“Devil knows what they’re about！” growled Denisov. “Ah, Rostov！” he called to the ensign, noticing his beaming face. “Well, you’ve not had long to wait.” And he smiled approvingly, unmistakably pleased at the sight of the ensign. Rostov felt perfectly blissful. At that moment the colonel appeared at the bridge. Denisov galloped up to him.
“Your excellency, let us attack！ we’ll settle them.”
“Attack, indeed！” said the colonel in a bored voice, puckering his face up as though at a teasing fly. “And what are you stopping here for？ You see the flanks are retreating. Lead the squadron back.”
The squadron crossed the bridge and passed out of range of the enemy’s guns without losing a single man. It was followed by the second squadron, and the Cossacks last of all crossed, leaving the further side of the river clear.
The two squadrons of the Pavlograd regiment, after crossing the bridge, rode one after the other up the hill. Their colonel, Karl Bogdanitch Schubert, had joined Denisov’s squadron, and was riding at a walking pace not far from Rostov, taking no notice of him, though this was the first time they had met since the incident in connection with Telyanin. Rostov, feeling himself at the front in the power of the man towards whom be now admitted that he had been to blame, never took his eyes off the athletic back, and flaxen head and red neck of the colonel. It seemed to Rostov at one time that Bogdanitch was only feigning inattention, and that his whole aim was now to test the ensign’s pluck; and he drew himself up and looked about him gaily. Then he fancied that Bogdanitch was riding close by him on purpose to show off his own valour. Then the thought struck him that his enemy was now sending the squadron to a hopeless attack on purpose to punish him, Rostov. Then he dreamed of how after the attack he would go up to him as he lay wounded, and magnanimously hold out his hand in reconciliation. The high-shouldered figure of Zherkov, who was known to the Pavlograd hussars, as he had not long before left their regiment, rode up to the colonel. After Zherkov had been dismissed from the staff of the commander-in-chief, he had not remained in the regiment, saying that he was not such a fool as to go to hard labour at the front when he could get more pay for doing nothing on the staff, and he had succeeded in getting appointed an orderly on the staff of Prince Bagration. He rode up to his old colonel with an order from the commander of the rear guard.
“Colonel,” he said, with his gloomy seriousness, addressing Rostov’s enemy, and looking round at his comrades, “there’s an order to go back and burn the bridge.”
“An order, who to？” asked the colonel grimly.
“Well, I don’t know, colonel, who to,” answered the cornet, seriously, “only the prince commanded me： ‘Ride and tell the colonel the hussars are to make haste back and burn the bridge.’ ”
Zherkov was followed by an officer of the suite, who rode up to the colonel with the same command. After the officer of the suite the stout figure of Nesvitsky was seen riding up on a Cossack’s horse, which had some trouble to gallop with him.
“Why, colonel,” he shouted, while still galloping towards him, “I told you to burn the bridge, and now some one’s got it wrong; they’re all frantic over there, there’s no ****** out anything.”
The colonel in a leisurely way stopped the regiment and turned to Nesvitsky.
“You told me about burning materials,” he said; “but about burning it, you never said a word.”
“Why, my good man,” said Nesvitsky, as he halted, taking off his forage-cap and passing his plump hand over his hair, which was drenched with sweat, “what need to say the bridge was to be burnt when you put burning materials to it？”
“I’m not your ‘good man,’ M. le staff-officer, and you never told me to set fire to the bridge！ I know my duty, and it’s my habit to carry out my orders strictly. You said the bridge will be burnt, but who was going to burn it I couldn’t tell.”
“Well, that’s always the way,” said Nesvitsky, with a wave of his arm. “How do you come here？” he added, addressing Zherkov.
“Why, about the same order. You’re sopping though, you want to be rubbed down.”
“You said, M. le staff-officer …” pursued the colonel in an aggrieved tone.
“Colonel,” interposed the officer of the suite, “there is need of haste, or the enemy will have moved up their grape-shot guns.”
The colonel looked dumbly at the officer of the suite, at the stout staff-officer, at Zherkov, and scowled.
“I will burn the bridge,” he said in a solemn tone, as though he would express that in spite of everything they might do to annoy him, he would still do what he ought.
Beating his long muscular legs against his horse, as though he were to blame for it all, the colonel moved forward and commanded the second squadron, the one under Denisov’s command, in which Rostov was serving, to turn back to the bridge.
“Yes, it really is so,” thought Rostov, “he wants to test me！” His heart throbbed and the blood rushed to his face. “Let him see whether I’m a coward！” he thought.
Again all the light-hearted faces of the men of the squadron wore that grave line, which had come upon them when they were under fire. Rostov looked steadily at his enemy, the colonel, trying to find confirmation of his suppositions on his face. But the colonel never once glanced at Rostov, and looked, as he always did at the front, stern and solemn. The word of command was given.
“Look sharp！ look sharp！” several voices repeated around him.
Their swords catching in the reins and their spurs jingling, the hussars dismounted in haste, not knowing themselves what they were to do. The soldiers crossed themselves. Rostov did not look at the colonel now; he had no time. He dreaded, with a sinking heart he dreaded, being left behind by the hussars. His hand trembled as he gave his horse to an orderly, and he felt that the blood was rushing to his heart with a thud. Denisov, rolling backwards, and shouting something, rode by him. Rostov saw nothing but the hussars running around him, clinking spurs and jingling swords.