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                          BOOK TWO: 1805


CHAPTER I


In October, 1805, a Russian army was occupying the villages and
towns of the Archduchy of Austria, and yet other regiments freshly
arriving from Russia were settling near the fortress of Braunau and
burdening the inhabitants on whom they were quartered. Braunau was the
headquarters of the commander-in-chief, Kutuzov.

On October 11, 1805, one of the infantry regiments that had just
reached Braunau had halted half a mile from the town, waiting to be
inspected by the commander in chief. Despite the un-Russian appearance
of the locality and surroundings- fruit gardens, stone fences, tiled
roofs, and hills in the distance- and despite the fact that the
inhabitants (who gazed with curiosity at the soldiers) were not
Russians, the regiment had just the appearance of any Russian regiment
preparing for an inspection anywhere in the heart of Russia.

On the evening of the last day's march an order had been received
that the commander in chief would inspect the regiment on the march.
Though the words of the order were not clear to the regimental
commander, and the question arose whether the troops were to be in
marching order or not, it was decided at a consultation between the
battalion commanders to present the regiment in parade order, on the
principle that it is always better to "bow too low than not bow low
enough." So the soldiers, after a twenty-mile march, were kept mending
and cleaning all night long without closing their eyes, while the
adjutants and company commanders calculated and reckoned, and by
morning the regiment- instead of the straggling, disorderly crowd it
had been on its last march the day before- presented a well-ordered
array of two thousand men each of whom knew his place and his duty,
had every button and every strap in place, and shone with cleanliness.
And not only externally was all in order, but had it pleased the
commander in chief to look under the uniforms he would have found on
every man a clean shirt, and in every knapsack the appointed number of
articles, "awl, soap, and all," as the soldiers say. There was only
one circumstance concerning which no one could be at ease. It was
the state of the soldiers' boots. More than half the men's boots
were in holes. But this defect was not due to any fault of the
regimental commander, for in spite of repeated demands boots had not
been issued by the Austrian commissariat, and the regiment had marched
some seven hundred miles.

The commander of the regiment was an elderly, choleric, stout, and
thick-set general with grizzled eyebrows and whiskers, and wider
from chest to back than across the shoulders. He had on a brand-new
uniform showing the creases where it had been folded and thick gold
epaulettes which seemed to stand rather than lie down on his massive
shoulders. He had the air of a man happily performing one of the
most solemn duties of his life. He walked about in front of the line
and at every step pulled himself up, slightly arching his back. It was
plain that the commander admired his regiment, rejoiced in it, and
that his whole mind was engrossed by it, yet his strut seemed to
indicate that, besides military matters, social interests and the fair
sex occupied no small part of his thoughts.

"Well, Michael Mitrich, sir?" he said, addressing one of the
battalion commanders who smilingly pressed forward (it was plain
that they both felt happy). "We had our hands full last night.
However, I think the regiment is not a bad one, eh?"

The battalion commander perceived the jovial irony and laughed.

"It would not be turned off the field even on the Tsaritsin Meadow."

"What?" asked the commander.

At that moment, on the road from the town on which signalers had
been posted, two men appeared on horse back. They were an
aide-decamp followed by a Cossack.

The aide-de-camp was sent to confirm the order which had not been
clearly worded the day before, namely, that the commander in chief
wished to see the regiment just in the state in which it had been on
the march: in their greatcoats, and packs, and without any preparation
whatever.

A member of the Hofkriegsrath from Vienna had come to Kutuzov the
day before with proposals and demands for him to join up with the army
of the Archduke Ferdinand and Mack, and Kutuzov, not considering
this junction advisable, meant, among other arguments in support of
his view, to show the Austrian general the wretched state in which the
troops arrived from Russia. With this object he intended to meet the
regiment; so the worse the condition it was in, the better pleased the
commander in chief would be. Though the aide-de-camp did not know
these circumstances, he nevertheless delivered the definite order that
the men should be in their greatcoats and in marching order, and
that the commander in chief would otherwise be dissatisfied. On
hearing this the regimental commander hung his head, silently shrugged
his shoulders, and spread out his arms with a choleric gesture.

"A fine mess we've made of it!" he remarked.

"There now! Didn't I tell you, Michael Mitrich, that if it was
said 'on the march' it meant in greatcoats?" said he reproachfully
to the battalion commander. "Oh, my God!" he added, stepping
resolutely forward. "Company commanders!" he shouted in a voice
accustomed to command. "Sergeants major!... How soon will he be here?"
he asked the aide-de-camp with a respectful politeness evidently
relating to the personage he was referring to.

"In an hour's time, I should say."

"Shall we have time to change clothes?"

"I don't know, General...."

The regimental commander, going up to the line himself, ordered
the soldiers to change into their greatcoats. The company commanders
ran off to their companies, the sergeants major began bustling (the
greatcoats were not in very good condition), and instantly the squares
that had up to then been in regular order and silent began to sway and
stretch and hum with voices. On all sides soldiers were running to and
fro, throwing up their knapsacks with a jerk of their shoulders and
pulling the straps over their heads, unstrapping their overcoats and
drawing the sleeves on with upraised arms.

In half an hour all was again in order, only the squares had
become gray instead of black. The regimental commander walked with his
jerky steps to the front of the regiment and examined it from a
distance.

"Whatever is this? This!" he shouted and stood still. "Commander
of the third company!"

"Commander of the third company wanted by the general!...
commander to the general... third company to the commander." The words
passed along the lines and an adjutant ran to look for the missing
officer.

When the eager but misrepeated words had reached their destination
in a cry of: "The general to the third company," the missing officer
appeared from behind his company and, though he was a middle-aged
man and not in the habit of running, trotted awkwardly stumbling on
his toes toward the general. The captain's face showed the
uneasiness of a schoolboy who is told to repeat a lesson he has not
learned. Spots appeared on his nose, the redness of which was
evidently due to intemperance, and his mouth twitched nervously. The
general looked the captain up and down as he came up panting,
slackening his pace as he approached.

"You will soon be dressing your men in petticoats! What is this?"
shouted the regimental commander, thrusting forward his jaw and
pointing at a soldier in the ranks of the third company in a greatcoat
of bluish cloth, which contrasted with the others. "What have you been
after? The commander in chief is expected and you leave your place?
Eh? I'll teach you to dress the men in fancy coats for a parade....
Eh...?"

The commander of the company, with his eyes fixed on his superior,
pressed two fingers more and more rigidly to his cap, as if in this
pressure lay his only hope of salvation.

"Well, why don't you speak? Whom have you got there dressed up as
a Hungarian?" said the commander with an austere gibe.

"Your excellency..."

"Well, your excellency, what? Your excellency! But what about your
excellency?... nobody knows."

"Your excellency, it's the officer Dolokhov, who has been reduced to
the ranks," said the captain softly.

"Well? Has he been degraded into a field marshal, or into a soldier?
If a soldier, he should be dressed in regulation uniform like the
others."

"Your excellency, you gave him leave yourself, on the march."

"Gave him leave? Leave? That's just like you young men," said the
regimental commander cooling down a little. "Leave indeed.... One says
a word to you and you... What?" he added with renewed irritation, "I
beg you to dress your men decently."

And the commander, turning to look at the adjutant, directed his
jerky steps down the line. He was evidently pleased at his own display
of anger and walking up to the regiment wished to find a further
excuse for wrath. Having snapped at an officer for an unpolished
badge, at another because his line was not straight, he reached the
third company.

"H-o-o-w are you standing? Where's your leg? Your leg?" shouted
the commander with a tone of suffering in his voice, while there
were still five men between him and Dolokhov with his bluish-gray
uniform.

Dolokhov slowly straightened his bent knee, looking straight with
his clear, insolent eyes in the general's face.

"Why a blue coat? Off with it... Sergeant major! Change his
coat... the ras..." he did not finish.

"General, I must obey orders, but I am not bound to endure..."
Dolokhov hurriedly interrupted.

"No talking in the ranks!... No talking, no talking!"

"Not bound to endure insults," Dolokhov concluded in loud, ringing
tones.

The eyes of the general and the soldier met. The general became
silent, angrily pulling down his tight scarf.

"I request you to have the goodness to change your coat," he said as
he turned away.


CHAPTER II


"He's coming!" shouted the signaler at that moment.

The regimental commander, flushing, ran to his horse, seized the
stirrup with trembling hands, threw his body across the saddle,
righted himself, drew his saber, and with a happy and resolute
countenance, opening his mouth awry, prepared to shout. The regiment
fluttered like a bird preening its plumage and became motionless.

"Att-ention!" shouted the regimental commander in a soul-shaking
voice which expressed joy for himself, severity for the regiment,
and welcome for the approaching chief.

Along the broad country road, edged on both sides by trees, came a
high, light blue Viennese caleche, slightly creaking on its springs
and drawn by six horses at a smart trot. Behind the caleche galloped
the suite and a convoy of Croats. Beside Kutuzov sat an Austrian
general, in a white uniform that looked strange among the Russian
black ones. The caleche stopped in front of the regiment. Kutuzov
and the Austrian general were talking in low voices and Kutuzov smiled
slightly as treading heavily he stepped down from the carriage just as
if those two thousand men breathlessly gazing at him and the
regimental commander did not exist.

The word of command rang out, and again the regiment quivered, as
with a jingling sound it presented arms. Then amidst a dead silence
the feeble voice of the commander in chief was heard. The regiment
roared, "Health to your ex... len... len... lency!" and again all
became silent. At first Kutuzov stood still while the regiment
moved; then he and the general in white, accompanied by the suite,
walked between the ranks.

From the way the regimental commander saluted the commander in chief
and devoured him with his eyes, drawing himself up obsequiously, and
from the way he walked through the ranks behind the generals,
bending forward and hardly able to restrain his jerky movements, and
from the way he darted forward at every word or gesture of the
commander in chief, it was evident that he performed his duty as a
subordinate with even greater zeal than his duty as a commander.
Thanks to the strictness and assiduity of its commander the
regiment, in comparison with others that had reached Braunau at the
same time, was in splendid condition. There were only 217 sick and
stragglers. Everything was in good order except the boots.

Kutuzov walked through the ranks, sometimes stopping to say a few
friendly words to officers he had known in the Turkish war,
sometimes also to the soldiers. Looking at their boots he several
times shook his head sadly, pointing them out to the Austrian
general with an expression which seemed to say that he was not blaming
anyone, but could not help noticing what a bad state of things it was.
The regimental commander ran forward on each such occasion, fearing to
miss a single word of the commander in chief's regarding the regiment.
Behind Kutuzov, at a distance that allowed every softly spoken word to
be heard, followed some twenty men of his suite. These gentlemen
talked among themselves and sometimes laughed. Nearest of all to the
commander in chief walked a handsome adjutant. This was Prince
Bolkonski. Beside him was his comrade Nesvitski, a tall staff officer,
extremely stout, with a kindly, smiling, handsome face and moist eyes.
Nesvitski could hardly keep from laughter provoked by a swarthy hussar
officer who walked beside him. This hussar, with a grave face and
without a smile or a change in the expression of his fixed eyes,
watched the regimental commander's back and mimicked his every
movement. Each time the commander started and bent forward, the hussar
started and bent forward in exactly the same manner. Nesvitski laughed
and nudged the others to make them look at the wag.

Kutuzov walked slowly and languidly past thousands of eyes which
were starting from their sockets to watch their chief. On reaching the
third company he suddenly stopped. His suite, not having expected
this, involuntarily came closer to him.

"Ah, Timokhin!" said he, recognizing the red-nosed captain who had
been reprimanded on account of the blue greatcoat.

One would have thought it impossible for a man to stretch himself
more than Timokhin had done when he was reprimanded by the
regimental commander, but now that the commander in chief addressed
him he drew himself up to such an extent that it seemed he could not
have sustained it had the commander in chief continued to look at him,
and so Kutuzov, who evidently understood his case and wished him
nothing but good, quickly turned away, a scarcely perceptible smile
flitting over his scarred and puffy face.

"Another Ismail comrade," said he. "A brave officer! Are you
satisfied with him?" he asked the regimental commander.

And the latter- unconscious that he was being reflected in the
hussar officer as in a looking glass- started, moved forward, and
answered: "Highly satisfied, your excellency!"

"We all have our weaknesses," said Kutuzov smiling and walking
away from him. "He used to have a predilection for Bacchus."

The regimental commander was afraid he might be blamed for this
and did not answer. The hussar at that moment noticed the face of
the red-nosed captain and his drawn-in stomach, and mimicked his
expression and pose with such exactitude that Nesvitski could not help
laughing. Kutuzov turned round. The officer evidently had complete
control of his face, and while Kutuzov was turning managed to make a
grimace and then assume a most serious, deferential, and innocent
expression.

The third company was the last, and Kutuzov pondered, apparently
trying to recollect something. Prince Andrew stepped forward from
among the suite and said in French:

"You told me to remind you of the officer Dolokhov, reduced to the
ranks in this regiment."

"Where is Dolokhov?" asked Kutuzov.

Dolokhov, who had already changed into a soldier's gray greatcoat,
did not wait to be called. The shapely figure of the fair-haired
soldier, with his clear blue eyes, stepped forward from the ranks,
went up to the commander in chief, and presented arms.

"Have you a complaint to make?" Kutuzov asked with a slight frown.

"This is Dolokhov," said Prince Andrew.

"Ah!" said Kutuzov. "I hope this will be a lesson to you. Do your
duty. The Emperor is gracious, and I shan't forget you if you
deserve well."

The clear blue eyes looked at the commander in chief just as
boldly as they had looked at the regimental commander, seeming by
their expression to tear open the veil of convention that separates
a commander in chief so widely from a private.

"One thing I ask of your excellency," Dolokhov said in his firm,
ringing, deliberate voice. "I ask an opportunity to atone for my fault
and prove my devotion to His Majesty the Emperor and to Russia!"

Kutuzov turned away. The same smile of the eyes with which he had
turned from Captain Timokhin again flitted over his face. He turned
away with a grimace as if to say that everything Dolokhov had said
to him and everything he could say had long been known to him, that he
was weary of it and it was not at all what he wanted. He turned away
and went to the carriage.

The regiment broke up into companies, which went to their
appointed quarters near Braunau, where they hoped to receive boots and
clothes and to rest after their hard marches.

"You won't bear me a grudge, Prokhor Ignatych?" said the
regimental commander, overtaking the third company on its way to its
quarters and riding up to Captain Timokhin who was walking in front.
(The regimental commander's face now that the inspection was happily
over beamed with irrepressible delight.) "It's in the Emperor's
service... it can't be helped... one is sometimes a bit hasty on
parade... I am the first to apologize, you know me!... He was very
pleased!" And he held out his hand to the captain.

"Don't mention it, General, as if I'd be so bold!" replied the
captain, his nose growing redder as he gave a smile which showed where
two front teeth were missing that had been knocked out by the butt end
of a gun at Ismail.

"And tell Mr. Dolokhov that I won't forget him- he may be quite
easy. And tell me, please- I've been meaning to ask- how is to ask-
how is he behaving himself, and in general..."

"As far as the service goes he is quite punctilious, your
excellency; but his character..." said Timokhin.

"And what about his character?" asked the regimental commander.

"It's different on different days," answered the captain. "One day
he is sensible, well educated, and good-natured, and the next he's a
wild beast.... In Poland, if you please, he nearly killed a Jew."

"Oh, well, well!" remarked the regimental commander. "Still, one
must have pity on a young man in misfortune. You know he has important
connections... Well, then, you just..."

"I will, your excellency," said Timokhin, showing by his smile
that he understood his commander's wish.

"Well, of course, of course!"

The regimental commander sought out Dolokhov in the ranks and,
reining in his horse, said to him:

"After the next affair... epaulettes."

Dolokhov looked round but did not say anything, nor did the
mocking smile on his lips change.

"Well, that's all right," continued the regimental commander. "A cup
of vodka for the men from me," he added so that the soldiers could
hear. "I thank you all! God be praised!" and he rode past that company
and overtook the next one.

"Well, he's really a good fellow, one can serve under him," said
Timokhin to the subaltern beside him.

"In a word, a hearty one..." said the subaltern, laughing (the
regimental commander was nicknamed King of Hearts).

The cheerful mood of their officers after the inspection infected
the soldiers. The company marched on gaily. The soldiers' voices could
be heard on every side.

"And they said Kutuzov was blind of one eye?"

"And so he is! Quite blind!"

"No, friend, he is sharper-eyed than you are. Boots and leg bands...
he noticed everything..."

"When he looked at my feet, friend... well, thinks I..."

"And that other one with him, the Austrian, looked as if he were
smeared with chalk- as white as flour! I suppose they polish him up as
they do the guns."

"I say, Fedeshon!... Did he say when the battles are to begin? You
were near him. Everybody said that Buonaparte himself was at Braunau."

"Buonaparte himself!... Just listen to the fool, what he doesn't
know! The Prussians are up in arms now. The Austrians, you see, are
putting them down. When they've been put down, the war with Buonaparte
will begin. And he says Buonaparte is in Braunau! Shows you're a fool.
You'd better listen more carefully!"

"What devils these quartermasters are! See, the fifth company is
turning into the village already... they will have their buckwheat
cooked before we reach our quarters."

"Give me a biscuit, you devil!"

"And did you give me tobacco yesterday? That's just it, friend!
Ah, well, never mind, here you are."

"They might call a halt here or we'll have to do another four
miles without eating."

"Wasn't it fine when those Germans gave us lifts! You just sit still
and are drawn along."

"And here, friend, the people are quite beggarly. There they all
seemed to be Poles- all under the Russian crown- but here they're
all regular Germans."

"Singers to the front " came the captain's order.

And from the different ranks some twenty men ran to the front. A
drummer, their leader, turned round facing the singers, and
flourishing his arm, began a long-drawn-out soldiers' song, commencing
with the words: "Morning dawned, the sun was rising," and
concluding: "On then, brothers, on to glory, led by Father
Kamenski." This song had been composed in the Turkish campaign and now
being sung in Austria, the only change being that the words "Father
Kamenski" were replaced by "Father Kutuzov."

Having jerked out these last words as soldiers do and waved his arms
as if flinging something to the ground, the drummer- a lean,
handsome soldier of forty- looked sternly at the singers and screwed
up his eyes. Then having satisfied himself that all eyes were fixed on
him, he raised both arms as if carefully lifting some invisible but
precious object above his head and, holding it there for some seconds,
suddenly flung it down and began:

"Oh, my bower, oh, my bower...!"

"Oh, my bower new...!" chimed in twenty voices, and the castanet
player, in spite of the burden of his equipment, rushed out to the
front and, walking backwards before the company, jerked his
shoulders and flourished his castanets as if threatening someone.
The soldiers, swinging their arms and keeping time spontaneously,
marched with long steps. Behind the company the sound of wheels, the
creaking of springs, and the tramp of horses' hoofs were heard.
Kutuzov and his suite were returning to the town. The commander in
chief made a sign that the men should continue to march at ease, and
he and all his suite showed pleasure at the sound of the singing and
the sight of the dancing soldier and the gay and smartly marching men.
In the second file from the right flank, beside which the carriage
passed the company, a blue-eyed soldier involuntarily attracted
notice. It was Dolokhov marching with particular grace and boldness in
time to the song and looking at those driving past as if he pitied all
who were not at that moment marching with the company. The hussar
cornet of Kutuzov's suite who had mimicked the regimental commander,
fell back from the carriage and rode up to Dolokhov.

Hussar cornet Zherkov had at one time, in Petersburg, belonged to
the wild set led by Dolokhov. Zherkov had met Dolokhov abroad as a
private and had not seen fit to recognize him. But now that Kutuzov
had spoken to the gentleman ranker, he addressed him with the
cordiality of an old friend.

"My dear fellow, how are you?" said he through the singing, making
his horse keep pace with the company.

"How am I?" Dolokhov answered coldly. "I am as you see."

The lively song gave a special flavor to the tone of free and easy
gaiety with which Zherkov spoke, and to the intentional coldness of
Dolokhov's reply.

"And how do you get on with the officers?" inquired Zherkov.

"All right. They are good fellows. And how have you wriggled onto
the staff?"

"I was attached; I'm on duty."

Both were silent.

"She let the hawk fly upward from her wide right sleeve," went the
song, arousing an involuntary sensation of courage and cheerfulness.
Their conversation would probably have been different but for the
effect of that song.

"Is it true that Austrians have been beaten?" asked Dolokhov.

"The devil only knows! They say so."

"I'm glad," answered Dolokhov briefly and clearly, as the song
demanded.

"I say, come round some evening and we'll have a game of faro!" said
Zherkov.

"Why, have you too much money?"

"Do come."

"I can't. I've sworn not to. I won't drink and won't play till I get
reinstated."

"Well, that's only till the first engagement."

"We shall see."

They were again silent.

"Come if you need anything. One can at least be of use on the
staff..."

Dolokhov smiled. "Don't trouble. If I want anything, I won't beg-
I'll take it!"

"Well, never mind; I only..."

"And I only..."

"Good-by."

"Good health..."


        "It's a long, long way.

        To my native land..."


Zherkov touched his horse with the spurs; it pranced excitedly
from foot to foot uncertain with which to start, then settled down,
galloped past the company, and overtook the carriage, still keeping
time to the song.


CHAPTER III


On returning from the review, Kutuzov took the Austrian general into
his private room and, calling his adjutant, asked for some papers
relating to the condition of the troops on their arrival, and the
letters that had come from the Archduke Ferdinand, who was in
command of the advanced army. Prince Andrew Bolkonski came into the
room with the required papers. Kutuzov and the Austrian member of
the Hofkriegsrath were sitting at the table on which a plan was spread
out.

"Ah!..." said Kutuzov glancing at Bolkonski as if by this
exclamation he was asking the adjutant to wait, and he went on with
the conversation in French.

"All I can say, General," said he with a pleasant elegance of
expression and intonation that obliged one to listen to each
deliberately spoken word. It was evident that Kutuzov himself listened
with pleasure to his own voice. "All I can say, General, is that if
the matter depended on my personal wishes, the will of His Majesty the
Emperor Francis would have been fulfilled long ago. I should long
ago have joined the archduke. And believe me on my honour that to me
personally it would be a pleasure to hand over the supreme command
of the army into the hands of a better informed and more skillful
general- of whom Austria has so many- and to lay down all this heavy
responsibility. But circumstances are sometimes too strong for us,
General."

And Kutuzov smiled in a way that seemed to say, "You are quite at
liberty not to believe me and I don't even care whether you do or not,
but you have no grounds for telling me so. And that is the whole
point."

The Austrian general looked dissatisfied, but had no option but to
reply in the same tone.

"On the contrary," he said, in a querulous and angry tone that
contrasted with his flattering words, "on the contrary, your
excellency's participation in the common action is highly valued by
His Majesty; but we think the present delay is depriving the
splendid Russian troops and their commander of the laurels they have
been accustomed to win in their battles," he concluded his evidently
prearranged sentence.

Kutuzov bowed with the same smile.

"But that is my conviction, and judging by the last letter with
which His Highness the Archduke Ferdinand has honored me, I imagine
that the Austrian troops, under the direction of so skillful a
leader as General Mack, have by now already gained a decisive
victory and no longer need our aid," said Kutuzov.

The general frowned. Though there was no definite news of an
Austrian defeat, there were many circumstances confirming the
unfavorable rumors that were afloat, and so Kutuzov's suggestion of an
Austrian victory sounded much like irony. But Kutuzov went on
blandly smiling with the same expression, which seemed to say that
he had a right to suppose so. And, in fact, the last letter he had
received from Mack's army informed him of a victory and stated
strategically the position of the army was very favorable.

"Give me that letter," said Kutuzov turning to Prince Andrew.
"Please have a look at it"- and Kutuzov with an ironical smile about
the corners of his mouth read to the Austrian general the following
passage, in German, from the Archduke Ferdinand's letter:


We have fully concentrated forces of nearly seventy thousand men
with which to attack and defeat the enemy should he cross the Lech.
Also, as we are masters of Ulm, we cannot be deprived of the advantage
of commanding both sides of the Danube, so that should the enemy not
cross the Lech, we can cross the Danube, throw ourselves on his line
of communications, recross the river lower down, and frustrate his
intention should he try to direct his whole force against our faithful
ally. We shall therefore confidently await the moment when the
Imperial Russian army will be fully equipped, and shall then, in
conjunction with it, easily find a way to prepare for the enemy the
fate he deserves.


Kutuzov sighed deeply on finishing this paragraph and looked at
the member of the Hofkriegsrath mildly and attentively.

"But you know the wise maxim your excellency, advising one to expect
the worst," said the Austrian general, evidently wishing to have
done with jests and to come to business. He involuntarily looked round
at the aide-de-camp.

"Excuse me, General," interrupted Kutuzov, also turning to Prince
Andrew. "Look here, my dear fellow, get from Kozlovski all the reports
from our scouts. Here are two letters from Count Nostitz and here is
one from His Highness the Archduke Ferdinand and here are these," he
said, handing him several papers, "make a neat memorandum in French
out of all this, showing all the news we have had of the movements
of the Austrian army, and then give it to his excellency."

Prince Andrew bowed his head in token of having understood from
the first not only what had been said but also what Kutuzov would have
liked to tell him. He gathered up the papers and with a bow to both,
stepped softly over the carpet and went out into the waiting room.

Though not much time had passed since Prince Andrew had left Russia,
he had changed greatly during that period. In the expression of his
face, in his movements, in his walk, scarcely a trace was left of
his former affected languor and indolence. He now looked like a man
who has time to think of the impression he makes on others, but is
occupied with agreeable and interesting work. His face expressed
more satisfaction with himself and those around him, his smile and
glance were brighter and more attractive.

Kutuzov, whom he had overtaken in Poland, had received him very
kindly, promised not to forget him, distinguished him above the
other adjutants, and had taken him to Vienna and given him the more
serious commissions. From Vienna Kutuzov wrote to his old comrade,
Prince Andrew's father.


Your son bids fair to become an officer distinguished by his
industry, firmness, and expedition. I consider myself fortunate to
have such a subordinate by me.


On Kutuzov's staff, among his fellow officers and in the army
generally, Prince Andrew had, as he had had in Petersburg society, two
quite opposite reputations. Some, a minority, acknowledged him to be
different from themselves and from everyone else, expected great
things of him, listened to him, admired, and imitated him, and with
them Prince Andrew was natural and pleasant. Others, the majority,
disliked him and considered him conceited, cold, and disagreeable. But
among these people Prince Andrew knew how to take his stand so that
they respected and even feared him.

Coming out of Kutuzov's room into the waiting room with the papers
in his hand Prince Andrew came up to his comrade, the aide-de-camp
on duty, Kozlovski, who was sitting at the window with a book.

"Well, Prince?" asked Kozlovski.

"I am ordered to write a memorandum explaining why we are not
advancing."

"And why is it?"

Prince Andrew shrugged his shoulders.

"Any news from Mack?"

"No."

"If it were true that he has been beaten, news would have come."

"Probably," said Prince Andrew moving toward the outer door.

But at that instant a tall Austrian general in a greatcoat, with the
order of Maria Theresa on his neck and a black bandage round his head,
who had evidently just arrived, entered quickly, slamming the door.
Prince Andrew stopped short.

"Commander in Chief Kutuzov?" said the newly arrived general
speaking quickly with a harsh German accent, looking to both sides and
advancing straight toward the inner door.

"The commander in chief is engaged," said Kozlovski, going hurriedly
up to the unknown general and blocking his way to the door. "Whom
shall I announce?"

The unknown general looked disdainfully down at Kozlovski, who was
rather short, as if surprised that anyone should not know him.

"The commander in chief is engaged," repeated Kozlovski calmly.

The general's face clouded, his lips quivered and trembled. He
took out a notebook, hurriedly scribbled something in pencil, tore out
the leaf, gave it to Kozlovski, stepped quickly to the window, and
threw himself into a chair, gazing at those in the room as if
asking, "Why do they look at me?" Then he lifted his head, stretched
his neck as if he intended to say something, but immediately, with
affected indifference, began to hum to himself, producing a queer
sound which immediately broke off. The door of the private room opened
and Kutuzov appeared in the doorway. The general with the bandaged
head bent forward as though running away from some danger, and, making
long, quick strides with his thin legs, went up to Kutuzov.

"Vous voyez le malheureux Mack," he uttered in a broken voice.

Kutuzov's face as he stood in the open doorway remained perfectly
immobile for a few moments. Then wrinkles ran over his face like a
wave and his forehead became smooth again, he bowed his head
respectfully, closed his eyes, silently let Mack enter his room before
him, and closed the door himself behind him.

The report which had been circulated that the Austrians had been
beaten and that the whole army had surrendered at Ulm proved to be
correct. Within half an hour adjutants had been sent in various
directions with orders which showed that the Russian troops, who had
hitherto been inactive, would also soon have to meet the enemy.

Prince Andrew was one of those rare staff officers whose chief
interest lay in the general progress of the war. When he saw Mack
and heard the details of his disaster he understood that half the
campaign was lost, understood all the difficulties of the Russian
army's position, and vividly imagined what awaited it and the part
he would have to play. Involuntarily he felt a joyful agitation at the
thought of the humiliation of arrogant Austria and that in a week's
time he might, perhaps, see and take part in the first Russian
encounter with the French since Suvorov met them. He feared that
Bonaparte's genius might outweigh all the courage of the Russian
troops, and at the same time could not admit the idea of his hero
being disgraced.

Excited and irritated by these thoughts Prince Andrew went toward
his room to write to his father, to whom he wrote every day. In the
corridor he met Nesvitski, with whom he shared a room, and the wag
Zherkov; they were as usual laughing.

"Why are you so glum?" asked Nesvitski noticing Prince Andrew's pale
face and glittering eyes.

"There's nothing to be gay about," answered Bolkonski.

Just as Prince Andrew met Nesvitski and Zherkov, there came toward
them from the other end of the corridor, Strauch, an Austrian
general who on Kutuzov's staff in charge of the provisioning of the
Russian army, and the member of the Hofkriegsrath who had arrived
the previous evening. There was room enough in the wide corridor for
the generals to pass the three officers quite easily, but Zherkov,
pushing Nesvitski aside with his arm, said in a breathless voice,

"They're coming!... they're coming!... Stand aside, make way, please
make way!"

The generals were passing by, looking as if they wished to avoid
embarrassing attentions. On the face of the wag Zherkov there suddenly
appeared a stupid smile of glee which he seemed unable to suppress.

"Your excellency," said he in German, stepping forward and
addressing the Austrian general, "I have the honor to congratulate
you."

He bowed his head and scraped first with one foot and then with
the other, awkwardly, like a child at a dancing lesson.

The member of the Hofkriegsrath looked at him severely but, seeing
the seriousness of his stupid smile, could not but give him a moment's
attention. He screwed up his eyes showing that he was listening.

"I have the honor to congratulate you. General Mack has arrived,
quite well, only a little bruised just here," he added, pointing
with a beaming smile to his head.

The general frowned, turned away, and went on.

"Gott, wie naiv!"* said he angrily, after he had gone a few steps.


*"Good God, what simplicity!"


Nesvitski with a laugh threw his arms round Prince Andrew, but
Bolkonski, turning still paler, pushed him away with an angry look and
turned to Zherkov. The nervous irritation aroused by the appearance of
Mack, the news of his defeat, and the thought of what lay before the
Russian army found vent in anger at Zherkov's untimely jest.

"If you, sir, choose to make a buffoon of yourself," he said
sharply, with a slight trembling of the lower jaw, "I can't prevent
your doing so; but I warn you that if you dare to play the fool in
my presence, I will teach you to behave yourself."

Nesvitski and Zherkov were so surprised by this outburst that they
gazed at Bolkonski silently with wide-open eyes.

"What's the matter? I only congratulated them," said Zherkov.

"I am not jesting with you; please be silent!" cried Bolkonski,
and taking Nesvitski's arm he left Zherkov, who did not know what to
say.

"Come, what's the matter, old fellow?" said Nesvitski trying to
soothe him.

"What's the matter?" exclaimed Prince Andrew standing still in his
excitement. "Don't you understand that either we are officers
serving our Tsar and our country, rejoicing in the successes and
grieving at the misfortunes of our common cause, or we are merely
lackeys who care nothing for their master's business. Quarante mille
hommes massacres et l'armee de nos allies detruite, et vous trouvez la
le mot pour rire,"* he said, as if strengthening his views by this
French sentence. "C' est bien pour un garcon de rein comme cet
individu dont vous avez fait un ami, mais pas pour vous, pas pour
vous.*[2] Only a hobbledehoy could amuse himself in this way," he
added in Russian- but pronouncing the word with a French accent-
having noticed that Zherkov could still hear him.


*"Forty thousand men massacred and the army of our allies destroyed,
and you find that a cause for jesting!"

*[2] "It is all very well for that good-for-nothing fellow of whom
you have made a friend, but not for you, not for you."


He waited a moment to see whether the cornet would answer, but he
turned and went out of the corridor.


CHAPTER IV


The Pavlograd Hussars were stationed two miles from Braunau. The
squadron in which Nicholas Rostov served as a cadet was quartered in
the German village of Salzeneck. The best quarters in the village were
assigned to cavalry-captain Denisov, the squadron commander, known
throughout the whole cavalry division as Vaska Denisov. Cadet
Rostov, ever since he had overtaken the regiment in Poland, had
lived with the squadron commander.

On October 11, the day when all was astir at headquarters over the
news of Mack's defeat, the camp life of the officers of this
squadron was proceeding as usual. Denisov, who had been losing at
cards all night, had not yet come home when Rostov rode back early
in the morning from a foraging expedition. Rostov in his cadet
uniform, with a jerk to his horse, rode up to the porch, swung his leg
over the saddle with a supple youthful movement, stood for a moment in
the stirrup as if loathe to part from his horse, and at last sprang
down and called to his orderly.

"Ah, Bondarenko, dear friend!" said he to the hussar who rushed up
headlong to the horse. "Walk him up and down, my dear fellow," he
continued, with that gay brotherly cordiality which goodhearted
young people show to everyone when they are happy.

"Yes, your excellency," answered the Ukrainian gaily, tossing his
head.

"Mind, walk him up and down well!"

Another hussar also rushed toward the horse, but Bondarenko had
already thrown the reins of the snaffle bridle over the horse's
head. It was evident that the cadet was liberal with his tips and that
it paid to serve him. Rostov patted the horse's neck and then his
flank, and lingered for a moment.

"Splendid! What a horse he will be!" he thought with a smile, and
holding up his saber, his spurs jingling, he ran up the steps of the
porch. His landlord, who in a waistcoat and a pointed cap, pitchfork
in hand, was clearing manure from the cowhouse, looked out, and his
face immediately brightened on seeing Rostov. "Schon gut Morgen! Schon
gut Morgen!"* he said winking with a merry smile, evidently pleased to
greet the young man.


*"A very good morning! A very good morning!"


"Schon fleissig?"* said Rostov with the same gay brotherly smile
which did not leave his eager face. "Hoch Oestreicher! Hoch Russen!
Kaiser Alexander hoch!"*[2] said he, quoting words often repeated by
the German landlord.


*"Busy already?"

*[2] "Hurrah for the Austrians! Hurrah for the Russians! Hurrah
for Emperor Alexander!"


The German laughed, came out of the cowshed, pulled off his cap, and
waving it above his head cried:

"Und die ganze Welt hoch!"*


*"And hurrah for the whole world!"


Rostov waved his cap above his head like the German and ctied
laughing, "Und vivat die ganze Welt!" Though neither the German
cleaning his cowshed nor Rostov back with his platoon from foraging
for hay had any reason for rejoicing, they looked at each other with
joyful delight and brotherly love, wagged their heads in token of
their mutual affection, and parted smiling, the German returning to
his cowshed and Rostov going to the cottage he occupied with Denisov.

"What about your master?" he asked Lavrushka, Denisov's orderly,
whom all the regiment knew for a rogue.

"Hasn't been in since the evening. Must have been losing,"
answered Lavrushka. "I know by now, if he wins he comes back early
to brag about it, but if he stays out till morning it means he's
lost and will come back in a rage. Will you have coffee?"

"Yes, bring some."

Ten minutes later Lavrushka brought the coffee. "He's coming!"
said he. "Now for trouble!" Rostov looked out of the window and saw
Denisov coming home. Denisov was a small man with a red face,
sparkling black eyes, and black tousled mustache and hair. He wore
an unfastened cloak, wide breeches hanging down in creases, and a
crumpled shako on the back of his head. He came up to the porch
gloomily, hanging his head.

"Lavwuska!" he shouted loudly and angrily, "take it off, blockhead!"

"Well, I am taking it off," replied Lavrushka's voice.

"Ah, you're up already," said Denisov, entering the room.

"Long ago," answered Rostov, "I have already been for the hay, and
have seen Fraulein Mathilde."

"Weally! And I've been losing, bwother. I lost yesterday like a
damned fool!" cried Denisov, not pronouncing his r's. "Such ill
luck! Such ill luck. As soon as you left, it began and went on.
Hullo there! Tea!"

Puckering up his face though smiling, and showing his short strong
teeth, he began with stubby fingers of both hands to ruffle up his
thick tangled black hair.

"And what devil made me go to that wat?" (an officer nicknamed
"the rat") he said, rubbing his forehead and whole face with both
hands. "Just fancy, he didn't let me win a single cahd, not one cahd."

He took the lighted pipe that was offered to him, gripped it in
his fist, and tapped it on the floor, making the sparks fly, while
he continued to shout.

"He lets one win the singles and collahs it as soon as one doubles
it; gives the singles and snatches the doubles!"

He scattered the burning tobacco, smashed the pipe, and threw it
away. Then he remained silent for a while, and all at once looked
cheerfully with his glittering, black eyes at Rostov.

"If at least we had some women here; but there's nothing foh one
to do but dwink. If we could only get to fighting soon. Hullo, who's
there?" he said, turning to the door as he heard a tread of heavy
boots and the clinking of spurs that came to a stop, and a
respectful cough.

"The squadron quartermaster!" said Lavrushka.

Denisov's face puckered still more.

"Wetched!" he muttered, throwing down a purse with some gold in
it. "Wostov, deah fellow, just see how much there is left and shove
the purse undah the pillow," he said, and went out to the
quartermaster.

Rostov took the money and, mechanically arranging the old and new
coins in separate piles, began counting them.

"Ah! Telyanin! How d'ye do? They plucked me last night," came
Denisov's voice from the next room.

"Where? At Bykov's, at the rat's... I knew it," replied a piping
voice, and Lieutenant Telyanin, a small officer of the same
squadron, entered the room.

Rostov thrust the purse under the pillow and shook the damp little
hand which was offered him. Telyanin for some reason had been
transferred from the Guards just before this campaign. He behaved very
well in the regiment but was not liked; Rostov especially detested him
and was unable to overcome or conceal his groundless antipathy to
the man.

"Well, young cavalryman, how is my Rook behaving?" he asked. (Rook
was a young horse Telyanin had sold to Rostov.)

The lieutenant never looked the man he was speaking to straight in
the face; his eyes continually wandered from one object to another.

"I saw you riding this morning..." he added.

"Oh, he's all right, a good horse," answered Rostov, though the
horse for which he had paid seven hundred rubbles was not worth half
that sum. "He's begun to go a little lame on the left foreleg," he
added.

"The hoof's cracked! That's nothing. I'll teach you what to do and
show you what kind of rivet to use."

"Yes, please do," said Rostov.

"I'll show you, I'll show you! It's not a secret. And it's a horse
you'll thank me for."

"Then I'll have it brought round," said Rostov wishing to avoid
Telyanin, and he went out to give the order.

In the passage Denisov, with a pipe, was squatting on the
threshold facing the quartermaster who was reporting to him. On seeing
Rostov, Denisov screwed up his face and pointing over his shoulder
with his thumb to the room where Telyanin was sitting, he frowned
and gave a shudder of disgust.

"Ugh! I don't like that fellow"' he said, regardless of the
quartermaster's presence.

Rostov shrugged his shoulders as much as to say: "Nor do I, but
what's one to do?" and, having given his order, he returned to
Telyanin.

Telyanin was sitting in the same indolent pose in which Rostov had
left him, rubbing his small white hands.

"Well there certainly are disgusting people," thought Rostov as he
entered.

"Have you told them to bring the horse?" asked Telyanin, getting
up and looking carelessly about him.

"I have."

"Let us go ourselves. I only came round to ask Denisov about
yesterday's order. Have you got it, Denisov?"

"Not yet. But where are you off to?"

"I want to teach this young man how to shoe a horse," said Telyanin.

They went through the porch and into the stable. The lieutenant
explained how to rivet the hoof and went away to his own quarters.

When Rostov went back there was a bottle of vodka and a sausage on
the table. Denisov was sitting there scratching with his pen on a
sheet of paper. He looked gloomily in Rostov's face and said: "I am
witing to her."

He leaned his elbows on the table with his pen in his hand and,
evidently glad of a chance to say quicker in words what he wanted to
write, told Rostov the contents of his letter.

"You see, my fwiend," he said, "we sleep when we don't love. We
are childwen of the dust... but one falls in love and one is a God,
one is pua' as on the first day of cweation... Who's that now? Send
him to the devil, I'm busy!" he shouted to Lavrushka, who went up to
him not in the least abashed.

"Who should it be? You yourself told him to come. It's the
quartermaster for the money."

Denisov frowned and was about to shout some reply but stopped.

"Wetched business," he muttered to himself. "How much is left in the
puhse?" he asked, turning to Rostov.

"Seven new and three old imperials."

"Oh, it's wetched! Well, what are you standing there for, you
sca'cwow? Call the quahtehmasteh," he shouted to Lavrushka.

"Please, Denisov, let me lend you some: I have some, you know," said
Rostov, blushing.

"Don't like bowwowing from my own fellows, I don't," growled
Denisov.

"But if you won't accept money from me like a comrade, you will
offend me. Really I have some," Rostov repeated.

"No, I tell you."

And Denisov went to the bed to get the purse from under the pillow.

"Where have you put it, Wostov?"

"Under the lower pillow."

"It's not there."

Denisov threw both pillows on the floor. The purse was not there.

"That's a miwacle."

"Wait, haven't you dropped it?" said Rostov, picking up the
pillows one at a time and shaking them.

He pulled off the quilt and shook it. The purse was not there.

"Dear me, can I have forgotten? No, I remember thinking that you
kept it under your head like a treasure," said Rostov. "I put it
just here. Where is it?" he asked, turning to Lavrushka.

"I haven't been in the room. It must be where you put it."

"But it isn't?..."

"You're always like that; you thwow a thing down anywhere and forget
it. Feel in your pockets."

"No, if I hadn't thought of it being a treasure," said Rostov,
"but I remember putting it there."

Lavrushka turned all the bedding over, looked under the bed and
under the table, searched everywhere, and stood still in the middle of
the room. Denisov silently watched Lavrushka's movements, and when the
latter threw up his arms in surprise saying it was nowhere to be found
Denisov glanced at Rostov.

"Wostov, you've not been playing schoolboy twicks..."

Rostov felt Denisov's gaze fixed on him, raised his eyes, and
instantly dropped them again. All the blood which had seemed congested
somewhere below his throat rushed to his face and eyes. He could not
draw breath.

"And there hasn't been anyone in the room except the lieutenant
and yourselves. It must be here somewhere," said Lavrushka.

"Now then, you devil's puppet, look alive and hunt for it!"
shouted Denisov, suddenly, turning purple and rushing at the man
with a threatening gesture. "If the purse isn't found I'll flog you,
I'll flog you all."

Rostov, his eyes avoiding Denisov, began buttoning his coat, buckled
on his saber, and put on his cap.

"I must have that purse, I tell you," shouted Denisov, shaking his
orderly by the shoulders and knocking him against the wall.

"Denisov, let him alone, I know who has taken it," said Rostov,
going toward the door without raising his eyes. Denisov paused,
thought a moment, and, evidently understanding what Rostov hinted
at, seized his arm.

"Nonsense!" he cried, and the veins on his forehead and neck stood
out like cords. "You are mad, I tell you. I won't allow it. The
purse is here! I'll flay this scoundwel alive, and it will be found."

"I know who has taken it," repeated Rostov in an unsteady voice, and
went to the door.

"And I tell you, don't you dahe to do it!" shouted Denisov,
rushing at the cadet to restrain him.

But Rostov pulled away his arm and, with as much anger as though
Denisov were his worst enemy, firmly fixed his eyes directly on his
face.

"Do you understand what you're saying?" he said in a trembling
voice. "There was no one else in the room except myself. So that if it
is not so, then..."

He could not finish, and ran out of the room.

"Ah, may the devil take you and evewybody," were the last words
Rostov heard.

Rostov went to Telyanin's quarters.

"The master is not in, he's gone to headquarters," said Telyanin's
orderly. "Has something happened?" he added, surprised at the
cadet's troubled face.

"No, nothing."

"You've only just missed him," said the orderly.

The headquarters were situated two miles away from Salzeneck, and
Rostov, without returning home, took a horse and rode there. There was
an inn in the village which the officers frequented. Rostov rode up to
it and saw Telyanin's horse at the porch.

In the second room of the inn the lieutenant was sitting over a dish
of sausages and a bottle of wine.

"Ah, you've come here too, young man!" he said, smiling and
raising his eyebrows.

"Yes," said Rostov as if it cost him a great deal to utter the word;
and he sat down at the nearest table.

Both were silent. There were two Germans and a Russian officer in
the room. No one spoke and the only sounds heard were the clatter of
knives and the munching of the lieutenant.

When Telyanin had finished his lunch he took out of his pocket a
double purse and, drawing its rings aside with his small, white,
turned-up fingers, drew out a gold imperial, and lifting his
eyebrows gave it to the waiter.

"Please be quick," he said.

The coin was a new one. Rostov rose and went up to Telyanin.

"Allow me to look at your purse," he said in a low, almost
inaudible, voice.

With shifting eyes but eyebrows still raised, Telyanin handed him
the purse.

"Yes, it's a nice purse. Yes, yes," he said, growing suddenly
pale, and added, "Look at it, young man."

Rostov took the purse in his hand, examined it and the money in
it, and looked at Telyanin. The lieutenant was looking about in his
usual way and suddenly seemed to grow very merry.

"If we get to Vienna I'll get rid of it there but in these
wretched little towns there's nowhere to spend it," said he. "Well,
let me have it, young man, I'm going."

Rostov did not speak.

"And you? Are you going to have lunch too? They feed you quite
decently here," continued Telyanin. "Now then, let me have it."

He stretched out his hand to take hold of the purse. Rostov let go
of it. Telyanin took the purse and began carelessly slipping it into
the pocket of his riding breeches, with his eyebrows lifted and his
mouth slightly open, as if to say, "Yes, yes, I am putting my purse in
my pocket and that's quite simple and is no else's business."

"Well, young man?" he said with a sigh, and from under his lifted
brows he glanced into Rostov's eyes.

Some flash as of an electric spark shot from Telyanin's eyes to
Rostov's and back, and back again and again in an instant.

"Come here," said Rostov, catching hold of Telyanin's arm and almost
dragging him to the window. "That money is Denisov's; you took
it..." he whispered just above Telyanin's ear.

"What? What? How dare you? What?" said Telyanin.

But these words came like a piteous, despairing cry and an
entreaty for pardon. As soon as Rostov heard them, an enormous load of
doubt fell from him. He was glad, and at the same instant began to
pity the miserable man who stood before him, but the task he had begun
had to be completed.

"Heaven only knows what the people here may imagine," muttered
Telyanin, taking up his cap and moving toward a small empty room.
"We must have an explanation..."

"I know it and shall prove it," said Rostov.

"I..."

Every muscle of Telyanin's pale, terrified face began to quiver, his
eyes still shifted from side to side but with a downward look not
rising to Rostov's face, and his sobs were audible.

"Count!... Don't ruin a young fellow... here is this wretched money,
take it..." He threw it on the table. "I have an old father and
mother!..."

Rostov took the money, avoiding Telyanin's eyes, and went out of the
room without a word. But at the door he stopped and then retraced
his steps. "O God," he said with tears in his eyes, "how could you
do it?"

"Count..." said Telyanin drawing nearer to him.

"Don't touch me," said Rostov, drawing back. "If you need it, take
the money," and he threw the purse to him and ran out of the inn.


CHAPTER V


That same evening there was an animated discussion among the
squadron's officers in Denisov's quarters.

"And I tell you, Rostov, that you must apologize to the colonel!"
said a tall, grizzly-haired staff captain, with enormous mustaches and
many wrinkles on his large features, to Rostov who was crimson with
excitement.

The staff captain, Kirsten, had twice been reduced to the ranks
for affairs of honor and had twice regained his commission.

"I will allow no one to call me a liar!" cried Rostov. "He told me I
lied, and I told him he lied. And there it rests. He may keep me on
duty every day, or may place me under arrest, but no one can make me
apologize, because if he, as commander of this regiment, thinks it
beneath his dignity to give me satisfaction, then..."

"You just wait a moment, my dear fellow, and listen," interrupted
the staff captain in his deep bass, calmly stroking his long mustache.
"You tell the colonel in the presence of other officers that an
officer has stolen..."

"I'm not to blame that the conversation began in the presence of
other officers. Perhaps I ought not to have spoken before them, but
I am not a diplomatist. That's why I joined the hussars, thinking that
here one would not need finesse; and he tells me that I am lying- so
let him give me satisfaction..."

"That's all right. No one thinks you a coward, but that's not the
point. Ask Denisov whether it is not out of the question for a cadet
to demand satisfaction of his regimental commander?"

Denisov sat gloomily biting his mustache and listening to the
conversation, evidently with no wish to take part in it. He answered
the staff captain's question by a disapproving shake of his head.

"You speak to the colonel about this nasty business before other
officers," continued the staff captain, "and Bogdanich" (the colonel
was called Bogdanich) "shuts you up."

"He did not shut me up, he said I was telling an untruth."

"Well, have it so, and you talked a lot of nonsense to him and
must apologize."

"Not on any account!" exclaimed Rostov.

"I did not expect this of you," said the staff captain seriously and
severely. "You don't wish to apologize, but, man, it's not only to him
but to the whole regiment- all of us- you're to blame all round. The
case is this: you ought to have thought the matter over and taken
advice; but no, you go and blurt it all straight out before the
officers. Now what was the colonel to do? Have the officer tried and
disgrace the whole regiment? Disgrace the whole regiment because of
one scoundrel? Is that how you look at it? We don't see it like
that. And Bogdanich was a brick: he told you you were saying what
was not true. It's not pleasant, but what's to be done, my dear
fellow? You landed yourself in it. And now, when one wants to smooth
the thing over, some conceit prevents your apologizing, and you wish
to make the whole affair public. You are offended at being put on duty
a bit, but why not apologize to an old and honorable officer? Whatever
Bogdanich may be, anyway he is an honorable and brave old colonel!
You're quick at taking offense, but you don't mind disgracing the
whole regiment!" The staff captain's voice began to tremble. "You have
been in the regiment next to no time, my lad, you're here today and
tomorrow you'll be appointed adjutant somewhere and can snap your
fingers when it is said 'There are thieves among the Pavlograd
officers!' But it's not all the same to us! Am I not right, Denisov?
It's not the same!"

Denisov remained silent and did not move, but occasionally looked
with his glittering black eyes at Rostov.

"You value your own pride and don't wish to apologize," continued
the staff captain, "but we old fellows, who have grown up in and,
God willing, are going to die in the regiment, we prize the honor of
the regiment, and Bogdanich knows it. Oh, we do prize it, old
fellow! And all this is not right, it's not right! You may take
offense or not but I always stick to mother truth. It's not right!"

And the staff captain rose and turned away from Rostov.

"That's twue, devil take it" shouted Denisov, jumping up. "Now then,
Wostov, now then!"

 Rostov, growing red and pale alternately, looked first at one
officer and then at the other.

"No, gentlemen, no... you mustn't think... I quite understand.
You're wrong to think that of me... I... for me... for the honor of
the regiment I'd... Ah well, I'll show that in action, and for me
the honor of the flag... Well, never mind, it's true I'm to blame,
to blame all round. Well, what else do you want?..."

"Come, that's right, Count!" cried the staff captain, turning
round and clapping Rostov on the shoulder with his big hand.

"I tell you," shouted Denisov, "he's a fine fellow."

"That's better, Count," said the staff captain, beginning to address
Rostov by his title, as if in recognition of his confession. "Go and
apologize, your excellency. Yes, go!"

"Gentlemen, I'll do anything. No one shall hear a word from me,"
said Rostov in an imploring voice, "but I can't apologize, by God I
can't, do what you will! How can I go and apologize like a little
boy asking forgiveness?"

Denisov began to laugh.

"It'll be worse for you. Bogdanich is vindictive and you'll pay
for your obstinacy," said Kirsten.

"No, on my word it's not obstinacy! I can't describe the feeling.
I can't..."

"Well, it's as you like," said the staff captain. "And what has
become of that scoundrel?" he asked Denisov.

"He has weported himself sick, he's to be stwuck off the list
tomowwow," muttered Denisov.

"It is an illness, there's no other way of explaining it," said
the staff captain.

"Illness or not, he'd better not cwoss my path. I'd kill him!"
shouted Denisov in a bloodthirsty tone.

Just then Zherkov entered the room.

"What brings you here?" cried the officers turning to the newcomer.

"We're to go into action, gentlemen! Mack has surrendered with his
whole army."

"It's not true!"

"I've seen him myself!"

"What? Saw the real Mack? With hands and feet?"

"Into action! Into action! Bring him a bottle for such news! But how
did you come here?"

"I've been sent back to the regiment all on account of that devil,
Mack. An Austrian general complained of me. I congratulated him on
Mack's arrival... What's the matter, Rostov? You look as if you'd just
come out of a hot bath."

"Oh, my dear fellow, we're in such a stew here these last two days."

The regimental adjutant came in and confirmed the news brought by
Zherkov. They were under orders to advance next day.

"We're going into action, gentlemen!"

"Well, thank God! We've been sitting here too long!"


CHAPTER VI


Kutuzov fell back toward Vienna, destroying behind him the bridges
over the rivers Inn (at Braunau) and Traun (near Linz). On October
23 the Russian troops were crossing the river Enns. At midday the
Russian baggage train, the artillery, and columns of troops were
defiling through the town of Enns on both sides of the bridge.

It was a warm, rainy, autumnal day. The wide expanse that opened out
before the heights on which the Russian batteries stood guarding the
bridge was at times veiled by a diaphanous curtain of slanting rain,
and then, suddenly spread out in the sunlight, far-distant objects
could be clearly seen glittering as though freshly varnished. Down
below, the little town could be seen with its white, red-roofed
houses, its cathedral, and its bridge, on both sides of which streamed
jostling masses of Russian troops. At the bend of the Danube, vessels,
an island, and a castle with a park surrounded by the waters of the
confluence of the Enns and the Danube became visible, and the rocky
left bank of the Danube covered with pine forests, with a mystic
background of green treetops and bluish gorges. The turrets of a
convent stood out beyond a wild virgin pine forest, and far away on
the other side of the Enns the enemy's horse patrols could be
discerned.

Among the field guns on the brow of the hill the general in
command of the rearguard stood with a staff officer, scanning the
country through his fieldglass. A little behind them Nesvitski, who
had been sent to the rearguard by the commander in chief, was
sitting on the trail of a gun carriage. A Cossack who accompanied
him had handed him a knapsack and a flask, and Nesvitski was
treating some officers to pies and real doppelkummel. The officers
gladly gathered round him, some on their knees, some squatting Turkish
fashion on the wet grass.

"Yes, the Austrian prince who built that castle was no fool. It's
a fine place! Why are you not eating anything, gentlemen?" Nesvitski
was saying.

"Thank you very much, Prince," answered one of the officers, pleased
to be talking to a staff officer of such importance. "It's a lovely
place! We passed close to the park and saw two deer... and what a
splendid house!"

"Look, Prince," said another, who would have dearly liked to take
another pie but felt shy, and therefore pretended to be examining
the countryside- "See, our infantrymen have already got there. Look
there in the meadow behind the village, three of them are dragging
something. They'll ransack that castle," he remarked with evident
approval.

"So they will," said Nesvitski. "No, but what I should like,"
added he, munching a pie in his moist-lipped handsome mouth, "would be
to slip in over there."

He pointed with a smile to a turreted nunnery, and his eyes narrowed
and gleamed.

"That would be fine, gentlemen!"

The officers laughed.

"Just to flutter the nuns a bit. They say there are Italian girls
among them. On my word I'd give five years of my life for it!"

"They must be feeling dull, too," said one of the bolder officers,
laughing.

Meanwhile the staff officer standing in front pointed out
something to the general, who looked through his field glass.

"Yes, so it is, so it is," said the general angrily, lowering the
field glass and shrugging his shoulders, "so it is! They'll be fired
on at the crossing. And why are they dawdling there?"

On the opposite side the enemy could be seen by the naked eye, and
from their battery a milk-white cloud arose. Then came the distant
report of a shot, and our troops could be seen hurrying to the
crossing.

Nesvitski rose, puffing, and went up to the general, smiling.

"Would not your excellency like a little refreshment?" he said.

"It's a bad business," said the general without answering him,
"our men have been wasting time."

"Hadn't I better ride over, your excellency?" asked Nesvitski.

"Yes, please do," answered the general, and he repeated the order
that had already once been given in detail: "and tell the hussars that
they are to cross last and to fire the bridge as I ordered; and the
inflammable material on the bridge must be reinspected."

"Very good," answered Nesvitski.

He called the Cossack with his horse, told him to put away the
knapsack and flask, and swung his heavy person easily into the saddle.

"I'll really call in on the nuns," he said to the officers who
watched him smilingly, and he rode off by the winding path down the
hill.

"Now then, let's see how far it will carry, Captain. Just try!" said
the general, turning to an artillery officer. "Have a little fun to
pass the time."

"Crew, to your guns!" commanded the officer.

In a moment the men came running gaily from their campfires and
began loading.

"One!" came the command.

Number one jumped briskly aside. The gun rang out with a deafening
metallic roar, and a whistling grenade flew above the heads of our
troops below the hill and fell far short of the enemy, a little
smoke showing the spot where it burst.

The faces of officers and men brightened up at the sound. Everyone
got up and began watching the movements of our troops below, as
plainly visible as if but a stone's throw away, and the movements of
the approaching enemy farther off. At the same instant the sun came
fully out from behind the clouds, and the clear sound of the
solitary shot and the brilliance of the bright sunshine merged in a
single joyous and spirited impression.


CHAPTER VII


Two of the enemy's shots had already flown across the bridge,
where there was a crush. Halfway across stood Prince Nesvitski, who
had alighted from his horse and whose big body was body was jammed
against the railings. He looked back laughing to the Cossack who stood
a few steps behind him holding two horses by their bridles. Each
time Prince Nesvitski tried to move on, soldiers and carts pushed
him back again and pressed him against the railings, and all he
could do was to smile.

"What a fine fellow you are, friend!" said the Cossack to a convoy
soldier with a wagon, who was pressing onto the infantrymen who were
crowded together close to his wheels and his horses. "What a fellow!
You can't wait a moment! Don't you see the general wants to pass?"

But the convoyman took no notice of the word "general" and shouted
at the soldiers who were blocking his way. "Hi there, boys! Keep to
the left! Wait a bit." But the soldiers, crowded together shoulder
to shoulder, their bayonets interlocking, moved over the bridge in a
dense mass. Looking down over the rails Prince Nesvitski saw the
rapid, noisy little waves of the Enns, which rippling and eddying
round the piles of the bridge chased each other along. Looking on
the bridge he saw equally uniform living waves of soldiers, shoulder
straps, covered shakos, knapsacks, bayonets, long muskets, and,
under the shakos, faces with broad cheekbones, sunken cheeks, and
listless tired expressions, and feet that moved through the sticky mud
that covered the planks of the bridge. Sometimes through the
monotonous waves of men, like a fleck of white foam on the waves of
the Enns, an officer, in a cloak and with a type of face different
from that of the men, squeezed his way along; sometimes like a chip of
wood whirling in the river, an hussar on foot, an orderly, or a
townsman was carried through the waves of infantry; and sometimes like
a log floating down the river, an officers' or company's baggage
wagon, piled high, leather covered, and hemmed in on all sides,
moved across the bridge.

"It's as if a dam had burst," said the Cossack hopelessly. "Are
there many more of you to come?"

"A million all but one!" replied a waggish soldier in a torn coat,
with a wink, and passed on followed by another, an old man.

"If he" (he meant the enemy) "begins popping at the bridge now,"
said the old soldier dismally to a comrade, "you'll forget to
scratch yourself."

That soldier passed on, and after him came another sitting on a
cart.

"Where the devil have the leg bands been shoved to?" said an
orderly, running behind the cart and fumbling in the back of it.

And he also passed on with the wagon. Then came some merry
soldiers who had evidently been drinking.

"And then, old fellow, he gives him one in the teeth with the butt
end of his gun..." a soldier whose greatcoat was well tucked up said
gaily, with a wide swing of his arm.

"Yes, the ham was just delicious..." answered another with a loud
laugh. And they, too, passed on, so that Nesvitski did not learn who
had been struck on the teeth, or what the ham had to do with it.

"Bah! How they scurry. He just sends a ball and they think they'll
all be killed," a sergeant was saying angrily and reproachfully.

"As it flies past me, Daddy, the ball I mean," said a young
soldier with an enormous mouth, hardly refraining from laughing, "I
felt like dying of fright. I did, 'pon my word, I got that
frightened!" said he, as if bragging of having been frightened.

That one also passed. Then followed a cart unlike any that had
gone before. It was a German cart with a pair of horses led by a
German, and seemed loaded with a whole houseful of effects. A fine
brindled cow with a large udder was attached to the cart behind. A
woman with an unweaned baby, an old woman, and a healthy German girl
with bright red cheeks were sitting on some feather beds. Evidently
these fugitives were allowed to pass by special permission. The eyes
of all the soldiers turned toward the women, and while the vehicle was
passing at foot pace all the soldiers' remarks related to the two
young ones. Every face bore almost the same smile, expressing unseemly
thoughts about the women.

"Just see, the German sausage is making tracks, too!"

"Sell me the missis," said another soldier, addressing the German,
who, angry and frightened, strode energetically along with downcast
eyes.

"See how smart she's made herself! Oh, the devils!"

"There, Fedotov, you should be quartered on them!"

"I have seen as much before now, mate!"

"Where are you going?" asked an infantry officer who was eating an
apple, also half smiling as he looked at the handsome girl.

The German closed his eyes, signifying that he did not understand.

"Take it if you like," said the officer, giving the girl an apple.

The girl smiled and took it. Nesvitski like the rest of the men on
the bridge did not take his eyes off the women till they had passed.
When they had gone by, the same stream of soldiers followed, with
the same kind of talk, and at last all stopped. As often happens,
the horses of a convoy wagon became restive at the end of the
bridge, and the whole crowd had to wait.

"And why are they stopping? There's no proper order!" said the
soldiers. "Where are you shoving to? Devil take you! Can't you wait?
It'll be worse if he fires the bridge. See, here's an officer jammed
in too"- different voices were saying in the crowd, as the men
looked at one another, and all pressed toward the exit from the
bridge.

Looking down at the waters of the Enns under the bridge, Nesvitski
suddenly heard a sound new to him, of something swiftly approaching...
something big, that splashed into the water.

"Just see where it carries to!" a soldier near by said sternly,
looking round at the sound.

"Encouraging us to get along quicker," said another uneasily.

The crowd moved on again. Nesvitski realized that it was a cannon
ball.

"Hey, Cossack, my horse!" he said. "Now, then, you there! get out of
the way! Make way!"

With great difficulty he managed to get to his horse, and shouting
continually he moved on. The soldiers squeezed themselves to make
way for him, but again pressed on him so that they jammed his leg, and
those nearest him were not to blame for they were themselves pressed
still harder from behind.

"Nesvitski, Nesvitski! you numskull!" came a hoarse voice from
behind him.

Nesvitski looked round and saw, some fifteen paces away but
separated by the living mass of moving infantry, Vaska Denisov, red
and shaggy, with his cap on the back of his black head and a cloak
hanging jauntily over his shoulder.

"Tell these devils, these fiends, to let me pass!" shouted Denisov
evidently in a fit of rage, his coal-black eyes with their bloodshot
whites glittering and rolling as he waved his sheathed saber in a
small bare hand as red as his face.

"Ah, Vaska!" joyfully replied Nesvitski. "What's up with you?"

"The squadwon can't pass," shouted Vaska Denisov, showing his
white teeth fiercely and spurring his black thoroughbred Arab, which
twitched its ears as the bayonets touched it, and snorted, spurting
white foam from his bit, tramping the planks of the bridge with his
hoofs, and apparently ready to jump over the railings had his rider
let him. "What is this? They're like sheep! Just like sheep! Out of
the way!... Let us pass!... Stop there, you devil with the cart!
I'll hack you with my saber!" he shouted, actually drawing his saber
from its scabbard and flourishing it

The soldiers crowded against one another with terrified faces, and
Denisov joined Nesvitski.

"How's it you're not drunk today?" said Nesvitski when the other had
ridden up to him.

"They don't even give one time to dwink!" answered Vaska Denisov.
"They keep dwagging the wegiment to and fwo all day. If they mean to
fight, let's fight. But the devil knows what this is."

"What a dandy you are today!" said Nesvitski, looking at Denisov's
new cloak and saddlecloth.

Denisov smiled, took out of his sabretache a handkerchief that
diffused a smell of perfume, and put it to Nesvitski's nose.

"Of course. I'm going into action! I've shaved, bwushed my teeth,
and scented myself."

The imposing figure of Nesvitski followed by his Cossack, and the
determination of Denisov who flourished his sword and shouted
frantically, had such an effect that they managed to squeeze through
to the farther side of the bridge and stopped the infantry. Beside the
bridge Nesvitski found the colonel to whom he had to deliver the
order, and having done this he rode back.

Having cleared the way Denisov stopped at the end of the bridge.
Carelessly holding in his stallion that was neighing and pawing the
ground, eager to rejoin its fellows, he watched his squadron draw
nearer. Then the clang of hoofs, as of several horses galloping,
resounded on the planks of the bridge, and the squadron, officers in
front and men four abreast, spread across the bridge and began to
emerge on his side of it.

The infantry who had been stopped crowded near the bridge in the
trampled mud and gazed with that particular feeling of ill-will,
estrangement, and ridicule with which troops of different arms usually
encounter one another at the clean, smart hussars who moved past
them in regular order.

"Smart lads! Only fit for a fair!" said one.

"What good are they? They're led about just for show!" remarked
another.

"Don't kick up the dust, you infantry!" jested an hussar whose
prancing horse had splashed mud over some foot soldiers.

"I'd like to put you on a two days' march with a knapsack! Your fine
cords would soon get a bit rubbed," said an infantryman, wiping the
mud off his face with his sleeve. "Perched up there, you're more
like a bird than a man."

"There now, Zikin, they ought to put you on a horse. You'd look
fine," said a corporal, chaffing a thin little soldier who bent
under the weight of his knapsack.

"Take a stick between your legs, that'll suit you for a horse!"
the hussar shouted back.


CHAPTER VIII


The last of the infantry hurriedly crossed the bridge, squeezing
together as they approached it as if passing through a funnel. At last
the baggage wagons had all crossed, the crush was less, and the last
battalion came onto the bridge. Only Denisov's squadron of hussars
remained on the farther side of the bridge facing the enemy, who could
be seen from the hill on the opposite bank but was not yet visible
from the bridge, for the horizon as seen from the valley through which
the river flowed was formed by the rising ground only half a mile
away. At the foot of the hill lay wasteland over which a few groups of
our Cossack scouts were moving. Suddenly on the road at the top of the
high ground, artillery and troops in blue uniform were seen. These
were the French. A group of Cossack scouts retired down the hill at
a trot. All the officers and men of Denisov's squadron, though they
tried to talk of other things and to look in other directions, thought
only of what was there on the hilltop, and kept constantly looking
at the patches appearing on the skyline, which they knew to be the
enemy's troops. The weather had cleared again since noon and the sun
was descending brightly upon the Danube and the dark hills around
it. It was calm, and at intervals the bugle calls and the shouts of
the enemy could be heard from the hill. There was no one now between
the squadron and the enemy except a few scattered skirmishers. An
empty space of some seven hundred yards was all that separated them.
The enemy ceased firing, and that stern, threatening, inaccessible,
and intangible line which separates two hostile armies was all the
more clearly felt.

"One step beyond that boundary line which resembles the line
dividing the living from the dead lies uncertainty, suffering, and
death. And what is there? Who is there?- there beyond that field, that
tree, that roof lit up by the sun? No one knows, but one wants to
know. You fear and yet long to cross that line, and know that sooner
or later it must be crossed and you will have to find out what is
there, just as you will inevitably have to learn what lies the other
side of death. But you are strong, healthy, cheerful, and excited, and
are surrounded by other such excitedly animated and healthy men." So
thinks, or at any rate feels, anyone who comes in sight of the
enemy, and that feeling gives a particular glamour and glad keenness
of impression to everything that takes place at such moments.

On the high ground where the enemy was, the smoke of a cannon
rose, and a ball flew whistling over the heads of the hussar squadron.
The officers who had been standing together rode off to their
places. The hussars began carefully aligning their horses. Silence
fell on the whole squadron. All were looking at the enemy in front and
at the squadron commander, awaiting the word of command. A second
and a third cannon ball flew past. Evidently they were firing at the
hussars, but the balls with rapid rhythmic whistle flew over the heads
of the horsemen and fell somewhere beyond them. The hussars did not
look round, but at the sound of each shot, as at the word of
command, the whole squadron with its rows of faces so alike yet so
different, holding its breath while the ball flew past, rose in the
stirrups and sank back again. The soldiers without turning their heads
glanced at one another, curious to see their comrades' impression.
Every face, from Denisov's to that of the bugler, showed one common
expression of conflict, irritation, and excitement, around chin and
mouth. The quartermaster frowned, looking at the soldiers as if
threatening to punish them. Cadet Mironov ducked every time a ball
flew past. Rostov on the left flank, mounted on his Rook- a handsome
horse despite its game leg- had the happy air of a schoolboy called up
before a large audience for an examination in which he feels sure he
will distinguish himself. He was glancing at everyone with a clear,
bright expression, as if asking them to notice how calmly he sat under
fire. But despite himself, on his face too that same indication of
something new and stern showed round the mouth.

"Who's that curtseying there? Cadet Miwonov! That's not wight!
Look at me," cried Denisov who, unable to keep still on one spot, kept
turning his horse in front of the squadron.

The black, hairy, snub-nosed face of Vaska Denisov, and his whole
short sturdy figure with the sinewy hairy hand and stumpy fingers in
which he held the hilt of his naked saber, looked just as it usually
did, especially toward evening when he had emptied his second
bottle; he was only redder than usual. With his shaggy head thrown
back like birds when they drink, pressing his spurs mercilessly into
the sides of his good horse, Bedouin, and sitting as though falling
backwards in the saddle, he galloped to the other flank of the
squadron and shouted in a hoarse voice to the men to look to their
pistols. He rode up to Kirsten. The staff captain on his broad-backed,
steady mare came at a walk to meet him. His face with its long
mustache was serious as always, only his eyes were brighter than
usual.

"Well, what about it?" said he to Denisov. "It won't come to a
fight. You'll see- we shall retire."

"The devil only knows what they're about!" muttered Denisov. "Ah,
Wostov," he cried noticing the cadet's bright face, "you've got it
at last."

And he smiled approvingly, evidently pleased with the cadet.
Rostov felt perfectly happy. Just then the commander appeared on the
bridge. Denisov galloped up to him.

"Your excellency! Let us attack them! I'll dwive them off."

"Attack indeed!" said the colonel in a bored voice, puckering up his
face as if driving off a troublesome fly. "And why are you stopping
here? Don't you see the skirmishers are retreating? Lead the
squadron back."

The squadron crossed the bridge and drew out of range of fire
without having lost a single man. The second squadron that had been in
the front line followed them across and the last Cossacks quitted
the farther side of the river.

The two Pavlograd squadrons, having crossed the bridge, retired up
the hill one after the other. Their colonel, Karl Bogdanich
Schubert, came up to Denisov's squadron and rode at a footpace not far
from Rostov, without 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 perspiration with his plump hand,
"wasn't I telling you to fire the bridge, when inflammable material
had been put in position?"

"I am not your 'dear sir,' Mr. Staff Officer, and you did not tell
me to burn the bridge! I know the service, and it is my habit orders
strictly to obey. You said the bridge would be burned, but who would
it burn, I could not know by the holy spirit!"

"Ah, that's always the way!" said Nesvitski with a wave of the hand.
"How did you get here?" said he, turning to Zherkov.

"On the same business. But you are damp! Let me wring you out!"

"You were saying, Mr. Staff Officer..." continued the colonel in
an offended tone.

"Colonel," interrupted the officer of the suite, "You must be
quick or the enemy will bring up his guns to use grapeshot."

The colonel looked silently at the officer of the suite, at the
stout staff officer, and at Zherkov, and he frowned.

"I will the bridge fire," he said in a solemn tone as if to announce
that in spite of all the unpleasantness he had to endure he would
still do the right thing.

Striking his horse with his long muscular legs as if it were to
blame for everything, the colonel moved forward and ordered the second
squadron, that in which Rostov was serving under Denisov, to return to
the bridge.

"There, it's just as I thought," said Rostov to himself. "He
wishes to test me!" His heart contracted and the blood rushed to his
face. "Let him see whether I am a coward!" he thought.

Again on all the bright faces of the squadron the serious expression
appeared that they had worn when under fire. Rostov watched his enemy,
the colonel, closely- to find in his face confirmation of his own
conjecture, but the colonel did not once glance at Rostov, and
looked as he always did when at the front, solemn and stern. Then came
the word of command.

"Look sharp! Look sharp!" several voices repeated around him.

Their sabers catching in the bridles and their spurs jingling, the
hussars hastily dismounted, not knowing what they were to do. The
men were crossing themselves. Rostov no longer looked at the
colonel, he had no time. He was afraid of falling behind the
hussars, so much afraid that his heart stood still. His hand
trembled as he gave his horse into an orderly's charge, and he felt
the blood rush to his heart with a thud. Denisov rode past him,
leaning back and shouting something. Rostov saw nothing but the
hussars running all around him, their spurs catching and their
sabers clattering.

"Stretchers!" shouted someone behind him.

Rostov did not think what this call for stretchers meant; he ran on,
trying only to be ahead of the others; but just at the bridge, not
looking at the ground, he came on some sticky, trodden mud,
stumbled, and fell on his hands. The others outstripped him.

"At boss zides, Captain," he heard the voice of the colonel, who,
having ridden ahead, had pulled up his horse near the bridge, with a
triumphant, cheerful face.

Rostov wiping his muddy hands on his breeches looked at his enemy
and was about to run on, thinking that the farther he went to the
front the better. But Bogdanich, without looking at or recognizing
Rostov, shouted to him:

"Who's that running on the middle of the bridge? To the right!
Come back, Cadet!" he cried angrily; and turning to Denisov, who,
showing off his courage, had ridden on to the planks of the bridge:

"Why run risks, Captain? You should dismount," he said.

"Oh, every bullet has its billet," answered Vaska Denisov, turning
in his saddle.


Meanwhile Nesvitski, Zherkov, and the officer of the suite were
standing together out of range of the shots, watching, now the small
group of men with yellow shakos, dark-green jackets braided with cord,
and blue riding breeches, who were swarming near the bridge, and
then at what was approaching in the distance from the opposite side-
the blue uniforms and groups with horses, easily recognizable as
artillery.

"Will they burn the bridge or not? Who'll get there first? Will they
get there and fire the bridge or will the French get within
grapeshot range and wipe them out?" These were the questions each
man of the troops on the high ground above the bridge involuntarily
asked himself with a sinking heart- watching the bridge and the
hussars in the bright evening light and the blue tunics advancing from
the other side with their bayonets and guns.

"Ugh. The hussars will get it hot!" said Nesvitski; "they are within
grapeshot range now."

"He shouldn't have taken so many men," said the officer of the
suite.

"True enough," answered Nesvitski; "two smart fellows could have
done the job just as well."

"Ah, your excellency," put in Zherkov, his eyes fixed on the
hussars, but still with that naive air that made it impossible to know
whether he was speaking in jest or in earnest. "Ah, your excellency!
How you look at things! Send two men? And who then would give us the
Vladimir medal and ribbon? But now, even if they do get peppered,
the squadron may be recommended for honors and he may get a ribbon.
Our Bogdanich knows how things are done."

"There now!" said the officer of the suite, "that's grapeshot."

He pointed to the French guns, the limbers of which were being
detached and hurriedly removed.

On the French side, amid the groups with cannon, a cloud of smoke
appeared, then a second and a third almost simultaneously, and at
the moment when the first report was heard a fourth was seen. Then two
reports one after another, and a third.

"Oh! Oh!" groaned Nesvitski as if in fierce pain, seizing the
officer of the suite by the arm. "Look! A man has fallen! Fallen,
fallen!"

"Two, I think."

"If I were Tsar I would never go to war," said Nesvitski, turning
away.

The French guns were hastily reloaded. The infantry in their blue
uniforms advanced toward the bridge at a run. Smoke appeared again but
at irregular intervals, and grapeshot cracked and rattled onto the
bridge. But this time Nesvitski could not see what was happening
there, as a dense cloud of smoke arose from it. The hussars had
succeeded in setting it on fire and the French batteries were now
firing at them, no longer to hinder them but because the guns were
trained and there was someone to fire at.

The French had time to fire three rounds of grapeshot before the
hussars got back to their horses. Two were misdirected and the shot
went too high, but the last round fell in the midst of a group of
hussars and knocked three of them over.

Rostov, absorbed by his relations with Bogdanich, had paused on
the bridge not knowing what to do. There was no one to hew down (as he
had always imagined battles to himself), nor could he help to fire the
bridge because he had not brought any burning straw with him like
the other soldiers. He stood looking about him, when suddenly he heard
a rattle on the bridge as if nuts were being spilt, and the hussar
nearest to him fell against the rails with a groan. Rostov ran up to
him with the others. Again someone shouted, "Stretchers!" Four men
seized the hussar and began lifting him.

"Oooh! For Christ's sake let me alone!" cried the wounded man, but
still he was lifted and laid on the stretcher.

Nicholas Rostov turned away and, as if searching for something,
gazed into the distance, at the waters of the Danube, at the sky,
and at the sun. How beautiful the sky looked; how blue, how calm,
and how deep! How bright and glorious was the setting sun! With what
soft glitter the waters of the distant Danube shone. And fairer
still were the faraway blue mountains beyond the river, the nunnery,
the mysterious gorges, and the pine forests veiled in the mist of
their summits... There was peace and happiness... "I should wishing
for nothing else, nothing, if only I were there," thought Rostov.
"In myself alone and in that sunshine there is so much happiness;
but here... groans, suffering, fear, and this uncertainty and hurry...
There- they are shouting again, and again are all running back
somewhere, and I shall run with them, and it, death, is here above
me and around... Another instant and I shall never again see the
sun, this water, that gorge!..."

At that instant the sun began to hide behind the clouds, and other
stretchers came into view before Rostov. And the fear of death and
of the stretchers, and love of the sun and of life, all merged into
one feeling of sickening agitation.

"O Lord God! Thou who art in that heaven, save, forgive, and protect
me!" Rostov whispered.

The hussars ran back to the men who held their horses; their
voices sounded louder and calmer, the stretchers disappeared from
sight.

"Well, fwiend? So you've smelt powdah!" shouted Vaska Denisov just
above his ear.

"It's all over; but I am a coward- yes, a coward!" thought Rostov,
and sighing deeply he took Rook, his horse, which stood resting one
foot, from the orderly and began to mount.

"Was that grapeshot?" he asked Denisov.

"Yes and no mistake!" cried Denisov. "You worked like wegular bwicks
and it's nasty work! An attack's pleasant work! Hacking away at the
dogs! But this sort of thing is the very devil, with them shooting
at you like a target."

And Denisov rode up to a group that had stopped near Rostov,
composed of the colonel, Nesvitski, Zherkov, and the officer from
the suite.

"Well, it seems that no one has noticed," thought Rostov. And this
was true. No one had taken any notice, for everyone knew the sensation
which the cadet under fire for the first time had experienced.

"Here's something for you to report," said Zherkov. "See if I
don't get promoted to a sublieutenancy."

"Inform the prince that I the bridge fired!" said the colonel
triumphantly and gaily.

"And if he asks about the losses?"

"A trifle," said the colonel in his bass voice: "two hussars
wounded, and one knocked out," he added, unable to restrain a happy
smile, and pronouncing the phrase "knocked out" with ringing
distinctness.


CHAPTER IX


Pursued by the French army of a hundred thousand men under the
command of Bonaparte, encountering a population that was unfriendly to
it, losing confidence in its allies, suffering from shortness of
supplies, and compelled to act under conditions of war unlike anything
that had been foreseen, the Russian army of thirty-five thousand men
commanded by Kutuzov was hurriedly retreating along the Danube,
stopping where overtaken by the enemy and fighting rearguard actions
only as far as necessary to enable it to retreat without losing its
heavy equipment. There had been actions at Lambach, Amstetten, and
Melk; but despite the courage and endurance- acknowledged even by
the enemy- with which the Russians fought, the only consequence of
these actions was a yet more rapid retreat. Austrian troops that had
escaped capture at Ulm and had joined Kutuzov at Braunau now separated
from the Russian army, and Kutuzov was left with only his own weak and
exhausted forces. The defense of Vienna was no longer to be thought
of. Instead of an offensive, the plan of which, carefully prepared
in accord with the modern science of strategics, had been handed to
Kutuzov when he was in Vienna by the Austrian Hofkriegsrath, the
sole and almost unattainable aim remaining for him was to effect a
junction with the forces that were advancing from Russia, without
losing his army as Mack had done at Ulm.

On the twenty-eighth of October Kutuzov with his army crossed to the
left bank of the Danube and took up a position for the first time with
the river between himself and the main body of the French. On the
thirtieth he attacked Mortier's division, which was on the left
bank, and broke it up. In this action for the first time trophies were
taken: banners, cannon, and two enemy generals. For the first time,
after a fortnight's retreat, the Russian troops had halted and after a
fight had not only held the field but had repulsed the French.
Though the troops were ill-clad, exhausted, and had lost a third of
their number in killed, wounded, sick, and stragglers; though a number
of sick and wounded had been abandoned on the other side of the Danube
with a letter in which Kutuzov entrusted them to the humanity of the
enemy; and though the big hospitals and the houses in Krems
converted into military hospitals could no longer accommodate all
the sick and wounded, yet the stand made at Krems and the victory over
Mortier raised the spirits of the army considerably. Throughout the
whole army and at headquarters most joyful though erroneous rumors
were rife of the imaginary approach of columns from Russia, of some
victory gained by the Austrians, and of the retreat of the
frightened Bonaparte.

Prince Andrew during the battle had been in attendance on the
Austrian General Schmidt, who was killed in the action. His horse
had been wounded under him and his own arm slightly grazed by a
bullet. As a mark of the commander in chief's special favor he was
sent with the news of this victory to the Austrian court, now no
longer at Vienna (which was threatened by the French) but at Brunn.
Despite his apparently delicate build Prince Andrew could endure
physical fatigue far better than many very muscular men, and on the
night of the battle, having arrived at Krems excited but not weary,
with dispatches from Dokhturov to Kutuzov, he was sent immediately
with a special dispatch to Brunn. To be so sent meant not only a
reward but an important step toward promotion.

The night was dark but starry, the road showed black in the snow
that had fallen the previous day- the day of the battle. Reviewing his
impressions of the recent battle, picturing pleasantly to himself
the impression his news of a victory would create, or recalling the
send-off given him by the commander in chief and his fellow
officers, Prince Andrew was galloping along in a post chaise
enjoying the feelings of a man who has at length begun to attain a
long-desired happiness. As soon as he closed his eyes his ears
seemed filled with the rattle of the wheels and the sensation of
victory. Then he began to imagine that the Russians were running
away and that he himself was killed, but he quickly roused himself
with a feeling of joy, as if learning afresh that this was not so
but that on the contrary the French had run away. He again recalled
all the details of the victory and his own calm courage during the
battle, and feeling reassured he dozed off.... The dark starry night
was followed by a bright cheerful morning. The snow was thawing in the
sunshine, the horses galloped quickly, and on both sides of the road
were forests of different kinds, fields, and villages.

At one of the post stations he overtook a convoy of Russian wounded.
The Russian officer in charge of the transport lolled back in the
front cart, shouting and scolding a soldier with coarse abuse. In each
of the long German carts six or more pale, dirty, bandaged men were
being jolted over the stony road. Some of them were talking (he
heard Russian words), others were eating bread; the more severely
wounded looked silently, with the languid interest of sick children,
at the envoy hurrying past them.

Prince Andrew told his driver to stop, and asked a soldier in what
action they had been wounded. "Day before yesterday, on the Danube,"
answered the soldier. Prince Andrew took out his purse and gave the
soldier three gold pieces.

"That's for them all," he said to the officer who came up.

"Get well soon, lads!" he continued, turning to the soldiers.
"There's plenty to do still."

"What news, sir?" asked the officer, evidently anxious to start a
conversation.

"Good news!... Go on!" he shouted to the driver, and they galloped
on.

It was already quite dark when Prince Andrew rattled over the
paved streets of Brunn and found himself surrounded by high buildings,
the lights of shops, houses, and street lamps, fine carriages, and all
that atmosphere of a large and active town which is always so
attractive to a soldier after camp life. Despite his rapid journey and
sleepless night, Prince Andrew when he drove up to the palace felt
even more vigorous and alert than he had done the day before. Only his
eyes gleamed feverishly and his thoughts followed one another with
extraordinary clearness and rapidity. He again vividly recalled the
details of the battle, no longer dim, but definite and in the
concise form concise form in which he imagined himself stating them to
the Emperor Francis. He vividly imagined the casual questions that
might be put to him and the answers he would give. He expected to be
at once presented to the Emperor. At the chief entrance to the palace,
however, an official came running out to meet him, and learning that
he was a special messenger led him to another entrance.

"To the right from the corridor, Euer Hochgeboren! There you will
find the adjutant on duty," said the official. "He will conduct you to
the Minister of War."

The adjutant on duty, meeting Prince Andrew, asked him to wait,
and went in to the Minister of War. Five minutes later he returned and
bowing with particular courtesy ushered Prince Andrew before him along
a corridor to the cabinet where the Minister of War was at work. The
adjutant by his elaborate courtesy appeared to wish to ward off any
attempt at familiarity on the part of the Russian messenger.

Prince Andrew's joyous feeling was considerably weakened as he
approached the door of the minister's room. He felt offended, and
without his noticing it the feeling of offense immediately turned into
one of disdain which was quite uncalled for. His fertile mind
instantly suggested to him a point of view which gave him a right to
despise the adjutant and the minister. "Away from the smell of powder,
they probably think it easy to gain victories!" he thought. His eyes
narrowed disdainfully, he entered the room of the Minister of War with
peculiarly deliberate steps. This feeling of disdain was heightened
when he saw the minister seated at a large table reading some papers
and making pencil notes on them, and for the first two or three
minutes taking no notice of his arrival. A wax candle stood at each
side of the minister's bent bald head with its gray temples. He went
on reading to the end, without raising his eyes at the opening of
the door and the sound of footsteps.

"Take this and deliver it," said he to his adjutant, handing him the
papers and still taking no notice of the special messenger.

Prince Andrew felt that either the actions of Kutuzov's army
interested the Minister of War less than any of the other matters he
was concerned with, or he wanted to give the Russian special messenger
that impression. "But that is a matter of perfect indifference to me,"
he thought. The minister drew the remaining papers together,
arranged them evenly, and then raised his head. He had an intellectual
and distinctive head, but the instant he turned to Prince Andrew the
firm, intelligent expression on his face changed in a way evidently
deliberate and habitual to him. His face took on the stupid artificial
smile (which does not even attempt to hide its artificiality) of a man
who is continually receiving many petitioners one after another.

"From General Field Marshal Kutuzov?" he asked. "I hope it is good
news? There has been an encounter with Mortier? A victory? It was high
time!"

He took the dispatch which was addressed to him and began to read it
with a mournful expression.

"Oh, my God! My God! Schmidt!" he exclaimed in German. "What a
calamity! What a calamity!"

Having glanced through the dispatch he laid it on the table and
looked at Prince Andrew, evidently considering something.

"Ah what a calamity! You say the affair was decisive? But Mortier is
not captured." Again he pondered. "I am very glad you have brought
good news, though Schmidt's death is a heavy price to pay for the
victory. His Majesty will no doubt wish to see you, but not today. I
thank you! You must have a rest. Be at the levee tomorrow after the
parade. However, I will let you know."

The stupid smile, which had left his face while he was speaking,
reappeared.

"Au revoir! Thank you very much. His Majesty will probably desire to
see you," he added, bowing his head.

When Prince Andrew left the palace he felt that all the interest and
happiness the victory had afforded him had been now left in the
indifferent hands of the Minister of War and the polite adjutant.
The whole tenor of his thoughts instantaneously changed; the battle
seemed the memory of a remote event long past.


CHAPTER X


Prince Andrew stayed at Brunn with Bilibin, a Russian acquaintance
of his in the diplomatic service.

"Ah, my dear prince! I could not have a more welcome visitor,"
said Bilibin as he came out to meet Prince Andrew. "Franz, put the
prince's things in my bedroom," said he to the servant who was
ushering Bolkonski in. "So you're a messenger of victory, eh?
Splendid! And I am sitting here ill, as you see."

After washing and dressing, Prince Andrew came into the diplomat's
luxurious study and sat down to the dinner prepared for him. Bilibin
settled down comfortably beside the fire.

After his journey and the campaign during which he had been deprived
of all the comforts of cleanliness and all the refinements of life,
Prince Andrew felt a pleasant sense of repose among luxurious
surroundings such as he had been accustomed to from childhood. Besides
it was pleasant, after his reception by the Austrians, to speak if not
in Russian (for they were speaking French) at least with a Russian who
would, he supposed, share the general Russian antipathy to the
Austrians which was then particularly strong.

Bilibin was a man of thirty-five, a bachelor, and of the same circle
as Prince Andrew. They had known each other previously in
Petersburg, but had become more intimate when Prince Andrew was in
Vienna with Kutuzov. Just as Prince Andrew was a young man who gave
promise of rising high in the military profession, so to an even
greater extent Bilibin gave promise of rising in his diplomatic
career. He still a young man but no longer a young diplomat, as he had
entered the service at the age of sixteen, had been in Paris and
Copenhagen, and now held a rather important post in Vienna. Both the
foreign minister and our ambassador in Vienna knew him and valued him.
He was not one of those many diplomats who are esteemed because they
have certain negative qualities, avoid doing certain things, and speak
French. He was one of those, who, liking work, knew how to do it,
and despite his indolence would sometimes spend a whole night at his
writing table. He worked well whatever the import of his work. It
was not the question "What for?" but the question "How?" that
interested him. What the diplomatic matter might be he did not care,
but it gave him great pleasure to prepare a circular, memorandum, or
report, skillfully, pointedly, and elegantly. Bilibin's services
were valued not only for what he wrote, but also for his skill in
dealing and conversing with those in the highest spheres.

Bilibin liked conversation as he liked work, only when it could be
made elegantly witty. In society he always awaited an opportunity to
say something striking and took part in a conversation only when
that was possible. His conversation was always sprinkled with
wittily original, finished phrases of general interest. These
sayings were prepared in the inner laboratory of his mind in a
portable form as if intentionally, so that insignificant society
people might carry them from drawing room to drawing room. And, in
fact, Bilibin's witticisms were hawked about in the Viennese drawing
rooms and often had an influence on matters considered important.

His thin, worn, sallow face was covered with deep wrinkles, which
always looked as clean and well washed as the tips of one's fingers
after a Russian bath. The movement of these wrinkles formed the
principal play of expression on his face. Now his forehead would
pucker into deep folds and his eyebrows were lifted, then his eyebrows
would descend and deep wrinkles would crease his cheeks. His small,
deep-set eyes always twinkled and looked out straight.

"Well, now tell me about your exploits," said he.

Bolkonski, very modestly without once mentioning himself,
described the engagement and his reception by the Minister of War.

"They received me and my news as one receives a dog in a game of
skittles," said he in conclusion.

Bilibin smiled and the wrinkles on his face disappeared.

"Cependant, mon cher," he remarked, examining his nails from a
distance and puckering the skin above his left eye, "malgre la haute
estime que je professe pour the Orthodox Russian army, j'avoue que
votre victoire n'est pas des plus victorieuses."*


*"But my dear fellow, with all my respect for the Orthodox Russian
army, I must say that your victory was not particularly victorious."


He went on talking in this way in French, uttering only those
words in Russian on which he wished to put a contemptuous emphasis.

"Come now! You with all your forces fall on the unfortunate
Mortier and his one division, and even then Mortier slips through your
fingers! Where's the victory?"

"But seriously," said Prince Andrew, "we can at any rate say without
boasting that it was a little better than at Ulm..."

"Why didn't you capture one, just one, marshal for us?"

"Because not everything happens as one expects or with the
smoothness of a parade. We had expected, as I told you, to get at
their rear by seven in the morning but had not reached it by five in
the afternoon."

"And why didn't you do it at seven in the morning? You ought to have
been there at seven in the morning," returned Bilibin with a smile.
"You ought to have been there at seven in the morning."

"Why did you not succeed in impressing on Bonaparte by diplomatic
methods that he had better leave Genoa alone?" retorted Prince
Andrew in the same tone.

"I know," interrupted Bilibin, "you're thinking it's very easy to
take marshals, sitting on a sofa by the fire! That is true, but
still why didn't you capture him? So don't be surprised if not only
the Minister of War but also his Most August Majesty the Emperor and
King Francis is not much delighted by your victory. Even I, a poor
secretary of the Russian Embassy, do not feel any need in token of
my joy to give my Franz a thaler, or let him go with his Liebchen to
the Prater... True, we have no Prater here..."

He looked straight at Prince Andrew and suddenly unwrinkled his
forehead.

"It is now my turn to ask you 'why?' mon cher," said Bolkonski. "I
confess I do not understand: perhaps there are diplomatic subtleties
here beyond my feeble intelligence, but I can't make it out. Mack
loses a whole army, the Archduke Ferdinand and the Archduke Karl
give no signs of life and make blunder after blunder. Kutuzov alone at
last gains a real victory, destroying the spell of the invincibility
of the French, and the Minister of War does not even care to hear
the details."

"That's just it, my dear fellow. You see it's hurrah for the Tsar,
for Russia, for the Orthodox Greek faith! All that is beautiful, but
what do we, I mean the Austrian court, care for your victories?
Bring us nice news of a victory by the Archduke Karl or Ferdinand (one
archduke's as good as another, as you know) and even if it is only
over a fire brigade of Bonaparte's, that will be another story and
we'll fire off some cannon! But this sort of thing seems done on
purpose to vex us. The Archduke Karl does nothing, the Archduke
Ferdinand disgraces himself. You abandon Vienna, give up its
defense- as much as to say: 'Heaven is with us, but heaven help you
and your capital!' The one general whom we all loved, Schmidt, you
expose to a bullet, and then you congratulate us on the victory! Admit
that more irritating news than yours could not have been conceived.
It's as if it had been done on purpose, on purpose. Besides, suppose
you did gain a brilliant victory, if even the Archduke Karl gained a
victory, what effect would that have on the general course of
events? It's too late now when Vienna is occupied by the French army!"

"What? Occupied? Vienna occupied?"

"Not only occupied, but Bonaparte is at Schonbrunn, and the count,
our dear Count Vrbna, goes to him for orders."

After the fatigues and impressions of the journey, his reception,
and especially after having dined, Bolkonski felt that he could not
take in the full significance of the words he heard.

"Count Lichtenfels was here this morning," Bilibin continued, "and
showed me a letter in which the parade of the French in Vienna was
fully described: Prince Murat et tout le tremblement... You see that
your victory is not a matter for great rejoicing and that you can't be
received as a savior."

"Really I don't care about that, I don't care at all," said Prince
Andrew, beginning to understand that his news of the battle before
Krems was really of small importance in view of such events as the
fall of Austria's capital. "How is it Vienna was taken? What of the
bridge and its celebrated bridgehead and Prince Auersperg? We heard
reports that Prince Auersperg was defending Vienna?" he said.

"Prince Auersperg is on this, on our side of the river, and is
defending us- doing it very badly, I think, but still he is
defending us. But Vienna is on the other side. No, the bridge has
not yet been taken and I hope it will not be, for it is mined and
orders have been given to blow it up. Otherwise we should long ago
have been in the mountains of Bohemia, and you and your army would
have spent a bad quarter of an hour between two fires."

"But still this does not mean that the campaign is over," said
Prince Andrew.

"Well, I think it is. The bigwigs here think so too, but they
daren't say so. It will be as I said at the beginning of the campaign,
it won't be your skirmishing at Durrenstein, or gunpowder at all, that
will decide the matter, but those who devised it," said Bilibin
quoting one of his own mots, releasing the wrinkles on his forehead,
and pausing. "The only question is what will come of the meeting
between the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia in Berlin? If
Prussia joins the Allies, Austria's hand will be forced and there will
be war. If not it is merely a question of settling where the
preliminaries of the new Campo Formio are to be drawn up."

"What an extraordinary genius!" Prince Andrew suddenly exclaimed,
clenching his small hand and striking the table with it, "and what
luck the man has!"

"Buonaparte?" said Bilibin inquiringly, puckering up his forehead to
indicate that he was about to say something witty. "Buonaparte?" he
repeated, accentuating the u: "I think, however, now that he lays down
laws for Austria at Schonbrunn, il faut lui faire grace de l'u!* I
shall certainly adopt an innovation and call him simply Bonaparte!"


*"We must let him off the u!"


"But joking apart," said Prince Andrew, "do you really think the
campaign is over?"

"This is what I think. Austria has been made a fool of, and she is
not used to it. She will retaliate. And she has been fooled in the
first place because her provinces have been pillaged- they say the
Holy Russian army loots terribly- her army is destroyed, her capital
taken, and all this for the beaux yeux* of His Sardinian Majesty.
And therefore- this is between ourselves- I instinctively feel that we
are being deceived, my instinct tells me of negotiations with France
and projects for peace, a secret peace concluded separately."


*Fine eyes.


"Impossible!" cried Prince Andrew. "That would be too base."

"If we live we shall see," replied Bilibin, his face again
becoming smooth as a sign that the conversation was at an end.

When Prince Andrew reached the room prepared for him and lay down in
a clean shirt on the feather bed with its warmed and fragrant pillows,
he felt that the battle of which he had brought tidings was far, far
away from him. The alliance with Prussia, Austria's treachery,
Bonaparte's new triumph, tomorrow's levee and parade, and the audience
with the Emperor Francis occupied his thoughts.

He closed his eyes, and immediately a sound of cannonading, of
musketry and the rattling of carriage wheels seemed to fill his
ears, and now again drawn out in a thin line the musketeers were
descending the hill, the French were firing, and he felt his heart
palpitating as he rode forward beside Schmidt with the bullets merrily
whistling all around, and he experienced tenfold the joy of living, as
he had not done since childhood.

He woke up...

"Yes, that all happened!" he said, and, smiling happily to himself
like a child, he fell into a deep, youthful slumber.


CHAPTER XI


Next day he woke late. Recalling his recent impressions, the first
thought that came into his mind was that today he had to be
presented to the Emperor Francis; he remembered the Minister of War,
the polite Austrian adjutant, Bilibin, and last night's
conversation. Having dressed for his attendance at court in full
parade uniform, which he had not worn for a long time, he went into
Bilibin's study fresh, animated, and handsome, with his hand bandaged.
In the study were four gentlemen of the diplomatic corps. With
Prince Hippolyte Kuragin, who was a secretary to the embassy,
Bolkonski was already acquainted. Bilibin introduced him to the
others.

The gentlemen assembled at Bilibin's were young, wealthy, gay
society men, who here, as in Vienna, formed a special set which
Bilibin, their leader, called les notres.* This set, consisting almost
exclusively of diplomats, evidently had its own interests which had
nothing to do with war or politics but related to high society, to
certain women, and to the official side of the service. These
gentlemen received Prince Andrew as one of themselves, an honor they
did not extend to many. From politeness and to start conversation,
they asked him a few questions about the army and the battle, and then
the talk went off into merry jests and gossip.


*Ours.


"But the best of it was," said one, telling of the misfortune of a
fellow diplomat, "that the Chancellor told him flatly that his
appointment to London was a promotion and that he was so to regard it.
Can you fancy the figure he cut?..."

"But the worst of it, gentlemen- I am giving Kuragin away to you- is
that that man suffers, and this Don Juan, wicked fellow, is taking
advantage of it!"

Prince Hippolyte was lolling in a lounge chair with his legs over
its arm. He began to laugh.

"Tell me about that!" he said.

"Oh, you Don Juan! You serpent!" cried several voices.

"You, Bolkonski, don't know," said Bilibin turning to Prince Andrew,
"that all the atrocities of the French army (I nearly said of the
Russian army) are nothing compared to what this man has been doing
among the women!"

"La femme est la compagne de l'homme,"* announced Prince
Hippolyte, and began looking through a lorgnette at his elevated legs.


*"Woman is man's companion."


Bilibin and the rest of "ours" burst out laughing in Hippolyte's
face, and Prince Andrew saw that Hippolyte, of whom- he had to
admit- he had almost been jealous on his wife's account, was the
butt of this set.

"Oh, I must give you a treat," Bilibin whispered to Bolkonski.
"Kuragin is exquisite when he discusses politics- you should see his
gravity!"

He sat down beside Hippolyte and wrinkling his forehead began
talking to him about politics. Prince Andrew and the others gathered
round these two.

"The Berlin cabinet cannot express a feeling of alliance," began
Hippolyte gazing round with importance at the others, "without
expressing... as in its last note... you understand... Besides, unless
His Majesty the Emperor derogates from the principle of our
alliance...

"Wait, I have not finished..." he said to Prince Andrew, seizing him
by the arm, "I believe that intervention will be stronger than
nonintervention. And..." he paused. "Finally one cannot impute the
nonreceipt of our dispatch of November 18. That is how it will end."
And he released Bolkonski's arm to indicate that he had now quite
finished.

"Demosthenes, I know thee by the pebble thou secretest in thy golden
mouth!" said Bilibin, and the mop of hair on his head moved with
satisfaction.

Everybody laughed, and Hippolyte louder than anyone. He was
evidently distressed, and breathed painfully, but could not restrain
the wild laughter that convulsed his usually impassive features.

"Well now, gentlemen," said Bilibin, "Bolkonski is my guest in
this house and in Brunn itself. I want to entertain him as far as I
can, with all the pleasures of life here. If we were in Vienna it
would be easy, but here, in this wretched Moravian hole, it is more
difficult, and I beg you all to help me. Brunn's attractions must be
shown him. You can undertake the theater, I society, and you,
Hippolyte, of course the women."

"We must let him see Amelie, she's exquisite!" said one of "ours,"
kissing his finger tips.

"In general we must turn this bloodthirsty soldier to more humane
interests," said Bilibin.

"I shall scarcely be able to avail myself of your hospitality,
gentlemen, it is already time for me to go," replied Prince Andrew
looking at his watch.

"Where to?"

"To the Emperor."

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" Well, au revoir, Bolkonski! Au revoir, Prince! Come
back early to dinner," cried several voices. "We'll take you in hand."

"When speaking to the Emperor, try as far as you can to praise the
way that provisions are supplied and the routes indicated," said
Bilibin, accompanying him to the hall.

"I should like to speak well of them, but as far as I the facts, I
can't," replied Bolkonski, smiling.

"Well, talk as much as you can, anyway. He has a passion for
giving audiences, but he does not like talking himself and can't do
it, as you will see."


CHAPTER XII


At the levee Prince Andrew stood among the Austrian officers as he
had been told to, and the Emperor Francis merely looked fixedly into
his face and just nodded to him with to him with his long head. But
after it was over, the adjutant he had seen the previous day
ceremoniously informed Bolkonski that the Emperor desired to give
him an audience. The Emperor Francis received him standing in the
middle of the room. Before the conversation began Prince Andrew was
struck by the fact that the Emperor seemed confused and blushed as
if not knowing what to say.

"Tell me, when did the battle begin?" he asked hurriedly.

Prince Andrew replied. Then followed other questions just as simple:
"Was Kutuzov well? When had he left Krems?" and so on. The Emperor
spoke as if his sole aim were to put a given number of questions-
the answers to these questions, as was only too evident, did not
interest him.

"At what o'clock did the battle begin?" asked the Emperor.

"I cannot inform Your Majesty at what o'clock the battle began at
the front, but at Durrenstein, where I was, our attack began after
five in the afternoon," replied Bolkonski growing more animated and
expecting that he would have a chance to give a reliable account,
which he had ready in his mind, of all he knew and had seen. But the
Emperor smiled and interrupted him.

"How many miles?"

"From where to where, Your Majesty?"

"From Durrenstein to Krems."

"Three and a half miles, Your Majesty."

"The French have abandoned the left bank?"

"According to the scouts the last of them crossed on rafts during
the night."

"Is there sufficient forage in Krems?"

"Forage has not been supplied to the extent..."

The Emperor interrupted him.

"At what o'clock was General Schmidt killed?"

"At seven o'clock, I believe."

"At seven o'clock? It's very sad, very sad!"

The Emperor thanked Prince Andrew and bowed. Prince Andrew
withdrew and was immediately surrounded by courtiers on all sides.
Everywhere he saw friendly looks and heard friendly words. Yesterday's
adjutant reproached him for not having stayed at the palace, and
offered him his own house. The Minister of War came up and
congratulated him on the Maria Theresa Order of the third grade, which
the Emperor was conferring on him. The Empress' chamberlain invited
him to see Her Majesty. The archduchess also wished to see him. He did
not know whom to answer, and for a few seconds collected his thoughts.
Then the Russian ambassador took him by the shoulder, led him to the
window, and began to talk to him.

Contrary to Bilibin's forecast the news he had brought was
joyfully received. A thanksgiving service was arranged, Kutuzov was
awarded the Grand Cross of Maria Theresa, and the whole army
received rewards. Bolkonski was invited everywhere, and had to spend
the whole morning calling on the principal Austrian dignitaries.
Between four and five in the afternoon, having made all his calls,
he was returning to Bilibin's house thinking out a letter to his
father about the battle and his visit to Brunn. At the door he found a
vehicle half full of luggage. Franz, Bilibin's man, was dragging a
portmanteau with some difficulty out of the front door.

Before returning to Bilibin's Prince Andrew had gone to bookshop
to provide himself with some books for the campaign, and had spent
some time in the shop.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Oh, your excellency!" said Franz, with difficulty rolling the
portmanteau into the vehicle, "we are to move on still farther. The
scoundrel is again at our heels!"

"Eh? What?" asked Prince Andrew.

Bilibin came out to meet him. His usually calm face showed
excitement.

"There now! Confess that this is delightful," said he. "This
affair of the Thabor Bridge, at Vienna.... They have crossed without
striking a blow!"

Prince Andrew could not understand.

"But where do you come from not to know what every coachman in the
town knows?"

"I come from the archduchess'. I heard nothing there."

"And you didn't see that everybody is packing up?"

"I did not... What is it all about?" inquired Prince Andrew
impatiently.

"What's it all about? Why, the French have crossed the bridge that
Auersperg was defending, and the bridge was not blown up: so Murat
is now rushing along the road to Brunn and will be here in a day or
two."

"What? Here? But why did they not blow up the bridge, if it was
mined?"

"That is what I ask you. No one, not even Bonaparte, knows why."

Bolkonski shrugged his shoulders.

"But if the bridge is crossed it means that the army too is lost? It
will be cut off," said he.

"That's just it," answered Bilibin. "Listen! The French entered
Vienna as I told you. Very well. Next day, which was yesterday,
those gentlemen, messieurs les marechaux,* Murat, Lannes,and Belliard,
mount and ride to bridge. (Observe that all three are Gascons.)
'Gentlemen,' says one of them, 'you know the Thabor Bridge is mined
and doubly mined and that there are menacing fortifications at its
head and an army of fifteen thousand men has been ordered to blow up
the bridge and not let us cross? But it will please our sovereign
the Emperor Napoleon if we take this bridge, so let us three go and
take it!' 'Yes, let's!' say the others. And off they go and take the
bridge, cross it, and now with their whole army are on this side of
the Danube, marching on us, you, and your lines of communication."


*The marshalls.


"Stop jesting," said Prince Andrew sadly and seriously. This news
grieved him and yet he was pleased.

As soon as he learned that the Russian army was in such a hopeless
situation it occurred to him that it was he who was destined to lead
it out of this position; that here was the Toulon that would lift
him from the ranks of obscure officers and offer him the first step to
fame! Listening to Bilibin he was already imagining how on reaching
the army he would give an opinion at the war council which would be
the only one that could save the army, and how he alone would be
entrusted with the executing of the plan.

"Stop this jesting," he said

"I am not jesting," Bilibin went on. "Nothing is truer or sadder.
These gentlemen ride onto the bridge alone and wave white
handkerchiefs; they assure the officer on duty that they, the
marshals, are on their way to negotiate with Prince Auersperg. He lets
them enter the tete-de-pont.* They spin him a thousand gasconades,
saying that the war is over, that the Emperor Francis is arranging a
meeting with Bonaparte, that they desire to see Prince Auersperg,
and so on. The officer sends for Auersperg; these gentlemen embrace
the officers, crack jokes, sit on the cannon, and meanwhile a French
battalion gets to the bridge unobserved, flings the bags of incendiary
material into the water, and approaches the tete-de-pont. At length
appears the lieutenant general, our dear Prince Auersperg von
Mautern himself. 'Dearest foe! Flower of the Austrian army, hero of
the Turkish wars Hostilities are ended, we can shake one another's
hand.... The Emperor Napoleon burns with impatience to make Prince
Auersperg's acquaintance.' In a word, those gentlemen, Gascons indeed,
so bewildered him with fine words, and he is so flattered by his
rapidly established intimacy with the French marshals, and so
dazzled by the sight of Murat's mantle and ostrich plumes, qu'il n'y
voit que du feu, et oublie celui qu'il devait faire faire sur
l'ennemi!"*[2] In spite of the animation of his speech, Bilibin did
not forget to pause after this mot to give time for its due
appreciation. "The French battalion rushes to the bridgehead, spikes
the guns, and the bridge is taken! But what is best of all," he went
on, his excitement subsiding under the delightful interest of his
own story, "is that the sergeant in charge of the cannon which was
to give the signal to fire the mines and blow up the bridge, this
sergeant, seeing that the French troops were running onto the
bridge, was about to fire, but Lannes stayed his hand. The sergeant,
who was evidently wiser than his general, goes up to Auersperg and
says: 'Prince, you are being deceived, here are the French!' Murat,
seeing that all is lost if the sergeant is allowed to speak, turns
to Auersperg with feigned astonishment (he is a true Gascon) and says:
'I don't recognize the world-famous Austrian discipline, if you
allow a subordinate to address you like that!' It was a stroke of
genius. Prince Auersperg feels his dignity at stake and orders the
sergeant to be arrested. Come, you must own that this affair of the
Thabor Bridge is delightful! It is not exactly stupidity, nor
rascality...."


*Bridgehead.

*[2] That their fire gets into his eyes and he forgets that he ought
to be firing at the enemy.


"It may be treachery," said Prince Andrew, vividly imagining the
gray overcoats, wounds, the smoke of gunpowder, the sounds of
firing, and the glory that awaited him.

"Not that either. That puts the court in too bad a light," replied
Bilibin."It's not treachery nor rascality nor stupidity: it is just as
at Ulm... it is..."- he seemed to be trying to find the right
expression. "C'est... c'est du Mack. Nous sommes mackes [It is... it
is a bit of Mack. We are Macked]," he concluded, feeling that he had
produced a good epigram, a fresh one that would be repeated. His
hitherto puckered brow became smooth as a sign of pleasure, and with a
slight smile he began to examine his nails.

"Where are you off to?" he said suddenly to Prince Andrew who had
risen and was going toward his room.

"I am going away."

"Where to?"

"To the army."

"But you meant to stay another two days?"

"But now I am off at once."

And Prince Andrew after giving directions about his departure went
to his room.

"Do you know, mon cher," said Bilibin following him, "I have been
thinking about you. Why are you going?"

And in proof of the conclusiveness of his opinion all the wrinkles
vanished from his face.

Prince Andrew looked inquiringly at him and gave no reply.

"Why are you going? I know you think it your duty to gallop back
to the army now that it is in danger. I understand that. Mon cher,
it is heroism!"

"Not at all," said Prince Andrew.

"But as you are a philosopher, be a consistent one, look at the
other side of the question and you will see that your duty, on the
contrary, is to take care of yourself. Leave it to those who are no
longer fit for anything else.... You have not been ordered to return
and have not been dismissed from here; therefore, you can stay and
go with us wherever our ill luck takes us. They say we are going to
Olmutz, and Olmutz is a very decent town. You and I will travel
comfortably in my caleche."

"Do stop joking, Bilibin," cried Bolkonski.

"I am speaking sincerely as a friend! Consider! Where and why are
you going, when you might remain here? You are faced by one of two
things," and the skin over his left temple puckered, "either you
will not reach your regiment before peace is concluded, or you will
share defeat and disgrace with Kutuzov's whole army."

And Bilibin unwrinkled his temple, feeling that the dilemma was
insoluble.

"I cannot argue about it," replied Prince Andrew coldly, but he
thought: "I am going to save the army."

"My dear fellow, you are a hero!" said Bilibin.


CHAPTER XIII


That same night, having taken leave of the Minister of War,
Bolkonski set off to rejoin the army, not knowing where he would
find it and fearing to be captured by the French on the way to Krems.

In Brunn everybody attached to the court was packing up, and the
heavy baggage was already being dispatched to Olmutz. Near Hetzelsdorf
Prince Andrew struck the high road along which the Russian army was
moving with great haste and in the greatest disorder. The road was
so obstructed with carts that it was impossible to get by in a
carriage. Prince Andrew took a horse and a Cossack from a Cossack
commander, and hungry and weary, making his way past the baggage
wagons, rode in search of the commander in chief and of his own
luggage. Very sinister reports of the position of the army reached him
as he went along, and the appearance of the troops in their disorderly
flight confirmed these rumors.

"Cette armee russe que l'or de l'Angleterre a transportee des
extremites de l'univers, nous allons lui faire eprouver le meme
sort- (le sort de l'armee d'Ulm)."* He remembered these words in
Bonaparte's address to his army at the beginning of the campaign,
and they awoke in him astonishment at the genius of his hero, a
feeling of wounded pride, and a hope of glory. "And should there be
nothing left but to die?" he thought. "Well, if need be, I shall do it
no worse than others."


*"That Russian army which has been brought from the ends of the
earth by English gold, we shall cause to share the same fate- (the
fate of the army at Ulm)."


He looked with disdain at the endless confused mass of
detachments, carts, guns, artillery, and again baggage wagons and
vehicles of all kinds overtaking one another and blocking the muddy
road, three and sometimes four abreast. From all sides, behind and
before, as far as ear could reach, there were the rattle of wheels,
the creaking of carts and gun carriages, the tramp of horses, the
crack of whips, shouts, the urging of horses, and the swearing of
soldiers, orderlies, and officers. All along the sides of the road
fallen horses were to be seen, some flayed, some not, and
broken-down carts beside which solitary soldiers sat waiting for
something, and again soldiers straggling from their companies,
crowds of whom set off to the neighboring villages, or returned from
them dragging sheep, fowls, hay, and bulging sacks. At each ascent
or descent of the road the crowds were yet denser and the din of
shouting more incessant. Soldiers floundering knee-deep in mud
pushed the guns and wagons themselves. Whips cracked, hoofs slipped,
traces broke, and lungs were strained with shouting. The officers
directing the march rode backward and forward between the carts. Their
voices were but feebly heard amid the uproar and one saw by their
faces that they despaired of the possibility of checking this
disorder.

"Here is our dear Orthodox Russian army," thought Bolkonski,
recalling Bilibin's words.

Wishing to find out where the commander in chief was, he rode up
to a convoy. Directly opposite to him came a strange one-horse
vehicle, evidently rigged up by soldiers out of any available
materials and looking like something between a cart, a cabriolet,
and a caleche. A soldier was driving, and a woman enveloped in
shawls sat behind the apron under the leather hood of the vehicle.
Prince Andrew rode up and was just putting his question to a soldier
when his attention was diverted by the desperate shrieks of the
woman in the vehicle. An officer in charge of transport was beating
the soldier who was driving the woman's vehicle for trying to get
ahead of others, and the strokes of his whip fell on the apron of
the equipage. The woman screamed piercingly. Seeing Prince Andrew
she leaned out from behind the apron and, waving her thin arms from
under the woolen shawl, cried:

"Mr. Aide-de-camp! Mr. Aide-de-camp!... For heaven's sake... Protect
me! What will become of us? I am the wife of the doctor of the Seventh
Chasseurs.... They won't let us pass, we are left behind and have lost
our people..."

"I'll flatten you into a pancake!" shouted the angry officer to
the soldier. "Turn back with your slut!"

"Mr. Aide-de-camp! Help me!... What does it all mean?" screamed
the doctor's wife.

"Kindly let this cart pass. Don't you see it's a woman?" said Prince
Andrew riding up to the officer.

The officer glanced at him, and without replying turned again to the
soldier. "I'll teach you to push on!... Back!"

"Let them pass, I tell you!" repeated Prince Andrew, compressing his
lips.

"And who are you?" cried the officer, turning on him with tipsy
rage, "who are you? Are you in command here? Eh? I am commander
here, not you! Go back or I'll flatten you into a pancake," repeated
he. This expression evidently pleased him.

"That was a nice snub for the little aide-de-camp," came a voice
from behind.

Prince Andrew saw that the officer was in that state of senseless,
tipsy rage when a man does not know what he is saying. He saw that his
championship of the doctor's wife in her queer trap might expose him
to what he dreaded more than anything in the world- to ridicule; but
his instinct urged him on. Before the officer finished his sentence
Prince Andrew, his face distorted with fury, rode up to him and raised
his riding whip.

"Kind...ly let- them- pass!"

The officer flourished his arm and hastily rode away.

"It's all the fault of these fellows on the staff that there's
this disorder," he muttered. "Do as you like."

Prince Andrew without lifting his eyes rode hastily away from the
doctor's wife, who was calling him her deliverer, and recalling with a
sense of disgust the minutest details of this humiliating scene he
galloped on to the village where he was told that the commander in
chief was.

On reaching the village he dismounted and went to the nearest house,
intending to rest if but for a moment, eat something, and try to
sort out the stinging and tormenting thoughts that confused his
mind. "This is a mob of scoundrels and not an army," he was thinking
as he went up to the window of the first house, when a familiar
voice called him by name.

He turned round. Nesvitski's handsome face looked out of the
little window. Nesvitski, moving his moist lips as he chewed
something, and flourishing his arm, called him to enter.

"Bolkonski! Bolkonski!... Don't you hear? Eh? Come quick..." he
shouted.

Entering the house, Prince Andrew saw Nesvitski and another adjutant
having something to eat. They hastily turned round to him asking if he
had any news. On their familiar faces he read agitation and alarm.
This was particularly noticeable on Nesvitski's usually laughing
countenance.

"Where is the commander in chief?" asked Bolkonski.

"Here, in that house," answered the adjutant.

"Well, is it true that it's peace and capitulation?" asked
Nesvitski.

"I was going to ask you. I know nothing except that it was all I
could do to get here."

"And we, my dear boy! It's terrible! I was wrong to laugh at Mack,
we're getting it still worse," said Nesvitski. "But sit down and
have something to eat."

"You won't be able to find either your baggage or anything else now,
Prince. And God only knows where your man Peter is," said the other
adjutant.

"Where are headquarters?"

"We are to spend the night in Znaim."

"Well, I have got all I need into packs for two horses," said
Nesvitski. "They've made up splendid packs for me- fit to cross the
Bohemian mountains with. It's a bad lookout, old fellow! But what's
the matter with you? You must be ill to shiver like that," he added,
noticing that Prince Andrew winced as at an electric shock.

"It's nothing," replied Prince Andrew.

He had just remembered his recent encounter with the doctor's wife
and the convoy officer.

"What is the commander in chief doing here?" he asked.

"I can't make out at all," said Nesvitski.

"Well, all I can make out is that everything is abominable,
abominable, quite abominable!" said Prince Andrew, and he went off
to the house where the commander in chief was.

Passing by Kutuzov's carriage and the exhausted saddle horses of his
suite, with their Cossacks who were talking loudly together, Prince
Andrew entered the passage. Kutuzov himself, he was told, was in the
house with Prince Bagration and Weyrother. Weyrother was the
Austrian general who had succeeded Schmidt. In the passage little
Kozlovski was squatting on his heels in front of a clerk. The clerk,
with cuffs turned up, was hastily writing at a tub turned bottom
upwards. Kozlovski's face looked worn- he too had evidently not
slept all night. He glanced at Prince Andrew and did not even nod to
him.

"Second line... have you written it?" he continued dictating to
the clerk. "The Kiev Grenadiers, Podolian..."

"One can't write so fast, your honor," said the clerk, glancing
angrily and disrespectfully at Kozlovski.

Through the door came the sounds of Kutuzov's voice, excited and
dissatisfied, interrupted by another, an unfamiliar voice. From the
sound of these voices, the inattentive way Kozlovski looked at him,
the disrespectful manner of the exhausted clerk, the fact that the
clerk and Kozlovski were squatting on the floor by a tub so near to
the commander in chief, and from the noisy laughter of the Cossacks
holding the horses near the window, Prince Andrew felt that
something important and disastrous was about to happen.

He turned to Kozlovski with urgent questions.

"Immediately, Prince," said Kozlovski. "Dispositions for Bagration."

"What about capitulation?"

"Nothing of the sort. Orders are issued for a battle."

Prince Andrew moved toward the door from whence voices were heard.
Just as he was going to open it the sounds ceased, the door opened,
and Kutuzov with his eagle nose and puffy face appeared in the
doorway. Prince Andrew stood right in front of Kutuzov but the
expression of the commander in chief's one sound eye showed him to
be so preoccupied with thoughts and anxieties as to be oblivious of
his presence. He looked straight at his adjutant's face without
recognizing him.

"Well, have you finished?" said he to Kozlovski.

"One moment, your excellency."

Bagration, a gaunt middle-aged man of medium height with a firm,
impassive face of Oriental type, came out after the commander in
chief.

"I have the honor to present myself," repeated Prince Andrew
rather loudly, handing Kutuzov an envelope.

Ah, from Vienna? Very good. Later, later!"

Kutuzov went out into the porch with Bagration.

"Well, good-by, Prince," said he to Bagration. "My blessing, and may
Christ be with you in your great endeavor!"

His face suddenly softened and tears came into his eyes. With his
left hand he drew Bagration toward him, and with his right, on which
he wore a ring, he made the sign of the cross over him with a
gesture evidently habitual, offering his puffy cheek, but Bagration
kissed him on the neck instead.

"Christ be with you!" Kutuzov repeated and went toward his carriage.
"Get in with me," said he to Bolkonski.

"Your excellency, I should like to be of use here. Allow me to
remain with Prince Bagration's detachment."

"Get in," said Kutuzov, and noticing that Bolkonski still delayed,
he added: "I need good officers myself, need them myself!"

They got into the carriage and drove for a few minutes in silence.

"There is still much, much before us," he said, as if with an old
man's penetration he understood all that was passing in Bolkonski's
mind. "If a tenth part of his detachment returns I shall thank God,"
he added as if speaking to himself.

Prince Andrew glanced at Kutuzov's face only a foot distant from him
and involuntarily noticed the carefully washed seams of the scar
near his temple, where an Ismail bullet had pierced his skull, and the
empty eye socket. "Yes, he has a right to speak so calmly of those
men's death," thought Bolkonski.

"That is why I beg to be sent to that detachment," he said.

Kutuzov did not reply. He seemed to have forgotten what he had
been saying, and sat plunged in thought. Five minutes later, gently
swaying on the soft springs of the carriage, he turned to Prince
Andrew. There was not a trace of agitation on his face. With
delicate irony he questioned Prince Andrew about the details of his
interview with the Emperor, about the remarks he had heard at court
concerning the Krems affair, and about some ladies they both knew.


CHAPTER XIV


On November 1 Kutuzov had received, through a spy, news that the
army he commanded was in an almost hopeless position. The spy reported
that the French, after crossing the bridge at Vienna, were advancing
in immense force upon Kutuzov's line of communication with the
troops that were arriving from Russia. If Kutuzov decided to remain at
Krems, Napoleon's army of one hundred and fifty thousand men would cut
him off completely and surround his exhausted army of forty
thousand, and he would find himself in the position of Mack at Ulm. If
Kutuzov decided to abandon the road connecting him with the troops
arriving from Russia, he would have to march with no road into unknown
parts of the Bohemian mountains, defending himself against superior
forces of the enemy and abandoning all hope of a junction with
Buxhowden. If Kutuzov decided to retreat along the road from Krems
to Olmutz, to unite with the troops arriving from Russia, he risked
being forestalled on that road by the French who had crossed the
Vienna bridge, and encumbered by his baggage and transport, having
to accept battle on the march against an enemy three times as
strong, who would hem him in from two sides.

Kutuzov chose this latter course.

The French, the spy reported, having crossed the Vienna bridge, were
advancing by forced marches toward Znaim, which lay sixty-six miles
off on the line of Kutuzov's retreat. If he reached Znaim before the
French, there would be great hope of saving the army; to let the
French forestall him at Znaim meant the exposure of his whole army
to a disgrace such as that of Ulm, or to utter destruction. But to
forestall the French with his whole army was impossible. The road
for the French from Vienna to Znaim was shorter and better than the
road for the Russians from Krems to Znaim.

The night he received the news, Kutuzov sent Bagration's vanguard,
four thousand strong, to the right across the hills from the
Krems-Znaim to the Vienna-Znaim road. Bagration was to make this march
without resting, and to halt facing Vienna with Znaim to his rear, and
if he succeeded in forestalling the French he was to delay them as
long as possible. Kutuzov himself with all his transport took the road
to Znaim.

Marching thirty miles that stormy night across roadless hills,
with his hungry, ill-shod soldiers, and losing a third of his men as
stragglers by the way, Bagration came out on the Vienna-Znaim road
at Hollabrunn a few hours ahead of the French who were approaching
Hollabrunn from Vienna. Kutuzov with his transport had still to
march for some days before he could reach Znaim. Hence Bagration
with his four thousand hungry, exhausted men would have to detain
for days the whole enemy army that came upon him at Hollabrunn,
which was clearly impossible. But a freak of fate made the
impossible possible. The success of the trick that had placed the
Vienna bridge in the hands of the French without a fight led Murat
to try to deceive Kutuzov in a similar way. Meeting Bagration's weak
detachment on the Znaim road he supposed it to be Kutuzov's whole
army. To be able to crush it absolutely he awaited the arrival of
the rest of the troops who were on their way from Vienna, and with
this object offered a three days' truce on condition that both
armies should remain in position without moving. Murat declared that
negotiations for peace were already proceeding, and that he
therefore offered this truce to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Count
Nostitz, the Austrian general occupying the advanced posts, believed
Murat's emissary and retired, leaving Bagration's division exposed.
Another emissary rode to the Russian line to announce the peace
negotiations and to offer the Russian army the three days' truce.
Bagration replied that he was not authorized either to accept or
refuse a truce and sent his adjutant to Kutuzov to report the offer he
had received.

A truce was Kutuzov's sole chance of gaining time, giving
Bagration's exhausted troops some rest, and letting the transport
and heavy convoys (whose movements were concealed from the French)
advance if but one stage nearer Znaim. The offer of a truce gave the
only, and a quite unexpected, chance of saving the army. On
receiving the news he immediately dispatched Adjutant General
Wintzingerode, who was in attendance on him, to the enemy camp.
Wintzingerode was not merely to agree to the truce but also to offer
terms of capitulation, and meanwhile Kutuzov sent his adjutants back
to hasten to the utmost the movements of the baggage trains of the
entire army along the Krems-Znaim road. Bagration's exhausted and
hungry detachment, which alone covered this movement of the
transport and of the whole army, had to remain stationary in face of
an enemy eight times as strong as itself.

Kutuzov's expectations that the proposals of capitulation (which
were in no way binding) might give time for part of the transport to
pass, and also that Murat's mistake would very soon be discovered,
proved correct. As soon as Bonaparte (who was at Schonbrunn, sixteen
miles from Hollabrunn) received Murat's dispatch with the proposal
of a truce and a capitulation, he detected a ruse and wrote the
following letter to Murat:


                               Schonbrunn, 25th Brumaire, 1805,

                                at eight o'clock in the morning

To PRINCE MURAT,

I cannot find words to express to you my displeasure. You command
only my advance guard, and have no right to arrange an armistice
without my order. You are causing me to lose the fruits of a campaign.
Break the armistice immediately and march on the enemy. Inform him
that the general who signed that capitulation had no right to do so,
and that no one but the Emperor of Russia has that right.

If, however, the Emperor of Russia ratifies that convention, I
will ratify it; but it is only a trick. March on, destroy the
Russian army.... You are in a position to seize its baggage and
artillery.

The Russian Emperor's aide-de-camp is an impostor. Officers are
nothing when they have no powers; this one had none.... The
Austrians let themselves be tricked at the crossing of the Vienna
bridge, you are letting yourself be tricked by an aide-de-camp of
the Emperor.

                                                       NAPOLEON


Bonaparte's adjutant rode full gallop with this menacing letter to
Murat. Bonaparte himself, not trusting to his generals, moved with all
the Guards to the field of battle, afraid of letting a ready victim
escape, and Bagration's four thousand men merrily lighted campfires,
dried and warmed themselves, cooked their porridge for the first
time for three days, and not one of them knew or imagined what was
in store for him.


CHAPTER XV


Between three and four o'clock in the afternoon Prince Andrew, who
had persisted in his request to Kutuzov, arrived at Grunth and
reported himself to Bagration. Bonaparte's adjutant had not yet
reached Murat's detachment and the battle had not yet begun. In
Bagration's detachment no one knew anything of the general position of
affairs. They talked of peace but did not believe in its
possibility; others talked of a battle but also disbelieved in the
nearness of an engagement. Bagration, knowing Bolkonski to be a
favorite and trusted adjutant, received him with distinction and
special marks of favor, explaining to him that there would probably be
an engagement that day or the next, and giving him full liberty to
remain with him during the battle or to join the rearguard and have an
eye on the order of retreat, "which is also very important."

"However, there will hardly be an engagement today," said
Bagration as if to reassure Prince Andrew.

"If he is one of the ordinary little staff dandies sent to earn a
medal he can get his reward just as well in the rearguard, but if he
wishes to stay with me, let him... he'll be of use here if he's a
brave officer," thought Bagration. Prince Andrew, without replying,
asked the prince's permission to ride round the position to see the
disposition of the forces, so as to know his bearings should he be
sent to execute an order. The officer on duty, a handsome, elegantly
dressed man with a diamond ring on his forefinger, who was fond of
speaking French though he spoke it badly, offered to conduct Prince
Andrew.

On all sides they saw rain-soaked officers with dejected faces who
seemed to be seeking something, and soldiers dragging doors,
benches, and fencing from the village.

"There now, Prince! We can't stop those fellows," said the staff
officer pointing to the soldiers. "The officers don't keep them in
hand. And there," he pointed to a sutler's tent, "they crowd in and
sit. This morning I turned them all out and now look, it's full again.
I must go there, Prince, and scare them a bit. It won't take a
moment."

"Yes, let's go in and I will get myself a roll and some cheese,"
said Prince Andrew who had not yet had time to eat anything.

"Why didn't you mention it, Prince? I would have offered you
something."

They dismounted and entered the tent. Several officers, with flushed
and weary faces, were sitting at the table eating and drinking.

"Now what does this mean, gentlemen?" said the staff officer, in the
reproachful tone of a man who has repeated the same thing more than
once. "You know it won't do to leave your posts like this. The
prince gave orders that no one should leave his post. Now you,
Captain," and he turned to a thin, dirty little artillery officer
who without his boots (he had given them to the canteen keeper to
dry), in only his stockings, rose when they entered, smiling not
altogether comfortably.

"Well, aren't you ashamed of yourself, Captain Tushin?" he
continued. "One would think that as an artillery officer you would set
a good example, yet here you are without your boots! The alarm will be
sounded and you'll be in a pretty position without your boots!" (The
staff officer smiled.) "Kindly return to your posts, gentlemen, all of
you, all!" he added in a tone of command.

Prince Andrew smiled involuntarily as he looked at the artillery
officer Tushin, who silent and smiling, shifting from one stockinged
foot to the other, glanced inquiringly with his large, intelligent,
kindly eyes from Prince Andrew to the staff officer.

"The soldiers say it feels easier without boots," said Captain
Tushin smiling shyly in his uncomfortable position, evidently
wishing to adopt a jocular tone. But before he had finished he felt
that his jest was unacceptable and had not come off. He grew confused.

"Kindly return to your posts," said the staff officer trying to
preserve his gravity.

Prince Andrew glanced again at the artillery officer's small figure.
There was something peculiar about it, quite unsoldierly, rather
comic, but extremely attractive.

The staff officer and Prince Andrew mounted their horses and rode
on.

Having ridden beyond the village, continually meeting and overtaking
soldiers and officers of various regiments, they saw on their left
some entrenchments being thrown up, the freshly dug clay of which
showed up red. Several battalions of soldiers, in their shirt
sleeves despite the cold wind, swarmed in these earthworks like a host
of white ants; spadefuls of red clay were continually being thrown
up from behind the bank by unseen hands. Prince Andrew and the officer
rode up, looked at the entrenchment, and went on again. Just behind it
they came upon some dozens of soldiers, continually replaced by
others, who ran from the entrenchment. They had to hold their noses
and put their horses to a trot to escape from the poisoned
atmosphere of these latrines.

"Voila l'agrement des camps, monsieur le Prince,"* said the staff
officer.


*"This is a pleasure one gets in camp, Prince."


They rode up the opposite hill. From there the French could
already be seen. Prince Andrew stopped and began examining the
position.

"That's our battery," said the staff officer indicating the
highest point. "It's in charge of the queer fellow we saw without
his boots. You can see everything from there; let's go there, Prince."

"Thank you very much, I will go on alone," said Prince Andrew,
wishing to rid himself of this staff officer's company, "please
don't trouble yourself further."

The staff officer remained behind and Prince Andrew rode on alone.

The farther forward and nearer the enemy he went, the more orderly
and cheerful were the troops. The greatest disorder and depression had
been in the baggage train he had passed that morning on the Znaim road
seven miles away from the French. At Grunth also some apprehension and
alarm could be felt, but the nearer Prince Andrew came to the French
lines the more confident was the appearance of our troops. The
soldiers in their greatcoats were ranged in lines, the sergeants major
and company officers were counting the men, poking the last man in
each section in the ribs and telling him to hold his hand up. Soldiers
scattered over the whole place were dragging logs and brushwood and
were building shelters with merry chatter and laughter; around the
fires sat others, dressed and undressed, drying their shirts and leg
bands or mending boots or overcoats and crowding round the boilers and
porridge cookers. In one company dinner was ready, and the soldiers
were gazing eagerly at the steaming boiler, waiting till the sample,
which a quartermaster sergeant was carrying in a wooden bowl to an
officer who sat on a log before his shelter, had been tasted.

Another company, a lucky one for not all the companies had vodka,
crowded round a pock-marked, broad-shouldered sergeant major who,
tilting a keg, filled one after another the canteen lids held out to
him. The soldiers lifted the canteen lids to their lips with
reverential faces, emptied them, rolling the vodka in their mouths,
and walked away from the sergeant major with brightened expressions,
licking their lips and wiping them on the sleeves of their greatcoats.
All their faces were as serene as if all this were happening at home
awaiting peaceful encampment, and not within sight of the enemy before
an action in which at least half of them would be left on the field.
After passing a chasseur regiment and in the lines of the Kiev
grenadiers- fine fellows busy with similar peaceful affairs- near
the shelter of the regimental commander, higher than and different
from the others, Prince Andrew came out in front of a platoon of
grenadiers before whom lay a naked man. Two soldiers held him while
two others were flourishing their switches and striking him
regularly on his bare back. The man shrieked unnaturally. A stout
major was pacing up and down the line, and regardless of the screams
kept repeating:

"It's a shame for a soldier to steal; a soldier must be honest,
honorable, and brave, but if he robs his fellows there is no honor
in him, he's a scoundrel. Go on! Go on!"

So the swishing sound of the strokes, and the desperate but
unnatural screams, continued.

"Go on, go on!" said the major.

A young officer with a bewildered and pained expression on his
face stepped away from the man and looked round inquiringly at the
adjutant as he rode by.

Prince Andrew, having reached the front line, rode along it. Our
front line and that of the enemy were far apart on the right and
left flanks, but in the center where the men with a flag of truce
had passed that morning, the lines were so near together that the
men could see one another's faces and speak to one another. Besides
the soldiers who formed the picket line on either side, there were
many curious onlookers who, jesting and laughing, stared at their
strange foreign enemies.

Since early morning- despite an injunction not to approach the
picket line- the officers had been unable to keep sight-seers away.
The soldiers forming the picket line, like showmen exhibiting a
curiosity, no longer looked at the French but paid attention to the
sight-seers and grew weary waiting to be relieved. Prince Andrew
halted to have a look at the French.

"Look! Look there!" one soldier was saying to another, pointing to a
Russian musketeer who had gone up to the picket line with an officer
and was rapidly and excitedly talking to a French grenadier. "Hark
to him jabbering! Fine, isn't it? It's all the Frenchy can do to
keep up with him. There now, Sidorov!"

"Wait a bit and listen. It's fine!" answered Sidorov, who was
considered an adept at French.

The soldier to whom the laughers referred was Dolokhov. Prince
Andrew recognized him and stopped to listen to what he was saying.
Dolokhov had come from the left flank where their regiment was
stationed, with his captain.

"Now then, go on, go on!" incited the officer, bending forward and
trying not to lose a word of the speech which was incomprehensible
to him. "More, please: more! What's he saying?"

Dolokhov did not answer the captain; he had been drawn into a hot
dispute with the French grenadier. They were naturally talking about
the campaign. The Frenchman, confusing the Austrians with the
Russians, was trying to prove that the Russians had surrendered and
had fled all the way from Ulm, while Dolokhov maintained that the
Russians had not surrendered but had beaten the French.

"We have orders to drive you off here, and we shall drive you
off," said Dolokhov.

"Only take care you and your Cossacks are not all captured!" said
the French grenadier.

The French onlookers and listeners laughed.

"We'll make you dance as we did under Suvorov...,"* said Dolokhov.


*"On vous fera danser."


"Qu' est-ce qu'il chante?"* asked a Frenchman.


*"What's he singing about?"


"It's ancient history," said another, guessing that it referred to a
former war. "The Emperor will teach your Suvara as he has taught the
others..."

"Bonaparte..." began Dolokhov, but the Frenchman interrupted him.

"Not Bonaparte. He is the Emperor! Sacre nom...!" cried he angrily.

"The devil skin your Emperor."

And Dolokhov swore at him in coarse soldier's Russian and
shouldering his musket walked away.

"Let us go, Ivan Lukich," he said to the captain.

"Ah, that's the way to talk French," said the picket soldiers. "Now,
Sidorov, you have a try!"

Sidorov, turning to the French, winked, and began to jabber
meaningless sounds very fast: "Kari, mala, tafa, safi, muter,
Kaska," he said, trying to give an expressive intonation to his voice.

"Ho! ho! ho! Ha! ha! ha! ha! Ouh! ouh!" came peals of such healthy
and good-humored laughter from the soldiers that it infected the
French involuntarily, so much so that the only thing left to do seemed
to be to unload the muskets, muskets, explode the ammunition, and
all return home as quickly as possible.

But the guns remained loaded, the loopholes in blockhouses and
entrenchments looked out just as menacingly, and the unlimbered cannon
confronted one another as before.


CHAPTER XVI


Having ridden round the whole line from right flank to left,
Prince Andrew made his way up to the battery from which the staff
officer had told him the whole field could be seen. Here he
dismounted, and stopped beside the farthest of the four unlimbered
cannon. Before the guns an artillery sentry was pacing up and down; he
stood at attention when the officer arrived, but at a sign resumed his
measured, monotonous pacing. Behind the guns were their limbers and
still farther back picket ropes and artillerymen's bonfires. To the
left, not far from the farthest cannon, was a small, newly constructed
wattle shed from which came the sound of officers' voices in eager
conversation.

It was true that a view over nearly the whole Russian position and
the greater part of the enemy's opened out from this battery. Just
facing it, on the crest of the opposite hill, the village of Schon
Grabern could be seen, and in three places to left and right the
French troops amid the smoke of their campfires, the greater part of
whom were evidently in the village itself and behind the hill. To
the left from that village, amid the smoke, was something resembling a
battery, but it was impossible to see it clearly with the naked eye.
Our right flank was posted on a rather steep incline which dominated
the French position. Our infantry were stationed there, and at the
farthest point the dragoons. In the center, where Tushin's battery
stood and from which Prince Andrew was surveying the position, was the
easiest and most direct descent and ascent to the brook separating
us from Schon Grabern. On the left our troops were close to a copse,
in which smoked the bonfires of our infantry who were felling wood.
The French line was wider than ours, and it was plain that they
could easily outflank us on both sides. Behind our position was a
steep and deep dip, making it difficult for artillery and cavalry to
retire. Prince Andrew took out his notebook and, leaning on the
cannon, sketched a plan of the position. He made some notes on two
points, intending to mention them to Bagration. His idea was, first,
to concentrate all the artillery in the center, and secondly, to
withdraw the cavalry to the other side of the dip. Prince Andrew,
being always near the commander in chief, closely following the mass
movements and general orders, and constantly studying historical
accounts of battles, involuntarily pictured to himself the course of
events in the forthcoming action in broad outline. He imagined only
important possibilities: "If the enemy attacks the right flank," he
said to himself, "the Kiev grenadiers and the Podolsk chasseurs must
hold their position till reserves from the center come up. In that
case the dragoons could successfully make a flank counterattack. If
they attack our center we, having the center battery on this high
ground, shall withdraw the left flank under its cover, and retreat
to the dip by echelons." So he reasoned.... All the time he had been
beside the gun, he had heard the voices of the officers distinctly,
but as often happens had not understood a word of what they were
saying. Suddenly, however, he was struck by a voice coming from the
shed, and its tone was so sincere that he could not but listen.

"No, friend," said a pleasant and, as it seemed to Prince Andrew,
a familiar voice, "what I say is that if it were possible to know what
is beyond death, none of us would be afraid of it. That's so, friend."

Another, a younger voice, interrupted him: "Afraid or not, you can't
escape it anyhow."

"All the same, one is afraid! Oh, you clever people," said a third
manly voice interrupting them both. "Of course you artillery men are
very wise, because you can take everything along with you- vodka and
snacks."

And the owner of the manly voice, evidently an infantry officer,
laughed.

"Yes, one is afraid," continued the first speaker, he of the
familiar voice. "One is afraid of the unknown, that's what it is.
Whatever we may say about the soul going to the sky... we know there
is no sky but only an atmosphere."

The manly voice again interrupted the artillery officer.

"Well, stand us some of your herb vodka, Tushin," it said.

"Why," thought Prince Andrew, "that's the captain who stood up in
the sutler's hut without his boots." He recognized the agreeable,
philosophizing voice with pleasure.

"Some herb vodka? Certainly!" said Tushin. "But still, to conceive a
future life..."

He did not finish. Just then there was a whistle in the air;
nearer and nearer, faster and louder, louder and faster, a cannon
ball, as if it had not finished saying what was necessary, thudded
into the ground near the shed with super human force, throwing up a
mass of earth. The ground seemed to groan at the terrible impact.

And immediately Tushin, with a short pipe in the corner of his mouth
and his kind, intelligent face rather pale, rushed out of the shed
followed by the owner of the manly voice, a dashing infantry officer
who hurried off to his company, buttoning up his coat as he ran.


CHAPTER XVII


Mounting his horse again Prince Andrew lingered with the battery,
looking at the puff from the gun that had sent the ball. His eyes
ran rapidly over the wide space, but he only saw that the hitherto
motionless masses of the French now swayed and that there really was a
battery to their left. The smoke above it had not yet dispersed. Two
mounted Frenchmen, probably adjutants, were galloping up the hill. A
small but distinctly visible enemy column was moving down the hill,
probably to strengthen the front line. The smoke of the first shot had
not yet dispersed before another puff appeared, followed by a
report. The battle had begun! Prince Andrew turned his horse and
galloped back to Grunth to find Prince Bagration. He heard the
cannonade behind him growing louder and more frequent. Evidently our
guns had begun to reply. From the bottom of the slope, where the
parleys had taken place, came the report of musketry.

Lemarrois had just arrived at a gallop with Bonaparte's stern
letter, and Murat, humiliated and anxious to expiate his fault, had at
once moved his forces to attack the center and outflank both the
Russian wings, hoping before evening and before the arrival of the
Emperor to crush the contemptible detachment that stood before him.

"It has begun. Here it is!" thought Prince Andrew, feeling the blood
rush to his heart. "But where and how will my Toulon present itself?"

Passing between the companies that had been eating porridge and
drinking vodka a quarter of an hour before, he saw everywhere the same
rapid movement of soldiers forming ranks and getting their muskets
ready, and on all their faces he recognized the same eagerness that
filled his heart. "It has begun! Here it is, dreadful but
enjoyable!" was what the face of each soldier and each officer
seemed to say.

Before he had reached the embankments that were being thrown up,
he saw, in the light of the dull autumn evening, mounted men coming
toward him. The foremost, wearing a Cossack cloak and lambskin cap and
riding a white horse, was Prince Bagration. Prince Andrew stopped,
waiting for him to come up; Prince Bagration reined in his horse and
recognizing Prince Andrew nodded to him. He still looked ahead while
Prince Andrew told him what he had seen.

The feeling, "It has begun! Here it is!" was seen even on Prince
Bagration's hard brown face with its half-closed, dull, sleepy eyes.
Prince Andrew gazed with anxious curiosity at that impassive face
and wished he could tell what, if anything, this man was thinking
and feeling at that moment. "Is there anything at all behind that
impassive face?" Prince Andrew asked himself as he looked. Prince
Bagration bent his head in sign of agreement with what Prince Andrew
told him, and said, "Very good!" in a tone that seemed to imply that
everything that took place and was reported to him was exactly what he
had foreseen. Prince Andrew, out of breath with his rapid ride,
spoke quickly. Prince Bagration, uttering his words with an Oriental
accent, spoke particularly slowly, as if to impress the fact that
there was no need to hurry. However, he put his horse to a trot in the
direction of Tushin's battery. Prince Andrew followed with the
suite. Behind Prince Bagration rode an officer of the suite, the
prince's personal adjutant, Zherkov, an orderly officer, the staff
officer on duty, riding a fine bobtailed horse, and a civilian- an
accountant who had asked permission to be present at the battle out of
curiosity. The accountant, a stout, full-faced man, looked around
him with a naive smile of satisfaction and presented a strange
appearance among the hussars, Cossacks, and adjutants, in his camlet
coat, as he jolted on his horse with a convoy officer's saddle.

"He wants to see a battle," said Zherkov to Bolkonski, pointing to
the accountant, "but he feels a pain in the pit of his stomach
already."

"Oh, leave off!" said the accountant with a beaming but rather
cunning smile, as if flattered at being made the subject of
Zherkov's joke, and purposely trying to appear stupider than he really
was.

"It is very strange, mon Monsieur Prince," said the staff officer.
(He remembered that in French there is some peculiar way of addressing
a prince, but could not get it quite right.)

By this time they were all approaching Tushin's battery, and a
ball struck the ground in front of them.

"What's that that has fallen?" asked the accountant with a naive
smile.

"A French pancake," answered Zherkov.

"So that's what they hit with?" asked the accountant. "How awful!"

He seemed to swell with satisfaction. He had hardly finished
speaking when they again heard an unexpectedly violent whistling which
suddenly ended with a thud into something soft... f-f-flop! and a
Cossack, riding a little to their right and behind the accountant,
crashed to earth with his horse. Zherkov and the staff officer bent
over their saddles and turned their horses away. The accountant
stopped, facing the Cossack, and examined him with attentive
curiosity. The Cossack was dead, but the horse still struggled.

Prince Bagration screwed up his eyes, looked round, and, seeing
the cause of the confusion, turned away with indifference, as if to
say, "Is it worth while noticing trifles?" He reined in his horse with
the case of a skillful rider and, slightly bending over, disengaged
his saber which had caught in his cloak. It was an old-fashioned saber
of a kind no longer in general use. Prince Andrew remembered the story
of Suvorov giving his saber to Bagration in Italy, and the
recollection was particularly pleasant at that moment. They had
reached the battery at which Prince Andrew had been when he examined
the battlefield.

"Whose company?" asked Prince Bagration of an artilleryman
standing by the ammunition wagon.

He asked, "Whose company?" but he really meant, "Are you
frightened here?" and the artilleryman understood him.

"Captain Tushin's, your excellency!" shouted the red-haired,
freckled gunner in a merry voice, standing to attention.

"Yes, yes," muttered Bagration as if considering something, and he
rode past the limbers to the farthest cannon.

As he approached, a ringing shot issued from it deafening him and
his suite, and in the smoke that suddenly surrounded the gun they
could see the gunners who had seized it straining to roll it quickly
back to its former position. A huge, broad-shouldered gunner, Number
One, holding a mop, his legs far apart, sprang to the wheel; while
Number Two with a trembling hand placed a charge in the cannon's
mouth. The short, round-shouldered Captain Tushin, stumbling over
the tail of the gun carriage, moved forward and, not noticing the
general, looked out shading his eyes with his small hand.

"Lift it two lines more and it will be just right," cried he in a
feeble voice to which he tried to impart a dashing note, ill suited to
his weak figure. "Number Two!" he squeaked. "Fire, Medvedev!"

Bagration called to him, and Tushin, raising three fingers to his
cap with a bashful and awkward gesture not at all like a military
salute but like a priest's benediction, approached the general. Though
Tushin's guns had been intended to cannonade the valley, he was firing
incendiary balls at the village of Schon Grabern visible just
opposite, in front of which large masses of French were advancing.

No one had given Tushin orders where and at what to fire, but
after consulting his sergeant major, Zakharchenko, for whom he had
great respect, he had decided that it would be a good thing to set
fire to the village. "Very good!" said Bagration in reply to the
officer's report, and began deliberately to examine the whole
battlefield extended before him. The French had advanced nearest on
our right. Below the height on which the Kiev regiment was
stationed, in the hollow where the rivulet flowed, the soul-stirring
rolling and crackling of musketry was heard, and much farther to the
right beyond the dragoons, the officer of the suite pointed out to
Bagration a French column that was outflanking us. To the left the
horizon bounded by the adjacent wood. Prince Bagration ordered two
battalions from the center to be sent to reinforce the right flank.
The officer of the suite ventured to remark to the prince that if
these battalions went away, the guns would remain without support.
Prince Bagration turned to the officer and with his dull eyes looked
at him in silence. It seemed to Prince Andrew that the officer's
remark was just and that really no answer could be made to it. But
at that moment an adjutant galloped up with a message from the
commander of the regiment in the hollow and news that immense masses
of the French were coming down upon them and that his regiment was
in disorder and was retreating upon the Kiev grenadiers. Prince
Bagration bowed his head in sign of assent and approval. He rode off
at a walk to the right and sent an adjutant to the dragoons with
orders to attack the French. But this adjutant returned half an hour
later with the news that the commander of the dragoons had already
retreated beyond the dip in the ground, as a heavy fire had been
opened on him and he was losing men uselessly, and so had hastened
to throw some sharpshooters into the wood.

"Very good!" said Bagration.

As he was leaving the battery, firing was heard on the left also,
and as it was too far to the left flank for him to have time to go
there himself, Prince Bagration sent Zherkov to tell the general in
command (the one who had paraded his regiment before Kutuzov at
Braunau) that he must retreat as quickly as possible behind the hollow
in the rear, as the right flank would probably not be able to
withstand the enemy's attack very long. About Tushin and the battalion
that had been in support of his battery all was forgotten. Prince
Andrew listened attentively to Bagration's colloquies with the
commanding officers and the orders he gave them and, to his
surprise, found that no orders were really given, but that Prince
Bagration tried to make it appear that everything done by necessity,
by accident, or by the will of subordinate commanders was done, if not
by his direct command, at least in accord with his intentions.
Prince Andrew noticed, however, that though what happened was due to
chance and was independent of the commander's will, owing to the
tact Bagration showed, his presence was very valuable. Officers who
approached him with disturbed countenances became calm; soldiers and
officers greeted him gaily, grew more cheerful in his presence, and
were evidently anxious to display their courage before him.


CHAPTER XVIII


Prince Bagration, having reached the highest point of our right
flank, began riding downhill to where the roll of musketry was heard
but where on account of the smoke nothing could be seen. The nearer
they got to the hollow the less they could see but the more they
felt the nearness of the actual battlefield. They began to meet
wounded men. One with a bleeding head and no cap was being dragged
along by two soldiers who supported him under the arms. There was a
gurgle in his throat and he was spitting blood. A bullet had evidently
hit him in the throat or mouth. Another was walking sturdily by
himself but without his musket, groaning aloud and swinging his arm
which had just been hurt, while blood from it was streaming over his
greatcoat as from a bottle. He had that moment been wounded and his
face showed fear rather than suffering. Crossing a road they descended
a steep incline and saw several men lying on the ground; they also met
a crowd of soldiers some of whom were unwounded. The soldiers were
ascending the hill breathing heavily, and despite the general's
presence were talking loudly and gesticulating. In front of them
rows of gray cloaks were already visible through the smoke, and an
officer catching sight of Bagration rushed shouting after the crowd of
retreating soldiers, ordering them back. Bagration rode up to the
ranks along which shots crackled now here and now there, drowning
the sound of voices and the shouts of command. The whole air reeked
with smoke. The excited faces of the soldiers were blackened with
it. Some were using their ramrods, others putting powder on the
touchpans or taking charges from their pouches, while others were
firing, though who they were firing at could not be seen for the smoke
which there was no wind to carry away. A pleasant humming and
whistling of bullets were often heard. "What is this?" thought
Prince Andrew approaching the crowd of soldiers. "It can't be an
attack, for they are not moving; it can't be a square- for they are
not drawn up for that."

The commander of the regiment, a thin, feeble-looking old man with a
pleasant smile- his eyelids drooping more than half over his old eyes,
giving him a mild expression, rode up to Bagration and welcomed him as
a host welcomes an honored guest. He reported that his regiment had
been attacked by French cavalry and that, though the attack had been
repulsed, he had lost more than half his men. He said the attack had
been repulsed, employing this military term to describe what had
occurred to his regiment, but in reality he did not himself know
what had happened during that half-hour to the troops entrusted to
him, and could not say with certainty whether the attack had been
repulsed or his regiment had been broken up. All he knew was that at
the commencement of the action balls and shells began flying all
over his regiment and hitting men and that afterwards someone had
shouted "Cavalry!" and our men had begun firing. They were still
firing, not at the cavalry which had disappeared, but at French
infantry who had come into the hollow and were firing at our men.
Prince Bagration bowed his head as a sign that this was exactly what
he had desired and expected. Turning to his adjutant he ordered him to
bring down the two battalions of the Sixth Chasseurs whom they had
just passed. Prince Andrew was struck by the changed expression on
Prince Bagration's face at this moment. It expressed the
concentrated and happy resolution you see on the face of a man who
on a hot day takes a final run before plunging into the water. The
dull, sleepy expression was no longer there, nor the affectation of
profound thought. The round, steady, hawk's eyes looked before him
eagerly and rather disdainfully, not resting on anything although
his movements were still slow and measured.

The commander of the regiment turned to Prince Bagration, entreating
him to go back as it was too dangerous to remain where they were.
"Please, your excellency, for God's sake!" he kept saying, glancing
for support at an officer of the suite who turned away from him.
"There, you see!" and he drew attention to the bullets whistling,
singing, and hissing continually around them. He spoke in the tone
of entreaty and reproach that a carpenter uses to a gentleman who
has picked up an ax: "We are used to it, but you, sir, will blister
your hands." He spoke as if those bullets could not kill him, and
his half-closed eyes gave still more persuasiveness to his words.
The staff officer joined in the colonel's appeals, but Bagration did
not reply; he only gave an order to cease firing and re-form, so as to
give room for the two approaching battalions. While he was speaking,
the curtain of smoke that had concealed the hollow, driven by a rising
wind, began to move from right to left as if drawn by an invisible
hand, and the hill opposite, with the French moving about on it,
opened out before them. All eyes fastened involuntarily on this French
column advancing against them and winding down over the uneven ground.
One could already see the soldiers' shaggy caps, distinguish the
officers from the men, and see the standard flapping against its
staff.

"They march splendidly," remarked someone in Bagration's suite.

The head of the column had already descended into the hollow. The
clash would take place on this side of it...

The remains of our regiment which had been in action rapidly
formed up and moved to the right; from behind it, dispersing the
laggards, came two battalions of the Sixth Chasseurs in fine order.
Before they had reached Bagration, the weighty tread of the mass of
men marching in step could be heard. On their left flank, nearest to
Bagration, marched a company commander, a fine round-faced man, with a
stupid and happy expression- the same man who had rushed out of the
wattle shed. At that moment he was clearly thinking of nothing but how
dashing a fellow he would appear as he passed the commander.

With the self-satisfaction of a man on parade, he stepped lightly
with his muscular legs as if sailing along, stretching himself to
his full height without the smallest effort, his ease contrasting with
the heavy tread of the soldiers who were keeping step with him. He
carried close to his leg a narrow unsheathed sword (small, curved, and
not like a real weapon) and looked now at the superior officers and
now back at the men without losing step, his whole powerful body
turning flexibly. It was as if all the powers of his soul were
concentrated on passing the commander in the best possible manner, and
feeling that he was doing it well he was happy. "Left... left...
left..." he seemed to repeat to himself at each alternate step; and in
time to this, with stern but varied faces, the wall of soldiers
burdened with knapsacks and muskets marched in step, and each one of
these hundreds of soldiers seemed to be repeating to himself at each
alternate step, "Left... left... left..." A fat major skirted a
bush, puffing and falling out of step; a soldier who had fallen
behind, his face showing alarm at his defection, ran at a trot,
panting to catch up with his company. A cannon ball, cleaving the air,
flew over the heads of Bagration and his suite, and fell into the
column to the measure of "Left... left!" "Close up!" came the
company commander's voice in jaunty tones. The soldiers passed in a
semicircle round something where the ball had fallen, and an old
trooper on the flank, a noncommissioned officer who had stopped beside
the dead men, ran to catch up his line and, falling into step with a
hop, looked back angrily, and through the ominous silence and the
regular tramp of feet beating the ground in unison, one seemed to hear
left... left... left.

"Well done, lads!" said Prince Bagration.

"Glad to do our best, your ex'len-lency!" came a confused shout from
the ranks. A morose soldier marching on the left turned his eyes on
Bagration as he shouted, with an expression that seemed to say: "We
know that ourselves!" Another, without looking round, as though
fearing to relax, shouted with his mouth wide open and passed on.

The order was given to halt and down knapsacks.

Bagration rode round the ranks that had marched past him and
dismounted. He gave the reins to a Cossack, took off and handed over
his felt coat, stretched his legs, and set his cap straight. The
head of the French column, with its officers leading, appeared from
below the hill.

"Forward, with God!" said Bagration, in a resolute, sonorous
voice, turning for a moment to the front line, and slightly swinging
his arms, he went forward uneasily over the rough field with the
awkward gait of a cavalryman. Prince Andrew felt that an invisible
power was leading him forward, and experienced great happiness.

The French were already near. Prince Andrew, walking beside
Bagration, could clearly distinguish their bandoliers, red epaulets,
and even their faces. (He distinctly saw an old French officer who,
with gaitered legs and turned-out toes, climbed the hill with
difficulty.) Prince Bagration gave no further orders and silently
continued to walk on in front of the ranks. Suddenly one shot after
another rang out from the French, smoke appeared all along their
uneven ranks, and musket shots sounded. Several of our men fell, among
them the round-faced officer who had marched so gaily and
complacently. But at the moment the first report was heard,
Bagration looked round and shouted, "Hurrah!"

"Hurrah- ah!- ah!" rang a long-drawn shout from our ranks, and
passing Bagration and racing one another they rushed in an irregular
but joyous and eager crowd down the hill at their disordered foe.


CHAPTER XIX


The attack of the Sixth Chasseurs secured the retreat of our right
flank. In the center Tushin's forgotten battery, which had managed
to set fire to the Schon Grabern village, delayed the French
advance. The French were putting out the fire which the wind was
spreading, and thus gave us time to retreat. The retirement of the
center to the other side of the dip in the ground at the rear was
hurried and noisy, but the different companies did not get mixed.
But our left- which consisted of the Azov and Podolsk infantry and the
Pavlograd hussars- was simultaneously attacked and outflanked by
superior French forces under Lannes and was thrown into confusion.
Bagration had sent Zherkov to the general commanding that left flank
with orders to retreat immediately.

Zherkov, not removing his hand from his cap, turned his horse
about and galloped off. But no sooner had he left Bagration than his
courage failed him. He was seized by panic and could not go where it
was dangerous.

Having reached the left flank, instead of going to the front where
the firing was, he began to look for the general and his staff where
they could not possibly be, and so did not deliver the order.

The command of the left flank belonged by seniority to the commander
of the regiment Kutuzov had reviewed at Braunau and in which
Dolokhov was serving as a private. But the command of the extreme left
flank had been assigned to the commander of the Pavlograd regiment
in which Rostov was serving, and a misunderstanding arose. The two
commanders were much exasperated with one another and, long after
the action had begun on the right flank and the French were already
advancing, were engaged in discussion with the sole object of
offending one another. But the regiments, both cavalry and infantry,
were by no means ready for the impending action. From privates to
general they were not expecting a battle and were engaged in
peaceful occupations, the cavalry feeding the horses and the
infantry collecting wood.

"He higher iss dan I in rank," said the German colonel of the
hussars, flushing and addressing an adjutant who had ridden up, "so
let him do what he vill, but I cannot sacrifice my hussars...
Bugler, sount ze retreat!"

But haste was becoming imperative. Cannon and musketry, mingling
together, thundered on the right and in the center, while the
capotes of Lannes' sharpshooters were already seen crossing the
milldam and forming up within twice the range of a musket shot. The
general in command of the infantry went toward his horse with jerky
steps, and having mounted drew himself up very straight and tall and
rode to the Pavlograd commander. The commanders met with polite bows
but with secret malevolence in their hearts.

"Once again, Colonel," said the general, "I can't leave half my
men in the wood. I beg of you, I beg of you," he repeated, "to
occupy the position and prepare for an attack."

"I peg of you yourself not to mix in vot is not your business!"
suddenly replied the irate colonel. "If you vere in the cavalry..."

"I am not in the cavalry, Colonel, but I am a Russian general and if
you are not aware of the fact..."

"Quite avare, your excellency," suddenly shouted the colonel,
touching his horse and turning purple in the face. "Vill you be so
goot to come to ze front and see dat zis position iss no goot? I don't
vish to destroy my men for your pleasure!"

"You forget yourself, Colonel. I am not considering my own
pleasure and I won't allow it to be said!"

Taking the colonel's outburst as a challenge to his courage, the
general expanded his chest and rode, frowning, beside him to the front
line, as if their differences would be settled there amongst the
bullets. They reached the front, several bullets sped over them, and
they halted in silence. There was nothing fresh to be seen from the
line, for from where they had been before it had been evident that
it was impossible for cavalry to act among the bushes and broken
ground, as well as that the French were outflanking our left. The
general and colonel looked sternly and significantly at one another
like two fighting cocks preparing for battle, each vainly trying to
detect signs of cowardice in the other. Both passed the examination
successfully. As there was nothing to said, and neither wished to give
occasion for it to be alleged that he had been the first to leave
the range of fire, they would have remained there for a long time
testing each other's courage had it not been that just then they heard
the rattle of musketry and a muffled shout almost behind them in the
wood. The French had attacked the men collecting wood in the copse. It
was no longer possible for the hussars to retreat with the infantry.
They were cut off from the line of retreat on the left by the
French. However inconvenient the position, it was now necessary to
attack in order to cut away through for themselves.

The squadron in which Rostov was serving had scarcely time to
mount before it was halted facing the enemy. Again, as at the Enns
bridge, there was nothing between the squadron and the enemy, and
again that terrible dividing line of uncertainty and fear-
resembling the line separating the living from the dead- lay between
them. All were conscious of this unseen line, and the question whether
they would they would cross it or not, and how they would cross it,
agitated them all.

The colonel rode to the front, angrily gave some reply to
questions put to him by the officers, and, like a man desperately
insisting on having his own way, gave an order. No one said anything
definite, but the rumor of an attack spread through the squadron.
The command to form up rang out and the sabers whizzed as they were
drawn from their scabbards. Still no one moved. The troops of the left
flank, infantry and hussars alike, felt that the commander did not
himself know what to do, and this irresolution communicated itself
to the men.

"If only they would be quick!" thought Rostov, feeling that at
last the time had come to experience the joy of an attack of which
he had so often heard from his fellow hussars.

"Fo'ward, with God, lads!" rang out Denisov's voice. "At a twot
fo'ward!"

The horses' croups began to sway in the front line. Rook pulled at
the reins and started of his own accord.

Before him, on the right, Rostov saw the front lines of his
hussars and still farther ahead a dark line which he could not see
distinctly but took to be the enemy. Shots could be heard, but some
way off.

"Faster!" came the word of command, and Rostov felt Rook's flanks
drooping as he broke into a gallop.

Rostov anticipated his horse's movements and became more and more
elated. He had noticed a solitary tree ahead of him. This tree had
been in the middle of the line that had seemed so terrible- and now he
had crossed that line and not only was there nothing terrible, but
everything was becoming more and more happy and animated. "Oh, how I
will slash at him!" thought Rostov, gripping the hilt of his saber.

"Hur-a-a-a-ah!" came a roar of voices. "Let anyone come my way now,"
thought Rostov driving his spurs into Rook and letting him go at a
full gallop so that he outstripped the others. Ahead, the enemy was
already visible. Suddenly something like a birch broom seemed to sweep
over the squadron. Rostov raised his saber, ready to strike, but at
that instant the trooper Nikitenko, who was galloping ahead, shot away
from him, and Rostov felt as in a dream that he continued to be
carried forward with unnatural speed but yet stayed on the same
spot. From behind him Bondarchuk, an hussar he knew, jolted against
him and looked angrily at him. Bondarchuk's horse swerved and galloped
past.

"How is it I am not moving? I have fallen, I am killed!" Rostov
asked and answered at the same instant. He was alone in the middle
of a field. Instead of the moving horses and hussars' backs, he saw
nothing before him but the motionless earth and the stubble around
him. There was warm blood under his arm. "No, I am wounded and the
horse is killed." Rook tried to rise on his forelegs but fell back,
pinning his rider's leg. Blood was flowing from his head; he struggled
but could not rise. Rostov also tried to rise but fell back, his
sabretache having become entangled in the saddle. Where our men
were, and where the French, he did not know. There was no one near.

Having disentangled his leg, he rose. "Where, on which side, was now
the line that had so sharply divided the two armies?" he asked himself
and could not answer. "Can something bad have happened to me?" he
wondered as he got up: and at that moment he felt that something
superfluous was hanging on his benumbed left arm. The wrist felt as if
it were not his. He examined his hand carefully, vainly trying to find
blood on it. "Ah, here are people coming," he thought joyfully, seeing
some men running toward him. "They will help me!" In front came a
man wearing a strange shako and a blue cloak, swarthy, sunburned,
and with a hooked nose. Then came two more, and many more running
behind. One of them said something strange, not in Russian. In among
the hindmost of these men wearing similar shakos was a Russian hussar.
He was being held by the arms and his horse was being led behind him.

"It must be one of ours, a prisoner. Yes. Can it be that they will
take me too? Who are these men?" thought Rostov, scarcely believing
his eyes. "Can they be French?" He looked at the approaching
Frenchmen, and though but a moment before he had been galloping to get
at them and hack them to pieces, their proximity now seemed so awful
that he could not believe his eyes. "Who are they? Why are they
running? Can they be coming at me? And why? To kill me? Me whom
everyone is so fond of?" He remembered his mother's love for him,
and his family's, and his friends', and the enemy's intention to
kill him seemed impossible. "But perhaps they may do it!" For more
than ten seconds he stood not moving from the spot or realizing the
situation. The foremost Frenchman, the one with the hooked nose, was
already so close that the expression of his face could be seen. And
the excited, alien face of that man, his bayonet hanging down, holding
his breath, and running so lightly, frightened Rostov. He seized his
pistol and, instead of firing it, flung it at the Frenchman and ran
with all his might toward the bushes. He did not now run with the
feeling of doubt and conflict with which he had trodden the Enns
bridge, but with the feeling of a hare fleeing from the hounds. One
single sentiment, that of fear for his young and happy life, possessed
his whole being. Rapidly leaping the furrows, he fled across the field
with the impetuosity he used to show at catchplay, now and then
turning his good-natured, pale, young face to look back. A shudder
of terror went through him: "No, better not look," he thought, but
having reached the bushes he glanced round once more. The French had
fallen behind, and just as he looked round the first man changed his
run to a walk and, turning, shouted something loudly to a comrade
farther back. Rostov paused. "No, there's some mistake," thought he.
"They can't have wanted to kill me." But at the same time, his left
arm felt as heavy as if a seventy-pound weight were tied to it. He
could run no more. The Frenchman also stopped and took aim. Rostov
closed his eyes and stooped down. One bullet and then another whistled
past him. He mustered his last remaining strength, took hold of his
left hand with his right, and reached the bushes. Behind these were
some Russian sharpshooters.


CHAPTER XX


The infantry regiments that had been caught unawares in the
outskirts of the wood ran out of it, the different companies getting
mixed, and retreated as a disorderly crowd. One soldier, in his
fear, uttered the senseless cry, "Cut off!" that is so terrible in
battle, and that word infected the whole crowd with a feeling of
panic.

"Surrounded! Cut off? We're lost!" shouted the fugitives.

The moment he heard the firing and the cry from behind, the
general realized that something dreadful had happened to his regiment,
and the thought that he, an exemplary officer of many years' service
who had never been to blame, might be held responsible at headquarters
for negligence or inefficiency so staggered him that, forgetting the
recalcitrant cavalry colonel, his own dignity as a general, and
above all quite forgetting the danger and all regard for
self-preservation, he clutched the crupper of his saddle and, spurring
his horse, galloped to the regiment under a hail of bullets which fell
around, but fortunately missed him. His one desire was to know what
was happening and at any cost correct, or remedy, the mistake if he
had made one, so that he, an exemplary officer of twenty-two years'
service, who had never been censured, should not be held to blame.

Having galloped safely through the French, he reached a field behind
the copse across which our men, regardless of orders, were running and
descending the valley. That moment of moral hesitation which decides
the fate of battles had arrived. Would this disorderly crowd of
soldiers attend to the voice of their commander, or would they,
disregarding him, continue their flight? Despite his desperate
shouts that used to seem so terrible to the soldiers, despite his
furious purple countenance distorted out of all likeness to his former
self, and the flourishing of his saber, the soldiers all continued
to run, talking, firing into the air, and disobeying orders. The moral
hesitation which decided the fate of battles was evidently culminating
in a panic.

The general had a fit of coughing as a result of shouting and of the
powder smoke and stopped in despair. Everything seemed lost. But at
that moment the French who were attacking, suddenly and without any
apparent reason, ran back and disappeared from the outskirts, and
Russian sharpshooters showed themselves in the copse. It was
Timokhin's company, which alone had maintained its order in the wood
and, having lain in ambush in a ditch, now attacked the French
unexpectedly. Timokhin, armed only with a sword, had rushed at the
enemy with such a desperate cry and such mad, drunken determination
that, taken by surprise, the French had thrown down their muskets
and run. Dolokhov, running beside Timokhin, killed a Frenchman at
close quarters and was the first to seize the surrendering French
officer by his collar. Our fugitives returned, the battalions
re-formed, and the French who had nearly cut our left flank in half
were for the moment repulsed. Our reserve units were able to join
up, and the fight was at an end. The regimental commander and Major
Ekonomov had stopped beside a bridge, letting the retreating companies
pass by them, when a soldier came up and took hold of the
commander's stirrup, almost leaning against him. The man was wearing a
bluish coat of broadcloth, he had no knapsack or cap, his head was
bandaged, and over his shoulder a French munition pouch was slung.
He had an officer's sword in his hand. The soldier was pale, his
blue eyes looked impudently into the commander's face, and his lips
were smiling. Though the commander was occupied in giving instructions
to Major Ekonomov, he could not help taking notice of the soldier.

"Your excellency, here are two trophies," said Dolokhov, pointing to
the French sword and pouch. "I have taken an officer prisoner. I
stopped the company." Dolokhov breathed heavily from weariness and
spoke in abrupt sentences. "The whole company can bear witness. I
beg you will remember this, your excellency!"

"All right, all right," replied the commander, and turned to Major
Ekonomov.

But Dolokhov did not go away; he untied the handkerchief around
his head, pulled it off, and showed the blood congealed on his hair.

"A bayonet wound. I remained at the front. Remember, your
excellency!"


Tushin's battery had been forgotten and only at the very end of
the action did Prince Bagration, still hearing the cannonade in the
center, send his orderly staff officer, and later Prince Andrew
also, to order the battery to retire as quickly as possible. When
the supports attached to Tushin's battery had been moved away in the
middle of the action by someone's order, the battery had continued
firing and was only not captured by the French because the enemy could
not surmise that anyone could have the effrontery to continue firing
from four quite undefended guns. On the contrary, the energetic action
of that battery led the French to suppose that here- in the center-
the main Russian forces were concentrated. Twice they had attempted to
attack this point, but on each occasion had been driven back by
grapeshot from the four isolated guns on the hillock.

Soon after Prince Bagration had left him, Tushin had succeeded in
setting fire to Schon Grabern.

"Look at them scurrying! It's burning! Just see the smoke! Fine!
Grand! Look at the smoke, the smoke!" exclaimed the artillerymen,
brightening up.

All the guns, without waiting for orders, were being fired in the
direction of the conflagration. As if urging each other on, the
soldiers cried at each shot: "Fine! That's good! Look at it... Grand!"
The fire, fanned by the breeze, was rapidly spreading. The French
columns that had advanced beyond the village went back; but as
though in revenge for this failure, the enemy placed ten guns to the
right of the village and began firing them at Tushin's battery.

In their childlike glee, aroused by the fire and their luck in
successfully cannonading the French, our artillerymen only noticed
this battery when two balls, and then four more, fell among our
guns, one knocking over two horses and another tearing off a
munition-wagon driver's leg. Their spirits once roused were,
however, not diminished, but only changed character. The horses were
replaced by others from a reserve gun carriage, the wounded were
carried away, and the four guns were turned against the ten-gun
battery. Tushin's companion officer had been killed at the beginning
of the engagement and within an hour seventeen of the forty men of the
guns' crews had been disabled, but the artillerymen were still as
merry and lively as ever. Twice they noticed the French appearing
below them, and then they fired grapeshot at them.

Little Tushin, moving feebly and awkwardly, kept telling his orderly
to "refill my pipe for that one!" and then, scattering sparks from it,
ran forward shading his eyes with his small hand to look at the
French.

"Smack at 'em, lads!" he kept saying, seizing the guns by the wheels
and working the screws himself.

Amid the smoke, deafened by the incessant reports which always
made him jump, Tushin not taking his pipe from his mouth ran from
gun to gun, now aiming, now counting the charges, now giving orders
about replacing dead or wounded horses and harnessing fresh ones,
and shouting in his feeble voice, so high pitched and irresolute.
His face grew more and more animated. Only when a man was killed or
wounded did he frown and turn away from the sight, shouting angrily at
the men who, as is always the case, hesitated about lifting the
injured or dead. The soldiers, for the most part handsome fellows and,
as is always the case in an artillery company, a head and shoulders
taller and twice as broad as their officer- all looked at their
commander like children in an embarrassing situation, and the
expression on his face was invariably reflected on theirs.

Owing to the terrible uproar and the necessity for concentration and
activity, Tushin did not experience the slightest unpleasant sense
of fear, and the thought that he might be killed or badly wounded
never occurred to him. On the contrary, he became more and more
elated. It seemed to him that it was a very long time ago, almost a
day, since he had first seen the enemy and fired the first shot, and
that the corner of the field he stood on was well-known and familiar
ground. Though he thought of everything, considered everything, and
did everything the best of officers could do in his position, he was
in a state akin to feverish delirium or drunkenness.

From the deafening sounds of his own guns around him, the whistle
and thud of the enemy's cannon balls, from the flushed and
perspiring faces of the crew bustling round the guns, from the sight
of the blood of men and horses, from the little puffs of smoke on
the enemy's side (always followed by a ball flying past and striking
the earth, a man, a gun, a horse), from the sight of all these
things a fantastic world of his own had taken possession of his
brain and at that moment afforded him pleasure. The enemy's guns
were in his fancy not guns but pipes from which occasional puffs
were blown by an invisible smoker.

"There... he's puffing again," muttered Tushin to himself, as a
small cloud rose from the hill and was borne in a streak to the left
by the wind.

"Now look out for the ball... we'll throw it back."

"What do you want, your honor?" asked an artilleryman, standing
close by, who heard him muttering.

"Nothing... only a shell..." he answered.

"Come along, our Matvevna!" he said to himself. "Matvevna"* was
the name his fancy gave to the farthest gun of the battery, which
was large and of an old pattern. The French swarming round their
guns seemed to him like ants. In that world, the handsome drunkard
Number One of the second gun's crew was "uncle"; Tushin looked at
him more often than at anyone else and took delight in his every
movement. The sound of musketry at the foot of the hill, now
diminishing, now increasing, seemed like someone's breathing. He
listened intently to the ebb and flow of these sounds.


*Daughter of Matthew.


"Ah! Breathing again, breathing!" he muttered to himself.

He imagined himself as an enormously tall, powerful man who was
throwing cannon balls at the French with both hands.

"Now then, Matvevna, dear old lady, don't let me down!" he was
saying as he moved from the gun, when a strange, unfamiliar voice
called above his head: "Captain Tushin! Captain!"

Tushin turned round in dismay. It was the staff officer who had
turned him out of the booth at Grunth. He was shouting in a gasping
voice:

"Are you mad? You have twice been ordered to retreat, and you..."

"Why are they down on me?" thought Tushin, looking in alarm at his
superior.

"I... don't..." he muttered, holding up two fingers to his cap.
"I..."

But the staff officer did not finish what he wanted to say. A cannon
ball, flying close to him, caused him to duck and bend over his horse.
He paused, and just as he was about to say something more, another
ball stopped him. He turned his horse and galloped off.

"Retire! All to retire!" he shouted from a distance.

The soldiers laughed. A moment later, an adjutant arrived with the
same order.

It was Prince Andrew. The first thing he saw on riding up to the
space where Tushin's guns were stationed was an unharnessed horse with
a broken leg, that lay screaming piteously beside the harnessed
horses. Blood was gushing from its leg as from a spring. Among the
limbers lay several dead men. One ball after another passed over as he
approached and he felt a nervous shudder run down his spine. But the
mere thought of being afraid roused him again. "I cannot be afraid,"
thought he, and dismounted slowly among the guns. He delivered the
order and did not leave the battery. He decided to have the guns
removed from their positions and withdrawn in his presence. Together
with Tushin, stepping across the bodies and under a terrible fire from
the French, he attended to the removal of the guns.

"A staff officer was here a minute ago, but skipped off," said an
artilleryman to Prince Andrew. "Not like your honor!"

Prince Andrew said nothing to Tushin. They were both so busy as to
seem not to notice one another. When having limbered up the only two
cannon that remained uninjured out of the four, they began moving down
the hill (one shattered gun and one unicorn were left behind),
Prince Andrew rode up to Tushin.

"Well, till we meet again..." he said, holding out his hand to
Tushin.

"Good-by, my dear fellow," said Tushin. "Dear soul! Good-by, my dear
fellow!" and for some unknown reason tears suddenly filled his eyes.


CHAPTER XXI


The wind had fallen and black clouds, merging with the powder smoke,
hung low over the field of battle on the horizon. It was growing
dark and the glow of two conflagrations was the more conspicuous.
The cannonade was dying down, but the rattle of musketry behind and on
the right sounded oftener and nearer. As soon as Tushin with his guns,
continually driving round or coming upon wounded men, was out of range
of fire and had descended into the dip, he was met by some of the
staff, among them the staff officer and Zherkov, who had been twice
sent to Tushin's battery but had never reached it. Interrupting one
another, they all gave, and transmitted, orders as to how to
proceed, reprimanding and reproaching him. Tushin gave no orders, and,
silently- fearing to speak because at every word he felt ready to weep
without knowing why- rode behind on his artillery nag. Though the
orders were to abandon the wounded, many of them dragged themselves
after troops and begged for seats on the gun carriages. The jaunty
infantry officer who just before the battle had rushed out of Tushin's
wattle shed was laid, with a bullet in his stomach, on "Matvevna's"
carriage. At the foot of the hill, a pale hussar cadet, supporting one
hand with the other, came up to Tushin and asked for a seat.

"Captain, for God's sake! I've hurt my arm," he said timidly. "For
God's sake... I can't walk. For God's sake!"

It was plain that this cadet had already repeatedly asked for a lift
and been refused. He asked in a hesitating, piteous voice.

"Tell them to give me a seat, for God's sake!"

"Give him a seat," said Tushin. "Lay a cloak for him to sit on,
lad," he said, addressing his favorite soldier. "And where is the
wounded officer?"

"He has been set down. He died," replied someone.

"Help him up. Sit down, dear fellow, sit down! Spread out the cloak,
Antonov."

The cadet was Rostov. With one hand he supported the other; he was
pale and his jaw trembled, shivering feverishly. He was placed on
"Matvevna," the gun from which they had removed the dead officer.
The cloak they spread under him was wet with blood which stained his
breeches and arm.

"What, are you wounded, my lad?" said Tushin, approaching the gun on
which Rostov sat.

"No, it's a sprain."

"Then what is this blood on the gun carriage?" inquired Tushin.

"It was the officer, your honor, stained it," answered the
artilleryman, wiping away the blood with his coat sleeve, as if
apologizing for the state of his gun.

It was all that they could do to get the guns up the rise aided by
the infantry, and having reached the village of Gruntersdorf they
halted. It had grown so dark that one could not distinguish the
uniforms ten paces off, and the firing had begun to subside. Suddenly,
near by on the right, shouting and firing were again heard. Flashes of
shot gleamed in the darkness. This was the last French attack and
was met by soldiers who had sheltered in the village houses. They
all rushed out of the village again, but Tushin's guns could not move,
and the artillerymen, Tushin, and the cadet exchanged silent glances
as they awaited their fate. The firing died down and soldiers, talking
eagerly, streamed out of a side street.

"Not hurt, Petrov?" asked one.

"We've given it 'em hot, mate! They won't make another push now,"
said another.

"You couldn't see a thing. How they shot at their own fellows!
Nothing could be seen. Pitch-dark, brother! Isn't there something to
drink?"

The French had been repulsed for the last time. And again and
again in the complete darkness Tushin's guns moved forward, surrounded
by the humming infantry as by a frame.

In the darkness, it seemed as though a gloomy unseen river was
flowing always in one direction, humming with whispers and talk and
the sound of hoofs and wheels. Amid the general rumble, the groans and
voices of the wounded were more distinctly heard than any other
sound in the darkness of the night. The gloom that enveloped the
army was filled with their groans, which seemed to melt into one
with the darkness of the night. After a while the moving mass became
agitated, someone rode past on a white horse followed by his suite,
and said something in passing: "What did he say? Where to, now?
Halt, is it? Did he thank us?" came eager questions from all sides.
The whole moving mass began pressing closer together and a report
spread that they were ordered to halt: evidently those in front had
halted. All remained where they were in the middle of the muddy road.

Fires were lighted and the talk became more audible. Captain Tushin,
having given orders to his company, sent a soldier to find a
dressing station or a doctor for the cadet, and sat down by a
bonfire the soldiers had kindled on the road. Rostov, too, dragged
himself to the fire. From pain, cold, and damp, a feverish shivering
shook his whole body. Drowsiness was irresistibly mastering him, but
he kept awake kept awake by an excruciating pain in his arm, for which
he could find no satisfactory position. He kept closing his eyes and
then again looking at the fire, which seemed to him dazzlingly red,
and at the feeble, round-shouldered figure of Tushin who was sitting
cross-legged like a Turk beside him. Tushin's large, kind, intelligent
eyes were fixed with sympathy and commiseration on Rostov, who saw
that Tushin with his whole heart wished to help him but could not.

From all sides were heard the footsteps and talk of the infantry,
who were walking, driving past, and settling down all around. The
sound of voices, the tramping feet, the horses' hoofs moving in mud,
the crackling of wood fires near and afar, merged into one tremulous
rumble.

It was no longer, as before, a dark, unseen river flowing through
the gloom, but a dark sea swelling and gradually subsiding after a
storm. Rostov looked at and listened listlessly to what passed
before and around him. An infantryman came to the fire, squatted on
his heels, held his hands to the blaze, and turned away his face.

"You don't mind your honor?" he asked Tushin. "I've lost my company,
your honor. I don't know where... such bad luck!"

With the soldier, an infantry officer with a bandaged cheek came
up to the bonfire, and addressing Tushin asked him to have the guns
moved a trifle to let a wagon go past. After he had gone, two soldiers
rushed to the campfire. They were quarreling and fighting desperately,
each trying to snatch from the other a boot they were both holding
on to.

"You picked it up?... I dare say! You're very smart!" one of them
shouted hoarsely.

Then a thin, pale soldier, his neck bandaged with a bloodstained leg
band, came up and in angry tones asked the artillerymen for water.

"Must one die like a dog?" said he.

Tushin told them to give the man some water. Then a cheerful soldier
ran up, begging a little fire for the infantry.

"A nice little hot torch for the infantry! Good luck to you,
fellow countrymen. Thanks for the fire- we'll return it with
interest," said he, carrying away into the darkness a glowing stick.

Next came four soldiers, carrying something heavy on a cloak, and
passed by the fire. One of them stumbled.

"Who the devil has put the logs on the road?" snarled he.

"He's dead- why carry him?" said another.

"Shut up!"

And they disappeared into the darkness with with their load.

"Still aching?" Tushin asked Rostov in a whisper.

"Yes."

"Your honor, you're wanted by the general. He is in the hut here,"
said a gunner, coming up to Tushin.

"Coming, friend."

Tushin rose and, buttoning his greatcoat and pulling it straight,
walked away from the fire.

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.

In a corner of the hut stood a standard captured from the French,
and the accountant with the naive face was feeling its texture,
shaking his head in perplexity- perhaps because the banner really
interested him, perhaps because it was hard for him, hungry as he was,
to look on at a dinner where there was no place for him. In the next
hut there was a French colonel who had been taken prisoner by our
dragoons. Our officers were flocking in to look at him. Prince
Bagration was thanking the individual commanders and inquiring into
details of the action and our losses. The general whose regiment had
been inspected at Braunau was informing the prince that as soon as the
action began he had withdrawn from the wood, mustered the men who were
woodcutting, and, allowing the French to pass him, had made a
bayonet charge with two battalions and had broken up the French
troops.

"When I saw, your excellency, that their first battalion was
disorganized, I stopped in the road and thought: 'I'll let them come
on and will meet them with the fire of the whole battalion'- and
that's what I did."

The general had so wished to do this and was so sorry he had not
managed to do it that it seemed to him as if it had really happened.
Perhaps it might really have been so? Could one possibly make out amid
all that confusion what did or did not happen?

"By the way, your excellency, I should inform you," he continued-
remembering Dolokhov's conversation with Kutuzov and his last
interview with the gentleman-ranker- "that Private Dolokhov, who was
reduced to the ranks, took a French officer prisoner in my presence
and particularly distinguished himself."

"I saw the Pavlograd hussars attack there, your excellency,"
chimed in Zherkov, looking uneasily around. He had not seen the
hussars all that day, but had heard about them from an infantry
officer. "They broke up two squares, your excellency."

Several of those present smiled at Zherkov's words, expecting one of
his usual jokes, but noticing that what he was saying redounded to the
glory of our arms and of the day's work, they assumed a serious
expression, though many of them knew that what he was saying was a lie
devoid of any foundation. Prince Bagration turned to the old colonel:

"Gentlemen, I thank you all; all arms have behaved heroically:
infantry, cavalry, and artillery. How was it that two guns were
abandoned in the center?" he inquired, searching with his eyes for
someone. (Prince Bagration did not ask about the guns on the left
flank; he knew that all the guns there had been abandoned at the
very beginning of the action.) "I think I sent you?" he added, turning
to the staff officer on duty.

"One was damaged," answered the staff officer, "and the other I
can't understand. I was there all the time giving orders and had
only just left.... It is true that it was hot there," he added,
modestly.

Someone mentioned that Captain Tushin was bivouacking close to the
village and had already been sent for.

"Oh, but you were there?" said Prince Bagration, addressing Prince
Andrew.

"Of course, we only just missed one another," said the staff
officer, with a smile to Bolkonski.

"I had not the pleasure of seeing you," said Prince Andrew, coldly
and abruptly.

All were silent. Tushin 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 Bagration, frowning, not
so much at the captain as at those who were laughing, among whom
Zherkov 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 Tushin 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
Bagration 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."

Tushin did not say that there were no covering troops, though that
was perfectly true. He was afraid of getting some other officer into
trouble, and silently fixed his eyes on Bagration as a schoolboy who
has blundered looks at an examiner.

The silence lasted some time. Prince Bagration, apparently not
wishing to be severe, found nothing to say; the others did not venture
to intervene. Prince Andrew looked at Tushin from under his brows
and his fingers twitched nervously.

"Your excellency!" Prince Andrew broke the silence with his abrupt
voice," you were pleased to send me to Captain Tushin's battery. I
went there and found two thirds of the men and horses knocked out, two
guns smashed, and no supports at all."

Prince Bagration and Tushin looked with equal intentness at
Bolkonski, who spoke with suppressed agitation.

"And, if your excellency will allow me to express my opinion," he
continued, "we owe today's success chiefly to the action of that
battery and the heroic endurance of Captain Tushin and his company,"
and without awaiting a reply, Prince Andrew rose and left the table.

Prince Bagration looked at Tushin, evidently reluctant to show
distrust in Bolkonski's emphatic opinion yet not feeling able fully to
credit it, bent his head, and told Tushin that he could go. Prince
Andrew went out with him.

"Thank you; you saved me, my dear fellow!" said Tushin.

Prince Andrew gave him a look, but said nothing and went away. He
felt sad and depressed. It was all so strange, so unlike what he had
hoped.


"Who are they? Why are they here? What do they want? And when will
all this end?" thought Rostov, looking at the changing shadows
before him. The pain in his arm became more and more intense.
Irresistible drowsiness overpowered him, red rings danced before his
eyes, and the impression of those voices and faces and a sense of
loneliness merged with the physical pain. It was they, these soldiers-
wounded and unwounded- it was they who were crushing, weighing down,
and twisting the sinews and scorching the flesh of his sprained arm
and shoulder. To rid himself of them he closed his eyes.

For a moment he dozed, but in that short interval innumerable things
appeared to him in a dream: his mother and her large white hand,
Sonya's thin little shoulders, Natasha's eyes and laughter, Denisov
with his voice and mustache, and Telyanin and all that affair with
Telyanin and Bogdanich. That affair was the same thing as this soldier
with the harsh voice, and it was that affair and this soldier that
were so agonizingly, incessantly pulling and pressing his arm and
always dragging it in one direction. He tried to get away from them,
but they would not for an instant let his shoulder move a hair's
breadth. It would not ache- it would be well- if only they did not
pull it, but it was immpossible to get rid of them.

He opened his eyes and looked up. The black canopy of night hung
less than a yard above the glow of the charcoal. Flakes of falling
snow were fluttering in that light. Tushin had not returned, the
doctor had not come. He was alone now, except for a soldier who was
sitting naked at the other side of the fire, warming his thin yellow
body.

"Nobody wants me!" thought Rostov. "There is no one to help me or
pity me. Yet I was once at home, strong, happy, and loved." He
sighed and, doing so, groaned involuntarily.

"Eh, is anything hurting you?" asked the soldier, shaking his
shirt out over the fire, and not waiting for an answer he gave a grunt
and added: "What a lot of men have been crippled today- frightful!"

Rostov did not listen to the soldier. He looked at the snowflakes
fluttering above the fire and remembered a Russian winter at his warm,
bright home, his fluffy fur coat, his quickly gliding sleigh, his
healthy body, and all the affection and care of his family. "And why
did I come here?" he wondered.

Next day the French army did not renew their attack, and the remnant
of Bagration's detachment was reunited to Kutuzov's army.