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By Root 3855 0

second, he had enough experience to know that in war everything goes on quite otherwise than we can imagine and recount. And therefore he did not like Zdrzhinsky’s story, and did not like Zdrzhinsky himself, who, with his mustaches growing across his cheeks, had the habit of bending close to the face of the one he was telling his story to and crowding him in the crowded lean-to. Rostov silently looked at him. “First of all, it surely must have been so confused and crowded on the dam being attacked that, even if Raevsky did bring his sons there, it couldn’t have affected anyone, except a dozen or so men who were right there with him,” thought Rostov. “The rest couldn’t have seen how Raevsky went across the dam and with whom. But even the ones who saw it couldn’t have felt much enthusiasm, because what did they care about Raevsky’s tender paternal feelings, when it was a matter of saving their own skins? Besides that, the fate of the fatherland didn’t depend on taking or not taking the Saltanovo dam, the way they say it was with Thermopylae. And, therefore, why offer up such a sacrifice? And then, why get your children mixed up in it, in a war? I wouldn’t lead my brother Petya into it, or even Ilyin, a nice boy but a stranger to me; I’d try to find some safe place to put him,” Rostov went on thinking as he listened to Zdrzhinsky. But he did not voice his thoughts: he already had experience with that, too. He knew that this story contributed to the glory of our arms, and therefore one had to make it seem that one did not doubt it. And so he did.

“Anyhow, I can’t stand it,” said Ilyin, noticing that Rostov did not like Zdrzhinsky’s conversation. “My socks, and my shirt, and under me it’s all soaked. I’ll go and find some shelter. The rain seems to be letting up.” Ilyin left, and Zdrzhinsky rode away.

Five minutes later Ilyin, splashing through the mud, came running to the lean-to.

“Hurrah! Let’s go quick, Rostov. I found it! A tavern, about two hundred paces from here, our boys are already there. We can dry out, and Marya Genrikhovna’s there.”

Marya Genrikhovna was the wife of the regimental doctor, a young, pretty German woman, whom the doctor had married in Poland. Either because he lacked means, or because he did not want to part with a young wife so early in their marriage, the doctor took her along everywhere with the hussar regiment, and his jealousy had become a habitual subject of jokes among the hussar officers.

Rostov threw on a cloak, told Lavrushka to bring the things, and went with Ilyin, here slipping in the mud, there splashing straight on under the subsiding rain, in the evening darkness, occasionally broken by distant lightning.

“Rostov, where are you?” “Here. What lightning!” they said to each other.

XIII

In an abandoned tavern, before which stood the doctor’s little kibitka, there were already some five officers. Marya Genrikhovna, a plump, flaxen-haired German, in a bed-jacket and nightcap, sat in the front corner on a wide bench. Her husband, the doctor, was asleep behind her. Rostov and Ilyin, greeted with merry exclamations and guffaws, came into the room.

“Hey, aren’t you having fun!” Rostov said, laughing.

“And why are you missing it?”

“Fine ones! They’re drenched! Don’t get our drawing room wet!”

“Don’t get Marya Genrikhovna’s dress muddy,” voices answered.

Rostov and Ilyin hastened to find a corner where they could change their wet clothes without offending Marya Genrikhovna’s modesty. They went behind a partition, but the little closet was entirely taken up by three officers playing cards on an empty box with a single candle on it, who absolutely refused to let them in to change. Marya Genrikhovna allowed them to take her skirt, using it as a curtain, and behind that curtain Rostov and Ilyin, with the help of Lavrushka, who brought their packs, took off their wet clothes and put on dry.

A fire was made in the broken stove. They found a board and, placing it on two saddles, covered it with a horse blanket, found a little samovar, a cellaret, and half a bottle of rum, and the officers,