LITMIR.BIZ

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said Rostov, as though it cost him a great effort to pronounce the word, and sat at the next table.

      Neither of them said anything, there was no one else in the room and all that could be heard were the sounds of the knife against the plate and the lieutenant’s chomping. When Telyanin finished his breakfast he took a double purse out of his pocket, parted the rings with his little white fingers curved upwards, took out a gold coin and, raising his eyebrows slightly, handed the money to the servant.

      “Be quick, if you please,” he said.

      The gold coin was new. Rostov stood up and approached Telyanin.

      “Permit me to take a look at your purse,” he said in a low, barely audible voice.

      With his eyes shifting restlessly, but his eyebrows still raised, Telyanin held out the purse.

      “It’s a souvenir from a little Polish girl … yes …” he said and suddenly turned pale. “Take a look, young man,” he added.

      Rostov took hold of the purse and looked at it and the money that was in it, and at Telyanin. The lieutenant was glancing around himself in his habitual manner and he seemed suddenly to have become very jolly.

      “When we’re in Vienna, I’ll get rid of it all there, but there’s nothing to do with it now in these wretched little towns,” he said. “Right, come on young man, I’ll be going.”

      Rostov said nothing.

      “Well, are you buying the horse from Denisov? A fine steed,” Telyanin continued. “Give it back now.” He held out his hand and took hold of the purse. Rostov let go of it. Telyanin took the purse and began lowering it into the pocket of his breeches, and his eyebrows rose carelessly, and his lips parted slightly, as if he were saying: “Yes, I’m putting my purse in my pocket, and it’s nobody’s business but mine.”

      “Well then, young man?” he asked with a sigh and looked into Rostov’s eyes from under his raised eyebrows. A strange light leapt with the speed of an electric spark from Telyanin’s eyes to Rostov’s eyes and back, back and forth, back and forth, all in a single instant.

      “Come here,” said Rostov, grabbing Telyanin by the arm. He pulled him almost over to the window. “You are a thief!” he whispered into his ear.

      “What? What? How dare you? What?” But these words sounded like a pitiful, desperate cry appealing for forgiveness. As soon as Rostov heard the sound of that voice, a heavy stone of doubt fell from his heart. He felt joy and at the same moment he felt so sorry for the miserable man standing before him that tears sprang to his eyes.

      “There are people here, God knows what they might think,” Telyanin muttered, snatching up his cap and walking towards a small empty room. “Explain yourself, what’s wrong with you?”

      When they entered the little room, Telyanin looked pale, grey and short, as though he had lost weight after a long illness.

      “Just now you stole the purse from under Denisov’s pillow,” said Rostov, emphasising each word. Telyanin was on the point of saying something. “I know this, I shall prove it.”

      “I …”

      The grey face had lost all of its attractiveness now, every muscle in it began trembling, the eyes shifted about in a different way from before, somewhere low down, not rising to look at the cadet’s face, and Rostov could hear sobbing.

      “Count! Do not ruin … a young man … Here is the miserable … money, take it …” He tossed it on to a table. “I have an old father, a mother!”

      Rostov took the money, avoiding Telyanin’s eyes and, without saying a word, walked out of the room. But at the door he stopped and turned back.

      “My God,” he said with tears in his eyes, “how could you do it?”

      “Count,” said Telyanin imploringly, approaching the cadet.

      “Don’t touch me,” said Rostov, moving away from him. “If you need this money, take it.” He tossed the purse to him. “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me!” And Rostov ran out of the inn, scarcely able to conceal his tears.

      That evening there was a lively discussion between the squadron’s officers in Denisov’s quarters.

      “And I tell you, Rostov, that you should apologise to the regimental commander,” said a tall staff-captain with greying hair, immense moustaches and a wrinkled face with large features, addressing a crimson-faced, agitated Rostov. Staff-Captain Kiersten had twice been reduced to the ranks on a matter of honour and twice won promotion again. A man who did not believe in God would have been less odd in the regiment than a man who did not respect Staff-Captain Kiersten.

      “I will not permit anyone to say that I am a liar!” exclaimed Rostov. “He told me that I was lying, and I told him that he was lying. That is the way it will remain. He can assign me duty every day and place me under arrest, but no one will make me apologise, because if he, as the regimental commander, regards it as unworthy of him to give me satisfaction, then …”

      “Just you hang on, old man, you listen to me,” the staff-captain interrupted in his deep bass voice, calmly stroking his long moustaches. “In the presence of other officers you told the regimental commander that an officer stole.”

      “I cannot be a diplomat, I do not know how, and I am not to blame that the conversation took place in the presence of other officers. That was why I went into the hussars, I thought there was no need for such niceties here, and he told me that I was lying … then let him give me satisfaction …”

      “That’s all very well, no one thinks that you’re a coward, that’s not the point. Ask Denisov, does it make any sense for a cadet to demand satisfaction from the regimental commander?”

      Denisov was listening to the conversation with a morose air, biting on his moustache and clearly not wishing to join in. He replied to the staff-captain’s question with a shake of his head.

      “I told you,” he said, addressing the staff officer, “judge for yourself, as best you can. All I know is that if I hadn’t listened to you and I’d given this petty thief’s head a good battewing a long time ago (I couldn’t bear the sight of him from the vewy beginning), then nothing would have happened, there’d be none of this shameful business.”

      “Yes, but what’s done is done,” the staff-captain continued. “You tell the regimental commander about this filthy trick in the presence of other officers. Bogdanich” (Bogdanich was what they called the regimental commander) “put you in your place, you said a lot of stupid things to him and you ought to apologise.”

      “Not for anything!” cried Rostov.

      “I didn’t expect this of you,” the staff-captain said seriously and sternly. “You don’t want to apologise, but it’s not only him you’ve offended, old man, it’s the whole regiment, all of us, you’ve offended everyone. That’s the way of it: if only you’d thought about it and taken some advice on how to deal with this business, but you blurted it straight out, and in the presence of officers. What can the regimental commander do now? Does he have to hand an officer over to trial and besmirch the entire regiment? Disgrace the whole regiment because of a single scoundrel? Is that what you think? It’s not what we think. And Bogdanich did right to tell you that you were lying. It’s not nice, but what’s to be done, old man, you jumped in with both feet. And now that they want to hush the business up, out of some snobbish ideas of your own, you don’t want to apologise, you want to tell the whole story. You’re offended because you’ll be on duty detail, but what’s it to you to apologise to an old and honest officer? Whatever Bogdanich may be like, he’s still an honest and brave old colonel, what if you are offended, don’t you mind besmirching the regiment?” The staff-captain’s voice was beginning to tremble. “You’ve hardly even been in the regiment two minutes, old man, here today and tomorrow you’ve moved somewhere as a little adjutant, you don’t give a damn that people will say there are thieves among the Pavlogradsk officers!

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