Читать книгу War and Peace: Original Version - Лев Толстой, Leo Tolstoy, Liev N. Tolstói - Страница 50

“He’s coming!” a signalman shouted at just that moment.

The regimental commander, flushing, ran up to his horse, took hold of the stirrup with trembling hands, threw his body across, righted himself, drew his sword and, with a cheerfully resolute face, his mouth opened to one side, prepared to shout. The regiment fluttered like a bird settling its feathers and froze.

“Atten-tion!” shouted the regimental commander in a heart-stopping voice that was happy for himself, strict towards the regiment and welcoming to his approaching superior.

With its springs rattling gently, the tall, light-blue Viennese carriage harnessed in tandem raced at a brisk trot along the broad unsurfaced road lined with trees, and galloping behind the carriage came the retinue and an escort of Croats. Sitting beside Kutuzov was an Austrian general in a white uniform that looked strange among the black Russian ones. The carriage halted at the regiment. Kutuzov and the Austrian general were talking quietly and Kutuzov smiled gently as stepped down heavily, lowering his foot from the footboard. It was exactly as if those three thousand men holding their breath as they gazed at the two of them and the regimental commander did not even exist.

A shout of command rang out and again the regiment shuddered as it jangled and presented arms. The commander-in-chief’s weak voice rang out in the deathly silence. The regiment bellowed: “Good Health to You, Your Ex-ex-ex-ency!” And then everything froze again. At first Kutuzov stood still on one spot while the regiment moved, then Kutuzov began walking along the ranks, with the white general beside him and accompanied by the retinue.

From the way in which the regimental commander saluted the commander-in-chief, boring into him with his eyes, standing to attention and drawing himself up, the way he leaned forward as he followed the generals along the ranks, scarcely restraining his quivering swagger, the way he jumped at the commander-in-chief’s every word and movement, it was clear that he took even greater pleasure in carrying out the duties of a subordinate than the duties of a superior. Thanks to the strict discipline and diligence of the regimental commander, the regiment was in capital condition in comparison with others that were arriving in Braunau at that time. There were only two hundred and seventeen stragglers and sick. In reply to the chief-of-staff’s question concerning the needs of the regiment the regimental commander, leaning forward, made bold to report in a whisper and with a deep sigh that their footwear had suffered very, very badly.

KUTUZOV Engraving by Cardelli

“Well, it’s the same song everywhere,” the chief-of-staff said nonchalantly, smiling at the general’s naïvety and thereby indicating that what seemed to the regimental commander to be a peculiar misfortune was the common lot of all the forces who were arriving and it had been foreseen. “You’ll set that to rights here, if you’re quartered here a while.”

Kutuzov walked along the ranks, halting from time to time and saying a few warm words to officers whom he knew from the Turkish War, and sometimes even to soldiers. Glancing at their shoes, he shook his head sadly several times and pointed them out to the Austrian general with an expression as if he were not reproaching anyone for this, but could not help seeing how bad it was. Each time this happened, the regimental commander ran forwards, afraid of missing what the commander-in-chief was saying about the regiment. Walking behind Kutuzov at a distance from which every softly spoken word could be heard, came the twenty or so members of his retinue. The gentlemen of the retinue clearly did not feel the same superhuman fear and respect for Kutuzov as the regimental commander was exhibiting. They were talking among themselves and sometimes laughing. Walking closest of all behind the commander-in-chief was a handsome adjutant. It was Prince Bolkonsky. Walking alongside him was a tall cavalry staff officer, extremely fat, with a kind, smiling, handsome face and moist eyes. This massive officer could hardly restrain the laughter provoked by the dark-haired officer of the hussars walking alongside him. This cornet officer of the hussars was staring, with a straight face and fixed expression in his eyes, at the regimental commander’s back and mimicking his every movement with a serious expression. Every time the regimental commander quivered and leaned forward, the officer of hussars quivered and leaned forward in precisely the same way. The fat adjutant laughed and nudged the others to get them to watch the amusing fellow.

“Mais voyez donc, do look,” said the fat officer, nudging Prince Andrei. Kutuzov walked slowly and listlessly past the thousands of eyes that were rolling out of their sockets as they tried to follow the commander. On drawing level with the third company, he suddenly halted. The retinue, not having anticipated this halt, involuntarily advanced closer to him.

“Ah, Timokhin!” said the commander-in-chief, recognising the captain with the red nose who had been rebuked for the blue greatcoat.

It had seemed quite impossible to stand more rigidly to attention than Timokhin had stood when the regimental commander was rebuking him. But when the commander-in-chief addressed him, he drew himself up so very far that had the commander-in-chief looked at him a moment longer, the captain would have been quite incapable of sustaining his pose, and so Kutuzov, clearly understanding his situation and wishing the captain, on the contrary, nothing but good, hastily turned away. A barely perceptible smile ran across Kutuzov’s plump face.

“A comrade from back at Izmail,” he said. “A brave officer. Are you pleased with him?” Kutuzov asked the regimental commander.

And the regimental commander, reflected yet again in the hussar cornet’s movements as if in an invisible mirror, quivered, stepped forward and replied:

“Very pleased, your excellency.”

“He had a weakness,” said Kutuzov, smiling and moving away from him. “He drank.”

The regimental commander took fright, wondering whether he was to blame in this matter and made no reply. Kutuzov began telling the Austrian general something, speaking in French. At that moment the cornet of the hussars noticed the face of the captain with the red nose and tightly tucked-in belly, and mimicked his face and pose so precisely that the fat officer was unable to restrain his laughter. Kutuzov swung round. The cornet was clearly able to control his face just as he wanted; in the moment it took for Kutuzov to turn round, the cornet had already managed to assume first a grimace and then the most serious, respectful and innocent expression. But there was something ingratiating and ignoble in his bird-like face and twitching figure with its high-raised shoulders and long, thin legs. Prince Andrei turned away from him with a frown.

The third company was the last, and Kutuzov began thinking, clearly trying to recall something. Prince Andrei stepped out of the retinue and, speaking in French, said quietly:

“You instructed me to remind you about the demoted man Dolokhov in this regiment.”

“Where is Dolokhov here?” asked Kutuzov.

Dolokhov, now kitted out in a grey soldier’s greatcoat, did not wait to be called out. A handsome, trim figure of a soldier with blond hair and clear blue eyes stepped out from the ranks. He measured out his stride with a perfection that made his skill strikingly obvious and left an unpleasant impression precisely because of its excessive precision. He walked up to the commander-in-chief and presented arms.

“A complaint?” asked Kutuzov, frowning slightly. Dolokhov did not reply. He was playing on his position, without feeling the slightest embarrassment, and noted with evident delight that the regimental commander shuddered and blanched at the word “complaint”.

“This is Dolokhov,” said Prince Andrei.

“Ah!” said Kutuzov. “I hope that this lesson will reform you, be a good soldier now. The Emperor is merciful. And I shall not forget you if you deserve it.”

The wide-open, light-blue eyes gazed at the commander-in-chief as insolently as at the regimental commander, as if tearing asunder with their expression the veil of convention that set the commander-in-chief and the soldier so far apart.

“I have one request to make, your excellency,” he said in his resonant, firm, unhurried voice, with its dry, ecstatically bombastic tone. “I request you to give me a chance to make amends and prove my devotion to His Majesty the Emperor and to Russia.”

Dolokhov uttered this theatrical speech with animation (he flushed brightly as he said it). But Kutuzov turned away. The same smile that altered only the eyes flitted across his face as when he had turned away from Captain Timokhin. This time too he turned away and frowned, as if wishing in this way to state that everything that Dolokhov had said to him, and everything that he could have said, had already been known to him for a long, long time, that he was tired of all this, and that all this was not at all what was needed. He turned away and set off towards the carriage.