War and Peace

hat same night, Rostóv was with a platoon on skirmishing duty in front
of Bagratión’s detachment. His hussars were placed along the line
in couples and he himself rode along the line trying to master the
sleepiness that kept coming over him. An enormous space, with our
army’s campfires dimly glowing in the fog, could be seen behind him;
in front of him was misty darkness. Rostóv could see nothing, peer as
he would into that foggy distance: now something gleamed gray, now there
was something black, now little lights seemed to glimmer where the enemy
ought to be, now he fancied it was only something in his own eyes. His
eyes kept closing, and in his fancy appeared—now the Emperor, now
Denísov, and now Moscow memories—and he again hurriedly opened his
eyes and saw close before him the head and ears of the horse he was
riding, and sometimes, when he came within six paces of them, the
black figures of hussars, but in the distance was still the same misty
darkness. “Why not?... It might easily happen,” thought Rostóv,
“that the Emperor will meet me and give me an order as he would to any
other officer; he’ll say: ‘Go and find out what’s there.’ There
are many stories of his getting to know an officer in just such a chance
way and attaching him to himself! What if he gave me a place near him?
Oh, how I would guard him, how I would tell him the truth, how I would
unmask his deceivers!” And in order to realize vividly his love
devotion to the sovereign, Rostóv pictured to himself an enemy or a
deceitful German, whom he would not only kill with pleasure but whom
he would slap in the face before the Emperor. Suddenly a distant shout
aroused him. He started and opened his eyes.

“Where am I? Oh yes, in the skirmishing line... pass and
watchword—shaft, Olmütz. What a nuisance that our squadron will be in
reserve tomorrow,” he thought. “I’ll ask leave to go to the front,
this may be my only chance of seeing the Emperor. It won’t be long
now before I am off duty. I’ll take another turn and when I get back
I’ll go to the general and ask him.” He readjusted himself in the
saddle and touched up his horse to ride once more round his hussars. It
seemed to him that it was getting lighter. To the left he saw a sloping
descent lit up, and facing it a black knoll that seemed as steep as a
wall. On this knoll there was a white patch that Rostóv could not at
all make out: was it a glade in the wood lit up by the moon, or some
unmelted snow, or some white houses? He even thought something moved on
that white spot. “I expect it’s snow... that spot... a spot—une
tache,” he thought. “There now... it’s not a tache... Natásha...
sister, black eyes... Na... tasha... (Won’t she be surprised when
I tell her how I’ve seen the Emperor?) Natásha... take my
sabretache...”—“Keep to the right, your honor, there are bushes
here,” came the voice of an hussar, past whom Rostóv was riding in
the act of falling asleep. Rostóv lifted his head that had sunk almost
to his horse’s mane and pulled up beside the hussar. He was succumbing
to irresistible, youthful, childish drowsiness. “But what was I
thinking? I mustn’t forget. How shall I speak to the Emperor? No,
that’s not it—that’s tomorrow. Oh yes! Natásha... sabretache...
saber them... Whom? The hussars... Ah, the hussars with mustaches. Along
the Tverskáya Street rode the hussar with mustaches... I thought about
him too, just opposite Gúryev’s house... Old Gúryev.... Oh, but
Denísov’s a fine fellow. But that’s all nonsense. The chief thing
is that the Emperor is here. How he looked at me and wished to say
something, but dared not.... No, it was I who dared not. But that’s
nonsense, the chief thing is not to forget the important thing I
was thinking of. Yes, Na-tásha, sabretache, oh, yes, yes! That’s
right!” And his head once more sank to his horse’s neck. All at once
it seemed to him that he was being fired at. “What? What? What?... Cut
them down! What?...” said Rostóv, waking up. At the moment he opened
his eyes he heard in front of him, where the enemy was, the long-drawn
shouts of thousands of voices. His horse and the horse of the hussar
near him pricked their ears at these shouts. Over there, where the
shouting came from, a fire flared up and went out again, then another,
and all along the French line on the hill fires flared up and the
shouting grew louder and louder. Rostóv could hear the sound of French
words but could not distinguish them. The din of many voices was too
great; all he could hear was: “ahahah!” and “rrrr!”

“What’s that? What do you make of it?” said Rostóv to the hussar
beside him. “That must be the enemy’s camp!”

The hussar did not reply.

“Why, don’t you hear it?” Rostóv asked again, after waiting for a
reply.

“Who can tell, your honor?” replied the hussar reluctantly.

“From the direction, it must be the enemy,” repeated Rostóv.

“It may be he or it may be nothing,” muttered the hussar. “It’s
dark... Steady!” he cried to his fidgeting horse.

Rostóv’s horse was also getting restive: it pawed the frozen ground,
pricking its ears at the noise and looking at the lights. The shouting
grew still louder and merged into a general roar that only an army
of several thousand men could produce. The lights spread farther and
farther, probably along the line of the French camp. Rostóv no longer
wanted to sleep. The gay triumphant shouting of the enemy army had a
stimulating effect on him. “Vive l’Empereur! l’Empereur!” he now
heard distinctly.

“They can’t be far off, probably just beyond the stream,” he said
to the hussar beside him.

The hussar only sighed without replying and coughed angrily. The sound
of horse’s hoofs approaching at a trot along the line of hussars was
heard, and out of the foggy darkness the figure of a sergeant of hussars
suddenly appeared, looming huge as an elephant.

“Your honor, the generals!” said the sergeant, riding up to Rostóv.

Rostóv, still looking round toward the fires and the shouts, rode with
the sergeant to meet some mounted men who were riding along the line.
One was on a white horse. Prince Bagratión and Prince Dolgorúkov with
their adjutants had come to witness the curious phenomenon of the
lights and shouts in the enemy’s camp. Rostóv rode up to Bagratión,
reported to him, and then joined the adjutants listening to what the
generals were saying.

“Believe me,” said Prince Dolgorúkov, addressing Bagratión, “it
is nothing but a trick! He has retreated and ordered the rearguard to
kindle fires and make a noise to deceive us.”

“Hardly,” said Bagratión. “I saw them this evening on that
knoll; if they had retreated they would have withdrawn from that too....
Officer!” said Bagratión to Rostóv, “are the enemy’s skirmishers
still there?”

“They were there this evening, but now I don’t know, your
excellency. Shall I go with some of my hussars to see?” replied
Rostóv.

Bagratión stopped and, before replying, tried to see Rostóv’s face
in the mist.

“Well, go and see,” he said, after a pause.

“Yes, sir.”

Rostóv spurred his horse, called to Sergeant Fédchenko and two other
hussars, told them to follow him, and trotted downhill in the direction
from which the shouting came. He felt both frightened and pleased to be
riding alone with three hussars into that mysterious and dangerous misty
distance where no one had been before him. Bagratión called to him from
the hill not to go beyond the stream, but Rostóv pretended not to hear
him and did not stop but rode on and on, continually mistaking bushes
for trees and gullies for men and continually discovering his mistakes.
Having descended the hill at a trot, he no longer saw either our own or
the enemy’s fires, but heard the shouting of the French more loudly
and distinctly. In the valley he saw before him something like a river,
but when he reached it he found it was a road. Having come out onto
the road he reined in his horse, hesitating whether to ride along it or
cross it and ride over the black field up the hillside. To keep to the
road which gleamed white in the mist would have been safer because it
would be easier to see people coming along it. “Follow me!” said he,
crossed the road, and began riding up the hill at a gallop toward the
point where the French pickets had been standing that evening.

“Your honor, there he is!” cried one of the hussars behind him. And
before Rostóv had time to make out what the black thing was that had
suddenly appeared in the fog, there was a flash, followed by a report,
and a bullet whizzing high up in the mist with a plaintive sound passed
out of hearing. Another musket missed fire but flashed in the pan.
Rostóv turned his horse and galloped back. Four more reports followed
at intervals, and the bullets passed somewhere in the fog singing in
different tones. Rostóv reined in his horse, whose spirits had risen,
like his own, at the firing, and went back at a footpace. “Well, some
more! Some more!” a merry voice was saying in his soul. But no more
shots came.

Only when approaching Bagratión did Rostóv let his horse gallop again,
and with his hand at the salute rode up to the general.

Dolgorúkov was still insisting that the French had retreated and had
only lit fires to deceive us.

“What does that prove?” he was saying as Rostóv rode up. “They
might retreat and leave the pickets.”

“It’s plain that they have not all gone yet, Prince,” said
Bagratión. “Wait till tomorrow morning, we’ll find out everything
tomorrow.”

“The picket is still on the hill, your excellency, just where it was
in the evening,” reported Rostóv, stooping forward with his hand at
the salute and unable to repress the smile of delight induced by his
ride and especially by the sound of the bullets.

“Very good, very good,” said Bagratión. “Thank you, officer.”

“Your excellency,” said Rostóv, “may I ask a favor?”

“What is it?”

“Tomorrow our squadron is to be in reserve. May I ask to be attached
to the first squadron?”

“What’s your name?”

“Count Rostóv.”

“Oh, very well, you may stay in attendance on me.”

“Count Ilyá Rostóv’s son?” asked Dolgorúkov.

But Rostóv did not reply.

“Then I may reckon on it, your excellency?”

“I will give the order.”

“Tomorrow very likely I may be sent with some message to the
Emperor,” thought Rostóv.

“Thank God!”

The fires and shouting in the enemy’s army were occasioned by the fact
that while Napoleon’s proclamation was being read to the troops the
Emperor himself rode round his bivouacs. The soldiers, on seeing him,
lit wisps of straw and ran after him, shouting, “Vive l’Empereur!”
Napoleon’s proclamation was as follows:

Soldiers! The Russian army is advancing against you to avenge the
Austrian army of Ulm. They are the same battalions you broke at
Hollabrünn and have pursued ever since to this place. The position we
occupy is a strong one, and while they are marching to go round me on
the right they will expose a flank to me. Soldiers! I will myself direct
your battalions. I will keep out of fire if you with your habitual
valor carry disorder and confusion into the enemy’s ranks, but should
victory be in doubt, even for a moment, you will see your Emperor
exposing himself to the first blows of the enemy, for there must be no
doubt of victory, especially on this day when what is at stake is the
honor of the French infantry, so necessary to the honor of our nation.

Do not break your ranks on the plea of removing the wounded! Let every
man be fully imbued with the thought that we must defeat these hirelings
of England, inspired by such hatred of our nation! This victory will
conclude our campaign and we can return to winter quarters, where fresh
French troops who are being raised in France will join us, and the peace
I shall conclude will be worthy of my people, of you, and of myself.

NAPOLEON