Someone mentioned that Captain Túshin was bivouacking close to the village and had already been sent for.
“Oh, but you were there?” said Prince Bagratión, addressing Prince Andréy.
“Of course, we only just missed one another,” said the staff officer, with a smile to Bolkónski.
“I had not the pleasure of seeing you,” said Prince Andréy, coldly and abruptly.
All were silent. Túshin appeared at the threshold and made his way timidly from behind the backs of the generals. As he stepped past the generals in the crowded hut, feeling embarrassed as he always was by the sight of his superiors, he did not notice the staff of the banner and stumbled over it. Several of those present laughed.
“How was it a gun was abandoned?” asked Bagratión, frowning, not so much at the captain as at those who were laughing, among whom Zherkóv laughed loudest.
Only now, when he was confronted by the stern authorities, did his guilt and the disgrace of having lost two guns and yet remaining alive present themselves to Túshin in all their horror. He had been so excited that he had not thought about it until that moment. The officers’ laughter confused him still more. He stood before Bagratión with his lower jaw trembling and was hardly able to mutter: “I don’t know … your excellency … I had no men … your excellency.”
“You might have taken some from the covering troops.”