War and Peace

he attack of the Sixth Chasseurs secured the retreat of our right
flank. In the center 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 center 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 the
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 what 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 center, while the capotes
of Lannes’ 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 toward 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 business!”
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 destroy 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 rumor
of an attack spread through the squadron. The command to form up rang
out and the sabers whizzed as they were drawn from their scabbards.
Still no one moved. The troops of the left flank, infantry and hussars
alike, felt that the commander did not himself know what to do, and this
irresolution communicated itself to the men.

“If only they would be quick!” thought 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 saber.

“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 saber, 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
angrily at him. 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 toward him. “They will help me!” In front
came a man wearing a strange shako and a blue cloak, swarthy, sunburned,
and with a hooked nose. Then came two more, and many more running
behind. One of them said something strange, not in Russian. In among the
hindmost of these men wearing similar shakos was a Russian hussar. He
was being held by the arms and his horse was being led behind him.

“It must be one of ours, a prisoner. Yes. Can it be that they will
take me too? Who are these men?” thought 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 toward the bushes. He did not now run with the feeling of doubt
and conflict with which he had trodden the Enns bridge, but with the
feeling of a hare fleeing from the hounds. One single sentiment, that
of fear for his young and happy life, possessed his whole being. Rapidly
leaping the furrows, he fled across the field with the impetuosity he
used to show at catchplay, now and then turning his good-natured, pale,
young face to look back. A shudder of terror went through him: “No,
better not look,” he thought, but having reached the bushes he glanced
round once more. The French had fallen behind, and just as he looked
round the first man changed his run to a walk and, turning, shouted
something loudly to a comrade farther back. 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 seventy-pound 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 sharpshooters.