Rostov was living with Denisov again, and the bond of friendship between them had become even closer since they had been on leave. Denisov never mentioned any member of Rostov’s family, but the commander’s warm friendship towards his junior officer gave Rostov the impression that the older hussar’s unhappy passion for Natasha had something to do with the strengthening of their friendship. There was no doubt that Denisov was shielding Rostov, keeping him out of danger as much as possible, and after any action he welcomed him back safe and sound with undisguised delight. Fetching up in a deserted and ruined village on one of his foraging expeditions, Rostov came across an old Pole and his daughter with a tiny baby. They had no proper clothes or food, they had been too weak to walk away and unable to pay for a ride. Rostov brought them back to camp and set them up in his own quarters, where he supported them for several weeks until the old man recovered. One of Rostov’s comrades started kidding him once when they were talking about women, saying he was the cleverest fellow around and it wouldn’t do any harm for him to introduce his comrades to the pretty little Polish woman that he’d rescued. Rostov took offence at this and flared up, saying such awful things to the officer that Denisov was hard put to stave off a duel between them. When the officer had gone away, and Denisov, who knew nothing about Rostov’s relationship with the Polish woman, began to tell him off for over-reacting, Rostov said, ‘You can say what you like . . . She’s like a sister to me, and I can’t tell you how much it hurt . . . because . . . well, you know . . .’
Denisov clapped him on the shoulder, and started pacing rapidly up and down the room without looking at Rostov, something he often did at times of high emotion. ‘Oh weally,’ she said, ‘you Wostovs are such a cwazy bweed,’ and Rostov could see that Denisov had tears in his eyes.
CHAPTER 16
In April the army was roused by the news that the Tsar was on his way. Rostov had no chance of taking part in the review conducted by him at Bartenstein; the Pavlograd hussars were posted well forward, a long way out of Bartenstein.
They were still encamped. Denisov and Rostov were living in a mud-hut dug out by soldiers and roofed over with branches and turf. The hut was built to a plan that had recently become very popular with the soldiers. A trench was dug just over three feet wide, nearly five feet deep and eight feet long. At one end of the trench steps were scooped out to form an entrance. The trench itself was the room, and in it the lucky officers, such as the squadron commander, had the benefit of a board mounted on four stakes at the opposite end to the steps – this was the table. Both sides of the trench were cut down a couple of feet to provide a surface usable as beds and couches. The roof was constructed so that a man could stand upright in the middle, and you could sit on the beds if you moved up close to the table. Denisov, who always lived well because his men liked him so much, even had a board let into the front part of the roof with a broken but glued up window-pane in it. When it was very cold they used to bring red-hot embers over from the soldiers’ camp-fires on a bent sheet of iron and put them near the steps (in the ‘ante-room’, as Denisov called that part of the hut), and this made it so warm that any visiting officers – and Denisov and Rostov were never short of visitors – could sit there in their shirtsleeves.
One April morning Rostov returned from a spell on duty. Arriving home just before eight o’clock after a sleepless night, he sent for some heat, changed his rainsoaked clothes, said his prayers, drank some tea, warmed himself, tidied things away in his corner and on the table, and with his face red from the wind outside and the warmth within, he lay down on his back with nothing on but his shirt and folded his hands behind his head. He was enjoying the pleasant thought that promotion ought to be his any day now following the last reconnaissance mission, while he waited for Denisov, who had gone off somewhere. He wanted to talk.
Suddenly he heard a thunderous voice outside the hut – unmistakably Denisov’s. Rostov went to the window to find out who he was speaking to and saw that it was the quartermaster, Topcheyenko.
‘I told you not to let them stuff themselves with that Mawy woot thing!’ Denisov was roaring. ‘I saw Lazarchuk with my own eyes bwinging it back fwom the field.’
‘I did tell them, sir, lots of times, but they don’t listen,’ answered the quartermaster.
