“A dog astride a fence, a dog astride a fence to the life！” Denisov called after him—the bitterest insult a cavalry man can pay an infantry man on horseback; and riding up to Rostov he broke into a guffaw.
“Carried off the transports, carried them off from the infantry by force！” he said. “Why, am I to let the men die of hunger？”
The stores carried off by the hussars had been intended for an infantry regiment, but learning from Lavrushka that the transport was unescorted, Denisov and his hussars had carried off the stores by force. Biscuits were dealt out freely to the soldiers; they even shared them with the other squadrons.
Next day the colonel sent for Denisov, and putting his fingers held apart before his eyes, he said to him： “I look at the matter like this; see, I know nothing, and will take no steps; but I advise you to ride over to the staff, and there, in the commissariat department, to smooth the thing over, and if possible give a receipt for so much stores. If not, and a claim is entered for the infantry regiments, there will be a fuss, and it may end unpleasantly.”
Denisov went straight from the colonel to the staff with a sincere desire to follow his advice.
In the evening he came back to his hut in a condition such as Rostov had never seen his friend in before. Denisov could not speak, and was gasping for breath. When Rostov asked him what was wrong with him, he could only in a faint and husky voice utter incoherent oaths and threats.
Alarmed at Denisov’s condition, Rostov suggested he should undress, drink some water, and sent for the doctor.
“Me to be court-martialled for brigandage—oh！ some more water！—Let them court-martial me; I will, I always will, beat blackguards, and I’ll tell the Emperor.—Ice,” he kept saying.
The regimental doctor said it was necessary to bleed him. A deep saucer of black blood was drawn from Denisov’s hairy arm, and only then did he recover himself sufficiently to relate what had happened.
“I got there,” Denisov said. “ ‘Well, where are your chief’s quarters？’ I asked. They showed me. ‘Will you please to wait？’ ‘I have come on business, and I have come over thirty versts, I haven’t time to wait; announce me.’ Very good; but the over-thief appears; he, too, thought fit to lecture me. ‘This is robbery！’ says he. ‘The robber,’ said I, ‘is not the man who takes the stores to feed his soldiers, but the man who takes them to fill his pockets.’ ‘Will you please to be silent？’ Very good. ‘Give a receipt,’ says he, ‘to the commissioner, but the affair will be reported at headquarters.’ I go before the commissioner. I go in. Sitting at the table … Who？ No, think of it！… Who is it that’s starving us to death？” roared Denisov, bringing the fist of his lanced arm down so violently that the table almost fell over, and the glasses jumped on it “Telyanin！ … ‘What, it’s you that’s starving us to death？’ said I, and I gave him one on the snout, and well it went home, and then another, so … ‘Ah！ … you so-and-so …’ and I gave him a thrashing. But I did have a bit of fun, though, I can say that,” cried Denisov, his white teeth showing in a smile of malignant glee under his black moustaches. “I should have killed him, if they hadn’t pulled me off.”
“But why are you shouting; keep quiet,” said Rostov; “it’s bleeding again. Stay, it must be bound up.”
Denisov was bandaged up and put to bed. Next day he waked up calm and in good spirits.
But at midday the adjutant of the regiment came with a grave and gloomy face to the hut shared by Denisov and Rostov, and regretfully showed them a formal communication to Major Denisov from the colonel, in which inquiries were made about the incidents of the previous day. The adjutant informed them that the affair seemed likely to take a very disastrous turn; that a court-martial was to be held; and that, with the strictness now prevailing as regards pillaging and breach of discipline, it would be a lucky chance if it ended in being degraded to the ranks.
The case, as presented by the offended parties, was that Major Denisov, after carrying off the transports, had without any provocation come in a drunken condition to the chief commissioner of the commissariat, had called him a thief, threatened to beat him; and, when he was led out, had rushed into the office, attacked two officials, and sprained the arm of one of them.
In response to further inquiries from Rostov, Denisov said, laughing, that it did seem certainly as though some other fellow had been mixed up in it, but that it was all stuff and nonsense; that he would never dream of being afraid of courts of any sort, and that if the scoundrels dared to pick a quarrel with him, he would give them an answer they wouldn’t soon forget.
Denisov spoke in this careless way of the whole affair. But Rostov knew him too well not to detect that in his heart （though he hid it from others） he was afraid of a court-martial, and was worrying over the matter, which was obviously certain to have disastrous consequences. Documents began to come every day, and notices from the court, and Denisov received a summons to put his squadron under the command of the officer next in seniority, and on the first of May to appear before the staff of the division for an investigation into the row in the commissariat office. On the previous day Platov undertook a reconnaissance of the enemy with two regiments of Cossacks and two squadrons of hussars. Denisov, with his usual swaggering gallantry, rode in the front of the line. One of the bullets fired by the French sharpshooters struck him in the fleshy upper part of the leg. Possibly at any other time Denisov would not have left the regiment for so slight a wound, but now he took advantage of it to excuse himself from appearing before the staff, and went into the hospital.