‘No, I’ll put a guard on it . . . two guards!’ said Rostov. ‘Don’t say another word, doctor.’
‘I’ll guard it myself!’ said Ilyin.
‘No, gentlemen, you’ve had plenty of sleep, but I’ve had two sleepless nights,’ said the doctor, and he sat down moodily at his wife’s side to wait for the end of the game.
One look at the doctor’s moody expression as he stole shifty glances at his wife, and the officers became rowdier than ever; many of them laughed uncontrollably and had to work hard at thinking up decent excuses for doing so. When the doctor had gone, taking his wife with him, and the pair of them had settled down in their little cart, the officers took to the inn floor and snuggled down under their damp coats. But sleep didn’t come; they chatted away for quite some time, harking back to the worried doctor and his blissful wife, and even running out on to the steps to report back on what was going on in the cart. Several times Rostov buried his head in his coat and tried to get to sleep, only to be distracted by some new comment, and then the conversation would start up again, and the room would soon be ringing with great guffaws of ridiculous laughter like that of happy children.
CHAPTER 14
It was past two o’clock and they were all still awake when the quartermaster appeared with orders for them to proceed to a little place called Ostrovna. The officers buckled to immediately, getting their things together, with no pause in the laughter and banter, and the samovar was refilled with dirty water. But Rostov set off for his squadron without waiting for tea. It was getting light, the drizzle had cleared up and the dark clouds were thinning. It was a damp morning, the chill made worse by clothes that had not had time to dry out. As they came out of the inn into the half-light of early morning Rostov and Ilyin both glanced under the leather cover of the doctor’s cart, still glistening from the rain. The doctor’s feet stuck out from under the apron. In the middle of the cart they caught a glimpse of his wife’s night-cap on a pillow, and they could hear sleepy breathing.
‘Lovely little thing, isn’t she?’ said Rostov to Ilyin, close behind.
‘A delightful woman!’ responded Ilyin, with all the gravity of a sixteen-year-old.
Half an hour later the squadron was on parade along the road. They were given the order to mount, and they did so, crossing themselves. Rostov rode off, ordering them to move forward, and the hussars came after him four abreast, to the sound of hooves splashing through mud, jingling sabres and subdued exchanges between the men, trotting down the broad highway between two rows of birch-trees after the infantry and artillery, which had gone on ahead.
The broken clouds, violet-coloured and tinged red by the rising sun, scudded before the wind. It was getting lighter by the minute. They could now clearly see, still wet from yesterday’s rain, the feathery grass that is a permanent feature of all country roadsides. The birch branches hung down, swaying in the wind, with glittering droplets showering right and left. The soldiers’ faces became clearer and clearer. Rostov, with Ilyin sticking beside him, rode down one side of the road between the two rows of birches.
On active service Rostov allowed himself the indulgence of riding a Cossack horse instead of an ordinary regimental animal. A connoisseur and lover of horses, he had recently managed to acquire a big chestnut-and-white charger from the Don steppe, a lovely beast with a fine spirit, who was never outgalloped. Rostov found him a delight to ride. He was thinking about his horse now, and the morning, and the doctor’s wife, but the approaching danger never crossed his mind.
In earlier days Rostov had always felt scared as he rode into battle; now he felt not a flicker of fear. He was fearless not because he had got used to being under fire (you never get used to danger) but because he had learnt how to master his own spirit in the face of danger. He had formed the habit, when riding into battle, of thinking about anything except the one thing that ought to have been more fascinating than anything else – the danger that lay ahead. However earnestly he had struggled to do this, and however many times he had bitterly called himself a coward in the early days, he had never been able to manage it. But it had come by itself with the passing years. He rode on now between the birch-trees with Ilyin at his side, occasionally stripping the leaves from twigs that came to hand, sometimes touching his horse’s flank with one foot, finishing a pipe and handing it back without turning round to a hussar following on, all with the cheery breeziness of someone out for a ride. He felt for Ilyin with his over-excited face and his persistent, worried chatter. He knew from experience what an agonizing state the cornet must be in, racked by forebodings of terror and of death, and he knew that nothing could help him but the passage of time.
