anger, contempt, and fear. * Only recently, talking with one of Plátov’s Cossack officers, Rostóv had argued that if Napoleon were taken prisoner he would be treated not as a sovereign, but as a criminal. * Quite lately, happening to meet a wounded French colonel on the road, Rostóv had maintained with heat that peace was impossible between a legitimate sovereign and the criminal Bonaparte. Rostóv was therefore unpleasantly struck by the presence of French officers in Borís’ lodging, dressed in uniforms he had been accustomed to see from quite a different point of view from the outposts of the flank. As soon as he noticed a French officer, who thrust his head out of the door, that warlike feeling of hostility which he always experienced at the sight of the enemy suddenly seized him. He stopped at the threshold and asked in Russian whether Drubetskóy lived there. Borís, hearing a strange voice in the anteroom, came out to meet him. An expression of annoyance showed itself for a moment on his face on first
“Ah, it’s you? Very glad, very glad to see you,” he said, however, coming toward him with a smile. But Rostóv had noticed his first impulse.
“I’ve come at a bad time I think. I should not have come, but I have business,” he said coldly.
“No, I only wonder how you managed to get away from your regiment. Dans un moment je suis à vous ,” he said, answering someone who called him.
“I see I’m intruding,” Rostóv repeated.
The look of annoyance had already disappeared from Borís’ face: having evidently reflected and decided how to act, he very quietly took both Rostóv’s hands and led him into the next