Rostov took the purse in his hand and looked both at it and at the money in it, and also at Telyanin. The lieutenant looked about him, as his way was, and seemed suddenly to have grown very good-humoured.
‘If we go to Vienna, I suspect I shall leave it all there, but now there’s nowhere to spend our money in these wretched little places,.’ he said. ‘Come, give it me, young man; I’m going.’
Rostov did not speak.
‘What are you going to do? have lunch too? They give you decent food,’ Telyanin went on. ‘Give it me.’ He put out his hand and took hold of the purse. Rostov let go of it. Telyanin took the purse and began carelessly dropping it into the pocket of his riding trousers, while his eyebrows were carelessly lifted and his mouth stood a little open, as though he would say: ‘Yes, yes, I’m putting my purse in my pocket, and that’s a very simple matter, and no one has anything to do with it.’
‘Well, young man?’ he said with a sigh, and from under his lifted eyebrows he glanced into Rostov’s eyes. A kind of gleam passed with the swiftness of an electric flash from Telyanin’s eyes to the eyes of Rostov, and back again and back again and again, all in one instant.
‘Come here,’ said Rostov, taking Telyanin by the arm. He almost dragged him to the window. ‘That’s Denisov’s money; you took it . . he whispered in his ear.
‘What? . . . what? . . . How dare you? What?’ . . . said Telyanin. But the words sounded like a plaintive, despairing cry and prayer for forgiveness. As soon as Rostov heard the sound of his voice, a great weight of suspense, like a stone, rolled off his heart. He felt glad, and at the same instant he pitied the luckless creature standing before him, but he had to carry the thing through to the end.
‘God knows what the people here may think,’ muttered Telyanin, snatching up his forage-cap and turning towards a small empty room. ‘You must explain . . .’
‘I know that, and I’ll prove it,’ said Rostov.
‘I . . .’
The terrified, white face of Telyanin began twitching in every muscle;
his eyes still moved uneasily, but on the ground, never rising to the level of Rostov’s face, and tearful sobs could be heard.
‘Count! . . . don’t ruin a young man . . here is the wretched
money, take it.’ ... He threw it on the table. ‘I’ve an old father and mother!’ . . .
Rostov took the money, avoiding Telyanin’s eyes, and without uttering a word, he went out of the room. But in the doorway he stopped and turned back.
‘My God!’ he said, with tears in his eyes, ‘how could you do it?’
‘Count,’ said Telyanin, coming nearer to the ensign.
‘Don’t touch me,’ said Rostov, drawing back. ‘If you’re in need, take the money.’
He thrust a purse on him and ran out of the restaurant.
V
In the evening of the same day a lively discussion was taking place in Denisov’s quarters between some officers of the squadron.
‘But I tell you, Rostov, that you must apologise to the colonel,’ the tall staff-captain was saying, addressing Rostov, who was crimson with excitement. The staff-captain, Kirsten, a man with grizzled hair, immense whiskers, thick features and a wrinkled face, had been twice degraded to the ranks for affairs of honour, and had twice risen again to holding a commission.
‘I permit no one to tell me I’m lying! ’ cried Rostov. ‘He told me I was lying and I told him he was lying. And there it rests. He can put me on duty every day, he can place me under arrest, but no one can compel me to apologise, because if he, as the colonel, considers it beneath his dignity to give me satisfaction, then . . .’
‘But you wait a bit, my good fellow; you listen to me,’ interrupted the staff-captain in his bass voice, calmly stroking his long whiskers. ‘You tell the colonel in the presence of other officers that an officer has stolen-’
‘I’m not to blame for the conversation being in the presence of other officers. Possibly I ought not to have spoken before them, but I’m not a diplomatist. That’s just why I went into the hussars; I thought that here I should have no need of such finicky considerations, and he tells me I’m a liar ... so let him give me satisfaction.’
‘That’s all very fine, no one imagines that you’re a coward; but that’s not the point. Ask Denisov if it’s not utterly out of the question for an ensign to demand satisfaction of his colonel?’
Denisov was biting his moustache with a morose air, listening to the conversation, evidently with no desire to take part in it. To the captain’s question, he replied by a negative shake of the head.
‘You speak to the colonel in the presence of other officers of this dirty business,’ pursued the staff-captain. ‘Bogdanitch’ (Bogdanitch was what they called the colonel) ‘snubbed you . . .’
‘No, he didn’t. He said I was telling an untruth.’
‘Quite so, and you talked nonsense to him, and you must apologise.’
‘Not on any consideration!’ shouted Rostov.
