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IN THE EVENING of the same day a lively discussion was taking place in
Denisov's quarters between some officers of the squadron.
“But I tell you, Rostov, that you must apologise to the colonel,” the tall
staff-captain was saying, addressing Rostov, who was crimson with excitement.
The staff-captain, Kirsten, a man with grizzled hair, immense whiskers, thick
features and a wrinkled face, had been twice degraded to the ranks for affairs
of honour, and had twice risen again to holding a commission.
“I permit no one to tell me I'm lying!” cried Rostov. “He told me I was lying
and I told him he was lying. And there it rests. He can put me on duty every
day, he can place me under arrest, but no one can compel me to apologise,
because if he, as the colonel, considers it beneath his dignity to give me
satisfaction, then …”
“But you wait a bit, my good fellow; you listen to me,” interrupted the
staff-captain in his bass voice, calmly stroking his long whiskers. “You tell
the colonel in the presence of other officers that an officer has stolen—”
“I'm not to blame for the conversation being in the presence of other
officers. Possibly I ought not to have spoken before them, but I'm not a
diplomatist. That's just why I went into the hussars; I thought that here I
should have no need of such finicky considerations, and he tells me I'm a liar …
so let him give me satisfaction.”
“That's all very fine, no one imagines that you're a coward; but that's not
the point. Ask Denisov if it's not utterly out of the question for an ensign to
demand satisfaction of his colonel?”
Denisov was biting his moustache with a morose air, listening to the
conversation, evidently with no desire to take part in it. To the captain's
question, he replied by a negative shake of the head.
“You speak to the colonel in the presence of other officers of this dirty
business,” pursued the staff-captain. “Bogdanitch” (Bogdanitch was what they
called the colonel) “snubbed you …”
“No, he didn't. He said I was telling an untruth.”
“Quite so, and you talked nonsense to him, and you must apologise.”
“Not on any consideration!” shouted Rostov.
“I shouldn't have expected this of you,” said the staff-captain seriously and
severely. “You won't apologise, but, my good sir, it's not only him, but all the
regiment, all of us, that you've acted wrongly by; you're to blame all round.
Look here; if you'd only thought it over, and taken advice how to deal with the
matter, but you must go and blurt it all straight out before the officers. What
was the colonel to do then? Is he to bring the officer up for trial and disgrace
the whole regiment? On account of one scoundrel is the whole regiment to be put
to shame? Is that the thing for him to do, to your thinking? It is not to our
thinking. And Bogdanitch did the right thing. He told you that you were telling
an untruth. It's unpleasant, but what could he do? you brought it on yourself.
And now when they try to smooth the thing over, you're so high and mighty, you
won't apologise, and want to have the whole story out. You're huffy at being put
on duty, but what is it for you to apologise to an old and honourable officer!
Whatever Bogdanitch may be, any way he's an honourable and gallant old colonel;
you're offended at that, but disgracing the regiment's nothing to you.” The
staff-captain's voice began to quaver. “You, sir, have been next to no time in
the regiment; you're here to-day, and to-morrow you'll be passed on somewhere as
an adjutant; you don't care a straw for people saying: ‘There are thieves among
the Pavlograd officers!' But we do care! Don't we, Denisov? Do we care?”
Denisov still did not speak or stir; his gleaming black eyes glanced now and
then at Rostov.
“Your pride is dear to you, you don't want to apologise,” continued the
staff-captain, “but we old fellows, as we grew up in the regiment and, please
God, we hope to die in it, it's the honour of the regiment is dear to us, and
Bogdanitch knows that. Ah, isn't it dear to us! But this isn't right; it's not
right! You may take offence or not; but I always speak the plain truth. It's not
right!”
And the staff-captain got up and turned away from Rostov.
“That's the truth, damn it!” shouted Denisov, jumping up. “Come, Rostov,
come!”
Rostov, turning crimson and white again, looked first at one officer and then
at the other.
“No, gentlemen, no … you mustn't think … I quite understand, you're wrong in
thinking that of me … I … for me … for the honour of the regiment I'd … but why
talk? I'll prove that in action and for me the honour of the flag … well, never
mind, it's true, I'm to blame!” … There were tears in his eyes. “I'm wrong,
wrong all round! Well, what more do you want?” …
“Come, that's right, count,” cried the staff-captain, turning round and
clapping him on the shoulder with his big hand.
“I tell you,” shouted Denisov, “he's a capital fellow.”
‘That's better, count,” repeated the captain, beginning to address him by his
title as though in acknowledgment of his confession. “Go and apologise, your
excellency.”
“Gentlemen, I'll do anything, no one shall hear a word from me,” Rostov
protested in an imploring voice, “but I can't apologise, by God, I can't, say
what you will! How can I apologise, like a little boy begging pardon!”
Denisov laughed.
“It'll be the worse for you, if you don't. Bogdanitch doesn't forget things;
he'll make you pay for your obstinacy,” said Kirsten.
“By God, it's not obstinacy! I can't describe the feeling it gives me. I
can't do it.”
“Well, as you like,” said the staff-captain. “What has the scoundrel done
with himself?” he asked Denisov.
“He has reported himself ill; to-morrow the order's given for him to be
struck off,” said Denisov.
“It is an illness, there's no other way of explaining it,” said the
staff-captain.
“Whether it's illness or whether it's not, he'd better not cross my path—I'd
kill him,” Denisov shouted bloodthirstily.
Zherkov walked into the room.
“How do you come here?” the officers cried to the newcomer at once.
“To the front, gentlemen. Mack has surrendered with his whole army.”
“Nonsense!”
“I've seen him myself.”
“What? Seen Mack alive, with all his arms and legs?”
“To the front! to the front! Give him a bottle for such news. How did you
come here?”
“I've been dismissed back to the regiment again on account of that devil,
Mack. The Austrian general complained of me. I congratulated him on Mack's
arrival. … What is it, Rostov, you look as if you'd just come out of a hot
bath?”
“We've been in such a mess these last two days, old boy.”
The regimental adjutant came in and confirmed the news brought by Zherkov.
They were under orders to advance next day.
“To the front, gentlemen!”
“Well, thank God! we've been sticking here too long.”
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