War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [679]
VI
Having talked a while longer with the esaul about the next day’s attack, which Denisov, seeing the closeness of the French, now seemed to have definitively resolved upon, he turned his horse and rode back.
“Well, brother, now let’s go and get dry,” he said to Petya.
Riding up to the forest guardhouse, Denisov stopped, peering into the forest. In the forest, among the trees, a man was walking with big, light strides, on long legs, with long, swinging arms, wearing a jacket, bast shoes, and a Kazan hat, with a gun over his shoulder and an ax in his belt. Seeing Denisov, this man hastily flung something into the bushes and, taking off his soaked hat with its drooping brim, went up to his commander. It was Tikhon. His pockmarked and wrinkled face, with its small, narrow eyes, beamed with self-satisfied merriment. Raising his head high, and as if trying to keep from laughing, he fixed his eyes on Denisov.
“Well, where did you disappear to?” said Denisov.
“Disappear to? I went after the French,” Tikhon replied boldly and quickly, in a hoarse but melodious bass.
“Why did you slip in there during the day? Brute! So you didn’t take…”
“I took one, I did,” said Tikhon.
“Where is he?”
“I took him first thing at dawn,” Tikhon went on, moving his flat, splayed feet in their bast shoes further apart, “and I led him into the forest. I saw he wasn’t the right sort. I thought, why don’t I go and take another more proper one?”
“See, he’s a rascal, that’s what,” Denisov said to the esaul. “Why didn’t you bring that one?”
“Why bring him,” Tikhon interrupted crossly and quickly, “if he’s no good? Don’t I know what kind you need?”
“Sly dog!…So?…”
“I went after another,” Tikhon continued. “I crawled into the forest like this and lay there,” Tikhon unexpectedly and nimbly lay on his belly, acting out how he had done it. “One of them came along,” he continued. “I grabbed him like this.” Tikhon jumped up quickly and lightly. “‘Let’s go to the colonel,’ I said. He started jabbering. Four of them came. Fell on me with their little swords. I swung my ax like this: ‘Come on, Christ help you,’” Tikhon cried, swinging his arms, scowling terribly, and thrusting out his chest.
“We saw from the hill how you cut and ran through the puddles,” said the esaul, narrowing his bright eyes.
Petya wanted very much to laugh, but he saw that they all kept from laughing. He quickly shifted his gaze from Tikhon’s face to the esaul’s and Denisov’s, not understanding what it all meant.
“Don’t play the fool,” said Denisov, coughing crossly. “Why didn’t you bring the first one?”
Tikhon began to scratch his back with one hand, his head with the other, and suddenly his whole mug stretched into a beaming, foolish smile, revealing the missing tooth (for which he was nicknamed Shcherbaty—“Gap-toothed”). Denisov smiled, and Petya dissolved in merry laughter, in which Tikhon himself joined.
“No, but he was all wrong,” said Tikhon. “Such poor clothes on him, there was no point bringing him here. And a crude one, Your Honor. ‘It’s like this,’ he says, ‘I’m a ginneral’s son, I won’t go,’ he says.”
“What a brute!” said Denisov. “I need to question…”
“But I did ask him,” said Tikhon. “‘Things are bad,’ he says—in signs. ‘There’s a lot of us,’ he says, ‘but in poor shape; just in name only,’ he says. ‘One good whack,’ he says, ‘and you’ll take them all,’” Tikhon concluded, glancing merrily and resolutely into Denisov’s eyes.
“When you get a hundred hot ones from me, that’ll teach you to play the fool,” Denisov said sternly.
“Why get angry,” said Tikhon, “as if I haven’t seen your Frenchmen? Wait till it gets dark, I’ll bring you any sort you like, even three of them.”
“Well, let’s go,” said Denisov, and rode on until they came to the guardhouse, silent and frowning angrily.
Tikhon walked behind, and Petya heard the Cossacks laughing with him and at him about some boots he had thrown into the bushes.
When the laughter that came over him at Tikhon’s words