War and Peace

oing along the corridor, the assistant led Rostóv to the officers’
wards, consisting of three rooms, the doors of which stood open. There
were beds in these rooms and the sick and wounded officers were lying or
sitting on them. Some were walking about the rooms in hospital dressing
gowns. The first person Rostóv met in the officers’ ward was a thin
little man with one arm, who was walking about the first room in a
nightcap and hospital dressing gown, with a pipe between his teeth.
Rostóv looked at him, trying to remember where he had seen him before.

“See where we’ve met again!” said the little man. “Túshin,
Túshin, don’t you remember, who gave you a lift at Schön Grabern?
And I’ve had a bit cut off, you see...” he went on with a smile,
pointing to the empty sleeve of his dressing gown. “Looking for
Vasíli Dmítrich Denísov? My neighbor,” he added, when he heard
who Rostóv wanted. “Here, here,” and Túshin led him into the next
room, from whence came sounds of several laughing voices.

“How can they laugh, or even live at all here?” thought Rostóv,
still aware of that smell of decomposing flesh that had been so strong
in the soldiers’ ward, and still seeming to see fixed on him those
envious looks which had followed him out from both sides, and the face
of that young soldier with eyes rolled back.

Denísov lay asleep on his bed with his head under the blanket, though
it was nearly noon.

“Ah, Wostóv? How are you, how are you?” he called out, still in the
same voice as in the regiment, but Rostóv noticed sadly that under this
habitual ease and animation some new, sinister, hidden feeling showed
itself in the expression of Denísov’s face and the intonations of his
voice.

His wound, though a slight one, had not yet healed even now, six weeks
after he had been hit. His face had the same swollen pallor as the faces
of the other hospital patients, but it was not this that struck Rostóv.
What struck him was that Denísov did not seem glad to see him, and
smiled at him unnaturally. He did not ask about the regiment, nor about
the general state of affairs, and when Rostóv spoke of these matters
did not listen.

Rostóv even noticed that Denísov did not like to be reminded of the
regiment, or in general of that other free life which was going on
outside the hospital. He seemed to try to forget that old life and
was only interested in the affair with the commissariat officers. On
Rostóv’s inquiry as to how the matter stood, he at once produced from
under his pillow a paper he had received from the commission and the
rough draft of his answer to it. He became animated when he began
reading his paper and specially drew Rostóv’s attention to the
stinging rejoinders he made to his enemies. His hospital companions,
who had gathered round Rostóv—a fresh arrival from the world
outside—gradually began to disperse as soon as Denísov began reading
his answer. Rostóv noticed by their faces that all those gentlemen had
already heard that story more than once and were tired of it. Only the
man who had the next bed, a stout Uhlan, continued to sit on his bed,
gloomily frowning and smoking a pipe, and little one-armed Túshin still
listened, shaking his head disapprovingly. In the middle of the reading,
the Uhlan interrupted Denísov.

“But what I say is,” he said, turning to Rostóv, “it would be
best simply to petition the Emperor for pardon. They say great rewards
will now be distributed, and surely a pardon would be granted....”

“Me petition the Empewo’!” exclaimed Denísov, in a voice to which
he tried hard to give the old energy and fire, but which sounded like
an expression of irritable impotence. “What for? If I were a wobber I
would ask mercy, but I’m being court-martialed for bwinging wobbers
to book. Let them twy me, I’m not afwaid of anyone. I’ve served
the Tsar and my countwy honowably and have not stolen! And am I to be
degwaded?... Listen, I’m w’iting to them stwaight. This is what I
say: ‘If I had wobbed the Tweasuwy...’”

“It’s certainly well written,” said Túshin, “but that’s not
the point, Vasíli Dmítrich,” and he also turned to Rostóv. “One
has to submit, and Vasíli Dmítrich doesn’t want to. You know the
auditor told you it was a bad business.”

“Well, let it be bad,” said Denísov.

“The auditor wrote out a petition for you,” continued Túshin,
“and you ought to sign it and ask this gentleman to take it. No doubt
he” (indicating Rostóv) “has connections on the staff. You won’t
find a better opportunity.”

“Haven’t I said I’m not going to gwovel?” Denísov interrupted
him, went on reading his paper.

Rostóv had not the courage to persuade Denísov, though he
instinctively felt that the way advised by Túshin and the other
officers was the safest, and though he would have been glad to be of
service to Denísov. He knew his stubborn will and straightforward hasty
temper.

When the reading of Denísov’s virulent reply, which took more than an
hour, was over, Rostóv said nothing, and he spent the rest of the day
in a most dejected state of mind amid Denísov’s hospital comrades,
who had gathered round him, telling them what he knew and listening to
their stories. Denísov was moodily silent all the evening.

Late in the evening, when Rostóv was about to leave, he asked Denísov
whether he had no commission for him.

“Yes, wait a bit,” said Denísov, glancing round at the officers,
and taking his papers from under his pillow he went to the window, where
he had an inkpot, and sat down to write.

“It seems it’s no use knocking one’s head against a wall!” he
said, coming from the window and giving Rostóv a large envelope. In
it was the petition to the Emperor drawn up by the auditor, in
which Denísov, without alluding to the offenses of the commissariat
officials, simply asked for pardon.

“Hand it in. It seems...”

He did not finish, but gave a painfully unnatural smile.