‘Send for him, send for him. Well, how do you get on with the Teuton?’ said Rostov, with a contemptuous smile.
‘He’s a very, very nice, honest, and pleasant fellow,’ said Boris.
Rostov looked intently into Boris’s face once more and he sighed. Berg came back, and over the bottle the conversation between the three officers became livelier. The guardsmen told Rostov about their march and how they had been feted in Russia, in Poland, and abroad. They talked of the sayings and doings of their commander, the Grand Duke, and told anecdotes of his kind-heartedness and his irascibility. Berg was silent, as he always was, when the subject did not concern him personally, but a propos of the irascibility of the Grand Duke he related with gusto how he had had some words with the Grand Duke in Galicia, when his Highness had inspected the regiments and had flown into a rage over some irregularity in their movements. With a bland smile on his face he described how the Grand Duke had ridden up to him in a violent rage, shouting ‘Arnauts,’ (‘Arnauts’ was the Tsarevitch’s favourite term of abuse when he was in a passion), and how he had asked for the
WAR AND PEACE captain. ‘Would you believe me, count, I wasn’t in the least alarmed, because I knew I was right. Without boasting, you know, count, I may say I know all the regimental drill-book by heart, and the standing orders, too, I know as I know “Our Father that art in Heaven.” And so that’s how it is, count, there’s never the slightest detail neglected in my company. So my conscience was at ease. I came forward.’ (Berg stood up and mimicked how he had come forward with his hand to the beak of his cap. It would certainly have been difficult to imagine more respectfulness and more self-complacency in a face.) ‘Well, he scolded, and scolded, and rated at me, and shouted his “Arnauts,” and damns, and “to Siberia,” ’ said Berg, with a subtle smile. ‘I knew I was right, and so I didn’t speak; how could I, count? “Why are you dumb?” he shouted. Still I held my tongue, and what do you think, count? Next day there was nothing about it in the orders of the day; that's what comes of keeping one’s head. Yes, indeed, count,’ said Berg, pulling at his pipe and letting off rings of smoke.
‘Yes, that’s capital,’ said Rostov, smiling; but Boris, seeing that Rostov was disposed to make fun of Berg, skilfully turned the conversation. He begged Rostov to tell them how and where he had been wounded. That pleased Rostov, and he began telling them, getting more and more eager as he talked. He described to them his battle at Schongraben exactly as men who have taken part in battles always do describe them, that is, as they would have liked them to be, as they have heard them described by others, and as sounds well, but not in the least as it really had been. Rostov was a truthful young man; he would not have intentionally told a lie. He began with the intention of telling everything precisely as it had happened, but imperceptibly, unconsciously, and inevitably he passed into falsehood. If he had told the truth to his listeners, who, like himself, had heard numerous descriptions of cavalry charges, and had formed a definite idea of what a charge was like and were expecting a similar description, either they would not have believed him, or worse still, would have assumed that Rostov was himself to blame for not having performed the exploits usually performed by those who describe cavalry charges. He could not tell them simply that they had all been charging full gallop, that he had fallen off his horse, sprained his arm, and run with all his might away from the French into the copse. And besides, to tell everything exactly as it happened, he would have had to exercise considerable self-control in order to tell nothing beyond what happened. To tell the truth is a very difficult thing; and young people are rarely capable of it. His listeners expected to hear how he had been all on fire with excitement, had forgotten himself, had flown like a tempest on the enemy’s square, had cut his way into it, hewing men down right and left, how a sabre had been thrust into his flesh, how he had fallen unconscious, and so on. And he described all that. In the middle of his tale, just as he was saying: ‘You can’t fancy what a strange frenzy takes possession of one at the moment of the charge,’ there walked into the room Prince Andrey Bolkonsky, whom
222 WARANDPEACE
