Bab Bab 203 · 第203章
On the seventeenth of August Rostóv and Ilyín, accompanied by Lavrúshka
who had just returned from captivity and by an hussar orderly, left
their quarters at Yankóvo, ten miles from Boguchárovo, and went for a
ride—to try a new horse Ilyín had bought and to find out whether there
was any hay to be had in the villages.
For the last three days Boguchárovo had lain between the two hostile
armies, so that it was as easy for the Russian rearguard to get to it as
for the French vanguard; Rostóv, as a careful squadron commander, wished
to take such provisions as remained at Boguchárovo before the French
could get them.
Rostóv and Ilyín were in the merriest of moods. On the way to
Boguchárovo, a princely estate with a dwelling house and farm where
they hoped to find many domestic serfs and pretty girls, they questioned
Lavrúshka about Napoleon and laughed at his stories, and raced one
another to try Ilyín’s horse.
Rostóv had no idea that the village he was entering was the property of
that very Bolkónski who had been engaged to his sister.
Rostóv and Ilyín gave rein to their horses for a last race along the
incline before reaching Boguchárovo, and Rostóv, outstripping Ilyín, was
the first to gallop into the village street.
“You’re first!” cried Ilyín, flushed.
“Yes, always first both on the grassland and here,” answered Rostóv,
stroking his heated Donéts horse.
“And I’d have won on my Frenchy, your excellency,” said Lavrúshka
from behind, alluding to his shabby cart horse, “only I didn’t wish to
mortify you.”
They rode at a footpace to the barn, where a large crowd of peasants was
standing.
Some of the men bared their heads, others stared at the new arrivals
without doffing their caps. Two tall old peasants with wrinkled faces
and scanty beards emerged from the tavern, smiling, staggering, and
singing some incoherent song, and approached the officers.
“Fine fellows!” said Rostóv laughing. “Is there any hay here?”
“And how like one another,” said Ilyín.
“A mo-o-st me-r-r-y co-o-m-pa...!” sang one of the peasants with a
blissful smile.
One of the men came out of the crowd and went up to Rostóv.
“Who do you belong to?” he asked.
“The French,” replied Ilyín jestingly, “and here is Napoleon
himself”—and he pointed to Lavrúshka.
“Then you are Russians?” the peasant asked again.
“And is there a large force of you here?” said another, a short man,
coming up.
“Very large,” answered Rostóv. “But why have you collected here?” he
added. “Is it a holiday?”
“The old men have met to talk over the business of the commune,” replied
the peasant, moving away.
At that moment, on the road leading from the big house, two women and a
man in a white hat were seen coming toward the officers.
“The one in pink is mine, so keep off!” said Ilyín on seeing Dunyásha
running resolutely toward him.
“She’ll be ours!” said Lavrúshka to Ilyín, winking.
“What do you want, my pretty?” said Ilyín with a smile.
“The princess ordered me to ask your regiment and your name.”
“This is Count Rostóv, squadron commander, and I am your humble
servant.”
“Co-o-om-pa-ny!” roared the tipsy peasant with a beatific smile as
he looked at Ilyín talking to the girl. Following Dunyásha, Alpátych
advanced to Rostóv, having bared his head while still at a distance.
“May I make bold to trouble your honor?” said he respectfully, but with
a shade of contempt for the youthfulness of this officer and with a hand
thrust into his bosom. “My mistress, daughter of General in Chief Prince
Nicholas Bolkónski who died on the fifteenth of this month, finding
herself in difficulties owing to the boorishness of these people”—he
pointed to the peasants—“asks you to come up to the house.... Won’t
you, please, ride on a little farther,” said Alpátych with a melancholy
smile, “as it is not convenient in the presence of...?” He pointed to
the two peasants who kept as close to him as horseflies to a horse.
“Ah!... Alpátych... Ah, Yákov Alpátych... Grand! Forgive us for Christ’s
sake, eh?” said the peasants, smiling joyfully at him.
Rostóv looked at the tipsy peasants and smiled.
“Or perhaps they amuse your honor?” remarked Alpátych with a staid air,
as he pointed at the old men with his free hand.
“No, there’s not much to be amused at here,” said Rostóv, and rode on a
little way. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I make bold to inform your honor that the rude peasants here don’t
wish to let the mistress leave the estate, and threaten to unharness her
horses, so that though everything has been packed up since morning, her
excellency cannot get away.”
“Impossible!” exclaimed Rostóv.
“I have the honor to report to you the actual truth,” said Alpátych.
Rostóv dismounted, gave his horse to the orderly, and followed Alpátych
to the house, questioning him as to the state of affairs. It appeared
that the princess’ offer of corn to the peasants the previous day, and
her talk with Dron and at the meeting, had actually had so bad an effect
that Dron had finally given up the keys and joined the peasants and had
not appeared when Alpátych sent for him; and that in the morning when
the princess gave orders to harness for her journey, the peasants had
come in a large crowd to the barn and sent word that they would not let
her leave the village: that there was an order not to move, and that
they would unharness the horses. Alpátych had gone out to admonish them,
but was told (it was chiefly Karp who did the talking, Dron not showing
himself in the crowd) that they could not let the princess go, that
there was an order to the contrary, but that if she stayed they would
serve her as before and obey her in everything.
At the moment when Rostóv and Ilyín were galloping along the road,
Princess Mary, despite the dissuasions of Alpátych, her nurse, and the
maids, had given orders to harness and intended to start, but when the
cavalrymen were espied they were taken for Frenchmen, the coachman ran
away, and the women in the house began to wail.
“Father! Benefactor! God has sent you!” exclaimed deeply moved voices as
Rostóv passed through the anteroom.
Princess Mary was sitting helpless and bewildered in the large sitting
room, when Rostóv was shown in. She could not grasp who he was and why
he had come, or what was happening to her. When she saw his Russian
face, and by his walk and the first words he uttered recognized him as a
man of her own class, she glanced at him with her deep radiant look and
began speaking in a voice that faltered and trembled with emotion. This
meeting immediately struck Rostóv as a romantic event. “A helpless girl
overwhelmed with grief, left to the mercy of coarse, rioting peasants!
And what a strange fate sent me here! What gentleness and nobility there
are in her features and expression!” thought he as he looked at her and
listened to her timid story.
When she began to tell him that all this had happened the day after her
father’s funeral, her voice trembled. She turned away, and then, as if
fearing he might take her words as meant to move him to pity, looked at
him with an apprehensive glance of inquiry. There were tears in Rostóv’s
eyes. Princess Mary noticed this and glanced gratefully at him with that
radiant look which caused the plainness of her face to be forgotten.
“I cannot express, Princess, how glad I am that I happened to ride here
and am able to show my readiness to serve you,” said Rostóv, rising. “Go
when you please, and I give you my word of honor that no one shall dare
to cause you annoyance if only you will allow me to act as your escort.”
And bowing respectfully, as if to a lady of royal blood, he moved toward
the door.
Rostóv’s deferential tone seemed to indicate that though he would
consider himself happy to be acquainted with her, he did not wish to
take advantage of her misfortunes to intrude upon her.
Princess Mary understood this and appreciated his delicacy.
“I am very, very grateful to you,” she said in French, “but I hope it
was all a misunderstanding and that no one is to blame for it.” She
suddenly began to cry.
“Excuse me!” she said.
Rostóv, knitting his brows, left the room with another low bow.