t taking any notice of him although they were now meeting for the
first time since their encounter concerning Telyanin. Rostov, feeling
that he was at the front and in the power of a man toward whom he now
admitted that he had been to blame, did not lift his eyes from the
colonel's athletic back, his nape covered with light hair, and his red
neck. It seemed to Rostov that Bogdanich was only pretending not to
notice him, and that his whole aim now was to test the cadet's courage,
so he drew himself up and looked around him merrily; then it seemed to
him that Bogdanich rode so near in order to show him his courage. Next
he thought that his enemy would send the squadron on a desperate attack
just to punish him--Rostov. Then he imagined how, after the attack,
Bogdanich would come up to him as he lay wounded and would magnanimously
extend the hand of reconciliation.

The high-shouldered figure of Zherkov, familiar to the Pavlograds as he
had but recently left their regiment, rode up to the colonel. After his
dismissal from headquarters Zherkov had not remained in the regiment,
saying he was not such a fool as to slave at the front when he could
get more rewards by doing nothing on the staff, and had succeeded in
attaching himself as an orderly officer to Prince Bagration. He now came
to his former chief with an order from the commander of the rear guard.

"Colonel," he said, addressing Rostov's enemy with an air of gloomy
gravity and glancing round at his comrades, "there is an order to stop
and fire the bridge."

"An order to who?" asked the colonel morosely.

"I don't myself know 'to who,'" replied the cornet in a serious tone,
"but the prince told me to 'go and tell the colonel that the hussars
must return quickly and fire the bridge.'"

Zherkov was followed by an officer of the suite who rode up to the
colonel of hussars with the same order. After him the stout Nesvitski
came galloping up on a Cossack horse that could scarcely carry his
weight.

"How's this, Colonel?" he shouted as he approached. "I told you to fire
the bridge, and now someone has gone and blundered; they are all beside
themselves over there and one can't make anything out."

The colonel deliberately stopped the regiment and turned to Nesvitski.

"You spoke to me of inflammable material," said he, "but you said
nothing about firing it."

"But, my dear sir," said Nesvitski as he drew up, taking off his cap and
smoothing his hair wet with perspir