War and Peace (AmazonClassics Edition)
“Was that grape-shot?” he asked Denísov.
“Yes and no mistake!” cried Denísov. “You worked like wegular bwicks and it’s nasty work! An attack’s pleasant work! Hacking away at the dogs! But this sort of thing is the very devil, with them shooting at you like a target.”
And Denísov rode up to a group that had stopped near Rostóv, composed of the colonel, Nesvítski, Zherkóv, and the officer from the suite.
“Well, it seems that no one has noticed,” thought Rostóv. And this was true. No one had taken any notice, for everyone knew the sensation which the cadet under fire for the first time had experienced.
“Here’s something for you to report,” said Zherkóv. “See if I don’t get promoted to a sub-lieutenancy.”
“Inform the prince that I the bridge fired!” said the colonel triumphantly and gaily.
“And if he asks about the losses?”
“A trifle,” said the colonel in his bass voice: “two hussars wounded, and one knocked out,” he added, unable to restrain a happy smile, and pronouncing the phrase “knocked out” with ringing distinctness.
CHAPTER 9
Pursued by the French army of a hundred thousand men under the command of Buonaparte, encountering a population that was unfriendly to it, losing confidence in its allies, suffering from shortness of supplies, and compelled to act under conditions of war unlike anything that had been foreseen, the Russian army of thirty-five thousand men commanded by Kutúzov was hurriedly retreating along the Danube, stopping where overtaken by the enemy and fighting rear-guard actions only as far as necessary to enable it to retreat without losing its heavy equipment. There had been actions at Lambach, Amstetten, and Melk; but despite the courage and endurance—acknowledged even by the enemy—with which the Russians fought, the only consequence of these actions was a yet more rapid retreat. Austrian troops that had escaped capture at Ulm and had joined Kutúzov at Braunau, now separated from the Russian army, and Kutúzov was left with only his own weak and exhausted forces. The defence of Vienna was no longer to be thought of. Instead of an offensive, the plan of which, carefully prepared in accord with the modern science of strategics, had been handed to Kutúzov when he was in Vienna by the Austrian Hofkriegsrath, the sole and almost unattainable aim remaining for him was to effect a junction with the forces that were advancing from Russia, without losing his army as Mack had done at Ulm.
On the 28th of October Kutúzov with his army crossed to the left bank of the Danube and took up a position for the first time with the river between himself and the main body of the French. On the 30th he attacked Mortier’s division, which was on the left bank, and broke it up. In this action for the first time trophies were taken: banners, cannon, and two enemy generals. For the first time, after a fortnight’s retreat, the Russian troops had halted and after a fight had not only held the field but had repulsed the French. Though the troops were ill clad, exhausted, and had lost a third of their number in killed, wounded, sick, and stragglers; though a number of sick and wounded had been abandoned on the other side of the Danube with a letter in which Kutúzov entrusted them to the humanity of the enemy; and though the big hospitals and the houses in Krems converted into military hospitals could no longer accommodate all the sick and wounded, yet the stand made at Krems and the victory over Mortier raised the spirits of the army considerably. Throughout the whole army and at headquarters most joyful though erroneous rumours were rife of the imaginary approach of columns from Russia, of some victory gained by the Austrians, and of the retreat of the frightened Buonaparte.
Prince Andrew during the battle had been in attendance on the Austrian General Schmidt, who was killed in the action. His horse had been wounded under him and his own arm slightly grazed by a bullet. As a mark of the commander-in-chief’s special favour he was sent with the news of this victory to the Austrian Court, now no longer at Vienna (which was threatened by the French) but at Brünn. Despite his apparently delicate build Prince Andrew could endure physical fatigue far better than many very muscular men, and on the night of the battle, having arrived at Krems, excited but not weary, with despatches from Dokhtúrov to Kutúzov, he was sent immediately with a special despatch to Brünn. To be so sent meant not only a reward but an important step towards promotion.
The night was dark but starry, the road showed black in the snow that had fallen the previous day—the day of the battle. Reviewing his impressions of the recent battle, picturing pleasantly to himself the impression his news of a victory would create, or recalling the send-off given him by the commander-in-chief and his fellow officers, Prince Andrew was galloping along in a postchaise enjoying the feelings of a man who has at length begun to attain a long-desired happiness. As soon as he closed his eyes his ears seemed filled with the rattle of the wheels and the sensation of victory. Then he began to imagine that the Russians were running away and that he himself was killed, but he quickly roused himself with a feeling of joy, as if learning afresh that this was not so but that on the contrary the French had run away. He again recalled all the details of the victory and his own calm courage during the battle, and feeling reassured he dozed off . . . The dark starry night was followed by a bright cheerful morning. The snow was thawing in the sunshine, the horses galloped quickly, and on both sides of the road were forests of different kinds, fields, and villages.
At one of the post-stations he overtook a convoy of Russian wounded. The Russian officer in charge of the transport lolled back in the front cart, shouting and scolding a soldier with coarse abuse. In each of the long German carts six or more pale, dirty, bandaged men were being jolted over the stony road. Some of them were talking (he heard Russian words), others were eating bread; the more severely wounded looked silently, with the languid interest of sick children, at the envoy hurrying past them.
Prince Andrew told his driver to stop, and asked a soldier in what action they had been wounded. “Day before yesterday, on the Danube,” answered the soldier. Prince Andrew took out his purse and gave the soldier three gold pieces.
“That’s for them all,” he said to the officer who came up.
“Get well soon, lads!” he continued, turning to the soldiers. “There’s plenty to do still.”
“What news, sir?” asked the officer, evidently anxious to start a conversation.
“Good news! . . . Go on!” he shouted to the driver, and they galloped on.
It was already quite dark when Prince Andrew rattled over the paved streets of Brünn and found himself surrounded by high buildings, the lights of shops, houses, and street-lamps, fine carriages, and all that atmosphere of a large and active town which is always so attractive to a soldier after camp life. Despite his rapid journey and sleepless night, Prince Andrew when he drove up to the palace felt even more vigorous and alert than he had done the day before. Only his eyes gleamed feverishly and his thoughts followed one another with extraordinary clearness and rapidity. He again vividly recalled the details of the battle, no longer dim, but definite and in the concise form in which he imagined himself stating them to the Emperor Francis. He vividly imagined the casual questions that might be put to him and the answers he would give. He expected to be at once presented to the Emperor. At the chief entrance to the palace, however, an official came running out to meet him, and learning that he was a special messenger led him to another entrance.
“To the right from the corridor, Euer Hochgeboren! There you will find the adjutant on duty,” said the official. “He will conduct you to the Minister of War.”
The adjutant on duty, meeting Prince Andrew, asked him to wait, and went in to the Minister of War. Five minutes later he returned and bowing with particular courtesy ushered Prince Andrew before him along a corridor to the cabinet where the Minister of War was at work. The adjutant by his elaborate courtesy appeared to wish to ward off any attempt at familiarity on the part of the Russian messenger.
Prince Andrew’s joyous feeling was considerably weakened as he approached the door of the minister’s room. He felt offended, and without his noticing it the feeling of offence immediately turned into one of disdain which was quite uncalled for. His fertile mind instantly suggested to him a point of view which gave him a right to despise the adjutant and the minister. “Away from the smell of powder, they probably think it easy to gain victories!” he thought. His eyes narrowed disdainfully, he entered the room of the Minister of War with peculiarly deliberate steps. This feeling of disdain was heightened when he saw the minister seated at a large table reading some papers and making pencil notes on them, and for the first two or three minutes taking no notice of his arrival. A wax candle stood at each side of the minister’s bent bald head with its grey temples. He went on reading to the end, without raising his eyes at the opening of the door and the sound of footsteps.
“Take this and deliver it,” said he to his adjutant, handing him the papers and still taking no notice of the special messenger.
Prince Andrew felt that either the actions of Kutúzov’s army interested the Minister of War less than any of the other matters he was concerned with, or he wanted to give the Russian special messenger that impression. “But that is a matter of perfect indifference to me,” he thought. The minister drew the remaining papers together, arranged them evenly, and then raised his head. He had an intellectual and distinctive head, but the instant he turned to Prince Andrew the firm, intelligent expression on his face changed in a way evidently deliberate and habitual to him. His face took on the stupid artificial smile (which does not even attempt to hide its artificiality) of a man who is continually receiving many petitioners one after another.
“From General Field-Marshal Kutúzov?” he asked. “I hope it is good news? There has been an encounter with Mortier? A victory? It was high time!”
He took the despatch which was addressed to him and began to read it with a mournful expression.
“Oh, my God! My God! Schmidt!” he exclaimed in German. “What a calamity! What a calamity!”
Having glanced through the despatch he laid it on the table and looked at Prince Andrew, evidently considering something.
“Ah, what a calamity! You say the affair was decisive? But Mortier is not captured.” Again he pondered. “I am very glad you have brought good news, though Schmidt’s death is a heavy price to pay for the victory. His Majesty will no doubt wish to see you, but not today. I thank you! You must have a rest. Be at the levée tomorrow after the parade. However I will let you know.”
The stupid smile, which had left his face while he was speaking, reappeared.
“Au revoir! Thank you very much. His Majesty will probably desire to see you,” he added, bowing his head.
When Prince Andrew left the palace he felt that all the interest and happiness the victory had afforded him had been now left in the indifferent hands of the Minister of War and the polite adjutant. The whole tenor of his thoughts instantaneously changed; the battle seemed the memory of a remote event long past.
CHAPTER 10
Prince Andrew stayed at Brünn with Bilíbin, a Russian acquaintance of his in the diplomatic service.
“Ah, my dear Prince! I could not have a more welcome visitor,” said Bilíbin as he came out to meet Prince Andrew. “Franz, put the prince’s things in my bedroom,” said he to the servant who was ushering Bolkónski in. “So you’re a messenger of victory, eh? Splendid! And I am sitting here ill, as you see.”
After washing and dressing, Prince Andrew came into the diplomat’s luxurious study and sat down to the dinner prepared for him. Bilíbin settled down comfortably beside the fire.
After his journey and the campaign during which he had been deprived of all the comforts of cleanliness and all the refinements of life, Prince Andrew felt a pleasant sense of repose among luxurious surroundings such as he had been accustomed to from childhood. Besides it was pleasant, after his reception by the Austrians to speak if not in Russian (for they were speaking French) at least with a Russian who would, he supposed, share the general Russian antipathy to the Austrians which was then particularly strong.
Bilíbin was a man of thirty-five, a bachelor and of the same circle as Prince Andrew. They had known each other previously in Petersburg, but had become more intimate when Prince Andrew was in Vienna with Kutúzov. Just as Prince Andrew was a young man who gave promise of rising high in the military profession, so to an even greater extent, Bilíbin gave promise of rising in his diplomatic career. He was still a young man but no longer a young diplomat, as he had entered the service at the age of sixteen, had been in Paris and Copenhagen, and now held a rather important post in Vienna. Both the foreign minister and our ambassador in Vienna knew him and valued him. He was not one of those many diplomats who are esteemed because they have certain negative qualities, avoid doing certain things, and speak French. He was one of those who, liking work, knew how to do it, and despite his indolence would sometimes spend a whole night at his writing table. He worked equally well whatever the import of his work. It was not the question “What for?” but the question “How?” that interested him. What the diplomatic matter might be he did not care, but it gave him great pleasure to prepare a circular, memorandum, or report, skilfully, pointedly and elegantly. Bilíbin’s services were valued not only for what he wrote, but also for his skill in dealing and conversing with those in the highest spheres.
Bilíbin liked conversation as he liked work, only when it could be made elegantly witty. In society he always awaited an opportunity to say something striking, and took part in a conversation only when that was possible. His conversation was always sprinkled with wittily original, finished phrases of general interest. These sayings were prepared in the inner laboratory of his mind in a portable form as if intentionally, so that insignificant society people might carry them from drawing-room to drawing-room. And in fact Bilíbin’s witticisms were hawked about in the Viennese drawing-rooms and often had an influence on matters considered important.
His thin, worn, sallow face was covered with deep wrinkles, which always looked as clean and well washed as the tips of one’s fingers after a Russian bath. The movement of these wrinkles formed the principal play of expression on his face. Now his forehead would pucker into deep folds and his eyebrows were lifted, then his eyebrows would descend and deep wrinkles would crease his cheeks. His small, deep-set eyes always twinkled and looked out straight.
“Well, now tell me about your exploits,” said he.
Bolkónski, very modestly without once mentioning himself, described the engagement and his reception by the Minister of War.
“They received me and my news as one receives a dog in a game of skittles,” said he in conclusion.
Bilíbin smiled and the wrinkles on his face disappeared.
“Cependant, mon cher,” he remarked, examining his nails from a distance and puckering the skin above his left eye, “malgré la haute estime que je professe pour the Orthodox Russian army, j’avoue que votre victoire n’est pas des plus victorieuses.”25
He went on talking in this way in French, uttering only those words in Russian on which he wished to put a contemptuous emphasis.
“Come now! You with all your forces fall on the unfortunate Mortier and his one division, and even then Mortier slips through your fingers! Where’s the victory?”
“But seriously,” said Prince Andrew, “we can at any rate say without boasting that it was a little better than at Ulm . . .”
“Why didn’t you capture one, just one, marshal for us?”
“Because not everything happens as one expects or with the smoothness of a parade. We had expected, as I told you, to get at their rear by seven in the morning but had not reached it by five in the afternoon.”
“And why didn’t you do it at seven in the morning? You ought to have been there at seven in the morning,” returned Bilíbin with a smile. “You ought to have been there at seven in the morning.”
“Why did you not succeed in impressing on Buonaparte by diplomatic methods that he had better leave Genoa alone?” retorted Prince Andrew in the same tone.
“I know,” interrupted Bilíbin, “you’re thinking it’s very easy to take marshals, sitting on a sofa by the fire! That is true, but still why didn’t you capture him? So don’t be surprised if not only the Minister of War but also his Most August Majesty the Emperor and King Francis is not much delighted by your victory. Even I, a poor secretary of the Russian Embassy, do not feel any need, in token of my joy, to give my Franz a thaler, or let him go with his Liebchen to the Prater . . . True, we have no Prater here . . .”
He looked straight at Prince Andrew and suddenly unwrinkled his forehead.
“It is now my turn to ask you ‘why?’ mon cher,” said Bolkónski. “I confess I do not understand: perhaps there are diplomatic subtleties here beyond my feeble intelligence, but I can’t make it out. Mack loses a whole army, the Archduke Ferdinand and the Archduke Karl give no signs of life and make blunder after blunder. Kutúzov alone at last gains a real victory, destroying the spell of the invincibility of the French, and the Minister of War does not even care to hear the details.”
“That’s just it, my dear fellow. You see it’s hurrah for the Tsar, for Russia, for the Orthodox Greek faith! All that is beautiful, but what do we, I mean the Austrian Court, care for your victories? Bring us nice news of a victory by the Archduke Karl or Ferdinand (one archduke’s as good as another, as you know) and even if it is only over a fire-brigade of Buonaparte’s, that will be another story and we’ll fire off some cannon! But this sort of thing seems done on purpose to vex us. The Archduke Karl does nothing, the Archduke Ferdinand disgraces himself. You abandon Vienna, give up its defence—as much as to say: ‘Heaven is with us, but heaven help you and your capital!’ The one general whom we all loved, Schmidt, you expose to a bullet, and then you congratulate us on the victory! Admit that more irritating news than yours could not have been conceived. It’s as if it had been done on purpose, on purpose. Besides, suppose you did gain a brilliant victory, if even the Archduke Karl gained a victory, what effect would that have on the general course of events? It’s too late now when Vienna is occupied by the French army!”
“What? Occupied? Vienna occupied?”
“Not only occupied, but Buonaparte is at Schönbrunn, and the count, our dear Count Vrbna, goes to him for orders.”
After the fatigues and impressions of the journey, his reception, and especially after having dined, Bolkónski felt that he could not take in the full significance of the words he heard.
“Count Lichtenfels was here this morning,” Bilíbin continued, “and showed me a letter in which the parade of the French in Vienna was fully described: Prince Murat et tout le tremblement . . . You see that your victory is not a matter for great rejoicing and that you can’t be received as a saviour.”
“Really I don’t care about that, I don’t care at all,” said Prince Andrew, beginning to understand that his news of the battle before Krems was really of small importance in view of such events as the fall of Austria’s capital. “How is it Vienna was taken? What of the bridge and its celebrated bridge-head and Prince Auersperg? We heard reports that Prince Auersperg was defending Vienna?” he said.
“Prince Auersperg is on this, on our side of the river, and is defending us—doing it very badly I think, but still he is defending us. But Vienna is on the other side. No, the bridge has not yet been taken and I hope it will not be, for it is mined and orders have been given to blow it up. Otherwise we should long ago have been in the mountains of Bohemia, and you and your army would have spent a bad quarter of an hour between two fires.”
“But still this does not mean that the campaign is over,” said Prince Andrew.
“Well, I think it is. The bigwigs here think so too, but they daren’t say so. It will be as I said at the beginning of the campaign, it won’t be your skirmishing at Dürrenstein, or gunpowder at all that will decide the matter, but those who devised it,” said Bilíbin, quoting one of his own mots, releasing the wrinkles on his forehead, and pausing. “The only question is what will come of the meeting between the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia in Berlin? If Prussia joins the allies, Austria’s hand will be forced and there will be war. If not it is merely a question of settling where the preliminaries of the new Campo Formio are to be drawn up.”
“What an extraordinary genius!” Prince Andrew suddenly exclaimed, clenching his small hand and striking the table with it, “and what luck the man has!”
“Buonaparte?” said Bilíbin inquiringly, puckering up his forehead to indicate that he was about to say something witty. “Buonaparte?” he repeated, accentuating the u: “I think, however, now that he lays down laws for Austria at Schönbrunn, il faut lui faire grace de l’u!26 I shall certainly adopt an innovation and call him simply Buonaparte!”
“But joking apart,” said Prince Andrew, “do you really think the campaign is over?”
“This is what I think. Austria has been made a fool of, and she is not used to it. She will retaliate. And she has been fooled in the first place because her provinces have been pillaged—they say the Holy Russian army loots terribly—her army is destroyed, her capital taken, and all this for the beaux yeux27 of His Sardinian Majesty. And therefore—this is between ourselves—I instinctively feel that we are being deceived, my instinct tells me of negotiations with France and projects for peace, a secret peace concluded separately.”
“Impossible!” cried Prince Andrew. “That would be too base.”
“If we live we shall see,” replied Bilíbin, his face again becoming smooth as a sign that the conversation was at an end.
When Prince Andrew reached the room prepared for him and lay down in a clean shirt on the feather-bed with its warmed and fragrant pillows, he felt that the battle of which he had brought tidings was far far away from him. The alliance with Prussia, Austria’s treachery, Buonaparte’s new triumph, tomorrow’s levée and parade, and the audience with the Emperor Francis, occupied his thoughts.
He closed his eyes, and immediately a sound of cannonading, of musketry, and the rattling of carriage wheels seemed to fill his ears, and now again drawn out in a thin line the musketeers were descending the hill, the French were firing, and he felt his heart palpitating as he rode forward beside Schmidt with the bullets merrily whistling all around, and he experienced tenfold the joy of living, as he had not done since childhood.
He woke up . . .
“Yes, that all happened!” he said, and smiling happily to himself like a child, he fell into a deep youthful slumber.
CHAPTER 11
Next day he woke late. Recalling his recent impressions the first thought that came into his mind was that today he had to be presented to the Emperor Francis; he remembered the Minister of War, the polite Austrian adjutant, Bilíbin, and last night’s conversation. Having dressed for his attendance at court in full parade uniform, which he had not worn for a long time, he went into Bilíbin’s study fresh, animated and handsome, with his hand bandaged. In the study were four gentlemen of the diplomatic corps. With Prince Hippolyte Kurágin, who was a secretary to the embassy, Bolkónski was already acquainted. Bilíbin introduced him to the others.
The gentlemen assembled at Bilíbin’s were young, wealthy, gay, society men, who here, as in Vienna, formed a special set which Bilíbin, their leader, called les nôtres.28 This set, consisting almost exclusively of diplomats, evidently had its own interests which had nothing to do with war or politics but related to high society, to certain women, and to the official side of the service. These gentlemen received Prince Andrew as one of themselves, an honour they did not extend to many. From politeness and to start conversation, they asked him a few questions about the army and the battle, and then the talk went off into merry jests and gossip.
“But the best of it was,” said one, telling of the misfortune of a fellow diplomat, “that the Chancellor told him flatly that his appointment to London was a promotion and that he was so to regard it. Can you fancy the figure he cut . . . ?”
“But the worst of it, gentlemen—I am giving Kurágin away to you—is that that man suffers, and this Don Juan, wicked fellow, is taking advantage of it!”
Prince Hippolyte was lolling in a lounge chair with his legs over its arm. He began to laugh.
“Tell me about that!” he said.
“Oh, you Don Juan! You serpent!” cried several voices.
“You, Bolkónski, don’t know,” said Bilíbin turning to Prince Andrew, “that all the atrocities of the French army (I nearly said of the Russian army) are nothing compared to what this man has been doing among the women!”
“La femme est la compagne de l’homme,”29 announced Prince Hippolyte, and began looking through a lorgnette at his elevated legs.
Bilíbin and the rest of “ours” burst out laughing in Hippolyte’s face, and Prince Andrew saw that Hippolyte, of whom—he had to admit—he had almost been jealous on his wife’s account, was the butt of this set.
“Oh, I must give you a treat,” Bilíbin whispered to Bolkónski. “Kurágin is exquisite when he discusses politics—you should see his gravity!”
He sat down beside Hippolyte and wrinkling his forehead began talking to him about politics. Prince Andrew and the others gathered round these two.
“The Berlin cabinet cannot express a feeling of alliance,” began Hippolyte gazing round with importance at the others, “without expressing . . . as in its last note . . . you understand . . . Besides, unless his Majesty the Emperor derogates from the principle of our alliance . . .
“Wait, I have not finished . . .” he said to Prince Andrew, seizing him by the arm, “I believe that intervention will be stronger than non-intervention. And . . .” he paused. “Finally one cannot impute the non-receipt of our despatch of November 18. That is how it will end.” And he released Bolkónski’s arm to indicate that he had now quite finished.
“Demosthenes, I know thee by the pebble thou secretest in thy golden mouth!” said Bilíbin, and the mop of hair on his head moved with satisfaction.
Everybody laughed, and Hippolyte louder than anyone. He was evidently distressed, and breathed painfully, but could not restrain the wild laughter that convulsed his usually impassive features.
“Well now, gentlemen,” said Bilíbin, “Bolkónski is my guest in this house and in Brünn itself. I want to entertain him, as far as I can, with all the pleasures of life here. If we were in Vienna it would be easy, but here, in this wretched Moravian hole, it is more difficult, and I beg you all to help me. Brünn’s attractions must be shown him. You can undertake the theatre, I society, and you, Hippolyte, of course the women.”
“We must let him see Amélie, she’s exquisite!” said one of “ours,” kissing his finger-tips.
“In general we must turn this bloodthirsty soldier to more humane interests,” said Bilíbin.
“I shall scarcely be able to avail myself of your hospitality, gentlemen, it is already time for me to go,” replied Prince Andrew looking at his watch.
“Where to?”
“To the Emperor.”
“Oh! Oh! Oh!”
“Well, au revoir, Bolkónski! Au revoir, Prince! Come back early to dinner,” cried several voices. “We’ll take you in hand.”
“When speaking to the Emperor, try as far as you can to praise the way that provisions are supplied and the routes indicated,” said Bilíbin, accompanying him to the hall.
“I should like to speak well of them, but as far as I know the facts, I can’t,” replied Bolkónski, smiling.
“Well, talk as much as you can, anyway. He has a passion for giving audiences, but he does not like talking himself and can’t do it, as you will see.”
CHAPTER 12
At the levée Prince Andrew stood among the Austrian officers as he had been told to, and the Emperor Francis merely looked fixedly into his face and just nodded to him with his long head. But after it was over the adjutant he had seen the previous day ceremoniously informed Bolkónski that the Emperor desired to give him an audience. The Emperor Francis received him standing in the middle of the room. Before the conversation began Prince Andrew was struck by the fact that the Emperor seemed confused and blushed as if not knowing what to say.
“Tell me, when did the battle begin?” he asked hurriedly.
Prince Andrew replied. Then followed other questions just as simple: “Was Kutúzov well? When had he left Krems?” and so on. The Emperor spoke as if his sole aim were to put a given number of questions—the answers to these questions, as was only too evident, did not interest him.
“At what o’clock did the battle begin?” asked the Emperor.
“I cannot inform your Majesty at what o’clock the battle began at the front, but at Dürrenstein, where I was, our attack began after five in the afternoon,” replied Bolkónski growing more animated and expecting that he would have a chance to give a reliable account, which he had ready in his mind, of all he knew and had seen. But the Emperor smiled and interrupted him.
“How many miles?”
“From where to where, your Majesty?”
“From Dürrenstein to Krems.”
“Three and a half miles, your Majesty.”
“The French have abandoned the left bank?”
“According to the scouts the last of them crossed on rafts during the night.”
“Is there sufficient forage in Krems?”
“Forage has not been supplied to the extent . . .”
The Emperor interrupted him.
“At what o’clock was General Schmidt killed?”
“At seven o’clock, I believe.”
“At seven o’clock? It’s very sad, very sad!”
The Emperor thanked Prince Andrew and bowed. Prince Andrew withdrew and was immediately surrounded by courtiers on all sides. Everywhere he saw friendly looks and heard friendly words. Yesterday’s adjutant reproached him for not having stayed at the palace, and offered him his own house. The Minister of War came up and congratulated him on the Maria Theresa Order of the third grade, which the Emperor was conferring on him. The Empress’s chamberlain invited him to see her Majesty. The archduchess also wished to see him. He did not know whom to answer, and for a few seconds collected his thoughts. Then the Russian ambassador took him by the shoulder, led him to the window, and began to talk to him.
Contrary to Bilíbin’s forecast the news he had brought was joyfully received. A thanksgiving service was arranged, Kutúzov was awarded the Grand Cross of Maria Theresa, and the whole army received rewards. Bolkónski was invited everywhere, and had to spend the whole morning calling on the principal Austrian dignitaries. Between four and five in the afternoon, having made all his calls, he was returning to Bilíbin’s house thinking out a letter to his father about the battle and his visit to Brünn. At the door he found a vehicle half full of luggage. Franz, Bilíbin’s man, was dragging a portmanteau with some difficulty out of the front door.
Before returning to Bilíbin’s Prince Andrew had gone to a bookshop to provide himself with some books for the campaign, and had spent some time in the shop.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Oh, your Excellency!” said Franz, with difficulty rolling the portmanteau into the vehicle, “we are to move on still farther. The scoundrel is again at our heels!”
“Eh? What?” asked Prince Andrew.
Bilíbin came out to meet him. His usually calm face showed excitement.
“There now! Confess that this is delightful,” said he. “This affair of the Tabor Bridge, at Vienna . . . They have crossed without striking a blow!”
Prince Andrew could not understand.
“But where do you come from not to know what every coachman in the town knows?”
“I come from the archduchess’s. I heard nothing there.”
“And you didn’t see that everybody is packing up?”
“I did not . . . What is it all about?” inquired Prince Andrew impatiently.
“What’s it all about? Why, the French have crossed the bridge that Auersperg was defending, and the bridge was not blown up: so Murat is now rushing along the road to Brünn and will be here in a day or two.”
“What? Here? But why did they not blow up the bridge, if it was mined?”
“That is what I ask you. No one, not even Buonaparte, knows why.”
Bolkónski shrugged his shoulders.
“But if the bridge is crossed it means that the army too is lost! It will be cut off,” said he.
“That’s just it,” answered Bilíbin. “Listen! The French entered Vienna as I told you. Very well. Next day, which was yesterday, those gentlemen, messieurs les maréchaux,30 Murat, Lannes, and Belliard, mount and ride to the bridge. (Observe that all three are Gascons.) ‘Gentlemen,’ says one of them, ‘you know the Tabor Bridge is mined and doubly mined and that there are menacing fortifications at its head and an army of fifteen thousand men has been ordered to blow up the bridge and not let us cross? But it will please our sovereign the Emperor Napoleon if we take this bridge, so let us three go and take it!’ ‘Yes, let’s!’ say the others. And off they go and take the bridge, cross it, and now with their whole army are on this side of the Danube, marching on us, you, and your lines of communication.”
“Stop jesting,” said Prince Andrew sadly and seriously. This news grieved him and yet he was pleased.
As soon as he learned that the Russian army was in such a hopeless situation it occurred to him that it was he who was destined to lead it out of this position; that here was the Toulon that would lift him from the ranks of obscure officers and offer him the first step to fame! Listening to Bilíbin he was already imagining how on reaching the army he would give an opinion at the war council which would be the only one that could save the army, and how he alone would be entrusted with the executing of the plan.
“Stop this jesting,” he said.
“I am not jesting,” Bilíbin went on. “Nothing is truer or sadder. These gentlemen ride on to the bridge alone and wave white handkerchiefs; they assure the officer on duty that they, the marshals, are on their way to negotiate with Prince Auersperg. He lets them enter the tête-de-pont.31 They spin him a thousand gasconades, saying that the war is over, that the Emperor Francis is arranging a meeting with Buonaparte, that they desire to see Prince Auersperg, and so on. The officer sends for Auersperg; these gentlemen embrace the officers, crack jokes, sit on the cannon, and meanwhile a French battalion gets to the bridge unobserved, flings the bags of incendiary material into the water, and approaches the tête-de-pont. At length appears the lieutenant-general, our dear Prince Auersperg von Mautern himself. ‘Dearest foe! Flower of the Austrian army, hero of the Turkish wars! Hostilities are ended, we can shake one another’s hand . . . The Emperor Napoleon burns with impatience to make Prince Auersperg’s acquaintance.’ In a word, those gentlemen, Gascons indeed, so bewildered him with fine words, and he is so flattered by his rapidly established intimacy with the French marshals, and so dazzled by the sight of Murat’s mantle and ostrich plumes, qu’il n’y voit que du feu, et oublie celui qu’il devait faire feu sur l’ennemi!”32 In spite of the animation of his speech Bilíbin did not forget to pause after this mot to give time for its due appreciation. “The French battalion rushes to the bridgehead, spikes the guns, and the bridge is taken! But what is best of all,” he went on, his excitement subsiding under the delightful interest of his own story, “is that the sergeant in charge of the cannon which was to give the signal to fire the mines and blow up the bridge, this sergeant, seeing that the French troops were running on to the bridge, was about to fire, but Lannes stayed his hand. The sergeant, who was evidently wiser than his general, goes up to Auersperg and says: ‘Prince, you are being deceived, here are the French!’ Murat, seeing that all is lost if the sergeant is allowed to speak, turns to Auersperg with feigned astonishment (he is a true Gascon) and says: ‘I don’t recognise the world-famous Austrian discipline, if you allow a subordinate to address you like that!’ It was a stroke of genius. Prince Auersperg feels his dignity at stake and orders the sergeant to be arrested. Come, you must own that this affair of the Tabor Bridge is delightful! It is not exactly stupidity, nor rascality . . .”
“It may be treachery,” said Prince Andrew, vividly imagining the grey overcoats, wounds, the smoke of gunpowder, the sounds of firing, and the glory that awaited him.
“Not that either. That puts the court in too bad a light,” replied Bilíbin. “It’s not treachery nor rascality nor stupidity: it is just as at Ulm . . . it is . . .”—he seemed to be trying to find the right expression. “C’est . . . c’est du Mack. Nous sommes mackés,”33 he concluded, feeling that he had produced a good epigram, a fresh one that would be repeated. His hitherto puckered brow became smooth as a sign of pleasure, and with a slight smile he began to examine his nails.
“Where are you off to?” he said suddenly to Prince Andrew who had risen and was going towards his room.
“I am going away.”
“Where to?”
“To the army.”
“But you meant to stay another two days?”
“But now I am off at once.”
And Prince Andrew after giving directions about his departure went to his room.
“Do you know, mon cher,” said Bilíbin following him, “I have been thinking about you. Why are you going?”
And in proof of the conclusiveness of his opinion all the wrinkles vanished from his face.
Prince Andrew looked inquiringly at him and gave no reply.
“Why are you going? I know you think it your duty to gallop back to the army now that it is in danger. I understand that. Mon cher, it is heroism!”
“Not at all,” said Prince Andrew.
“But as you are a philosopher, be a consistent one, look at the other side of the question and you will see that your duty, on the contrary, is to take care of yourself. Leave it to those who are no longer fit for anything else . . . You have not been ordered to return and have not been dismissed from here, therefore you can stay and go with us wherever our ill-luck takes us. They say we are going to Olmütz, and Olmütz is a very decent town. You and I will travel comfortably in my calèche.”
“Do stop joking, Bilíbin,” cried Bolkónski.
“I am speaking sincerely as a friend! Consider! Where and why are you going, when you might remain here? You are faced by one of two things,” and the skin over his left temple puckered, “either you will not reach your regiment before peace is concluded, or you will share defeat and disgrace with Kutúzov’s whole army.”
And Bilíbin unwrinkled his temple, feeling that the dilemma was insoluble.
“I cannot argue about it,” replied Prince Andrew coldly, but he thought: “I am going to save the army.”
“My dear fellow, you are a hero!” said Bilíbin.
CHAPTER 13
That same night, having taken leave of the Minister of War, Bolkónski set off to rejoin the army, not knowing where he would find it and fearing to be captured by the French on the way to Krems.
In Brünn everybody attached to the court was packing up, and the heavy baggage was already being dispatched to Olmütz. Near Hetzelsdorf Prince Andrew struck the high road along which the Russian army was moving with great haste and in the greatest disorder. The road was so obstructed with carts that it was impossible to get by in a carriage. Prince Andrew took a horse and a Cossack from a Cossack commander, and hungry and weary, making his way past the baggage-wagons, rode in search of the commander-in-chief and of his own luggage. Very sinister reports of the position of the army reached him as he went along, and the appearance of the troops in their disorderly flight confirmed these rumours.
“Cette armée Russe que l’or de l’Angleterre a transportée des extremités de l’univers, nous allons lui faire éprouver le même sort—le sort de l’armée d’Ulm.”34 He remembered these words in Buonaparte’s address to his army at the beginning of the campaign, and they awoke in him astonishment at the genius of his hero, a feeling of wounded pride, and a hope of glory. “And should there be nothing left but to die?” he thought. “Well, if need be, I shall do it no worse than others.”
He looked with disdain at the endless confused mass of detachments, carts, guns, artillery, and again baggage-wagons and vehicles of all kinds, overtaking one another and blocking the muddy road, three and sometimes four abreast. From all sides, behind and before, as far as ear could reach, there was the rattle of wheels, the creaking of carts and gun-carriages, the tramp of horses, the crack of whips, shouts, the urging of horses, and the swearing of soldiers, orderlies and officers. All along the sides of the road fallen horses were to be seen, some flayed, some not, and broken-down carts beside which solitary soldiers sat waiting for something, and again soldiers straggling from their companies, crowds of whom set off to the neighbouring villages, or returned from them dragging sheep, fowls, hay, and bulging sacks. At each ascent or descent of the road the crowds were yet denser and the din of shouting more incessant. Soldiers floundering knee-deep in mud pushed the guns and wagons themselves. Whips cracked, hoofs slipped, traces broke, and lungs were strained with shouting. The officers directing the march rode backward and forward between the carts. Their voices were but feebly heard amid the uproar and one saw by their faces that they despaired of the possibility of checking this disorder.
“Here is our dear Orthodox Russian army,” thought Bolkónski, recalling Bilíbin’s words.
Wishing to find out where the commander-in-chief was, he rode up to a convoy. Directly opposite to him came a strange one-horse vehicle, evidently rigged up by soldiers out of any available materials and looking like something between a cart, a cabriolet, and a calèche. A soldier was driving, and a woman enveloped in shawls sat behind the apron under the leather hood of the vehicle. Prince Andrew rode up and was just putting his question to a soldier when his attention was diverted by the desperate shrieks of the woman in the vehicle. An officer in charge of transport was beating the soldier who was driving the woman’s vehicle for trying to get ahead of others, and the strokes of his whip fell on the apron of the equipage. The woman screamed piercingly. Seeing Prince Andrew she leaned out from behind the apron, and waving her thin arms from under the woollen shawl, cried:
“Mr. Aide-de-camp! Mr. Aide-de-camp! . . . For heaven’s sake . . . Protect me! What will become of us? I am the wife of the doctor of the Seventh Chasseurs . . . They won’t let us pass, we are left behind and have lost our people . . .”
“I’ll flatten you into a pancake!” shouted the angry officer to the soldier. “Turn back with your slut!”
“Mr. Aide-de-camp! Help me! . . . What does it all mean?” screamed the doctor’s wife.
“Kindly let this cart pass. Don’t you see it’s a woman?” said Prince Andrew riding up to the officer.
The officer glanced at him, and without replying turned again to the soldier. “I’ll teach you to push on! . . . Back!”
“Let them pass, I tell you!” repeated Prince Andrew, compressing his lips.
“And who are you?” cried the officer, turning on him with tipsy rage, “who are you? Are you in command here? Eh? I am commander here, not you! Go back or I’ll flatten you into a pancake,” repeated he. This expression evidently pleased him.
“That was a nice snub for the little aide-de-camp,” came a voice from behind.
Prince Andrew saw that the officer was in that state of senseless tipsy rage when a man does not know what he is saying. He saw that his championship of the doctor’s wife in her queer trap might expose him to what he dreaded more than anything in the world—to ridicule; but his instinct urged him on. Before the officer finished his sentence Prince Andrew, his face distorted with fury, rode up to him and raised his riding-whip.
“Kind—ly—let—them—pass!”
The officer flourished his arm and hastily rode away.
“It’s all the fault of these fellows on the staff that there’s this disorder,” he muttered. “Do as you like.”
Prince Andrew without lifting his eyes rode hastily away from the doctor’s wife, who was calling him her deliverer, and recalling with a sense of disgust the minutest details of this humiliating scene he galloped on to the village where he was told that the commander-in-chief was.
On reaching the village he dismounted and went to the nearest house, intending to rest if but for a moment, eat something, and try to sort out the stinging and tormenting thoughts that confused his mind. “This is a mob of scoundrels and not an army,” he was thinking as he went up to the window of the first house, when a familiar voice called him by name.
He turned round. Nesvítski’s handsome face looked out of the little window. Nesvítski, moving his moist lips as he chewed something, and flourishing his arm, called him to enter.
“Bolkónski! Bolkónski! . . . Don’t you hear? Eh? Come quick . . .” he shouted.
Entering the house, Prince Andrew saw Nesvítski and another adjutant having something to eat. They hastily turned round to him asking if he had any news. On their familiar faces he read agitation and alarm. This was particularly noticeable on Nesvítski’s usually laughing countenance.
“Where is the commander-in-chief?” asked Bolkónski.
“Here, in that house,” answered the adjutant.
“Well, is it true that it’s peace and capitulation?” asked Nesvítski.
“I was going to ask you. I know nothing except that it was all I could do to get here.”
“And we, my dear boy! It’s terrible! I was wrong to laugh at Mack, we’re getting it still worse,” said Nesvítski. “But sit down and have something to eat.”
“You won’t be able to find either your baggage or anything else now, Prince. And God only knows where your man Peter is,” said the other adjutant.
“Where are headquarters?”
“We are to spend the night in Znaim.”
“Well, I have got all I need into packs for two horses,” said Nesvítski. “They’ve made up splendid packs for me—fit to cross the Bohemian mountains with. It’s a bad lookout, old fellow! But what’s the matter with you? You must be ill to shiver like that,” he added, noticing that Prince Andrew winced as at an electric shock.
“It’s nothing,” replied Prince Andrew.
He had just remembered his recent encounter with the doctor’s wife and the convoy officer.
“What is the commander-in-chief doing here?” he asked.
“I can’t make out at all,” said Nesvítski.
“Well, all I can make out is that everything is abominable, abominable, quite abominable!” said Prince Andrew, and he went off to the house where the commander-in-chief was.
Passing by Kutúzov’s carriage and the exhausted saddle-horses of his suite, with their Cossacks who were talking loudly together, Prince Andrew entered the passage. Kutúzov himself, he was told, was in the house with Prince Bagratión and Weyrother. Weyrother was the Austrian general who had succeeded Schmidt. In the passage little Kozlóvski was squatting on his heels in front of a clerk. The clerk, with cuffs turned up, was hastily writing at a tub turned bottom upwards. Kozlóvski’s face looked worn—he too had evidently not slept all night. He glanced at Prince Andrew and did not even nod to him.
“Second line . . . have you written it?” he continued dictating to the clerk. “The Kiev Grenadiers, Podolian . . .”
“One can’t write so fast, your Honour,” said the clerk, glancing angrily and disrespectfully at Kozlóvski.
Through the door came the sounds of Kutúzov’s voice, excited and dissatisfied, interrupted by another, an unfamiliar voice. From the sound of these voices, the inattentive way Kozlóvski looked at him, the disrespectful manner of the exhausted clerk, the fact that the clerk and Kozlóvski were squatting on the floor by a tub so near to the commander-in-chief, and from the noisy laughter of the Cossacks holding the horses near the window, Prince Andrew felt that something important and disastrous was about to happen.
He turned to Kozlóvski with urgent questions.
“Immediately, Prince,” said Kozlóvski. “Dispositions for Bagratión.”
“What about capitulation?”
“Nothing of the sort. Orders are issued for a battle.”
Prince Andrew moved towards the door from whence voices were heard. Just as he was going to open it the sounds ceased, the door opened, and Kutúzov with his eagle nose and puffy face appeared in the doorway. Prince Andrew stood right in front of Kutúzov but the expression of the commander-in-chief’s one sound eye showed him to be so preoccupied with thoughts and anxieties as to be oblivious of his presence. He looked straight at his adjutant’s face without recognising him.
“Well, have you finished?” said he to Kozlóvski.
“One moment, your Excellency.”
Bagratión, a gaunt middle-aged man of medium height with a firm, impassive face of oriental type, came out after the commander-in-chief.
“I have the honour to present myself,” repeated Prince Andrew rather loudly, handing Kutúzov an envelope.
“Ah, from Vienna? Very good. Later, later!”
Kutúzov went out into the porch with Bagratión.
“Well, goodbye, Prince,” said he to Bagratión. “My blessing, and may Christ be with you in your great endeavour!”
His face suddenly softened and tears came into his eyes. With his left hand he drew Bagratión towards him, and with his right, on which he wore a ring, he made the sign of the cross over him with a gesture evidently habitual, offering his puffy cheek, but Bagratión kissed him on the neck instead.
“Christ be with you!” Kutúzov repeated and went towards his carriage. “Get in with me,” said he to Bolkónski.
“Your Excellency, I should like to be of use here. Allow me to remain with Prince Bagratión’s detachment.”
“Get in,” said Kutúzov, and noticing that Bolkónski still delayed, he added: “I need good officers myself, need them myself!”
They got into the carriage and drove for a few minutes in silence.
“There is still much, much before us,” he said, as if with an old man’s penetration he understood all that was passing in Bolkónski’s mind. “If a tenth part of his detachment returns I shall thank God,” he added as if speaking to himself.
Prince Andrew glanced at Kutúzov’s face only a foot distant from him and involuntarily noticed the carefully washed seams of the scar near his temple, where an Ismail bullet had pierced his skull, and the empty eyesocket. “Yes, he has a right to speak so calmly of those men’s death,” thought Bolkónski.
“That is why I beg to be sent to that detachment,” he said.
Kutúzov did not reply. He seemed to have forgotten what he had been saying, and sat plunged in thought. Five minutes later, gently swaying on the soft springs of the carriage, he turned to Prince Andrew. There was not a trace of agitation on his face. With delicate irony he questioned Prince Andrew about the details of his interview with the Emperor, about the remarks he had heard at court concerning the Krems affair, and about some ladies they both knew.
CHAPTER 14
On November 1st Kutúzov had received through a spy news that the army he commanded was in an almost hopeless position. The spy reported that the French, after crossing the bridge at Vienna, were advancing in immense force upon Kutúzov’s line of communication with the troops that were arriving from Russia. If Kutúzov decided to remain at Krems, Napoleon’s army of one hundred and fifty thousand men would cut him off completely and surround his exhausted army of forty thousand, and he would find himself in the position of Mack at Ulm. If Kutúzov decided to abandon the road connecting him with the troops arriving from Russia, he would have to march with no road into unknown parts of the Bohemian mountains, defending himself against superior forces of the enemy and abandoning all hope of a junction with Buxhöwden. If Kutúzov decided to retreat along the road from Krems to Olmütz, to unite with the troops arriving from Russia, he risked being forestalled on that road by the French who had crossed the Vienna bridge, and encumbered by his baggage and transport, having to accept battle on the march against an enemy three times as strong, who would hem him in from two sides.
Kutúzov chose this latter course.
The French, the spy reported, having crossed the Vienna bridge, were advancing by forced marches towards Znaim, which lay a hundred versts off on the line of Kutúzov’s retreat. If he reached Znaim before the French, there would be great hope of saving the army; to let the French forestall him at Znaim meant the exposure of his whole army to a disgrace such as that of Ulm, or to utter destruction. But to forestall the French with his whole army was impossible. The road for the French from Vienna to Znaim was shorter and better than the road for the Russians from Krems to Znaim.
The night he received the news, Kutúzov sent Bagratión’s vanguard, four thousand strong, to the right across the hills from the Krems–Znaim to the Vienna–Znaim road. Bagratión was to make this march without resting, and to halt facing Vienna with Znaim to his rear, and if he succeeded in forestalling the French he was to delay them as long as possible. Kutúzov himself with all his transport took the road to Znaim.
Marching thirty miles that stormy night across roadless hills, with his hungry, ill-shod soldiers, and losing a third of his men as stragglers by the way, Bagratión came out on the Vienna–Znaim road at Hollabrünn a few hours ahead of the French who were approaching Hollabrünn from Vienna. Kutúzov with his transport had still to march for some days before he could reach Znaim. Hence Bagratión with his four thousand hungry exhausted men, would have to detain for days the whole enemy army that came upon him at Hollabrünn, which was clearly impossible.
But a freak of fate made the impossible possible. The success of the trick that had placed the Vienna bridge in the hands of the French without a fight, led Murat to try to deceive Kutúzov in a similar way. Meeting Bagratión’s weak detachment on the Znaim road he supposed it to be Kutúzov’s whole army. To be able to crush it absolutely he awaited the arrival of the rest of the troops who were on their way from Vienna, and with this object offered a three days’ truce on condition that both armies should remain in position without moving. Murat declared that negotiations for peace were already proceeding, and that he therefore offered this truce to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Count Nostitz the Austrian general occupying the advanced posts, believed Murat’s emissary and retired, leaving Bagratión’s division exposed. Another emissary rode to the Russian line to announce the peace negotiations and to offer the Russian army the three days’ truce. Bagratión replied that he was not authorized either to accept or refuse a truce, and sent his adjutant to Kutúzov to report the offer he had received.
A truce was Kutúzov’s sole chance of gaining time, giving Bagratión’s exhausted troops some rest, and letting the transport and heavy convoys (whose movements were concealed from the French) advance if but one stage nearer Znaim. The offer of a truce gave the only, and a quite unexpected, chance of saving the army. On receiving the news he immediately dispatched Adjutant General Wintzingerode, who was in attendance on him, to the enemy camp. Wintzingerode was not merely to agree to the truce but also to offer terms of capitulation, and meanwhile Kutúzov sent his adjutants back to hasten to the utmost the movements of the baggage trains of the entire army along the Krems–Znaim road. Bagratión’s exhausted and hungry detachment which alone covered this movement of the transport and of the whole army, had to remain stationary in face of an enemy eight times as strong as itself.
Kutúzov’s expectations that the proposals of capitulation (which were in no way binding) might give time for part of the transport to pass, and also that Murat’s mistake would very soon be discovered, proved correct. As soon as Buonaparte (who was at Schönbrunn, sixteen miles from Hollabrünn) received Murat’s despatch with the proposal of a truce and a capitulation, he detected a ruse and wrote the following letter to Murat:
Schönbrunn, 25th Brumaire, 1805,
at eight o’clock in the morning
TO PRINCE MURAT—I cannot find words to express to you my displeasure. You command only my advance-guard, and have no right to arrange an armistice without my order. You are causing me to lose the fruits of a campaign. Break the armistice immediately and march on the enemy. Inform him that the general who signed that capitulation had no right to do so, and that no one but the Emperor of Russia has that right.
If however the Emperor of Russia ratifies that convention, I will ratify it, but it is only a trick. March on, destroy the Russian army . . . You are in a position to seize its baggage and artillery.
The Russian Emperor’s aide-de-camp is an impostor. Officers are nothing when they have no powers; this one had none . . . The Austrians let themselves be tricked at the crossing of the Vienna bridge, you are letting yourself be tricked by an aide-de-camp of the Emperor.
NAPOLEON
Buonaparte’s adjutant rode full gallop with this menacing letter to Murat. Buonaparte himself, not trusting to his generals, moved with all the Guards to the field of battle, afraid of letting a ready victim escape, and Bagratión’s four thousand men merrily lighted camp fires, dried and warmed themselves, cooked their porridge for the first time for three days, and not one of them knew or imagined what was in store for him.
CHAPTER 15
Between three and four o’clock in the afternoon Prince Andrew, who had persisted in his request to Kutúzov, arrived at Grunth and reported himself to Bagratión. Buonaparte’s adjutant had not yet reached Murat’s detachment and the battle had not yet begun. In Bagratión’s detachment no one knew anything of the general position of affairs. They talked of peace but did not believe in its possibility; others talked of a battle but also disbelieved in the nearness of an engagement. Bagratión, knowing Bolkónski to be a favourite and trusted adjutant, received him with distinction and special marks of favour, explaining to him that there would probably be an engagement that day or the next, and giving him full liberty to remain with him during the battle or to join the rear-guard and have an eye on the order of retreat, “which is also very important.”
“However, there will hardly be an engagement today,” said Bagratión as if to reassure Prince Andrew.
“If he is one of the ordinary little staff-dandies sent to earn a medal, he can get his reward just as well in the rear-guard, but if he wishes to stay with me, let him . . . he’ll be of use here if he’s a brave officer,” thought Bagratión. Prince Andrew, without replying, asked the prince’s permission to ride round the position to see the disposition of the forces, so as to know his bearings should he be sent to execute an order. The officer on duty, a handsome, elegantly dressed man with a diamond ring on his forefinger, who was fond of speaking French though he spoke it badly, offered to conduct Prince Andrew.
On all sides they saw rain-soaked officers with dejected faces who seemed to be seeking something, and soldiers dragging doors, benches, and fencing from the village.
“There now, Prince! We can’t stop those fellows,” said the staff-officer pointing to the soldiers. “The officers don’t keep them in hand. And there,” he pointed to a sutler’s tent, “they crowd in and sit. This morning I turned them all out and now look, it’s full again. I must go there, Prince, and scare them a bit. It won’t take a moment.”
“Yes, let’s go in and I will get myself a roll and some cheese,” said Prince Andrew who had not yet had time to eat anything.
“Why didn’t you mention it, Prince? I would have offered you something.”
They dismounted and entered the tent. Several officers, with flushed and weary faces, were sitting at the table eating and drinking.
“Now what does this mean, gentlemen?” said the staff-officer, in the reproachful tone of a man who has repeated the same thing more than once. “You know it won’t do to leave your posts like this. The prince gave orders that no one should leave his post. Now you, captain,” and he turned to a thin, dirty little artillery officer who without his boots (he had given them to the canteen keeper to dry) in only his stockings, rose when they entered, smiling not altogether comfortably.
“Well, aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Captain Túshin?” he continued. “One would think that as an artillery officer you would set a good example, yet here you are without your boots! The alarm will be sounded and you’ll be in a pretty position without your boots!” (The staff-officer smiled.) “Kindly return to your posts, gentlemen, all of you, all!” he added in a tone of command.
Prince Andrew smiled involuntarily as he looked at the artillery officer Túshin, who silent and smiling, shifting from one stockinged foot to the other, glanced inquiringly with his large, intelligent, kindly eyes from Prince Andrew to the staff-officer.
“The soldiers say it feels easier without boots,” said Captain Túshin smiling shyly in his uncomfortable position, evidently wishing to adopt a jocular tone. But before he had finished he felt that his jest was unacceptable and had not come off. He grew confused.
“Kindly return to your posts,” said the staff-officer trying to preserve his gravity.
Prince Andrew glanced again at the artillery officer’s small figure. There was something peculiar about it, quite unsoldierly, rather comic, but extremely attractive.
The staff-officer and Prince Andrew mounted their horses and rode on.
Having ridden beyond the village, continually meeting and overtaking soldiers and officers of various regiments, they saw on their left some entrenchments being thrown up, the freshly-dug clay of which showed up red. Several battalions of soldiers, in their shirt-sleeves despite the cold wind, swarmed in these earthworks like a host of white ants; spadefuls of red clay were continually being thrown up from behind the bank by unseen hands. Prince Andrew and the officer rode up, looked at the entrenchment, and went on again. Just behind it they came upon some dozens of soldiers, continually replaced by others who ran from the entrenchment. They had to hold their noses and put their horses to a trot to escape from the poisoned atmosphere of these latrines.
“Voila l’agrément des camps, Monsieur le Prince,”35 said the staff-officer.
They rode up the opposite hill. From there the French could already be seen. Prince Andrew stopped and began examining the position.
“That’s our battery,” said the staff-officer indicating the highest point. “It’s in charge of the queer fellow we saw without his boots. You can see everything from there; let’s go there, Prince.”
“Thank you very much, I will go on alone,” said Prince Andrew, wishing to rid himself of this staff-officer’s company, “please don’t trouble yourself further.”
The staff-officer remained behind and Prince Andrew rode on alone.
The farther forward and nearer the enemy he went, the more orderly and cheerful were the troops. The greatest disorder and depression had been in the baggage-train he had passed that morning on the Znaim road seven miles away from the French. At Grunth also some apprehension and alarm could be felt, but the nearer Prince Andrew came to the French lines the more confident was the appearance of our troops. The soldiers in their great-coats were ranged in lines, the sergeant-majors and company officers were counting the men, poking the last man in each section in the ribs and telling him to hold his hand up. Soldiers scattered over the whole place were dragging logs and brushwood and were building shelters with merry chatter and laughter; around the fires sat others, dressed and undressed, drying their shirts and leg-bands or mending boots or overcoats and crowding round the boilers and porridge-cookers. In one company dinner was ready and the soldiers were gazing eagerly at the steaming boiler, waiting till the sample, which a quartermaster-sergeant was carrying in a wooden bowl to an officer who sat on a log before his shelter, had been tasted.
Another company, a lucky one for not all the companies had vodka, crowded round a pock-marked, broad shouldered sergeant-major who, tilting a keg, filled one after another the canteen-lids held out to him. The soldiers lifted the canteen-lids to their lips with reverential faces, emptied them rolling the vodka in their mouths, and walked away from the sergeant-major with brightened expressions, licking their lips and wiping them on the sleeves of their great-coats. All their faces were as serene as if all this were happening at home awaiting peaceful encampment, and not within sight of the enemy before an action in which at least half of them would be left on the field. After passing a chasseur regiment and in the lines of the Kiev Grenadiers—fine fellows busy with similar peaceful affairs—near the shelter of the regimental commander, higher than and different from the others, Prince Andrew came out in front of a platoon of grenadiers before whom lay a naked man. Two soldiers held him while two others were flourishing their switches and striking him regularly on his bare back. The man shrieked unnaturally. A stout major was pacing up and down the line, and regardless of the screams kept repeating:
“It’s a shame for a soldier to steal; a soldier must be honest, honourable, and brave, but if he robs his fellows there is no honour in him, he’s a scoundrel. Go on! Go on!”
So the swishing sound of the strokes, and the desperate but unnatural screams, continued.
“Go on, go on!” said the major.
A young officer with a bewildered and pained expression on his face stepped away from the man and looked round inquiringly at the adjutant as he rode by.
Prince Andrew, having reached the front line, rode along it. Our front line and that of the enemy were far apart on the right and left flanks, but in the centre where the men with a flag of truce had passed that morning, the lines were so near together that the men could see one another’s faces and speak to one another. Besides the soldiers who formed the picket line on either side there were many curious onlookers who, jesting and laughing, stared at their strange foreign enemies.
Since early morning—despite an injunction not to approach the picket line—the officers had been unable to keep sightseers away. The soldiers forming the picket line, like showmen exhibiting a curiosity, no longer looked at the French but paid attention to the sightseers and grew weary waiting to be relieved. Prince Andrew halted to have a look at the French.
“Look! Look there!” one soldier was saying to another, pointing to a Russian musketeer who had gone up to the picket line with an officer and was rapidly and excitedly talking to a French grenadier. “Hark to him jabbering! Fine, isn’t it? It’s all the Frenchy can do to keep up with him. There now, Sídorov!”
“Wait a bit and listen. It’s fine!” answered Sídorov, who was considered an adept at French.
The soldier to whom the laughers referred was Dólokhov. Prince Andrew recognised him and stopped to listen to what he was saying. Dólokhov had come from the left flank where their regiment was stationed, with his captain.
“Now then, go on, go on!” incited the officer, bending forward and trying not to lose a word of the speech which was incomprehensible to him. “More, please: more! What’s he saying?”
Dólokhov did not answer the captain; he had been drawn into a hot dispute with the French grenadier. They were naturally talking about the campaign. The Frenchman, confusing the Austrians with the Russians, was trying to prove that the Russians had surrendered and had fled all the way from Ulm, while Dólokhov maintained that the Russians had not surrendered but had beaten the French.
“We have orders to drive you off here, and we shall drive you off,” said Dólokhov.
“Only take care you and your Cossacks are not all captured!” said the French grenadier.
The French onlookers and listeners laughed.
“We’ll make you dance as we did under Suvórov . . . (on vous fera danser),” said Dólokhov.
“Qu’est-ce qu’il chante?”36 asked a Frenchman.
“It’s ancient history,” said another, guessing that it referred to a former war. “The Emperor will teach your Suvara as he has taught the others . . .”
“Buonaparte . . .” began Dólokhov, but the Frenchman interrupted him.
“Not Buonaparte. He is the Emperor! Sacré nom . . . !” cried he angrily.
“The devil skin your Emperor.”
And Dólokhov swore at him in coarse soldier’s Russian and shouldering his musket walked away.
“Let us go, Iván Lukích,” he said to the captain.
“Ah, that’s the way to talk French,” said the picket soldiers. “Now, Sídorov, you have a try!”
Sídorov, turning to the French, winked, and began to jabber meaningless sounds very fast: “Kari, mala, tafa, safi, muter, kaská,” he said, trying to give an expressive intonation to his voice.
“Ho! ho! ho! Ha! ha! ha! ha! Ouh! ouh!” came peals of such healthy and good-humoured laughter from the soldiers that it infected the French involuntarily, so much so that the only thing left to do seemed to be to unload the muskets, explode the ammunition, and all return home as quickly as possible.
But the guns remained loaded, the loop-holes in blockhouses and entrenchments looked out just as menacingly, and the unlimbered cannon confronted one another as before.
Having ridden round the whole line from right flank to left, Prince Andrew made his way up to the battery from which the staff-officer had told him the whole field could be seen. Here he dismounted, and stopped beside the farthest of the four unlimbered cannon. Before the guns an artillery sentry was pacing up and down; he stood at attention when the officer arrived, but at a sign resumed his measured, monotonous pacing. Behind the guns were their limbers, and still farther back picket-ropes and artillerymen’s bonfires. To the left, not far from the farthest cannon, was a small, newly-constructed wattle-shed from which came the sound of officers’ voices in eager conversation.
It was true that a view over nearly the whole Russian position and the greater part of the enemy’s opened out from this battery. Just facing it, on the crest of the opposite hill, the village of Schön Grabern could be seen, and in three places to left and right the French troops amid the smoke of their camp fires, the greater part of whom were evidently in the village itself and behind the hill. To the left from that village, amid the smoke, was something resembling a battery, but it was impossible to see it clearly with the naked eye. Our right flank was posted on a rather steep incline which dominated the French position. Our infantry were stationed there, and at the farthest point the dragoons. In the centre, where Túshin’s battery stood and from which Prince Andrew was surveying the position, was the easiest and most direct descent and ascent to the brook separating us from Schön Grabern. On the left our troops were close to a copse, in which smoked the bonfires of our infantry who were felling wood. The French line was wider than ours, and it was plain that they could easily outflank us on both sides. Behind our position was a steep and deep dip, making it difficult for artillery and cavalry to retire. Prince Andrew took out his note-book, and leaning on the cannon, sketched a plan of the position. He made some notes on two points, intending to mention them to Bagratión. His idea was, first to concentrate all the artillery in the centre, and secondly, to withdraw the cavalry to the other side of the dip. Prince Andrew, being always near the commander-in-chief, closely following the mass movements and general orders, and constantly studying historical accounts of battles, involuntarily pictured to himself the course of events in the forthcoming action in broad outline. He imagined only important possibilities: “If the enemy attacks the right flank,” he said to himself, “the Kiev Grenadiers and the Podólsk Chasseurs must hold their position till reserves from the centre come up. In that case the dragoons could successfully make a flank counter-attack. If they attack our centre we, having the centre battery on this high ground, shall withdraw the left flank under its cover, and retreat to the dip by echelons.” So he reasoned . . . All the time he had been beside the gun he had heard the voices of the officers distinctly, but as often happens had not understood a word of what they were saying. Suddenly however he was struck by a voice coming from the shed, and its tone was so sincere that he could not but listen.
“No, friend,” said a pleasant and as it seemed to Prince Andrew a familiar voice, “what I say is that if it were possible to know what is beyond death, none of us would be afraid of it. That’s so, friend.”
Another, a younger voice, interrupted him:
“Afraid or not, you can’t escape it anyhow.”
“All the same, one is afraid! Oh, you clever people,” said a third manly voice interrupting them both. “Of course you artillerymen are very wise, because you can take everything along with you—vodka and snacks.”
And the owner of the manly voice, evidently an infantry officer, laughed.
“Yes, one is afraid,” continued the first speaker, he of the familiar voice. “One is afraid of the unknown, that’s what it is. Whatever we may say about the soul going to the sky . . . we know there is no sky but only an atmosphere.”
The manly voice again interrupted the artillery officer.
“Well, stand us some of your herb-vodka, Túshin,” it said.
“Why,” thought Prince Andrew, “that’s the captain who stood up in the sutler’s hut without his boots.” He recognised the agreeable, philosophizing voice with pleasure.
“Some herb-vodka? Certainly!” said Túshin,—“but still, to conceive a future life . . .”
He did not finish. Just then there was a whistle in the air; nearer and nearer, faster and louder, louder and faster, a cannon-ball, as if it had not finished saying what was necessary, thudded into the ground near the shed with superhuman force, throwing up a mass of earth. The ground seemed to groan at the terrible impact.
And immediately Túshin, with a short pipe in the corner of his mouth and his kind intelligent face rather pale, rushed out of the shed followed by the owner of the manly voice, a dashing infantry officer who hurried off to his company, buttoning up his coat as he ran.
CHAPTER 17
Mounting his horse again Prince Andrew lingered with the battery, looking at the puff from the gun that had sent the ball. His eyes ran rapidly over the wide space, but he only saw that the hitherto motionless masses of the French now swayed, and that there really was a battery to their left. The smoke above it had not yet dispersed. Two mounted Frenchmen, probably adjutants, were galloping up the hill. A small but distinctly visible enemy column was moving down the hill, probably to strengthen the front line. The smoke of the first shot had not yet dispersed before another puff appeared, followed by a report. The battle had begun! Prince Andrew turned his horse and galloped back to Grunth to find Prince Bagratión. He heard the cannonade behind him growing louder and more frequent. Evidently our guns had begun to reply. From the bottom of the slope, where the parleys had taken place, came the report of musketry.
Lemarrois had just arrived at a gallop with Buonaparte’s stern letter, and Murat, humiliated and anxious to expiate his fault, had at once moved his forces to attack the centre and outflank both the Russian wings, hoping before evening and before the arrival of the Emperor to crush the contemptible detachment that stood before him.
“It has begun. Here it is!” thought Prince Andrew, feeling the blood rush to his heart. “But where and how will my Toulon present itself?”
Passing between the companies that had been eating porridge and drinking vodka a quarter of an hour before, he saw everywhere the same rapid movement of soldiers forming ranks and getting their muskets ready, and on all their faces he recognised the same eagerness that filled his heart. “It has begun! Here it is, dreadful but enjoyable!” was what the face of each soldier and each officer seemed to say.
Before he had reached the embankments that were being thrown up, he saw, in the light of the dull autumn evening, mounted men coming towards him. The foremost, wearing a Cossack cloak and lambskin cap and riding a white horse, was Prince Bagratión. Prince Andrew stopped, waiting for him to come up; Prince Bagratión reined in his horse and recognising Prince Andrew nodded to him. He still looked ahead while Prince Andrew told him what he had seen.
The feeling, “It has begun! Here it is!” was seen even on Prince Bagratión’s hard brown face with its half-closed dull sleepy eyes. Prince Andrew gazed with anxious curiosity at that impassive face and wished he could tell what, if anything, this man was thinking and feeling at that moment. “Is there anything at all behind that impassive face?” Prince Andrew asked himself as he looked. Prince Bagratión bent his head in sign of agreement with what Prince Andrew told him, and said, “Very good!” in a tone that seemed to imply that everything that took place and was reported to him was exactly what he had foreseen. Prince Andrew, out of breath with his rapid ride, spoke quickly. Prince Bagratión, uttering his words with an oriental accent, spoke particularly slowly, as if to impress the fact that there was no need to hurry. However he put his horse to a trot in the direction of Túshin’s battery. Prince Andrew followed with the suite. Behind Prince Bagratión rode an officer of the suite, the prince’s personal adjutant, Zherkóv, an orderly officer, the staff-officer on duty, riding a fine bob-tailed horse, and a civilian—an accountant who had asked permission to be present at the battle out of curiosity. The accountant, a stout, full-faced man, looked around him with a naïve smile of satisfaction and presented a strange appearance among the hussars, Cossacks and adjutants, in his camlet coat as he jolted on his horse with a convoy-officer’s saddle.
“He wants to see a battle,” said Zherkóv to Bolkónski, pointing to the accountant, “but he feels a pain in the pit of his stomach already.”
“Oh, leave off!” said the accountant with a beaming but rather cunning smile, as if flattered at being made the subject of Zherkóv’s joke, and purposely trying to appear stupider than he really was.
“It is very strange, mon Monsieur Prince,” said the staff-officer. (He remembered that in French there is some peculiar way of addressing a prince, but could not get it quite right.)
By this time they were all approaching Túshin’s battery, and a ball struck the ground in front of them.
“What’s that that has fallen?” asked the accountant with a naïve smile.
“A French pancake,” answered Zherkóv.
“So that’s what they hit with?” asked the accountant. “How awful!”
He seemed to swell with satisfaction. He had hardly finished speaking when they again heard an unexpectedly violent whistling which suddenly ended with a thud into something soft . . . f—f—flop! and a Cossack, riding a little to their right and behind the accountant, crashed to earth with his horse. Zherkóv and the staff-officer bent over their saddles and turned their horses away. The accountant stopped facing the Cossack and examined him with attentive curiosity. The Cossack was dead, but the horse still struggled.
Prince Bagratión screwed up his eyes, looked round, and seeing the cause of the confusion, turned away with indifference, as if to say, “Is it worth while noticing trifles?” He reined in his horse with the ease of a skilful rider, and slightly bending over, disengaged his sabre which had caught in his cloak. It was an old-fashioned sabre of a kind no longer in general use. Prince Andrew remembered the story of Suvórov giving his sabre to Bagratión in Italy, and the recollection was particularly pleasant at that moment. They had reached the battery at which Prince Andrew had been when he examined the battlefield.
“Whose company?” asked Prince Bagratión of an artilleryman standing by the ammunition-wagon.
He asked, “Whose company?” but he really meant, “Are you frightened here?” and the artilleryman understood him.
“Captain Túshin’s, your Excellency!” shouted the red-haired, freckled gunner in a merry voice, standing to attention.
“Yes, yes,” muttered Bagratión as if considering something, and he rode past the limbers to the farthest cannon.
As he approached, a ringing shot issued from it deafening him and his suite, and in the smoke that suddenly surrounded the gun they could see the gunners who had seized it straining to roll it quickly back to its former position. A huge broad-shouldered gunner, Number One, holding a mop, his legs far apart, sprang to the wheel; while Number Two with a trembling hand placed a charge in the cannon’s mouth. The short round-shouldered Captain Túshin, stumbling over the tail of the gun-carriage, moved forward, and not noticing the general, looked out shading his eyes with his small hand.
“Lift it two lines more and it will be just right,” cried he in a feeble voice to which he tried to impart a dashing note, ill suited to his weak figure. “Number Two!” he squeaked. “Fire, Medvédev!”
Bagratión called to him, and Túshin, raising three fingers to his cap, with a bashful and awkward gesture not at all like a military salute but like a priest’s benediction, approached the general. Though Túshin’s guns had been intended to cannonade the valley, he was firing incendiary balls at the village of Schön Grabern visible just opposite, in front of which large masses of French were advancing.
No one had given Túshin orders where and at what to fire, but after consulting his sergeant-major Zakharchénko for whom he had great respect, he had decided that it would be a good thing to set fire to the village. “Very good!” said Bagratión in reply to the officer’s report, and began deliberately to examine the whole battlefield extended before him. The French had advanced nearest on our right. Below the height on which the Kiev regiment was stationed, in the hollow where the rivulet flowed, the soul-stirring rolling and crackling of musketry was heard, and much farther to the right, beyond the dragoons, the officer of the suite pointed out to Bagratión a French column that was outflanking us. To the left the horizon bounded by the adjacent wood. Prince Bagratión ordered two battalions from the centre to be sent to reinforce the right flank. The officer of the suite ventured to remark to the prince that if these battalions went away, the guns would remain without support. Prince Bagratión turned to the officer and with his dull eyes looked at him in silence. It seemed to Prince Andrew that the officer’s remark was just and that really no answer could be made to it. But at that moment an adjutant galloped up with a message from the commander of the regiment in the hollow and news that immense masses of the French were coming down upon them, and that his regiment was in disorder and was retreating upon the Kiev Grenadiers. Prince Bagratión bowed his head in sign of assent and approval. He rode off at a walk to the right and sent an adjutant to the dragoons with orders to attack the French. But this adjutant returned half-an-hour later with the news that the commander of the dragoons had already retreated beyond the dip in the ground, as a heavy fire had been opened on him and he was losing men uselessly, and so had hastened to throw some sharp-shooters into the wood.
“Very good!” said Bagratión.
As he was leaving the battery, firing was heard on the left also, and as it was too far to the left flank for him to have time to go there himself, Prince Bagratión sent Zherkóv to tell the general in command (the one who had paraded his regiment before Kutúzov at Braunau) that he must retreat as quickly as possible behind the hollow in the rear, as the right flank would probably not be able to withstand the enemy’s attack very long. About Túshin and the battalion that had been in support of his battery, all was forgotten. Prince Andrew listened attentively to Bagratión’s colloquies with the commanding officers and the orders he gave them, and to his surprise found that no orders were really given but that Prince Bagratión tried to make it appear that everything done by necessity, by accident, or by the will of subordinate commanders, was done, if not by his direct command, at least in accord with his intentions. Prince Andrew noticed however that though what happened was due to chance and was independent of the commander’s will, owing to the tact Bagratión showed, his presence was very valuable. Officers who approached him with disturbed countenances became calm; soldiers and officers greeted him gaily, grew more cheerful in his presence, and were evidently anxious to display their courage before him.
CHAPTER 18
Prince Bagratión having reached the highest point of our right flank, began riding downhill to where the roll of musketry was heard but where on account of the smoke nothing could be seen. The nearer they got to the hollow the less they could see but the more they felt the nearness of the actual battlefield. They began to meet wounded men. One with a bleeding head and no cap was being dragged along by two soldiers who supported him under the arms. There was a gurgle in his throat and he was spitting blood. A bullet had evidently hit him in the throat or mouth. Another was walking sturdily by himself but without his musket, groaning aloud and swinging his arm which had just been hurt, while blood from it was streaming over his greatcoat as from a bottle. He had that moment been wounded and his face showed fear rather than suffering. Crossing a road they descended a steep incline and saw several men lying on the ground, they also met a crowd of soldiers some of whom were unwounded. The soldiers were ascending the hill breathing heavily, and despite the general’s presence were talking loudly and gesticulating. In front of them rows of grey cloaks were already visible through the smoke, and an officer catching sight of Bagratión rushed shouting after the crowd of retreating soldiers, ordering them back. Bagratión rode up to the ranks along which shots crackled now here and now there, drowning the sound of voices and the shouts of command. The whole air reeked with smoke. The excited faces of the soldiers were blackened with it. Some were using their ramrods, others putting powder on the touch-pans or taking charges from their pouches, while others were firing, though who they were firing at could not be seen for the smoke which there was no wind to carry away. A pleasant humming and whistling of bullets was often heard. “What is this?” thought Prince Andrew approaching the crowd of soldiers. “It can’t be an attack for they are not moving, it can’t be a square—for they are not drawn up for that.”
The commander of the regiment, a thin, feeble-looking old man with a pleasant smile—his eyelids drooping more than half over his old eyes giving him a mild expression, rode up to Bagratión and welcomed him as a host welcomes an honoured guest. He reported that his regiment had been attacked by French cavalry and that, though the attack had been repulsed, he had lost more than half his men. He said the attack had been repulsed, employing this military term to describe what had occurred to his regiment, but in reality he did not himself know what had happened during that half-hour to the troops entrusted to him, and could not say with certainty whether the attack had been repulsed or his regiment had been broken up. All he knew was that at the commencement of the action balls and shells began flying all over his regiment and hitting men, and that afterwards someone had shouted “Cavalry!” and our men had begun firing. They were still firing, not at the cavalry which had disappeared, but at French infantry who had come into the hollow and were firing at our men. Prince Bagratión bowed his head as a sign that this was exactly what he had desired and expected. Turning to his adjutant he ordered him to bring down the two battalions of the Sixth Chasseurs whom they had just passed. Prince Andrew was struck by the changed expression on Prince Bagratión’s face at this moment. It expressed the concentrated and happy resolution you see on the face of a man who on a hot day takes a final run before plunging into the water. The dull sleepy expression was no longer there, nor the affectation of profound thought. The round, steady, hawk’s eyes looked before him eagerly and rather disdainfully, not resting on anything although his movements were still slow and measured.
The commander of the regiment turned to Prince Bagratión entreating him to go back as it was too dangerous to remain where they were. “Please, your Excellency, for God’s sake!” he kept saying, glancing for support at an officer of the suite who turned away from him. “There, you see!” and he drew attention to the bullets whistling, singing and hissing continually around them. He spoke in the tone of entreaty and reproach that a carpenter uses to a gentleman who has picked up an axe: “We are used to it, but you, sir, will blister your hands.” He spoke as if those bullets could not kill him, and his half-closed eyes gave still more persuasiveness to his words. The staff-officer joined in the colonel’s appeals, but Bagratión did not reply; he only gave an order to cease firing and re-form, so as to give room for the two approaching battalions. While he was speaking, the curtain of smoke that had concealed the hollow, driven by a rising wind, began to move from right to left, as if drawn by an invisible hand, and the hill opposite with the French moving about on it opened out before them. All eyes fastened involuntarily on this French column advancing against them and winding down over the uneven ground. One could already see the soldiers’ shaggy caps, distinguish the officers from the men, and see the standard flapping against its staff.
“They march splendidly,” remarked someone in Bagratión’s suite.
The head of the column had already descended into the hollow. The clash would take place on this side of it . . .
The remains of our regiment which had been in action rapidly formed up and moved to the right; from behind it, dispersing the laggards, came two battalions of the Sixth Chasseurs in fine order. Before they had reached Bagratión the weighty tread of the mass of men marching in step could be heard. On their left flank, nearest to Bagratión, marched a company commander, a fine round-faced man with a stupid and happy expression—the same man who had rushed out of the wattle-shed. At that moment he was clearly thinking of nothing but how dashing a fellow he would appear as he passed the commander.
With the self-satisfaction of a man on parade, he stepped lightly with his muscular legs as if sailing along, stretching himself to his full height without the smallest effort, his ease contrasting with the heavy tread of the soldiers who were keeping step with him. He carried close to his leg a narrow unsheathed sword (small, curved, and not like a real weapon) and looked now at the superior officers and now back at the men without losing step, his whole powerful body turning flexibly. It was as if all the powers of his soul were concentrated on passing the commander in the best possible manner, and feeling that he was doing it well, he was happy. “Left . . . left . . . left . . .” he seemed to repeat to himself at each alternate step; and in time to this with stern but varied faces, the wall of soldiers burdened with knapsacks and muskets, marched in step, and each one of these hundreds of soldiers seemed to be repeating to himself at each alternate step, “Left . . . left . . . left . . .” A fat major skirted a bush, puffing and falling out of step; a soldier who had fallen behind, his face showing alarm at his defection, ran at a trot, panting to catch up with his company. A cannon-ball cleaving the air flew over the heads of Bagratión and his suite and fell into the column to the measure of “Left . . . left!” “Close up!” came the company commander’s voice in jaunty tones. The soldiers passed in a semi-circle round something where the ball had fallen, and an old trooper on the flank, a non-commissioned officer, who had stopped beside the dead men, ran to catch up his line and falling into step with a hop, looked back angrily, and through the ominous silence and the regular tramp of feet beating the ground in unison, one seemed to hear left . . . left . . . left.
“Well done, lads!” said Prince Bagratión.
“Glad to do our best, your Ex’len–lency!” came a confused shout from the ranks. A morose soldier marching on the left turned his eyes on Bagratión as he shouted, with an expression that seemed to say: “We know that ourselves!” Another, without looking round, as though fearing to relax, shouted with his mouth wide open and passed on.
The order was given to halt and down knapsacks.
Bagratión rode round the ranks that had marched past him and dismounted. He gave the reins to a Cossack, took off and handed over his felt coat, stretched his legs, and set his cap straight. The head of the French column, with its officers leading, appeared from below the hill.
“Forward, with God!” said Bagratión in a resolute sonorous voice, turning for a moment to the front line, and, slightly swinging his arms, he went forward uneasily over the rough field with the awkward gait of a cavalryman. Prince Andrew felt that an invisible power was leading him forward, and experienced great happiness.
The French were already near. Prince Andrew, walking beside Bagratión, could clearly distinguish their bandoliers, red epaulettes, and even their faces. (He distinctly saw an old French officer, who with gaitered legs and turned-out toes climbed the hill with difficulty.) Prince Bagratión gave no further orders and silently continued to walk on in front of the ranks. Suddenly one shot after another rang out from among the French, smoke appeared all along their uneven ranks, and musket shots sounded. Several of our men fell, among them the round-faced officer who had marched so gaily and complacently. But at the moment the first report was heard, Bagratión looked round and shouted, “Hurrah!”
“Hurrah–ah!–ah!” rang a long-drawn shout from our ranks, and passing Bagratión and racing one another, they rushed in an irregular but joyous and eager crowd down the hill at their disordered foe.
CHAPTER 19
The attack of the Sixth Chasseurs secured the retreat of our right flank. In the centre Túshin’s forgotten battery, which had managed to set fire to the Schön Grabern village, delayed the French advance. The French were putting out the fire which the wind was spreading, and thus gave us time to retreat. The retirement of the centre to the other side of the dip in the ground at the rear was hurried and noisy but the different companies did not get mixed. But our left—which consisted of the Azóv and Podólsk infantry and the Pávlograd Hussars—was simultaneously attacked and outflanked by superior French forces under Lannes, and was thrown into confusion. Bagratión had sent Zherkóv to the general commanding that left flank with orders to retreat immediately.
Zherkóv, not removing his hand from his cap, turned his horse about and galloped off. But no sooner had he left Bagratión than his courage failed him. He was seized by panic and could not go where it was dangerous.
Having reached the left flank, instead of going to the front where the firing was, he began to look for the general and his staff where they could not possibly be and so did not deliver the order.
The command of the left flank belonged by seniority to the commander of the regiment Kutúzov had reviewed at Braunau and in which Dólokhov was serving as a private. But the command of the extreme left flank had been assigned to the commander of the Pávlograd regiment in which Rostóv was serving, and a misunderstanding arose. The two commanders were much exasperated with one another and long after the action had begun on the right flank and the French were already advancing, were engaged in discussion, with the sole object of offending one another. But the regiments, both cavalry and infantry, were by no means ready for the impending action. From privates to general they were not expecting a battle and were engaged in peaceful occupations, the cavalry feeding their horses and the infantry collecting wood.
“He higher iss dan I in rank,” said the German colonel of the hussars, flushing and addressing an adjutant who had ridden up, “so let him do vhat he vill, but I cannot sacrifice my hussars . . . Bugler, sount ze retreat!”
But haste was becoming imperative. Cannon and musketry mingling together, thundered on the right and in the centre, while the capotes of Lannes’s sharpshooters were already seen crossing the milldam and forming up within twice the range of a musket shot. The general in command of the infantry went towards his horse with jerky steps, and having mounted drew himself up very straight and tall and rode to the Pávlograd commander. The commanders met with polite bows but with secret malevolence in their hearts.
“Once again, Colonel,” said the general, “I can’t leave half my men in the wood. I beg of you, I beg of you,” he repeated, “to occupy the position and prepare for an attack.”
“I peg of you yourself not to mix in vot is not your pusiness!” suddenly replied the irate colonel. “If you vere in the cavalry . . .”
“I am not in the cavalry, Colonel, but I am a Russian general and if you are not aware of the fact . . .”
“Quite avare, your Excellency,” suddenly shouted the colonel, touching his horse and turning purple in the face. “Vill you be so goot to come to ze front and see dat zis position iss no goot? I don’t vish to desstroy my men for your pleasure!”
“You forget yourself, Colonel. I am not considering my own pleasure and I won’t allow it to be said!”
Taking the colonel’s outburst as a challenge to his courage, the general expanded his chest and rode, frowning, beside him to the front line, as if their differences would be settled there amongst the bullets. They reached the front, several bullets sped over them, and they halted in silence. There was nothing fresh to be seen from the line, for from where they had been before it had been evident that it was impossible for cavalry to act among the bushes and broken ground, as well as that the French were outflanking our left. The general and colonel looked sternly and significantly at one another like two fighting cocks preparing for battle, each vainly trying to detect signs of cowardice in the other. Both passed the examination successfully. As there was nothing to be said, and neither wished to give occasion for it to be alleged that he had been the first to leave the range of fire, they would have remained there for a long time testing each other’s courage, had it not been that just then they heard the rattle of musketry and a muffled shout almost behind them in the wood. The French had attacked the men collecting wood in the copse. It was no longer possible for the hussars to retreat with the infantry. They were cut off from the line of retreat on the left by the French. However inconvenient the position, it was now necessary to attack in order to cut a way through for themselves.
The squadron in which Rostóv was serving had scarcely time to mount before it was halted facing the enemy. Again, as at the Enns bridge, there was nothing between the squadron and the enemy, and again that terrible dividing line of uncertainty and fear—resembling the line separating the living from the dead—lay between them. All were conscious of this unseen line, and the question whether they would cross it or not, and how they would cross it, agitated them all.
The colonel rode to the front, angrily gave some reply to questions put to him by the officers, and like a man desperately insisting on having his own way, gave an order. No one said anything definite, but the rumour of an attack spread through the squadron. The command to form up rang out and the sabres 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 Rostóv, 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 Denísov’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 Rostóv 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 Rostóv felt Rook’s flanks drooping as he broke into a gallop.
Rostóv 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 Rostóv, gripping the hilt of his sabre.
“Hur–a–a–a–ah!” came a roar of voices. “Let anyone come my way now,” thought Rostóv 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. Rostóv raised his sabre ready to strike, but at that instant the trooper Nikítenko who was galloping ahead, shot away from him, and Rostóv 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 Bondarchúk, an hussar he knew, jolted against him and looked at him angrily. Bondarchúk’s horse swerved and galloped past.
“How is it I am not moving? I have fallen, I am killed!” Rostóv 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. Rostóv 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 towards him. “They will help me!” In front came a man wearing a strange shako and a blue cloak, swarthy, sunburnt, 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 Rostóv 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 Rostóv. He seized his pistol, and instead of firing it flung it at the Frenchman and ran with all his might towards 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. Rostóv 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 five-stone weight were tied to it. He could run no more. The Frenchman also stopped and took aim. Rostóv 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 sharp-shooters.
CHAPTER 20
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 sabre, 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 sharp-shooters showed themselves in the copse. It was Timókhin’s company, which alone had maintained its order in the wood, and having lain in ambush in a ditch now attacked the French unexpectedly. Timókhin 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. Dólokhov, running beside Timókhin, 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 Ekonómov 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 Ekonómov, he could not help taking notice of the soldier.
“Your Excellency, here are two trophies,” said Dólokhov, pointing to the French sword and pouch. “I have taken an officer prisoner. I stopped the company.” Dólokhov 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 Ekonómov.
But Dólokhov 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!”
Túshin’s battery had been forgotten and only at the very end of the action did Prince Bagratión, still hearing the cannonade in the centre, 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 Túshin’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 centre—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 Bagratión had left him, Túshin had succeeded in setting fire to Schön 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 Túshin’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. Túshin’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 grape-shot at them.
Little Túshin, 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, Túshin 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, Túshin 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, or 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 Túshin 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 Honour?” asked an artillery-man standing close by, who heard him muttering.
“Nothing . . . only a shell . . .” he answered.
“Come along, our Matvévna!” he said to himself. “Matvévna”37 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”; Túshin 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.
“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, Matvévna, 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 Túshin! Captain!”
Túshin 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 Túshin, 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 Túshin’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 Túshin, 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 artillery-man to Prince Andrew. “Not like your Honour!”
Prince Andrew said nothing to Túshin. 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 Túshin.
“Well, till we meet again . . .” he said, holding out his hand to Túshin.
“Goodbye, my dear fellow,” said Túshin. “Dear soul! Goodbye, my dear fellow!” and for some unknown reason tears suddenly filled his eyes.
CHAPTER 21
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 Túshin 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 Zherkóv, who had been twice sent to Túshin’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. Túshin 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 the troops and begged for seats on the gun-carriages. The jaunty infantry officer who just before the battle had rushed out of Túshin’s wattle-shed, was laid, with a bullet in his stomach, on Matvévna’s carriage. At the foot of the hill a pale hussar cadet supporting one hand with the other, came up to Túshin 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 Túshin. “Lay a cloak for him to sit on, lad,” he said, addressing his favourite 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, Antónov.”
The cadet was Rostóv. With one hand he supported the other; he was pale and his jaw trembled, shivering feverishly. He was placed on “Matvévna,” 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 Túshin, approaching the gun on which Rostóv sat.
“No, it’s a sprain.”
“Then what is this blood on the gun-carriage?” inquired Túshin.
“It was the officer, your Honour, stained it,” answered the artillery-man, wiping away the blood with his coatsleeve 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 shots 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 Túshin’s guns could not move, and the artillery-men, Túshin, 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, Petróv?” 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 Túshin’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 Túshin, 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. Rostóv, 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 was 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 Túshin who was sitting cross-legged like a Turk beside him. Túshin’s large kind intelligent eyes were fixed with sympathy and commiseration on Rostóv, who saw that Túshin 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 the 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. Rostóv 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 Honour?” he asked Túshin. “I’ve lost my company, your Honour. 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 Túshin asked him to have the guns moved a trifle to let a wagon go past. After he had gone two soldiers rushed to the camp fire. They were quarrelling 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 blood-stained leg-band, came up and in angry tones asked the artillery-men for water.
“Must one die like a dog?” said he.
Túshin 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 their load.
“Still aching?” Túshin asked Rostóv in a whisper.
“Yes.”
“Your Honour, you’re wanted by the general. He is in the hut here,” said a gunner, coming up to Túshin.
“Coming, friend.”
Túshin rose and buttoning his great-coat and pulling it straight, walked away from the fire.
Not far from the artillery camp-fire, in a hut that had been prepared for him, Prince Bagratión 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 Zherkóv 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 naïve 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 Bagratión 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 wood-cutting, 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 Dólokhov’s conversation with Kutúzov, and his last interview with the gentleman ranker—“that Private Dólokhov, who was reduced to the ranks, took a French officer prisoner in my presence and particularly distinguished himself.”
“I saw the Pávlograd Hussars attack there, your Excellency,” chimed in Zherkóv, 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 Zherkóv’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 Bagratión 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 centre?” he inquired, searching with his eyes for someone. (Prince Bagratión 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 Túshin was bivouacking close to the village and had already been sent for.
“Oh, but you were there?” said Prince Bagratión, addressing Prince Andrew.
“Of course, we only just missed one another,” said the staff-officer, with a smile to Bolkónski.
“I had not the pleasure of seeing you,” said Prince Andrew coldly and abruptly.
All were silent. Túshin 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 is it a gun was abandoned?” asked Bagratión, frowning, not so much at the captain as at those who were laughing, among whom Zherkóv 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 Túshin 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 Bagratión 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.”
Túshin 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 Bagratión as a schoolboy who has blundered looks at an examiner.
The silence lasted some time. Prince Bagratión, apparently not wishing to be severe, found nothing to say, the others did not venture to intervene. Prince Andrew looked at Túshin 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 Túshin’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 Bagratión and Túshin looked with equal intentness at Bolkónski 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 Túshin and his company,” and without awaiting a reply, Prince Andrew rose and left the table.
Prince Bagratión looked at Túshin, evidently reluctant to show distrust in Bolkónski’s emphatic opinion yet not feeling able fully to credit it, bent his head, and told Túshin that he could go. Prince Andrew went out with him.
“Thank you; you saved me, my dear fellow!” said Túshin.
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 Rostóv 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, Sónya’s thin little shoulders, Natásha’s eyes and laughter, Denísov with his voice and moustache, and Telyánin, and all that affair with Telyánin and Bogdánich. 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. Túshin 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 Rostóv. “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!”
Rostóv 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 sledge, his healthy body, and all the affection and care of his family. “And why did I come here?” he wondered.
Next day the French did not renew their attack, and the remnant of Bagratión’s detachment was reunited to Kutúzov’s army.
18 “Good God, what simplicity!”
19 “Forty thousand men massacred and the army of our allies destroyed, and you find that a cause for jesting!”
20 “It is all very well for that good-for-nothing fellow of whom you have made a friend, but not for you, not for you.”
21 “A very good morning! A very good morning!”
22 “Busy already?”
23 “Hurrah for the Austrians! Hurrah for the Russians! Hurrah for Emperor Alexander!”
24 “And hurrah for the whole world!”
25 “But my dear fellow, with all my respect for the Orthodox Russian army, I must say that your victory was not particularly victorious.”
26 “We must let him off the u!”
27 Fine eyes.
28 Ours.
29 “Woman is man’s companion.”
30 The marshalls.
31 Bridgehead.
32 “That their fire gets into his eyes and he forgets that he ought to be firing at the enemy.”
33 “It is . . . it is a bit of Mack. We are Macked.”
34 “That Russian army which has been brought from the ends of the earth by English gold, we shall cause to share the same fate—the fate of the army at Ulm.”
35 “This is a pleasure one gets in camp, Prince.”
36 “What’s he singing about?”
37 Daughter of Matthew.