War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [78]
The third company was the last, and Kutuzov fell to thinking, evidently recalling something. Prince Andrei stepped from among the suite and said quietly in French:
“You asked me to remind you about the demoted officer Dolokhov in this regiment.”
“Where’s this Dolokhov?” asked Kutuzov.
Dolokhov, now changed into a gray soldier’s greatcoat, did not wait to be called out. The trim figure of the fair-haired soldier with clear blue eyes stepped from the line. He went up to the commander in chief and presented arms.
“A grievance?” Kutuzov asked, frowning slightly.
“This is Dolokhov,” said Prince Andrei.
“Ah!” said Kutuzov. “I hope this lesson will set you straight. Serve well. Our sovereign is merciful. And I won’t forget you, if you prove worthy.”
The blue, clear eyes looked at the commander in chief just as boldly as at the regimental commander, as if tearing by their expression the curtain of convention that had so widely separated the commander in chief from the soldier.
“I ask only one thing, Your Excellency,” he said in his firm, sonorous, unhurried voice. “I ask to be given a chance to wipe out my guilt and prove my devotion to the sovereign and to Russia.”
Kutuzov turned away. The same smile of the eyes flashed over his face as when he had turned away from Captain Timokhin. He turned away and winced, as if wishing to express thereby that all that Dolokhov had said to him and all that he could say had long, long been known to him, that it all bored him, and that it was all by no means what was needed. He turned away and made for the coach.
The regiment broke up into companies and dispersed to their assigned quarters not far from Braunau, where they hoped to find footgear, mend their clothes, and get some rest after their hard marching.
“Don’t hold it against me, Prokhor Ignatych!” said the regimental commander, circling around the third company, which was moving to its quarters, and riding up to Captain Timokhin, who was walking at the head of it. The face of the regimental commander, after the happily passed-off review, expressed irrepressible joy. “The tsar’s service…impossible…sometimes one gets snappish on parade…I’m the first to apologize, you know me…He was very grateful!” And he held out his hand to the company commander.
“Mercy, General, I wouldn’t be so bold!” replied the captain, his nose reddening, smiling and revealing with his smile the absence of his two front teeth, knocked out by a rifle butt at Izmail.
“And tell Mr. Dolokhov that I won’t forget him, he should rest easy. And tell me, please, I keep forgetting to ask, how is he, how does he behave? And all…”
“He’s very correct in his service, Your Excellency…but his charickter…” said Timokhin.
“What, what about his character?” asked the regimental commander.
“It comes over him, Your Excellency, some days,” said the captain. “He’s clever, and learned, and kind. And then he’s a beast. In Poland he all but killed a Jew, if you want to know…”
“Well, yes, yes,” said the regimental commander, “still one must pity the young fellow in his misfortune. Big connections…So you just…”
“Right, Your Excellency,” said Timokhin, his smile letting it be felt that he understood his superior’s wishes.
“Well, yes, yes.”
The regimental commander sought out Dolokhov in the ranks and reined in his horse.
“With the first action—epaulettes,” he said to him.
Dolokhov looked, said nothing, and did not change the expression of his mockingly smiling mouth.
“Well, that’s fine,” the regimental commander went on. “The men get a glass of vodka each from me,” he added loudly, so that the soldiers could hear. “I’m grateful to you all! Thank God!” And, going ahead of the company, he rode to the next one.
“Why, he’s really a good man, you can serve with him,” Timokhin said to a subaltern officer who was walking beside him.
“All heart, in a word!…” the subaltern officer said, laughing (the regimental commander’s nickname was “the King of Hearts”).
The happy state of mind of the officers after the review passed itself on to the soldiers. The company walked along merrily.