War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [76]
The company commander, not taking his eyes off his superior officer, pressed his two fingers more and more firmly to his visor, as if he now saw salvation only in this pressing.
“Well, why are you silent? Who have you got there dressed up like a Hungarian?” the regimental commander joked sternly.
“Your Excellency…”
“Well, ‘Your Excellency’ what? Your Excellency! Your Excellency! But Your Excellency what—nobody knows.”
“Your Excellency, it’s Dolokhov, who was reduced…” the captain said softly.
“What, he’s been reduced to a field marshal, is it, or to a common soldier? If it’s a common soldier, then he should be dressed in the proper uniform like everybody else.”
“Your Excellency, you yourself gave him permission for the march.”
“Permission? Permission? You young people are always that way,” said the regimental commander, cooling down a little. “Permission? Say something to you, and you…” The regimental commander paused. “Say something to you, and you…What?” he said, getting irritated again. “Kindly dress your men properly…”
And, having glanced at the adjutant, the regimental commander walked with his bouncing gait towards the regiment. It was clear that he liked his own irritation and that he wanted to walk the length of the regiment and find more pretexts for his wrath. Having snapped at one officer for an unpolished insignia, and another for an unevenness in one rank, he came to the third company.
“Ho-o-ow’s that you’re standing? Where’s your leg? Where’s your leg?” the regimental commander shouted with an expression of suffering in his voice, still five men away from Dolokhov, who was wearing a bluish greatcoat.
Dolokhov slowly straightened his bent leg and looked the general directly in the face with his light and insolent gaze.
“Why a blue greatcoat? Away!…Sergeant major! Have him changed…the dir…” He did not have time to finish.
“General, I am duty-bound to obey orders, but I am not duty-bound to put up with…” Dolokhov said hastily.
“No talking at attention!…No talking, no talking!…”
“Not duty-bound to put up with insults,” Dolokhov finished loudly and resoundingly.
The eyes of the general and the soldier met. The general said nothing, angrily pulling down on his tight sash.
“Kindly change, I ask you,” he said, walking away.
II
“He’s coming!” the signalman shouted just then.
The regimental commander, turning red, ran to his horse, took the stirrup in his trembling hands, threw his body over, straightened up, drew his sword, and, with a happy, resolute face, opening his mouth askew, prepared to shout. The regiment fluttered up briefly, like a bird preening itself, and grew still.
“Te-n-n-n-HUT!” shouted the regimental commander in a soul-shattering voice, overjoyed for himself, strict in regard to the regiment, and welcoming in regard to his approaching superior.
Down the wide, tree-lined, unpaved main road, rumbling slightly on its springs, a high, light-blue Viennese coach-and-six came driving at a quick canter. Behind the coach galloped the suite and a convoy of Croats. Beside Kutuzov sat an Austrian general in a white uniform, strange amidst the black Russian ones. The coach drew up by the regiment. Kutuzov and the Austrian general conversed quietly about something, and Kutuzov smiled slightly, at the same time stepping down heavily from the footboard, as if these two thousand men staring at him and at the regimental commander with bated breath did not exist.
A shout of command rang out, and again the regiment quivered, jingling, as it presented arms. In the dead silence, the weak voice of the commander in chief was heard. The regiment barked: “Long live Your Excellen-cellen-cellency!” And again everything grew still. At first Kutuzov stood in place while the regiment moved; then Kutuzov, with the white general beside him, on foot,