War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [685]
Outside it was still quite dark. The rain had stopped long ago, but drops were still falling from the trees. Close to the guardhouse, he could see the black outlines of the Cossacks’ lean-tos and the horses tethered together. Behind the cottage, the two wagons showed black, with horses standing by them, and the dying fire glowed in the ravine. Not all the Cossacks and hussars were asleep: here and there, along with the sound of falling drops and the closer sound of horses munching, he could hear soft, as if whispering, voices.
Petya stepped out of the front hall, looked around in the darkness, and went over to the wagons. Someone was snoring under the wagons, and around them stood saddled horses, munching oats. In the darkness, Petya made out his horse, whom he called Karabakh, though it was a Little Russian horse,5 and went over to it.
“Well, Karabakh, tomorrow we’ll do some service,” he said, sniffing its nostrils and kissing it.
“What, master, you’re not asleep?” said a Cossack who was sitting under a wagon.
“No, but…your name is Likhachev, I believe? I’ve just come back. We took a ride to the French.”
And Petya told the Cossack in detail, not only about his ride, but also why he had gone and why he thought it was better to risk his life than to act any old way.
“Why don’t you get some sleep?” said the Cossack.
“No, I’m used to it,” Petya replied. “Maybe the flints in your pistols are worn out? I brought some with me. Don’t you need some? Take them.”
The Cossack stuck himself out from under the wagon to have a closer look at Petya.
“Because I like to do everything neatly,” said Petya. “Some do things just like that, anyhow, without preparing, and then they’re sorry. I don’t like that.”
“Right you are,” said the Cossack.
“And another thing: please sharpen my saber, dear heart; it’s gotten bl…” (but Petya was afraid to lie)—“it’s never been sharpened. Can it be done?”
“Why not?”
Likhachev stood up, rummaged in the packs, and Petya soon heard the martial sound of steel against a whetstone. He clambered onto the wagon and sat on its edge. The Cossack under the wagon was sharpening the saber.
“And what, are the lads asleep?” asked Petya.
“Some are, and some are like us.”
“Well, and what about the boy?”
“Vesenny? He’s there in the front hall, just dropped off. Fright makes you sleep. He was so glad.”
After that Petya was silent for a long time, listening to the sounds. Footsteps came from the darkness and a black figure appeared.
“What are you sharpening?” asked the man, coming up to the wagon.
“A saber for the master here.”
“That’s a good thing,” said the man, whom Petya took for a hussar. “Did I leave my bowl here?”
“There, by the wheel.”
The hussar took the bowl.
“Likely it’ll be light soon,” he said, yawning, and went off somewhere.
Petya ought to have known that he was in the forest, in Denisov’s party, a mile from the road, that he was sitting on a wagon captured from the French with horses tethered by it, and that under him sat the Cossack Likhachev, sharpening his saber, that the big black spot to the right was the guardhouse, and the bright red spot down to the left was the dying campfire, that the man who had come for the bowl was a hussar who wanted a drink; but he knew nothing of that and did not want to know. He was in a magic kingdom, in which there was nothing resembling reality. Maybe the big black spot was indeed the guardhouse, but maybe it was a cave that led into the very depths of the earth. Maybe the red spot was a fire, but maybe it was the eye of a huge monster. Maybe he is indeed sitting on a wagon now, but it very well may be that he is sitting, not on a wagon, but on a terribly tall tower, from which, if you fell, it would take you a whole day, a whole month, to reach the earth—you would keep falling and never get there. Maybe it is simply the Cossack Likhachev sitting under the wagon, but it very well may be that he is the kindest, bravest, most wonderful, most excellent man in the world, whom nobody knows. Maybe it was indeed a hussar who came for water and went back into