That day Nikolay Rostov had received a note from Boris informing him that the Ismailovsky regiment was quartered for the night fifteen versts from Olmütz, and that he wanted to see him to give him a letter and some money. The money Rostov particularly needed just now, when the troops after active service were stationed near Olmütz, and the camp swarmed with well-equipped canteen keepers and Austrian Jews, offering all kinds of attractions. The Pavlograd hussars had been keeping up a round of gaiety, fêtes in honour of the promotions received in the field, and excursions to Olmütz to a certain Caroline la Hongroise, who had recently opened a restaurant there with girls as waiters. Rostov had just been celebrating his commission as a cornet; he had bought Denisov's horse Bedouin, too, and was in debt all round to his comrades and the canteen keepers. On getting the note from Boris, Rostov rode into Olmütz with a comrade, dined there, drank a bottle of wine, and rode on alone to the guards' camp to find the companion of his childhood. Rostov had not yet got his uniform. He was wearing a shabby ensign's jacket with a private soldier's cross, equally shabby riding-trousers lined with worn leather, and an officer's sabre with a sword knot. The horse he was riding was of the Don breed, bought of a Cossack on the march. A crushed hussar cap was stuck jauntily back on one side of his head. As he rode up to the camp of the Ismailovsky regiment, he was thinking of how he would impress Boris and all his comrades in the guards by looking so thoroughly a hussar who has been under fire and roughed it at the front.

The guards had made their march as though it were a pleasure excursion, priding themselves on their smartness and discipline. They moved by short stages, their knapsacks were carried in the transport waggons, and at every halt the Austrian government provided the officers with excellent dinners. The regiments made their entry into towns and their exit from them with bands playing, and, according to the grand duke's order, the whole march had (a point on which the guards prided themselves) been performed by the soldiers in step, the officers too walking in their proper places. Boris had throughout the march walked and stayed with Berg, who was by this time a captain. Berg, who had received his company on the march, had succeeded in gaining the confidence of his superior officers by his conscientiousness and accuracy, and had established his financial position on a very satisfactory basis. Boris had during the same period made the acquaintance of many persons likely to be of use to him, and by means of a letter of recommendation brought from Pierre, had made the acquaintance of Prince Andrey Bolkonsky, through whom he had hopes of obtaining a post on the staff of the commander-in-chief. Berg and Boris, who had rested well after the previous day's march, were sitting smartly and neatly dressed, in the clean quarters assigned them, playing draughts at a round table. Berg was holding between his knees a smoking pipe. Boris, with his characteristic nicety, was building the draughts into a pyramid with his delicate, white fingers, while he waited for Berg to play. He was watching his partner's face, obviously thinking of the game, his attention concentrated, as it always was, on what he was engaged in.

“Well, how are you going to get out of that?” he said.

“I am going to try,” answered Berg, touching the pieces, and taking his hand away again.

At that instant the door opened.

“Here he is at last!” shouted Rostov. “And Berg too. Ah, petisanfan, alley cooshey dormir!” he cried, repeating the saying of their old nurse's that had once been a joke with him and Boris.

“Goodness, how changed you are!” Boris got up to greet Rostov, but as he rose, he did not forget to hold the board, and to put back the falling pieces. He was about to embrace his friend, but Nikolay drew back from him. With that peculiarly youthful feeling of fearing beaten tracks, of wanting to avoid imitation, to express one's feelings in some new way of one's own, so as to escape the forms often conventionally used by one's elders, Nikolay wanted to do something striking on meeting his friend. He wanted somehow to give him a pinch, to give Berg a shove, anything rather than to kiss, as people always did on such occasions. Boris, on the contrary, embraced Rostov in a composed and friendly manner, and gave him three kisses.

It was almost six months since they had seen each other. And being at the stage when young men take their first steps along the path of life, each found immense changes in the other, quite new reflections of the different society in which they had taken those first steps. Both had changed greatly since they were last together, and both wanted to show as soon as possible what a change had taken place.

“Ah, you damned floor polishers! Smart and clean, as if you'd been enjoying yourselves; not like us poor devils at the front,” said Rostov, with martial swagger, and with baritone notes in his voice that were new to Boris. He pointed to his mud-stained riding-breeches. The German woman of the house popped her head out of a door at Rostov's loud voice.

“A pretty woman, eh?” said he, winking.

“Why do you shout so? You are frightening them,” said Boris. “I didn't expect you to-day,” he added. “I only sent the note off to you yesterday—through an adjutant of Kutuzov's, who's a friend of mine—Bolkonsky. I didn't expect he would send it to you so quickly. Well, how are you? Been under fire already?” asked Boris.

Without answering, Rostov, in soldierly fashion, shook the cross of St. George that hung on the cording of his uniform, and pointing to his arm in a sling, he glanced at Berg.

“As you see,” he said.

“To be sure, yes, yes,” said Boris, smiling, “and we have had a capital march here too. You know his Highness kept all the while with our regiment, so that we had every convenience and advantage. In Poland, the receptions, the dinners, the balls!—I can't tell you. And the Tsarevitch was very gracious to all our officers.” And both the friends began describing; one, the gay revels of the hussars and life at the front; the other, the amenities and advantages of service under the command of royalty.

“Oh, you guards,” said Rostov. “But, I say, send for some wine.”

Boris frowned.

“If you really want some,” he said. And he went to the bedstead, took a purse from under the clean pillows, and ordered some wine. “Oh, and I have a letter and money to give you,” he added.

Rostov took the letter, and flinging the money on the sofa, put both his elbows on the table and began reading it. He read a few lines, and looked wrathfully at Berg. Meeting his eyes, Rostov hid his face with the letter.

“They sent you a decent lot of money, though,” said Berg, looking at the heavy bag, that sank into the sofa. “But we manage to scrape along on our pay, count, I can tell you in my own case. …”

“I say, Berg, my dear fellow,” said Rostov; “when you get a letter from home and meet one of your own people, whom you want to talk everything over with, and I'm on the scene, I'll clear out at once, so as not to be in your way. Do you hear, be off, please, anywhere, anywhere … to the devil!” he cried, and immediately seizing him by the shoulder, and looking affectionately into his face, evidently to soften the rudeness of his words, he added: “you know, you're not angry, my dear fellow, I speak straight from the heart to an old friend like you.”

“Why, of course, count, I quite understand,” said Berg, getting up and speaking in his deep voice.

“You might go and see the people of the house; they did invite you,” added Boris.

Berg put on a spotless clean coat, brushed his lovelocks upwards before the looking-glass, in the fashion worn by the Tsar Alexander Pavlovitch, and having assured himself from Rostov's expression that his coat had been observed, he went out of the room with a bland smile.

“Ah, what a beast I am, though,” said Rostov, as he read the letter.

“Oh, why?”

“Ah, what a pig I've been, never once to have written and to have given them such a fright. Ah, what a pig I am!” he repeated, flushing all at once. “Well, did you send Gavrila for some wine? That's right, let's have some!” said he.

With the letters from his family there had been inserted a letter of recommendation to Prince Bagration, by Anna Mihalovna's advice, which Countess Rostov had obtained through acquaintances, and had sent to her son, begging him to take it to its address, and to make use of it.

“What nonsense! Much use to me,” said Rostov, throwing the letter under the table.

“What did you throw that away for?” asked Boris.

“It's a letter of recommendation of some sort; what the devil do I want with a letter like that!”

“What the devil do you want with it?” said Boris, picking it up and reading the address; “that letter would be of great use to you.”

“I'm not in want of anything, and I'm not going to be an adjutant to anybody.”

“Why not?” asked Boris.

“A lackey's duty.”

“You are just as much of an idealist as ever, I see,” said Boris, shaking his head.

“And you're just as much of a diplomat. But that's not the point. … Come, how are you?” asked Rostov.

“Why, as you see. So far everything's gone well; but I'll own I should be very glad to get a post as adjutant, and not to stay in the line.”

“What for?”

“Why, because if once one goes in for a militar............