War And Peace: Book 5 - CHAPTER XV

作者: Leo Tolstoy

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Author: Leo Tolstoy

ON RETURNING this time from his leave, Rostov for the first time felt and

recognised how strong was the tie that bound him to Denisov and all his

regiment.

When Rostov reached the regiment, he experienced a sensation akin to what he

had felt on reaching his home at Moscow. When he caught sight of the first

hussar in the unbuttoned uniform of his regiment, when he recognised red-haired

Dementyev, and saw the picket ropes of the chestnut horses, when Lavrushka

gleefully shouted to his master, “The count has come!” and Denisov, who had been

asleep on his bed, ran all dishevelled out of the mud-hut, and embraced him, and

the officers gathered around to welcome the newcomer—Rostov felt the same

sensation as when his mother had embraced him, and his father and sisters, and

the tears of joy that rose in his throat prevented his speaking. The regiment

was a home, too, and a home as unchangeably dear and precious as the parental

home.

After reporting himself to his colonel, being assigned to his own squadron,

and serving on orderly duty and going for forage, after entering into all the

little interests of the regiment, and feeling himself deprived of liberty and

nailed down within one narrow, unchangeable framework, Rostov had the same

feeling of peace and of moral support and the same sense of being at home here,

and in his proper place, as he had once felt under his father's roof. Here was

none of all that confusion of the free world, where he did not know his proper

place, and made mistakes in exercising free choice. There was no Sonya, with

whom one ought or ought not to have a clear understanding. There was no

possibility of going to one place or to another. There were not twenty-four

hours every day which could be used in so many different ways. There were not

those innumerable masses of people of whom no one was nearer or further from

one. There were none of those vague and undefined money relations with his

father; no memories of his awful loss to Dolohov. Here in the regiment

everything was clear and simple. The whole world was divided into two unequal

parts: one, our Pavlograd regiment, and the other—all the remainder. And with

all that great remainder one had no concern. In the regiment everything was well

known: this man was a lieutenant, that one a captain; this was a good fellow and

that one was not; but most of all, every one was a comrade. The canteen keeper

would give him credit, his pay would come every four months. There was no need

of thought or of choice; one had only to do nothing that was considered low in

the Pavlograd regiment, and when occasion came, to do what was clear and

distinct, defined and commanded; and all would be well.

On becoming subject again to the definite regulations of regimental life,

Rostov had a sense of pleasure and relief, such as a weary man feels in lying

down to rest. The regimental life was the greater relief to Rostov on this

campaign, because after his loss to Dolohov (for which, in spite of his family's

efforts to console him, he could not forgive himself), he had resolved not to

serve as before, but to atone for his fault by good conduct, and by being a

thoroughly good soldier and officer, that is a good man, a task so difficult in

the world, but so possible in the regiment.

Rostov had determined to repay his gambling debt to his parents in the course

of five years. He had been sent ten thousand a year; now he had made up his mind

to take only two thousand, and to leave the remainder to repay the debt to his

parents.

After continual retreats, advances, and engagements at Pultusk and

Preussisch-Eylau, our army was concentrated about Bartenstein. They were waiting

for the arrival of the Tsar and the beginning of a new campaign.

The Pavlograd regiment, belonging to that part of the army which had been in

the campaign of 1805, had stayed behind in Russia to make up its full complement

of men, and did not arrive in time for the first actions of the campaign. It

took no part in the battles of Pultusk and of Preussisch-Eylau, and joining the

army in the field, in the second half of the campaign, was attached to Platov's

detachment.

Platov's detachment was acting independently of the main army. Several times

the Pavlograd hussars had taken part in skirmishes with the enemy, had captured

prisoners, and on one occasion had even carried off the carriages of Marshal

Oudinot. In April the Pavlograd hussars had for several weeks been encamped near

an utterly ruined, empty German village, and had not stirred from that

spot.

It was thawing, muddy, and cold, the ice had broken upon the river, the roads

had become impassable; for several days there had been neither provender for the

horses nor provisions for the men. Seeing that the transport of provisions was

impossible, the soldiers dispersed about the abandoned and desert villages to

try and find potatoes, but very few were to be found even of these.

Everything had been eaten up, and all the inhabitants of the district had

fled; those that remained were worse than beggars, and there was nothing to be

taken from them; indeed, the soldiers, although little given to compassion,

often gave their last ration to them.

The Pavlograd regiment had only lost two men wounded in action, but had lost

almost half its men from hunger and disease. In the hospitals they died so

invariably, that soldiers sick with fever or the swelling that came from bad

food, preferred to remain on duty, to drag their feeble limbs in the ranks,

rather than to go to the hospitals. As spring came on, the soldiers found a

plant growing out of the ground, like asparagus, which for some reason they

called Mary's sweet-root, and they wandered about the fields and meadows seeking

this Mary's sweet-root (which was very bitter). They dug it up with their swords

and ate it, in spite of all prohibition of this noxious root being eaten. In the

spring a new disease broke out among the soldiers, with swelling of the hands,

legs, and face, which the doctors attributed to eating this root. But in spite

of the prohibition, the soldiers of Denisov's squadron in particular ate a great

deal of the Mary's sweet-root, because they had been for a fortnight eking out

the last biscuits, giving out only half a pound a man, and the potatoes in the

last lot of stores were sprouting and rotten.

The horses, too, had for the last fortnight been fed on the thatched roofs of

the houses; they were hideously thin, and still covered with their shaggy,

winter coats, which were coming off in tufts.

In spite of their destitute condition, the soldiers and officers went on

living exactly as they always did. Just as always, though now with pale and

swollen faces and torn uniforms, the hussars were drawn up for calling over,

went out to collect forage, cleaned down their horses, and rubbed up their arms,

dragged in straw from the thatched roofs in place of fodder, and assembled for

dinner round the cauldrons, from which they rose up hungry, making jokes over

their vile food and their hunger. Just as ever, in their spare time off duty the

soldiers lighted camp-fires, and warmed themselves naked before them, smoked,

picked out and baked the sprouting, rotten potatoes, and told and heard either

stories of Potyomkin's and Suvorov's campaigns or popular legends of cunning

Alyoshka, and of the priests' workman, Mikolka.

The officers lived as usual in twos and threes in the roofless, broken-down

houses. The senior officers were busily engaged in trying to get hold of straw

and potatoes, and the means of sustenance for the soldiers generally, while the

younger ones spent their time as they always did, some over cards (money was

plentiful, though there was nothing to eat), others over more innocent games, a

sort of quoits and skittles. Of the general cause of the campaign little was

said, partly because nothing certain was known, partly because there was a vague

feeling that the war vas not going well.

Rostov lived as before with Denisov, and the bond of friendship between them

had become still closer since their furlough. Denisov never spoke of any of

Rostov's family, but from the tender affection the senior officer showed his

junior, Rostov felt that the older hussar's luckless passion for Natasha had

something to do with the strengthening of their friendship. There was no doubt

that Denisov tried to take care of Rostov, and to expose him as rarely as

possible to danger, and after action it was with unmistakable joy that he saw

him return safe and sound. On one of his foraging expeditions in a deserted and

ruined village to which he had come in search of provisions, Rostov found an old

Pole and his daughter with a tiny baby. They were without clothes or food; they

had not the strength to go away on foot, and had no means of getting driven

away. Rostov brought them to his camp, installed them in his own quarters, and

maintained them for several weeks till the old man was better. One of Rostov's

comrades, talking of women, began to rally him on the subject, declaring that he

was the slyest fellow of the lot, and that he ought to be ashamed not to have

introduced his comrades, too, to the pretty Polish woman he had rescued. Rostov

took the jest as an insult, and firing up, said such unpleasant things to the

officer, that Denisov had much ado to prevent a duel. When the officer had gone

away, and Denisov, who knew nothing himself of Rostov's relations with the

Polish woman, began to scold him for his hastiness, Rostov said to him: “Say

what you like.… She was like a sister to me, and I can't tell you how sick it

made me … because … well, just because …”

Denisov slapped him on the shoulder, and fell to walking rapidly up and down

the room not looking at Rostov, which was what he always did at moments of

emotional excitement. “What a jolly lot of fools all you Rostovs are,” he said,

and Rostov saw tears in Denisov's eyes.

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