ession on his purple face,
reporting something.

"Very well, then, be so good as to wait," said Prince Andrew to the
general, in Russian, speaking with the French intonation he affected
when he wished to speak contemptuously, and noticing Boris, Prince
Andrew, paying no more heed to the general who ran after him imploring
him to hear something more, nodded and turned to him with a cheerful
smile.

At that moment Boris clearly realized what he had before surmised, that
in the army, besides the subordination and discipline prescribed in the
military code, which he and the others knew in the regiment, there was
another, more important, subordination, which made this tight-laced,
purple-faced general wait respectfully while Captain Prince Andrew, for
his own pleasure, chose to chat with Lieutenant Drubetskoy. More than
ever was Boris resolved to serve in future not according to the written
code, but under this unwritten law. He felt now that merely by having
been recommended to Prince Andrew he had already risen above the general
who at the front had the power to annihilate him, a lieutenant of the
Guards. Prince Andrew came up to him and took his hand.

"I am very sorry you did not find me in yesterday. I was fussing about
with Germans all day. We went with Weyrother to survey the dispositions.
When Germans start being accurate, there's no end to it!"

Boris smiled, as if he understood what Prince Andrew was alluding to
as something generally known. But it was the first time he had heard
Weyrother's name, or even the term "dispositions."

"Well, my dear fellow, so you still want to be an adjutant? I have been
thinking about you."

"Yes, I was thinking"--for some reason Boris could not help
blushing--"of asking the commander in chief. He has had a letter from
Prince Kuragin about me. I only wanted to ask because I fear the Guards
won't be in action," he added as if in apology.

"All right, all right. We'll talk it over," replied Prince Andrew.
"Only let me report this gentleman's business, and I shall be at your
disposal."

While Prince Andrew went to report about the purple-faced general, that
gentleman--evidently not sharing Boris' conception of the advantages
of the unwritten code of subordination--looked so fixedly at the
presumptuous lieutenant who had prevented his finishing what he had to
say to the adjutant that Boris felt uncomfortable. He turned away and
waited impatiently for Prince Andrew's return from