Page 53 of 470
“Nonsense!” he cried, and the veins on his forehead and neck stood out like cords. “You are mad, I tell you. I won’t allow it. The purse is here! I’ll flay this scoundwel alive, and it will be found.”
“I know who has taken it,” repeated Rostv in an unsteady voice, and went to the door.
“And I tell you, don’t you dahe to do it!” shouted Densov, rushing at the cadet to restrain him.
But Rostv pulled away his arm and, with as much anger as though Densov were his worst enemy, firmly fixed his eyes directly on his face.
“Do you understand what you’re saying?” he said in a trembling voice. “There was 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 Rostv heard.
Rostv went to Telynin’s quarters.
“The master is not in, he’s gone to headquarters,” said Telynin’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 Rostv, without returning home, took a horse and rode there. There was an inn in the village which the officers frequented. Rostv rode up to it and saw Telynin’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 Rostv 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 Telynin 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. Rostv rose and went up to Telynin.
“Allow me to look at your purse,” he said in a low, almost inaudible, voice.
With shifting eyes but eyebrows still raised, Telynin handed him the purse.
“Yes, it’s a nice purse. Yes, yes,” he said, growing suddenly pale, and added, “Look at it, young man.”
Rostv took the purse in his hand, examined it and the money in it, and looked at Telynin. 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.”
Rostv did not speak.
“And you? Are you going to have lunch too? They feed you quite decently here,” continued Telynin. “Now then, let me have it.”
He stretched out his hand to take hold of the purse. Rostv let go of it. Telynin 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 Rostv’s eyes.
Some flash as of an electric spark shot from Telynin’s eyes to Rostv’s and back, and back again and again in an instant.
“Come here,” said Rostv, catching hold of Telynin’s arm and almost dragging him to the window. “That money is Densov’s; you took it...” he whispered just above Telynin’s ear.
“What? What? How dare you? What?” said Telynin.
But these words came like a piteous, despairing cry and an entreaty for pardon. As soon as Rostv 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 Telynin, taking up his cap and moving toward a small empty room. “We must have an explanation...”
“I know it and shall prove it,” said Rostv.
“I...”
Every muscle of Telynin’s pale, terrified face began to quiver, his eyes still shifted from side to side but with a downward look not rising to Rostv’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!...”
Rostv took the money, avoiding Telynin’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 Telynin drawing nearer to him.
“Don’t touch me,” said Rostv, drawing back. “If you need it, take the money,” and he threw the purse to him and ran out of the inn.
That same evening there was an animated discussion among the squadron’s officers in Densov’s quarters.
“And I tell you, Rostv, 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 Rostv who was crimson with excitement.
The staff captain, Krsten, 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 Rostv. “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...”
