Pagina 583 di 3800

Not far from the artillery campfire, in a hut that had been

prepared for him, Prince Bagration sat at dinner, talking with

some commanding officers who had gathered at his quarters. The

little old man with the half-closed eyes was there greedily

gnawing a mutton bone, and the general who had served blamelessly

for twenty-two years, flushed by a glass of vodka and the dinner;

and the staff officer with the signet ring, and Zherkov, uneasily

glancing at them all, and Prince Andrew, pale, with compressed

lips and feverishly glittering eyes.