|
After talking for some time with the esaul about next day's
attack, which now, seeing how near they were to the French, he
seemed to have definitely decided on, Denisov turned his horse
and rode back.
"Now, my lad, we'll go and get dwy," he said to
Petya.
As they approached the watchhouse Denisov stopped, peering
into the forest. Among the trees a man with long legs and long,
swinging arms, wearing a short jacket, bast shoes, and a Kazan
hat, was approaching with long, light steps. He had a musketoon
over his shoulder and an ax stuck in his girdle. When he espied
Denisov he hastily threw something into the bushes, removed his
sodden hat by its floppy brim, and approached his commander. It
was Tikhon. His wrinkled and pockmarked face and narrow little
eyes beamed with self-satisfied merriment. He lifted his head
high and gazed at Denisov as if repressing a laugh.
"Well, where did you disappear to?" inquired Denisov.
"Where did I disappear to? I went to get Frenchmen,"
answered Tikhon boldly and hurriedly, in a husky but melodious
bass voice.
"Why did you push yourself in there by daylight? You
ass! Well, why haven't you taken one?"
"Oh, I took one all right," said Tikhon.
"Where is he?"
"You see, I took him first thing at dawn," Tikhon
continued, spreading out his flat feet with outturned toes in
their bast shoes. "I took him into the forest. Then I see
he's no good and think I'll go and fetch a likelier one."
"You see?... What a wogue- it's just as I thought,"
said Denisov to the esaul. "Why didn't you bwing that one?"
"What was the good of bringing him?" Tikhon interrupted
hastily and angrily- "that one wouldn't have done for you.
As if I don't know what sort you want!"
"What a bwute you are!... Well?"
"I went for another one," Tikhon continued, "and
I crept like this through the wood and lay down." (He suddenly
lay down on his stomach with a supple movement to show how he
had done it.) "One turned up and I grabbed him, like this."
(He jumped up quickly and lightly.) "'Come along to the colonel,'
I said. He starts yelling, and suddenly there were four of them.
They rushed at me with their little swords. So I went for them
with my ax, this way: 'What are you up to?' says I. 'Christ be
with you!'" shouted Tikhon, waving his arms with an angry
scowl and throwing out his chest.
"Yes, we saw from the hill how you took to your heels
through the puddles!" said the esaul, screwing up his glittering
eyes.
Petya badly wanted to laugh, but noticed that they all refrained
from laughing. He turned his eyes rapidly from Tikhon's face to
the esaul's and Denisov's, unable to make out what it all meant.
"Don't play the fool!" said Denisov, coughing angrily.
"Why didn't you bwing the first one?"
Tikhon scratched his back with one hand and his head with
the other, then suddenly his whole face expanded into a beaming,
foolish grin, disclosing a gap where he had lost a tooth (that
was why he was called Shcherbaty- the gap-toothed). Denisov smiled,
and Petya burst into a peal of merry laughter in which Tikhon
himself joined.
"Oh, but he was a regular good-for-nothing," said
Tikhon. "The clothes on him- poor stuff! How could I bring
him? And so rude, your honor! Why, he says: 'I'm a general's son
myself, I won't go!' he says."
"You are a bwute!" said Denisov. "I wanted
to question..."
"But I questioned him," said Tikhon. "He said
he didn't know much. 'There are a lot of us,' he says, 'but all
poor stuff- only soldiers in name,' he says. 'Shout loud at them,'
he says, 'and you'll take them all,'" Tikhon concluded, looking
cheerfully and resolutely into Denisov's eyes.
"I'll give you a hundwed sharp lashes- that'll teach
you to play the fool!" said Denisov severely.
"But why are you angry?" remonstrated Tikhon, "just
as if I'd never seen your Frenchmen! Only wait till it gets dark
and I'll fetch you any of them you want- three if you like."
"Well, let's go," said Denisov, and rode all the
way to the watchhouse in silence and frowning angrily.
Tikhon followed behind and Petya heard the Cossacks laughing
with him and at him, about some pair of boots he had thrown into
the bushes.
When the fit of laughter that had seized him at Tikhon's words
and smile had passed and Petya realized for a moment that this
Tikhon had killed a man, he felt uneasy. He looked round at the
captive drummer boy and felt a pang in his heart. But this uneasiness
lasted only a moment. He felt it necessary to hold his head higher,
to brace himself, and to question the esaul with an air of importance
about tomorrow's undertaking, that he might not be unworthy of
the company in which he found himself.
The officer who had been sent to inquire met Denisov on the
way with the news that Dolokhov was soon coming and that all was
well with him.
Denisov at once cheered up and, calling Petya to him, said:
"Well, tell me about yourself."
|
