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Young Rostov's ecstatic voice could be heard above the three hundred others. He nearly wept. "To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!" he roared, "Hurrah!" and emptying his glass at one gulp he dashed it to the floor. Many followed his example, and the loud shouting continued for a long time.
"Who can tell, your honor?" replied the hussar reluctantly. "From the direction, it must be the enemy," repeated Rostov. "It may be he or it may be nothing," muttered the hussar. "It's dark... Steady!" he cried to his fidgeting horse. Rostov's horse was also getting restive: it pawed the frozen ground, pricking its ears at the noise and looking at the lights.
Rostov had just prepared a card, by bending the corner of which he meant to double the three thousand just put down to his score, when Dolokhov, slamming down the pack of cards, put it aside and began rapidly adding up the total of Rostov's debt, breaking the chalk as he marked the figures in his clear, bold hand. "Supper, it's time for supper! And here are the gypsies!"
"Heaven only knows what the people here may imagine," muttered Telyanin, taking up his cap and moving toward a small empty room. "We must have an explanation..." "I know it and shall prove it," said Rostov. Every muscle of Telyanin's pale, terrified face began to quiver, his eyes still shifted from side to side but with a downward look not rising to Rostov's face, and his sobs were audible.
The rain was descending in torrents, and Rostov, with a young officer named Ilyin, his protege, was sitting in a hastily constructed shelter. An officer of their regiment, with long mustaches extending onto his cheeks, who after riding to the staff had been overtaken by the rain, entered Rostov's shelter. "I have come from the staff, Count. Have you heard of Raevski's exploit?"
We missed one another," he said, and could not refrain from asking what was the matter, so strangely dismal and troubled was Rostov's face. "Nothing, nothing," replied Rostov. "You'll call round?" "Yes, I will." Rostov stood at that corner for a long time, watching the feast from a distance. In his mind, a painful process was going on which he could not bring to a conclusion.
Rostov's deferential tone seemed to indicate that though he would consider himself happy to be acquainted with her, he did not wish to take advantage of her misfortunes to intrude upon her. Princess Mary understood this and appreciated his delicacy. "I am very, very grateful to you," she said in French, "but I hope it was all a misunderstanding and that no one is to blame for it."
He laid down the seven of hearts, on which with a broken bit of chalk he had written "800 rubles" in clear upright figures; he emptied the glass of warm champagne that was handed him, smiled at Dolokhov's words, and with a sinking heart, waiting for a seven to turn up, gazed at Dolokhov's hands which held the pack. Much depended on Rostov's winning or losing on that seven of hearts.
But it's not that, my friend-" said Dolokhov with a gasping voice. "Where are we? In Moscow, I know. I don't matter, but I have killed her, killed... She won't get over it! She won't survive...." "Who?" asked Rostov. "My mother! My mother, my angel, my adored angel mother," and Dolokhov pressed Rostov's hand and burst into tears.
During the first half of the journey from Kremenchug to Kiev all Rostov's thoughts, as is usual in such cases, were behind him, with the squadron; but when he had gone more than halfway he began to forget his three roans and Dozhoyveyko, his quartermaster, and to wonder anxiously how things would be at Otradnoe and what he would find there.
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