War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [268]
From the porch a broad stairway led straight up; to the right he saw a closed door. Under the stairway was the door leading to the ground floor.
“Whom do you want?” someone asked.
“To deliver a letter, a petition to his majesty,” Nikolai said in a trembling voice.
“A petition—go to the officer on duty, this way, please” (he pointed him to the downstairs door). “Only you won’t be received.”
Hearing this indifferent voice, Rostov became frightened of what he was doing; the thought of meeting the sovereign at any moment was so seductive and therefore so frightening for him that he was ready to flee, but an attendant, meeting him, opened the door of the officer on duty, and Rostov went in.
A short, stout man of about thirty, in white trousers, top boots, and nothing but an evidently just-put-on cambric shirt, was standing in this room; a valet behind him was buttoning on a pair of splendid new silk-embroidered suspenders, which Rostov noticed for some reason. This man was talking to someone in the next room.
“Bien faite et la beauté du diable,”*330 this man was saying, and, seeing Rostov, he stopped speaking and frowned.
“What can I do for you? A petition?…”
“Qu’est-ce que c’est?”†331 asked someone from the other room.
“Encore un petitionnaire,”†332 replied the man in suspenders.
“Later, tell him. He’ll be coming out in a minute, we have to go.”
“Later, later, tomorrow. There’s no time…”
Rostov turned and was about to leave, but the man in suspenders stopped him.
“Who sent you? Who are you?”
“From Major Denisov,” Rostov replied.
“Who are you? An officer?”
“Lieutenant Count Rostov.
“What boldness! Appeal through the chain of command. And take yourself away, away!…” And he began getting into the tunic that the valet was holding for him.
Rostov went to the front hall again and noticed that there were already many officers and generals in full-dress uniform past whom he would have to walk.
Cursing his boldness, his heart sinking at the thought that he could meet the sovereign at any moment, be disgraced before him and put under arrest, fully understanding all the inappropriateness of his behavior and regretting it, Rostov, with lowered eyes, was making his way out of the house, surrounded by the crowd of the brilliant suite, when someone’s familiar voice called him and someone’s hand stopped him.
“What are you doing here in a tailcoat, my lad?” the bass voice asked him.
It was a cavalry general who had earned special favor from the sovereign during this campaign, the former commander of the division in which Rostov served.
Rostov fearfully began to justify himself, but seeing the general’s good-naturedly joking face, led him aside and in an agitated voice told him the whole affair, begging the general to intercede for Denisov, whom he knew. The general listened to Rostov, shaking his head gravely.
“A pity, a pity for the fine fellow; give me the letter.”
Rostov barely had time to hand him the letter and tell him all about Denisov’s case before the sound of quick footsteps with spurs was heard from the stairway, and the general, leaving him, moved towards the porch. The gentlemen of the sovereign’s suite ran down the steps and went to their horses. The groom Hayne, the same one who had been at Austerlitz, led up the sovereign’s horse, and from the stairs came a light creak of footsteps which Rostov knew at once. Forgetting the danger of being recognized, Rostov, with some curious townsfolk, moved close to the porch and again, after two years, saw the same adored features, the same face, the same gaze, the same gait, the same combination of majesty and mildness…And the feeling of rapture and love for the sovereign rose again with its old force in Rostov’s soul. The sovereign, in the Preobrazhensky