It was getting dark when Denisov, with Petya and the esaul, reachei the forester’s hut. In the half-dark they could see saddled horses, Cos sacks and hussars, rigging up shanties in the clearing, and building u] a glowing fire in a hollow near, where the smoke would not be seen b\ the French. In the porch of the little hut there was a Cossack with hi: sleeves tucked up, cutting up a sheep. In the hut, three officers of Deni sov’s band were setting up a table made up of doors. Petya took off hi: wet clothes, gave them to be dried, and at once set to work to help th( officers in fixing up a dining-table.
In ten minutes the table was ready and covered with a napkin. On thf table was set vodka, a flask of rum, white bread, and roast mutton, anc salt.
Sitting at the table v/ith the officers, tearing the fat, savoury muttor with greasy fingers, Petya was in a childishly enthusiastic condition of tender love for all men and a consequent belief in the same feeling fotj himself in others.
‘So what do you think, Vassily Fyodorovitch,’ he said to Denisov, ‘it won’t matter my staying a day with you, will it?' And without waiting for an answer, he answered himself: ‘Why, I was told to find out. and here I am finding out . . . Only you must let me go into the middle
. o mto the real ... I don’t care about rewards . . . But I do want . .’ Petya clenched his teeth and looked about him, tossing his head id waving his arm.
‘Into the real, real thing . . Denisov said, smiling.
‘Only, please, do give me a command of something altogether, so that really might command,’ Petya went on. ‘Why, what would it be to Ini? Ah, you want a knife?’ he said to an officer, who was trying to ar off a piece of mutton. And he gave him his pocket-knife.
The officer praised the knife.
‘Please keep it. I have several like it . . .’ said Petya, blushing, leavens! Why, I was quite forgetting,’ he cried suddenly. ‘I have some xpital raisins, you know the sort without stones. We have a new can- en-keeper, and he does get first-rate things. I bought ten pounds of lem. I’m fond of sweet things. Will you have some?’ . . . And Petya in out to his Cossack in the porch, and brought in some panniers in hich there were five pounds of raisins. ‘Please take some.’
‘Don’t you need a coffee-pot?’ he said to the esaul; ‘I bought a famous le from our canteen-keeper! He has first-rate things. And he’s very onest. That’s the great thing. I'll be sure and send it you. Or perhaps bur flints are worn out; that does happen sometimes. I brought some ith me, I have got them here . . .’ he pointed to the panniers. ‘A hun- red flints. I bought them very cheap. You must please take as many B you want or all, indeed . . .’ And suddenly, dismayed at the thought lat he had let his tongue run away with him, Petya stopped short and lushed.
He began trying to think whether he had been guilty of any other lunders. And running through his recollections of the day the image f the French drummer-boy rose before his mind.
‘We are enjoying ourselves, but how is he feeling? What have they one with him? Have they given him something to eat? Have they been asty to him?’ he wondered.
But thinking he had said too much about the flints, he was afraid to peak now.
‘Could I ask about him?’ he wondered. ‘They'll say: he’s a boy him- elf, so he feels for the boy. I’ll let them see to-morrow whether I’m a oy! Shall I feel ashamed if I ask?’ Petya wondered. ‘Oh, well! I don't are,’ and he said at once, blushing and watching the officers’ faces in read of detecting amusement in them:
‘Might I call that boy who was taken prisoner, and give him some- jnng to eat . . . perhaps . . .’
‘Yes, poor little fellow,’ said Denisov, who clearly saw nothing to be shamed of in this reminder. ‘Fetch him in here. His name is Vincent iosse. Fetch him in.’
‘I’ll call him,’ said Petya.
‘Yes, do. Poor little fellow,’ repeated Denisov.
Petya was standing at the door as Denisov said this. He slipped in etween the officers and went up to Denisov.
‘Let me kiss you, dear old fellow,’ he said. ‘Ah, how jolly it is! ho splendid!’ And, kissing Denisov, he ran out into the yard.
‘Bosse! Vincent!’ Petya cried, standing by the door.
‘Whom do you want, sir?’ said a voice out of the darkness. Pety answered that he wanted the French boy, who had been taken prisont that day.
‘Ah! Vesenny?’ said the Cossack.
His name Vincent had already been transformed by the Cossacks int Vesenny, and by the peasants and the soldiers into Visenya. In hot names there was a suggestion of the spring—vesna—which seemed t them to harmonise with the figure of the young boy.
‘He’s warming himself there at the fire. Ay, Visenya! Visenya!’ voice called from one to another with laughter in the darkness. ‘He is a shar; boy,’ said an hussar standing near Petya. ‘We gave him a meal not Ion ago. He was hungry, terribly.’
There was a sound of footsteps in the darkness, and the drummer boy came splashing through the mud with his bare feet towards th door.
