lasted only a moment. He felt it necessary to hold his head higher, to brace himself, and to question the esaul with an air of importance about tomorrow’s undertaking, that he might not be unworthy of the company in which he found himself.
The officer who had been sent to inquire met Densov on the way with the news that Dlokhov was soon coming and that all was well with him.
Densov at once cheered up and, calling Ptya to him, said: “Well, tell me about yourself.”
Ptya, having left his people after their departure from Moscow, joined his regiment and was soon taken as orderly by a general commanding a large guerrilla detachment. From the time he received his commission, and especially since he had joined the active army and taken part in the battle of Vyzma, Ptya had been in a constant state of blissful excitement at being grown-up and in a perpetual ecstatic hurry not to miss any chance to do something really heroic. He was highly delighted with what he saw and experienced in the army, but at the same time it always seemed to him that the really heroic exploits were being performed just where he did not happen to be. And he was always in a hurry to get where he was not.
When on the twenty-first of October his general expressed a wish to send somebody to Densov’s detachment, Ptya begged so piteously to be sent that the general could not refuse. But when dispatching him he recalled Ptya’s mad action at the battle of Vyzma, where instead of riding by the road to the place to which he had been sent, he had galloped to the advanced line under the fire of the French and had there twice fired his pistol. So now the general explicitly forbade his taking part in any action whatever of Densov’s. That was why Ptya had blushed and grown confused when Densov asked him whether he could stay. Before they had ridden to the outskirts of the forest Ptya had considered he must carry out his instructions strictly and return at once. But when he saw the French and saw Tkhon and learned that there would certainly be an attack that night, he decided, with the rapidity with which young people change their views, that the general, whom he had greatly respected till then, was a rubbishy German, that Densov was a hero, the esaul a hero, and Tkhon a hero too, and that it would be shameful for him to leave them at a moment of difficulty.
It was already growing dusk when Densov, Ptya, and the esaul rode up to the watchhouse. In the twilight saddled horses could be seen, and Cossacks and hussars who had rigged up rough shelters in the glade and were kindling glowing fires in a hollow of the forest where the French could not see the smoke. In the passage of the small watchhouse a Cossack with sleeves rolled up was chopping some mutton. In the room three officers of Densov’s band were converting a door into a tabletop. Ptya took off his wet clothes, gave them to be dried, and at once began helping the officers to fix up the dinner table.
In ten minutes the table was ready and a napkin spread on it. On the table were vodka, a flask of rum, white bread, roast mutton, and salt.
Sitting at table with the officers and tearing the fat savory mutton with his hands, down which the grease trickled, Ptya was in an ecstatic childish state of love for all men, and consequently of confidence that others loved him in the same way.
“So then what do you think, Vasli Dmtrich?” said he to Densov. “It’s all right my staying a day with you?” And not waiting for a reply he answered his own question: “You see I was told to find out—well, I am finding out.... Only do let me into the very... into the chief... I don’t want a reward.... But I want...”
Ptya clenched his teeth and looked around, throwing back his head and flourishing his arms.
“Into the vewy chief...” Densov repeated with a smile.
“Only, please let me command something, so that I may really command...” Ptya went on. “What would it be to you?... Oh, you want a knife?” he said, turning to an officer who wished to cut himself a piece of mutton.
And he handed him his clasp knife. The officer admired it.
“Please keep it. I have several like it,” said Ptya, blushing. “Heavens! I was quite forgetting!” he suddenly cried. “I have some raisins, fine ones; you know, seedless ones. We have a new sutler and he has such capital things. I bought ten pounds. I am used to something sweet. Would you like some?...” and Ptya ran out into the passage to his Cossack and brought back some bags which contained about five pounds of raisins. “Have some, gentlemen, have some!”
“You want a coffeepot, don’t you?” he asked the esaul. “I bought a capital one from our sutler! He has splendid things. And he’s very honest, that’s the chief thing. I’ll be sure to send it to you. Or perhaps your flints are giving out, or are worn out—that happens sometimes, you know. I have brought some with me, here they are”—and he showed a bag—“a hundred flints. I bought them very cheap. Please take as many as you want, or all if you like....”
Then suddenly, dismayed lest he had said too much, Ptya stopped and blushed.
He tried to remember whether he had not done anything else that was foolish. And running over the events of the day he remembered the French drummer boy. “It’s capital for us here, but what of him? Where have they put him? Have they fed him? Haven’t they hurt his feelings?” he thought. But having caught himself saying too much about the flints, he was now afraid to speak out.
