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.