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When returning from his leave, Rostov felt, for the first
time, how close was the bond that united him to Denisov and and
the whole regiment.
On approaching it, Rostov felt as he had done when approaching
his home in Moscow. When he saw the first hussar with the unbuttoned
uniform of his regiment, when he recognized red-haired Dementyev
and saw the picket ropes of the roan horses, when Lavrushka gleefully
shouted to his master, "The count has come!" and Denisov,
who had been asleep on his bed, ran all disheveled out of the
mud hut to embrace him, and the officers collected round to greet
the new arrival, Rostov experienced the same feeling his mother,
his father, and his sister had embraced him, and tears of joy
choked him so that he could not speak. The regiment was also a
home, and as unalterably dear and precious as his parents' house.
When he had reported himself to the commander of the regiment
and had been reassigned to his former squadron, had been on duty
and had gone out foraging, when he had again entered into all
the little interests of the regiment and felt himself deprived
of liberty and bound in one narrow, unchanging frame, he experienced
the same sense of peace, of moral support, and the same sense
being at home here in his own place, as he had felt under the
parental roof. But here was none of all that turmoil of the world
at large, where he did not know his right place and took mistaken
decisions; here was no Sonya with whom he ought, or ought not,
to have an explanation; here was no possibility of going there
or not going there; here there were not twenty-four hours in the
day which could be spent in such a variety of ways; there was
not that innumerable crowd of people of whom not one was nearer
to him or farther from him than another; there were none of those
uncertain and undefined money relations with his father, and nothing
to recall that terrible loss to Dolokhov. Here, in the regiment,
all was clear and simple. The whole world was divided into two
unequal parts: one, our Pavlograd regiment; the other, all the
rest. And the rest was no concern of his. In the regiment, everything
was definite: who was lieutenant, who captain, who was a good
fellow, who a bad one, and most of all, who was a comrade. The
canteenkeeper gave one credit, one's pay came every four months,
there was nothing to think out or decide, you had only to do nothing
that was considered bad in the Pavlograd regiment and, when given
an order, to do what was clearly, distinctly, and definitely ordered-
and all would be well.
Having once more entered into the definite conditions of this
regimental life, Rostov felt the joy and relief a tired man feels
on lying down to rest. Life in the regiment, during this campaign,
was all the pleasanter for him, because, after his loss to Dolokhov
(for which, in spite of all his family's efforts to console him,
he could not forgive himself), he had made up his mind to atone
for his fault by serving, not as he had done before, but really
well, and by being a perfectly first-rate comrade and officer-
in a word, a splendid man altogether, a thing which seemed so
difficult out in the world, but so possible in the regiment.
After his losses, he had determined to pay back his debt to
his parents in five years. He received ten thousand rubles a year,
but now resolved to take only two thousand and leave the rest
to repay the debt to his parents.
Our army, after repeated retreats and advances and battles
at Pultusk and Preussisch-Eylau, was concentrated near Bartenstein.
It was awaiting the Emperor's arrival and the beginning of a new
campaign.
The Pavlograd regiment, belonging to that part of the army
which had served in the 1805 campaign, had been recruiting up
to strength in Russia, and arrived too late to take part in the
first actions of the campaign. It had been neither at Pultusk
nor at Preussisch-Eylau and, when it joined the army in the field
in the second half of the campaign, was attached to Platov's division.
Platov's division was acting independently of the main army.
Several times parts of the Pavlograd regiment had exchanged shots
with the enemy, had taken prisoners, and once had even captured
Marshal Oudinot's carriages. In April the Pavlograds were stationed
immovably for some weeks near a totally ruined and deserted German
village.
A thaw had set in, it was muddy and cold, the ice on the river
broke, and the roads became impassable. For days neither provisions
for the men nor fodder for the horses had been issued. As no transports
could arrive, the men dispersed about the abandoned and deserted
villages, searching for potatoes, but found few even of these.
Everything had been eaten up and the inhabitants had all fled-
if any remained, they were worse than beggars and nothing more
could be taken from them; even the soldiers, usually pitiless
enough, instead of taking anything from them, often gave them
the last of their rations.
The Pavlograd regiment had had only two men wounded in action,
but had lost nearly half its men from hunger and sickness. In
the hospitals, death was so certain that soldiers suffering from
fever, or the swelling that came from bad food, preferred to remain
on duty, and hardly able to drag their legs went to the front
rather than to the hospitals. When spring came on, the soldiers
found a plant just showing out of the ground that looked like
asparagus, which, for some reason, they called "Mashka's
sweet root." It was very bitter, but they wandered about
the fields seeking it and dug it out with their sabers and ate
it, though they were ordered not to do so, as it was a noxious
plant. That spring a new disease broke out broke out among the
soldiers, a swelling of the arms, legs, and face, which the doctors
attributed to eating this root. But in spite of all this, the
soldiers of Denisov's squadron fed chiefly on "Mashka's sweet
root," because it was the second week that the last of the
biscuits were being doled out at the rate of half a pound a man
and the last potatoes received had sprouted and frozen.
The horses also had been fed for a fortnight on straw from
the thatched roofs and had become terribly thin, though still
covered with tufts of felty winter hair.
Despite this destitution, the soldiers and officers went on
living just as usual. Despite their pale swollen faces and tattered
uniforms, the hussars formed line for roll call, kept things in
order, groomed their horses, polished their arms, brought in straw
from the thatched roofs in place of fodder, and sat down to dine
round the caldrons from which they rose up hungry, joking about
their nasty food and their hunger. As usual, in their spare time,
they lit bonfires, steamed themselves before them naked; smoked,
picked out and baked sprouting rotten potatoes, told and listened
to stories of Potemkin'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 potatoes
and, in general, food for the men. The younger ones occupied themselves
as before, some playing cards (there was plenty of money, though
there was no food), some with more innocent games, such as quoits
and skittles. The general trend of the campaign was rarely spoken
of, partly because nothing certain was known about it, partly
because there was a vague feeling that in the main it was going
badly.
Rostov lived, as before, with Denisov, and since their furlough
they had become more friendly than ever. Denisov never spoke of
Rostov's family, but by the tender friendship his commander showed
him, Rostov felt that the elder hussar's luckless love for Natasha
played a part in strengthening their friendship. Denisov evidently
tried to expose Rostov to danger as seldom as possible, and after
an action greeted his safe return with evident joy. On one of
his foraging expeditions, in a deserted and ruined village to
which he had come in search of provisions, Rostov found a family
consisting of an old Pole 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 a conveyance. Rostov brought them to
his quarters, placed them in his own lodging, and kept them for
some weeks while the old man was recovering. One of his comrades,
talking of women, began chaffing Rostov, saying that he was more
wily than any of them and that it would not be a bad thing if
he introduced to them the pretty Polish girl he had saved. Rostov
took the joke as an insult, flared up, and said such unpleasant
things to the officer that it was all Denisov could do to prevent
a duel. When the officer had gone away, Denisov, who did not himself
know what Rostov's relations with the Polish girl might be, began
to upbraid him for his quickness of temper, and Rostov replied:
"Say what you like.... She is like a sister to me, and
I can't tell you how it offended me... because... well, for that
reason...."
Denisov patted him on the shoulder and began rapidly pacing
the room without looking at Rostov, as was his way at moments
of deep feeling.
"Ah, what a mad bweed you Wostovs are!" he muttered,
and Rostov noticed tears in his eyes.
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