Kabanata Kabanata 179 · 第179章

Before the beginning of the campaign, Rostóv had received a letter from

his parents in which they told him briefly of Natásha’s illness and the

breaking off of her engagement to Prince Andrew (which they explained by

Natásha’s having rejected him) and again asked Nicholas to retire from

the army and return home. On receiving this letter, Nicholas did not

even make any attempt to get leave of absence or to retire from the

army, but wrote to his parents that he was sorry Natásha was ill and her

engagement broken off, and that he would do all he could to meet their

wishes. To Sónya he wrote separately.

“Adored friend of my soul!” he wrote. “Nothing but honor could keep

me from returning to the country. But now, at the commencement of the

campaign, I should feel dishonored, not only in my comrades’ eyes but

in my own, if I preferred my own happiness to my love and duty to the

Fatherland. But this shall be our last separation. Believe me, directly

the war is over, if I am still alive and still loved by you, I will

throw up everything and fly to you, to press you forever to my ardent

breast.”

It was, in fact, only the commencement of the campaign that prevented

Rostóv from returning home as he had promised and marrying Sónya. The

autumn in Otrádnoe with the hunting, and the winter with the Christmas

holidays and Sónya’s love, had opened out to him a vista of tranquil

rural joys and peace such as he had never known before, and which now

allured him. “A splendid wife, children, a good pack of hounds, a

dozen leashes of smart borzois, agriculture, neighbors, service by

election...” thought he. But now the campaign was beginning, and he had

to remain with his regiment. And since it had to be so, Nicholas Rostóv,

as was natural to him, felt contented with the life he led in the

regiment and was able to find pleasure in that life.

On his return from his furlough Nicholas, having been joyfully welcomed

by his comrades, was sent to obtain remounts and brought back from the

Ukraine excellent horses which pleased him and earned him commendation

from his commanders. During his absence he had been promoted captain,

and when the regiment was put on war footing with an increase in

numbers, he was again allotted his old squadron.

The campaign began, the regiment was moved into Poland on double pay,

new officers arrived, new men and horses, and above all everybody was

infected with the merrily excited mood that goes with the commencement

of a war, and Rostóv, conscious of his advantageous position in the

regiment, devoted himself entirely to the pleasures and interests of

military service, though he knew that sooner or later he would have to

relinquish them.

The troops retired from Vílna for various complicated reasons of state,

political and strategic. Each step of the retreat was accompanied by

a complicated interplay of interests, arguments, and passions at

headquarters. For the Pávlograd hussars, however, the whole of this

retreat during the finest period of summer and with sufficient supplies

was a very simple and agreeable business.

It was only at headquarters that there was depression, uneasiness, and

intriguing; in the body of the army they did not ask themselves where

they were going or why. If they regretted having to retreat, it was only

because they had to leave billets they had grown accustomed to, or some

pretty young Polish lady. If the thought that things looked bad chanced

to enter anyone’s head, he tried to be as cheerful as befits a good

soldier and not to think of the general trend of affairs, but only of

the task nearest to hand. First they camped gaily before Vílna, making

acquaintance with the Polish landowners, preparing for reviews and being

reviewed by the Emperor and other high commanders. Then came an order

to retreat to Sventsyáni and destroy any provisions they could not carry

away with them. Sventsyáni was remembered by the hussars only as the

drunken camp, a name the whole army gave to their encampment there,

and because many complaints were made against the troops, who, taking

advantage of the order to collect provisions, took also horses,

carriages, and carpets from the Polish proprietors. Rostóv remembered

Sventsyáni, because on the first day of their arrival at that small town

he changed his sergeant major and was unable to manage all the drunken

men of his squadron who, unknown to him, had appropriated five barrels

of old beer. From Sventsyáni they retired farther and farther to Drissa,

and thence again beyond Drissa, drawing near to the frontier of Russia

proper.

On the thirteenth of July the Pávlograds took part in a serious action

for the first time.

On the twelfth of July, on the eve of that action, there was a heavy

storm of rain and hail. In general, the summer of 1812 was remarkable

for its storms.

The two Pávlograd squadrons were bivouacking on a field of rye, which

was already in ear but had been completely trodden down by cattle and

horses. The rain was descending in torrents, and Rostóv, with a young

officer named Ilyín, his protégé, was sitting in a hastily constructed

shelter. An officer of their regiment, with long mustaches extending

onto his cheeks, who after riding to the staff had been overtaken by the

rain, entered Rostóv’s shelter.

“I have come from the staff, Count. Have you heard of Raévski’s

exploit?”

And the officer gave them details of the Saltánov battle, which he had

heard at the staff.

Rostóv, smoking his pipe and turning his head about as the water

trickled down his neck, listened inattentively, with an occasional

glance at Ilyín, who was pressing close to him. This officer, a lad

of sixteen who had recently joined the regiment, was now in the same

relation to Nicholas that Nicholas had been to Denísov seven years

before. Ilyín tried to imitate Rostóv in everything and adored him as a

girl might have done.

Zdrzhinski, the officer with the long mustache, spoke grandiloquently of

the Saltánov dam being “a Russian Thermopylae,” and of how a deed worthy

of antiquity had been performed by General Raévski. He recounted how

Raévski had led his two sons onto the dam under terrific fire and had

charged with them beside him. Rostóv heard the story and not only said

nothing to encourage Zdrzhinski’s enthusiasm but, on the contrary,

looked like a man ashamed of what he was hearing, though with no

intention of contradicting it. Since the campaigns of Austerlitz and

of 1807 Rostóv knew by experience that men always lie when describing

military exploits, as he himself had done when recounting them; besides

that, he had experience enough to know that nothing happens in war at

all as we can imagine or relate it. And so he did not like Zdrzhinski’s

tale, nor did he like Zdrzhinski himself who, with his mustaches

extending over his cheeks, bent low over the face of his hearer, as was

his habit, and crowded Rostóv in the narrow shanty. Rostóv looked at him

in silence. “In the first place, there must have been such a confusion

and crowding on the dam that was being attacked that if Raévski did lead

his sons there, it could have had no effect except perhaps on some dozen

men nearest to him,” thought he, “the rest could not have seen how or

with whom Raévski came onto the dam. And even those who did see it

would not have been much stimulated by it, for what had they to do with

Raévski’s tender paternal feelings when their own skins were in danger?

And besides, the fate of the Fatherland did not depend on whether

they took the Saltánov dam or not, as we are told was the case at

Thermopylae. So why should he have made such a sacrifice? And why expose

his own children in the battle? I would not have taken my brother Pétya

there, or even Ilyín, who’s a stranger to me but a nice lad, but would

have tried to put them somewhere under cover,” Nicholas continued

to think, as he listened to Zdrzhinski. But he did not express his

thoughts, for in such matters, too, he had gained experience. He knew

that this tale redounded to the glory of our arms and so one had to

pretend not to doubt it. And he acted accordingly.

“I can’t stand this any more,” said Ilyín, noticing that Rostóv did not

relish Zdrzhinski’s conversation. “My stockings and shirt... and the

water is running on my seat! I’ll go and look for shelter. The rain

seems less heavy.”

Ilyín went out and Zdrzhinski rode away.

Five minutes later Ilyín, splashing through the mud, came running back

to the shanty.

“Hurrah! Rostóv, come quick! I’ve found it! About two hundred yards away

there’s a tavern where ours have already gathered. We can at least get

dry there, and Mary Hendríkhovna’s there.”

Mary Hendríkhovna was the wife of the regimental doctor, a pretty young

German woman he had married in Poland. The doctor, whether from lack

of means or because he did not like to part from his young wife in

the early days of their marriage, took her about with him wherever the

hussar regiment went and his jealousy had become a standing joke among

the hussar officers.

Rostóv threw his cloak over his shoulders, shouted to Lavrúshka to

follow with the things, and—now slipping in the mud, now splashing right

through it—set off with Ilyín in the lessening rain and the darkness

that was occasionally rent by distant lightning.

“Rostóv, where are you?”

“Here. What lightning!” they called to one another.