War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy (latest ebook reader .TXT) 📕

“Well, is she pretty? Ah, friend—my pink one is delicious; her name is Dunyásha....”

But on glancing at Rostóv’s face Ilyín stopped short. He saw that his hero and commander was following quite a different train of thought.

Rostóv glanced angrily at Ilyín and without replying strode off with rapid steps to the village.

“I’ll show them; I’ll give it to them, the brigands!” said he to himself.

Alpátych at a gliding trot, only just managing not to run, kept up with him with difficulty.

“What decision have you been pleased to come to?” said he.

Rostóv stopped and, clenching his fists, suddenly and sternly turned on Alpátych.

“Decision? What decision? Old dotard!...” cried he. “What have you been about? Eh? The peasants are rioting, and you can’t manage them? You’re a traitor yourself! I know you. I’ll flay you all alive!...” And as if afraid of wasting his store of anger, he left Alpátych and went rapidly forward. Alpátych, mastering his offended feelings, kept pace with Rostóv at a gliding gait and continued to impart his views. He said the peasants were obdurate and that at the present moment it would be imprudent to “overresist” them without an armed force, and would it not be better first to send for the military?

“I’ll give them armed force... I’ll ‘overresist’ them!” uttered Rostóv meaninglessly, breathless with irrational animal fury and the need to vent it.

Without considering what he would do he moved unconciously with quick, resolute steps toward the crowd. And the nearer he drew to it the more Alpátych felt that this unreasonable action might produce good results. The peasants in the crowd were similarly impressed when they saw Rostóv’s rapid, firm steps and resolute, frowning face.

After the hussars had come to the village and Rostóv had gone to see the princess, a certain confusion and dissension had arisen among the crowd. Some of the peasants said that these new arrivals were Russians and might take it amiss that the mistress was being detained. Dron was of this opinion, but as soon as he expressed it Karp and others attacked their ex-Elder.

“How many years have you been fattening on the commune?” Karp shouted at him. “It’s all one to you! You’ll dig up your pot of money and take it away with you.... What does it matter to you whether our homes are ruined or not?”

“We’ve been told to keep order, and that no one is to leave their homes or take away a single grain, and that’s all about it!” cried another.

“It was your son’s turn to be conscripted, but no fear! You begrudged your lump of a son,” a little old man suddenly began attacking Dron—“and so they took my Vánka to be shaved for a soldier! But we all have to die.”

“To be sure, we all have to die. I’m not against the commune,” said Dron.

“That’s it—not against it! You’ve filled your belly....”

The two tall peasants had their say. As soon as Rostóv, followed by Ilyín, Lavrúshka, and Alpátych, came up to the crowd, Karp, thrusting his fingers into his belt and smiling a little, walked to the front. Dron on the contrary retired to the rear and the crowd drew closer together.

“Who is your Elder here? Hey?” shouted Rostóv, coming up to the crowd with quick steps.

“The Elder? What do you want with him?...” asked Karp.

But before the words were well out of his mouth, his cap flew off and a fierce blow jerked his head to one side.

“Caps off, traitors!” shouted Rostóv in a wrathful voice. “Where’s the Elder?” he cried furiously.

“The Elder.... He wants the Elder!... Dron Zakhárych, you!” meek and flustered voices here and there were heard calling and caps began to come off their heads.

“We don’t riot, we’re following the orders,” declared Karp, and at that moment several voices began speaking together.

“It’s as the old men have decided—there’s too many of you giving orders.”

“Arguing? Mutiny!... Brigands! Traitors!” cried Rostóv unmeaningly in a voice not his own, gripping Karp by the collar. “Bind him, bind him!” he shouted, though there was no one to bind him but Lavrúshka and Alpátych.

Lavrúshka, however, ran up to Karp and seized him by the arms from behind.

“Shall I call up our men from beyond the hill?” he called out.

Alpátych turned to the peasants and ordered two of them by name to come and bind Karp. The men obediently came out of the crowd and began taking off their belts.

“Where’s the Elder?” demanded Rostóv in a loud voice.

With a pale and frowning face Dron stepped out of the crowd.

“Are you the Elder? Bind him, Lavrúshka!” shouted Rostóv, as if that order, too, could not possibly meet with any opposition.

And in fact two more peasants began binding Dron, who took off his own belt and handed it to them, as if to aid them.

“And you all listen to me!” said Rostóv to the peasants. “Be off to your houses at once, and don’t let one of your voices be heard!”

“Why, we’ve not done any harm! We did it just out of foolishness. It’s all nonsense.... I said then that it was not in order,” voices were heard bickering with one another.

“There! What did I say?” said Alpátych, coming into his own again. “It’s wrong, lads!”

“All our stupidity, Yákov Alpátych,” came the answers, and the crowd began at once to disperse through the village.

The two bound men were led off to the master’s house. The two drunken peasants followed them.

“Aye, when I look at you!...” said one of them to Karp.

“How