"They march splendidly," remarked someone in Bagration'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 Bagration, the weighty tread
of the mass of men marching in step could be heard. On their left flank,
nearest to Bagration, 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 Bagration 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
semicircle round something where the ball had fallen, and an old trooper on
the flank, a noncommissioned 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 Bagration.
"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 Bagration 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.
Bagration 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 Bagration, 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 Bagration, could clearly distinguish
their bandoliers, red epaulets, 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 Bagration gave no further orders and silently
continued to walk on in front of the ranks. Suddenly one shot after another
rang out from 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, Bagration looked round and shouted,
"Hurrah!"
"Hurrah--ah!--ah!" rang a long-drawn shout from our ranks, and
passing Bagration and racing one another they rushed in an irregular but
joyous and eager crowd down the hill at their disordered
foe.
CHAPTER XIX
The attack of the Sixth Chasseurs
secured the retreat of our right flank. In the center Tushin's forgotten
battery, which had managed to set fire to the Schon 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 Azov and Podolsk infantry and the Pavlograd
hussars--was simultaneously attacked and outflanked by superior French forces
under Lannes and was thrown into confusion. Bagration had sent Zherkov to
the general commanding that left flank with orders to retreat
immediately.
Zherkov, not removing his hand from his cap, turned his
horse about and galloped off. But no sooner had he left Bagration 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 Kutuzov had reviewed at Braunau and in which
Dolokhov was serving as a private. But the command of the extreme left flank
had been assigned to the commander of the Pavlograd regiment in which Rostov
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 Pavlograd 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 Rostov 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 Rostov, 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 Denisov'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, Rostov 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 Rostov felt Rook's
flanks drooping as he broke into a gallop.
Rostov 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 Rostov, gripping the hilt of
his saber.
"Hur-a-a-a-ah!" came a roar of voices. "Let anyone come my way
now," thought Rostov 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. Rostov raised his saber, ready to strike, but at that
instant the trooper Nikitenko, who was galloping ahead, shot away from him,
and Rostov 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 Bondarchuk, an hussar he knew, jolted against him and looked angrily
at him. Bondarchuk's horse swerved and galloped past.
"How is it I am
not moving? I have fallen, I am killed!" Rostov 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. Rostov 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 Rostov, 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 Rostov. 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.
Rostov 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. Rostov 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.
CHAPTER XX
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 saber, 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 sharpshooters showed themselves in the copse.
It was Timokhin's company, which alone had maintained its order in the wood
and, having lain in ambush in a ditch, now attacked the French unexpectedly.
Timokhin, 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. Dolokhov, running beside
Timokhin, 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 Ekonomov 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 Ekonomov,
he could not help taking notice of the soldier.
"Your excellency, here
are two trophies," said Dolokhov, pointing to the French sword and pouch. "I
have taken an officer prisoner. I stopped the company." Dolokhov 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 Ekonomov.
But Dolokhov 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!"
Tushin's battery had been forgotten and only at the very end
of the action did Prince Bagration, still hearing the cannonade in the
center, 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 Tushin'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 center--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 Bagration had left him, Tushin
had succeeded in setting fire to Schon 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 Tushin'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. Tushin'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 grapeshot at
them.
Little Tushin, 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, Tushin 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, Tushin 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, 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 Tushin 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 honor?" asked an artilleryman, standing
close by, who heard him muttering.
"Nothing... only a shell..." he
answered.
"Come along, our Matvevna!" he said to himself. "Matvevna" *
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"; Tushin 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.
* Daughter of Matthew.
"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, Matvevna, 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 Tushin! Captain!"
Tushin 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 Tushin, 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 Tushin'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 Tushin,
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 artilleryman to Prince Andrew. "Not
like your honor!"
Prince Andrew said nothing to Tushin. 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 Tushin.
"Well, till we meet again..." he said, holding out
his hand to Tushin.
"Good-bye, my dear fellow," said Tushin. "Dear soul!
Good-bye, my dear fellow!" and for some unknown reason tears suddenly filled
his eyes.
CHAPTER XXI
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 Tushin 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 Zherkov, who had been twice sent
to Tushin'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. Tushin 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 troops
and begged for seats on the gun carriages. The jaunty infantry officer
who just before the battle had rushed out of Tushin's wattle shed was
laid, with a bullet in his stomach, on "Matvevna's" carriage. At the foot
of the hill, a pale hussar cadet, supporting one hand with the other,
came up to Tushin 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 Tushin.
"Lay a cloak for him to sit on, lad," he said, addressing his favorite
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, Antonov."
The cadet was Rostov. With one hand he
supported the other; he was pale and his jaw trembled, shivering feverishly.
He was placed on "Matvevna," 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 Tushin,
approaching the gun on which Rostov sat.
"No, it's a
sprain." |
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