《War And Peace》 Book3 CHAPTER XVII
by Leo Tolstoy
ON THE RIGHT FLANK in Bagration's detachment, at nine o'clock the battle had
not yet begun. Not caring to assent to Dolgorukov's request that he should
advance into action, and anxious to be rid of all responsibility, Prince
Bagration proposed to Dolgorukov to send to inquire of the commander-in-chief.
Bagration was aware that as the distance between one flank and the other was
almost eight miles, if the messenger sent were not killed (which was highly
probable), and if he were to succeed in finding the commander-in-chief (which
would be very difficult), he would hardly succeed in making his way back before
the evening.
Bagration looked up and down his suite with his large, expressionless, sleepy
eyes, and the childish face of Rostov, unconsciously all a-quiver with
excitement and hope, was the first that caught his eye. And he sent him.
“And if I meet his majesty before the commander-in-chief, your excellency?”
said Rostov, with his hand to the peak of his cap.
“You can give the message to his majesty,” said Dolgorukov, hurriedly
interposing before 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 a peculiar
springiness in his movements, and confidence in his luck, and in that frame of
mind in which everything seems easy and possible.
All his hopes had been fulfilled that morning: there was to be a general
engagement, he was taking part in it; more than that, he was in attendance on
the bravest general; more than that, he was being sent on a commission to
Kutuzov, perhaps even to the Tsar himself. It was a fine morning, he had a good
horse under him, his heart was full of joy and happiness. On receiving his
orders, he spurred his horse and galloped along the line. At first he rode along
the line of Bagration's troops which had not yet advanced into action, and were
standing motionless, then he rode into the region occupied by Uvarov's cavalry,
and here he began to observe activity and signs of preparation for battle. After
he had passed Uvarov's cavalry, he could distinctly hear the sound of
musket-fire and the booming of cannons ahead of him. The firing GREw louder and
more intense.
The sound that reached him in the fresh morning air was not now, as before,
the report of two or three shots at irregular intervals, and then one or two
cannons booming. Down the slopes of the hillsides before Pratzen, he could hear
volleys of musketry, interspersed with such frequent shots of cannon that
sometimes several booming shots could not be distinguished from one another, but
melted into one mingled roar of sound.
He could see the puffs of musket smoke flying down the hillsides, as though
racing one another, while the cannon smoke hung in clouds, that floated along
and melted into one another. He could see, from the gleam of bayonets in the
smoke, that masses of infantry were moving down, and narrow lines of artillery
with GREen caissons.
On a hillock Rostov stopped his horse to try and make out what was going on.
But however much he strained his attention, he could not make out and understand
what he saw; there were men of some sort moving about there in the smoke, lines
of troops were moving both backwards and forwards; but what for? Who? where were
they going? it was impossible to make out. This sight, and these sounds, so far
from exciting any feeling of depression or timidity in him, only increased his
energy and determination.
“Come, fire away, at them again!” was his mental response to the sounds he
heard. Again he galloped along the line, penetrating further and further into
the part where the troops were already in action.
“How it will be there, I don't know, but it will all be all right!” thought
Rostov.
After passing Austrian troops of some sort, Rostov noticed that the next part
of the forces (they were the guards) had already advanced into action.
“So much the better! I shall see it close,” he thought.
name=Marker15>He was riding almost along the front line. A body of horsemen came galloping
towards him. They were a troop of our Uhlans returning in disorder from the
attack. Rostov, as he passed them, could not help noticing one of them covered
with blood, but he galloped on.
“That's no affair of mine!” he thought.
He had not ridden on many hundred paces further when there came into sight,
on his left, across the whole extent of the field, an immense mass of cavalry on
black horses, in dazzling white uniforms, trotting straight towards him, cutting
off his advance. Rostov put his horse to his utmost speed to get out of the way
of these cavalrymen, and he would have cleared them had they been advancing at
the same rate, but they kept increasing their pace, so that several horses broke
into a gallop. More and more loudly Rostov could hear the thud of their horses'
hoofs, and the jingle of their weapons, and more and more distinctly he could
see their horses, their figures, and even their faces. These were our
horse-guards, charging to attack the French cavalry, who were advancing to meet
them.
The cavalry guards were galloping, though still holding in their horses.
Rostov could see their faces now, and hear the word of command, “Charge!”
uttered by an officer, as he let his thoroughbred go at full speed. Rostov, in
danger of being trampled underfoot or carried away to attack the French,
galloped along before their line as fast as his horse could go, and still he was
not in time to escape them.
The last of the line of cavalry, a pock-marked man of immense stature,
scowled viciously on seeing Rostov just in front of him, where he must
inevitably come into collision with him. This horse-guard would infallibly have
overturned Rostov and his Bedouin (Rostov felt himself so little and feeble
beside these gigantic men and horses) if he had not bethought himself of
striking the horse-guard's horse in the face with his riding-whip. The heavy,
black, high horse twitched its ears and reared, but its pock-marked rider
brought it down with a violent thrust of the spurs into its huge sides, and the
horse, lashing its tail and dragging its neck, flew on faster than ever. The
horse-guard had hardly passed Rostov when he heard their shout, “Hurrah!” and
looking round saw their foremost ranks mixed up with some strange cavalry, in
red epaulettes, probably French. He could see nothing more, for immediately
after cannons were fired from somewhere, and everything was lost in the
smoke.
At the moment when the horse-guards passing him vanished into the smoke,
Rostov hesitated whether to gallop after them or to go on where he had to go.
This was the brilliant charge of the horse-guards of which the French themselves
expressed their admiration. Rostov was appalled to hear afterwards that of all
that mass of huge, fine men, of all those brilliant, rich young officers and
ensigns who had galloped by him on horses worth thousands of roubles. only
eighteen were left after the charge.
“I have no need to envy them, my share won't be taken from me, and may be I
shall see the Emperor in a minute!” thought Rostov, and he galloped on.
When he reached the infantry of the guards, he noticed that cannon balls were
flying over and about them, not so much from the sound of the cannon balls, as
from the uneasiness he saw in the faces of the soldiers and the unnatural,
martial solemnity on the faces of the officers.
As he rode behind one of the lines of the regiments of footguards, he heard a
voice calling him by name: “Rostov!”
“Eh?” he called back, not recognising Boris.
“I say, we've been in the front line! Our regiment marched to the attack!”
said Boris, smiling that happy smile that is seen in young men who have been for
the first time under fire. Rostov stopped.
“Really!” he said. “Well, how was it?”
“We beat them!” said Boris, growing talkative in his eagerness. “You can
fancy …” And Boris began describing how the guards having taken up their
position, and seeing troops in front of them had taken them for Austrians, and
all at once had found out from the cannon balls aimed at them from those troops
that they were in the front line, and had quite unexpectedly to advance to
battle. Rostov set his horse moving without waiting to hear Boris to the
end.
“Where are you off to?” asked Boris.
“To his majesty with a commission.”
“Here he is!” said Boris, who had not caught what Rostov said, and thinking
it was the grand duke he wanted, he pointed him out, standing a hundred paces
from them, wearing a helmet and a horse-guard's white elk tunic, with his high
shoulders and scowling brows, shouting something to a pale, white-uniformed
Austrian officer.
“Why, that's the grand duke, and I must see the commander-in-chief or the
Emperor,” said Rostov, and he was about to start again.
“Count, count!” shouted Berg, running up on the other side, as eager as
Boris. “I was wounded in my right hand” (he pointed to his blood-stained hand,
bound up with a pocket-handkerchief), “and I kept my place in the front. Count,
I held my sabre in my left hand. All my family, count, the Von Bergs, have been
knights.” Berg would have said more, but Rostov rode on without listening.
After riding by the guards, and on through an empty space, Rostov rode along
the line of the reserves for fear of getting in the way of the front line, as he
had done in the charge of the horse-guards, and made a wide circuit round the
place where he heard the hottest musket-fire and cannonade. All of a sudden, in
front of him and behind our troops, in a place where he could never have
expected the enemy to be, he heard the sound of musket-fire quite close
“What can it be?” thought Rostov. “The enemy in the rear of our troops? It
can't be,” thought Rostov, but a panic of fear for himself and for the issue of
the whole battle came over him all at once. “Whatever happens, though,” he
reflected, “it's useless to try and escape now. It's my duty to seek the
commander-in-chief here, and if everything's lost, it's my duty to perish with
all the rest.”
The foreboding of evil that had suddenly come upon Rostov GREw stronger and
stronger the further he advanced into the region behind the village of Pratzen,
which was full of crowds of troops of all sorts.
“What does it mean? What is it? Whom are they firing at? Who is firing?”
Rostov kept asking, as he met Austrian and Russian soldiers running in confused
crowds across his path.
“Devil knows! Killed them all! Damn it all,” he was answered in Russian, in
German, and in Czech, by the hurrying rabble, who knew no more than he what was
being done.
“Kill the Germans!” shouted one.
“To hell with them—the traitors.”
“Zum Henker diese Russen,” muttered a German.
Several wounded were among the crowds on the road. Shouts, oaths, moans were
mingled in the general hubbub. The firing began to subside, and, as Rostov found
out later, the Russian and Austrian soldiers had been firing at one
another.
“My God! how can this be?” thought Rostov. “And here, where any minute the
Emperor may see them.… No, these can only be a few wretches. It will soon be
over, it's not the real thing, it can't be,” he thought. “Only to make haste,
make haste, and get by them.”
The idea of defeat and flight could not force its way into Rostov's head.
Though he saw the French cannons and troops precisely on Pratzen hill, the very
spot where he had been told to look for the commander-in-chief, he could not and
would not believe in it.
