insisting on having his own way, gave an order. No one said anything
definite, but the rumor of an attack spread through the squadron.
The command to form up rang out and the sabers whizzed as they were
drawn from their scabbards. Still no one moved. The troops of the left
flank, infantry and hussars alike, felt that the commander did not
himself know what to do, and this irresolution communicated itself
to the men.
"If only they would be quick!" thought Rostov, feeling that at
last the time had come to experience the joy of an attack of which
he had so often heard from his fellow hussars.
"Fo'ward, with God, lads!" rang out Denisov's voice. "At a twot
fo'ward!"
The horses' croups began to sway in the front line. Rook pulled at
the reins and started of his own accord.
Before him, on the right, Rostov saw the front lines of his
hussars and still farther ahead a dark line which he could not see
distinctly but took to be the enemy. Shots could be heard, but some
way off.
"Faster!" came the word of command, and Rostov felt Rook's flanks
drooping as he broke into a gallop.
Rostov anticipated his horse's movements and became more and more
elated. He had noticed a solitary tree ahead of him. This tree had
been in the middle of the line that had seemed so terrible - and now he
had crossed that line and not only was there nothing terrible, but
everything was becoming more and more happy and animated. "Oh, how I
will slash at him!" thought Rostov, gripping the hilt of his saber.
"Hur-a-a-a-ah!" came a roar of voices. "Let anyone come my way now,"
thought Rostov driving his spurs into Rook and letting him go at a
full gallop so that he outstripped the others. Ahead, the enemy was
already visible. Suddenly something like a birch broom seemed to sweep
over the squadron. Rostov raised his saber, ready to strike, but at
that instant the trooper Nikitenko, who was galloping ahead, shot away
from him, and Rostov felt as in a dream that he continued to be
carried forward with unnatural speed but yet stayed on the same
spot. From behind him Bondarchuk, an hussar he knew, jolted against
him and looked angrily at him. Bondarchuk's horse swerved and galloped
past.
"How is it I am not moving? I have fallen, I am killed!" Rostov
asked and answered at the same instant. He was alone in the middle
of a field. Instead of the moving horses and hussars' backs, he saw
nothing before him but the motionless earth and the stubble around
him. There was warm blood under his arm. "No, I am wounded and the
horse is killed." Rook tried to rise on his forelegs but fell back,
pinning his rider's leg. Blood was flowing from his head; he struggled
but could not rise. Rostov also tried to rise but fell back, his
sabretache having become entangled in the saddle. Where our men
were, and where the French, he did not know. There was no one near.
Having disentangled his leg, he rose. "Where, on which side, was now
the line that had so sharply divided the two armies?" he asked himself
and could not answer. "Can something bad have happened to me?" he
wondered as he got up: and at that moment he felt that something
superfluous was hanging on his benumbed left arm. The wrist felt as if
it were not his. He examined his hand carefully, vainly trying to find
blood on it. "Ah, here are people coming," he thought joyfully, seeing
some men running toward him. "They will help me!" In front came a
man wearing a strange shako and a blue cloak, swarthy, sunburned,
and with a hooked nose. Then came two more, and many more running
behind. One of them said something strange, not in Russian. In among
the hindmost of these men wearing similar shakos was a Russian hussar.
He was being held by the arms and his horse was being led behind him.
"It must be one of ours, a prisoner. Yes. Can it be that they will
take me too? Who are these men?" thought Rostov, scarcely believing
his eyes. "Can they be French?" He looked at the approaching
Frenchmen, and though but a moment before he had been galloping to get
at them and hack them to pieces, their proximity now seemed so awful
that he could not believe his eyes. "Who are they? Why are they
running? Can they be coming at me? And why? To kill me? Me whom
everyone is so fond of?" He remembered his mother's love for him,
and his family's, and his friends', and the enemy's intention to
kill him seemed impossible. "But perhaps they may do it!" For more
than ten seconds he stood not moving from the spot or realizing the
situation. The foremost Frenchman, the one with the hooked nose, was
already so close that the expression of his face could be seen. And
the excited, alien face of that man, his bayonet hanging down, holding
his breath, and running so lightly, frightened Rostov. He seized his
pistol and, instead of firing it, flung it at the Frenchman and ran
with all his might toward the bushes. He did not now run with the
feeling of doubt and conflict with which he had trodden the Enns
bridge, but with the feeling of a hare fleeing from the hounds. One
single sentiment, that of fear for his young and happy life, possessed
his whole being. Rapidly leaping the furrows, he fled across the field
with the impetuosity he used to show at catchplay, now and then
turning his good-natured, pale, young face to look back. A shudder
of terror went through him: "No, better not look," he thought, but
having reached the bushes he glanced round once more. The French had
fallen behind, and just as he looked round the first man changed his
run to a walk and, turning, shouted something loudly to a comrade
farther back. Rostov paused. "No, there's some mistake," thought he.
"They can't have wanted to kill me." But at the same time, his left
arm felt as heavy as if a seventy-pound weight were tied to it. He
could run no more. The Frenchman also stopped and took aim. Rostov
closed his eyes and stooped down. One bullet and then another whistled
past him. He mustered his last remaining strength, took hold of his
left hand with his right, and reached the bushes. Behind these were
some Russian sharpshooters.
CHAPTER XX
The infantry regiments that had been caught unawares in the
outskirts of the wood ran out of it, the different companies getting
mixed, and retreated as a disorderly crowd. One soldier, in his
fear, uttered the senseless cry, "Cut off!" that is so terrible in
battle, and that word infected the whole crowd with a feeling of
panic.
"Surrounded! Cut off? We're lost!" shouted the fugitives.
The moment he heard the firing and the cry from behind, the
general realized that something dreadful had happened to his regiment,
and the thought that he, an exemplary officer of many years' service
who had never been to blame, might be held responsible at headquarters
for negligence or inefficiency so staggered him that, forgetting the
recalcitrant cavalry colonel, his own dignity as a general, and
above all quite forgetting the danger and all regard for
self-preservation, he clutched the crupper of his saddle and, spurring
his horse, galloped to the regiment under a hail of bullets which fell
around, but fortunately missed him. His one desire was to know what
was happening and at any cost correct, or remedy, the mistake if he
had made one, so that he, an exemplary officer of twenty-two years'
service, who had never been censured, should not be held to blame.
Having galloped safely through the French, he reached a field behind
the copse across which our men, regardless of orders, were running and
descending the valley. That moment of moral hesitation which decides
the fate of battles had arrived. Would this disorderly crowd of
soldiers attend to the voice of their commander, or would they,
disregarding him, continue their flight? Despite his desperate
shouts that used to seem so terrible to the soldiers, despite his
furious purple countenance distorted out of all likeness to his former
self, and the flourishing of his saber, the soldiers all continued
to run, talking, firing into the air, and disobeying orders. The moral
hesitation which decided the fate of battles was evidently culminating
in a panic.
The general had a fit of coughing as a result of shouting and of the
powder smoke and stopped in despair. Everything seemed lost. But at
that moment the French who were attacking, suddenly and without any
apparent reason, ran back and disappeared from the outskirts, and
Russian sharpshooters showed themselves in the copse. It was
Timokhin's company, which alone had maintained its order in the wood
and, having lain in ambush in a ditch, now attacked the French
unexpectedly. Timokhin, armed only with a sword, had rushed at the
enemy with such a desperate cry and such mad, drunken determination
that, taken by surprise, the French had thrown down their muskets
and run. Dolokhov, running beside Timokhin, killed a Frenchman at
close quarters and was the first to seize the surrendering French
officer by his collar. Our fugitives returned, the battalions
re-formed, and the French who had nearly cut our left flank in half
were for the moment repulsed. Our reserve units were able to join
up, and the fight was at an end. The regimental commander and Major
Ekonomov had stopped beside a bridge, letting the retreating companies
pass by them, when a soldier came up and took hold of the
commander's stirrup, almost leaning against him. The man was wearing a
bluish coat of broadcloth, he had no knapsack or cap, his head was
bandaged, and over his shoulder a French munition pouch was slung.
He had an officer's sword in his hand. The soldier was pale, his
blue eyes looked impudently into the commander's face, and his lips
were smiling. Though the commander was occupied in giving instructions
to Major Ekonomov, he could not help taking notice of the soldier.
"Your excellency, here are two trophies," said Dolokhov, pointing to
the French sword and pouch. "I have taken an officer prisoner. I
stopped the company." Dolokhov breathed heavily from weariness and
spoke in abrupt sentences. "The whole company can bear witness. I
beg you will remember this, your excellency!"
"All right, all right," replied the commander, and turned to Major
Ekonomov.
But Dolokhov did not go away; he untied the handkerchief around
his head, pulled it off, and showed the blood congealed on his hair.
"A bayonet wound. I remained at the front. Remember, your
excellency!"
Tushin's battery had been forgotten and only at the very end of
the action did Prince Bagration, still hearing the cannonade in the
center, send his orderly staff officer, and later Prince Andrew
also, to order the battery to retire as quickly as possible. When
the supports attached to Tushin's battery had been moved away in the
middle of the action by someone's order, the battery had continued
firing and was only not captured by the French because the enemy could
not surmise that anyone could have the effrontery to continue firing
from four quite undefended guns. On the contrary, the energetic action
of that battery led the French to suppose that here - in the center-
the main Russian forces were concentrated. Twice they had attempted to
attack this point, but on each occasion had been driven back by
grapeshot from the four isolated guns on the hillock.
Soon after Prince Bagration had left him, Tushin had succeeded in
setting fire to Schon Grabern.
"Look at them scurrying! It's burning! Just see the smoke! Fine!
Grand! Look at the smoke, the smoke!" exclaimed the artillerymen,
brightening up.
All the guns, without waiting for orders, were being fired in the
direction of the conflagration. As if urging each other on, the
soldiers cried at each shot: "Fine! That's good! Look at it... Grand!"
The fire, fanned by the breeze, was rapidly spreading. The French
columns that had advanced beyond the village went back; but as
though in revenge for this failure, the enemy placed ten guns to the
right of the village and began firing them at Tushin's battery.
In their childlike glee, aroused by the fire and their luck in
successfully cannonading the French, our artillerymen only noticed
this battery when two balls, and then four more, fell among our
guns, one knocking over two horses and another tearing off a
munition-wagon driver's leg. Their spirits once roused were,
however, not diminished, but only changed character. The horses were
replaced by others from a reserve gun carriage, the wounded were
carried away, and the four guns were turned against the ten-gun
battery. Tushin's companion officer had been killed at the beginning
of the engagement and within an hour seventeen of the forty men of the
guns' crews had been disabled, but the artillerymen were still as
merry and lively as ever. Twice they noticed the French appearing
below them, and then they fired grapeshot at them.
Little Tushin, moving feebly and awkwardly, kept telling his orderly
to "refill my pipe for that one!" and then, scattering sparks from it,
ran forward shading his eyes with his small hand to look at the
French.
"Smack at 'em, lads!" he kept saying, seizing the guns by the wheels
and working the screws himself.
Amid the smoke, deafened by the incessant reports which always
made him jump, Tushin not taking his pipe from his mouth ran from
gun to gun, now aiming, now counting the charges, now giving orders
about replacing dead or wounded horses and harnessing fresh ones,
and shouting in his feeble voice, so high pitched and irresolute.
His face grew more and more animated. Only when a man was killed or
wounded did he frown and turn away from the sight, shouting angrily at
the men who, as is always the case, hesitated about lifting the
injured or dead. The soldiers, for the most part handsome fellows and,
as is always the case in an artillery company, a head and shoulders
taller and twice as broad as their officer - all looked at their
commander like children in an embarrassing situation, and the
expression on his face was invariably reflected on theirs.
Owing to the terrible uproar and the necessity for concentration and
activity, Tushin did not experience the slightest unpleasant sense
of fear, and the thought that he might be killed or badly wounded
never occurred to him. On the contrary, he became more and more
elated. It seemed to him that it was a very long time ago, almost a
day, since he had first seen the enemy and fired the first shot, and
that the corner of the field he stood on was well-known and familiar
ground. Though he thought of everything, considered everything, and
did everything the best of officers could do in his position, he was
in a state akin to feverish delirium or drunkenness.
From the deafening sounds of his own guns around him, the whistle
and thud of the enemy's cannon balls, from the flushed and
perspiring faces of the crew bustling round the guns, from the sight
of the blood of men and horses, from the little puffs of smoke on
the enemy's side (always followed by a ball flying past and striking
the earth, a man, a gun, a horse), from the sight of all these
things a fantastic world of his own had taken possession of his
brain and at that moment afforded him pleasure. The enemy's guns
were in his fancy not guns but pipes from which occasional puffs
were blown by an invisible smoker.
"There... he's puffing again," muttered Tushin to himself, as a
small cloud rose from the hill and was borne in a streak to the left
by the wind.
"Now look out for the ball... we'll throw it back."
"What do you want, your honor?" asked an artilleryman, standing
close by, who heard him muttering.
"Nothing... only a shell..." he answered.
"Come along, our Matvevna!" he said to himself. "Matvevna"* was
the name his fancy gave to the farthest gun of the battery, which
was large and of an old pattern. The French swarming round their
guns seemed to him like ants. In that world, the handsome drunkard
Number One of the second gun's crew was "uncle"; Tushin looked at
him more often than at anyone else and took delight in his every
movement. The sound of musketry at the foot of the hill, now
diminishing, now increasing, seemed like someone's breathing. He
listened intently to the ebb and flow of these sounds.
*Daughter of Matthew.
"Ah! Breathing again, breathing!" he muttered to himself.
He imagined himself as an enormously tall, powerful man who was
throwing cannon balls at the French with both hands.
"Now then, Matvevna, dear old lady, don't let me down!" he was
saying as he moved from the gun, when a strange, unfamiliar voice
called above his head: "Captain Tushin! Captain!"
Tushin turned round in dismay. It was the staff officer who had
turned him out of the booth at Grunth. He was shouting in a gasping
voice:
"Are you mad? You have twice been ordered to retreat, and you..."
"Why are they down on me?" thought Tushin, looking in alarm at his
superior.
"I... don't..." he muttered, holding up two fingers to his cap.
"I..."
But the staff officer did not finish what he wanted to say. A cannon
ball, flying close to him, caused him to duck and bend over his horse.
He paused, and just as he was about to say something more, another
ball stopped him. He turned his horse and galloped off.
"Retire! All to retire!" he shouted from a distance.
The soldiers laughed. A moment later, an adjutant arrived with the
same order.
It was Prince Andrew. The first thing he saw on riding up to the
space where Tushin's guns were stationed was an unharnessed horse with
a broken leg, that lay screaming piteously beside the harnessed
horses. Blood was gushing from its leg as from a spring. Among the
limbers lay several dead men. One ball after another passed over as he
approached and he felt a nervous shudder run down his spine. But the
mere thought of being afraid roused him again. "I cannot be afraid,"
thought he, and dismounted slowly among the guns. He delivered the
order and did not leave the battery. He decided to have the guns
removed from their positions and withdrawn in his presence. Together
with Tushin, stepping across the bodies and under a terrible fire from
the French, he attended to the removal of the guns.
"A staff officer was here a minute ago, but skipped off," said an
artilleryman to Prince Andrew. "Not like your honor!"
Prince Andrew said nothing to Tushin. They were both so busy as to
seem not to notice one another. When having limbered up the only two
cannon that remained uninjured out of the four, they began moving down
the hill (one shattered gun and one unicorn were left behind),
Prince Andrew rode up to Tushin.
"Well, till we meet again..." he said, holding out his hand to
Tushin.
"Good-by, my dear fellow," said Tushin. "Dear soul! Good-by, my dear
fellow!" and for some unknown reason tears suddenly filled his eyes.
CHAPTER XXI
The wind had fallen and black clouds, merging with the powder smoke,
hung low over the field of battle on the horizon. It was growing
dark and the glow of two conflagrations was the more conspicuous.
The cannonade was dying down, but the rattle of musketry behind and on
the right sounded oftener and nearer. As soon as Tushin with his guns,
continually driving round or coming upon wounded men, was out of range
of fire and had descended into the dip, he was met by some of the
staff, among them the staff officer and Zherkov, who had been twice
sent to Tushin's battery but had never reached it. Interrupting one
another, they all gave, and transmitted, orders as to how to
proceed, reprimanding and reproaching him. Tushin gave no orders, and,
silently - fearing to speak because at every word he felt ready to weep
without knowing why - rode behind on his artillery nag. Though the
orders were to abandon the wounded, many of them dragged themselves
after troops and begged for seats on the gun carriages. The jaunty
infantry officer who just before the battle had rushed out of Tushin's
wattle shed was laid, with a bullet in his stomach, on "Matvevna's"
carriage. At the foot of the hill, a pale hussar cadet, supporting one
hand with the other, came up to Tushin and asked for a seat.
"Captain, for God's sake! I've hurt my arm," he said timidly. "For
God's sake... I can't walk. For God's sake!"
It was plain that this cadet had already repeatedly asked for a lift
and been refused. He asked in a hesitating, piteous voice.
"Tell them to give me a seat, for God's sake!"
"Give him a seat," said Tushin. "Lay a cloak for him to sit on,
lad," he said, addressing his favorite soldier. "And where is the
wounded officer?"
"He has been set down. He died," replied someone.
"Help him up. Sit down, dear fellow, sit down! Spread out the cloak,
Antonov."
The cadet was Rostov. With one hand he supported the other; he was
pale and his jaw trembled, shivering feverishly. He was placed on
"Matvevna," the gun from which they had removed the dead officer.
The cloak they spread under him was wet with blood which stained his
breeches and arm.
"What, are you wounded, my lad?" said Tushin, approaching the gun on
which Rostov sat.
"No, it's a sprain."
"Then what is this blood on the gun carriage?" inquired Tushin.
"It was the officer, your honor, stained it," answered the
artilleryman, wiping away the blood with his coat sleeve, as if
apologizing for the state of his gun.
It was all that they could do to get the guns up the rise aided by
the infantry, and having reached the village of Gruntersdorf they
halted. It had grown so dark that one could not distinguish the
uniforms ten paces off, and the firing had begun to subside. Suddenly,
near by on the right, shouting and firing were again heard. Flashes of
shot gleamed in the darkness. This was the last French attack and
was met by soldiers who had sheltered in the village houses. They
all rushed out of the village again, but Tushin's guns could not move,
and the artillerymen, Tushin, and the cadet exchanged silent glances
as they awaited their fate. The firing died down and soldiers, talking
eagerly, streamed out of a side street.
"Not hurt, Petrov?" asked one.
"We've given it 'em hot, mate! They won't make another push now,"
said another.
"You couldn't see a thing. How they shot at their own fellows!
Nothing could be seen. Pitch-dark, brother! Isn't there something to
drink?"
The French had been repulsed for the last time. And again and
again in the complete darkness Tushin's guns moved forward, surrounded
by the humming infantry as by a frame.
In the darkness, it seemed as though a gloomy unseen river was
flowing always in one direction, humming with whispers and talk and
the sound of hoofs and wheels. Amid the general rumble, the groans and
voices of the wounded were more distinctly heard than any other
sound in the darkness of the night. The gloom that enveloped the
army was filled with their groans, which seemed to melt into one
with the darkness of the night. After a while the moving mass became
agitated, someone rode past on a white horse followed by his suite,
and said something in passing: "What did he say? Where to, now?
Halt, is it? Did he thank us?" came eager questions from all sides.
The whole moving mass began pressing closer together and a report
spread that they were ordered to halt: evidently those in front had
halted. All remained where they were in the middle of the muddy road.
Fires were lighted and the talk became more audible. Captain Tushin,
having given orders to his company, sent a soldier to find a
dressing station or a doctor for the cadet, and sat down by a
bonfire the soldiers had kindled on the road. Rostov, too, dragged
himself to the fire. From pain, cold, and damp, a feverish shivering
shook his whole body. Drowsiness was irresistibly mastering him, but
he kept awake by an excruciating pain in his arm, for which
he could find no satisfactory position. He kept closing his eyes and
then again looking at the fire, which seemed to him dazzlingly red,
and at the feeble, round-shouldered figure of Tushin who was sitting
cross-legged like a Turk beside him. Tushin's large, kind, intelligent
eyes were fixed with sympathy and commiseration on Rostov, who saw
that Tushin with his whole heart wished to help him but could not.
From all sides were heard the footsteps and talk of the infantry,
who were walking, driving past, and settling down all around. The
sound of voices, the tramping feet, the horses' hoofs moving in mud,
the crackling of wood fires near and afar, merged into one tremulous
rumble.
It was no longer, as before, a dark, unseen river flowing through
the gloom, but a dark sea swelling and gradually subsiding after a
storm. Rostov looked at and listened listlessly to what passed
before and around him. An infantryman came to the fire, squatted on
his heels, held his hands to the blaze, and turned away his face.
"You don't mind your honor?" he asked Tushin. "I've lost my company,
your honor. I don't know where... such bad luck!"
With the soldier, an infantry officer with a bandaged cheek came
up to the bonfire, and addressing Tushin asked him to have the guns
moved a trifle to let a wagon go past. After he had gone, two soldiers
rushed to the campfire. They were quarreling and fighting desperately,
each trying to snatch from the other a boot they were both holding
on to.
"You picked it up?... I dare say! You're very smart!" one of them
shouted hoarsely.
Then a thin, pale soldier, his neck bandaged with a bloodstained leg
band, came up and in angry tones asked the artillerymen for water.
"Must one die like a dog?" said he.
Tushin told them to give the man some water. Then a cheerful soldier
ran up, begging a little fire for the infantry.
"A nice little hot torch for the infantry! Good luck to you,
fellow countrymen. Thanks for the fire - we'll return it with
interest," said he, carrying away into the darkness a glowing stick.
Next came four soldiers, carrying something heavy on a cloak, and
passed by the fire. One of them stumbled.
"Who the devil has put the logs on the road?" snarled he.
"He's dead - why carry him?" said another.
"Shut up!"
And they disappeared into the darkness with with their load.
"Still aching?" Tushin asked Rostov in a whisper.
"Yes."
"Your honor, you're wanted by the general. He is in the hut here,"
said a gunner, coming up to Tushin.
"Coming, friend."
Tushin rose and, buttoning his greatcoat and pulling it straight,
walked away from the fire.
Not far from the artillery campfire, in a hut that had been prepared
for him, Prince Bagration sat at dinner, talking with some
commanding officers who had gathered at his quarters. The little old
man with the half-closed eyes was there greedily gnawing a mutton
bone, and the general who had served blamelessly for twenty-two years,
flushed by a glass of vodka and the dinner; and the staff officer with
the signet ring, and Zherkov, uneasily glancing at them all, and
Prince Andrew, pale, with compressed lips and feverishly glittering
eyes.
In a corner of the hut stood a standard captured from the French,
and the accountant with the naive face was feeling its texture,
shaking his head in perplexity - perhaps because the banner really
interested him, perhaps because it was hard for him, hungry as he was,
to look on at a dinner where there was no place for him. In the next
hut there was a French colonel who had been taken prisoner by our
dragoons. Our officers were flocking in to look at him. Prince
Bagration was thanking the individual commanders and inquiring into
details of the action and our losses. The general whose regiment had
been inspected at Braunau was informing the prince that as soon as the
action began he had withdrawn from the wood, mustered the men who were
woodcutting, and, allowing the French to pass him, had made a
bayonet charge with two battalions and had broken up the French
troops.
"When I saw, your excellency, that their first battalion was
disorganized, I stopped in the road and thought: 'I'll let them come
on and will meet them with the fire of the whole battalion' - and
that's what I did."
The general had so wished to do this and was so sorry he had not
managed to do it that it seemed to him as if it had really happened.
Perhaps it might really have been so? Could one possibly make out amid
all that confusion what did or did not happen?
"By the way, your excellency, I should inform you," he continued-
remembering Dolokhov's conversation with Kutuzov and his last
interview with the gentleman-ranker - "that Private Dolokhov, who was
reduced to the ranks, took a French officer prisoner in my presence
and particularly distinguished himself."
"I saw the Pavlograd hussars attack there, your excellency,"
chimed in Zherkov, looking uneasily around. He had not seen the
hussars all that day, but had heard about them from an infantry
officer. "They broke up two squares, your excellency."
Several of those present smiled at Zherkov's words, expecting one of
his usual jokes, but noticing that what he was saying redounded to the
glory of our arms and of the day's work, they assumed a serious
expression, though many of them knew that what he was saying was a lie
devoid of any foundation. Prince Bagration turned to the old colonel:
"Gentlemen, I thank you all; all arms have behaved heroically:
infantry, cavalry, and artillery. How was it that two guns were
abandoned in the center?" he inquired, searching with his eyes for
someone. (Prince Bagration did not ask about the guns on the left
flank; he knew that all the guns there had been abandoned at the
very beginning of the action.) "I think I sent you?" he added, turning
to the staff officer on duty.
"One was damaged," answered the staff officer, "and the other I
can't understand. I was there all the time giving orders and had
only just left.... It is true that it was hot there," he added,
modestly.
Someone mentioned that Captain Tushin was bivouacking close to the
village and had already been sent for.
"Oh, but you were there?" said Prince Bagration, addressing Prince
Andrew.
"Of course, we only just missed one another," said the staff
officer, with a smile to Bolkonski.
"I had not the pleasure of seeing you," said Prince Andrew, coldly
and abruptly.
All were silent. Tushin appeared at the threshold and made his way
timidly from behind the backs of the generals. As he stepped past
the generals in the crowded hut, feeling embarrassed as he always
was by the sight of his superiors, he did not notice the staff of
the banner and stumbled over it. Several of those present laughed.
"How was it a gun was abandoned?" asked Bagration, frowning, not
so much at the captain as at those who were laughing, among whom
Zherkov laughed loudest.
Only now, when he was confronted by the stern authorities, did his
guilt and the disgrace of having lost two guns and yet remaining alive
present themselves to Tushin in all their horror. He had been so
excited that he had not thought about it until that moment. The
officers' laughter confused him still more. He stood before
Bagration with his lower jaw trembling and was hardly able to
mutter: "I don't know... your excellency... I had no men... your
excellency."
"You might have taken some from the covering troops."
Tushin did not say that there were no covering troops, though that
was perfectly true. He was afraid of getting some other officer into
trouble, and silently fixed his eyes on Bagration as a schoolboy who
has blundered looks at an examiner.
The silence lasted some time. Prince Bagration, apparently not
wishing to be severe, found nothing to say; the others did not venture
to intervene. Prince Andrew looked at Tushin from under his brows
and his fingers twitched nervously.
"Your excellency!" Prince Andrew broke the silence with his abrupt
voice," you were pleased to send me to Captain Tushin's battery. I
went there and found two thirds of the men and horses knocked out, two
guns smashed, and no supports at all."
Prince Bagration and Tushin looked with equal intentness at
Bolkonski, who spoke with suppressed agitation.
"And, if your excellency will allow me to express my opinion," he
continued, "we owe today's success chiefly to the action of that
battery and the heroic endurance of Captain Tushin and his company,"
and without awaiting a reply, Prince Andrew rose and left the table.
Prince Bagration looked at Tushin, evidently reluctant to show
distrust in Bolkonski's emphatic opinion yet not feeling able fully to
credit it, bent his head, and told Tushin that he could go. Prince
Andrew went out with him.
"Thank you; you saved me, my dear fellow!" said Tushin.
Prince Andrew gave him a look, but said nothing and went away. He
felt sad and depressed. It was all so strange, so unlike what he had
hoped.
"Who are they? Why are they here? What do they want? And when will
all this end?" thought Rostov, looking at the changing shadows
before him. The pain in his arm became more and more intense.
Irresistible drowsiness overpowered him, red rings danced before his
eyes, and the impression of those voices and faces and a sense of
loneliness merged with the physical pain. It was they, these soldiers-
wounded and unwounded - it was they who were crushing, weighing down,
and twisting the sinews and scorching the flesh of his sprained arm
and shoulder. To rid himself of them he closed his eyes.
For a moment he dozed, but in that short interval innumerable things
appeared to him in a dream: his mother and her large white hand,
Sonya's thin little shoulders, Natasha's eyes and laughter, Denisov
with his voice and mustache, and Telyanin and all that affair with
Telyanin and Bogdanich. That affair was the same thing as this soldier
with the harsh voice, and it was that affair and this soldier that
were so agonizingly, incessantly pulling and pressing his arm and
always dragging it in one direction. He tried to get away from them,
but they would not for an instant let his shoulder move a hair's
breadth. It would not ache - it would be well - if only they did not
pull it, but it was impossible to get rid of them.
He opened his eyes and looked up. The black canopy of night hung
less than a yard above the glow of the charcoal. Flakes of falling
snow were fluttering in that light. Tushin had not returned, the
doctor had not come. He was alone now, except for a soldier who was
sitting naked at the other side of the fire, warming his thin yellow
body.
"Nobody wants me!" thought Rostov. "There is no one to help me or
pity me. Yet I was once at home, strong, happy, and loved." He
sighed and, doing so, groaned involuntarily.
"Eh, is anything hurting you?" asked the soldier, shaking his
shirt out over the fire, and not waiting for an answer he gave a grunt
and added: "What a lot of men have been crippled today - frightful!"
Rostov did not listen to the soldier. He looked at the snowflakes
fluttering above the fire and remembered a Russian winter at his warm,
bright home, his fluffy fur coat, his quickly gliding sleigh, his
healthy body, and all the affection and care of his family. "And why
did I come here?" he wondered.
Next day the French army did not renew their attack, and the remnant
of Bagration's detachment was reunited to Kutuzov's army.
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
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