‘Where have you put it, Wostov?’
‘Under the lower pillow.’
‘It’s not there.’
Denisov threw both pillows on the floor. The purse was
not there.
‘That’s a miwacle.’
‘Wait, haven’t you dropped it?’ said Rostov, picking up
the pillows one at a time and shaking them.
He pulled off the quilt and shook it. The purse was not
there.
‘Dear me, can I have forgotten? No, I remember thinking that you kept it under your head like a treasure,’ said
Rostov. ‘I put it just here. Where is it?’ he asked, turning to
Lavrushka.
‘I haven’t been in the room. It must be where you put it.’
‘But it isn’t?..’
‘You’re always like that; you thwow a thing down anywhere and forget it. Feel in your pockets.’
‘No, if I hadn’t thought of it being a treasure,’ said Rostov, ‘but I remember putting it there.’
Lavrushka turned all the bedding over, looked under the
bed and under the table, searched everywhere, and stood
still in the middle of the room. Denisov silently watched
Lavrushka’s movements, and when the latter threw up his
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arms in surprise saying it was nowhere to be found Denisov
glanced at Rostov.
‘Wostov, you’ve not been playing schoolboy twicks..’
Rostov felt Denisov’s gaze fixed on him, raised his eyes,
and instantly dropped them again. All the blood which had
seemed congested somewhere below his throat rushed to
his face and eyes. He could not draw breath.
‘And there hasn’t been anyone in the room except the
lieutenant and yourselves. It must be here somewhere,’ said
Lavrushka.
‘Now then, you devil’s puppet, look alive and hunt for it!’
shouted Denisov, suddenly, turning purple and rushing at
the man with a threatening gesture. ‘If the purse isn’t found
I’ll flog you, I’ll flog you all.’
Rostov, his eyes avoiding Denisov, began buttoning his
coat, buckled on his saber, and put on his cap.
‘I must have that purse, I tell you,’ shouted Denisov, shaking his orderly by the shoulders and knocking him against
the wall.
‘Denisov, let him alone, I know who has taken it,’ said
Rostov, going toward the door without raising his eyes.
Denisov paused, thought a moment, and, evidently understanding what Rostov hinted at, seized his arm.
‘Nonsense!’ he cried, and the veins on his forehead and
neck stood out like cords. ‘You are mad, I tell you. I won’t
allow it. The purse is here! I’ll flay this scoundwel alive, and
it will be found.’
‘I know who has taken it,’ repeated Rostov in an unsteady
voice, and went to the door.
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‘And I tell you, don’t you dahe to do it!’ shouted Denisov,
rushing at the cadet to restrain him.
But Rostov pulled away his arm and, with as much anger
as though Denisov were his worst enemy, firmly fixed his
eyes directly on his face.
‘Do you understand what you’re saying?’ he said in a
trembling voice. ‘There was no one else in the room except
myself. So that if it is not so, then..’
He could not finish, and ran out of the room.
‘Ah, may the devil take you and evewybody,’ were the last
words Rostov heard.
Rostov went to Telyanin’s quarters.
‘The master is not in, he’s gone to headquarters,’ said
Telyanin’s orderly. ‘Has something happened?’ he added,
surprised at the cadet’s troubled face.
‘No, nothing.’
‘You’ve only just missed him,’ said the orderly.
The headquarters were situated two miles away from
Salzeneck, and Rostov, without returning home, took a
horse and rode there. There was an inn in the village which
the officers frequented. Rostov rode up to it and saw Telyanin’s horse at the porch.
In the second room of the inn the lieutenant was sitting
over a dish of sausages and a bottle of wine.
‘Ah, you’ve come here too, young man!’ he said, smiling
and raising his eyebrows.
‘Yes,’ said Rostov as if it cost him a great deal to utter the
word; and he sat down at the nearest table.
Both were silent. There were two Germans and a Rus
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sian officer in the room. No one spoke and the only sounds
heard were the clatter of knives and the munching of the
lieutenant.
When Telyanin had finished his lunch he took out of his
pocket a double purse and, drawing its rings aside with his
small, white, turned-up fingers, drew out a gold imperial,
and lifting his eyebrows gave it to the waiter.
‘Please be quick,’ he said.
The coin was a new one. Rostov rose and went up to Telyanin.
‘Allow me to look at your purse,’ he said in a low, almost
inaudible, voice.
With shifting eyes but eyebrows still raised, Telyanin
handed him the purse.
‘Yes, it’s a nice purse. Yes, yes,’ he said, growing suddenly
pale, and added, ‘Look at it, young man.’
Rostov took the purse in his hand, examined it and the
money in it, and looked at Telyanin. The lieutenant was
looking about in his usual way and suddenly seemed to
grow very merry.
‘If we get to Vienna I’ll get rid of it there but in these
wretched little towns there’s nowhere to spend it,’ said he.
‘Well, let me have it, young man, I’m going.’
Rostov did not speak.
‘And you? Are you going to have lunch too? They feed
you quite decently here,’ continued Telyanin. ‘Now then, let
me have it.’
He stretched out his hand to take hold of the purse. Rostov let go of it. Telyanin took the purse and began carelessly
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slipping it into the pocket of his riding breeches, with his
eyebrows lifted and his mouth slightly open, as if to say,
‘Yes, yes, I am putting my purse in my pocket and that’s
quite simple and is no else’s business.’
‘Well, young man?’ he said with a sigh, and from under
his lifted brows he glanced into Rostov’s eyes.
Some flash as of an electric spark shot from Telyanin’s
eyes to Rostov’s and back, and back again and again in an
instant.
‘Come here,’ said Rostov, catching hold of Telyanin’s
arm and almost dragging him to the window. ‘That money
is Denisov’s; you took it…’ he whispered just above Telyanin’s ear.
‘What? What? How dare you? What?’ said Telyanin.
But these words came like a piteous, despairing cry and
an entreaty for pardon. As soon as Rostov heard them, an
enormous load of doubt fell from him. He was glad, and at
the same instant began to pity the miserable man who stood
before him, but the task he had begun had to be completed.
‘Heaven only knows what the people here may imagine,’
muttered Telyanin, taking up his cap and moving toward a
small empty room. ‘We must have an explanation..’
‘I know it and shall prove it,’ said Rostov.
‘I..’
Every muscle of Telyanin’s pale, terrified face began
to quiver, his eyes still shifted from side to side but with
a downward look not rising to Rostov’s face, and his sobs
were audible.
‘Count!… Don’t ruin a young fellow… here is this wretch
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ed money, take it…’ He threw it on the table. ‘I have an old
father and mother!..’
Rostov took the money, avoiding Telyanin’s eyes, and
went out of the room without a word. But at the door he
stopped and then retraced his steps. ‘O God,’ he said with
tears in his eyes, ‘how could you do it?’
‘Count…’ said Telyanin drawing nearer to him.
‘Don’t touch me,’ said Rostov, drawing back. ‘If you need
it, take the money,’ and he threw the purse to him and ran
out of the inn.
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Chapter V
That same evening there was an animated discussion
among the squadron’s officers in Denisov’s quarters.
‘And I tell you, Rostov, that you must apologize to the
colonel!’ said a tall, grizzly-haired staff captain, with enormous mustaches and many wrinkles on his large features,
to Rostov who was crimson with excitement.
The staff captain, Kirsten, had twice been reduced to the
ranks for affairs of honor and had twice regained his commission.
‘I will allow no one to call me a liar!’ cried Rostov. ‘He
told me I lied, and I told him he lied. And there it rests. He
may keep me on duty every day, or may place me under arrest, but no one can make me apologize, because if he, as
commander of this regiment, thinks it beneath his dignity
to give me satisfaction, then..’
‘You just wait a moment, my dear fellow, and listen,’ interrupted the staff captain in his deep bass, calmly stroking
his long mustache. ‘You tell the colonel in the presence of
other officers that an officer has stolen..’
‘I’m not to blame that the conversation began in the presence of other officers. Perhaps I ought not to have spoken
before them, but I am not a diplomatist. That’s why I joined
the hussars, thinking that here one would not need finesse;
and he tells me that I am lyingso let him give me satisfac
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tion..’
‘That’s all right. No one thinks you a coward, but that’s
not the point. Ask Denisov whether it is not out of the question for a cadet to demand satisfaction of his regimental
commander?’
Denisov sat gloomily biting his mustache and listening
to the conversation, evidently with no wish to take part in
it. He answered the staff captain’s question by a disapproving shake of his head.
‘You speak to the colonel about this nasty business before
other officers,’ continued the staff captain, ‘and Bogdanich’
(the colonel was called Bogdanich) ‘shuts you up.’
‘He did not shut me up, he said I was telling an untruth.’
‘Well, have it so, and you talked a lot of nonsense to him
and must apologize.’
‘Not on any account!’ exclaimed Rostov.
‘I did not expect this of you,’ said the staff captain seriously and severely. ‘You don’t wish to apologize, but,
man, it’s not only to him but to the whole regimentall of
usyou’re to blame all round. The case is this: you ought to
have thought the matter over and taken advice; but no, you
go and blurt it all straight out before the officers. Now what
was the colonel to do? Have the officer tried and disgrace
the whole regiment? Disgrace the whole regiment because
of one scoundrel? Is that how you look at it? We don’t see it
like that. And Bogdanich was a brick: he told you you were
saying what was not true. It’s not pleasant, but what’s to be
done, my dear fellow? You landed yourself in it. And now,
when one wants to smooth the thing over, some conceit
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prevents your
