"So much the better! I shall see it close," he thought.
He
was riding almost along the front line. A handful of men came galloping
toward him. They were our uhlans who with disordered ranks were returning
from the attack. Rostov got out of their way, involuntarily noticed that one
of them was bleeding, and galloped on.
"That is no business of mine," he
thought. He had not ridden many hundred yards after that before he saw to his
left, across the whole width of the field, an enormous mass of cavalry in
brilliant white uniforms, mounted on black horses, trotting straight toward
him and across his path. Rostov put his horse to full gallop to get out of
the way of these men, and he would have got clear had they continued at
the same speed, but they kept increasing their pace, so that some of
the horses were already galloping. Rostov heard the thud of their hoofs
and the jingle of their weapons and saw their horses, their figures,
and even their faces, more and more distinctly. They were our Horse
Guards, advancing to attack the French cavalry that was coming to meet
them.
The Horse Guards were galloping, but still holding in their
horses. Rostov could already see their faces and heard the command:
"Charge!" shouted by an officer who was urging his thoroughbred to full
speed. Rostov, fearing to be crushed or swept into the attack on the
French, galloped along the front as hard as his horse could go, but still
was not in time to avoid them.
The last of the Horse Guards, a huge
pockmarked fellow, frowned angrily on seeing Rostov before him, with whom he
would inevitably collide. This Guardsman would certainly have bowled Rostov
and his Bedouin over (Rostov felt himself quite tiny and weak compared to
these gigantic men and horses) had it not occurred to Rostov to flourish his
whip before the eyes of the Guardsman's horse. The heavy black horse, sixteen
hands high, shied, throwing back its ears; but the pockmarked Guardsman
drove his huge spurs in violently, and the horse, flourishing its tail
and extending its neck, galloped on yet faster. Hardly had the Horse
Guards passed Rostov before he heard them shout, "Hurrah!" and looking back
saw that their foremost ranks were mixed up with some foreign cavalry
with red epaulets, probably French. He could see nothing more,
for immediately afterwards cannon began firing from somewhere and
smoke enveloped everything.
At that moment, as the Horse Guards,
having passed him, disappeared in the smoke, Rostov hesitated whether to
gallop after them or to go where he was sent. This was the brilliant charge
of the Horse Guards that amazed the French themselves. Rostov was horrified
to hear later that of all that mass of huge and handsome men, of all those
brilliant, rich youths, officers and cadets, who had galloped past him on
their thousand-ruble horses, only eighteen were left after the
charge.
"Why should I envy them? My chance is not lost, and maybe I shall
see the Emperor immediately!" thought Rostov and galloped on.
When he
came level with the Foot Guards he noticed that about them and around them
cannon balls were flying, of which he was aware not so much because he heard
their sound as because he saw uneasiness on the soldiers' faces and unnatural
warlike solemnity on those of the officers.
Passing behind one of the
lines of a regiment of Foot Guards he heard a voice calling him by
name.
"Rostov!"
"What?" he answered, not recognizing
Boris.
"I say, we've been in the front line! Our regiment attacked!" said
Boris with the happy smile seen on the faces of young men who have been
under fire for the first time.
Rostov stopped.
"Have you?" he
said. "Well, how did it go?"
"We drove them back!" said Boris with
animation, growing talkative. "Can you imagine it?" and he began describing
how the Guards, having taken up their position and seeing troops before them,
thought they were Austrians, and all at once discovered from the cannon balls
discharged by those troops that they were themselves in the front line and
had unexpectedly to go into action. Rostov without hearing Boris to the
end spurred his horse.
"Where are you off to?" asked
Boris.
"With a message to His Majesty."
"There he is!" said Boris,
thinking Rostov had said "His Highness," and pointing to the Grand Duke who
with his high shoulders and frowning brows stood a hundred paces away from
them in his helmet and Horse Guards' jacket, shouting something to a pale,
white uniformed Austrian officer.
"But that's the Grand Duke, and I
want the commander-in-chief or the Emperor," said Rostov, and was about to
spur his horse.
"Count! Count!" shouted Berg who ran up from the other
side as eager as Boris. "Count! I am wounded in my right hand" (and he showed
his bleeding hand with a handkerchief tied round it) "and I remained at
the front. I held my sword in my left hand, Count. All our family--the
von Bergs--have been knights!"
He said something more, but Rostov did
not wait to hear it and rode away.
Having passed the Guards and
traversed an empty space, Rostov, to avoid again getting in front of the
first line as he had done when the Horse Guards charged, followed the line of
reserves, going far round the place where the hottest musket fire and
cannonade were heard. Suddenly he heard musket fire quite close in front of
him and behind our troops, where he could never have expected the enemy to
be.
"What can it be?" he thought. "The enemy in the rear of our
army? Impossible!" And suddenly he was seized by a panic of fear for
himself and for the issue of the whole battle. "But be that what it may,"
he reflected, "there is no riding round it now. I must look for
the commander in chief here, and if all is lost it is for me to perish
with the rest."
The foreboding of evil that had suddenly come over
Rostov was more and more confirmed the farther he rode into the region behind
the village of Pratzen, which was full of troops of all kinds.
"What
does it mean? What is it? Whom are they firing at? Who is firing?" Rostov
kept asking as he came up to Russian and Austrian soldiers running in
confused crowds across his path.
"The devil knows! They've killed
everybody! It's all up now!" he was told in Russian, German, and Czech by the
crowd of fugitives who understood what was happening as little as he
did.
"Kill the Germans!" shouted one.
"May the devil take
them--the traitors!"
"Zum Henker diese Russen!" * muttered a
German.
* "Hang these Russians!"
Several wounded men passed
along the road, and words of abuse, screams, and groans mingled in a general
hubbub, then the firing died down. Rostov learned later that Russian and
Austrian soldiers had been firing at one another.
"My God! What does
it all mean?" thought he. "And here, where at any moment the Emperor may see
them.... But no, these must be only a handful of scoundrels. It will soon be
over, it can't be that, it can't be! Only to get past them quicker,
quicker!"
The idea of defeat and flight could not enter Rostov's head.
Though he saw French cannon and French troops on the Pratzen Heights just
where he had been ordered to look for the commander-in-chief, he could not,
did not wish to, believe that.
CHAPTER XVIII
Rostov
had been ordered to look for Kutuzov and the Emperor near the village of
Pratzen. But neither they nor a single commanding officer were there, only
disorganized crowds of troops of various kinds. He urged on his already weary
horse to get quickly past these crowds, but the farther he went the more
disorganized they were. The highroad on which he had come out was thronged
with caleches, carriages of all sorts, and Russian and Austrian soldiers of
all arms, some wounded and some not. This whole mass droned and jostled in
confusion under the dismal influence of cannon balls flying from the French
batteries stationed on the Pratzen Heights.
"Where is the Emperor?
Where is Kutuzov?" Rostov kept asking everyone he could stop, but got no
answer from anyone.
At last seizing a soldier by his collar he forced him
to answer.
"Eh, brother! They've all bolted long ago!" said the soldier,
laughing for some reason and shaking himself free.
Having left that
soldier who was evidently drunk, Rostov stopped the horse of a batman or
groom of some important personage and began to question him. The man
announced that the Tsar had been driven in a carriage at full speed about an
hour before along that very road and that he was dangerously
wounded.
"It can't be!" said Rostov. "It must have been someone
else."
"I saw him myself," replied the man with a self-confident smile
of derision. "I ought to know the Emperor by now, after the times I've
seen him in Petersburg. I saw him just as I see you.... There he sat in
the carriage as pale as anything. How they made the four black horses
fly! Gracious me, they did rattle past! It's time I knew the Imperial
horses and Ilya Ivanych. I don't think Ilya drives anyone except the
Tsar!"
Rostov let go of the horse and was about to ride on, when a
wounded officer passing by addressed him:
"Who is it you want?" he
asked. "The commander-in-chief? He was killed by a cannon ball--struck in the
breast before our regiment."
"Not killed--wounded!" another officer
corrected him.
"Who? Kutuzov?" asked Rostov.
"Not Kutuzov, but
what's his name--well, never mind... there are not many left alive. Go that
way, to that village, all the commanders are there," said the officer,
pointing to the village of Hosjeradek, and he walked on.
Rostov rode
on at a footpace not knowing why or to whom he was now going. The Emperor was
wounded, the battle lost. It was impossible to doubt it now. Rostov rode in
the direction pointed out to him, in which he saw turrets and a church. What
need to hurry? What was he now to say to the Tsar or to Kutuzov, even if they
were alive and unwounded?
"Take this road, your honor, that way you will
be killed at once!" a soldier shouted to him. "They'd kill you
there!"
"Oh, what are you talking about?" said another. "Where is he to
go? That way is nearer."
Rostov considered, and then went in the
direction where they said he would be killed.
"It's all the same now.
If the Emperor is wounded, am I to try to save myself?" he thought. He rode
on to the region where the greatest number of men had perished in fleeing
from Pratzen. The French had not yet occupied that region, and the
Russians--the uninjured and slightly wounded--had left it long ago. All about
the field, like heaps of manure on well-kept plowland, lay from ten to
fifteen dead and wounded to each couple of acres. The wounded crept together
in twos and threes and one could hear their distressing screams and groans,
sometimes feigned--or so it seemed to Rostov. He put his horse to a trot to
avoid seeing all these suffering men, and he felt afraid--afraid not for his
life, but for the courage he needed and which he knew would not stand the
sight of these unfortunates.
The French, who had ceased firing at this
field strewn with dead and wounded where there was no one left to fire at, on
seeing an adjutant riding over it trained a gun on him and fired several
shots. The sensation of those terrible whistling sounds and of the corpses
around him merged in Rostov's mind into a single feeling of terror and pity
for himself. He remembered his mother's last letter. "What would she
feel," thought he, "if she saw me here now on this field with the cannon
aimed at me?"
In the village of Hosjeradek there were Russian troops
retiring from the field of battle, who though still in some confusion were
less disordered. The French cannon did not reach there and the musketry
fire sounded far away. Here everyone clearly saw and said that the battle
was lost. No one whom Rostov asked could tell him where the Emperor
or Kutuzov was. Some said the report that the Emperor was wounded
was correct, others that it was not, and explained the false rumor that
had spread by the fact that the Emperor's carriage had really galloped
from the field of battle with the pale and terrified Ober-Hofmarschal
Count Tolstoy, who had ridden out to the battlefield with others in
the Emperor's suite. One officer told Rostov that he had seen someone
from headquarters behind the village to the left, and thither Rostov
rode, not hoping to find anyone but merely to ease his conscience. When he
had ridden about two miles and had passed the last of the Russian troops,
he saw, near a kitchen garden with a ditch round it, two men on
horseback facing the ditch. One with a white plume in his hat seemed familiar
to Rostov; the other on a beautiful chestnut horse (which Rostov fancied
he had seen before) rode up to the ditch, struck his horse with his
spurs, and giving it the rein leaped lightly over. Only a little earth
crumbled from the bank under the horse's hind hoofs. Turning the horse
sharply, he again jumped the ditch, and deferentially addressed the horseman
with the white plumes, evidently suggesting that he should do the same.
The rider, whose figure seemed familiar to Rostov and involuntarily
riveted his attention, made a gesture of refusal with his head and hand and
by that gesture Rostov instantly recognized his lamented and
adored monarch.
"But it can't be he, alone in the midst of this empty
field!" thought Rostov. At that moment Alexander turned his head and Rostov
saw the beloved features that were so deeply engraved on his memory. The
Emperor was pale, his cheeks sunken and his eyes hollow, but the charm,
the mildness of his features, was all the greater. Rostov was happy in
the assurance that the rumors about the Emperor being wounded were false.
He was happy to be seeing him. He knew that he might and even ought to
go straight to him and give the message Dolgorukov had ordered him
to deliver.
But as a youth in love trembles, is unnerved, and dares
not utter the thoughts he has dreamed of for nights, but looks around for
help or a chance of delay and flight when the longed-for moment comes and he
is alone with her, so Rostov, now that he had attained what he had
longed for more than anything else in the world, did not know how to
approach the Emperor, and a thousand reasons occurred to him why it would
be inconvenient, unseemly, and impossible to do so.
"What! It is as if
I were glad of a chance to take advantage of his being alone and despondent!
A strange face may seem unpleasant or painful to him at this moment of
sorrow; besides, what can I say to him now, when my heart fails me and my
mouth feels dry at the mere sight of him?" Not one of the innumerable
speeches addressed to the Emperor that he had composed in his imagination
could he now recall. Those speeches were intended for quite other conditions,
they were for the most part to be spoken at a moment of victory and triumph,
generally when he was dying of wounds and the sovereign had thanked him for
heroic deeds, and while dying he expressed the love his actions had
proved.
"Besides how can I ask the Emperor for his instructions for the
right flank now that it is nearly four o'clock and the battle is lost?
No, certainly I must not approach him, I must not intrude on
his reflections. Better die a thousand times than risk receiving an
unkind look or bad opinion from him," Rostov decided; and sorrowfully and
with a heart full despair he rode away, continually looking back at the
Tsar, who still remained in the same attitude of indecision.
While
Rostov was thus arguing with himself and riding sadly away, Captain von Toll
chanced to ride to the same spot, and seeing the Emperor at once rode up to
him, offered his services, and assisted him to cross the ditch on foot. The
Emperor, wishing to rest and feeling unwell, sat down under an apple tree and
von Toll remained beside him. Rostov from a distance saw with envy and
remorse how von Toll spoke long and warmly to the Emperor and how the
Emperor, evidently weeping, covered his eyes with his hand and pressed von
Toll's hand.
"And I might have been in his place!" thought Rostov, and
hardly restraining his tears of pity for the Emperor, he rode on in
utter despair, not knowing where to or why he was now riding.
His
despair was all the greater from feeling that his own weakness was the cause
of his grief.
He might... not only might but should, have gone up to the
sovereign. It was a unique chance to show his devotion to the Emperor and he
had not made use of it.... "What have I done?" thought he. And he turned
round and galloped back to the place where he had seen the Emperor, but
there was no one beyond the ditch now. Only some carts and carriages
were passing by. From one of the drivers he learned that Kutuzov's staff
were not far off, in the village the vehicles were going to. Rostov
followed them. In front of him walked Kutuzov's groom leading horses
in horsecloths. Then came a cart, and behind that walked an old,
bandy- legged domestic serf in a peaked cap and sheepskin coat.
"Tit!
I say, Tit!" said the groom.
"What?" answered the old man
absent-mindedly.
"Go, Tit! Thresh a bit!"
"Oh, you fool!" said the
old man, spitting angrily. Some time passed in silence, and then the same
joke was repeated.
Before five in the evening the battle had been lost at
all points. More than a hundred cannon were already in the hands of the
French.
Przebyszewski and his corps had laid down their arms. Other
columns after losing half their men were retreating in disorderly
confused masses.
The remains of Langeron's and Dokhturov's mingled
forces were crowding around the dams and banks of the ponds near the village
of Augesd.
After five o'clock it was only at the Augesd Dam that a hot
cannonade (delivered by the French alone) was still to be heard from
numerous batteries ranged on the slopes of the Pratzen Heights, directed at
our retreating forces.
In the rearguard, Dokhturov and others rallying
some battalions kept up a musketry fire at the French cavalry that was
pursuing our troops. It was growing dusk. On the narrow Augesd Dam where for
so many years the old miller had been accustomed to sit in his tasseled cap
peacefully angling, while his grandson, with shirt sleeves rolled up, handled
the floundering silvery fish in the watering can, on that dam over which
for so many years Moravians in shaggy caps and blue jackets had
peacefully driven their two-horse carts loaded with wheat and had returned
dusty with flour whitening their carts--on that narrow dam amid the wagons
and the cannon, under the horses' hoofs and between the wagon wheels,
men disfigured by fear of death now crowded together, crushing one
another, dying, stepping over the dying and killing one another, only to move
on a few steps and be killed themselves in the same way.
Every ten
seconds a cannon ball flew compressing the air around, or a shell burst in
the midst of that dense throng, killing some and splashing with blood those
near them.
Dolokhov--now an officer--wounded in the arm, and on foot,
with the regimental commander on horseback and some ten men of his
company, represented all that was left of that whole regiment. Impelled by
the crowd, they had got wedged in at the approach to the dam and, jammed
in on all sides, had stopped because a horse in front had fallen under
a cannon and the crowd were dragging it out. A cannon ball killed
someone behind them, another fell in front and splashed Dolokhov with blood.
The crowd, pushing forward desperately, squeezed together, moved a
few steps, and again stopped.
"Move on a hundred yards and we are
certainly saved, remain here another two minutes and it is certain death,"
thought each one.
Dolokhov who was in the midst of the crowd forced his
way to the edge of the dam, throwing two soldiers off their feet, and ran
onto the slippery ice that covered the millpool.
"Turn this way!" he
shouted, jumping over the ice which creaked under him; "turn this way!" he
shouted to those with the gun. "It bears!..."
The ice bore him but it
swayed and creaked, and it was plain that it would give way not only under a
cannon or a crowd, but very soon even under his weight alone. The men looked
at him and pressed to the bank, hesitating to step onto the ice. The general
on horseback at the entrance to the dam raised his hand and opened his mouth
to address Dolokhov. Suddenly a cannon ball hissed so low above the crowd
that everyone ducked. It flopped into something moist, and the general
fell from his horse in a pool of blood. Nobody gave him a look or thought
of raising him.
"Get onto the ice, over the ice! Go on! Turn! Don't
you hear? Go on!" innumerable voices suddenly shouted after the ball had
struck the general, the men themselves not knowing what, or why, they
were shouting.
One of the hindmost guns that was going onto the dam
turned off onto the ice. Crowds of soldiers from the dam began running onto
the frozen pond. The ice gave way under one of the foremost soldiers, and one
leg slipped into the water. He tried to right himself but fell in up to his
waist. The nearest soldiers shrank back, the gun driver stopped his horse,
but from behind still came the shouts: "Onto the ice, why do you stop?
Go on! Go on!" And cries of horror were heard in the crowd. The
soldiers near the gun waved their arms and beat the horses to make them turn
and move on. The horses moved off the bank. The ice, that had held
under those on foot, collapsed in a great mass, and some forty men who were
on it dashed, some forward and some back, drowning one another.
Still
the cannon balls continued regularly to whistle and flop onto the ice and
into the water and oftenest of all among the crowd that covered the dam, the
pond, and the bank.
CHAPTER XIX
On the Pratzen
Heights, where he had fallen with the flagstaff in his hand, lay Prince
Andrew Bolkonski bleeding profusely and unconsciously uttering a gentle,
piteous, and childlike moan.
Toward evening he ceased moaning and became
quite still. He did not know how long his unconsciousness lasted. Suddenly he
again felt that he was alive and suffering from a burning, lacerating pain in
his head.
"Where is it, that lofty sky that I did not know till now, but
saw today?" was his first thought. "And I did not know this
suffering either," he thought. "Yes, I did not know anything, anything at all
till now. But where am I?"
He listened and heard the sound of
approaching horses, and voices speaking French. He opened his eyes. Above him
again was the same lofty sky with clouds that had risen and were floating
still higher, and between them gleamed blue infinity. He did not turn his
head and did not see those who, judging by the sound of hoofs and voices, had
ridden up and stopped near him.
It was Napoleon accompanied by two
aides-de-camp. Bonaparte riding over the battlefield had given final orders
to strengthen the batteries firing at the Augesd Dam and was looking at the
killed and wounded left on the field.
"Fine men!" remarked Napoleon,
looking at a dead Russian grenadier, who, with his face buried in the ground
and a blackened nape, lay on his stomach with an already stiffened arm flung
wide.
"The ammunition for the guns in position is exhausted, Your
Majesty," said an adjutant who had come from the batteries that were firing
at Augesd.
"Have some brought from the reserve," said Napoleon, and
having gone on a few steps he stopped before Prince Andrew, who lay on his
back with the flagstaff that had been dropped beside him. (The flag had
already been taken by the French as a trophy.)
"That's a fine death!"
said Napoleon as he gazed at Bolkonski.
Prince Andrew understood that
this was said of him and that it was Napoleon who said it. He heard the
speaker addressed as Sire. But he heard the words as he might have heard the
buzzing of a fly. Not only did they not interest him, but he took no notice
of them and at once forgot them. His head was burning, he felt himself
bleeding to death, and he saw above him the remote, lofty, and everlasting
sky. He knew it was Napoleon--his hero--but at that moment Napoleon seemed to
him such a small, insignificant creature compared with what was passing now
between himself and that lofty infinite sky with the clouds flying over it.
At that moment it meant nothing to him who might be standing over him,
or what was said of him; he was only glad that people were standing
near him and only wished that they would help him and bring him back to
life, which seemed to him so beautiful now that he had today learned
to understand it so differently. He collected all his strength, to stir
and utter a sound. He feebly moved his leg and uttered a weak, sickly
groan which aroused his own pity.
"Ah! He is alive," said Napoleon.
"Lift this young man up and carry him to the dressing station."
Having
said this, Napoleon rode on to meet Marshal Lannes, who, hat in hand, rode up
smiling to the Emperor to congratulate him on the victory.
Prince Andrew
remembered nothing more: he lost consciousness from the terrible pain of
being lifted onto the stretcher, the jolting while being moved, and the
probing of his wound at the dressing station. He did not regain consciousness
till late in the day, when with other wounded and captured Russian officers
he was carried to the hospital. During this transfer he felt a little
stronger and was able to look about him and even speak.
The first
words he heard on coming to his senses were those of a French convoy officer,
who said rapidly: "We must halt here: the Emperor will pass here immediately;
it will please him to see these gentlemen prisoners."
"There are so
many prisoners today, nearly the whole Russian army, that he is probably
tired of them," said another officer.
"All the same! They say this one is
the commander of all the Emperor Alexander's Guards," said the first one,
indicating a Russian officer in the white uniform of the Horse
Guards.
Bolkonski recognized Prince Repnin whom he had met in
Petersburg society. Beside him stood a lad of nineteen, also a wounded
officer of the Horse Guards.
Bonaparte, having come up at a gallop,
stopped his horse.
"Which is the senior?" he asked, on seeing the
prisoners.
They named the colonel, Prince Repnin.
"You are the
commander of the Emperor Alexander's regiment of Horse Guards?" asked
Napoleon.
"I commanded a squadron," replied Repnin.
"Your regiment
fulfilled its duty honorably," said Napoleon.
"The praise of a great
commander is a soldier's highest reward," said Repnin.
"I bestow it
with pleasure," said Napoleon. "And who is that young man beside
you?"
Prince Repnin named Lieutenant Sukhtelen.
After looking at
him Napoleon smiled.
"He's very young to come to meddle with
us."
"Youth is no hindrance to courage," muttered Sukhtelen in a
failing voice.
"A splendid reply!" said Napoleon. "Young man, you will
go far!"
Prince Andrew, who had also been brought forward before the
Emperor's eyes to complete the show of prisoners, could not fail to attract
his attention. Napoleon apparently remembered seeing him on the
battlefield and, addressing him, again used the epithet "young man" that
was connected in his memory with Prince Andrew.
"Well, and you, young
man," said he. "How do you feel, mon brave?"
Though five minutes before,
Prince Andrew had been able to say a few words to the soldiers who were
carrying him, now with his eyes fixed straight on Napoleon, he was silent....
So insignificant at that moment seemed to him all the interests that
engrossed Napoleon, so mean did his hero himself with his paltry vanity and
joy in victory appear, compared to the lofty, equitable, and kindly sky which
he had seen and understood, that he could not answer him.
Everything
seemed so futile and insignificant in comparison with the stern and solemn
train of thought that weakness from loss of blood, suffering, and the
nearness of death aroused in him. Looking into Napoleon's eyes Prince Andrew
thought of the insignificance of greatness, the unimportance of life which no
one could understand, and the still greater unimportance of death, the
meaning of which no one alive could understand or explain.
The Emperor
without waiting for an answer turned away and said to one of the officers as
he went: "Have these gentlemen attended to and taken to my bivouac; let my
doctor, Larrey, examine their wounds. Au revoir, Prince Repnin!" and he
spurred his horse and galloped away.
His face shone with
self-satisfaction and pleasure.
The soldiers who had carried Prince
Andrew had noticed and taken the little gold icon Princess Mary had hung
round her brother's neck, but seeing the favor the Emperor showed the
prisoners, they now hastened to return the holy image.
Prince Andrew
did not see how and by whom it was replaced, but the little icon with its
thin gold chain suddenly appeared upon his chest outside his
uniform.
"It would be good," thought Prince Andrew, glancing at the icon
his sister had hung round his neck with such emotion and reverence,
"it would be good if everything were as clear and simple as it seems
to Mary. How good it would be to know where to seek for help in this
life, and what to expect after it beyond the grave! How happy and calm
I should be if I could now say: 'Lord, have mercy on me!'... But to
whom should I say that? Either to a Power indefinable,
incomprehensible, which I not only cannot address but which I cannot even
express in words--the Great All or Nothing-" said he to himself, "or to that
God who has been sewn into this amulet by Mary! There is nothing
certain, nothing at all except the unimportance of everything I understand,
and the greatness of something incomprehensible but
all-important."
The stretchers moved on. At every jolt he again felt
unendurable pain; his feverishness increased and he grew delirious. Visions
of his father, wife, sister, and future son, and the tenderness he had felt
the night before the battle, the figure of the insignificant little Napoleon,
and above all this the lofty sky, formed the chief subjects of his
delirious fancies.
The quiet home life and peaceful happiness of Bald
Hills presented itself to him. He was already enjoying that happiness when
that little Napoleon had suddenly appeared with his unsympathizing look
of shortsighted delight at the misery of others, and doubts and
torments had followed, and only the heavens promised peace. Toward morning
all these dreams melted and merged into the chaos and darkness
of unconciousness and oblivion which in the opinion of Napoleon's
doctor, Larrey, was much more likely to end in death than in
convalescence.
"He is a nervous, bilious subject," said Larrey, "and will
not recover."
And Prince Andrew, with others fatally wounded, was left to
the care of the inhabitants of the district.
BOOK FOUR:
1806
CHAPTER I
Early in the year 1806 Nicholas Rostov
returned home on leave. Denisov was going home to Voronezh and Rostov
persuaded him to travel with him as far as Moscow and to stay with him there.
Meeting a comrade at the last post station but one before Moscow, Denisov had
drunk three bottles of wine with him and, despite the jolting ruts across the
snow-covered road, did not once wake up on the way to Moscow, but lay at the
bottom of the sleigh beside Rostov, who grew more and more impatient the
nearer they got to Moscow.
"How much longer? How much longer? Oh,
these insufferable streets, shops, bakers' signboards, street lamps, and
sleighs!" thought Rostov, when their leave permits had been passed at the
town gate and they had entered Moscow.
"Denisov! We're here! He's
asleep," he added, leaning forward with his whole body as if in that position
he hoped to hasten the speed of the sleigh.
Denisov gave no
answer.
"There's the corner at the crossroads, where the cabman, Zakhar,
has his stand, and there's Zakhar himself and still the same horse! And
here's the little shop where we used to buy gingerbread! Can't you hurry
up? Now then!"
"Which house is it?" asked the driver.
"Why,
that one, right at the end, the big one. Don't you see? That's our house,"
said Rostov. "Of course, it's our house! Denisov, Denisov! We're almost
there!"
Denisov raised his head, coughed, and made no
answer.
"Dmitri," said Rostov to his valet on the box, "those lights are
in our house, aren't they?"
"Yes, sir, and there's a light in your
father's study."
"Then they've not gone to bed yet? What do you think?
Mind now, don't forget to put out my new coat," added Rostov, fingering his
new mustache. "Now then, get on," he shouted to the driver. "Do wake
up, Vaska!" he went on, turning to Denisov, whose head was again
nodding. "Come, get on! You shall have three rubles for vodka--get on!"
Rostov shouted, when the sleigh was only three houses from his door. It
seemed to him the horses were not moving at all. At last the sleigh bore to
the right, drew up at an entrance, and Rostov saw overhead the old
familiar cornice with a bit of plaster broken off, the porch, and the post by
the side of the pavement. He sprang out before the sleigh stopped, and
ran into the hall. The house stood cold and silent, as if quite
regardless of who had come to it. There was no one in the hall. "Oh God!
Is everyone all right?" he thought, stopping for a moment with a
sinking heart, and then immediately starting to run along the hall and up
the warped steps of the familiar staircase. The well-known old door
handle, which always angered the countess when it was not properly
cleaned, turned as loosely as ever. A solitary tallow candle burned in
the anteroom.
Old Michael was asleep on the chest. Prokofy, the
footman, who was so strong that he could lift the back of the carriage from
behind, sat plaiting slippers out of cloth selvedges. He looked up at the
opening door and his expression of sleepy indifference suddenly changed to
one of delighted amazement.
"Gracious heavens! The young count!" he
cried, recognizing his young master. "Can it be? My treasure!" and Prokofy,
trembling with excitement, rushed toward the drawing-room door, probably in
order to announce him, but, changing his mind, came back and stooped to kiss
the young man's shoulder.
"All well?" asked Rostov, drawing away his
arm.
"Yes, God be thanked! Yes! They've just finished supper. Let me have
a look at you, your excellency."
"Is everything quite all
right?"
"The Lord be thanked, yes!"
Rostov, who had completely
forgotten Denisov, not wishing anyone to forestall him, threw off his fur
coat and ran on tiptoe through the large dark ballroom. All was the same:
there were the same old card tables and the same chandelier with a cover over
it; but someone had already seen the young master, and, before he had reached
the drawing room, something flew out from a side door like a tornado and
began hugging and kissing him. Another and yet another creature of the
same kind sprang from a second door and a third; more hugging, more
kissing, more outcries, and tears of joy. He could not distinguish which
was Papa, which Natasha, and which Petya. Everyone shouted, talked,
and kissed him at the same time. Only his mother was not there, he
noticed that.
"And I did not know... Nicholas... My
darling!..."
"Here he is... our own... Kolya, * dear fellow... How he has
changed!... Where are the candles?... Tea!..."
*
Nicholas.
"And me, kiss me!"
"Dearest... and me!"
Sonya,
Natasha, Petya, Anna Mikhaylovna, Vera, and the old count were all hugging
him, and the serfs, men and maids, flocked into the room, exclaiming and
oh-ing and ah-ing.
Petya, clinging to his legs, kept shouting, "And me
too!"
Natasha, after she had pulled him down toward her and covered his
face with kisses, holding him tight by the skirt of his coat, sprang away
and pranced up and down in one place like a goat and shrieked
piercingly.
All around were loving eyes glistening with tears of joy, and
all around were lips seeking a kiss.
Sonya too, all rosy red, clung to
his arm and, radiant with bliss, looked eagerly toward his eyes, waiting for
the look for which she longed. Sonya now was sixteen and she was very pretty,
especially at this moment of happy, rapturous excitement. She gazed at him,
not taking her eyes off him, and smiling and holding her breath. He gave her
a grateful look, but was still expectant and looking for someone. The
old countess had not yet come. But now steps were heard at the door,
steps so rapid that they could hardly be his mother's.
Yet it was she,
dressed in a new gown which he did not know, made since he had left. All the
others let him go, and he ran to her. When they met, she fell on his breast,
sobbing. She could not lift her face, but only pressed it to the cold
braiding of his hussar's jacket. Denisov, who had come into the room
unnoticed by anyone, stood there and wiped his eyes at the
sight.
"Vasili Denisov, your son's friend," he said, introducing himself
to the count, who was looking inquiringly at him.
"You are most
welcome! I know, I know," said the count, kissing and embracing Denisov.
"Nicholas wrote us... Natasha, Vera, look! Here is Denisov!"
The same
happy, rapturous faces turned to the shaggy figure of Denisov.
"Darling
Denisov!" screamed Natasha, beside herself with rapture, springing to him,
putting her arms round him, and kissing him. This escapade made everybody
feel confused. Denisov blushed too, but smiled and, taking Natasha's hand,
kissed it.
Denisov was shown to the room prepared for him, and the
Rostovs all gathered round Nicholas in the sitting room.
The old
countess, not letting go of his hand and kissing it every moment, sat beside
him: the rest, crowding round him, watched every movement, word, or look of
his, never taking their blissfully adoring eyes off him. His brother and
sisters struggled for the places nearest to him and disputed with one another
who should bring him his tea, handkerchief, and pipe.
Rostov was very
happy in the love they showed him; but the first moment of meeting had been
so beatific that his present joy seemed insufficient, and he kept expecting
something more, more and yet more.
Next morning, after the fatigues of
their journey, the travelers slept till ten o'clock.
In the room next
their bedroom there was a confusion of sabers, satchels, sabretaches, open
portmanteaus, and dirty boots. Two freshly cleaned pairs with spurs had just
been placed by the wall. The servants were bringing in jugs and basins, hot
water for shaving, and their well- brushed clothes. There was a masculine
odor and a smell of tobacco.
"Hallo, Gwiska--my pipe!" came Vasili
Denisov's husky voice. "Wostov, get up!"
Rostov, rubbing his eyes that
seemed glued together, raised his disheveled head from the hot
pillow.
"Why, is it late?"
"Late! It's nearly ten o'clock,"
answered Natasha's voice. A rustle of starched petticoats and the whispering
and laughter of girls' voices came from the adjoining room. The door was
opened a crack and there was a glimpse of something blue, of ribbons, black
hair, and merry faces. It was Natasha, Sonya, and Petya, who had come to see
whether they were getting up.
"Nicholas! Get up!" Natasha's voice was
again heard at the door.
"Directly!"
Meanwhile, Petya, having
found and seized the sabers in the outer room, with the delight boys feel at
the sight of a military elder brother, and forgetting that it was unbecoming
for the girls to see men undressed, opened the bedroom door.
"Is this
your saber?" he shouted.
The girls sprang aside. Denisov hid his hairy
legs under the blanket, looking with a scared face at his comrade for help.
The door, having let Petya in, closed again. A sound of laughter came from
behind it.
"Nicholas! Come out in your dressing gown!" said Natasha's
voice.
"Is this your saber?" asked Petya. "Or is it yours?" he said,
addressing the black-mustached Denisov with servile deference.
Rostov
hurriedly put something on his feet, drew on his dressing gown, and went out.
Natasha had put on one spurred boot and was just getting her foot into the
other. Sonya, when he came in, was twirling round and was about to expand her
dresses into a balloon and sit down. They were dressed alike, in new
pale-blue frocks, and were both fresh, rosy, and bright. Sonya ran away, but
Natasha, taking her brother's arm, led him into the sitting room, where they
began talking. They hardly gave one another time to ask questions and give
replies concerning a thousand little matters which could not interest anyone
but themselves. Natasha laughed at every word he said or that she said
herself, not because what they were saying was amusing, but because she felt
happy and was unable to control her joy which expressed itself by laughter. "Oh,
how nice, how splendid!" she said to
everything. |
|
댓글 없음:
댓글 쓰기