War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [159]
“They’ll probably advance,” Bolkonsky replied, clearly not wishing to say more in front of strangers.
Berg used the opportunity to ask with particular courtesy whether, as rumor had it, company commanders were now to draw a double allotment for forage. To which Prince Andrei replied with a smile that he was unable to opine about such important government instructions, and Berg laughed joyfully.
“About your affair,” Prince Andrei turned to Boris again, “we’ll speak later,” and he glanced at Rostov. “Come to me after the review, we’ll do all that’s possible.”
And, glancing around the room, he turned to Rostov, whose state of uncontrollable childish embarrassment, turning into spite, he did not deign to notice, and said:
“It seems you were telling about the Schöngraben action? Were you there?”
“I was there,” Rostov said spitefully, as if wishing to insult the adjutant by it.
Bolkonsky noticed the hussar’s state and found it amusing. He gave a slightly contemptuous smile.
“Yes! many stories are told now about that action.”
“Yes, stories!” Rostov began speaking loudly, glancing now at Boris, now at Bolkonsky, with eyes suddenly grown furious. “Yes, many stories are told, but our stories—the stories of those who were there, right under enemy fire—our stories have weight, not the stories of those fellows on the staff, who get rewards for doing nothing.”
“To whom you suppose that I belong?” Prince Andrei said calmly and with an especially pleasant smile.
A strange feeling of spite and along with that of respect for the calmness of this figure came together at that moment in Rostov’s soul.
“I’m not talking about you,” he said, “I don’t know you, and, I confess, I don’t wish to. I’m talking about the staff in general.”
“And I will tell you this,” Prince Andrei interrupted him with calm power in his voice. “You want to insult me, and I am ready to agree with you that it is very easy to do so, if you lack sufficient respect for yourself; but you must agree that the time and place have been rather poorly chosen for that. One of these days we’ll all take part in a big, more serious duel, and besides that, Drubetskoy, who says he’s your old friend, is not at all to blame for the fact that my physiognomy has the misfortune not to please you. However,” he said, getting up, “you know my name and where to find me; but don’t forget,” he added, “that I consider neither myself nor you insulted in the least, and my advice, as an older man, is to let this matter go without consequences. So I’ll be waiting for you on Friday after the review, Drubetskoy. Good-bye,” Prince Andrei concluded and left, after bowing to them both.
Rostov remembered what reply he should have given only when the man was already gone. And he was the more angry because he had forgotten to say it. Rostov ordered his horse brought at once, and having drily taken leave of Boris, rode home. Should he go to headquarters tomorrow and challenge this mincing adjutant, or indeed let the affair go at that? This was the question that tormented him all the way. Now he thought spitefully of what a pleasure it would be to see this small, weak, and proud man’s fear in the face of his pistol, then he was surprised to feel that, of all the people he knew, there was no one he so wished to have for a friend as this hateful little adjutant.
VIII
On the day after the meeting of Boris and Rostov, there was a review of the Russian and Austrian troops, the fresh ones come from Russia, as well as those returned from campaigning with Kutuzov. Both emperors, the Russian with his heir the grand duke, and the Austrian with the archduke, made this review of the combined eighty-thousand-man army.
Since early morning, the trim and smartly polished troops had been on the move, lining up in the field in front of the fortress. Now thousands of feet and bayonets moved with flying standards and, at the officers’ command, halted, turned, and lined up at intervals, circling around other similar masses of infantry