Book Five: 1806-07 - Chapter XV

by Leo Tolstoy

　　When returning from his leave, Rostov felt, for the first time,how close was the bond that united him to Denisov and and the wholeregiment.

　　On approaching it, Rostov felt as he had done when approaching hishome in Moscow. When he saw the first hussar with the unbuttoneduniform of his regiment, when he recognized red-haired Dementyev andsaw the picket ropes of the roan horses, when Lavrushka gleefullyshouted to his master, "The count has come!" and Denisov, who had beenasleep on his bed, ran all disheveled out of the mud hut to embracehim, and the officers collected round to greet the new arrival, Rostovexperienced the same feeling his mother, his father, and his sisterhad embraced him, and tears of joy choked him so that he could notspeak. The regiment was also a home, and as unalterably dear andprecious as his parents' house.

　　When he had reported himself to the commander of the regiment andhad been reassigned to his former squadron, had been on duty and hadgone out foraging, when he had again entered into all the littleinterests of the regiment and felt himself deprived of liberty andbound in one narrow, unchanging frame, he experienced the same senseof peace, of moral support, and the same sense being at home here inhis own place, as he had felt under the parental roof. But here wasnone of all that turmoil of the world at large, where he did notknow his right place and took mistaken decisions; here was no Sonyawith whom he ought, or ought not, to have an explanation; here wasno possibility of going there or not going there; here there werenot twenty-four hours in the day which could be spent in such avariety of ways; there was not that innumerable crowd of people ofwhom not one was nearer to him or farther from him than another; therewere none of those uncertain and undefined money relations with hisfather, and nothing to recall that terrible loss to Dolokhov. Here, inthe regiment, all was clear and simple. The whole world was dividedinto two unequal parts: one, our Pavlograd regiment; the other, allthe rest. And the rest was no concern of his. In the regiment,everything was definite: who was lieutenant, who captain, who was agood fellow, who a bad one, and most of all, who was a comrade. Thecanteenkeeper gave one credit, one's pay came every four months, therewas nothing to think out or decide, you had only to do nothing thatwas considered bad in the Pavlograd regiment and, when given an order,to do what was clearly, distinctly, and definitely ordered- and allwould be well.

　　Having once more entered into the definite conditions of thisregimental life, Rostov felt the joy and relief a tired man feels onlying down to rest. Life in the regiment, during this campaign, wasall the pleasanter for him, because, after his loss to Dolokhov (forwhich, in spite of all his family's efforts to console him, he couldnot forgive himself), he had made up his mind to atone for his faultby serving, not as he had done before, but really well, and by being aperfectly first-rate comrade and officer- in a word, a splendid manaltogether, a thing which seemed so difficult out in the world, but sopossible in the regiment.

　　After his losses, he had determined to pay back his debt to hisparents in five years. He received ten thousand rubles a year, but nowresolved to take only two thousand and leave the rest to repay thedebt to his parents.

　　Our army, after repeated retreats and advances and battles atPultusk and Preussisch-Eylau, was concentrated near Bartenstein. Itwas awaiting the Emperor's arrival and the beginning of a newcampaign.

　　The Pavlograd regiment, belonging to that part of the army which hadserved in the 1805 campaign, had been recruiting up to strength inRussia, and arrived too late to take part in the first actions ofthe campaign. It had been neither at Pultusk nor at Preussisch-Eylauand, when it joined the army in the field in the second half of thecampaign, was attached to Platov's division.

　　Platov's division was acting independently of the main army. Severaltimes parts of the Pavlograd regiment had exchanged shots with theenemy, had taken prisoners, and once had even captured MarshalOudinot's carriages. In April the Pavlograds were stationedimmovably for some weeks near a totally ruined and deserted Germanvillage.

　　A thaw had set in, it was muddy and cold, the ice on the riverbroke, and the roads became impassable. For days neither provisionsfor the men nor fodder for the horses had been issued. As notransports could arrive, the men dispersed about the abandoned anddeserted villages, searching for potatoes, but found few even ofthese.

　　Everything had been eaten up and the inhabitants had all fled- ifany remained, they were worse than beggars and nothing more could betaken from them; even the soldiers, usually pitiless enough, insteadof taking anything from them, often gave them the last of theirrations.

　　The Pavlograd regiment had had only two men wounded in action, buthad lost nearly half its men from hunger and sickness. In thehospitals, death was so certain that soldiers suffering from fever, orthe swelling that came from bad food, preferred to remain on duty, andhardly able to drag their legs went to the front rather than to thehospitals. When spring came on, the soldiers found a plant justshowing out of the ground that looked like asparagus, which, forsome reason, they called "Mashka's sweet root." It was very bitter,but they wandered about the fields seeking it and dug it out withtheir sabers and ate it, though they were ordered not to do so, asit was a noxious plant. That spring a new disease broke out brokeout among the soldiers, a swelling of the arms, legs, and face,which the doctors attributed to eating this root. But in spite ofall this, the soldiers of Denisov's squadron fed chiefly on"Mashka's sweet root," because it was the second week that the last ofthe biscuits were being doled out at the rate of half a pound a manand the last potatoes received had sprouted and frozen.

　　The horses also had been fed for a fortnight on straw from thethatched roofs and had become terribly thin, though still covered withtufts of felty winter hair.

　　Despite this destitution, the soldiers and officers went on livingjust as usual. Despite their pale swollen faces and tattered uniforms,the hussars formed line for roll call, kept things in order, groomedtheir horses, polished their arms, brought in straw from thethatched roofs in place of fodder, and sat down to dine round thecaldrons from which they rose up hungry, joking about their nasty foodand their hunger. As usual, in their spare time, they lit bonfires,steamed themselves before them naked; smoked, picked out and bakedsprouting rotten potatoes, told and listened to stories ofPotemkin's and Suvorov's campaigns, or to legends of Alesha the Sly,or the priest's laborer Mikolka.

　　The officers, as usual, lived in twos and threes in the roofless,half-ruined houses. The seniors tried to collect straw and potatoesand, in general, food for the men. The younger ones occupiedthemselves as before, some playing cards (there was plenty of money,though there was no food), some with more innocent games, such asquoits and skittles. The general trend of the campaign was rarelyspoken of, partly because nothing certain was known about it, partlybecause there was a vague feeling that in the main it was going badly.

　　Rostov lived, as before, with Denisov, and since their furlough theyhad become more friendly than ever. Denisov never spoke of Rostov'sfamily, but by the tender friendship his commander showed him,Rostov felt that the elder hussar's luckless love for Natasha played apart in strengthening their friendship. Denisov evidently tried toexpose Rostov to danger as seldom as possible, and after an actiongreeted his safe return with evident joy. On one of his foragingexpeditions, in a deserted and ruined village to which he had comein search of provisions, Rostov found a family consisting of an oldPole and his daughter with an infant in arms. They were half clad,hungry, too weak to get away on foot and had no means of obtaining aconveyance. Rostov brought them to his quarters, placed them in hisown lodging, and kept them for some weeks while the old man wasrecovering. One of his comrades, talking of women, began chaffingRostov, saying that he was more wily than any of them and that itwould not be a bad thing if he introduced to them the pretty Polishgirl he had saved. Rostov took the joke as an insult, flared up, andsaid such unpleasant things to the officer that it was all Denisovcould do to prevent a duel. When the officer had gone away, Denisov,who did not himself know what Rostov's relations with the Polishgirl might be, began to upbraid him for his quickness of temper, andRostov replied:

　　"Say what you like.... She is like a sister to me, and I can'ttell you how it offended me... because... well, for that reason...."

　　Denisov patted him on the shoulder and began rapidly pacing the roomwithout looking at Rostov, as was his way at moments of deep feeling.

　　"Ah, what a mad bweed you Wostovs are!" he muttered, and Rostovnoticed tears in his eyes.