War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [87]
The lieutenant was sitting in the second room of the tavern over a plate of sausage and a bottle of wine.
“Ah, you’ve come, too, young man,” he said, smiling and raising his eyebrows high.
“Yes,” said Rostov, as if it cost him great effort to utter this word, and sat at the next table.
Both were silent; there were two Germans in the room and a Russian officer. Everyone was silent, and only the clank of knives against plates was heard and the lieutenant’s chomping. When Telyanin finished his lunch, he took a double purse from his pocket, opened the clasp with his small, white, upturned fingers, took out a gold coin and, raising his eyebrows, gave it to the waiter.
“Make it quick, please,” he said.
The coin was a new one. Rostov got up and went over to Telyanin.
“May I look at your purse?” he said in a low, barely audible voice.
With shifty eyes, but still raising his eyebrows, Telyanin handed him the purse.
“Yes, a pretty purse…Yes…yes…” he said and suddenly turned pale. “Have a look, young man,” he added.
Rostov took the purse in his hands and looked at it, and at the money that was in it, and at Telyanin. The lieutenant glanced about, as was his habit, and suddenly seemed to become very merry.
“If we get to Vienna, I’ll leave it all there, but there’s nothing to do with it in these trashy little towns,” he said. “Well, young man, give it to me, I’m leaving.”
Rostov was silent.
“And why are you here? Also to have lunch? The food’s quite good,” Telyanin went on. “Give it to me.”
He reached out and put his hand on the purse. Rostov let go of it. Telyanin took the purse and began to lower it into the pocket of his riding breeches, his eyebrows raised casually, and his mouth slightly open, as if he was saying: “Yes, yes, I’m putting my purse in my pocket, and it’s quite simple, and it’s nobody’s business.”
“Well, then, young man?” he said, sighing and looking into Rostov’s eyes from under his raised eyebrows. Some sort of light, quick as an electric spark, passed from Telyanin’s eyes to the eyes of Rostov and back, and forth and back again, all in an instant.
“Come here,” said Rostov, seizing Telyanin by the arm. He almost dragged him to the window. “That’s Denisov’s money, you took it…” he whispered in his ear.
“What?…What?…How dare you? What?…” said Telyanin.
But these words sounded like a pitiful, desperate cry and a plea for forgiveness. As soon as Rostov heard the sound of that voice, a huge burden of doubt fell from his soul. He felt joy and in the same instant also pity for the wretched man standing before him; but he had to bring the matter he had begun to a conclusion.
“God knows what the people here may think,” Telyanin murmured, seizing his peaked cap and going into a small empty room, “we must have a talk…”
“I know it and I’ll prove it,” said Rostov.
“I…”
Every muscle in Telyanin’s frightened, pale face began to quiver; his eyes shifted as before, but somewhere low down, not rising to Rostov’s face, and there was a sound of sobbing.
“Count!…don’t ruin…a young man…here’s this wretched…money, take it…” He threw it on the table. “I have an old father, a mother!…”
Rostov took the money, avoiding Telyanin’s eyes, and, not saying a word, started out of the room. But at the door he stopped and came back.
“My God,” he said, with tears in his eyes, “how could you have done it?”
“Count…” said Telyanin, going up to the junker.
“Don’t touch me,” said Rostov, drawing back. “If you need the money, take it.” He flung the purse at him and ran out of the tavern.
V
On the evening of the same day, an animated conversation was going on among the squadron officers in Denisov’s quarters.
“And I tell you, Rostov, that you’ve got to apologize to the regimental commander,” said a tall staff captain with grizzled hair, enormous mustaches, and a large-featured, wrinkled