In another company—a lucky one, for not all had vodka—the soldiers stood in a group round a broad-shouldered, pock-marked sergeant, who was tilting a keg of vodka, and pouring it into the covers of the canteens held out to him in turn. The soldiers, with reverential faces, lifted the covers to their mouths, drained them, and licking their lips and rubbing them with the sleeves of their coats, they walked away looking more good-humoured than before. Every face was as serene as though it were all happening not in sight of the enemy, just before an action in which at least half of the detachment must certainly be left on the field, but somewhere at home in Russia, with every prospect of a quiet halting- place. Prince Andrey rode by the Chasseur regiment, and as he advanced into the ranks of the Kiev Grenadiers, stalwart fellows all engaged in the same peaceful pursuits, not far from the colonel’s shanty, standing higher than the rest, he came upon a platoon of grenadiers, before whom lay a man stripped naked. Two soldiers were holding him, while two others were brandishing supple twigs and bringing them down at regular intervals on the man’s bare back. The man shrieked unnaturally. A stout major was walking up and down in front of the platoon, and regardless of the screams, he kept saying: ‘It’s a disgrace for a soldier to steal; a soldier must be honest, honourable, and brave, and to steal from a comrade, he must be without honour indeed, a monster. Again, again!’
And still he heard the dull thuds and the desperate but affected scream.
‘Again, again,’ the major was saying.
A young officer, with an expression of bewilderment and distress in his face, walked away from the flogging, looking inquiringly at the adjutant.
Prince Andrey, coming out to the foremost line, rode along in front of it. Our line and the enemy’s were far from one another at the left and also at the right flank; but in the centre, at the spot where in the morning the messengers had met, the lines came so close that the soldiers >f the two armies could see each other’s faces and talk together.. Besides ‘these soldiers, whose place was in that part of the line, many others had gathered there from both sides, and they were laughing, as they scru- inised the strange and novel dress and aspect of their foes.
I 5 S WAR AND PEACE
Since early morning, though it was forbidden to go up to the line, the commanding officers could not keep the inquisitive soldiers back. The soldiers, whose post was in that part of the line, like showmen exhibiting some curiosity, no longer looked at the French, but made observations on the men who came up to look, and waited with a bored face to be relieved. Prince Andrey stopped to look carefully at the French.
‘Look’ee, look’ee,’ one soldier was saying to a comrade, pointing to a Russian musketeer, who had gone up to the lines with an officer and was talking warmly and rapidly with a French grenadier. ‘I say, doesn’t he jabber away fine! I bet the Frenchy can’t keep pace with him. Now, then, Sidorov?’
‘Wait a bit; listen. Aye, it’s fine!’ replied Sidorov, reputed a regular scholar at talking French.
The soldier, at whom they had pointed laughing, was Dolohov. Prince Andrey recognised him and listened to what he was saying. Dolohov, together with his captain, had come from the left flank, where his regiment was posted.
‘Come, again, again!’ the captain urged, craning forward and trying not to lose a syllable of the conversation, though it was unintelligible to him. ‘Please, go on. What’s he saying?’
Dolohov did not answer the captain; he had been drawn into a hot dispute with the French grenadier. They were talking, as was to be expected, of the campaign. The Frenchman, mixing up the Austrians and the Russians, was maintaining that the Russians had been defeated and had been fleeing all the way from Ulm. Dolohov declared that the Russians had never been defeated, but had beaten the French.
‘We have orders to drive you away from here, and we shall too,’ said Dolohov.
‘You had better take care you are not all captured with all your Cossacks,’ said the French grenadier.
Spectators and listeners on the French side laughed.
‘We shall make you dance, as you danced in Suvorov’s day’ {on vous j )era danser), said Dolohov.
‘What is he prating about?’ said a Frenchman.
‘Ancient history,’ said another, guessing that the allusion was to former wars. ‘The Emperor will show your Souvorov, like the others. . . .’
‘Bonaparte . . .’ Dolohov was beginning, but the Frenchman interrupted him.
‘Not Bonaparte. He is the Emperor! Sacre nom . . he said angrily.
‘Damnation to him, your Emperor!’
And Dolohov swore a coarse soldier’s oath in R.ussian, and, shouldering his gun, walked away.
‘Come-along, Ivan Lukitch,’ he said to his captain.
‘So that’s how they talk French,’ said the soldiers in the line. ‘Now then, you, Sidorov.’ Sidorov winked, and, turning to the French, he fell to gabbling disconnected syllables very rapidly.
