War and Peace: Original Version. Лев Толстой
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.
III
The regiment broke up into companies and set out for its appointed quarters not far from Braunau, where it hoped to obtain shoes and clothes and to rest after its days of hard marching.
“Don’t hold it against me, Prokhor Ignatych,” said the regimental commander, overtaking the third company as it moved towards its quarters and approaching its captain, Timokhin, who was walking at the front. Having dealt successfully with the review the regimental commander’s face expressed irrepressible joy. “Service to the Tsar … I have to … sometimes you give someone in the ranks a dressing down …” (he seized Timokhin’s hand with joyful agitation). “I’ll be the first to apologise, you know me … well … I hope … Most grateful.” And he held his hand out again to the company commander.
“For goodness’ sake, general, how would I dare,” the captain replied, his nose reddening. He smiled, revealing with his smile the lack of two front teeth, smashed out with a musket butt at Izmail …
“Yes, inform Mr Dolokhov that I shall not forget him, he needn’t worry. But tell me, please, I have been wanting to ask what … how is he behaving himself? And all that …”
“In the line of service he’s very correct, your excellency … as for his character …” said Timokhin.
“What, what about his character?” asked the regimental commander.
THE MILITARY REVIEW: KUTUZOV AND DOLOKHOV Drawing by M.S. Bashilov, 1867
“There are days on end, your excellency,” said the captain, “when he comes over all bright and clever and good-natured. Then all the soldiers love him, your excellency. But some days he’s a wild beast. In Poland he nearly killed a yid, by your leave …”
“Well yes, well yes,” said the regimental commander, “still, one must have pity on a young man in misfortune. Important connections, after all … connections … So just you mind …”
“Yes, your excellency,” said Timokhin, making it clear with his smile that he understood his superior’s wishes.
“Well yes, yes.”
The regimental commander sought out Dolokhov in the ranks and reined in his horse.
“Till the first action, then epaulettes,” he said, addressing Dolokhov. Dolokhov glanced round but did not say anything and did not alter the expression of his sneering, smiling mouth.
“Well, that’s all right, then,” the regimental commander continued. “A glass of vodka each for the men from me,” he added loudly, so that the soldiers would hear. “I thank you all. God be praised!” And he rode round the company and approached the next one.
“Now he really is a good man, someone you can serve under,” Timokhin said to a subaltern walking beside him.
“Heart’s the word all right …” (the regimental commander was nicknamed the king of hearts). “Didn’t he say anything about extra pay?” asked the subaltern.
“No.”
“That’s bad.”
The regimental commander’s happy mood had infected Timokhin. After talking with the subaltern, he went up to Dolokhov.
“Well, old man,” he said to Dolokhov, “after you talking to the commander-in-chief, our general’s turned sweet on you as well.”
“Our general’s a swine,” said Dolokhov.
“It won’t do to go saying things like that.”
“Why not, if it’s true?”
“But it won’t do, and by saying that you’re offending me.”
“I don’t wish to offend you, because you’re a good man, but he …”
“Come, come, that won’t do.”
“All right, I won’t.”
The commander’s happy mood after the review was transmitted to the soldiers as well. The company marched along merrily. On all sides there were soldiers’ voices talking to each other.
“How come they said Kutuzov was half-blind, with one eye.”
“Well he is! As one-eyed as they come.”