War and Peace

he men rapidly picked out their horses in the semidarkness, tightened
their saddle girths, and formed companies. Denísov stood by the
watchman’s hut giving final orders. The infantry of the detachment
passed along the road and quickly disappeared amid the trees in the mist
of early dawn, hundreds of feet splashing through the mud. The esaul
gave some orders to his men. Pétya held his horse by the bridle,
impatiently awaiting the order to mount. His face, having been bathed
in cold water, was all aglow, and his eyes were particularly brilliant.
Cold shivers ran down his spine and his whole body pulsed rhythmically.

“Well, is ev’wything weady?” asked Denísov. “Bwing the horses.”

The horses were brought. Denísov was angry with the Cossack because the
saddle girths were too slack, reproved him, and mounted. Pétya put his
foot in the stirrup. His horse by habit made as if to nip his leg, but
Pétya leaped quickly into the saddle unconscious of his own weight and,
turning to look at the hussars starting in the darkness behind him, rode
up to Denísov.

“Vasíli Dmítrich, entrust me with some commission! Please... for God’s
sake...!” said he.

Denísov seemed to have forgotten Pétya’s very existence. He turned to
glance at him.

“I ask one thing of you,” he said sternly, “to obey me and not shove
yourself forward anywhere.”

He did not say another word to Pétya but rode in silence all the way.
When they had come to the edge of the forest it was noticeably growing
light over the field. Denísov talked in whispers with the esaul and
the Cossacks rode past Pétya and Denísov. When they had all ridden by,
Denísov touched his horse and rode down the hill. Slipping onto their
haunches and sliding, the horses descended with their riders into the
ravine. Pétya rode beside Denísov, the pulsation of his body constantly
increasing. It was getting lighter and lighter, but the mist still hid
distant objects. Having reached the valley, Denísov looked back and
nodded to a Cossack beside him.

“The signal!” said he.

The Cossack raised his arm and a shot rang out. In an instant the tramp
of horses galloping forward was heard, shouts came from various sides,
and then more shots.

At the first sound of trampling hoofs and shouting, Pétya lashed his
horse and loosening his rein galloped forward, not heeding Denísov who
shouted at him. It seemed to Pétya that at the moment the shot was
fired it suddenly became as bright as noon. He galloped to the bridge.
Cossacks were galloping along the road in front of him. On the bridge
he collided with a Cossack who had fallen behind, but he galloped on.
In front of him soldiers, probably Frenchmen, were running from right
to left across the road. One of them fell in the mud under his horse’s
feet.

Cossacks were crowding about a hut, busy with something. From the midst
of that crowd terrible screams arose. Pétya galloped up, and the
first thing he saw was the pale face and trembling jaw of a Frenchman,
clutching the handle of a lance that had been aimed at him.

“Hurrah!... Lads!... ours!” shouted Pétya, and giving rein to his
excited horse he galloped forward along the village street.

He could hear shooting ahead of him. Cossacks, hussars, and ragged
Russian prisoners, who had come running from both sides of the road,
were shouting something loudly and incoherently. A gallant-looking
Frenchman, in a blue overcoat, capless, and with a frowning red face,
had been defending himself against the hussars. When Pétya galloped
up the Frenchman had already fallen. “Too late again!” flashed through
Pétya’s mind and he galloped on to the place from which the rapid firing
could be heard. The shots came from the yard of the landowner’s house
he had visited the night before with Dólokhov. The French were making
a stand there behind a wattle fence in a garden thickly overgrown with
bushes and were firing at the Cossacks who crowded at the gateway.
Through the smoke, as he approached the gate, Pétya saw Dólokhov, whose
face was of a pale-greenish tint, shouting to his men. “Go round! Wait
for the infantry!” he exclaimed as Pétya rode up to him.

“Wait?... Hurrah-ah-ah!” shouted Pétya, and without pausing a moment
galloped to the place whence came the sounds of firing and where the
smoke was thickest.

A volley was heard, and some bullets whistled past, while others plashed
against something. The Cossacks and Dólokhov galloped after Pétya into
the gateway of the courtyard. In the dense wavering smoke some of the
French threw down their arms and ran out of the bushes to meet the
Cossacks, while others ran down the hill toward the pond. Pétya was
galloping along the courtyard, but instead of holding the reins he waved
both his arms about rapidly and strangely, slipping farther and farther
to one side in his saddle. His horse, having galloped up to a campfire
that was smoldering in the morning light, stopped suddenly, and Pétya
fell heavily on to the wet ground. The Cossacks saw that his arms and
legs jerked rapidly though his head was quite motionless. A bullet had
pierced his skull.

After speaking to the senior French officer, who came out of the house
with a white handkerchief tied to his sword and announced that
they surrendered, Dólokhov dismounted and went up to Pétya, who lay
motionless with outstretched arms.

“Done for!” he said with a frown, and went to the gate to meet Denísov
who was riding toward him.

“Killed?” cried Denísov, recognizing from a distance the unmistakably
lifeless attitude—very familiar to him—in which Pétya’s body was lying.

“Done for!” repeated Dólokhov as if the utterance of these words
afforded him pleasure, and he went quickly up to the prisoners, who
were surrounded by Cossacks who had hurried up. “We won’t take them!” he
called out to Denísov.

Denísov did not reply; he rode up to Pétya, dismounted, and with
trembling hands turned toward himself the bloodstained, mud-bespattered
face which had already gone white.

“I am used to something sweet. Raisins, fine ones... take them all!” he
recalled Pétya’s words. And the Cossacks looked round in surprise at the
sound, like the yelp of a dog, with which Denísov turned away, walked to
the wattle fence, and seized hold of it.

Among the Russian prisoners rescued by Denísov and Dólokhov was Pierre
Bezúkhov.