Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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with
excitement, rode by his side.
"If were caught, I wont be taken alive! I have a pistol,"
whispered he.
"Dont talk Russian," said Dolokhov in a hurried whisper, and at
that very moment they heard through the darkness the challenge: "Qui
vive?"* and the click of a musket.
*"Who goes there?"
The blood rushed to Petyas face and he grasped his pistol.
"Lanciers du 6-me,"* replied Dolokhov, neither hastening nor
slackening his horses pace.
*"Lancers of the 6th Regiment."
The black figure of a sentinel stood on the bridge.
"Mot dordre."*
*"Password."
Dolokhov reined in his horse and advanced at a walk.
"Dites donc, le colonel Gerard est ici?"* he asked.
*"Tell me, is Colonel Gerard here?"
"Mot dordre," repeated the sentinel, barring the way and not
replying.
"Quand un officier fait sa ronde, les sentinelles ne demandent pas
le mot dordre..." cried Dolokhov suddenly flaring up and riding
straight at the sentinel. "Je vous demande si le colonel est ici."*
*"When an officer is making his round, sentinels dont ask him for
the password.... I am asking you if the colonel is here."
And without waiting for an answer from the sentinel, who had stepped
aside, Dolokhov rode up the incline at a walk.
Noticing the black outline of a man crossing the road, Dolokhov
stopped him and inquired where the commander and officers were. The
man, a soldier with a sack over his shoulder, stopped, came close up
to Dolokhovs horse, touched it with his hand, and explained simply
and in a friendly way that the commander and the officers were
higher up the hill to the right in the courtyard of the farm, as he
called the landowners house.
Having ridden up the road, on both sides of which French talk
could be heard around the campfires, Dolokhov turned into the
courtyard of the landowners house. Having ridden in, he dismounted
and approached a big blazing campfire, around which sat several men
talking noisily. Something was boiling in a small cauldron at the edge
of the fire and a soldier in a peaked cap and blue overcoat, lit up by
the fire, was kneeling beside it stirring its contents with a ramrod.
"Oh, hes a hard nut to crack," said one of the officers who was
sitting in the shadow at the other side of the fire.
"Hell make them get a move on, those fellows!" said another,
laughing.
Both fell silent, peering out through the darkness at the sound of
Dolokhovs and Petyas steps as they advanced to the fire leading
their horses.
"Bonjour, messieurs!"* said Dolokhov loudly and clearly.
*"Good day, gentlemen."
There was a stir among the officers in the shadow beyond the fire,
and one tall, long-necked officer, walking round the fire, came up
to Dolokhov.
"Is that you, Clement?" he asked. "Where the devil...?" But, noticing
his mistake, he broke off short and, with a frown, greeted Dolokhov as
a stranger, asking what he could do for him.
Dolokhov said that he and his companion were trying to overtake
their regiment, and addressing the company in general asked whether
they knew anything of the 6th Regiment. None of them knew anything,
and Petya thought the officers were beginning to look at him and
Dolokhov with hostility and suspicion. For some seconds all were
silent.
"If you were counting on the evening soup, you have come too
late," said a voice from behind the fire with a repressed laugh.
Dolokhov replied that they were not hungry and must push on
farther that night.
He handed the horses over to the soldier who was stirring the pot
and squatted down on his heels by the fire beside the officer with the
long neck. That officer did not take his eyes from Dolokhov and
again asked to what regiment he belonged. Dolokhov, as if he had not
heard the question, did not reply, but lighting a short French pipe
which he took from his pocket began asking the officer in how far
the road before them was safe from Cossacks.
"Those brigands are everywhere," replied an officer from behind
the fire.
Dolokhov remarked that the Cossacks were a danger only to stragglers
such as his companion and himself, "but probably they would not dare
to attack large detachments?" he added inquiringly. No one replied.
"Well, now hell come away," Petya thought every moment as he
stood by the campfire listening to the talk.
But Dolokhov restarted the conversation which had dropped and
began putting direct questions as to how many men there were in the
battalion, how many battalions, and how many prisoners. Asking about
the Russian prisoners with that detachment, Dolokhov said:
"A horrid business dragging these
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