War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [681]
The officer praised the knife.
“Keep it, please. I’ve got many like it…” Petya said, blushing. “Good heavens! I completely forgot,” he suddenly cried. “I’ve got wonderful raisins, you know, the seedless kind. We have a new sutler—and such excellent things. I bought ten pounds. I’m used to something sweet. Would you like some?…” And Petya ran to the front hall, to his Cossack, and brought back bags with some five pounds of raisins. “Eat, gentlemen, eat.”
“And don’t you need a coffeepot?” he turned to the esaul. “I bought one from our sutler, it’s wonderful! He has excellent things. And he’s very honest. That’s the main thing. I’ll make sure to send you one. Or maybe you’re out of flints—they get used up, you know. I brought some along, I’ve got them here,” he pointed to the bags, “a hundred flints. I bought them very cheap. Please, take as many as you like, or even all of them…” And suddenly, afraid that he had let his tongue run away with him, Petya stopped and blushed.
He began to recall whether he had done any other stupid things. And, going through his memories of that day, he stopped at the memory of the French drummer boy. “It’s fine for us, but how about him? Where have they put him? Have they fed him? Have they mistreated him?” he thought. But, realizing that he had gotten carried away with the flints, he was now wary.
“I could ask,” he thought, “but they’ll say: ‘He’s a boy himself and he feels sorry for a boy.’ I’ll show them tomorrow what sort of boy I am! Will it be shameful if I ask?” thought Petya. “Well, what difference does it make!”—and at once, blushing and looking fearfully at the officers to see if there was any mockery in their faces, he said:
“And can I call that boy you captured? to give him something to eat…maybe…”
“Yes, a pitiful lad,” said Denisov, obviously finding nothing shameful in this reminder. “Call him here. His name’s Vincent Bosse. Call him.”
“I’ll call him,” said Petya.
“Call him, call him. A pitiful lad,” Denisov repeated.
Petya was standing by the door when Denisov said that. He squeezed between the officers and went up close to Denisov.
“Allow me to kiss you, dear heart,” he said. “Ah, how excellent! how good!” And, having kissed Denisov, he ran outside.
“Bosse! Vincent!” cried Petya, stopping by the door.
“Who do you want, sir?” a voice said from the darkness. Petya replied that it was the French boy who had been captured that day.
“Ah! Vesenny?” said a Cossack.
His name, Vincent, had already been changed into Vesenny by the Cossacks, into Visenya by the muzhiks and soldiers. Both changes brought together a reminder of springtime4 with the idea of a young boy.
“He was warming up by the fire. Hey, Visenya! Visenya! Vesenny!” echoing voices and laughter were heard in the darkness.
“He’s a sharp little lad,” said a hussar who was standing by Petya. “We gave him something to eat earlier. He was dying of hunger!”
Footsteps were heard in the darkness, and the drummer boy, splashing barefoot through the mud, came up to the door.
“Ah, c’est vous!” said Petya. “Voulez-vous manger? N’ayez pas peur, on ne vous fera pas de mal,” he added, touching his hand timidly and tenderly. “Entrez, entrez.”*716
“Merci, monsieur,” the drummer boy replied in a trembling voice, almost a child’s, and began wiping his muddy feet on the threshold. Petya would have liked to say many things to the drummer boy, but he did not dare. He stood beside him in the front hall, shifting from foot to foot. Then he took his hand in the darkness and pressed it.
“Entrez, entrez,” he only repeated in a tender whisper.
“Ah, what can I do for him?” Petya said to himself and, opening the door, he let the boy go in past him.
When the drummer boy had entered the cottage, Petya sat down at some distance from him, considering that it was humiliating for him to pay attention to him. He only felt the money in his pocket, and wondered whether it would be shameful for him to give it