Page:War and Peace.djvu/609

Rh of this subject which irritated Denísov. “Now, why have you kept this lad?” he went on, swaying his head. “Because you are sorry for him! Don't we know those 'receipts' of yours? You send a hundred men away, and thirty get there. The rest either starve or get killed. So isn't it all the same not to send them?”

The esaul, screwing up his light-colored eyes, nodded approvingly.

“That's not the point. I'm not going to discuss the matter. I do not wish to take it on my conscience. You say they'll die. All wight. Only not by my fault!”

Dólokhov began laughing.

“Who has told them not to capture me these twenty times over? But if they did catch me they'd string me up to an aspen tree, and you with all your chivalry just the same.” He paused. “However, we must get to work. Tell the Cossack to fetch my kit. I have two French uniforms in it. Well, are you coming with me?” he asked Pétya.

“I? Yes, yes, certainly!” cried Pétya, blushing almost to tears and glancing at Denísov.

While Dólokhov had been disputing with Denísov what should be done with prisoners, Pétya had once more felt awkward and restless; but again he had no time to grasp fully what they were talking about. “If grown-up, distinguished men think so, it must be necessary and right,” thought he. “But above all Denísov must not dare to imagine that I'll obey him and that he can order me about. I will certainly go to the French camp with Dólokhov. If he can, so can I!”

And to all Denísov's persuasions, Pétya replied that he too was accustomed to do everything accurately and not just anyhow, and that he never considered personal danger.

“For you'll admit that if we don't know for sure how many of them there are hundreds of lives may depend on it, while there are only two of us. Besides, I want to go very much and certainly will go, so don't hinder me,” said he. “It will only make things worse.”

CHAPTER IX

French greatcoats and shakos, Pétya and Dólokhov rode to the clearing from which Denísov had reconnoitered the French camp, and emerging from the forest in pitch darkness they descended into the hollow. On reaching the bottom, Dólokhov told the Cossacks accompanying him to await him there and rode on at a quick trot along the road to the bridge. Pétya, his heart in his mouth with excitement, rode by his side.

“If we're caught, I won't be taken alive! I have a pistol,” whispered he.

“Don't talk Russian,” said Dólokhov in a hurried whisper, and at that very moment they heard through the darkness the challenge: “Qui vive?” and the click of a musket.

The blood rushed to Pétya's face and he grasped his pistol.

“Lanciers du 6-me,” replied Dólokhov, neither hastening nor slackening his horse's pace.

The black figure of a sentinel stood on the bridge.

“Mot d'ordre.”

Dólokhov reined in his horse and advanced at a walk.

“Dites done, le colonel Gérard est ici?” he asked.

“Mot d'ordre,” repeated the sentinel, barring the way and not replying.

“Quand un officier fait sa ronde, les sentinelles ne demandent pas le mot d'ordre” cried Dólokhov suddenly flaring up and riding straight at the sentinel. “Je vous demande si le colonel est ici.”

And without waiting for an answer from the sentinel, who had stepped aside, Dólokhov rode up the incline at a walk.

Noticing the black outline of a man crossing the road, Dólokhov stopped him and inquired where the commander and officers were. The man, a soldier with a sack over his shoulder, stopped, came close up to Dólkhov's horse, touched it with his hand, and explained simply and in a friendly way that the commander and the officers were higher up the hill to the right in the courtyard of the farm, as he called the landowner's house.

Having ridden up the road, on both sides of which French talk could be heard around the campfires, Dólokhov turned into the courtyard of the landowner's house. Having ridden in, he dismounted and approached a big blazing campfire, around which sat several men talking noisily. Something was boiling in a small cauldron at the edge of the fire and a soldier in a peaked cap and blue overcoat, lit up by the fire, was kneeling beside it stirring its contents with a ramrod.