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Several adjutants galloped off, and an hour later, Lavrushka, the serf Denisov had handed over to Rostov, rode up to Napoleon in an orderly's jacket and on a French cavalry saddle, with a merry, and tipsy face. Napoleon told him to ride by his side and began questioning him. "You are a Cossack?" "Yes, a Cossack, your Honor."
One of the men came out of the crowd and went up to Rostov. "Who do you belong to?" he asked. "The French," replied Ilyin jestingly, "and here is Napoleon himself" and he pointed to Lavrushka. "Then you are Russians?" the peasant asked again. "And is there a large force of you here?" said another, a short man, coming up. "Very large," answered Rostov. "But why have you collected here?" he added.
We are childwen of the dust... but one falls in love and one is a God, one is pua' as on the first day of cweation... Who's that now? Send him to the devil, I'm busy!" he shouted to Lavrushka, who went up to him not in the least abashed. "Who should it be? You yourself told him to come. It's the quartermaster for the money." Denisov frowned and was about to shout some reply but stopped.
Lavrushka was one of those coarse, bare-faced lackeys who have seen all sorts of things, consider it necessary to do everything in a mean and cunning way, are ready to render any sort of service to their master, and are keen at guessing their master's baser impulses, especially those prompted by vanity and pettiness.
Rostov felt Denisov's gaze fixed on him, raised his eyes, and instantly dropped them again. All the blood which had seemed congested somewhere below his throat rushed to his face and eyes. He could not draw breath. "And there hasn't been anyone in the room except the lieutenant and yourselves. It must be here somewhere," said Lavrushka.
I'm not against the commune," said Dron. "That's it not against it! You've filled your belly...." The two tall peasants had their say. As soon as Rostov, followed by Ilyin, Lavrushka, and Alpatych, came up to the crowd, Karp, thrusting his fingers into his belt and smiling a little, walked to the front. Dron on the contrary retired to the rear and the crowd drew closer together.
Lavrushka noticed this and to entertain him further, pretending not to know who Napoleon was, added: "We know that you have Bonaparte and that he has beaten everybody in the world, but we are a different matter..." without knowing why or how this bit of boastful patriotism slipped out at the end. The interpreter translated these words without the last phrase, and Bonaparte smiled.
When he saw the first hussar with the unbuttoned uniform of his regiment, when he recognized red-haired Dementyev and saw the picket ropes of the roan horses, when Lavrushka gleefully shouted to his master, "The count has come!" and Denisov, who had been asleep on his bed, ran all disheveled out of the mud hut to embrace him, and the officers collected round to greet the new arrival, Rostov experienced the same feeling as when his mother, his father, and his sister had embraced him, and tears of joy choked him so that he could not speak.
The fact was accordingly conveyed to Lavrushka. Lavrushka, understanding that this was done to perplex him and that Napoleon expected him to be frightened, to gratify his new masters promptly pretended to be astonished and awe-struck, opened his eyes wide, and assumed the expression he usually put on when taken to be whipped.
"Wetched business," he muttered to himself. "How much is left in the puhse?" he asked, turning to Rostov. "Seven new and three old imperials." "Oh, it's wetched! Well, what are you standing there for, you sca'cwow? Call the quahtehmasteh," he shouted to Lavrushka. "Please, Denisov, let me lend you some: I have some, you know," said Rostov, blushing.
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