That day Nikolay Rostov had received a note from Boris informing him that the Izmailov regiment was bivouacked for the night ten miles outside Olmütz, and he hoped to see him so he could hand over a letter and some money. The money would be particularly welcome just now, with the troops back from the front garrisoned near Olmütz and the camp swarming with well-stocked hawkers and Austrian Jews offering tempting wares of every kind. The Pavlograd hussars had held a string of good dinners celebrating honours received in the field, and not a few trips into Olmütz, where a certain Hungarian lady by the name of Caroline had recently opened a restaurant with girls as waitresses. Rostov was fresh from celebrating his commission as a cornet. He had also bought Denisov’s horse, Bedouin, and borrowed extensively from comrades and camp hawkers. On receiving Boris’s note, Rostov rode to Olmütz with a friend, had dinner, drank a bottle of wine and then rode on alone to the guards’ camp to seek out his childhood friend. Rostov had not yet got his uniform. He was wearing a shabby cadet’s jacket with a private’s cross, equally shabby riding breeches lined with worn leather, and an officer’s sword with the usual ribbon. The Don horse he was riding had been bought from a Cossack during the campaign. He wore a crumpled hussar’s cap rakishly shoved back and to one side. As he rode towards the Izmailov camp he was thinking of the fine figure he would cut for Boris and his friends by looking every inch the hussar recently under fire at the front.
The guards had treated their march like a pleasant excursion, flaunting their smartness and discipline. They had come by easy stages, their knapsacks being carried for them in wagons, and at every halt the Austrian government had ensured that the officers dined well. The regiments paraded into and out of every town to the music of a military band, and the guards prided themselves on having followed the grand duke’s order to the letter by having the men march in step every inch of the way, with the officers also on foot and properly spaced.
Throughout the march Boris had walked and bivouacked beside Berg, now a captain. Berg, who had been promoted during the march, had ingratiated himself with his superior officers by hard work and a punctilious attitude, and had set up financial arrangements much to his advantage. Boris meanwhile had made a number of useful contacts, and had used a reference from Pierre to make the acquaintance of Prince Andrey Bolkonsky, through whom he aspired to a post on the staff of the commander-in-chief. Well rested from the previous day’s march, Berg and Boris were playing chess at a round table in their spotless quarters, nicely turned out in their smart uniforms. Berg had a hookah gripped between his knees. It was Berg’s move and without taking his eyes off his opponent’s face, Boris was building a neat little pyramid of draughtsmen with his slender white fingers. Totally absorbed in the game, he was as always concentrating on the thing in hand.
‘Well, how are you going to get out of that?’ he said.
‘We’ll do what we can,’ answered Berg, touching a pawn and immediately taking away his hand.
At that instant the door opened.
‘Found you at last!’ shouted Rostov. ‘And Berg too. Hey you
‘My, how you’ve changed!’ Boris got up to welcome Rostov, and as he rose, he held on to the board and put back some pieces that had been knocked over. He was about to embrace his friend, but Nikolay drew back. With a young person’s dislike of well-trodden ways, the urge to avoid imitation, to express oneself in a personal and original way, not to do the conventional things that older people did, often hypocritically, Nikolay felt like doing something special on meeting his friend. He wanted somehow to pinch his arm or give him a little shove, anything rather than kiss him, which was what people always did on these occasions. Boris was quite the opposite – he embraced Rostov in an easy, friendly manner and gave him the usual three kisses.
They hadn’t seen each other for nearly six months. Young as they were, just setting out on life’s journey, they now saw immense changes in each other, new reflections of the differing social circumstances in which they had taken their first steps. Both had indeed changed considerably since their last meeting, and both were desperately keen to show just how much they had changed.
‘Well, you damned floor-polishers! All neat and tidy as if you’ve been out for a little stroll,’ said Rostov, pointing to his own mud-stained riding breeches. He spoke in a rich baritone and looked a military man, which was new to Boris. The German landlady looked round the door at the sound of Rostov’s loud voice.
‘Pretty little thing, eh?’ said he with a wink.
