APDL Eductation Resources/APDL Eductation Resources.iso/text/authors/tolstoy/war_peace/W_P_BK03

Text File | 1996-07-21 | 244.8 KB | 5,046 lines

                              BOOK THREE: 1805


CHAPTER I


Prince Vasili was not a man who deliberately thought out his
plans. Still less did he think of injuring anyone for his own
advantage. He was merely a man of the world who had got on and to whom
getting on had become a habit. Schemes and devices for which he
never rightly accounted to himself, but which formed the whole
interest of his life, were constantly shaping themselves in his
mind, arising from the circumstances and persons he met. Of these
plans he had not merely one or two in his head but dozens, some only
beginning to form themselves, some approaching achievement, and some
in course of disintegration. He did not, for instance, say to himself:
"This man now has influence, I must gain his confidence and friendship
and through him obtain a special grant." Nor did he say to himself:
"Pierre is a rich man, I must entice him to marry my daughter and lend
me the forty thousand rubles I need." But when he came across came
across a man of position his instinct immediately told him that this
man could be useful, and without any premeditation Prince Vasili
took the first opportunity to gain his confidence, flatter him, become
intimate with him, and finally make his request.

He had Pierre at hand in Moscow and procured for him an
appointment as Gentleman of the Bedchamber, which at that time
conferred the status of Councilor of State, and insisted on the
young man accompanying him to Petersburg and staying at his house.
With apparent absent-mindedness, yet with unhesitating assurance
that he was doing the right thing, Prince Vasili did everything to get
Pierre to marry his daughter. Had he thought out his plans
beforehand he could not have been so natural and shown such unaffected
familiarity in intercourse with everybody both above and below him
in social standing. Something always drew him toward those richer
and more powerful than himself and he had rare skill in seizing the
most opportune moment for making use of people.

Pierre, on unexpectedly becoming Count Bezukhov and a rich man, felt
himself after his recent loneliness and freedom from cares so beset
and preoccupied that only in bed was he able to be by himself. He
had to sign papers, to present himself at government offices, the
purpose of which was not clear to him, to question his chief
steward, to visit his estate near Moscow, and to receive many people
who formerly did not even wish to know of his existence but would
now have been offended and grieved had he chosen not to see them.
These different people- businessmen, relations, and acquaintances
alike- were all disposed to treat the young heir in the most
friendly and flattering manner: they were all evidently firmly
convinced of Pierre's noble qualities. He was always hearing such
words as: "With your remarkable kindness," or, "With your excellent
heart," "You are yourself so honorable Count," or, "Were he as
clever as you," and so on, till he began sincerely to believe in his
own exceptional kindness and extraordinary intelligence, the more so
as in the depth of his heart it had always seemed to him that he
really was very kind and intelligent. Even people who had formerly
been spiteful toward him and evidently unfriendly now became gentle
and affectionate. The angry eldest princess, with the long waist and
hair plastered down like a doll's, had come into Pierre's room after
the funeral. With drooping eyes and frequent blushes she told him
she was very sorry about their past misunderstandings and did not
now feel she had a right to ask him for anything, except only for
permission, after the blow she had received, to remain for a few weeks
longer in the house she so loved and where she had sacrificed so much.
She could not refrain from weeping at these words. Touched that this
statuesque princess could so change, Pierre took her hand and begged
her forgiveness, without knowing what for. From that day the eldest
princess quite changed toward Pierre and began knitting a striped
scarf for him.

"Do this for my sake, mon cher; after all, she had to put up with
a great deal from the deceased," said Prince Vasili to him, handing
him a deed to sign for the princess' benefit.

Prince Vasili had come to the conclusion that it was necessary to
throw this bone- a bill for thirty thousand rubles- to the poor
princess that it might not occur to her to speak of his share in the
affair of the inlaid portfolio. Pierre signed the deed and after
that the princess grew still kinder. The younger sisters also became
affectionate to him, especially the youngest, the pretty one with
the mole, who often made him feel confused by her smiles and her own
confusion when meeting him.

It seemed so natural to Pierre that everyone should like him, and it
would have seemed so unnatural had anyone disliked him, that he
could not but believe in the sincerity of those around him. Besides,
he had no time to ask himself whether these people were sincere or
not. He was always busy and always felt in a state of mild and
cheerful intoxication. He felt as though he were the center of some
important and general movement; that something was constantly expected
of him, that if he did not do it he would grieve and disappoint many
people, but if he did this and that, all would be well; and he did
what was demanded of him, but still that happy result always
remained in the future.

More than anyone else, Prince Vasili took possession of Pierre's
affairs and of Pierre himself in those early days. From the death of
Count Bezukhov he did not let go his hold of the lad. He had the air
of a man oppressed by business, weary and suffering, who yet would
not, for pity's sake, leave this helpless youth who, after all, was
the son of his old friend and the possessor of such enormous wealth,
to the caprice of fate and the designs of rogues. During the few
days he spent in Moscow after the death of Count Bezukhov, he would
call Pierre, or go to him himself, and tell him what ought to be
done in a tone of weariness and assurance, as if he were adding
every time: "You know I am overwhelmed with business and it is
purely out of charity that I trouble myself about you, and you also
know quite well that what I propose is the only thing possible."

"Well, my dear fellow, tomorrow we are off at last," said Prince
Vasili one day, closing his eyes and fingering Pierre's elbow,
speaking as if he were saying something which had long since been
agreed upon and could not now be altered. "We start tomorrow and I'm
giving you a place in my carriage. I am very glad. All our important
business here is now settled, and I ought to have been off long ago.
Here is something I have received from the chancellor. I asked him for
you, and you have been entered in the diplomatic corps and made a
Gentleman of the Bedchamber. The diplomatic career now lies open
before you."

Notwithstanding the tone of wearied assurance with which these words
were pronounced, Pierre, who had so long been considering his
career, wished to make some suggestion. But Prince Vasili
interrupted him in the special deep cooing tone, precluding the
possibility of interrupting his speech, which he used in extreme cases
when special persuasion was needed.

"Mais, mon cher, I did this for my own sake, to satisfy my
conscience, and there is nothing to thank me for. No one has ever
complained yet of being too much loved; and besides, you are free, you
could throw it up tomorrow. But you will see everything for yourself
when you get to Petersburg. It is high time for you to get away from
these terrible recollections." Prince Vasili sighed. "Yes, yes, my
boy. And my valet can go in your carriage. Ah! I was nearly
forgetting," he added. "You know, mon cher, your father and I had some
accounts to settle, so I have received what was due from the Ryazan
estate and will keep it; you won't require it. We'll go into the
accounts later."

By "what was due from the Ryazan estate" Prince Vasili meant several
thousand rubles quitrent received from Pierre's peasants, which the
prince had retained for himself.

In Petersburg, as in Moscow, Pierre found the same atmosphere of
gentleness and affection. He could not refuse the post, or rather
the rank (for he did nothing), that Prince Vasili had procured for
him, and acquaintances, invitations, and social occupations were so
numerous that, even more than in Moscow, he felt a sense of
bewilderment, bustle, and continual expectation of some good, always
in front of him but never attained.

Of his former bachelor acquaintances many were no longer in
Petersburg. The Guards had gone to the front; Dolokhov had been
reduced to the ranks; Anatole was in the army somewhere in the
provinces; Prince Andrew was abroad; so Pierre had not the opportunity
to spend his nights as he used to like to spend them, or to open his
mind by intimate talks with a friend older than himself and whom he
respected. His whole time was taken up with dinners and balls and
was spent chiefly at Prince Vasili's house in the company of the stout
princess, his wife, and his beautiful daughter Helene.

Like the others, Anna Pavlovna Scherer showed Pierre the change of
attitude toward him that had taken place in society.

Formerly in Anna Pavlovna's presence, Pierre had always felt that
what he was saying was out of place, tactless and unsuitable, that
remarks which seemed to him clever while they formed in his mind
became foolish as soon as he uttered them, while on the contrary
Hippolyte's stupidest remarks came out clever and apt. Now
everything Pierre said was charmant. Even if Anna Pavlovna did not say
so, he could see that she wished to and only refrained out of regard
for his modesty.

In the beginning of the winter of 1805-6 Pierre received one of Anna
Pavlovna's usual pink notes with an invitation to which was added:
"You will find the beautiful Helene here, whom it is always delightful
to see."

When he read that sentence, Pierre felt for the first time that some
link which other people recognized had grown up between himself and
Helene, and that thought both alarmed him, as if some obligation
were being imposed on him which he could not fulfill, and pleased
him as an entertaining supposition.

Anna Pavlovna's "At Home" was like the former one, only the
novelty she offered her guests this time was not Mortemart, but a
diplomatist fresh from Berlin with the very latest details of the
Emperor Alexander's visit to Potsdam, and of how the two august
friends had pledged themselves in an indissoluble alliance to uphold
the cause of justice against the enemy of the human race. Anna
Pavlovna received Pierre with a shade of melancholy, evidently
relating to the young man's recent loss by the death of Count Bezukhov
(everyone constantly considered it a duty to assure Pierre that he was
greatly afflicted by the death of the father he had hardly known), and
her melancholy was just like the august melancholy she showed at the
mention of her most august Majesty the Empress Marya Fedorovna. Pierre
felt flattered by this. Anna Pavlovna arranged the different groups in
her drawing room with her habitual skill. The large group, in which
were Prince Vasili and the generals, had the benefit of the
diplomat. Another group was at the tea table. Pierre wished to join
the former, but Anna Pavlovna- who was in the excited condition of a
commander on a battlefield to whom thousands of new and brilliant
ideas occur which there is hardly time to put in action- seeing
Pierre, touched his sleeve with her finger, saying:

"Wait a bit, I have something in view for you this evening." (She
glanced at Helene and smiled at her.) "My dear Helene, be charitable
to my poor aunt who adores you. Go and keep her company for ten
minutes. And that it will not be too dull, here is the dear count
who will not refuse to accompany you."

The beauty went to the aunt, but Anna Pavlovna detained Pierre,
looking as if she had to give some final necessary instructions.

"Isn't she exquisite?" she said to Pierre, pointing to the stately
beauty as she glided away. "And how she carries herself! For so
young a girl, such tact, such masterly perfection of manner! It
comes from her heart. Happy the man who wins her! With her the least
worldly of men would occupy a most brilliant position in society.
Don't you think so? I only wanted to know your opinion," and Anna
Pavlovna let Pierre go.

Pierre, in reply, sincerely agreed with her as to Helene's
perfection of manner. If he ever thought of Helene, it was just of her
beauty and her remarkable skill in appearing silently dignified in
society.

The old aunt received the two young people in her corner, but seemed
desirous of hiding her adoration for Helene and inclined rather to
show her fear of Anna Pavlovna. She looked at her niece, as if
inquiring what she was to do with these people. On leaving them,
Anna Pavlovna again touched Pierre's sleeve, saying: "I hope you won't
say that it is dull in my house again," and she glanced at Helene.

Helene smiled, with a look implying that she did not admit the
possibility of anyone seeing her without being enchanted. The aunt
coughed, swallowed, and said in French that she was very pleased to
see Helene, then she turned to Pierre with the same words of welcome
and the same look. In the middle of a dull and halting conversation,
Helene turned to Pierre with the beautiful bright smile that she
gave to everyone. Pierre was so used to that smile, and it had so
little meaning for him, that he paid no attention to it. The aunt
was just speaking of a collection of snuffboxes that had belonged to
Pierre's father, Count Bezukhov, and showed them her own box. Princess
Helene asked to see the portrait of the aunt's husband on the box lid.

"That is probably the work of Vinesse," said Pierre, mentioning a
celebrated miniaturist, and he leaned over the table to take the
snuffbox while trying to hear what was being said at the other table.

He half rose, meaning to go round, but the aunt handed him the
snuffbox, passing it across Helene's back. Helene stooped forward to
make room, and looked round with a smile. She was, as always at
evening parties, wearing a dress such as was then fashionable, cut
very low at front and back. Her bust, which had always seemed like
marble to Pierre, was so close to him that his shortsighted eyes could
not but perceive the living charm of her neck and shoulders, so near
to his lips that he need only have bent his head a little to have
touched them. He was conscious of the warmth of her body, the scent of
perfume, and the creaking of her corset as she moved. He did not see
her marble beauty forming a complete whole with her dress, but all the
charm of her body only covered by her garments. And having once seen
this he could not help being aware it, just as we cannot renew an
illusion we have once seen through.

"So you have never noticed before how beautiful I am?" Helene seemed
to say. "You had not noticed that I am a woman? Yes, I am a woman
who may belong to anyone- to you too," said her glance. And at that
moment Pierre felt that Helene not only could, but must, be his
wife, and that it could not be otherwise.

He knew this at that moment as surely as if he had been standing
at the altar with her. How and when this would be he did not know,
he did not even know if it would be a good thing (he even felt, he
knew not why, that it would be a bad thing), but he knew it would
happen.

Pierre dropped his eyes, lifted them again, and wished once more
to see her as a distant beauty far removed from him, as he had seen
her every day until then, but he could no longer do it. He could
not, any more than a man who has been looking at a tuft of steppe
grass through the mist and taking it for a tree can again take it
for a tree after he has once recognized it to be a tuft of grass.
She was terribly close to him. She already had power over him, and
between them there was no longer any barrier except the barrier of his
own will.

"Well, I will leave you in your little corner," came Anna Pavlovna's
voice, "I see you are all right there."

And Pierre, anxiously trying to remember whether he had done
anything reprehensible, looked round with a blush. It seemed to him
that everyone knew what had happened to him as he knew it himself.

A little later when he went up to the large circle, Anna Pavlovna
said to him: "I hear you are refitting your Petersburg house?"

This was true. The architect had told him that it was necessary, and
Pierre, without knowing why, was having his enormous Petersburg
house done up.

"That's a good thing, but don't move from Prince Vasili's. It is
good to have a friend like the prince," she said, smiling at Prince
Vasili. "I know something about that. Don't I? And you are still so
young. You need advice. Don't be angry with me for exercising an old
woman's privilege."

She paused, as women always do, expecting something after they
have mentioned their age. "If you marry it will be a different thing,"
she continued, uniting them both in one glance. Pierre did not look at
Helene nor she at him. But she was just as terribly close to him. He
muttered something and colored.

When he got home he could not sleep for a long time for thinking
of what had happened. What had happened? Nothing. He had merely
understood that the woman he had known as a child, of whom when her
beauty was mentioned he had said absent-mindedly: "Yes, she's good
looking," he had understood that this woman might belong to him.

"But she's stupid. I have myself said she is stupid," he thought.
"There is something nasty, something wrong, in the feeling she excites
in me. I have been told that her brother Anatole was in love with
her and she with him, that there was quite a scandal and that that's
why he was sent away. Hippolyte is her brother... Prince Vasili is her
father... It's bad...." he reflected, but while he was thinking this
(the reflection was still incomplete), he caught himself smiling and
was conscious that another line of thought had sprung up, and while
thinking of her worthlessness he was also dreaming of how she would be
his wife, how she would love him become quite different, and how all
he had thought and heard of her might be false. And he again saw her
not as the daughter of Prince Vasili, but visualized her whole body
only veiled by its gray dress. "But no! Why did this thought never
occur to me before?" and again he told himself that it was impossible,
that there would be something unnatural, and as it seemed to him
dishonorable, in this marriage. He recalled her former words and looks
and the words and looks of those who had seen them together. He
recalled Anna Pavlovna's words and looks when she spoke to him about
his house, recalled thousands of such hints from Prince Vasili and
others, and was seized by terror lest he had already, in some way,
bound himself to do something that was evidently wrong and that he
ought not to do. But at the very time he was expressing this
conviction to himself, in another part of his mind her image rose in
all its womanly beauty.


CHAPTER II


In November, 1805, Prince Vasili had to go on a tour of inspection
in four different provinces. He had arranged this for himself so as to
visit his neglected estates at the same time and pick up his son
Anatole where his regiment was stationed, and take him to visit Prince
Nicholas Bolkonski in order to arrange a match for him with the
daughter of that rich old man. But before leaving home and undertaking
these new affairs, Prince Vasili had to settle matters with Pierre,
who, it is true, had latterly spent whole days at home, that is, in
Prince Vasili's house where he was staying, and had been absurd,
excited, and foolish in Helene's presence (as a lover should be),
but had not yet proposed to her.

"This is all very fine, but things must be settled," said Prince
Vasili to himself, with a sorrowful sigh, one morning, feeling that
Pierre who was under such obligations to him ("But never mind that")
was not behaving very well in this matter. "Youth, frivolity...
well, God be with him," thought he, relishing his own goodness of
heart, "but it must be brought to a head. The day after tomorrow
will be Lelya's name day. I will invite two or three people, and if he
does not understand what he ought to do then it will be my affair-
yes, my affair. I am her father."

Six weeks after Anna Pavlovna's "At Home" and after the sleepless
night when he had decided that to marry Helene would be a calamity and
that he ought to avoid her and go away, Pierre, despite that decision,
had not left Prince Vasili's and felt with terror that in people's
eyes he was every day more and more connected with her, that it was
impossible for him to return to his former conception of her, that
he could not break away from her, and that though it would be a
terrible thing he would have to unite his fate with hers. He might
perhaps have been able to free himself but that Prince Vasili (who had
rarely before given receptions) now hardly let a day go by without
having an evening party at which Pierre had to be present unless he
wished to spoil the general pleasure and disappoint everyone's
expectation. Prince Vasili, in the rare moments when he was at home,
would take Pierre's hand in passing and draw it downwards, or
absent-mindedly hold out his wrinkled, clean-shaven cheek for Pierre
to kiss and would say: "Till tomorrow," or, "Be in to dinner or I
shall not see you," or, "I am staying in for your sake," and so on.
And though Prince Vasili, when he stayed in (as he said) for
Pierre's sake, hardly exchanged a couple of words with him, Pierre
felt unable to disappoint him. Every day he said to himself one and
the same thing: "It is time I understood her and made up my mind
what she really is. Was I mistaken before, or am I mistaken now? No,
she is not stupid, she is an excellent girl," he sometimes said to
himself "she never makes a mistake, never says anything stupid. She
says little, but what she does say is always clear and simple, so
she is not stupid. She never was abashed and is not abashed now, so
she cannot be a bad woman!" He had often begun to make reflections
or think aloud in her company, and she had always answered him
either by a brief but appropriate remark- showing that it did not
interest her- or by a silent look and smile which more palpably than
anything else showed Pierre her superiority. She was right in
regarding all arguments as nonsense in comparison with that smile.

She always addressed him with a radiantly confiding smile meant
for him alone, in which there was something more significant than in
the general smile that usually brightened her face. Pierre knew that
everyone was waiting for him to say a word and cross a certain line,
and he knew that sooner or later he would step across it, but an
incomprehensible terror seized him at the thought of that dreadful
step. A thousand times during that month and a half while he felt
himself drawn nearer and nearer to that dreadful abyss, Pierre said to
himself: "What am I doing? I need resolution. Can it be that I have
none?"

He wished to take a decision, but felt with dismay that in this
matter he lacked that strength of will which he had known in himself
and really possessed. Pierre was one of those who are only strong when
they feel themselves quite innocent, and since that day when he was
overpowered by a feeling of desire while stooping over the snuffbox at
Anna Pavlovna's, an unacknowledged sense of the guilt of that desire
paralyzed his will.

On Helene's name day, a small party of just their own people- as his
wife said- met for supper at Prince Vasili's. All these friends and
relations had been given to understand that the fate of the young girl
would be decided that evening. The visitors were seated at supper.
Princess Kuragina, a portly imposing woman who had once been handsome,
was sitting at the head of the table. On either side of her sat the
more important guests- an old general and his wife, and Anna
Pavlovna Scherer. At the other end sat the younger and less
important guests, and there too sat the members of the family, and
Pierre and Helene, side by side. Prince Vasili was not having any
supper: he went round the table in a merry mood, sitting down now by
one, now by another, of the guests. To each of them he made some
careless and agreeable remark except to Pierre and Helene, whose
presence he seemed not to notice. He enlivened the whole party. The
wax candles burned brightly, the silver and crystal gleamed, so did
the ladies' toilets and the gold and silver of the men's epaulets;
servants in scarlet liveries moved round the table, the clatter of
plates, knives, and glasses mingled with the animated hum of several
conversations. At one end of the table, the old chamberlain was
heard assuring an old baroness that he loved her passionately, at
which she laughed; at the other could be heard the story of the
misfortunes of some Mary Viktorovna or other. At the center of the
table, Prince Vasili attracted everybody's attention. With a facetious
smile on his face, he was telling the ladies about last Wednesday's
meeting of the Imperial Council, at which Sergey Kuzmich
Vyazmitinov, the new military governor general of Petersburg, had
received and read the then famous rescript of the Emperor Alexander
from the army to Sergey Kuzmich, in which the Emperor said that he was
receiving from all sides declarations of the people's loyalty, that
the declaration from Petersburg gave him particular pleasure, and that
he was proud to be at the head of such a nation and would endeavor
to be worthy of it. This rescript began with the words: "Sergey
Kuzmich, From all sides reports reach me," etc.

"Well, and so he never got farther than: 'Sergey Kuzmich'?" asked
one of the ladies.

"Exactly, not a hair's breadth farther," answered Prince Vasili,
laughing, "'Sergey Kuzmich... From all sides... From all sides...
Sergey Kuzmich...' Poor Vyazmitinov could not get any farther! He
began the rescript again and again, but as soon as he uttered 'Sergey'
he sobbed, 'Kuz-mi-ch,' tears, and 'From all sides' was smothered in
sobs and he could get no farther. And again his handkerchief, and
again: 'Sergey Kuzmich, From all sides,'... and tears, till at last
somebody else was asked to read it."

"Kuzmich... From all sides... and then tears," someone repeated
laughing.

"Don't be unkind," cried Anna Pavlovna from her end of the table
holding up a threatening finger. "He is such a worthy and excellent
man, our dear Vyazmitinov...."

Everybody laughed a great deal. At the head of the table, where
the honored guests sat, everyone seemed to be in high spirits and
under the influence of a variety of exciting sensations. Only Pierre
and Helene sat silently side by side almost at the bottom of the
table, a suppressed smile brightening both their faces, a smile that
had nothing to do with Sergey Kuzmich- a smile of bashfulness at their
own feelings. But much as all the rest laughed, talked, and joked,
much as they enjoyed their Rhine wine, saute, and ices, and however
they avoided looking at the young couple, and heedless and unobservant
as they seemed of them, one could feel by the occasional glances
they gave that the story about Sergey Kuzmich, the laughter, and the
food were all a pretense, and that the whole attention of that company
was directed to- Pierre and Helene. Prince Vasili mimicked the sobbing
of Sergey Kuzmich and at the same time his eyes glanced toward his
daughter, and while he laughed the expression on his face clearly
said: "Yes... it's getting on, it will all be settled today." Anna
Pavlovna threatened him on behalf of "our dear Vyazmitinov," and in
her eyes, which, for an instant, glanced at Pierre, Prince Vasili read
a congratulation on his future son-in-law and on his daughter's
happiness. The old princess sighed sadly as she offered some wine to
the old lady next to her and glanced angrily at her daughter, and
her sigh seemed to say: "Yes, there's nothing left for you and me
but to sip sweet wine, my dear, now that the time has come for these
young ones to be thus boldly, provocatively happy." "And what nonsense
all this is that I am saying!" thought a diplomatist, glancing at
the happy faces of the lovers. "That's happiness!"

Into the insignificant, trifling, and artificial interests uniting
that society had entered the simple feeling of the attraction of a
healthy and handsome young man and woman for one another. And this
human feeling dominated everything else and soared above all their
affected chatter. Jests fell flat, news was not interesting, and the
animation was evidently forced. Not only the guests but even the
footmen waiting at table seemed to feel this, and they forgot their
duties as they looked at the beautiful Helene with her radiant face
and at the red, broad, and happy though uneasy face of Pierre. It
seemed as if the very light of the candles was focused on those two
happy faces alone.

Pierre felt that he the center of it all, and this both pleased
and embarrassed him. He was like a man entirely absorbed in some
occupation. He did not see, hear, or understand anything clearly. Only
now and then detached ideas and impressions from the world of
reality shot unexpectedly through his mind.

"So it is all finished!" he thought. "And how has it all happened?
How quickly! Now I know that not because of her alone, nor of myself
alone, but because of everyone, it must inevitably come about. They
are all expecting it, they are so sure that it will happen that I
cannot, I cannot, disappoint them. But how will it be? I do not
know, but it will certainly happen!" thought Pierre, glancing at those
dazzling shoulders close to his eyes.

Or he would suddenly feel ashamed of he knew not what. He felt it
awkward to attract everyone's attention and to be considered a lucky
man and, with his plain face, to be looked on as a sort of Paris
possessed of a Helen. "But no doubt it always is and must be so!" he
consoled himself. "And besides, what have I done to bring it about?
How did it begin? I traveled from Moscow with Prince Vasili. Then
there was nothing. So why should I not stay at his house? Then I
played cards with her and picked up her reticule and drove out with
her. How did it begin, when did it all come about?" And here he was
sitting by her side as her betrothed, seeing, hearing, feeling her
nearness, her breathing, her movements, her beauty. Then it would
suddenly seem to him that it was not she but he was so unusually
beautiful, and that that was why they all looked so at him, and
flattered by this general admiration he would expand his chest,
raise his head, and rejoice at his good fortune. Suddenly he heard a
familiar voice repeating something to him a second time. But Pierre
was so absorbed that he did not understand what was said.

"I am asking you when you last heard from Bolkonski," repeated
Prince Vasili a third time. "How absent-minded you are, my dear
fellow."

Prince Vasili smiled, and Pierre noticed that everyone was smiling
at him and Helene. "Well, what of it, if you all know it?" thought
Pierre. "What of it? It's the truth!" and he himself smiled his gentle
childlike smile, and Helene smiled too.

"When did you get the letter? Was it from Olmutz?" repeated Prince
Vasili, who pretended to want to know this in order to settle a
dispute.

"How can one talk or think of such trifles?" thought Pierre.

"Yes, from Olmutz," he answered, with a sigh.

After supper Pierre with his partner followed the others into the
drawing room. The guests began to disperse, some without taking
leave of Helene. Some, as if unwilling to distract her from an
important occupation, came up to her for a moment and made haste to go
away, refusing to let her see them off. The diplomatist preserved a
mournful silence as he left the drawing room. He pictured the vanity
of his diplomatic career in comparison with Pierre's happiness. The
old general grumbled at his wife when she asked how his leg was.
"Oh, the old fool," he thought. "That Princess Helene will be
beautiful still when she's fifty."

"I think I may congratulate you," whispered Anna Pavlovna to the old
princess, kissing her soundly. "If I hadn't this headache I'd have
stayed longer."

The old princess did not reply, she was tormented by jealousy of her
daughter's happiness.

While the guests were taking their leave Pierre remained for a
long time alone with Helene in the little drawing room where they were
sitting. He had often before, during the last six weeks, remained
alone with her, but had never spoken to her of love. Now he felt
that it was inevitable, but he could not make up his mind to take
the final step. He felt ashamed; he felt that he was occupying someone
else's place here beside Helene. "This happiness is not for you," some
inner voice whispered to him. "This happiness is for those who have
not in them what there is in you."

But, as he had to say something, he began by asking her whether
she was satisfied with the party. She replied in her usual simple
manner that this name day of hers had been one of the pleasantest
she had ever had.

Some of the nearest relatives had not yet left. They were sitting in
the large drawing room. Prince Vasili came up to Pierre with languid
footsteps. Pierre rose and said it was getting late. Prince Vasili
gave him a look of stern inquiry, as though what Pierre had just
said was so strange that one could not take it in. But then the
expression of severity changed, and he drew Pierre's hand downwards,
made him sit down, and smiled affectionately.

"Well, Lelya?" he asked, turning instantly to his daughter and
addressing her with the careless tone of habitual tenderness natural
to parents who have petted their children from babyhood, but which
Prince Vasili had only acquired by imitating other parents.

And he again turned to Pierre.

"Sergey Kuzmich- From all sides-" he said, unbuttoning the top
button of his waistcoat.

Pierre smiled, but his smile showed that he knew it was not the
story about Sergey Kuzmich that interested Prince Vasili just then,
and Prince Vasili saw that Pierre knew this. He suddenly muttered
something and went away. It seemed to Pierre that even the prince
was disconcerted. The sight of the discomposure of that old man of the
world touched Pierre: he looked at Helene and she too seemed
disconcerted, and her look seemed to say: "Well, it is your own
fault."

"The step must be taken but I cannot, I cannot!" thought Pierre, and
he again began speaking about indifferent matters, about Sergey
Kuzmich, asking what the point of the story was as he had not heard it
properly. Helene answered with a smile that she too had missed it.

When Prince Vasili returned to the drawing room, the princess, his
wife, was talking in low tones to the elderly lady about Pierre.

"Of course, it is a very brilliant match, but happiness, my dear..."

"Marriages are made in heaven," replied the elderly lady.

Prince Vasili passed by, seeming not to hear the ladies, and sat
down on a sofa in a far corner of the room. He closed his eyes and
seemed to be dozing. His head sank forward and then he roused himself.

"Aline," he said to his wife, "go and see what they are about."

The princess went up to the door, passed by it with a dignified
and indifferent air, and glanced into the little drawing room.
Pierre and Helene still sat talking just as before.

"Still the same," she said to her husband.

Prince Vasili frowned, twisting his mouth, his cheeks quivered and
his face assumed the coarse, unpleasant expression peculiar to him.
Shaking himself, he rose, threw back his head, and with resolute steps
went past the ladies into the little drawing room. With quick steps he
went joyfully up to Pierre. His face was so unusually triumphant
that Pierre rose in alarm on seeing it.

"Thank God!" said Prince Vasili. "My wife has told me everything!-
(He put one arm around Pierre and the other around his daughter.)- "My
dear boy... Lelya... I am very pleased." (His voice trembled.) "I
loved your father... and she will make you a good wife... God bless
you!..."

He embraced his daughter, and then again Pierre, and kissed him with
his malodorous mouth. Tears actually moistened his cheeks.

"Princess, come here!" he shouted.

The old princess came in and also wept. The elderly lady was using
her handkerchief too. Pierre was kissed, and he kissed the beautiful
Helene's hand several times. After a while they were left alone again.

"All this had to be and could not be otherwise," thought Pierre, "so
it is useless to ask whether it is good or bad. It is good because
it's definite and one is rid of the old tormenting doubt." Pierre held
the hand of his betrothed in silence, looking at her beautiful bosom
as it rose and fell.

"Helene!" he said aloud and paused.

"Something special is always said in such cases," he thought, but
could not remember what it was that people say. He looked at her face.
She drew nearer to him. Her face flushed.

"Oh, take those off... those..." she said, pointing to his
spectacles.

Pierre took them off, and his eyes, besides the strange look eyes
have from which spectacles have just been removed, had also a
frightened and inquiring look. He was about to stoop over her hand and
kiss it, but with a rapid, almost brutal movement of her head, she
intercepted his lips and met them with her own. Her face struck
Pierre, by its altered, unpleasantly excited expression.

"It is too late now, it's done; besides I love her," thought Pierre.

"Je vous aime!"* he said, remembering what has to be said at such
moments: but his words sounded so weak that he felt ashamed of
himself.


*"I love you."


Six weeks later he was married, and settled in Count Bezukhov's
large, newly furnished Petersburg house, the happy possessor, as
people said, of a wife who was a celebrated beauty and of millions
of money.


CHAPTER III


Old Prince Nicholas Bolkonski received a letter from Prince Vasili
in November, 1805, announcing that he and his son would be paying
him a visit. "I am starting on a journey of inspection, and of
course I shall think nothing of an extra seventy miles to come and see
you at the same time, my honored benefactor," wrote Prince Vasili. "My
son Anatole is accompanying me on his way to the army, so I hope you
will allow him personally to express the deep respect that,
emulating his father, he feels for you."

"It seems that there will be no need to bring Mary out, suitors
are coming to us of their own accord," incautiously remarked the
little princess on hearing the news.

Prince Nicholas frowned, but said nothing.

A fortnight after the letter Prince Vasili's servants came one
evening in advance of him, and he and his son arrived next day.

Old Bolkonski had always had a poor opinion of Prince Vasili's
character, but more so recently, since in the new reigns of Paul and
Alexander Prince Vasili had risen to high position and honors. And
now, from the hints contained in his letter and given by the little
princess, he saw which way the wind was blowing, and his low opinion
changed into a feeling of contemptuous ill will. He snorted whenever
he mentioned him. On the day of Prince Vasili's arrival, Prince
Bolkonski was particularly discontented and out of temper. Whether
he was in a bad temper because Prince Vasili was coming, or whether
his being in a bad temper made him specially annoyed at Prince
Vasili's visit, he was in a bad temper, and in the morning Tikhon
had already advised the architect not to go the prince with his
report.

"Do you hear how he's walking?" said Tikhon, drawing the architect's
attention to the sound of the prince's footsteps. "Stepping flat on
his heels- we know what that means...."

However, at nine o'clock the prince, in his velvet coat with a sable
collar and cap, went out for his usual walk. It had snowed the day
before and the path to the hothouse, along which the prince was in the
habit of walking, had been swept: the marks of the broom were still
visible in the snow and a shovel had been left sticking in one of
the soft snowbanks that bordered both sides of the path. The prince
went through the conservatories, the serfs' quarters, and the
outbuildings, frowning and silent.

"Can a sleigh pass?" he asked his overseer, a venerable man,
resembling his master in manners and looks, who was accompanying him
back to the house.

"The snow is deep. I am having the avenue swept, your honor."

The prince bowed his head and went up to the porch. "God be
thanked," thought the overseer, "the storm has blown over!"

"It would have been hard to drive up, your honor," he added. "I
heard, your honor, that a minister is coming to visit your honor."

The prince turned round to the overseer and fixed his eyes on him,
frowning.

"What? A minister? What minister? Who gave orders?" he said in his
shrill, harsh voice. "The road is not swept for the princess my
daughter, but for a minister! For me, there are no ministers!"

"Your honor, I thought..."

"You thought!" shouted the prince, his words coming more and more
rapidly and indistinctly. "You thought!... Rascals! Blackgaurds!...
I'll teach you to think!" and lifting his stick he swung it and
would have hit Alpatych, the overseer, had not the latter
instinctively avoided the blow. "Thought... Blackguards..." shouted
the prince rapidly.

But although Alpatych, frightened at his own temerity in avoiding
the stroke, came up to the prince, bowing his bald head resignedly
before him, or perhaps for that very reason, the prince, though he
continued to shout: "Blackgaurds!... Throw the snow back on the road!"
did not lift his stick again but hurried into the house.

Before dinner, Princess Mary and Mademoiselle Bourienne, who knew
that the prince was in a bad humor, stood awaiting him; Mademoiselle
Bourienne with a radiant face that said: "I know nothing, I am the
same as usual," and Princess Mary pale, frightened, and with
downcast eyes. What she found hardest to bear was to know that on such
occasions she ought to behave like Mademoiselle Bourienne, but could
not. She thought: "If I seem not to notice he will think that I do not
sympathize with him; if I seem sad and out of spirits myself, he
will say (as he has done before) that I'm in the dumps."

The prince looked at his daughter's frightened face and snorted.

"Fool... or dummy!" he muttered.

"And the other one is not here. They've been telling tales," he
thought- referring to the little princess who was not in the dining
room.

"Where is the princess?" he asked. "Hiding?"

"She is not very well," answered Mademoiselle Bourienne with a
bright smile, "so she won't come down. It is natural in her state."

"Hm! Hm!" muttered the prince, sitting down.

His plate seemed to him not quite clean, and pointing to a spot he
flung it away. Tikhon caught it and handed it to a footman. The little
princess was not unwell, but had such an overpowering fear of the
prince that, hearing he was in a bad humor, she had decided not to
appear.

"I am afraid for the baby," she said to Mademoiselle Bourienne:
"Heaven knows what a fright might do."

In general at Bald Hills the little princess lived in constant fear,
and with a sense of antipathy to the old prince which she did not
realize because the fear was so much the stronger feeling. The
prince reciprocated this antipathy, but it was overpowered by his
contempt for her. When the little princess had grown accustomed to
life at Bald Hills, she took a special fancy to Mademoiselle
Bourienne, spent whole days with her, asked her to sleep in her
room, and often talked with her about the old prince and criticized
him.

"So we are to have visitors, mon prince?" remarked Mademoiselle
Bourienne, unfolding her white napkin with her rosy fingers. "His
Excellency Prince Vasili Kuragin and his son, I understand?" she
said inquiringly.

"Hm!- his excellency is a puppy.... I got him his appointment in the
service," said the prince disdainfully. "Why his son is coming I don't
understand. Perhaps Princess Elizabeth and Princess Mary know. I don't
want him." (He looked at his blushing daughter.) "Are you unwell
today? Eh? Afraid of the 'minister' as that idiot Alpatych called
him this morning?"

"No, mon pere."

Though Mademoiselle Bourienne had been so unsuccessful in her choice
of a subject, she did not stop talking, but chattered about the
conservatories and the beauty of a flower that had just opened, and
after the soup the prince became more genial.

After dinner, he went to see his daughter-in-law. The little
princess was sitting at a small table, chattering with Masha, her
maid. She grew pale on seeing her father-in-law.

She was much altered. She was now plain rather than pretty. Her
cheeks had sunk, her lip was drawn up, and her eyes drawn down.

"Yes, I feel a kind of oppression," she said in reply to the
prince's question as to how she felt.

"Do you want anything?"

"No, merci, mon pere."

"Well, all right, all right."

He left the room and went to the waiting room where Alpatych stood
with bowed head.

"Has the snow been shoveled back?"

"Yes, your excellency. Forgive me for heaven's sake... It was only
my stupidity."

"All right, all right," interrupted the prince, and laughing his
unnatural way, he stretched out his hand for Alpatych to kiss, and
then proceeded to his study.

Prince Vasili arrived that evening. He was met in the avenue by
coachmen and footmen, who, with loud shouts, dragged his sleighs up to
one of the lodges over the road purposely laden with snow.

Prince Vasili and Anatole had separate rooms assigned to them.

Anatole, having taken off his overcoat, sat with arms akimbo
before a table on a corner of which he smilingly and absent-mindedly
fixed his large and handsome eyes. He regarded his whole life as a
continual round of amusement which someone for some reason had to
provide for him. And he looked on this visit to a churlish old man and
a rich and ugly heiress in the same way. All this might, he thought,
turn out very well and amusingly. "And why not marry her if she really
has so much money? That never does any harm," thought Anatole.

He shaved and scented himself with the care and elegance which had
become habitual to him and, his handsome head held high, entered his
father's room with the good-humored and victorious air natural to him.
Prince Vasili's two valets were busy dressing him, and he looked round
with much animation and cheerfully nodded to his son as the latter
entered, as if to say: "Yes, that's how I want you to look."

"I say, Father, joking apart, is she very hideous?" Anatole asked,
as if continuing a conversation the subject of which had often been
mentioned during the journey.

"Enough! What nonsense! Above all, try to be respectful and cautious
with the old prince."

"If he starts a row I'll go away," said Prince Anatole. "I can't
bear those old men! Eh?"

"Remember, for you everything depends on this."

In the meantime, not only was it known in the maidservants' rooms
that the minister and his son had arrived, but the appearance of
both had been minutely described. Princess Mary was sitting alone in
her room, vainly trying to master her agitation.

"Why did they write, why did Lise tell me about it? It can never
happen!" she said, looking at herself in the glass. "How shall I enter
the drawing room? Even if I like him I can't now be myself with
him." The mere thought of her father's look filled her with terror.
The little princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne had already received
from Masha, the lady's maid, the necessary report of how handsome
the minister's son was, with his rosy cheeks and dark eyebrows, and
with what difficulty the father had dragged his legs upstairs while
the son had followed him like an eagle, three steps at a time.
Having received this information, the little princess and Mademoiselle
Bourienne, whose chattering voices had reached her from the
corridor, went into Princess Mary's room.

"You know they've come, Marie?" said the little princess, waddling
in, and sinking heavily into an armchair.

She was no longer in the loose gown she generally wore in the
morning, but had on one of her best dresses. Her hair was carefully
done and her face was animated, which, however, did not conceal its
sunken and faded outlines. Dressed as she used to be in Petersburg
society, it was still more noticeable how much plainer she had become.
Some unobtrusive touch had been added to Mademoiselle Bourienne's
toilet which rendered her fresh and prettyface yet more attractive.

"What! Are you going to remain as you are, dear princess?" she
began. "They'll be announcing that the gentlemen are in the drawing
room and we shall have to go down, and you have not smartened yourself
up at all!"

The little princess got up, rang for the maid, and hurriedly and
merrily began to devise and carry out a plan of how Princess Mary
should be dressed. Princess Mary's self-esteem was wounded by the fact
that the arrival of a suitor agitated her, and still more so by both
her companions' not having the least conception that it could be
otherwise. To tell them that she felt ashamed for herself and for them
would be to betray her agitation, while to decline their offers to
dress her would prolong their banter and insistence. She flushed,
her beautiful eyes grew dim, red blotches came on her face, and it
took on the unattractive martyrlike expression it so often wore, as
she submitted herself to Mademoiselle Bourienne and Lise. Both these
women quite sincerely tried to make her look pretty. She was so
plain that neither of them could think of her as a rival, so they
began dressing her with perfect sincerity, and with the naive and firm
conviction women have that dress can make a face pretty.

"No really, my dear, this dress is not pretty," said Lise, looking
sideways at Princess Mary from a little distance. "You have a maroon
dress, have it fetched. Really! You know the fate of your whole life
may be at stake. But this one is too light, it's not becoming!"

It was not the dress, but the face and whole figure of Princess Mary
that was not pretty, but neither Mademoiselle Bourienne nor the little
princess felt this; they still thought that if a blue ribbon were
placed in the hair, the hair combed up, and the blue scarf arranged
lower on the best maroon dress, and so on, all would be well. They
forgot that the frightened face and the figure could not be altered,
and that however they might change the setting and adornment of that
face, it would still remain piteous and plain. After two or three
changes to which Princess Mary meekly submitted, just as her hair
had been arranged on the top of her head (a style that quite altered
and spoiled her looks) and she had put on a maroon dress with a
pale-blue scarf, the little princess walked twice round her, now
adjusting a fold of the dress with her little hand, now arranging
the scarf and looking at her with her head bent first on one side
and then on the other.

"No, it will not do," she said decidedly, clasping her hands. "No,
Mary, really this dress does not suit you. I prefer you in your little
gray everyday dress. Now please, do it for my sake. Katie," she said
to the maid, "bring the princess her gray dress, and you'll see,
Mademoiselle Bourienne, how I shall arrange it," she added, smiling
with a foretaste of artistic pleasure.

But when Katie brought the required dress, Princess Mary remained
sitting motionless before the glass, looking at her face, and saw in
the mirror her eyes full of tears and her mouth quivering, ready to
burst into sobs.

"Come, dear princess," said Mademoiselle Bourienne, "just one more
little effort."

The little princess, taking the dress from the maid, came up to
Princess Mary.

"Well, now we'll arrange something quite simple and becoming," she
said.

The three voices, hers, Mademoiselle Bourienne's, and Katie's, who
was laughing at something, mingled in a merry sound, like the chirping
of birds.

"No, leave me alone," said Princess Mary.

Her voice sounded so serious and so sad that the chirping of the
birds was silenced at once. They looked at the beautiful, large,
thoughtful eyes full of tears and of thoughts, gazing shiningly and
imploringly at them, and understood that it was useless and even cruel
to insist.

"At least, change your coiffure," said the little princess.
"Didn't I tell you," she went on, turning reproachfully to
Mademoiselle Bourienne, "Mary's is a face which such a coiffure does
not suit in the least. Not in the least! Please change it."

"Leave me alone, please leave me alone! It is all quite the same
to me," answered a voice struggling with tears.

Mademoiselle Bourienne and the little princess had to own to
themselves that Princess Mary in this guise looked very plain, worse
than usual, but it was too late. She was looking at them with an
expression they both knew, an expression thoughtful and sad. This
expression in Princess Mary did not frighten them (she never
inspired fear in anyone), but they knew that when it appeared on her
face, she became mute and was not to be shaken in her determination.

"You will change it, won't you?" said Lise. And as Princess Mary
gave no answer, she left the room.

Princess Mary was left alone. She did not comply with Lise's
request, she not only left her hair as it was, but did not even look
in her glass. Letting her arms fall helplessly, she sat with
downcast eyes and pondered. A husband, a man, a strong dominant and
strangely attractive being rose in her imagination, and carried her
into a totally different happy world of his own. She fancied a
child, her own- such as she had seen the day before in the arms of her
nurse's daughter- at her own breast, the husband standing by and
gazing tenderly at her and the child. "But no, it is impossible, I
am too ugly," she thought.

"Please come to tea. The prince will be out in a moment," came the
maid's voice at the door.

She roused herself, and felt appalled at what she had been thinking,
and before going down she went into the room where the icons hung and,
her eyes fixed on the dark face of a large icon of the Saviour lit
by a lamp, she stood before it with folded hands for a few moments.
A painful doubt filled her soul. Could the joy of love, of earthly
love for a man, be for her? In her thoughts of marriage Princess
Mary dreamed of happiness and of children, but her strongest, most
deeply hidden longing was for earthly love. The more she tried to hide
this feeling from others and even from herself, the stronger it
grew. "O God," she said, "how am I to stifle in my heart these
temptations of the devil? How am I to renounce forever these vile
fancies, so as peacefully to fulfill Thy will?" And scarcely had she
put that question than God gave her the answer in her own heart.
"Desire nothing for thyself, seek nothing, be not anxious or
envious. Man's future and thy own fate must remain hidden from thee,
but live so that thou mayest be ready for anything. If it be God's
will to prove thee in the duties of marriage, be ready to fulfill
His will." With this consoling thought (but yet with a hope for the
fulfillment of her forbidden earthly longing) Princess Mary sighed,
and having crossed herself went down, thinking neither of her gown and
coiffure nor of how she would go in nor of what she would say. What
could all that matter in comparison with the will of God, without
Whose care not a hair of man's head can fall?


CHAPTER IV


When Princess Mary came down, Prince Vasili and his son were already
in the drawing room, talking to the little princess and Mademoiselle
Bourienne. When she entered with her heavy step, treading on her
heels, the gentlemen and Mademoiselle Bourienne rose and the little
princess, indicating her to the gentlemen, said: "Voila Marie!"
Princess Mary saw them all and saw them in detail. She saw Prince
Vasili's face, serious for an instant at the sight of her, but
immediately smiling again, and the little princess curiously noting
the impression "Marie" produced on the visitors. And she saw
Mademoiselle Bourienne, with her ribbon and pretty face, and her
unusually animated look which was fixed on him, but him she could
not see, she only saw something large, brilliant, and handsome
moving toward her as she entered the room. Prince Vasili approached
first, and she kissed the bold forehead that bent over her hand and
answered his question by saying that, on the contrary, she
remembered him quite well. Then Anatole came up to her. She still
could not see him. She only felt a soft hand taking hers firmly, and
she touched with her lips a white forehead, over which was beautiful
light-brown hair smelling of pomade. When she looked up at him she was
struck by his beauty. Anatole stood with his right thumb under a
button of his uniform, his chest expanded and his back drawn in,
slightly swinging one foot, and, with his head a little bent, looked
with beaming face at the princess without speaking and evidently not
thinking about her at all. Anatole was not quick-witted, nor ready
or eloquent in conversation, but he had the faculty, so invaluable
in society, of composure and imperturbable self-possession. If a man
lacking in self-confidence remains dumb on a first introduction and
betrays a consciousness of the impropriety of such silence and an
anxiety to find something to say, the effect is bad. But Anatole was
dumb, swung his foot, and smilingly examined the princess' hair. It
was evident that he could be silent in this way for a very long
time. "If anyone finds this silence inconvenient, let him talk, but
I don't want to"' he seemed to say. Besides this, in his behavior to
women Anatole had a manner which particularly inspires in them
curiosity, awe, and even love- a supercilious consciousness of his own
superiority. It was was as if he said to them: "I know you, I know
you, but why should I bother about you? You'd be only too glad, of
course." Perhaps he did not really think this when he met women-
even probably he did not, for in general he thought very little- but
his looks and manner gave that impression. The princess felt this, and
as if wishing to show him that she did not even dare expect to
interest him, she turned to his father. The conversation was general
and animated, thanks to Princess Lise's voice and little downy lip
that lifted over her white teeth. She met Prince Vasili with that
playful manner often employed by lively chatty people, and
consisting in the assumption that between the person they so address
and themselves there are some semi-private, long-established jokes and
amusing reminiscences, though no such reminiscences really exist- just
as none existed in this case. Prince Vasili readily adopted her tone
and the little princess also drew Anatole, whom she hardly knew,
into these amusing recollections of things that had never occurred.
Mademoiselle Bourienne also shared them and even Princess Mary felt
herself pleasantly made to share in these merry reminiscences.

"Here at least we shall have the benefit of your company all to
ourselves, dear prince," said the little princess (of course, in
French) to Prince Vasili. "It's not as at Annette's* receptions
where you always ran away; you remember cette chere Annette!"


*Anna Pavlovna.


"Ah, but you won't talk politics to me like Annette!"

"And our little tea table?"

"Oh, yes!"

"Why is it you were never at Annette's?" the little princess asked
Anatole. "Ah, I know, I know," she said with a sly glance, "your
brother Hippolyte told me about your goings on. Oh!" and she shook her
finger at him, "I have even heard of your doings in Paris!"

"And didn't Hippolyte tell you?" asked Prince Vasili, turning to his
son and seizing the little princess' arm as if she would have run away
and he had just managed to catch her, "didn't he tell you how he
himself was pining for the dear princess, and how she showed him the
door? Oh, she is a pearl among women, Princess," he added, turning
to Princess Mary.

When Paris was mentioned, Mademoiselle Bourienne for her part seized
the opportunity of joining in the general current of recollections.

She took the liberty of inquiring whether it was long since
Anatole had left Paris and how he had liked that city. Anatole
answered the Frenchwoman very readily and, looking at her with a
smile, talked to her about her native land. When he saw the pretty
little Bourienne, Anatole came to the conclusion that he would not
find Bald Hills dull either. "Not at all bad!" he thought, examining
her, "not at all bad, that little companion! I hope she will bring her
along with her when we're married, la petite est gentille."*


*The little one is charming.


The old prince dressed leisurely in his study, frowning and
considering what he was to do. The coming of these visitors annoyed
him. "What are Prince Vasili and that son of his to me? Prince
Vasili is a shallow braggart and his son, no doubt, is a fine
specimen," he grumbled to himself. What angered him was that the
coming of these visitors revived in his mind an unsettled question
he always tried to stifle, one about which he always deceived himself.
The question was whether he could ever bring himself to part from
his daughter and give her to a husband. The prince never directly
asked himself that question, knowing beforehand that he would have
to answer it justly, and justice clashed not only with his feelings
but with the very possibility of life. Life without Princess Mary,
little as he seemed to value her, was unthinkable to him. "And why
should she marry?" he thought. "To be unhappy for certain. There's
Lise, married to Andrew- a better husband one would think could hardly
be found nowadays- but is she contented with her lot? And who would
marry Marie for love? Plain and awkward! They'll take her for her
connections and wealth. Are there no women living unmarried, and
even the happier for it?" So thought Prince Bolkonski while
dressing, and yet the question he was always putting off demanded an
immediate answer. Prince Vasili had brought his son with the evident
intention of proposing, and today or tomorrow he would probably ask
for an answer. His birth and position in society were not bad.
"Well, I've nothing against it," the prince said to himself, "but he
must be worthy of her. And that is what we shall see."

"That is what we shall see! That is what we shall see!" he added
aloud.

He entered the drawing room with his usual alert step, glancing
rapidly round the company. He noticed the change in the little
princess' dress, Mademoiselle Bourienne's ribbon, Princess Mary's
unbecoming coiffure, Mademoiselle Bourienne's and Anatole's smiles,
and the loneliness of his daughter amid the general conversation. "Got
herself up like a fool!" he thought, looking irritably at her. "She is
shameless, and he ignores her!"

He went straight up to Prince Vasili.

"Well! How d'ye do? How d'ye do? Glad to see you!"

"Friendship laughs at distance," began Prince Vasili in his usual
rapid, self-confident, familiar tone. "Here is my second son; please
love and befriend him."

Prince Bolkonski surveyed Anatole.

"Fine young fellow! Fine young fellow!" he said. "Well, come and
kiss me," and he offered his cheek.

Anatole kissed the old man, and looked at him with curiosity and
perfect composure, waiting for a display of the eccentricities his
father had told him to expect.

Prince Bolkonski sat down in his usual place in the corner of the
sofa and, drawing up an armchair for Prince Vasili, pointed to it
and began questioning him about political affairs and news. He
seemed to listen attentively to what Prince Vasili said, but kept
glancing at Princess Mary.

"And so they are writing from Potsdam already?" he said, repeating
Prince Vasili's last words. Then rising, he suddenly went up to his
daughter.

"Is it for visitors you've got yourself up like that, eh?" said
he. "Fine, very fine! You have done up your hair in this new way for
the visitors, and before the visitors I tell you that in future you
are never to dare to change your way of dress without my consent."

"It was my fault, mon pere," interceded the little princess, with
a blush.

"You must do as you please," said Prince Bolkonski, bowing to his
daughter-in-law, "but she need not make a fool of herself, she's plain
enough as it is."

And he sat down again, paying no more attention to his daughter, who
was reduced to tears.

"On the contrary, that coiffure suits the princess very well,"
said Prince Vasili.

"Now you, young prince, what's your name?" said Prince Bolkonski,
turning to Anatole, "come here, let us talk and get acquainted."

"Now the fun begins," thought Anatole, sitting down with a smile
beside the old prince.

"Well, my dear boy, I hear you've been educated abroad, not taught
to read and write by the deacon, like your father and me. Now tell me,
my dear boy, are you serving in the Horse Guards?" asked the old
man, scrutinizing Anatole closely and intently.

"No, I have been transferred to the line," said Anatole, hardly able
to restrain his laughter.

"Ah! That's a good thing. So, my dear boy, you wish to serve the
Tsar and the country? It is wartime. Such a fine fellow must serve.
Well, are you off to the front?"

"No, Prince, our regiment has gone to the front, but I am
attached... what is it I am attached to, Papa?" said Anatole,
turning to his father with a laugh.

"A splendid soldier, splendid! 'What am I attached to!' Ha, ha, ha!"
laughed Prince Bolkonski, and Anatole laughed still louder. Suddenly
Prince Bolkonski frowned.

"You may go," he said to Anatole.

Anatole returned smiling to the ladies.

"And so you've had him educated abroad, Prince Vasili, haven't you?"
said the old prince to Prince Vasili.

"I have done my best for him, and I can assure you the education
there is much better than ours."

"Yes, everything is different nowadays, everything is changed. The
lad's a fine fellow, a fine fellow! Well, come with me now." He took
Prince Vasili's arm and led him to his study. As soon as they were
alone together, Prince Vasili announced his hopes and wishes to the
old prince.

"Well, do you think I shall prevent her, that I can't part from
her?" said the old prince angrily. "What an idea! I'm ready for it
tomorrow! Only let me tell you, I want to know my son-in-law better.
You know my principles- everything aboveboard? I will ask her tomorrow
in your presence; if she is willing, then he can stay on. He can
stay and I'll see." The old prince snorted. "Let her marry, it's all
the same to me!" he screamed in the same piercing tone as when parting
from his son.

"I will tell you frankly," said Prince Vasili in the tone of a
crafty man convinced of the futility of being cunning with so
keen-sighted companion. "You know, you see right through people.
Anatole is no genius, but he is an honest, goodhearted lad; an
excellent son or kinsman."

"All right, all right, we'll see!"

As always happens when women lead lonely lives for any length of
time without male society, on Anatole's appearance all the three women
of Prince Bolkonski's household felt that their life had not been real
till then. Their powers of reasoning, feeling, and observing
immediately increased tenfold, and their life, which seemed to have
been passed in darkness, was suddenly lit up by a new brightness, full
of significance.

Princess Mary grew quite unconscious of her face and coiffure. The
handsome open face of the man who might perhaps be her husband
absorbed all her attention. He seemed to her kind, brave,
determined, manly, and magnanimous. She felt convinced of that.
Thousands of dreams of a future family life continually rose in her
imagination. She drove them away and tried to conceal them.

"But am I not too cold with him?" thought the princess. "I try to be
reserved because in the depth of my soul I feel too near to him
already, but then he cannot know what I think of him and may imagine
that I do not like him."

And Princess Mary tried, but could not manage, to be cordial to
her new guest. "Poor girl, she's devilish ugly!" thought Anatole.

Mademoiselle Bourienne, also roused to great excitement by Anatole's
arrival, thought in another way. Of course, she, a handsome young
woman without any definite position, without relations or even a
country, did not intend to devote her life to serving Prince
Bolkonski, to reading aloud to him and being friends with Princess
Mary. Mademoiselle Bourienne had long been waiting for a Russian
prince who, able to appreciate at a glance her superiority to the
plain, badly dressed, ungainly Russian princesses, would fall in
love with her and carry her off; and here at last was a Russian
prince. Mademoiselle Bourienne knew a story, heard from her aunt but
finished in her own way, which she liked to repeat to herself. It
was the story of a girl who had been seduced, and to whom her poor
mother (sa pauvre mere) appeared, and reproached her for yielding to a
man without being married. Mademoiselle Bourienne was often touched to
tears as in imagination she told this story to him, her seducer. And
now he, a real Russian prince, had appeared. He would carry her away
and then sa pauvre mere would appear and he would marry her. So her
future shaped itself in Mademoiselle Bourienne's head at the very time
she was talking to Anatole about Paris. It was not calculation that
guided her (she did not even for a moment consider what she should
do), but all this had long been familiar to her, and now that
Anatole had appeared it just grouped itself around him and she
wished and tried to please him as much as possible.

The little princess, like an old war horse that hears the trumpet,
unconsciously and quite forgetting her condition, prepared for the
familiar gallop of coquetry, without any ulterior motive or any
struggle, but with naive and lighthearted gaiety.

Although in female society Anatole usually assumed the role of a man
tired of being run after by women, his vanity was flattered by the
spectacle of his power over these three women. Besides that, he was
beginning to feel for the pretty and provocative Mademoiselle
Bourienne that passionate animal feeling which was apt to master him
with great suddenness and prompt him to the coarsest and most reckless
actions.

After tea, the company went into the sitting room and Princess
Mary was asked to play on the clavichord. Anatole, laughing and in
high spirits, came and leaned on his elbows, facing her and beside
Mademoiselle Bourienne. Princess Mary felt his look with a painfully
joyous emotion. Her favorite sonata bore her into a most intimately
poetic world and the look she felt upon her made that world still more
poetic. But Anatole's expression, though his eyes were fixed on her,
referred not to her but to the movements of Mademoiselle Bourienne's
little foot, which he was then touching with his own under the
clavichord. Mademoiselle Bourienne was also looking at Princess
Mary, and in her lovely eyes there was a look of fearful joy and
hope that was also new to the princess.

"How she loves me!" thought Princess Mary. "How happy I am now,
and how happy I may be with such a friend and such a husband! Husband?
Can it be possible?" she thought, not daring to look at his face,
but still feeling his eyes gazing at her.

In the evening, after supper, when all were about to retire, Anatole
kissed Princess Mary's hand. She did not know how she found the
courage, but she looked straight into his handsome face as it came
near to her shortsighted eyes. Turning from Princess Mary he went up
and kissed Mademoiselle Bourienne's hand. (This was not etiquette, but
then he did everything so simply and with such assurance!)
Mademoiselle Bourienne flushed, and gave the princess a frightened
look.

"What delicacy! " thought the princess. "Is it possible that Amelie"
(Mademoiselle Bourienne) "thinks I could be jealous of her, and not
value her pure affection and devotion to me?" She went up to her and
kissed her warmly. Anatole went up to kiss the little princess' hand.

"No! No! No! When your father writes to tell me that you are
behaving well I will give you my hand to kiss. Not till then!" she
said. And smilingly raising a finger at him, she left the room.


CHAPTER V


They all separated, but, except Anatole who fell asleep as soon as
he got into bed, all kept awake a long time that night.

"Is he really to be my husband, this stranger who is so kind- yes,
kind, that is the chief thing," thought Princess Mary; and fear, which
she had seldom experienced, came upon her. She feared to look round,
it seemed to her that someone was there standing behind the screen
in the dark corner. And this someone was he- the devil- and he was
also this man with the white forehead, black eyebrows, and red lips.

She rang for her maid and asked her to sleep in her room.

Mademoiselle Bourienne walked up and down the conservatory for a
long time that evening, vainly expecting someone, now smiling at
someone, now working herself up to tears with the imaginary words of
her pauvre mere rebuking her for her fall.

The little princess grumbled to her maid that her bed was badly
made. She could not lie either on her face or on her side. Every
position was awkward and uncomfortable, and her burden oppressed her
now more than ever because Anatole's presence had vividly recalled
to her the time when she was not like that and when everything was
light and gay. She sat in an armchair in her dressing jacket and
nightcap and Katie, sleepy and disheveled, beat and turned the heavy
feather bed for the third time, muttering to herself.

"I told you it was all lumps and holes!" the little princess
repeated. "I should be glad enough to fall asleep, so it's not my
fault!" and her voice quivered like that of a child about to cry.

The old prince did not sleep either. Tikhon, half asleep, heard
him pacing angrily about and snorting. The old prince felt as though
he had been insulted through his daughter. The insult was the more
pointed because it concerned not himself but another, his daughter,
whom he loved more than himself. He kept telling himself that he would
consider the whole matter and decide what was right and how he
should act, but instead of that he only excited himself more and more.

"The first man that turns up- she forgets her father and
everything else, runs upstairs and does up her hair and wags her
tail and is unlike herself! Glad to throw her father over! And she
knew I should notice it. Fr... fr... fr! And don't I see that that
idiot had eyes only for Bourienne- I shall have to get rid of her. And
how is it she has not pride enough to see it? If she has no pride
for herself she might at least have some for my sake! She must be
shown that the blockhead thinks nothing of her and looks only at
Bourienne. No, she has no pride... but I'll let her see...."

The old prince knew that if he told his daughter she was making a
mistake and that Anatole meant to flirt with Mademoiselle Bourienne,
Princess Mary's self-esteem would be wounded and his point (not to
be parted from her) would be gained, so pacifying himself with this
thought, he called Tikhon and began to undress.

"What devil brought them here?" thought he, while Tikhon was putting
the nightshirt over his dried-up old body and gray-haired chest. "I
never invited them. They came to disturb my life- and there is not
much of it left."

"Devil take 'em!" he muttered, while his head was still covered by
the shirt.

Tikhon knew his master's habit of sometimes thinking aloud, and
therefore met with unaltered looks the angrily inquisitive
expression of the face that emerged from the shirt.

"Gone to bed?" asked the prince.

Tikhon, like all good valets, instinctively knew the direction of
his master's thoughts. He guessed that the question referred to Prince
Vasili and his son.

"They have gone to bed and put out their lights, your excellency."

"No good... no good..." said the prince rapidly, and thrusting his
feet into his slippers and his arms into the sleeves of his dressing
gown, he went to the couch on which he slept.

Though no words had passed between Anatole and Mademoiselle
Bourienne, they quite understood one another as to the first part of
their romance, up to the appearance of the pauvre mere; they
understood that they had much to say to one another in private and
so they had been seeking an opportunity since morning to meet one
another alone. When Princess Mary went to her father's room at the
usual hour, Mademoiselle Bourienne and Anatole met in the
conservatory.

Princess Mary went to the door of the study with special
trepidation. It seemed to her that not only did everybody know that
her fate would be decided that day, but that they also knew what she
thought about it. She read this in Tikhon's face and in that of Prince
Vasili's valet, who made her a low bow when she met him in the
corridor carrying hot water.

The old prince was very affectionate and careful in his treatment of
his daughter that morning. Princess Mary well knew this painstaking
expression of her father's. His face wore that expression when his dry
hands clenched with vexation at her not understanding a sum in
arithmetic, when rising from his chair he would walk away from her,
repeating in a low voice the same words several times over.

He came to the point at once, treating her ceremoniously.

"I have had a proposition made me concerning you," he said with an
unnatural smile. "I expect you have guessed that Prince Vasili has not
come and brought his pupil with him" (for some reason Prince Bolkonski
referred to Anatole as a "pupil") "for the sake of my beautiful
eyes. Last night a proposition was made me on your account and, as you
know my principles, I refer it to you."

"How am I to understand you, mon pere?" said the princess, growing
pale and then blushing.

"How understand me!" cried her father angrily. "Prince Vasili
finds you to his taste as a daughter-in-law and makes a proposal to
you on his pupil's behalf. That's how it's to be understood! 'How
understand it'!... And I ask you!"

"I do not know what you think, Father," whispered the princess.

"I? I? What of me? Leave me out of the question. I'm not going to
get married. What about you? That's what I want to know."

The princess saw that her father regarded the matter with
disapproval, but at that moment the thought occurred to her that her
fate would be decided now or never. She lowered her eyes so as not
to see the gaze under which she felt that she could not think, but
would only be able to submit from habit, and she said: "I wish only to
do your will, but if I had to express my own desire..." She had no
time to finish. The old prince interrupted her.

"That's admirable!" he shouted. "He will take you with your dowry
and take Mademoiselle Bourienne into the bargain. She'll be the
wife, while you..."

The prince stopped. He saw the effect these words had produced on
his daughter. She lowered her head and was ready to burst into tears.

"Now then, now then, I'm only joking!" he said. "Remember this,
Princess, I hold to the principle that a maiden has a full right to
choose. I give you freedom. Only remember that your life's happiness
depends on your decision. Never mind me!"

"But I do not know, Father!"

"There's no need to talk! He receives his orders and will marry
you or anybody; but you are free to choose.... Go to your room,
think it over, and come back in an hour and tell me in his presence:
yes or no. I know you will pray over it. Well, pray if you like, but
you had better think it over. Go! Yes or no, yes or no, yes or no!" he
still shouted when the princess, as if lost in a fog, had already
staggered out of the study.

Her fate was decided and happily decided. But what her father had
said about Mademoiselle Bourienne was dreadful. It was untrue to be
sure, but still it was terrible, and she could not help thinking of
it. She was going straight on through the conservatory, neither seeing
nor hearing anything, when suddenly the well-known whispering of
Mademoiselle Bourienne aroused her. She raised her eyes, and two steps
away saw Anatole embracing the Frenchwoman and whispering something to
her. With a horrified expression on his handsome face, Anatole
looked at Princess Mary, but did not at once take his arm from the
waist of Mademoiselle Bourienne who had not yet seen her.

"Who's that? Why? Wait a moment!" Anatole's face seemed to say.
Princess Mary looked at them in silence. She could not understand
it. At last Mademoiselle Bourienne gave a scream and ran away. Anatole
bowed to Princess Mary with a gay smile, as if inviting her to join in
a laugh at this strange incident, and then shrugging his shoulders
went to the door that led to his own apartments.

An hour later, Tikhon came to call Princess Mary to the old
prince; he added that Prince Vasili was also there. When Tikhon came
to her Princess Mary was sitting on the sofa in her room, holding
the weeping Mademoiselle Bourienne in her arms and gently stroking her
hair. The princess' beautiful eyes with all their former calm radiance
were looking with tender affection and pity at Mademoiselle
Bourienne's pretty face.

"No, Princess, I have lost your affection forever!" said
Mademoiselle Bourienne.

"Why? I love you more than ever," said Princess Mary, "and I will
try to do all I can for your happiness."

"But you despise me. You who are so pure can never understand
being so carried away by passion. Oh, only my poor mother..."

"I quite understand," answered Princess Mary, with a sad smile.
"Calm yourself, my dear. I will go to my father," she said, and went
out.

Prince Vasili, with one leg thrown high over the other and a
snuffbox in his hand, was sitting there with a smile of deep emotion
on his face, as if stirred to his heart's core and himself
regretting and laughing at his own sensibility, when Princess Mary
entered. He hurriedly took a pinch of snuff.

"Ah, my dear, my dear!" he began, rising and taking her by both
hands. Then, sighing, he added: "My son's fate is in your hands.
Decide, my dear, good, gentle Marie, whom I have always loved as a
daughter!"

He drew back and a real tear appeared in his eye.

"Fr... fr..." snorted Prince Bolkonski. "The prince is making a
proposition to you in his pupil's- I mean, his son's- name. Do you
wish or not to be Prince Anatole Kuragin's wife? Reply: yes or no," he
shouted, "and then I shall reserve the right to state my opinion also.
Yes, my opinion, and only my opinion," added Prince Bolkonski, turning
to Prince Vasili and answering his imploring look. "Yes, or no?"

"My desire is never to leave you, Father, never to separate my
life from yours. I don't wish to marry," she answered positively,
glancing at Prince Vasili and at her father with her beautiful eyes.

"Humbug! Nonsense! Humbug, humbug, humbug!" cried Prince
Bolkonski, frowning and taking his daughter's hand; he did not kiss
her, but only bending his forehead to hers just touched it, and
pressed her hand so that she winced and uttered a cry.

Prince Vasili rose.

"My dear, I must tell you that this is a moment I shall never, never
forget. But, my dear, will you not give us a little hope of touching
this heart, so kind and generous? Say 'perhaps'... The future is so
long. Say 'perhaps.'"

"Prince, what I have said is all there is in my heart. I thank you
for the honor, but I shall never be your son's wife."

"Well, so that's finished, my dear fellow! I am very glad to have
seen you. Very glad! Go back to your rooms, Princess. Go!" said the
old prince. "Very, very glad to glad to have seen you," repeated he,
embracing Prince Vasili.

"My vocation is a different one," thought Princess Mary. "My
vocation is to be happy with another kind of happiness, the
happiness of love and self-sacrifice. And cost what it may, I will
arrange poor Amelie's happiness, she loves him so passionately, and so
passionately repents. I will do all I can to arrange the match between
them. If he is not rich I will give her the means; I will ask my
father and Andrew. I shall be so happy when she is his wife. She is so
unfortunate, a stranger, alone, helpless! And, oh God, how
passionately she must love him if she could so far forget herself!
Perhaps I might have done the same!..." thought Princess Mary.


CHAPTER VI


It was long since the Rostovs had news of Nicholas. Not till
midwinter was the count at last handed a letter addressed in his son's
handwriting. On receiving it, he ran on tiptoe to his study in alarm
and haste, trying to escape notice, closed the door, and began to read
the letter.

Anna Mikhaylovna, who always knew everything that passed in the
house, on hearing of the arrival of the letter went softly into the
room and found the count with it in his hand, sobbing and laughing
at the same time.

Anna Mikhaylovna, though her circumstances had improved, was still
living with the Rostovs.

"My dear friend?" said she, in a tone of pathetic inquiry,
prepared to sympathize in any way.

The count sobbed yet more.

"Nikolenka... a letter... wa... a... s... wounded... my darling
boy... the countess... promoted to be an officer... thank God... How
tell the little countess!"

Anna Mikhaylovna sat down beside him, with her own handkerchief
wiped the tears from his eyes and from the letter, then having dried
her own eyes she comforted the count, and decided that at dinner and
till teatime she would prepare the countess, and after tea, with God's
help, would inform her.

At dinner Anna Mikhaylovna talked the whole time about the war
news and about Nikolenka, twice asked when the last letter had been
received from him, though she knew that already, and remarked that
they might very likely be getting a letter from him that day. Each
time that these hints began to make the countess anxious and she
glanced uneasily at the count and at Anna Mikhaylovna, the latter very
adroitly turned the conversation to insignificant matters. Natasha,
who, of the whole family, was the most gifted with a capacity to
feel any shades of intonation, look, and expression, pricked up her
ears from the beginning of the meal and was certain that there was
some secret between her father and Anna Mikhaylovna, that it had
something to do with her brother, and that Anna Mikhaylovna was
preparing them for it. Bold as she was, Natasha, who knew how
sensitive her mother was to anything relating to Nikolenka, did not
venture to ask any questions at dinner, but she was too excited to eat
anything and kept wriggling about on her chair regardless of her
governess' remarks. After dinner, she rushed head long after Anna
Mikhaylovna and, dashing at her, flung herself on her neck as soon
as she overtook her in the sitting room.

"Auntie, darling, do tell me what it is!"

"Nothing, my dear."

"No, dearest, sweet one, honey, I won't give up- I know you know
something."

Anna Mikhaylovna shook her head.

"You are a little slyboots," she said.

"A letter from Nikolenka! I'm sure of it!" exclaimed Natasha,
reading confirmation in Anna Mikhaylovna's face.

"But for God's sake, be careful, you know how it may affect your
mamma."

"I will, I will, only tell me! You won't? Then I will go and tell at
once."

Anna Mikhaylovna, in a few words, told her the contents of the
letter, on condition that she should tell no one.

"No, on my true word of honor," said Natasha,crossing herself, "I
won't tell anyone!" and she ran off at once to Sonya.

"Nikolenka... wounded... a letter," she announced in gleeful
triumph.

"Nicholas!" was all Sonya said, instantly turning white.

Natasha, seeing the impression the of her brother's wound produced
on Sonya, felt for the first time the sorrowful side of the news.

She rushed to Sonya, hugged her, and began to cry.

"A little wound, but he has been made an officer; he is well now, he
wrote himself," said she through her tears.

"There now! It's true that all you women are crybabies," remarked
Petya, pacing the room with large, resolute strides. "Now I'm very
glad, very glad indeed, that my brother has distinguished himself
so. You are all blubberers and understand nothing."

Natasha smiled through her tears.

"You haven't read the letter?" asked Sonya.

"No, but she said that it was all over and that he's now an
officer."

"Thank God!" said Sonya, crossing herself. "But perhaps she deceived
you. Let us go to Mamma."

Petya paced the room in silence for a time.

"If I'd been in Nikolenka's place I would have killed even more of
those Frenchmen," he said. "What nasty brutes they are! I'd have
killed so many that there'd have been a heap of them."

"Hold your tongue, Petya, what a goose you are!"

"I'm not a goose, but they are who cry about trifles," said Petya.

"Do you remember him?" Natasha suddenly asked, after a moment's
silence.

Sonya smiled.

"Do I remember Nicholas?"

"No, Sonya, but do you remember so that you remember him
perfectly, remember everything?" said Natasha, with an expressive
gesture, evidently wishing to give her words a very definite
meaning. "I remember Nikolenka too, I remember him well," she said.
"But I don't remember Boris. I don't remember him a bit."

"What! You don't remember Boris?" asked Sonya in surprise.

"It's not that I don't remember- I know what he is like, but not
as I remember Nikolenka. Him- I just shut my eyes and remember, but
Boris... No!" (She shut her eyes.)"No! there's nothing at all."

"Oh, Natasha!" said Sonya, looking ecstatically and earnestly at her
friend as if she did not consider her worthy to hear what she meant to
say and as if she were saying it to someone else, with whom joking was
out of the question, "I am in love with your brother once for all and,
whatever may happen to him or to me, shall never cease to love him
as long as I live."

Natasha looked at Sonya with wondering and inquisitive eyes, and
said nothing. She felt that Sonya was speaking the truth, that there
was such love as Sonya was speaking of. But Natasha had not yet felt
anything like it. She believed it could be, but did not understand it.

"Shall you write to him?" she asked.

Sonya became thoughtful. The question of how to write to Nicholas,
and whether she ought to write, tormented her. Now that he was already
an officer and a wounded hero, would it be right to remind him of
herself and, as it might seem, of the obligations to her he had
taken on himself?

"I don't know. I think if he writes, I will write too," she said,
blushing.

"And you won't feel ashamed to write to him?"

Sonya smiled.

"No."

"And I should be ashamed to write to Boris. I'm not going to."

"Why should you be ashamed?"

"Well, I don't know. It's awkward and would make me ashamed."

"And I know why she'd be ashamed," said Petya, offended by Natasha's
previous remark. "It's because she was in love with that fat one in
spectacles" (that was how Petya described his namesake, the new
Count Bezukhov) "and now she's in love with that singer" (he meant
Natasha's Italian singing master), "that's why she's ashamed!"

"Petya, you're a stupid!" said Natasha.

"Not more stupid than you, madam," said the nine-year-old Petya,
with the air of an old brigadier.

The countess had been prepared by Anna Mikhaylovna's hints at
dinner. On retiring to her own room, she sat in an armchair, her
eyes fixed on a miniature portrait of her son on the lid of a
snuffbox, while the tears kept coming into her eyes. Anna Mikhaylovna,
with the letter, came on tiptoe to the countess' door and paused.

"Don't come in," she said to the old count who was following her.
"Come later." And she went in, closing the door behind her.

The count put his ear to the keyhole and listened.

At first he heard the sound of indifferent voices, then Anna
Mikhaylovna's voice alone in a long speech, then a cry, then
silence, then both voices together with glad intonations, and then
footsteps. Anna Mikhaylovna opened the door. Her face wore the proud
expression of a surgeon who has just performed a difficult operation
and admits the public to appreciate his skill.

"It is done!" she said to the count, pointing triumphantly to the
countess, who sat holding in one hand the snuffbox with its portrait
and in the other the letter, and pressing them alternately to her
lips.

When she saw the count, she stretched out her arms to him,
embraced his bald head, over which she again looked at the letter
and the portrait, and in order to press them again to her lips, she
slightly pushed away the bald head. Vera, Natasha, Sonya, and Petya
now entered the room, and the reading of the letter began. After a
brief description of the campaign and the two battles in which he
had taken part, and his promotion, Nicholas said that he kissed his
father's and mother's hands asking for their blessing, and that he
kissed Vera, Natasha, and Petya. Besides that, he sent greetings to
Monsieur Schelling, Madame Schoss, and his old nurse, and asked them
to kiss for him "dear Sonya, whom he loved and thought of just the
same as ever." When she heard this Sonya blushed so that tears came
into her eyes and, unable to bear the looks turned upon her, ran
away into the dancing hall, whirled round it at full speed with her
dress puffed out like a balloon, and, flushed and smiling, plumped
down on the floor. The countess was crying.

"Why are you crying, Mamma?" asked Vera. "From all he says one
should be glad and not cry."

This was quite true, but the count, the countess, and Natasha looked
at her reproachfully. "And who is it she takes after?" thought the
countess.

Nicholas' letter was read over hundreds of times, and those who were
considered worthy to hear it had to come to the countess, for she
did not let it out of her hands. The tutors came, and the nurses,
and Dmitri, and several acquaintances, and the countess reread the
letter each time with fresh pleasure and each time discovered in it
fresh proofs of Nikolenka's virtues. How strange, how extraordinary,
how joyful it seemed, that her son, the scarcely perceptible motion of
whose tiny limbs she had felt twenty years ago within her, that son
about whom she used to have quarrels with the too indulgent count,
that son who had first learned to say "pear" and then "granny," that
this son should now be away in a foreign land amid strange
surroundings, a manly warrior doing some kind of man's work of his
own, without help or guidance. The universal experience of ages,
showing that children do grow imperceptibly from the cradle to
manhood, did not exist for the countess. Her son's growth toward
manhood, at each of its stages, had seemed as extraordinary to her
as if there had never existed the millions of human beings who grew up
in the same way. As twenty years before, it seemed impossible that the
little creature who lived somewhere under her heart would ever cry,
suck her breast, and begin to speak, so now she could not believe that
that little creature could be this strong, brave man, this model son
and officer that, judging by this letter, he now was.

"What a style! How charmingly he describes!" said she, reading the
descriptive part of the letter. "And what a soul! Not a word about
himself.... Not a word! About some Denisov or other, though he
himself, I dare say, is braver than any of them. He says nothing about
his sufferings. What a heart! How like him it is! And how he has
remembered everybody! Not forgetting anyone. I always said when he was
only so high- I always said...."

For more than a week preparations were being made, rough drafts of
letters to Nicholas from all the household were written and copied
out, while under the supervision of the countess and the solicitude of
the count, money and all things necessary for the uniform and
equipment of the newly commissioned officer were collected. Anna
Mikhaylovna, practical woman that she was, had even managed by favor
with army authorities to secure advantageous means of communication
for herself and her son. She had opportunities of sending her
letters to the Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich, who commanded the
Guards. The Rostovs supposed that The Russian Guards, Abroad, was
quite a definite address, and that if a letter reached the Grand
Duke in command of the Guards there was no reason why it should not
reach the Pavlograd regiment, which was presumably somewhere in the
same neighborhood. And so it was decided to send the letters and money
by the Grand Duke's courier to Boris and Boris was to forward them
to Nicholas. The letters were from the old count, the countess, Petya,
Vera, Natasha, and Sonya, and finally there were six thousand rubles
for his outfit and various other things the old count sent to his son.


CHAPTER VII


On the twelfth of November, Kutuzov's active army, in camp before
Olmutz, was preparing to be reviewed next day by the two Emperors- the
Russian and the Austrian. The Guards, just arrived from Russia,
spent the night ten miles from Olmutz and next morning were to come
straight to the review, reaching the field at Olmutz by ten o'clock.

That day Nicholas Rostov received a letter from Boris, telling him
that the Ismaylov regiment was quartered for the night ten miles
from Olmutz and that he wanted to see him as he had a letter and money
for him. Rostov was particularly in need of money now that the troops,
after their active service, were stationed near Olmutz and the camp
swarmed with well-provisioned sutlers and Austrian Jews offering all
sorts of tempting wares. The Pavlograds held feast after feast,
celebrating awards they had received for the campaign, and made
expeditions to Olmutz to visit a certain Caroline the Hungarian, who
had recently opened a restaurant there with girls as waitresses.
Rostov, who had just celebrated his promotion to a cornetcy and bought
Denisov's horse, Bedouin, was in debt all round, to his comrades and
the sutlers. On receiving Boris' letter he rode with a fellow
officer to Olmutz, dined there, drank a bottle of wine, and then set
off alone to the Guards' camp to find his old playmate. Rostov had not
yet had time to get his uniform. He had on a shabby cadet jacket,
decorated with a soldier's cross, equally shabby cadet's riding
breeches lined with worn leather, and an officer's saber with a
sword knot. The Don horse he was riding was one he had bought from a
Cossack during the campaign, and he wore a crumpled hussar cap stuck
jauntily back on one side of his head. As he rode up to the camp he
thought how he would impress Boris and all his comrades of the
Guards by his appearance- that of a fighting hussar who had been under
fire.

The Guards had made their whole march as if on a pleasure trip,
parading their cleanliness and discipline. They had come by easy
stages, their knapsacks conveyed on carts, and the Austrian
authorities had provided excellent dinners for the officers at every
halting place. The regiments had entered and left the town with
their bands playing, and by the Grand Duke's orders the men had
marched all the way in step (a practice on which the Guards prided
themselves), the officers on foot and at their proper posts. Boris had
been quartered, and had marched all the way, with Berg who was already
in command of a company. Berg, who had obtained his captaincy during
the campaign, had gained the confidence of his superiors by his
promptitude and accuracy and had arranged his money matters very
satisfactorily. Boris, during the campaign, had made the
acquaintance of many persons who might prove useful to him, and by a
letter of recommendation he had brought from Pierre had become
acquainted with Prince Andrew Bolkonski, through whom he hoped to
obtain a post on the commander in chief's staff. Berg and Boris,
having rested after yesterday's march, were sitting, clean and
neatly dressed, at a round table in the clean quarters allotted to
them, playing chess. Berg held a smoking pipe between his knees.
Boris, in the accurate way characteristic of him, was building a
little pyramid of chessmen with his delicate white fingers while
awaiting Berg's move, and watched his opponent's face, evidently
thinking about the game as he always thought only of whatever he was
engaged on.

"Well, how are you going to get out of that?" he remarked.

"We'll try to," replied Berg, touching a pawn and then removing
his hand.

At that moment the door opened.

"Here he is at last!" shouted Rostov. "And Berg too! Oh, you
petisenfans, allay cushay dormir!" he exclaimed, imitating his Russian
nurse's French, at which he and Boris used to laugh long ago.

"Dear me, how you have changed!"

Boris rose to meet Rostov, but in doing so did not omit to steady
and replace some chessmen that were falling. He was about to embrace
his friend, but Nicholas avoided him. With that peculiar feeling of
youth, that dread of beaten tracks, and wish to express itself in a
manner different from that of its elders which is often insincere,
Nicholas wished to do something special on meeting his friend. He
wanted to pinch him, push him, do anything but kiss him- a thing
everybody did. But notwithstanding this, Boris embraced him in a
quiet, friendly way and kissed him three times.

They had not met for nearly half a year and, being at the age when
young men take their first steps on life's road, each saw immense
changes in the other, quite a new reflection of the society in which
they had taken those first steps. Both had changed greatly since
they last met and both were in a hurry to show the changes that had
taken place in them.

"Oh, you damned dandies! Clean and fresh as if you'd been to a fete,
not like us sinners of the line," cried Rostov, with martial swagger
and with baritone notes in his voice, new to Boris, pointing to his
own mud-bespattered breeches. The German landlady, hearing Rostov's
loud voice, popped her head in at the door.

"Eh, is she pretty?" he asked with a wink.

"Why do you shout so? You'll frighten them!" said Boris. "I did
not expect you today," he added. "I only sent you the note yesterday
by Bolkonski- an adjutant of Kutuzov's, who's a friend of mine. I
did not think he would get it to you so quickly.... Well, how are you?
Been under fire already?" asked Boris.

Without answering, Rostov shook the soldier's Cross of St. George
fastened to the cording of his uniform and, indicating a bandaged arm,
glanced at Berg with a smile.

"As you see," he said.

"Indeed? Yes, yes!" said Boris, with a smile. "And we too have had a
splendid march. You know, of course, that His Imperial Highness rode
with our regiment all the time, so that we had every comfort and every
advantage. What receptions we had in Poland! What dinners and balls! I
can't tell you. And the Tsarevich was very gracious to all our
officers."

And the two friends told each other of their doings, the one of
his hussar revels and life in the fighting line, the other of the
pleasures and advantages of service under members of the Imperial
family.

"Oh, you Guards!" said Rostov. "I say, send for some wine."

Boris made a grimace.

"If you really want it," said he.

He went to his bed, drew a purse from under the clean pillow, and
sent for wine.

"Yes, and I have some money and a letter to give you," he added.

Rostov took the letter and, throwing the money on the sofa, put both
arms on the table and began to read. After reading a few lines, he
glanced angrily at Berg, then, meeting his eyes, hid his face behind
the letter.

"Well, they've sent you a tidy sum," said Berg, eying the heavy
purse that sank into the sofa. "As for us, Count, we get along on
our pay. I can tell you for myself..."

"I say, Berg, my dear fellow," said Rostov, "when you get a letter
from home and meet one of your own people whom you want to talk
everything over with, and I happen to be there, I'll go at once, to be
out of your way! Do go somewhere, anywhere... to the devil!" he
exclaimed, and immediately seizing him by the shoulder and looking
amiably into his face, evidently wishing to soften the rudeness of his
words, he added, "Don't be hurt, my dear fellow; you know I speak from
my heart as to an old acquaintance."

"Oh, don't mention it, Count! I quite understand," said Berg,
getting up and speaking in a muffled and guttural voice.

"Go across to our hosts: they invited you," added Boris.

Berg put on the cleanest of coats, without a spot or speck of
dust, stood before a looking glass and brushed the hair on his temples
upwards, in the way affected by the Emperor Alexander, and, having
assured himself from the way Rostov looked at it that his coat had
been noticed, left the room with a pleasant smile.

"Oh dear, what a beast I am!" muttered Rostov, as he read the
letter.

"Why?"

"Oh, what a pig I am, not to have written and to have given them
such a fright! Oh, what a pig I am!" he repeated, flushing suddenly.
"Well, have you sent Gabriel for some wine? All right let's have
some!"

In the letter from his parents was enclosed a letter of
recommendation to Bagration which the old countess at Anna
Mikhaylovna's advice had obtained through an acquaintance and sent
to her son, asking him to take it to its destination and make use of
it.

"What nonsense! Much I need it!" said Rostov, throwing the letter
under the table.

"Why have you thrown that away?" asked Boris.

"It is some letter of recommendation... what the devil do I want
it for!"

"Why 'What the devil'?" said Boris, picking it up and reading the
address. "This letter would be of great use to you."

"I want nothing, and I won't be anyone's adjutant."

"Why not?" inquired Boris.

"It's a lackey's job!"

"You are still the same dreamer, I see," remarked Boris, shaking his
head.

"And you're still the same diplomatist! But that's not the
point... Come, how are you?" asked Rostov.

"Well, as you see. So far everything's all right, but I confess I
should much like to be an adjutant and not remain at the front."

"Why?"

"Because when once a man starts on military service, he should try
to make as successful a career of it as possible."

"Oh, that's it!" said Rostov, evidently thinking of something else.

He looked intently and inquiringly into his friend's eyes, evidently
trying in vain to find the answer to some question.

Old Gabriel brought in the wine.

"Shouldn't we now send for Berg?" asked Boris. "He would drink
with you. I can't."

"Well, send for him... and how do you get on with that German?"
asked Rostov, with a contemptuous smile.

"He is a very, very nice, honest, and pleasant fellow," answered
Boris.

Again Rostov looked intently into Boris' eyes and sighed. Berg
returned, and over the bottle of wine conversation between the three
officers became animated. The Guardsmen told Rostov of their march and
how they had been made much of in Russia, Poland, and abroad. They
spoke of the sayings and doings of their commander, the Grand Duke,
and told stories of his kindness and irascibility. Berg, as usual,
kept silent when the subject did not relate to himself, but in
connection with the stories of the Grand Duke's quick temper he
related with gusto how in Galicia he had managed to deal with the
Grand Duke when the latter made a tour of the regiments and was
annoyed at the irregularity of a movement. With a pleasant smile
Berg related how the Grand Duke had ridden up to him in a violent
passion, shouting: "Arnauts!" ("Arnauts" was the Tsarevich's
favorite expression when he was in a rage) and called for the
company commander.

"Would you believe it, Count, I was not at all alarmed, because I
knew I was right. Without boasting, you know, I may say that I know
the Army Orders by heart and know the Regulations as well as I do
the Lord's Prayer. So, Count, there never is any negligence in my
company, and so my conscience was at ease. I came forward...." (Berg
stood up and showed how he presented himself, with his hand to his
cap, and really it would have been difficult for a face to express
greater respect and self-complacency than his did.) "Well, he
stormed at me, as the saying is, stormed and stormed and stormed! It
was not a matter of life but rather of death, as the saying is.
'Albanians!' and 'devils!' and 'To Siberia!'" said Berg with a
sagacious smile. "I knew I was in the right so I kept silent; was
not that best, Count?... 'Hey, are you dumb?' he shouted. Still I
remained silent. And what do you think, Count? The next day it was not
even mentioned in the Orders of the Day. That's what keeping one's
head means. That's the way, Count," said Berg, lighting his pipe and
emitting rings of smoke.

"Yes, that was fine," said Rostov, smiling.

But Boris noticed that he was preparing to make fun of Berg, and
skillfully changed the subject. He asked him to tell them how and
where he got his wound. This pleased Rostov and he began talking about
it, and as he went on became more and more animated. He told them of
his Schon Grabern affair, just as those who have taken part in a
battle generally do describe it, that is, as they would like it to
have been, as they have heard it described by others, and as sounds
well, but not at all as it really was. Rostov was a truthful young man
and would on no account have told a deliberate lie. He began his story
meaning to tell everything just as it happened, but imperceptibly,
involuntarily, and inevitably he lapsed into falsehood. If he had told
the truth to his hearers- who like himself had often heard stories
of attacks and had formed a definite idea of what an attack was and
were expecting to hear just such a story- they would either not have
believed him or, still worse, would have thought that Rostov was
himself to blame since what generally happens to the narrators of
cavalry attacks had not happened to him. He could not tell them simply
that everyone went at a trot and that he fell off his horse and
sprained his arm and then ran as hard as he could from a Frenchman
into the wood. Besides, to tell everything as it really happened, it
would have been necessary to make an effort of will to tell only
what happened. It is very difficult to tell the truth, and young
people are rarely capable of it. His hearers expected a story of how
beside himself and all aflame with excitement, he had flown like a
storm at the square, cut his way in, slashed right and left, how his
saber had tasted flesh and he had fallen exhausted, and so on. And
so he told them all that.

In the middle of his story, just as he was saying: "You cannot
imagine what a strange frenzy one experiences during an attack,"
Prince Andrew, whom Boris was expecting, entered the room. Prince
Andrew, who liked to help young men, was flattered by being asked
for his assistance and being well disposed toward Boris, who had
managed to please him the day before, he wished to do what the young
man wanted. Having been sent with papers from Kutuzov to the
Tsarevich, he looked in on Boris, hoping to find him alone. When he
came in and saw an hussar of the line recounting his military exploits
(Prince Andrew could not endure that sort of man), he gave Boris a
pleasant smile, frowned as with half-closed eyes he looked at
Rostov, bowed slightly and wearily, and sat down languidly on the
sofa: he felt it unpleasant to have dropped in on bad company.
Rostov flushed up on noticing this, but he did not care, this was a
mere stranger. Glancing, however, at Boris, he saw that he too
seemed ashamed of the hussar of the line.

In spite of Prince Andrew's disagreeable, ironical tone, in spite of
the contempt with which Rostov, from his fighting army point of
view, regarded all these little adjutants on the staff of whom the
newcomer was evidently one, Rostov felt confused, blushed, and
became silent. Boris inquired what news there might be on the staff,
and what, without indiscretion, one might ask about our plans.

"We shall probably advance," replied Bolkonski, evidently
reluctant to say more in the presence of a stranger.

Berg took the opportunity to ask, with great politeness, whether, as
was rumored, the allowance of forage money to captains of companies
would be doubled. To this Prince Andrew answered with a smile that
he could give no opinion on such an important government order, and
Berg laughed gaily.

"As to your business," Prince Andrew continued, addressing Boris,
"we will talk of it later" (and he looked round at Rostov). "Come to
me after the review and we will do what is possible."

And, having glanced round the room, Prince Andrew turned to
Rostov, whose state of unconquerable childish embarrassment now
changing to anger he did not condescend to notice, and said: "I
think you were talking of the Schon Grabern affair? Were you there?"

"I was there," said Rostov angrily, as if intending to insult the
aide-de-camp.

Bolkonski noticed the hussar's state of mind, and it amused him.
With a slightly contemptuous smile, he said: "Yes, there are many
stories now told about that affair!"

"Yes, stories!" repeated Rostov loudly, looking with eyes suddenly
grown furious, now at Boris, now at Bolkonski. "Yes, many stories! But
our stories are the stories of men who have been under the enemy's
fire! Our stories have some weight, not like the stories of those
fellows on the staff who get rewards without doing anything!"

"Of whom you imagine me to be one?" said Prince Andrew, with a quiet
and particularly amiable smile.

A strange feeling of exasperation and yet of respect for this
man's self-possession mingled at that moment in Rostov's soul.

"I am not talking about you," he said, "I don't know you and,
frankly, I don't want to. I am speaking of the staff in general."

"And I will tell you this," Prince Andrew interrupted in a tone of
quiet authority, "you wish to insult me, and I am ready to agree
with you that it would be very easy to do so if you haven't sufficient
self-respect, but admit that the time and place are very badly chosen.
In a day or two we shall all have to take part in a greater and more
serious duel, and besides, Drubetskoy, who says he is an old friend of
yours, is not at all to blame that my face has the misfortune to
displease you. However," he added rising, "you know my name and
where to find me, but don't forget that I do not regard either
myself or you as having been at all insulted, and as a man older
than you, my advice is to let the matter drop. Well then, on Friday
after the review I shall expect you, Drubetskoy. Au revoir!" exclaimed
Prince Andrew, and with a bow to them both he went out.

Only when Prince Andrew was gone did Rostov think of what he ought
to have said. And he was still more angry at having omitted to say it.
He ordered his horse at once and, coldly taking leave of Boris, rode
home. Should he go to headquarters next day and challenge that
affected adjutant, or really let the matter drop, was the question
that worried him all the way. He thought angrily of the pleasure he
would have at seeing the fright of that small and frail but proud
man when covered by his pistol, and then he felt with surprise that of
all the men he knew there was none he would so much like to have for a
friend as that very adjutant whom he so hated.


CHAPTER VIII


The day after Rostov had been to see Boris, a review was held of the
Austrian and Russian troops, both those freshly arrived from Russia
and those who had been campaigning under Kutuzov. The two Emperors,
the Russian with his heir the Tsarevich, and the Austrian with the
Archduke, inspected the allied army of eighty thousand men.

From early morning the smart clean troops were on the move,
forming up on the field before the fortress. Now thousands of feet and
bayonets moved and halted at the officers' command, turned with
banners flying, formed up at intervals, and wheeled round other
similar masses of infantry in different uniforms; now was heard the
rhythmic beat of hoofs and the jingling of showy cavalry in blue, red,
and green braided uniforms, with smartly dressed bandsmen in front
mounted on black, roan, or gray horses; then again, spreading out with
the brazen clatter of the polished shining cannon that quivered on the
gun carriages and with the smell of linstocks, came the artillery
which crawled between the infantry and cavalry and took up its
appointed position. Not only the generals in full parade uniforms,
with their thin or thick waists drawn in to the utmost, their red
necks squeezed into their stiff collars, and wearing scarves and all
their decorations, not only the elegant, pomaded officers, but every
soldier with his freshly washed and shaven face and his weapons
clean and polished to the utmost, and every horse groomed till its
coat shone like satin and every hair of its wetted mane lay smooth-
felt that no small matter was happening, but an important and solemn
affair. Every general and every soldier was conscious of his own
insignificance, aware of being but a drop in that ocean of men, and
yet at the same time was conscious of his strength as a part of that
enormous whole.

From early morning strenuous activities and efforts had begun and by
ten o'clock all had been brought into due order. The ranks were
drown up on the vast field. The whole army was extended in three
lines: the cavalry in front, behind it the artillery, and behind
that again the infantry.

A space like a street was left between each two lines of troops. The
three parts of that army were sharply distinguished: Kutuzov's
fighting army (with the Pavlograds on the right flank of the front);
those recently arrived from Russia, both Guards and regiments of the
line; and the Austrian troops. But they all stood in the same lines,
under one command, and in a like order.

Like wind over leaves ran an excited whisper: "They're coming!
They're coming!" Alarmed voices were heard, and a stir of final
preparation swept over all the troops.

From the direction of Olmutz in front of them, a group was seen
approaching. And at that moment, though the day was still, a light
gust of wind blowing over the army slightly stirred the streamers on
the lances and the unfolded standards fluttered against their
staffs. It looked as if by that slight motion the army itself was
expressing its joy at the approach of the Emperors. One voice was
heard shouting: "Eyes front!" Then, like the crowing of cocks at
sunrise, this was repeated by others from various sides and all became
silent.

In the deathlike stillness only the tramp of horses was heard.
This was the Emperors' suites. The Emperors rode up to the flank,
and the trumpets of the first cavalry regiment played the general
march. It seemed as though not the trumpeters were playing, but as
if the army itself, rejoicing at the Emperors' approach, had naturally
burst into music. Amid these sounds, only the youthful kindly voice of
the Emperor Alexander was clearly heard. He gave the words of
greeting, and the first regiment roared "Hurrah!" so deafeningly,
continuously, and joyfully that the men themselves were awed by
their multitude and the immensity of the power they constituted.

Rostov, standing in the front lines of Kutuzov's army which the Tsar
approached first, experienced the same feeling as every other man in
that army: a feeling of self-forgetfulness, a proud consciousness of
might, and a passionate attraction to him who was the cause of this
triumph.

He felt that at a single word from that man all this vast mass
(and he himself an insignificant atom in it) would go through fire and
water, commit crime, die, or perform deeds of highest heroism, and
so he could not but tremble and his heart stand still at the imminence
of that word.

"Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!" thundered from all sides, one regiment
after another greeting the Tsar with the strains of the march, and
then "Hurrah!"... Then the general march, and again "Hurrah!
Hurrah!" growing ever stronger and fuller and merging into a deafening
roar.

Till the Tsar reached it, each regiment in its silence and
immobility seemed like a lifeless body, but as soon as he came up it
became alive, its thunder joining the roar of the whole line along
which he had already passed. Through the terrible and deafening roar
of those voices, amid the square masses of troops standing
motionless as if turned to stone, hundreds of riders composing the
suites moved carelessly but symmetrically and above all freely, and in
front of them two men- the Emperors. Upon them the undivided,
tensely passionate attention of that whole mass of men was
concentrated.

The handsome young Emperor Alexander, in the uniform of the Horse
Guards, wearing a cocked hat with its peaks front and back, with his
pleasant face and resonant though not loud voice, attracted everyone's
attention.

Rostov was not far from the trumpeters, and with his keen sight
had recognized the Tsar and watched his approach. When he was within
twenty paces, and Nicholas could clearly distinguish every detail of
his handsome, happy young face, he experienced a feeling tenderness
and ecstasy such as he had never before known. Every trait and every
movement of the Tsar's seemed to him enchanting.

Stopping in front of the Pavlograds, the Tsar said something in
French to the Austrian Emperor and smiled.

Seeing that smile, Rostov involuntarily smiled himself and felt a
still stronger flow of love for his sovereign. He longed to show
that love in some way and knowing that this was impossible was ready
to cry. The Tsar called the colonel of the regiment and said a few
words to him.

"Oh God, what would happen to me if the Emperor spoke to me?"
thought Rostov. "I should die of happiness!"

The Tsar addressed the officers also: "I thank you all, gentlemen, I
thank you with my whole heart." To Rostov every word sounded like a
voice from heaven. How gladly would he have died at once for his Tsar!

"You have earned the St. George's standards and will be worthy of
them."

"Oh, to die, to die for him " thought Rostov.

The Tsar said something more which Rostov did not hear, and the
soldiers, straining their lungs, shouted "Hurrah!"

Rostov too, bending over his saddle, shouted "Hurrah!" with all
his might, feeling that he would like to injure himself by that shout,
if only to express his rapture fully.

The Tsar stopped a few minutes in front of the hussars as if
undecided.

"How can the Emperor be undecided?" thought Rostov, but then even
this indecision appeared to him majestic and enchanting, like
everything else the Tsar did.

That hesitation lasted only an instant. The Tsar's foot, in the
narrow pointed boot then fashionable, touched the groin of the
bobtailed bay mare he rode, his hand in a white glove gathered up
the reins, and he moved off accompanied by an irregularly swaying
sea of aides-de-camp. Farther and farther he rode away, stopping at
other regiments, till at last only his white plumes were visible to
Rostov from amid the suites that surrounded the Emperors.

Among the gentlemen of the suite, Rostov noticed Bolkonski,
sitting his horse indolently and carelessly. Rostov recalled their
quarrel of yesterday and the question presented itself whether he
ought or ought not to challenge Bolkonski. "Of course not!" he now
thought. "Is it worth thinking or speaking of it at such a moment?
At a time of such love, such rapture, and such self-sacrifice, what do
any of our quarrels and affronts matter? I love and forgive
everybody now."

When the Emperor had passed nearly all the regiments, the troops
began a ceremonial march past him, and Rostov on Bedouin, recently
purchased from Denisov, rode past too, at the rear of his squadron-
that is, alone and in full view of the Emperor.

Before he reached him, Rostov, who was a splendid horseman,
spurred Bedouin twice and successfully put him to the showy trot in
which the animal went when excited. Bending his foaming muzzle to
his chest, his tail extended, Bedouin, as if also conscious of the
Emperor's eye upon him, passed splendidly, lifting his feet with a
high and graceful action, as if flying through the air without
touching the ground.

Rostov himself, his legs well back and his stomach drawn in and
feeling himself one with his horse, rode past the Emperor with a
frowning but blissful face "like a vewy devil," as Denisov expressed
it.

"Fine fellows, the Pavlograds!" remarked the Emperor.

"My God, how happy I should be if he ordered me to leap into the
fire this instant!" thought Rostov.

When the review was over, the newly arrived officers, and also
Kutuzov's, collected in groups and began to talk about the awards,
about the Austrians and their uniforms, about their lines, about
Bonaparte, and how badly the latter would fare now, especially if
the Essen corps arrived and Prussia took our side.

But the talk in every group was chiefly about the Emperor Alexander.
His every word and movement was described with ecstasy.

They all had but one wish: to advance as soon as possible against
the enemy under the Emperor's command. Commanded by the Emperor
himself they could not fail to vanquish anyone, be it whom it might:
so thought Rostov and most of the officers after the review.

All were then more confident of victory than the winning of two
battles would have made them.


CHAPTER IX


The day after the review, Boris, in his best uniform and with his
comrade Berg's best wishes for success, rode to Olmutz to see
Bolkonski, wishing to profit by his friendliness and obtain for
himself the best post he could- preferably that of adjutant to some
important personage, a position in the army which seemed to him most
attractive. "It is all very well for Rostov, whose father sends him
ten thousand rubles at a time, to talk about not wishing to cringe
to anybody and not be anyone's lackey, but I who have nothing but my
brains have to make a career and must not miss opportunities, but must
avail myself of them!" he reflected.

He did not find Prince Andrew in Olmutz that day, but the appearance
of the town where the headquarters and the diplomatic corps were
stationed and the two Emperors were living with their suites,
households, and courts only strengthened his desire to belong to
that higher world.

He knew no one, and despite his smart Guardsman's uniform, all these
exalted personages passing in the streets in their elegant carriages
with their plumes, ribbons, and medals, both courtiers and military
men, seemed so immeasurably above him, an insignificant officer of the
Guards, that they not only did not wish to, but simply could not, be
aware of his existence. At the quarters of the commander in chief,
Kutuzov, where he inquired for Bolkonski, all the adjutants and even
the orderlies looked at him as if they wished to impress on him that a
great many officers like him were always coming there and that
everybody was heartily sick of them. In spite of this, or rather
because of it, next day, November 15, after dinner he again went to
Olmutz and, entering the house occupied by Kutuzov, asked for
Bolkonski. Prince Andrew was in and Boris was shown into a large
hall probably formerly used for dancing, but in which five beds now
stood, and furniture of various kinds: a table, chairs, and a
clavichord. One adjutant, nearest the door, was sitting at the table
in a Persian dressing gown, writing. Another, the red, stout
Nesvitski, lay on a bed with his arms under his head, laughing with an
officer who had sat down beside him. A third was playing a Viennese
waltz on the clavichord, while a fourth, lying on the clavichord, sang
the tune. Bolkonski was not there. None of these gentlemen changed his
position on seeing Boris. The one who was writing and whom Boris
addressed turned round crossly and told him Bolkonski was on duty
and that he should go through the door on the left into the
reception room if he wished to see him. Boris thanked him and went
to the reception room, where he found some ten officers and generals.

When he entered, Prince Andrew, his eyes drooping contemptuously
(with that peculiar expression of polite weariness which plainly says,
"If it were not my duty I would not talk to you for a moment"), was
listening to an old Russian general with decorations, who stood very
erect, almost on tiptoe, with a soldier's obsequious expression on his
purple face, reporting something.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You see, my dear fellow, I have been thinking about you," said
Prince Andrew when they had gone into the large room where the
clavichord was. "It's no use your going to the commander in chief.
He would say a lot of pleasant things, ask you to dinner" ("That would
not be bad as regards the unwritten code," thought Boris), "but
nothing more would come of it. There will soon be a battalion of us
aides-de-camp and adjutants! But this is what we'll do: I have a
good friend, an adjutant general and an excellent fellow, Prince
Dolgorukov; and though you may not know it, the fact is that now
Kutuzov with his staff and all of us count for nothing. Everything
is now centered round the Emperor. So we will go to Dolgorukov; I have
to go there anyhow and I have already spoken to him about you. We
shall see whether he cannot attach you to himself or find a place
for you somewhere nearer the sun."

Prince Andrew always became specially keen when he had to guide a
young man and help him to worldly success. Under cover of obtaining
help of this kind for another, which from pride he would never
accept for himself, he kept in touch with the circle which confers
success and which attracted him. He very readily took up Boris'
cause and went with him to Dolgorukov.

It was late in the evening when they entered the palace at Olmutz
occupied by the Emperors and their retinues.

That same day a council of war had been held in which all the
members of the Hofkriegsrath and both Emperors took part. At that
council, contrary to the views of the old generals Kutuzov and
Prince Schwartzenberg, it had been decided to advance immediately
and give battle to Bonaparte. The council of war was just over when
Prince Andrew accompanied by Boris arrived at the palace to find
Dolgorukov. Everyone at headquarters was still under the spell of
the day's council, at which the party of the young had triumphed.
The voices of those who counseled delay and advised waiting for
something else before advancing had been so completely silenced and
their arguments confuted by such conclusive evidence of the advantages
of attacking that what had been discussed at the council- the coming
battle and the victory that would certainly result from it- no
longer seemed to be in the future but in the past. All the
advantages were on our side. Our enormous forces, undoubtedly superior
to Napoleon's, were concentrated in one place, the troops inspired
by the Emperors' presence were eager for action. The strategic
position where the operations would take place was familiar in all its
details to the Austrian General Weyrother: a lucky accident had
ordained that the Austrian army should maneuver the previous year on
the very fields where the French had now to be fought; the adjacent
locality was known and shown in every detail on the maps, and
Bonaparte, evidently weakened, was undertaking nothing.

Dolgorukov, one of the warmest advocates of an attack, had just
returned from the council, tired and exhausted but eager and proud
of the victory that had been gained. Prince Andrew introduced his
protege, but Prince Dolgorukov politely and firmly pressing his hand
said nothing to Boris and, evidently unable to suppress the thoughts
which were uppermost in his mind at that moment, addressed Prince
Andrew in French.

"Ah, my dear fellow, what a battle we have gained! God grant that
the one that will result from it will be as victorious! However,
dear fellow," he said abruptly and eagerly, "I must confess to
having been unjust to the Austrians and especially to Weyrother.
What exactitude, what minuteness, what knowledge of the locality, what
foresight for every eventuality, every possibility even to the
smallest detail! No, my dear fellow, no conditions better than our
present ones could have been devised. This combination of Austrian
precision with Russian valor- what more could be wished for?"

"So the attack is definitely resolved on?" asked Bolkonski.

"And do you know, my dear fellow, it seems to me that Bonaparte
has decidedly lost bearings, you know that a letter was received
from him today for the Emperor." Dolgorukov smiled significantly.

"Is that so? And what did he say?" inquired Bolkonski.

"What can he say? Tra-di-ri-di-ra and so on... merely to gain
time. I tell you he is in our hands, that's certain! But what was most
amusing," he continued, with a sudden, good-natured laugh, "was that
we could not think how to address the reply! If not as 'Consul' and of
course not as 'Emperor,' it seemed to me it should be to 'General
Bonaparte.'"

"But between not recognizing him as Emperor and calling him
General Bonaparte, there is a difference," remarked Bolkonski.

"That's just it," interrupted Dolgorukov quickly, laughing. "You
know Bilibin- he's a very clever fellow. He suggested addressing him
as 'Usurper and Enemy of Mankind.'"

Dolgorukov laughed merrily.

"Only that?" said Bolkonski.

"All the same, it was Bilibin who found a suitable form for the
address. He is a wise and clever fellow."

"What was it?"

"To the Head of the French Government... Au chef du gouvernement
francais," said Dolgorukov, with grave satisfaction. "Good, wasn't
it?"

"Yes, but he will dislike it extremely," said Bolkonski.

"Oh yes, very much! My brother knows him, he's dined with him- the
present Emperor- more than once in Paris, and tells me he never met
a more cunning or subtle diplomatist- you know, a combination of
French adroitness and Italian play-acting! Do you know the tale
about him and Count Markov? Count Markov was the only man who knew how
to handle him. You know the story of the handkerchief? It is
delightful!"

And the talkative Dolgorukov, turning now to Boris, now to Prince
Andrew, told how Bonaparte wishing to test Markov, our ambassador,
purposely dropped a handkerchief in front of him and stood looking
at Markov, probably expecting Markov to pick it up for him, and how
Markov immediately dropped his own beside it and picked it up
without touching Bonaparte's.

"Delightful!" said Bolkonski. "But I have come to you, Prince, as
a petitioner on behalf of this young man. You see..." but before
Prince Andrew could finish, an aide-de-camp came in to summon
Dolgorukov to the Emperor.

"Oh, what a nuisance," said Dolgorukov, getting up hurriedly and
pressing the hands of Prince Andrew and Boris. "You know I should be
very glad to do all in my power both for you and for this dear young
man." Again he pressed the hand of the latter with an expression of
good-natured, sincere, and animated levity. "But you see... another
time!"

Boris was excited by the thought of being so close to the higher
powers as he felt himself to be at that moment. He was conscious
that here he was in contact with the springs that set in motion the
enormous movements of the mass of which in his regiment he felt
himself a tiny, obedient, and insignificant atom. They followed Prince
Dolgorukov out into the corridor and met- coming out of the door of
the Emperor's room by which Dolgorukov had entered- a short man in
civilian clothes with a clever face and sharply projecting jaw
which, without spoiling his face, gave him a peculiar vivacity and
shiftiness of expression. This short man nodded to Dolgorukov as to an
intimate friend and stared at Prince Andrew with cool intensity,
walking straight toward him and evidently expecting him to bow or to
step out of his way. Prince Andrew did neither: a look of animosity
appeared on his face and the other turned away and went down the
side of the corridor.

"Who was that?" asked Boris.

"He is one of the most remarkable, but to me most unpleasant of men-
the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prince Adam Czartoryski.... It is
such men as he who decide the fate of nations," added Bolkonski with a
sigh he could not suppress, as they passed out of the palace.

Next day, the army began its campaign, and up to the very battle
of Austerlitz, Boris was unable to see either Prince Andrew or
Dolgorukov again and remained for a while with the Ismaylov regiment.


CHAPTER X


At dawn on the sixteenth of November, Denisov's squadron, in which
Nicholas Rostov served and which was in Prince Bagration's detachment,
moved from the place where it had spent the night, advancing into
action as arranged, and after going behind other columns for about two
thirds of a mile was stopped on the highroad. Rostov saw the
Cossacks and then the first and second squadrons of hussars and
infantry battalions and artillery pass by and go forward and then
Generals Bagration and Dolgorukov ride past with their adjutants.
All the fear before action which he had experienced as previously, all
the inner struggle to conquer that fear, all his dreams of
distinguishing himself as a true hussar in this battle, had been
wasted. Their squadron remained in reserve and Nicholas Rostov spent
that day in a dull and wretched mood. At nine in the morning, he heard
firing in front and shouts of hurrah, and saw wounded being brought
back (there were not many of them), and at last he saw how a whole
detachment of French cavalry was brought in, convoyed by a sontnya
of Cossacks. Evidently the affair was over and, though not big, had
been a successful engagement. The men and officers returning spoke
of a brilliant victory, of the occupation of the town of Wischau and
the capture of a whole French squadron. The day was bright and sunny
after a sharp night frost, and the cheerful glitter of that autumn day
was in keeping with the news of victory which was conveyed, not only
by the tales of those who had taken part in it, but also by the joyful
expression on the faces of soldiers, officers, generals, and
adjutants, as they passed Rostov going or coming. And Nicholas, who
had vainly suffered all the dread that precedes a battle and had spent
that happy day in inactivity, was all the more depressed.

"Come here, Wostov. Let's dwink to dwown our gwief!" shouted
Denisov, who had settled down by the roadside with a flask and some
food.

The officers gathered round Denisov's canteen, eating and talking.

"There! They are bringing another!" cried one of the officers,
indicating a captive French dragoon who was being brought in on foot
by two Cossacks.

One of them was leading by the bridle a fine large French horse he
had taken from the prisoner.

"Sell us that horse!" Denisov called out to the Cossacks.

"If you like, your honor!"

The officers got up and stood round the Cossacks and their prisoner.
The French dragoon was a young Alsatian who spoke French with a German
accent. He was breathless with agitation, his face was red, and when
he heard some French spoken he at once began speaking to the officers,
addressing first one, then another. He said he would not have been
taken, it was not his fault but the corporal's who had sent him to
seize some horsecloths, though he had told him the Russians were
there. And at every word he added: "But don't hurt my little horse!"
and stroked the animal. It was plain that he did not quite grasp where
he was. Now he excused himself for having been taken prisoner and now,
imagining himself before his own officers, insisted on his soldierly
discipline and zeal in the service. He brought with him into our
rearguard all the freshness of atmosphere of the French army, which
was so alien to us.

The Cossacks sold the horse for two gold pieces, and Rostov, being
the richest of the officers now that he had received his money, bought
it.

"But don't hurt my little horse!" said the Alsatian good-naturedly
to Rostov when the animal was handed over to the hussar.

Rostov smilingly reassured the dragoon and gave him money.

"Alley! Alley!" said the Cossack, touching the prisoner's arm to
make him go on.

"The Emperor! The Emperor!" was suddenly heard among the hussars.

All began to run and bustle, and Rostov saw coming up the road
behind him several riders with white plumes in their hats. In a moment
everyone was in his place, waiting.

Rostov did not know or remember how he ran to his place and mounted.
Instantly his regret at not having been in action and his dejected
mood amid people of whom he was weary had gone, instantly every
thought of himself had vanished. He was filled with happiness at his
nearness to the Emperor. He felt that this nearness by itself made
up to him for the day he had lost. He was happy as a lover when the
longed-for moment of meeting arrives. Not daring to look round and
without looking round, he was ecstatically conscious of his
approach. He felt it not only from the sound of the hoofs of the
approaching cavalcade, but because as he drew near everything grew
brighter, more joyful, more significant, and more festive around
him. Nearer and nearer to Rostov came that sun shedding beams of
mild and majestic light around, and already he felt himself
enveloped in those beams, he heard his voice, that kindly, calm, and
majestic voice that was yet so simple! And as if in accord with
Rostov's feeling, there was a deathly stillness amid which was heard
the Emperor's voice.

"The Pavlograd hussars?" he inquired.

"The reserves, sire!" replied a voice, a very human one compared
to that which had said: "The Pavlograd hussars?"

The Emperor drew level with Rostov and halted. Alexander's face
was even more beautiful than it had been three days before at the
review. It shone with such gaiety and youth, such innocent youth, that
it suggested the liveliness of a fourteen-year-old boy, and yet it was
the face of the majestic Emperor. Casually, while surveying the
squadron, the Emperor's eyes met Rostov's and rested on them for not
more than two seconds. Whether or no the Emperor understood what was
going on in Rostov's soul (it seemed to Rostov that he understood
everything), at any rate his light-blue eyes gazed for about two
seconds into Rostov's face. A gentle, mild light poured from them.
Then all at once he raised his eyebrows, abruptly touched his horse
with his left foot, and galloped on.

The younger Emperor could not restrain his wish to be present at the
battle and, in spite of the remonstrances of his courtiers, at
twelve o'clock left the third column with which he had been and
galloped toward the vanguard. Before he came up with the hussars,
several adjutants met him with news of the successful result of the
action.

This battle, which consisted in the capture of a French squadron,
was represented as a brilliant victory over the French, and so the
Emperor and the whole army, especially while the smoke hung over the
battlefield, believed that the French had been defeated and were
retreating against their will. A few minutes after the Emperor had
passed, the Pavlograd division was ordered to advance. In Wischau
itself, a petty German town, Rostov saw the Emperor again. In the
market place, where there had been some rather heavy firing before the
Emperor's arrival, lay several killed and wounded soldiers whom
there had not been time to move. The Emperor, surrounded by his
suite of officers and courtiers, was riding a bobtailed chestnut mare,
a different one from that which he had ridden at the review, and
bending to one side he gracefully held a gold lorgnette to his eyes
and looked at a soldier who lay prone, with blood on his uncovered
head. The wounded soldier was so dirty, coarse, and revolting that his
proximity to the Emperor shocked Rostov. Rostov saw how the
Emperor's rather round shoulders shuddered as if a cold shiver had run
down them, how his left foot began convulsively tapping the horse's
side with the spur, and how the well-trained horse looked round
unconcerned and did not stir. An adjutant, dismounting, lifted the
soldier under the arms to place him on a stretcher that had been
brought. The soldier groaned.

"Gently, gently! Can't you do it more gently?" said the Emperor
apparently suffering more than the dying soldier, and he rode away.

Rostov saw tears filling the Emperor's eyes and heard him, as he was
riding away, say to Czartoryski: "What a terrible thing war is: what a
terrible thing! Quelle terrible chose que la guerre!"

The troops of the vanguard were stationed before Wischau, within
sight of the enemy's lines, which all day long had yielded ground to
us at the least firing. The Emperor's gratitude was announced to the
vanguard, rewards were promised, and the men received a double
ration of vodka. The campfires crackled and the soldiers' songs
resounded even more merrily than on the previous night. Denisov
celebrated his promotion to the rank of major, and Rostov, who had
already drunk enough, at the end of the feast proposed the Emperor's
health. "Not 'our Sovereign, the Emperor,' as they say at official
dinners," said he, "but the health of our Sovereign, that good,
enchanting, and great man! Let us drink to his health and to the
certain defeat of the French!"

"If we fought before," he said, "not letting the French pass, as
at Schon Grabern, what shall we not do now when he is at the front? We
will all die for him gladly! Is it not so, gentlemen? Perhaps I am not
saying it right, I have drunk a good deal- but that is how I feel, and
so do you too! To the health of Alexander the First! Hurrah!"

"Hurrah!" rang the enthusiastic voices of the officers.

And the old cavalry captain, Kirsten, shouted enthusiastically and
no less sincerely than the twenty-year-old Rostov.

When the officers had emptied and smashed their glasses, Kirsten
filled others and, in shirt sleeves and breeches, went glass in hand
to the soldiers' bonfires and with his long gray mustache, his white
chest showing under his open shirt, he stood in a majestic pose in the
light of the campfire, waving his uplifted arm.

"Lads! here's to our Sovereign, the Emperor, and victory over our
enemies! Hurrah!" he exclaimed in his dashing, old, hussar's baritone.

The hussars crowded round and responded heartily with loud shouts.

Late that night, when all had separated, Denisov with his short hand
patted his favorite, Rostov, on the shoulder.

"As there's no one to fall in love with on campaign, he's fallen
in love with the Tsar," he said.

"Denisov, don't make fun of it!" cried Rostov. "It is such a
lofty, beautiful feeling, such a..."

"I believe it, I believe it, fwiend, and I share and appwove..."

"No, you don't understand!"

And Rostov got up and went wandering among the campfires, dreaming
of what happiness it would be to die- not in saving the Emperor's life
(he did not even dare to dream of that), but simply to die before
his eyes. He really was in love with the Tsar and the glory of the
Russian arms and the hope of future triumph. And he was not the only
man to experience that feeling during those memorable days preceding
the battle of Austerlitz: nine tenths of the men in the Russian army
were then in love, though less ecstatically, with their Tsar and the
glory of the Russian arms.


CHAPTER XI


The next day the Emperor stopped at Wischau, and Villier, his
physician, was repeatedly summoned to see him. At headquarters and
among the troops near by the news spread that the Emperor was
unwell. He ate nothing and had slept badly that night, those around
him reported. The cause of this indisposition was the strong
impression made on his sensitive mind by the sight of the killed and
wounded.

At daybreak on the seventeenth, a French officer who had come with a
flag of truce, demanding an audience with the Russian Emperor, was
brought into Wischau from our outposts. This officer was Savary. The
Emperor had only just fallen asleep and so Savary had to wait. At
midday he was admitted to the Emperor, and an hour later he rode off
with Prince Dolgorukov to the advanced post of the French army.

It was rumored that Savary had been sent to propose to Alexander a
meeting with Napoleon. To the joy and pride of the whole army, a
personal interview was refused, and instead of the Sovereign, Prince
Dolgorukov, the victor at Wischau, was sent with Savary to negotiate
with Napoleon if, contrary to expectations, these negotiations were
actuated by a real desire for peace.

Toward evening Dolgorukov came back, went straight to the Tsar,
and remained alone with him for a long time.

On the eighteenth and nineteenth of November, the army advanced
two days' march and the enemy's outposts after a brief interchange
of shots retreated. In the highest army circles from midday on the
nineteenth, a great, excitedly bustling activity began which lasted
till the morning of the twentieth, when the memorable battle of
Austerlitz was fought.

Till midday on the nineteenth, the activity- the eager talk, running
to and fro, and dispatching of adjutants- was confined to the
Emperor's headquarters. But on the afternoon of that day, this
activity reached Kutiizov's headquarters and the staffs of the
commanders of columns. By evening, the adjutants had spread it to
all ends and parts of the army, and in the night from the nineteenth
to the twentieth, the whole eighty thousand allied troops rose from
their bivouacs to the hum of voices, and the army swayed and started
in one enormous mass six miles long.

The concentrated activity which had begun at the Emperor's
headquarters in the morning and had started the whole movement that
followed was like the first movement of the main wheel of a large
tower clock. One wheel slowly moved, another was set in motion, and
a third, and wheels began to revolve faster and faster, levers and
cogwheels to work, chimes to play, figures to pop out, and the hands
to advance with regular motion as a result of all that activity.

Just as in the mechanism of a clock, so in the mechanism of the
military machine, an impulse once given leads to the final result; and
just as indifferently quiescent till the moment when motion is
transmitted to them are the parts of the mechanism which the impulse
has not yet reached. Wheels creak on their axles as the cogs engage
one another and the revolving pulleys whirr with the rapidity of their
movement, but a neighboring wheel is as quiet and motionless as though
it were prepared to remain so for a hundred years; but the moment
comes when the lever catches it and obeying the impulse that wheel
begins to creak and joins in the common motion the result and aim of
which are beyond its ken.

Just as in a clock, the result of the complicated motion of
innumerable wheels and pulleys is merely a slow and regular movement
of the hands which show the time, so the result of all the complicated
human activities of 160,000 Russians and French- all their passions,
desires, remorse, humiliations, sufferings, outbursts of pride,
fear, and enthusiasm- was only the loss of the battle of Austerlitz,
the so-called battle of the three Emperors- that is to say, a slow
movement of the hand on the dial of human history.

Prince Andrew was on duty that day and in constant attendance on the
commander in chief.

At six in the evening, Kutuzov went to the Emperor's headquarters
and after staying but a short time with the Tsar went to see the grand
marshal of the court, Count Tolstoy.

Bolkonski took the opportunity to go in to get some details of the
coming action from Dolgorukov. He felt that Kutuzov was upset and
dissatisfied about something and that at headquarters they were
dissatisfied with him, and also that at the Emperor's headquarters
everyone adopted toward him the tone of men who know something
others do not know: he therefore wished to speak to Dolgorukov.

"Well, how d'you do, my dear fellow?" said Dolgorukov, who was
sitting at tea with Bilibin. "The fete is for tomorrow. How is your
old fellow? Out of sorts?"

"I won't say he is out of sorts, but I fancy he would like to be
heard."

"But they heard him at the council of war and will hear him when
he talks sense, but to temporize and wait for something now when
Bonaparte fears nothing so much as a general battle is impossible."

"Yes, you have seen him?" said Prince Andrew. "Well, what is
Bonaparte like? How did he impress you?"

"Yes, I saw him, and am convinced that he fears nothing so much as a
general engagement," repeated Dolgorukov, evidently prizing this
general conclusion which he had arrived at from his interview with
Napoleon. "If he weren't afraid of a battle why did he ask for that
interview? Why negotiate, and above all why retreat, when to retreat
is so contrary to his method of conducting war? Believe me, he is
afraid, afraid of a general battle. His hour has come! Mark my words!"

"But tell me, what is he like, eh?" said Prince Andrew again.

"He is a man in a gray overcoat, very anxious that I should call him
'Your Majesty,' but who, to his chagrin, got no title from me!
That's the sort of man he is, and nothing more," replied Dolgorukov,
looking round at Bilibin with a smile.

"Despite my great respect for old Kutuzov," he continued, "we should
be a nice set of fellows if we were to wait about and so give him a
chance to escape, or to trick us, now that we certainly have him in
our hands! No, we mustn't forget Suvorov and his rule- not to put
yourself in a position to be attacked, but yourself to attack. Believe
me in war the energy of young men often shows the way better than
all the experience of old Cunctators."

"But in what position are we going to attack him? I have been at the
outposts today and it is impossible to say where his chief forces
are situated," said Prince Andrew.

He wished to explain to Dolgorukov a plan of attack he had himself
formed.

"Oh, that is all the same," Dolgorukov said quickly, and getting
up he spread a map on the table. "All eventualities have been
foreseen. If he is standing before Brunn..."

And Prince Dolgorukov rapidly but indistinctly explained Weyrother's
plan of a flanking movement.

Prince Andrew began to reply and to state his own plan, which
might have been as good as Weyrother's, but for the disadvantage
that Weyrother's had already been approved. As soon as Prince Andrew
began to demonstrate the defects of the latter and the merits of his
own plan, Prince Dolgorukov ceased to listen to him and gazed
absent-mindedly not at the map, but at Prince Andrew's face.

"There will be a council of war at Kutuzov's tonight, though; you
can say all this there," remarked Dolgorukov.

"I will do so," said Prince Andrew, moving away from the map.

"Whatever are you bothering about, gentlemen?" said Bilibin, who,
till then, had listened with an amused smile to their conversation and
now was evidently ready with a joke. "Whether tomorrow brings
victory or defeat, the glory of our Russian arms is secure. Except
your Kutuzov, there is not a single Russian in command of a column!
The commanders are: Herr General Wimpfen, le Comte de Langeron, le
Prince de Lichtenstein, le Prince, de Hohenlohe, and finally
Prishprish, and so on like all those Polish names."

"Be quiet, backbiter!" said Dolgorukov. "It is not true; there are
now two Russians, Miloradovich, and Dokhturov, and there would be a
third, Count Arakcheev, if his nerves were not too weak."

"However, I think General Kutuzov has come out," said Prince Andrew.
"I wish you good luck and success, gentlemen!" he added and went out
after shaking hands with Dolgorukov and Bilibin.

On the way home, Prince Andrew could not refrain from asking
Kutuzov, who was sitting silently beside him, what he thought of
tomorrow's battle.

Kutuzov looked sternly at his adjutant and, after a pause,
replied: "I think the battle will be lost, and so I told Count Tolstoy
and asked him to tell the Emperor. What do you think he replied? 'But,
my dear general, I am engaged with rice and cutlets, look after
military matters yourself!' Yes... That was the answer I got!"


CHAPTER XII


Shortly after nine o'clock that evening, Weyrother drove with his
plans to Kutuzov's quarters where the council of war was to be held.
All the commanders of columns were summoned to the commander in
chief's and with the exception of Prince Bagration, who declined to
come, were all there at the appointed time.

Weyrother, who was in full control of the proposed battle, by his
eagerness and briskness presented a marked contrast to the
dissatisfied and drowsy Kutuzov, who reluctantly played the part of
chairman and president of the council of war. Weyrother evidently felt
himself to be at the head of a movement that had already become
unrestrainable. He was like a horse running downhill harnessed to a
heavy cart. Whether he was pulling it or being pushed by it he did not
know, but rushed along at headlong speed with no time to consider what
this movement might lead to. Weyrother had been twice that evening
to the enemy's picket line to reconnoiter personally, and twice to the
Emperors, Russian and Austrian, to report and explain, and to his
headquarters where he had dictated the dispositions in German, and
now, much exhausted, he arrived at Kutuzov's.

He was evidently so busy that he even forgot to be polite to the
commander in chief. He interrupted him, talked rapidly and
indistinctly, without looking at the man he was addressing, and did
not reply to questions put to him. He was bespattered with mud and had
a pitiful, weary, and distracted air, though at the same time he was
haughty and self-confident.

Kutuzov was occupying a nobleman's castle of modest dimensions
near Ostralitz. In the large drawing room which had become the
commander in chief's office were gathered Kutuzov himself,
Weyrother, and the members of the council of war. They were drinking
tea, and only awaited Prince Bagration to begin the council. At last
Bagration's orderly came with the news that the prince could not
attend. Prince Andrew came in to inform the commander in chief of this
and, availing himself of permission previously given him by Kutuzov to
be present at the council, he remained in the room.

"Since Prince Bagration is not coming, we may begin," said
Weyrother, hurriedly rising from his seat and going up to the table on
which an enormous map of the environs of Brunn was spread out.

Kutuzov, with his uniform unbuttoned so that his fat neck bulged
over his collar as if escaping, was sitting almost asleep in a low
chair, with his podgy old hands resting symmetrically on its arms.
At the sound of Weyrother's voice, he opened his one eye with an
effort.

"Yes, yes, if you please! It is already late," said he, and
nodding his head he let it droop and again closed his eye.

If at first the members of the council thought that Kutuzov was
pretending to sleep, the sounds his nose emitted during the reading
that followed proved that the commander in chief at that moment was
absorbed by a far more serious matter than a desire to show his
contempt for the dispositions or anything else- he was engaged in
satisfying the irresistible human need for sleep. He really was
asleep. Weyrother, with the gesture of a man too busy to lose a
moment, glanced at Kutuzov and, having convinced himself that he was
asleep, took up a paper and in a loud, monotonous voice began to
read out the dispositions for the impending battle, under a heading
which he also read out:

"Dispositions for an attack on the enemy position behind Kobelnitz
and Sokolnitz, November 30, 1805."

The dispositions were very complicated and difficult. They began
as follows:

"As the enemy's left wing rests on wooded hills and his right
extends along Kobelnitz and Sokolnitz behind the ponds that are there,
while we, on the other hand, with our left wing by far outflank his
right, it is advantageous to attack the enemy's latter wing especially
if we occupy the villages of Sokolnitz and Kobelnitz, whereby we can
both fall on his flank and pursue him over the plain between
Schlappanitz and the Thuerassa forest, avoiding the defiles of
Schlappanitz and Bellowitz which cover the enemy's front. For this
object it is necessary that... The first column marches... The
second column marches... The third column marches..." and so on,
read Weyrother.

The generals seemed to listen reluctantly to the difficult
dispositions. The tall, fair-haired General Buxhowden stood, leaning
his back against the wall, his eyes fixed on a burning candle, and
seemed not to listen or even to wish to be thought to listen.
Exactly opposite Weyrother, with his glistening wide-open eyes fixed
upon him and his mustache twisted upwards, sat the ruddy
Miloradovich in a military pose, his elbows turned outwards, his hands
on his knees, and his shoulders raised. He remained stubbornly silent,
gazing at Weyrother's face, and only turned away his eyes when the
Austrian chief of staff finished reading. Then Miloradovich looked
round significantly at the other generals. But one could not tell from
that significant look whether he agreed or disagreed and was satisfied
or not with the arrangements. Next to Weyrother sat Count Langeron
who, with a subtle smile that never left his typically southern French
face during the whole time of the reading, gazed at his delicate
fingers which rapidly twirled by its corners a gold snuffbox on
which was a portrait. In the middle of one of the longest sentences,
he stopped the rotary motion of the snuffbox, raised his head, and
with inimical politeness lurking in the corners of his thin lips
interrupted Weyrother, wishing to say something. But the Austrian
general, continuing to read, frowned angrily and jerked his elbows, as
if to say: "You can tell me your views later, but now be so good as to
look at the map and listen." Langeron lifted his eyes with an
expression of perplexity, turned round to Miloradovich as if seeking
an explanation, but meeting the latter's impressive but meaningless
gaze drooped his eyes sadly and again took to twirling his snuffbox.

"A geography lesson!" he muttered as if to himself, but loud
enough to be heard.

Przebyszewski, with respectful but dignified politeness, held his
hand to his ear toward Weyrother, with the air of a man absorbed in
attention. Dohkturov, a little man, sat opposite Weyrother, with an
assiduous and modest mien, and stooping over the outspread map
conscientiously studied the dispositions and the unfamiliar
locality. He asked Weyrother several times to repeat words he had
not clearly heard and the difficult names of villages. Weyrother
complied and Dohkturov noted them down.

When the reading which lasted more than an hour was over, Langeron
again brought his snuffbox to rest and, without looking at Weyrother
or at anyone in particular, began to say how difficult it was to carry
out such a plan in which the enemy's position was assumed to be known,
whereas it was perhaps not known, since the enemy was in movement.
Langeron's objections were valid but it was obvious that their chief
aim was to show General Weyrother- who had read his dispositions
with as much self-confidence as if he were addressing school children-
that he had to do, not with fools, but with men who could teach him
something in military matters.

When the monotonous sound of Weyrother's voice ceased, Kutuzov
opened his eye as a miller wakes up when the soporific drone of the
mill wheel is interrupted. He listened to what Langeron said, as if
remarking, "So you are still at that silly business!" quickly closed
his eye again, and let his head sink still lower.

Langeron, trying as virulently as possible to sting Weyrother's
vanity as author of the military plan, argued that Bonaparte might
easily attack instead of being attacked, and so render the whole of
this plan perfectly worthless. Weyrother met all objections with a
firm and contemptuous smile, evidently prepared beforehand to meet all
objections be they what they might.

"If he could attack us, he would have done so today," said he.

"So you think he is powerless?" said Langeron.

"He has forty thousand men at most," replied Weyrother, with the
smile of a doctor to whom an old wife wishes to explain the
treatment of a case.

"In that case he is inviting his doom by awaiting our attack,"
said Langeron, with a subtly ironical smile, again glancing round
for support to Miloradovich who was near him.

But Miloradovich was at that moment evidently thinking of anything
rather than of what the generals were disputing about.

"Ma foi!" said he, "tomorrow we shall see all that on the
battlefield."

Weyrother again gave that smile which seemed to say that to him it
was strange and ridiculous to meet objections from Russian generals
and to have to prove to them what he had not merely convinced
himself of, but had also convinced the sovereign Emperors of.

"The enemy has quenched his fires and a continual noise is heard
from his camp," said he. "What does that mean? Either he is
retreating, which is the only thing we need fear, or he is changing
his position." (He smiled ironically.) "But even if he also took up
a position in the Thuerassa, he merely saves us a great deal of
trouble and all our arrangements to the minutest detail remain the
same."

"How is that?..." began Prince Andrew, who had for long been waiting
an opportunity to express his doubts.

Kutuzov here woke up, coughed heavily, and looked round at the
generals.

"Gentlemen, the dispositions for tomorrow- or rather for today,
for it is past midnight- cannot now be altered," said he. "You have
heard them, and we shall all do our duty. But before a battle, there
is nothing more important..." he paused, "than to have a good sleep."

He moved as if to rise. The generals bowed and retired. It was
past midnight. Prince Andrew went out.


The council of war, at which Prince Andrew had not been able to
express his opinion as he had hoped to, left on him a vague and uneasy
impression. Whether Dolgorukov and Weyrother, or Kutuzov, Langeron,
and the others who did not approve of the plan of attack, were
right- he did not know. "But was it really not possible for Kutuzov to
state his views plainly to the Emperor? Is it possible that on account
of court and personal considerations tens of thousands of lives, and
my life, my life," he thought, "must be risked?"

"Yes, it is very likely that I shall be killed tomorrow," he
thought. And suddenly, at this thought of death, a whole series of
most distant, most intimate, memories rose in his imagination: he
remembered his last parting from his father and his wife; he
remembered the days when he first loved her. He thought of her
pregnancy and felt sorry for her and for himself, and in a nervously
emotional and softened mood he went out of the hut in which he was
billeted with Nesvitski and began to walk up and down before it.

The night was foggy and through the fog the moonlight gleamed
mysteriously. "Yes, tomorrow, tomorrow!" he thought. "Tomorrow
everything may be over for me! All these memories will be no more,
none of them will have any meaning for me. Tomorrow perhaps, even
certainly, I have a presentiment that for the first time I shall
have to show all I can do." And his fancy pictured the battle, its
loss, the concentration of fighting at one point, and the hesitation
of all the commanders. And then that happy moment, that Toulon for
which he had so long waited, presents itself to him at last. He firmly
and clearly expresses his opinion to Kutuzov, to Weyrother, and to the
Emperors. All are struck by the justness of his views, but no one
undertakes to carry them out, so he takes a regiment, a division-
stipulates that no one is to interfere with his arrangements- leads
his division to the decisive point, and gains the victory alone.
"But death and suffering?" suggested another voice. Prince Andrew,
however, did not answer that voice and went on dreaming of his
triumphs. The dispositions for the next battle are planned by him
alone. Nominally he is only an adjutant on Kutuzov's staff, but he
does everything alone. The next battle is won by him alone. Kutuzov is
removed and he is appointed... "Well and then?" asked the other voice.
"If before that you are not ten times wounded, killed, or betrayed,
well... what then?..." "Well then," Prince Andrew answered himself, "I
don't know what will happen and don't want to know, and can't, but
if I want this- want glory, want to be known to men, want to be
loved by them, it is not my fault that I want it and want nothing
but that and live only for that. Yes, for that alone! I shall never
tell anyone, but, oh God! what am I to do if I love nothing but fame
and men's esteem? Death, wounds, the loss of family- I fear nothing.
And precious and dear as many persons are to me- father, sister, wife-
those dearest to me- yet dreadful and unnatural as it seems, I would
give them all at once for a moment of glory, of triumph over men, of
love from men I don't know and never shall know, for the love of these
men here," he thought, as he listened to voices in Kutuzov's
courtyard. The voices were those of the orderlies who were packing up;
one voice, probably a coachman's, was teasing Kutuzov's old cook
whom Prince Andrew knew, and who was called Tit. He was saying,
"Tit, I say, Tit!"

"Well?" returned the old man.

"Go, Tit, thresh a bit!" said the wag.

"Oh, go to the devil!" called out a voice, drowned by the laughter
of the orderlies and servants.

"All the same, I love and value nothing but triumph over them all, I
value this mystic power and glory that is floating here above me in
this mist!"


CHAPTER XIII


That same night, Rostov was with a platoon on skirmishing duty in
front of Bagration's detachment. His hussars were placed along the
line in couples and he himself rode along the line trying to master
the sleepiness that kept coming over him. An enormous space, with
our army's campfires dimly glowing in the fog, could be seen behind
him; in front of him was misty darkness. Rostov could see nothing,
peer as he would into that foggy distance: now something gleamed gray,
now there was something black, now little lights seemed to glimmer
where the enemy ought to be, now he fancied it was only something in
his own eyes. His eyes kept closing, and in his fancy appeared- now
the Emperor, now Denisov, and now Moscow memories- and he again
hurriedly opened his eyes and saw close before him the head and ears
of the horse he was riding, and sometimes, when he came within six
paces of them, the black figures of hussars, but in the distance was
still the same misty darkness. "Why not?... It might easily happen,"
thought Rostov, "that the Emperor will meet me and give me an order as
he would to any other officer; he'll say: 'Go and find out what's
there.' There are many stories of his getting to know an officer in
just such a chance way and attaching him to himself! What if he gave
me a place near him? Oh, how I would guard him, how I would tell him
the truth, how I would unmask his deceivers!" And in order to
realize vividly his love devotion to the sovereign, Rostov pictured to
himself an enemy or a deceitful German, whom he would not only kill
with pleasure but whom he would slap in the face before the Emperor.
Suddenly a distant shout aroused him. He started and opened his eyes.

"Where am I? Oh yes, in the skirmishing line... pass and
watchword- shaft, Olmutz. What a nuisance that our squadron will be in
reserve tomorrow," he thought. "I'll ask leave to go to the front,
this may be my only chance of seeing the Emperor. It won't be long now
before I am off duty. I'll take another turn and when I get back
I'll go to the general and ask him." He readjusted himself in the
saddle and touched up his horse to ride once more round his hussars.
It seemed to him that it was getting lighter. To the left he saw a
sloping descent lit up, and facing it a black knoll that seemed as
steep as a wall. On this knoll there was a white patch that Rostov
could not at all make out: was it a glade in the wood lit up by the
moon, or some unmelted snow, or some white houses? He even thought
something moved on that white spot. "I expect it's snow... that
spot... a spot- une tache," he thought. "There now... it's not a
tache... Natasha... sister, black eyes... Na... tasha... (Won't she be
surprised when I tell her how I've seen the Emperor?) Natasha...
take my sabretache..."- "Keep to the right, your honor, there are
bushes here," came the voice of an hussar, past whom Rostov was riding
in the act of falling asleep. Rostov lifted his head that had sunk
almost to his horse's mane and pulled up beside the hussar. He was
succumbing to irresistible, youthful, childish drowsiness. "But what
was I thinking? I mustn't forget. How shall I speak to the Emperor?
No, that's not it- that's tomorrow. Oh yes! Natasha... sabretache...
saber them...Whom? The hussars... Ah, the hussars with mustaches.
Along the Tverskaya Street rode the hussar with mustaches... I thought
about him too, just opposite Guryev's house... Old Guryev.... Oh,
but Denisov's a fine fellow. But that's all nonsense. The chief
thing is that the Emperor is here. How he looked at me and wished to
say something, but dared not.... No, it was I who dared not. But
that's nonsense, the chief thing is not to forget the important
thing I was thinking of. Yes, Na-tasha, sabretache, oh, yes, yes!
That's right!" And his head once more sank to his horse's neck. All at
once it seemed to him that he was being fired at. "What? What?
What?... Cut them down! What?..." said Rostov, waking up. At the
moment he opened his eyes his eyes he heard in front of him, where the
enemy was, the long-drawn shouts of thousands of voices. His horse and
the horse of the hussar near him pricked their ears at these shouts.
Over there, where the shouting came from, a fire flared up and went
out again, then another, and all along the French line on the hill
fires flared up and the shouting grew louder and louder. Rostov
could hear the sound of French words but could not distinguish them.
The din of many voices was too great; all he could hear was: "ahahah!"
and "rrrr!"

"What's that? What do you make of it?" said Rostov to the hussar
beside him. "That must be the enemy's camp!"

The hussar did not reply.

"Why, don't you hear it?" Rostov asked again, after waiting for a
reply.

"Who can tell, your honor?" replied the hussar reluctantly.

"From the direction, it must be the enemy," repeated Rostov.

"It may be he or it may be nothing," muttered the hussar. "It's
dark... Steady!" he cried to his fidgeting horse.

Rostov's horse was also getting restive: it pawed the frozen ground,
pricking its ears at the noise and looking at the lights. The shouting
grew still louder and merged into a general roar that only an army
of several thousand men could produce. The lights spread farther and
farther, probably along the line of the French camp. Rostov no
longer wanted to sleep. The gay triumphant shouting of the enemy
army had a stimulating effect on him. "Vive l'Empereur! L'Empereur!"
he now heard distinctly.

"They can't be far off, probably just beyond the stream," he said to
the hussar beside him.

The hussar only sighed without replying and coughed angrily. The
sound of horse's hoofs approaching at a trot along the line of hussars
was heard, and out of the foggy darkness the figure of a sergeant of
hussars suddenly appeared, looming huge as an elephant.

"Your honor, the generals!" said the sergeant, riding up to Rostov.

Rostov, still looking round toward the fires and the shouts, rode
with the sergeant to meet some mounted men who were riding along the
line. One was on a white horse. Prince Bagration and Prince Dolgorukov
with their adjutants had come to witness the curious phenomenon of the
lights and shouts in the enemy's camp. Rostov rode up to Bagration,
reported to him, and then joined the adjutants listening to what the
generals were saying.

"Believe me," said Prince Dolgorukov, addressing Bagration, "it is
nothing but a trick! He has retreated and ordered the rearguard to
kindle fires and make a noise to deceive us."

"Hardly," said Bagration. "I saw them this evening on that knoll; if
they had retreated they would have withdrawn from that too....
Officer!" said Bagration to Rostov, "are the enemy's skirmishers still
there?"

"They were there this evening, but now I don't know, your
excellency. Shall I go with some of my hussars to see?" replied
Rostov.

Bagration stopped and, before replying, tried to see Rostov's face
in the mist.

"Well, go and see," he said, after a pause.

"Yes, sir."

Rostov spurred his horse, called to Sergeant Fedchenko and two other
hussars, told them to follow him, and trotted downhill in the
direction from which the shouting came. He felt both frightened and
pleased to be riding alone with three hussars into that mysterious and
dangerous misty distance where no one had been before him. Bagration
called to him from the hill not to go beyond the stream, but Rostov
pretended not to hear him and did not stop but rode on and on,
continually mistaking bushes for trees and gullies for men and
continually discovering his mistakes. Having descended the hill at a
trot, he no longer saw either our own or the enemy's fires, but
heard the shouting of the French more loudly and distinctly. In the
valley he saw before him something like a river, but when he reached
it he found it was a road. Having come out onto the road he reined
in his horse, hesitating whether to ride along it or cross it and ride
over the black field up the hillside. To keep to the road which
gleamed white in the mist would have been safer because it would be
easier to see people coming along it. "Follow me!" said he, crossed
the road, and began riding up the hill at a gallop toward the point
where the French pickets had been standing that evening.

"Your honor, there he is!" cried one of the hussars behind him.
And before Rostov had time to make out what the black thing was that
had suddenly appeared in the fog, there was a flash, followed by a
report, and a bullet whizzing high up in the mist with a plaintive
sound passed out of hearing. Another musket missed fire but flashed in
the pan. Rostov turned his horse and galloped back. Four more
reports followed at intervals, and the bullets passed somewhere in the
fog singing in different tones. Rostov reined in his horse, whose
spirits had risen, like his own, at the firing, and went back at a
footpace. "Well, some more! Some more!" a merry voice was saying in
his soul. But no more shots came.

Only when approaching Bagration did Rostov let his horse gallop
again, and with his hand at the salute rode up to the general.

Dolgorukov was still insisting that the French had retreated and had
only lit fires to deceive us.

"What does that prove?" he was saying as Rostov rode up. "They might
retreat and leave the pickets."

"It's plain that they have not all gone yet, Prince," said
Bagration. "Wait till tomorrow morning, we'll find out everything
tomorrow."

"The picket is still on the hill, your excellency, just where it was
in the evening," reported Rostov, stooping forward with his hand at
the salute and unable to repress the smile of delight induced by his
ride and especially by the sound of the bullets.

"Very good, very good," said Bagration. "Thank you, officer."

"Your excellency," said Rostov, "may I ask a favor?"

"What is it?"

"Tomorrow our squadron is to be in reserve. May I ask to be attached
to the first squadron?"

"What's your name?"

"Count Rostov."

"Oh, very well, you may stay in attendance on me."

"Count Ilya Rostov's son?" asked Dolgorukov.

But Rostov did not reply.

"Then I may reckon on it, your excellency?"

"I will give the order."

"Tomorrow very likely I may be sent with some message to the
Emperor," thought Rostov.

"Thank God!"


The fires and shouting in the enemy's army were occasioned by the
fact that while Napoleon's proclamation was being read to the troops
the Emperor himself rode round his bivouacs. The soldiers, on seeing
him, lit wisps of straw and ran after him, shouting, "Vive
l'Empereur!" Napoleon's proclamation was as follows:


Soldiers! The Russian army is advancing against you to avenge the
Austrian army of Ulm. They are the same battalions you broke at
Hollabrunn and have pursued ever since to this place. The position
we occupy is a strong one, and while they are marching to go round
me on the right they will expose a flank to me. Soldiers! I will
myself direct your battalions. I will keep out of fire if you with
your habitual valor carry disorder and confusion into the enemy's
ranks, but should victory be in doubt, even for a moment, you will see
your Emperor exposing himself to the first blows of the enemy, for
there must be no doubt of victory, especially on this day when what is
at stake is the honor of the French infantry, so necessary to the
honor of our nation.

Do not break your ranks on the plea of removing the wounded! Let
every man be fully imbued with the thought that we must defeat these
hirelings of England, inspired by such hatred of our nation! This
victory will conclude our campaign and we can return to winter
quarters, where fresh French troops who are being raised in France
will join us, and the peace I shall conclude will be worthy of my
people, of you, and of myself.

                                                  NAPOLEON


CHAPTER XIV


At five in the morning it was still quite dark. The troops of the
center, the reserves, and Bagration's right flank had not yet moved,
but on the left flank the columns of infantry, cavalry, and artillery,
which were to be the first to descend the heights to attack the French
right flank and drive it into the Bohemian mountains according to
plan, were already up and astir. The smoke of the campfires, into
which they were throwing everything superfluous, made the eyes
smart. It was cold and dark. The officers were hurriedly drinking
tea and breakfasting, the soldiers, munching biscuit and beating a
tattoo with their feet to warm themselves, gathering round the fires
throwing into the flames the remains of sheds, chairs, tables, wheels,
tubs, and everything that they did not want or could not carry away
with them. Austrian column guides were moving in and out among the
Russian troops and served as heralds of the advance. As soon as an
Austrian officer showed himself near a commanding officer's
quarters, the regiment began to move: the soldiers ran from the fires,
thrust their pipes into their boots, their bags into the carts, got
their muskets ready, and formed rank. The officers buttoned up their
coats, buckled on their swords and pouches, and moved along the
ranks shouting. The train drivers and orderlies harnessed and packed
the wagons and tied on the loads. The adjutants and battalion and
regimental commanders mounted, crossed themselves, gave final
instructions, orders, and commissions to the baggage men who
remained behind, and the monotonous tramp of thousands of feet
resounded. The column moved forward without knowing where and
unable, from the masses around them, the smoke and the increasing fog,
to see either the place they were leaving or that to which they were
going.

A soldier on the march is hemmed in and borne along by his
regiment as much as a sailor is by his ship. However far he has
walked, whatever strange, unknown, and dangerous places he reaches,
just as a sailor is always surrounded by the same decks, masts, and
rigging of his ship, so the soldier always has around him the same
comrades, the same ranks, the same sergeant major Ivan Mitrich, the
same company dog Jack, and the same commanders. The sailor rarely
cares to know the latitude in which his ship is sailing, but on the
day of battle- heaven knows how and whence- a stern note of which
all are conscious sounds in the moral atmosphere of an army,
announcing the approach of something decisive and solemn, and
awakening in the men an unusual curiosity. On the day of battle the
soldiers excitedly try to get beyond the interests of their
regiment, they listen intently, look about, and eagerly ask concerning
what is going on around them.

The fog had grown so dense that though it was growing light they
could not see ten paces ahead. Bushes looked like gigantic trees and
level ground like cliffs and slopes. Anywhere, on any side, one
might encounter an enemy invisible ten paces off. But the columns
advanced for a long time, always in the same fog, descending and
ascending hills, avoiding gardens and enclosures, going over new and
unknown ground, and nowhere encountering the enemy. On the contrary,
the soldiers became aware that in front, behind, and on all sides,
other Russian columns were moving in the same direction. Every soldier
felt glad to know that to the unknown place where he was going, many
more of our men were going too.

"There now, the Kurskies have also gone past," was being said in the
ranks.

"It's wonderful what a lot of our troops have gathered, lads! Last
night I looked at the campfires and there was no end of them. A
regular Moscow!"

Though none of the column commanders rode up to the ranks or
talked to the men (the commanders, as we saw at the council of war,
were out of humor and dissatisfied with the affair, and so did not
exert themselves to cheer the men but merely carried out the
orders), yet the troops marched gaily, as they always do when going
into action, especially to an attack. But when they had marched for
about an hour in the dense fog, the greater part of the men had to
halt and an unpleasant consciousness of some dislocation and blunder
spread through the ranks. How such a consciousness is communicated
is very difficult to define, but it certainly is communicated very
surely, and flows rapidly, imperceptibly, and irrepressibly, as
water does in a creek. Had the Russian army been alone without any
allies, it might perhaps have been a long time before this
consciousness of mismanagement became a general conviction, but as
it was, the disorder was readily and naturally attributed to the
stupid Germans, and everyone was convinced that a dangerous muddle had
been occasioned by the sausage eaters.

"Why have we stopped? Is the way blocked? Or have we already come up
against the French?"

"No, one can't hear them. They'd be firing if we had."

"They were in a hurry enough to start us, and now here we stand in
the middle of a field without rhyme or reason. It's all those damned
Germans' muddling! What stupid devils!"

"Yes, I'd send them on in front, but no fear, they're crowding up
behind. And now here we stand hungry."

"I say, shall we soon be clear? They say the cavalry are blocking
the way," said an officer.

"Ah, those damned Germans! They don't know their own country!"
said another.

"What division are you?" shouted an adjutant, riding up.

"The Eighteenth."

"Then why are you here? You should have gone on long ago, now you
won't get there till evening."

"What stupid orders! They don't themselves know what they are
doing!" said the officer and rode off.

Then a general rode past shouting something angrily, not in Russian.

"Tafa-lafa! But what he's jabbering no one can make out," said a
soldier, mimicking the general who had ridden away. "I'd shoot them,
the scoundrels!"

"We were ordered to be at the place before nine, but we haven't
got halfway. Fine orders!" was being repeated on different sides.

And the feeling of energy with which the troops had started began to
turn into vexation and anger at the stupid arrangements and at the
Germans.

The cause of the confusion was that while the Austrian cavalry was
moving toward our left flank, the higher command found that our center
was too far separated from our right flank and the cavalry were all
ordered to turn back to the right. Several thousand cavalry crossed in
front of the infantry, who had to wait.

At the front an altercation occurred between an Austrian guide and a
Russian general. The general shouted a demand that the cavalry
should be halted, the Austrian argued that not he, but the higher
command, was to blame. The troops meanwhile stood growing listless and
dispirited. After an hour's delay they at last moved on, descending
the hill. The fog that was dispersing on the hill lay still more
densely below, where they were descending. In front in the fog a
shot was heard and then another, at first irregularly at varying
intervals- trata... tat- and then more and more regularly and rapidly,
and the action at the Goldbach Stream began.

Not expecting to come on the enemy down by the stream, and having
stumbled on him in the fog, hearing no encouraging word from their
commanders, and with a consciousness of being too late spreading
through the ranks, and above all being unable to see anything in front
or around them in the thick fog, the Russians exchanged shots with the
enemy lazily and advanced and again halted, receiving no timely orders
from the officers or adjutants who wandered about in the fog in
those unknown surroundings unable to find their own regiments. In this
way the action began for the first, second, and third columns, which
had gone down into the valley. The fourth column, with which Kutuzov
was, stood on the Pratzen Heights.

Below, where the fight was beginning, there was still thick fog;
on the higher ground it was clearing, but nothing could be seen of
what was going on in front. Whether all the enemy forces were, as we
supposed, six miles away, or whether they were near by in that sea
of mist, no one knew till after eight o'clock.

It was nine o'clock in the morning. The fog lay unbroken like a
sea down below, but higher up at the village of Schlappanitz where
Napoleon stood with his marshals around him, it was quite light. Above
him was a clear blue sky, and the sun's vast orb quivered like a
huge hollow, crimson float on the surface of that milky sea of mist.
The whole French army, and even Napoleon himself with his staff,
were not on the far side of the streams and hollows of Sokolnitz and
Schlappanitz beyond which we intended to take up our position and
begin the action, but were on this side, so close to our own forces
that Napoleon with the naked eye could distinguish a mounted man
from one on foot. Napoleon, in the blue cloak which he had worn on his
Italian campaign, sat on his small gray Arab horse a little in front
of his marshals. He gazed silently at the hills which seemed to rise
out of the sea of mist and on which the Russian troops were moving
in the distance, and he listened to the sounds of firing in the
valley. Not a single muscle of his face- which in those days was still
thin- moved. His gleaming eyes were fixed intently on one spot. His
predictions were being justified. Part of the Russian force had
already descended into the valley toward the ponds and lakes and
part were leaving these Pratzen Heights which he intended to attack
and regarded as the key to the position. He saw over the mist that
in a hollow between two hills near the village of Pratzen, the Russian
columns, their bayonets glittering, were moving continuously in one
direction toward the valley and disappearing one after another into
the mist. From information he had received the evening before, from
the sound of wheels and footsteps heard by the outposts during the
night, by the disorderly movement of the Russian columns, and from all
indications, he saw clearly that the allies believed him to be far
away in front of them, and that the columns moving near Pratzen
constituted the center of the Russian army, and that that center was
already sufficiently weakened to be successfully attacked. But still
he did not begin the engagement.

Today was a great day for him- the anniversary of his coronation.
Before dawn he had slept for a few hours, and refreshed, vigorous, and
in good spirits, he mounted his horse and rode out into the field in
that happy mood in which everything seems possible and everything
succeeds. He sat motionless, looking at the heights visible above
the mist, and his cold face wore that special look of confident,
self-complacent happiness that one sees on the face of a boy happily
in love. The marshals stood behind him not venturing to distract his
attention. He looked now at the Pratzen Heights, now at the sun
floating up out of the mist.

When the sun had entirely emerged from the fog, and fields and
mist were aglow with dazzling light- as if he had only awaited this to
begin the action- he drew the glove from his shapely white hand,
made a sign with it to the marshals, and ordered the action to
begin. The marshals, accompanied by adjutants, galloped off in
different directions, and a few minutes later the chief forces of
the French army moved rapidly toward those Pratzen Heights which
were being more and more denuded by Russian troops moving down the
valley to their left.


CHAPTER XV


At eight o'clock Kutuzov rode to Pratzen at the head of the fourth
column, Miloradovich's, the one that was to take the place of
Przebyszewski's and Langeron's columns which had already gone down
into the valley. He greeted the men of the foremost regiment and
gave them the order to march, thereby indicating that he intended to
lead that column himself. When he had reached the village of Pratzen
he halted. Prince Andrew was behind, among the immense number
forming the commander in chief's suite. He was in a state of
suppressed excitement and irritation, though controlledly calm as a
man is at the approach of a long-awaited moment. He was firmly
convinced that this was the day of his Toulon, or his bridge of
Arcola. How it would come about he did not know, but he felt sure it
would do so. The locality and the position of our troops were known to
him as far as they could be known to anyone in our army. His own
strategic plan, which obviously could not now be carried out, was
forgotten. Now, entering into Weyrother's plan, Prince Andrew
considered possible contingencies and formed new projects such as
might call for his rapidity of perception and decision.

To the left down below in the mist, the musketry fire of unseen
forces could be heard. It was there Prince Andrew thought the fight
would concentrate. "There we shall encounter difficulties, and there,"
thought he, "I shall be sent with a brigade or division, and there,
standard in hand, I shall go forward and break whatever is in front of
me."

He could not look calmly at the standards of the passing battalions.
Seeing them he kept thinking, "That may be the very standard with
which I shall lead the army."

In the morning all that was left of the night mist on the heights
was a hoar frost now turning to dew, but in the valleys it still lay
like a milk-white sea. Nothing was visible in the valley to the left
into which our troops had descended and from whence came the sounds of
firing. Above the heights was the dark clear sky, and to the right the
vast orb of the sun. In front, far off on the farther shore of that
sea of mist, some wooded hills were discernible, and it was there
the enemy probably was, for something could be descried. On the
right the Guards were entering the misty region with a sound of
hoofs and wheels and now and then a gleam of bayonets; to the left
beyond the village similar masses of cavalry came up and disappeared
in the sea of mist. In front and behind moved infantry. The
commander in chief was standing at the end of the village letting
the troops pass by him. That morning Kutuzov seemed worn and
irritable. The infantry passing before him came to a halt without
any command being given, apparently obstructed by something in front.

"Do order them to form into battalion columns and go round the
village!" he said angrily to a general who had ridden up. "Don't you
understand, your excellency, my dear sir, that you must not defile
through narrow village streets when we are marching against the
enemy?"

"I intended to re-form them beyond the village, your excellency,"
answered the general.

Kutuzov laughed bitterly.

"You'll make a fine thing of it, deploying in sight of the enemy!
Very fine!"

"The enemy is still far away, your excellency. According to the
dispositions..."

"The dispositions!" exclaimed Kutuzov bitterly. "Who told you
that?... Kindly do as you are ordered."

"Yes, sir."

"My dear fellow," Nesvitski whispered to Prince Andrew, "the old man
is as surly as a dog."

An Austrian officer in a white uniform with green plumes in his
hat galloped up to Kutuzov and asked in the Emperor's name had the
fourth column advanced into action.

Kutuzov turned round without answering and his eye happened to
fall upon Prince Andrew, who was beside him. Seeing him, Kutuzov's
malevolent and caustic expression softened, as if admitting that
what was being done was not his adjutant's fault, and still not
answering the Austrian adjutant, he addressed Bolkonski.

"Go, my dear fellow, and see whether the third division has passed
the village. Tell it to stop and await my orders."

Hardly had Prince Andrew started than he stopped him.

"And ask whether sharpshooters have been posted," he added. "What
are they doing? What are they doing?" he murmured to himself, still
not replying to the Austrian.

Prince Andrew galloped off to execute the order.

Overtaking the battalions that continued to advance, he stopped
the third division and convinced himself that there really were no
sharpshooters in front of our columns. The colonel at the head of
the regiment was much surprised at the commander in chief's order to
throw out skirmishers. He had felt perfectly sure that there were
other troops in front of him and that the enemy must be at least six
miles away. There was really nothing to be seen in front except a
barren descent hidden by dense mist. Having given orders in the
commander in chief's name to rectify this omission, Prince Andrew
galloped back. Kutuzov still in the same place, his stout body resting
heavily in the saddle with the lassitude of age, sat yawning wearily
with closed eyes. The troops were no longer moving, but stood with the
butts of their muskets on the ground.

"All right, all right!" he said to Prince Andrew, and turned to a
general who, watch in hand, was saying it was time they started as all
the left-flank columns had already descended.

"Plenty of time, your excellency," muttered Kutuzov in the midst
of a yawn. "Plenty of time," he repeated.

Just then at a distance behind Kutuzov was heard the sound of
regiments saluting, and this sound rapidly came nearer along the whole
extended line of the advancing Russian columns. Evidently the person
they were greeting was riding quickly. When the soldiers of the
regiment in front of which Kutuzov was standing began to shout, he
rode a little to one side and looked round with a frown. Along the
road from Pratzen galloped what looked like a squadron of horsemen
in various uniforms. Two of them rode side by side in front, at full
gallop. One in a black uniform with white plumes in his hat rode a
bobtailed chestnut horse, the other who was in a white uniform rode
a black one. These were the two Emperors followed by their suites.
Kutuzov, affecting the manners of an old soldier at the front, gave
the command "Attention!" and rode up to the Emperors with a salute.
His whole appearance and manner were suddenly transformed. He put on
the air of a subordinate who obeys without reasoning. With an
affectation of respect which evidently struck Alexander
unpleasantly, he rode up and saluted.

This unpleasant impression merely flitted over the young and happy
face of the Emperor like a cloud of haze across a clear sky and
vanished. After his illness he looked rather thinner that day than
on the field of Olmutz where Bolkonski had seen him for the first time
abroad, but there was still the same bewitching combination of majesty
and mildness in his fine gray eyes, and on his delicate lips the
same capacity for varying expression and the same prevalent appearance
of goodhearted innocent youth.

At the Olmutz review he had seemed more majestic; here he seemed
brighter and more energetic. He was slightly flushed after galloping
two miles, and reining in his horse he sighed restfully and looked
round at the faces of his suite, young and animated as his own.
Czartoryski, Novosiltsev, Prince Volkonsky, Strogonov, and the others,
all richly dressed gay young men on splendid, well-groomed, fresh,
only slightly heated horses, exchanging remarks and smiling, had
stopped behind the Emperor. The Emperor Francis, a rosy, long faced
young man, sat very erect on his handsome black horse, looking about
him in a leisurely and preoccupied manner. He beckoned to one of his
white adjutants and asked some question- "Most likely he is asking
at what o'clock they started," thought Prince Andrew, watching his old
acquaintance with a smile he could not repress as he recalled his
reception at Brunn. In the Emperors' suite were the picked young
orderly officers of the Guard and line regiments, Russian and
Austrian. Among them were grooms leading the Tsar's beautiful relay
horses covered with embroidered cloths.

As when a window is opened a whiff of fresh air from the fields
enters a stuffy room, so a whiff of youthfulness, energy, and
confidence of success reached Kutuzov's cheerless staff with the
galloping advent of all these brilliant young men.

"Why aren't you beginning, Michael Ilarionovich?" said the Emperor
Alexander hurriedly to Kutuzov, glancing courteously at the same
time at the Emperor Francis.

"I am waiting, Your Majesty," answered Kutuzov, bending forward
respectfully.

The Emperor, frowning slightly, bent his ear forward as if he had
not quite heard.

"Waiting, Your Majesty," repeated Kutuzov. (Prince Andrew noted that
Kutuzov's upper lip twitched unnaturally as he said the word
"waiting.") "Not all the columns have formed up yet, Your Majesty."

The Tsar heard but obviously did not like the reply; he shrugged his
rather round shoulders and glanced at Novosiltsev who was near him, as
if complaining of Kutuzov.

"You know, Michael Ilarionovich, we are not are not on the
Empress' Field where a parade does not begin till all the troops are
assembled," said the Tsar with another glance at the Emperor
Francis, as if inviting him if not to join in at least to listen to
what he was saying. But the Emperor Francis continued to look about
him and did not listen.

"That is just why I do not begin, sire," said Kutuzov in a
resounding voice, apparently to preclude the possibility of not
being heard, and again something in his face twitched- "That is just
why I do not begin, sire, because we are not on parade and not on
the Empress' Field." said clearly and distinctly.

In the Emperor's suite all exchanged rapid looks that expressed
dissatisfaction and reproach. "Old though he may be, he should not, he
certainly should not, speak like that," their glances seemed to say.

The Tsar looked intently and observantly into Kutuzov's eye
waiting to hear whether he would say anything more. But Kutuzov,
with respectfully bowed head, seemed also to be waiting. The silence
lasted for about a minute.

"However, if you command it, Your Majesty," said Kutuzov, lifting
his head and again assuming his former tone of a dull, unreasoning,
but submissive general.

He touched his horse and having called Miloradovich, the commander
of the column, gave him the order to advance.

The troops again began to move, and two battalions of the Novgorod
and one of the Apsheron regiment went forward past the Emperor.

As this Apsheron battalion marched by, the red-faced Miloradovich,
without his greatcoat, with his Orders on his breast and an enormous
tuft of plumes in his cocked hat worn on one side with its corners
front and back, galloped strenuously forward, and with a dashing
salute reined in his horse before the Emperor.

"God be with you, general!" said the Emperor.

"Ma foi, sire, nous ferons ce qui sera dans notre possibilite,
sire,"* he answered gaily, raising nevertheless ironic smiles among
the gentlemen of the Tsar's suite by his poor French.


*"Indeed, Sire, we shall do everything it is possible to do, Sire."


Miloradovich wheeled his horse sharply and stationed himself a
little behind the Emperor. The Apsheron men, excited by the Tsar's
presence, passed in step before the Emperors and their suites at a
bold, brisk pace.

"Lads!" shouted Miloradovich in a loud, self-confident, and cheery
voice, obviously so elated by the sound of firing, by the prospect
of battle, and by the sight of the gallant Apsherons, his comrades
in Suvorov's time, now passing so gallantly before the Emperors,
that he forgot the sovereigns' presence. "Lads, it's not the first
village you've had to take," cried he.

"Glad to do our best!" shouted the soldiers.

The Emperor's horse started at the sudden cry. This horse that had
carried the sovereign at reviews in Russia bore him also here on the
field of Austerlitz, enduring the heedless blows of his left foot
and pricking its ears at the sound of shots just as it had done on the
Empress' Field, not understanding the significance of the firing,
nor of the nearness of the Emperor Francis' black cob, nor of all that
was being said, thought, and felt that day by its rider.

The Emperor turned with a smile to one of his followers and made a
remark to him, pointing to the gallant Apsherons.


CHAPTER XVI


Kutuzov accompanied by his adjutants rode at a walking pace behind
the carabineers.

When he had gone less than half a mile in the rear of the column
he stopped at a solitary, deserted house that had probably once been
an inn, where two roads parted. Both of them led downhill and troops
were marching along both.

The fog had begun to clear and enemy troops were already dimly
visible about a mile and a half off on the opposite heights. Down
below, on the left, the firing became more distinct. Kutuzov had
stopped and was speaking to an Austrian general. Prince Andrew, who
was a little behind looking at them, turned to an adjutant to ask
him for a field glass.

"Look, look!" said this adjutant, looking not at the troops in the
distance, but down the hill before him. "It's the French!"

The two generals and the adjutant took hold of the field glass,
trying to snatch it from one another. The expression on all their
faces suddenly changed to one of horror. The French were supposed to
be a mile and a half away, but had suddenly and unexpectedly
appeared just in front of us.

"It's the enemy?... No!... Yes, see it is!... for certain.... But
how is that?" said different voices.

With the naked eye Prince Andrew saw below them to the right, not
more than five hundred paces from where Kutuzov was standing, a
dense French column coming up to meet the Apsherons.

"Here it is! The decisive moment has arrived. My turn has come,"
thought Prince Andrew, and striking his horse he rode up to Kutuzov.

"The Apsherons must be stopped, your excellency," cried he. But at
that very instant a cloud of smoke spread all round, firing was
heard quite close at hand, and a voice of naive terror barely two
steps from Prince Andrew shouted, "Brothers! All's lost!" And at
this as if at a command, everyone began to run.

Confused and ever-increasing crowds were running back to where
five minutes before the troops had passed the Emperors. Not only would
it have been difficult to stop that crowd, it was even impossible
not to be carried back with it oneself. Bolkonski only tried not to
lose touch with it, and looked around bewildered and unable to grasp
what was happening in front of him. Nesvitski with an angry face,
red and unlike himself, was shouting to Kutuzov that if he did not
ride away at once he would certainly be taken prisoner. Kutuzov
remained in the same place and without answering drew out a
handkerchief. Blood was flowing from his cheek. Prince Andrew forced
his way to him.

"You are wounded?" he asked, hardly able to master the trembling
of his lower jaw.

"The wound is not here, it is there!" said Kutuzov, pressing the
handkerchief to his wounded cheek and pointing to the fleeing
soldiers. "Stop them!" he shouted, and at the same moment, probably
realizing that it was impossible to stop them, spurred his horse and
rode to the right.

A fresh wave of the flying mob caught him and bore him back with it.

The troops were running in such a dense mass that once surrounded by
them it was difficult to get out again. One was shouting, "Get on! Why
are you hindering us?" Another in the same place turned round and
fired in the air; a third was striking the horse Kutuzov himself rode.
Having by a great effort got away to the left from that flood of
men, Kutuzov, with his suite diminished by more than half, rode toward
a sound of artillery fire near by. Having forced his way out of the
crowd of fugitives, Prince Andrew, trying to keep near Kutuzov, saw on
the slope of the hill amid the smoke a Russian battery that was
still firing and Frenchmen running toward it. Higher up stood some
Russian infantry, neither moving forward to protect the battery nor
backward with the fleeing crowd. A mounted general separated himself
from the infantry and approached Kutuzov. Of Kutuzov's suite only four
remained. They were all pale and exchanged looks in silence.

"Stop those wretches!" gasped Kutuzov to the regimental commander,
pointing to the flying soldiers; but at that instant, as if to
punish him for those words, bullets flew hissing across the regiment
and across Kutuzov's suite like a flock of little birds.

The French had attacked the battery and, seeing Kutuzov, were firing
at him. After this volley the regimental commander clutched at his
leg; several soldiers fell, and a second lieutenant who was holding
the flag let it fall from his hands. It swayed and fell, but caught on
the muskets of the nearest soldiers. The soldiers started firing
without orders.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" groaned Kutuzov despairingly and looked around....
"Bolkonski!" he whispered, his voice trembling from a consciousness of
the feebleness of age, "Bolkonski!" he whispered, pointing to the
disordered battalion and at the enemy, "what's that?"

But before he had finished speaking, Prince Andrew, feeling tears of
shame and anger choking him, had already leapt from his horse and
run to the standard.

"Forward, lads!" he shouted in a voice piercing as a child's.

"Here it is!" thought he, seizing the staff of the standard and
hearing with pleasure the whistle of bullets evidently aimed at him.
Several soldiers fell.

"Hurrah!" shouted Prince Andrew, and, scarcely able to hold up the
heavy standard, he ran forward with full confidence that the whole
battalion would follow him.

And really he only ran a few steps alone. One soldier moved and then
another and soon the whole battalion ran forward shouting "Hurrah!"
and overtook him. A sergeant of the battalion ran up and took the flag
that was swaying from its weight in Prince Andrew's hands, but he
was immediately killed. Prince Andrew again seized the standard and,
dragging it by the staff, ran on with the battalion. In front he saw
our artillerymen, some of whom were fighting, while others, having
abandoned their guns, were running toward him. He also saw French
infantry soldiers who were seizing the artillery horses and turning
the guns round. Prince Andrew and the battalion were already within
twenty paces of the cannon. He heard the whistle of bullets above
him unceasingly and to right and left of him soldiers continually
groaned and dropped. But he did not look at them: he looked only at
what was going on in front of him- at the battery. He now saw
clearly the figure of a red-haired gunner with his shako knocked awry,
pulling one end of a mop while a French soldier tugged at the other.
He could distinctly see the distraught yet angry expression on the
faces of these two men, who evidently did not realize what they were
doing.

"What are they about?" thought Prince Andrew as he gazed at them.
"Why doesn't the red-haired gunner run away as he is unarmed? Why
doesn't the Frenchman stab him? He will not get away before the
Frenchman remembers his bayonet and stabs him...."

And really another French soldier, trailing his musket, ran up to
the struggling men, and the fate of the red-haired gunner, who had
triumphantly secured the mop and still did not realize what awaited
him, was about to be decided. But Prince Andrew did not see how it
ended. It seemed to him as though one of the soldiers near him hit him
on the head with the full swing of a bludgeon. It hurt a little, but
the worst of it was that the pain distracted him and prevented his
seeing what he had been looking at.

"What's this? Am I falling? My legs are giving way," thought he, and
fell on his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the struggle
of the Frenchmen with the gunners ended, whether the red-haired gunner
had been killed or not and whether the cannon had been captured or
saved. But he saw nothing. Above him there was now nothing but the
sky- the lofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty, with
gray clouds gliding slowly across it. "How quiet, peaceful, and
solemn; not at all as I ran," thought Prince Andrew- "not as we ran,
shouting and fighting, not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with
frightened and angry faces struggled for the mop: how differently do
those clouds glide across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did
not see that lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have found it
at last! Yes! All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite
sky. There is nothing, nothing, but that. But even it does not
exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace. Thank God!..."


CHAPTER XVII


On our right flank commanded by Bagration, at nine o'clock the
battle had not yet begun. Not wishing to agree to Dolgorukov's
demand to commence the action, and wishing to avert responsibility
from himself, Prince Bagration proposed to Dolgorukov to send to
inquire of the commander in chief. Bagration knew that as the distance
between the two flanks was more than six miles, even if the
messenger were not killed (which he very likely would be), and found
the commander in chief (which would be very difficult), he would not
be able to get back before evening.

Bagration cast his large, expressionless, sleepy eyes round his
suite, and the boyish face Rostov, breathless with excitement and
hope, was the first to catch his eye. He sent him.

"And if I should meet His Majesty before I meet the commander in
chief, your excellency?" said Rostov, with his hand to his cap.

"You can give the message to His Majesty," said Dolgorukov,
hurriedly interrupting Bagration.

On being relieved from picket duty Rostov had managed to get a few
hours' sleep before morning and felt cheerful, bold, and resolute,
with elasticity of movement, faith in his good fortune, and
generally in that state of mind which makes everything seem
possible, pleasant, and easy.

All his wishes were being fulfilled that morning: there was to be
a general engagement in which he was taking part, more than that, he
was orderly to the bravest general, and still more, he was going
with a message to Kutuzov, perhaps even to the sovereign himself.
The morning was bright, he had a good horse under him, and his heart
was full of joy and happiness. On receiving the order he gave his
horse the rein and galloped along the line. At first he rode along the
line of Bagration's troops, which had not yet advanced into action but
were standing motionless; then he came to the region occupied by
Uvarov's cavalry and here he noticed a stir and signs of preparation
for battle; having passed Uvarov's cavalry he clearly heard the
sound of cannon and musketry ahead of him. The firing grew louder
and louder.

In the fresh morning air were now heard, not two or three musket
shots at irregular intervals as before, followed by one or two
cannon shots, but a roll of volleys of musketry from the slopes of the
hill before Pratzen, interrupted by such frequent reports of cannon
that sometimes several of them were not separated from one another but
merged into a general roar.

He could see puffs of musketry smoke that seemed to chase one
another down the hillsides, and clouds of cannon smoke rolling,
spreading, and mingling with one another. He could also, by the
gleam of bayonets visible through the smoke, make out moving masses of
infantry and narrow lines of artillery with green caissons.

Rostov stopped his horse for a moment on a hillock to see what was
going on, but strain his attention as he would he could not understand
or make out anything of what was happening: there in the smoke men
of some sort were moving about, in front and behind moved lines of
troops; but why, whither, and who they were, it was impossible to make
out. These sights and sounds had no depressing or intimidating
effect on him; on the contrary, they stimulated his energy and
determination.

"Go on! Go on! Give it them!" he mentally exclaimed at these sounds,
and again proceeded to gallop along the line, penetrating farther
and farther into the region where the army was already in action.

"How it will be there I don't know, but all will be well!" thought
Rostov.

After passing some Austrian troops he noticed that the next part
of the line (the Guards) was already in action.

"So much the better! I shall see it close," he thought.

He was riding almost along the front line. A handful of men came
galloping toward him. They were our Uhlans who with disordered ranks
were returning from the attack. Rostov got out of their way,
involuntarily noticed that one of them was bleeding, and galloped on.

"That is no business of mine," he thought. He had not ridden many
hundred yards after that before he saw to his left, across the whole
width of the field, an enormous mass of cavalry in brilliant white
uniforms, mounted on black horses, trotting straight toward him and
across his path. Rostov put his horse to full gallop to get out of the
way of these men, and he would have got clear had they continued at
the same speed, but they kept increasing their pace, so that some of
the horses were already galloping. Rostov heard the thud of their
hoofs and the jingle of their weapons and saw their horses, their
figures, and even their faces, more and more distinctly. They were our
Horse Guards, advancing to attack the French cavalry that was coming
to meet them.

The Horse Guards were galloping, but still holding in their
horses. Rostov could already see their faces and heard the command:
"Charge!" shouted by an officer who was urging his thoroughbred to
full speed. Rostov, fearing to be crushed or swept into the attack
on the French, galloped along the front as hard as his horse could go,
but still was not in time to avoid them.

The last of the Horse Guards, a huge pockmarked fellow, frowned
angrily on seeing Rostov before him, with whom he would inevitably
collide. This Guardsman would certainly have bowled Rostov and his
Bedouin over (Rostov felt himself quite tiny and weak compared to
these gigantic men and horses) had it not occurred to Rostov to
flourish his whip before the eyes of the Guardsman's horse. The
heavy black horse, sixteen hands high, shied, throwing back its
ears; but the pockmarked Guardsman drove his huge spurs in
violently, and the horse, flourishing its tail and extending its neck,
galloped on yet faster. Hardly had the Horse Guards passed Rostov
before he heard them shout, "Hurrah!" and looking back saw that
their foremost ranks were mixed up with some foreign cavalry with
red epaulets, probably French. He could see nothing more, for
immediately afterwards cannon began firing from somewhere and smoke
enveloped everything.

At that moment, as the Horse Guards, having passed him,
disappeared in the smoke, Rostov hesitated whether to gallop after
them or to go where he was sent. This was the brilliant charge of
the Horse Guards that amazed the French themselves. Rostov was
horrified to hear later that of all that mass of huge and handsome
men, of all those brilliant, rich youths, officers and cadets, who had
galloped past him on their thousand-ruble horses, only eighteen were
left after the charge.

"Why should I envy them? My chance is not lost, and maybe I shall
see the Emperor immediately! " thought Rostov and galloped on.

When he came level with the Foot Guards he noticed that about them
and around them cannon balls were flying, of which he was aware not so
much because he heard their sound as because he saw uneasiness on
the soldiers' faces and unnatural warlike solemnity on those of the
officers.

Passing behind one of the lines of a regiment of Foot Guards he
heard a voice calling him by name.

"Rostov!"

"What?" he answered, not recognizing Boris.

"I say, we've been in the front line! Our regiment attacked!" said
Boris with the happy smile seen on the faces of young men who have
been under fire for the first time.

Rostov stopped.

"Have you?" he said. "Well, how did it go?"

"We drove them back!" said Boris with animation, growing
talkative. "Can you imagine it?" and he began describing how the
Guards, having taken up their position and seeing troops before
them, thought they were Austrians, and all at once discovered from the
cannon balls discharged by those troops that they were themselves in
the front line and had unexpectedly to go into action. Rostov
without hearing Boris to the end spurred his horse.

"Where are you off to?" asked Boris.

"With a message to His Majesty."

"There he is!" said Boris, thinking Rostov had said "His
Highness," and pointing to the Grand Duke who with his high
shoulders and frowning brows stood a hundred paces away from them in
his helmet and Horse Guards' jacket, shouting something to a pale,
white uniformed Austrian officer.

"But that's the Grand Duke, and I want the commander in chief or the
Emperor," said Rostov, and was about to spur his horse.

"Count! Count!" shouted Berg who ran up from the other side as eager
as Boris. "Count! I am wounded in my right hand" (and he showed his
bleeding hand with a handkerchief tied round it) "and I remained at
the front. I held my sword in my left hand, Count. All our family- the
von Bergs- have been knights!"

He said something more, but Rostov did not wait to hear it and
rode away.

Having passed the Guards and traversed an empty space, Rostov, to
avoid again getting in front of the first line as he had done when the
Horse Guards charged, followed the line of reserves, going far round
the place where the hottest musket fire and cannonade were heard.
Suddenly he heard musket fire quite close in front of him and behind
our troops, where he could never have expected the enemy to be.

"What can it be?" he thought. "The enemy in the rear of our army?
Impossible!" And suddenly he was seized by a panic of fear for himself
and for the issue of the whole battle. "But be that what it may," he
reflected, "there is no riding round it now. I must look for the
commander in chief here, and if all is lost it is for me to perish
with the rest."

The foreboding of evil that had suddenly come over Rostov was more
and more confirmed the farther he rode into the region behind the
village of Pratzen, which was full of troops of all kinds.

"What does it mean? What is it? Whom are they firing at? Who is
firing?" Rostov kept asking as he came up to Russian and Austrian
soldiers running in confused crowds across his path.

"The devil knows! They've killed everybody! It's all up now!" he was
told in Russian, German, and Czech by the crowd of fugitives who
understood what was happening as little as he did.

"Kill the Germans!" shouted one.

"May the devil take them- the traitors!"

"Zum Henker diese Russen!"* muttered a German.


*"Hang these Russians!"


Several wounded men passed along the road, and words of abuse,
screams, and groans mingled in a general hubbub, then the firing
died down. Rostov learned later that Russian and Austrian soldiers had
been firing at one another.

"My God! What does it all mean?" thought he. "And here, where at any
moment the Emperor may see them.... But no, these must be only a
handful of scoundrels. It will soon be over, it can't be that, it
can't be! Only to get past them quicker, quicker!"

The idea of defeat and flight could not enter Rostov's head.
Though he saw French cannon and French troops on the Pratzen Heights
just where he had been ordered to look for the commander in chief,
he could not, did not wish to, believe that.


CHAPTER XVIII


Rostov had been ordered to look for Kutuzov and the Emperor near the
village of Pratzen. But neither they nor a single commanding officer
were there, only disorganized crowds of troops of various kinds. He
urged on his already weary horse to get quickly past these crowds, but
the farther he went the more disorganized they were. The highroad on
which he had come out was thronged with caleches, carriages of all
sorts, and Russian and Austrian soldiers of all arms, some wounded and
some not. This whole mass droned and jostled in confusion under the
dismal influence of cannon balls flying from the French batteries
stationed on the Pratzen Heights.

"Where is the Emperor? Where is Kutuzov?" Rostov kept asking
everyone he could stop, but got no answer from anyone.

At last seizing a soldier by his collar he forced him to answer.

"Eh, brother! They've all bolted long ago!" said the soldier,
laughing for some reason and shaking himself free.

Having left that soldier who was evidently drunk, Rostov stopped the
horse of a batman or groom of some important personage and began to
question him. The man announced that the Tsar had been driven in a
carriage at full speed about an hour before along that very road and
that he was dangerously wounded.

"It can't be!" said Rostov. "It must have been someone else."

"I saw him myself." replied the man with a self-confident smile of
derision. "I ought to know the Emperor by now, after the times I've
seen him in Petersburg. I saw him just as I see you.... There he sat
in the carriage as pale as anything. How they made the four black
horses fly! Gracious me, they did rattle past! It's time I knew the
Imperial horses and Ilya Ivanych. I don't think Ilya drives anyone
except the Tsar!"

Rostov let go of the horse and was about to ride on, when a
wounded officer passing by addressed him:

"Who is it you want?" he asked. "The commander in chief? He was
killed by a cannon ball- struck in the breast before our regiment."

"Not killed- wounded!" another officer corrected him.

"Who? Kutuzov?" asked Rostov.

"Not Kutuzov, but what's his name- well, never mind... there are not
many left alive. Go that way, to that village, all the commanders
are there," said the officer, pointing to the village of Hosjeradek,
and he walked on.

Rostov rode on at a footpace not knowing why or to whom he was now
going. The Emperor was wounded, the battle lost. It was impossible
to doubt it now. Rostov rode in the direction pointed out to him, in
which he saw turrets and a church. What need to hurry? What was he now
to say to the Tsar or to Kutuzov, even if they were alive and
unwounded?

"Take this road, your honor, that way you will be killed at once!" a
soldier shouted to him. "They'd kill you there!"

"Oh, what are you talking about?" said another. "Where is he to
go? That way is nearer."

Rostov considered, and then went in the direction where they said he
would be killed.

"It's all the same now. If the Emperor is wounded, am I to try to
save myself?" he thought. He rode on to the region where the
greatest number of men had perished in fleeing from Pratzen. The
French had not yet occupied that region, and the Russians- the
uninjured and slightly wounded- had left it long ago. All about the
field, like heaps of manure on well-kept plowland, lay from ten to
fifteen dead and wounded to each couple of acres. The wounded crept
together in twos and threes and one could hear their distressing
screams and groans, sometimes feigned- or so it seemed to Rostov. He
put his horse to a trot to avoid seeing all these suffering men, and
he felt afraid- afraid not for his life, but for the courage he needed
and which he knew would not stand the sight of these unfortunates.

The French, who had ceased firing at this field strewn with dead and
wounded where there was no one left to fire at, on seeing an
adjutant riding over it trained a gun on him and fired several
shots. The sensation of those terrible whistling sounds and of the
corpses around him merged in Rostov's mind into a single feeling of
terror and pity for himself. He remembered his mother's last letter.
"What would she feel," thought he, "if she saw me here now on this
field with the cannon aimed at me?"

In the village of Hosjeradek there were Russian troops retiring from
the field of battle, who though still in some confusion were less
disordered. The French cannon did not reach there and the musketry
fire sounded far away. Here everyone clearly saw and said that the
battle was lost. No one whom Rostov asked could tell him where the
Emperor or Kutuzov was. Some said the report that the Emperor was
wounded was correct, others that it was not, and explained the false
rumor that had spread by the fact that the Emperor's carriage had
really galloped from the field of battle with the pale and terrified
Ober-Hofmarschal Count Tolstoy, who had ridden out to the
battlefield with others in the Emperor's suite. One officer told
Rostov that he had seen someone from headquarters behind the village
to the left, and thither Rostov rode, not hoping to find anyone but
merely to ease his conscience. When he had ridden about two miles
and had passed the last of the Russian troops, he saw, near a
kitchen garden with a ditch round it, two men on horseback facing
the ditch. One with a white plume in his hat seemed familiar to
Rostov; the other on a beautiful chestnut horse (which Rostov
fancied he had seen before) rode up to the ditch, struck his horse
with his spurs, and giving it the rein leaped lightly over. Only a
little earth crumbled from the bank under the horse's hind hoofs.
Turning the horse sharply, he again jumped the ditch, and
deferentially addressed the horseman with the white plumes,
evidently suggesting that he should do the same. The rider, whose
figure seemed familiar to Rostov and involuntarily riveted his
attention, made a gesture of refusal with his head and hand and by
that gesture Rostov instantly recognized his lamented and adored
monarch.

"But it can't be he, alone in the midst of this empty field!"
thought Rostov. At that moment Alexander turned his head and Rostov
saw the beloved features that were so deeply engraved on his memory.
The Emperor was pale, his cheeks sunken and his eyes hollow, but the
charm, the mildness of his features, was all the greater. Rostov was
happy in the assurance that the rumors about the Emperor being wounded
were false. He was happy to be seeing him. He knew that he might and
even ought to go straight to him and give the message Dolgorukov had
ordered him to deliver.

But as a youth in love trembles, is unnerved, and dares not utter
the thoughts he has dreamed of for nights, but looks around for help
or a chance of delay and flight when the longed-for moment comes and
he is alone with her, so Rostov, now that he had attained what he
had longed for more than anything else in the world, did not know
how to approach the Emperor, and a thousand reasons occurred to him
why it would be inconvenient, unseemly, and impossible to do so.

"What! It is as if I were glad of a chance to take advantage of
his being alone and despondent! A strange face may seem unpleasant
or painful to him at this moment of sorrow; besides, what can I say to
him now, when my heart fails me and my mouth feels dry at the mere
sight of him?" Not one of the innumerable speeches addressed to the
Emperor that he had composed in his imagination could he now recall.
Those speeches were intended for quite other conditions, they were for
the most part to be spoken at a moment of victory and triumph,
generally when he was dying of wounds and the sovereign had thanked
him for heroic deeds, and while dying he expressed the love his
actions had proved.

"Besides how can I ask the Emperor for his instructions for the
right flank now that it is nearly four o'clock and the battle is lost?
No, certainly I must not approach him, I must not intrude on his
reflections. Better die a thousand times than risk receiving an unkind
look or bad opinion from him," Rostov decided; and sorrowfully and
with a heart full despair he rode away, continually looking back at
the Tsar, who still remained in the same attitude of indecision.

While Rostov was thus arguing with himself and riding sadly away,
Captain von Toll chanced to ride to the same spot, and seeing the
Emperor at once rode up to him, offered his services, and assisted him
to cross the ditch on foot. The Emperor, wishing to rest and feeling
unwell, sat down under an apple tree and von Toll remained beside him.
Rostov from a distance saw with envy and remorse how von Toll spoke
long and warmly to the Emperor and how the Emperor, evidently weeping,
covered his eyes with his hand and pressed von Toll's hand.

"And I might have been in his place!" thought Rostov, and hardly
restraining his tears of pity for the Emperor, he rode on in utter
despair, not knowing where to or why he was now riding.

His despair was all the greater from feeling that his own weakness
was the cause his grief.

He might... not only might but should, have gone up to the
sovereign. It was a unique chance to show his devotion to the
Emperor and he had not made use of it.... "What have I done?"
thought he. And he turned round and galloped back to the place where
he had seen the Emperor, but there was no one beyond the ditch now.
Only some carts and carriages were passing by. From one of the drivers
he learned that Kutuzov's staff were not far off, in the village the
vehicles were going to. Rostov followed them. In front of him walked
Kutuzov's groom leading horses in horsecloths. Then came a cart, and
behind that walked an old, bandy-legged domestic serf in a peaked
cap and sheepskin coat.

"Tit! I say, Tit!" said the groom.

"What?" answered the old man absent-mindedly.

"Go, Tit! Thresh a bit!"

"Oh, you fool!" said the old man, spitting angrily. Some time passed
in silence, and then the same joke was repeated.


Before five in the evening the battle had been lost at all points.
More than a hundred cannon were already in the hands of the French.

Przebyszewski and his corps had laid down their arms. Other
columns after losing half their men were retreating in disorderly
confused masses.

The remains of Langeron's and Dokhturov's mingled forces were
crowding around the dams and banks of the ponds near the village of
Augesd.

After five o'clock it was only at the Augesd Dam that a hot
cannonade (delivered by the French alone) was still to be heard from
numerous batteries ranged on the slopes of the Pratzen Heights,
directed at our retreating forces.

In the rearguard, Dokhturov and others rallying some battalions kept
up a musketry fire at the French cavalry that was pursuing our troops.
It was growing dusk. On the narrow Augesd Dam where for so many
years the old miller had been accustomed to sit in his tasseled cap
peacefully angling, while his grandson, with shirt sleeves rolled
up, handled the floundering silvery fish in the watering can, on
that dam over which for so many years Moravians in shaggy caps and
blue jackets had peacefully driven their two-horse carts loaded with
wheat and had returned dusty with flour whitening their carts- on that
narrow dam amid the wagons and the cannon, under the horses' hoofs and
between the wagon wheels, men disfigured by fear of death now
crowded together, crushing one another, dying, stepping over the dying
and killing one another, only to move on a few steps and be killed
themselves in the same way.

Every ten seconds a cannon ball flew compressing the air around,
or a shell burst in the midst of that dense throng, killing some and
splashing with blood those near them.

Dolokhov- now an officer- wounded in the arm, and on foot, with
the regimental commander on horseback and some ten men of his company,
represented all that was left of that whole regiment. Impelled by
the crowd, they had got wedged in at the approach to the dam and,
jammed in on all sides, had stopped because a horse in front had
fallen under a cannon and the crowd were dragging it out. A cannon
ball killed someone behind them, another fell in front and splashed
Dolokhov with blood. The crowd, pushing forward desperately,
squeezed together, moved a few steps, and again stopped.

"Move on a hundred yards and we are certainly saved, remain here
another two minutes and it is certain death," thought each one.

Dolokhov who was in the midst of the crowd forced his way to the
edge of the dam, throwing two soldiers off their feet, and ran onto
the slippery ice that covered the millpool.

"Turn this way!" he shouted, jumping over the ice which creaked
under him; "turn this way!" he shouted to those with the gun. "It
bears!..."

The ice bore him but it swayed and creaked, and it was plain that it
would give way not only under a cannon or a crowd, but very soon
even under his weight alone. The men looked at him and pressed to
the bank, hesitating to step onto the ice. The general on horseback at
the entrance to the dam raised his hand and opened his mouth to
address Dolokhov. Suddenly a cannon ball hissed so low above the crowd
that everyone ducked. It flopped into something moist, and the general
fell from his horse in a pool of blood. Nobody gave him a look or
thought of raising him.

"Get onto the ice, over the ice! Go on! Turn! Don't you hear? Go
on!" innumerable voices suddenly shouted after the ball had struck the
general, the men themselves not knowing what, or why, they were
shouting.

One of the hindmost guns that was going onto the dam turned off onto
the ice. Crowds of soldiers from the dam began running onto the frozen
pond. The ice gave way under one of the foremost soldiers, and one leg
slipped into the water. He tried to right himself but fell in up to
his waist. The nearest soldiers shrank back, the gun driver stopped
his horse, but from behind still came the shouts: "Onto the ice, why
do you stop? Go on! Go on!" And cries of horror were heard in the
crowd. The soldiers near the gun waved their arms and beat the
horses to make them turn and move on. The horses moved off the bank.
The ice, that had held under those on foot, collapsed in a great mass,
and some forty men who were on it dashed, some forward and some
back, drowning one another.

Still the cannon balls continued regularly to whistle and flop
onto the ice and into the water and oftenest of all among the crowd
that covered the dam, the pond, and the bank.


CHAPTER XIX


On the Pratzen Heights, where he had fallen with the flagstaff in
his hand, lay Prince Andrew Bolkonski bleeding profusely and
unconsciously uttering a gentle, piteous, and childlike moan.

Toward evening he ceased moaning and became quite still. He did
not know how long his unconsciousness lasted. Suddenly he again felt
that he was alive and suffering from a burning, lacerating pain in his
head.

"Where is it, that lofty sky that I did not know till now, but saw
today?" was his first thought. "And I did not know this suffering
either," he thought. "Yes, I did not know anything, anything at all
till now. But where am I?"

He listened and heard the sound of approaching horses, and voices
speaking French. He opened his eyes. Above him again was the same
lofty sky with clouds that had risen and were floating still higher,
and between them gleamed blue infinity. He did not turn his head and
did not see those who, judging by the sound of hoofs and voices, had
ridden up and stopped near him.

It was Napoleon accompanied by two aides-de-camp. Bonaparte riding
over the battlefield had given final orders to strengthen the
batteries firing at the Augesd Dam and was looking at the killed and
wounded left on the field.

"Fine men!" remarked Napoleon, looking at a dead Russian
grenadier, who, with his face buried in the ground and a blackened
nape, lay on his stomach with an already stiffened arm flung wide.

"The ammunition for the guns in position is exhausted, Your
Majesty," said an adjutant who had come from the batteries that were
firing at Augesd.

"Have some brought from the reserve," said Napoleon, and having gone
on a few steps he stopped before Prince Andrew, who lay on his back
with the flagstaff that had been dropped beside him. (The flag had
already been taken by the French as a trophy.)

"That's a fine death!" said Napoleon as he gazed at Bolkonski.

Prince Andrew understood that this was said of him and that it was
Napoleon who said it. He heard the speaker addressed as Sire. But he
heard the words as he might have heard the buzzing of a fly. Not
only did they not interest him, but he took no notice of them and at
once forgot them. His head was burning, he felt himself bleeding to
death, and he saw above him the remote, lofty, and everlasting sky. He
knew it was Napoleon- his hero- but at that moment Napoleon seemed
to him such a small, insignificant creature compared with what was
passing now between himself and that lofty infinite sky with the
clouds flying over it. At that moment it meant nothing to him who
might be standing over him, or what was said of him; he was only
glad that people were standing near him and only wished that they
would help him and bring him back to life, which seemed to him so
beautiful now that he had today learned to understand it so
differently. He collected all his strength, to stir and utter a sound.
He feebly moved his leg and uttered a weak, sickly groan which aroused
his own pity.

"Ah! He is alive," said Napoleon. "Lift this young man up and
carry him to the dressing station."

Having said this, Napoleon rode on to meet Marshal Lannes, who,
hat in hand, rode up smiling to the Emperor to congratulate him on the
victory.

Prince Andrew remembered nothing more: he lost consciousness from
the terrible pain of being lifted onto the stretcher, the jolting
while being moved, and the probing of his wound at the dressing
station. He did not regain consciousness till late in the day, when
with other wounded and captured Russian officers he was carried to the
hospital. During this transfer he felt a little stronger and was
able to look about him and even speak.

The first words he heard on coming to his senses were those of a
French convoy officer, who said rapidly: "We must halt here: the
Emperor will pass here immediately; it will please him to see these
gentlemen prisoners."

"There are so many prisoners today, nearly the whole Russian army,
that he is probably tired of them," said another officer.

"All the same! They say this one is the commander of all the Emperor
Alexander's Guards," said the first one, indicating a Russian
officer in the white uniform of the Horse Guards.

Bolkonski recognized Prince Repnin whom he had met in Petersburg
society. Beside him stood a lad of nineteen, also a wounded officer of
the Horse Guards.

Bonaparte, having come up at a gallop, stopped his horse.

"Which is the senior?" he asked, on seeing the prisoners.

They named the colonel, Prince Repnin.

"You are the commander of the Emperor Alexander's regiment of
Horse Guards?" asked Napoleon.

"I commanded a squadron," replied Repnin.

"Your regiment fulfilled its duty honorably," said Napoleon.

"The praise of a great commander is a soldier's highest reward,"
said Repnin.

"I bestow it with pleasure," said Napoleon. "And who is that young
man beside you?"

Prince Repnin named Lieutenant Sukhtelen.

After looking at him Napoleon smiled.

"He's very young to come to meddle with us."

"Youth is no hindrance to courage," muttered Sukhtelen in a
failing voice.

"A splendid reply!" said Napoleon. "Young man, you will go far!"

Prince Andrew, who had also been brought forward before the
Emperor's eyes to complete the show of prisoners, could not fail to
attract his attention. Napoleon apparently remembered seeing him on
the battlefield and, addressing him, again used the epithet "young
man" that was connected in his memory with Prince Andrew.

"Well, and you, young man," said he. "How do you feel, mon brave?"

Though five minutes before, Prince Andrew had been able to say a few
words to the soldiers who were carrying him, now with his eyes fixed
straight on Napoleon, he was silent.... So insignificant at that
moment seemed to him all the interests that engrossed Napoleon, so
mean did his hero himself with his paltry vanity and joy in victory
appear, compared to the lofty, equitable, and kindly sky which he
had seen and understood, that he could not answer him.

Everything seemed so futile and insignificant in comparison with the
stern and solemn train of thought that weakness from loss of blood,
suffering, and the nearness of death aroused in him. Looking into
Napoleon's eyes Prince Andrew thought of the insignificance of
greatness, the unimportance of life which no one could understand, and
the still greater unimportance of death, the meaning of which no one
alive could understand or explain.

The Emperor without waiting for an answer turned away and said to
one of the officers as he went: "Have these gentlemen attended to
and taken to my bivouac; let my doctor, Larrey, examine their
wounds. Au revoir, Prince Repnin!" and he spurred his horse and
galloped away.

His face shone with self-satisfaction and pleasure.

The soldiers who had carried Prince Andrew had noticed and taken the
little gold icon Princess Mary had hung round her brother's neck,
but seeing the favor the Emperor showed the prisoners, they now
hastened to return the holy image.

Prince Andrew did not see how and by whom it was replaced, but the
little icon with its thin gold chain suddenly appeared upon his
chest outside his uniform.

"It would be good," thought Prince Andrew, glancing at the icon
his sister had hung round his neck with such emotion and reverence,
"it would be good if everything were as clear and simple as it seems
to Mary. How good it would be to know where to seek for help in this
life, and what to expect after it beyond the grave! How happy and calm
I should be if I could now say: 'Lord, have mercy on me!'... But to
whom should I say that? Either to a Power indefinable,
incomprehensible, which I not only cannot address but which I cannot
even express in words- the Great All or Nothing-" said he to
himself, "or to that God who has been sewn into this amulet by Mary!
There is nothing certain, nothing at all except the unimportance of
everything I understand, and the greatness of something
incomprehensible but all-important.

The stretchers moved on. At every jolt he again felt unendurable
pain; his feverishness increased and he grew delirious. Visions of his
father, wife, sister, and future son, and the tenderness he had felt
the night before the battle, the figure of the insignificant little
Napoleon, and above all this the lofty sky, formed the chief
subjects of his delirious fancies.

The quiet home life and peaceful happiness of Bald Hills presented
itself to him. He was already enjoying that happiness when that little
Napoleon had suddenly appeared with his unsympathizing look of
shortsighted delight at the misery of others, and doubts and
torments had followed, and only the heavens promised peace. Toward
morning all these dreams melted and merged into the chaos and darkness
of unconciousness and oblivion which in the opinion of Napoleon's
doctor, Larrey, was much more likely to end in death than in
convalescence.

"He is a nervous, bilious subject," said Larrey, "and will not
recover."

And Prince Andrew, with others fatally wounded, was left to the care
of the inhabitants of the district.