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Volume II, Part Two, Chapter XIV

In April the troops were cheered by news of the Tsar's arrival at the army. Rostov did not manage to get to the review the Tsar held at Bartenstein: the Pavlogradians were at the outposts, far ahead of Bartenstein.

They were encamped in bivouacs. Denisov and Rostov lived in a dugout the soldiers had dug for them, covered with branches and turf. The dugout was built in the following manner, which had lately come into fashion: a trench was dug an arshin and a half wide, two arshins deep, and three and a half long. Steps were cut at one end, and this was the entrance porch; the trench itself was the room, in which the fortunate ones, like the squadron commander, had a plank resting on pegs at the far end opposite the steps — this was the table. On both sides along the trench a further arshin of earth was dug away, and this made two beds and sofas. The roof was arranged so that one could stand upright in the middle, and could even sit up on the bed if one shifted closer to the table. Denisov, who lived in luxury because his squadron's soldiers adored him, also had a board across the gable end of the roof, with a cracked but glued-together pane of glass set into it. When it was very cold, coals were brought from the soldiers' fires on a bent iron sheet to the steps — to the "reception room," as Denisov called that part of the shelter — and it became so warm that the officers, of whom there were always many at Denisov's and Rostov's, would sit about in their shirtsleeves.

In April Rostov was on duty. At about eight in the morning, returning home after a sleepless night, he had coals brought in, changed his underclothes soaked through with rain, said his prayers, drank his tea, warmed up, put his things in order in his corner and on the table, and lay down on his back with his hands clasped behind his head, his weathered, flushed face turned upward, wearing only his shirt. He was pleasantly pondering that his next promotion, due for the most recent reconnaissance, ought to come through any day now, and he was waiting for Denisov, who had gone out somewhere.

Behind the shelter Denisov's rolling shout was heard, evidently greatly heated. Rostov moved to the window to see with whom he had business, and caught sight of the warrant officer Topcheyenko.

"I ordered you not to let them gobble up that root — some Mashkin thing!" Denisov was shouting. "I saw it myself — Lazarchuk was dragging it in from the field."

"I gave the order, Your Honour — they won't listen," answered the warrant officer.

Rostov lay back on his bed with satisfaction and thought: "Let him fuss and bustle — I've done my work and I'm lying down — splendid!" Through the wall he could hear that, besides the warrant officer, Lavrushka was speaking too — Denisov's lively and roguish lackey. Lavrushka was telling about some wagons, rusks, and oxen he had seen when he rode out for provisions.

Again from behind the shelter came the receding sound of Denisov's shout and the words: "Saddle up! Second platoon!"

"Where are they off to?" thought Rostov.

Five minutes later Denisov came into the shelter, climbed with muddy boots onto the bed, angrily smoked his pipe, scattered all his things about, strapped on his riding whip and sabre, and started for the door. To Rostov's question — where? — he answered angrily and vaguely that there was business to attend to.

"May God and the great Sovereign judge me for it!" said Denisov, going out; and Rostov heard the feet of several horses splashing through the mud behind the shelter. Rostov did not even bother to find out where Denisov had gone. He warmed up in his corner, fell asleep, and only came out of the shelter toward evening. Denisov had still not returned. The evening had cleared; near a neighbouring dugout two officers and a cadet were playing a ring-peg game, laughing as they drove radishes into the loose muddy earth as targets. Rostov joined them. In the middle of the game the officers caught sight of wagons approaching — some fifteen hussars on thin horses followed behind them. The wagons, escorted by the hussars, drew up to the picket-lines, and a crowd of hussars gathered around them.

"Well — there, Denisov was always fretting," said Rostov, "and here the provisions have arrived."

"So they have!" said the officers. "How glad the soldiers will be!" — Just behind the hussars rode Denisov, accompanied by two infantry officers with whom he was talking about something. Rostov went out to meet him.

"I am warning you, Captain," said one of the officers, a thin, short man who was evidently embittered.

"I've said it — I'm not giving it back," answered Denisov.

"You will answer for this, Captain — it is mutiny, seizing your own side's transport! Our men haven't eaten for two days."

"And mine haven't eaten for two weeks," answered Denisov.

"This is brigandage — you will answer for this, my dear sir!" the infantry officer repeated, raising his voice.

"What do you keep hounding me for? Eh?" cried Denisov, suddenly flaring up. "I'll answer for it, not you — and you, clear off while you're still in one piece. March!" he shouted at the officers.

"Right then!" the little officer shouted without retreating and without riding away. "If it's robbery, then I'll..."

"To the devil — march at the double while you're in one piece." And Denisov turned his horse toward the officer.

"All right, all right," said the officer with a threat, and turning his horse rode off at a trot, bouncing in the saddle.

"A dog on a fence — a live dog on a fence," Denisov called after him — the supreme cavalry insult for an infantryman on horseback — and, riding up to Rostov, burst out laughing.

"Seized it from the infantry, seized the transport by force!" he said. "Well — are men to drop dead with hunger?"

The wagons that had arrived with the hussars had been assigned to an infantry regiment, but having learned through Lavrushka that this transport was travelling alone, Denisov had seized it by force with his hussars. The soldiers were issued all the hardtack they wanted, and some was shared with the other squadrons too.

The next day the regimental commander called Denisov in and said to him, shielding his open eyes with spread fingers: "I am looking at this business like so — I know nothing and will start no proceedings; but I advise you to ride to headquarters and in the commissariat department settle this matter, and if possible to sign a receipt that you received so much in provisions; otherwise the requisition stands on record against the infantry regiment: the matter will be taken up and may end badly."

Denisov went directly from the regimental commander to headquarters, with a sincere desire to follow his advice. That evening he returned to his dugout in such a state as Rostov had never before seen his friend in. Denisov could not speak and was gasping for breath. When Rostov asked him what had happened, he could only utter, in a hoarse and feeble voice, unintelligible oaths and threats.

Alarmed by Denisov's condition, Rostov urged him to undress, drink some water, and sent for the regimental doctor.

"Trying me for brigandage — ugh! Give me more water — let them try me, I always have and always will thrash scoundrels, and I'll tell the Tsar himself. Bring me some ice," he kept saying.

The regimental doctor who came announced that it was necessary to bleed him. A deep plate of dark blood was drawn from Denisov's hairy arm, and only then was he able to tell what had happened to him.

"I arrive," Denisov recounted. "'Now, where is your commanding officer?' They pointed him out. 'Would you be so kind as to wait?' 'I'm on duty, I've come thirty versts, I haven't time to wait — announce me.' Good — out comes this chief-thief: he too thought he'd lecture me: 'This is brigandage!' 'Brigandage,' I say, 'is not done by the man who takes provisions to feed his soldiers, but by the man who takes them to line his own pockets!' Good. 'Sign a receipt,' he says, 'at the commissary's office, and your case will be passed up the chain of command.' I go to the commissary's. I walk in — behind the table sits... who do I find?! No, just imagine!... Who is it that's been starving us?" shouted Denisov, banging the fist of his wounded arm on the table so hard the table nearly toppled and the glasses leaped off it. "Telyanin!! 'What — you're the one starving us?!' One, two — across the face, it landed just right... 'Ah!... you so-and-so...' and I laid into him! I've had a fine time, I can tell you," cried Denisov, baring his white teeth fiercely and joyfully from beneath his black moustaches. "I would have killed him if they hadn't pulled me off."

"Do stop shouting — calm yourself," said Rostov; "look — you're bleeding again. Hold on, it has to be bandaged."

Denisov was bandaged and put to bed. The next day he woke up cheerful and calm.

But at noon the regimental adjutant came with a grave and sorrowful face to the shared dugout of Denisov and Rostov, and with regret placed before Major Denisov an official communication from the regimental commander, making inquiries about the previous day's incident. The adjutant reported that the affair was likely to take a very bad turn, that a court-martial commission had been appointed, and that given the current severity regarding marauding and insubordination among the troops, in the best case the matter might end in demotion.

From the injured parties' point of view, the affair was presented as follows: that after the seizure of the transport, Major Denisov, without any provocation, while intoxicated, had appeared before the chief commissary officer, called him a thief, threatened him with a beating, and when shown out had rushed into the office, beaten two clerks, and dislocated one man's arm.

Denisov, in reply to Rostov's further questions, said with a laugh that it seemed some other fellow had indeed turned up at that point, but that all this was rubbish and nonsense — he had no intention of fearing any court, and that if these villains dared to go after him, he'd answer them in a way they wouldn't forget.

Denisov spoke with contempt of the whole business; but Rostov knew him too well not to notice that inwardly — concealing it from others — he was afraid of the court-martial and tormented by the affair, which clearly must have bad consequences. Inquiries and summons to court began to arrive in papers every day, and on the first of May Denisov was ordered to hand his squadron over to the next senior officer and to report to divisional headquarters to account for the disturbance at the commissariat commission. The day before, Platov had conducted a reconnaissance of the enemy with two Cossack regiments and two hussar squadrons. Denisov, as always, rode out ahead of the picket line, displaying his courage. One of the bullets fired by French skirmishers struck him in the fleshy part of the upper thigh. Perhaps at another time Denisov would not have left the regiment for so slight a wound; but now he seized the occasion, refused to report to the division, and left for hospital.