On our right flank commanded by Bagration,
at nine o’clock the battle had not yet begun.
Not wishing to agree to Dolgorukov’s demand to
commence the action, and wishing to avert responsibility
from himself, Prince Bagration proposed to Dolgorukov
to send to inquire of the commander in chief.
Bagration knew that as the distance between the two
flanks was more than six miles, even if the messenger
were not killed (which he very likely would be), and
found the commander in chief (which would be very
difficult), he would not be able to get back before
evening.
Bagration cast his large, expressionless,
sleepy eyes round his suite, and the boyish face Rostov,
breathless with excitement and hope, was the first
to catch his eye. He sent him.
“And if I should meet His Majesty
before I meet the commander in chief, your excellency?”
said Rostov, with his hand to his cap.
“You can give the message to
His Majesty,” said Dolgorukov, hurriedly interrupting
Bagration.
On being relieved from picket duty
Rostov had managed to get a few hours’ sleep
before morning and felt cheerful, bold, and resolute,
with elasticity of movement, faith in his good fortune,
and generally in that state of mind which makes everything
seem possible, pleasant, and easy.
All his wishes were being fulfilled
that morning: there was to be a general engagement
in which he was taking part, more than that, he was
orderly to the bravest general, and still more, he
was going with a message to Kutuzov, perhaps even
to the sovereign himself. The morning was bright,
he had a good horse under him, and his heart was full
of joy and happiness. On receiving the order
he gave his horse the rein and galloped along the
line. At first he rode along the line of Bagration’s
troops, which had not yet advanced into action but
were standing motionless; then he came to the region
occupied by Uvarov’s cavalry and here he noticed
a stir and signs of preparation for battle; having
passed Uvarov’s cavalry he clearly heard the
sound of cannon and musketry ahead of him. The
firing grew louder and louder.
In the fresh morning air were now
heard, not two or three musket shots at irregular
intervals as before, followed by one or two cannon
shots, but a roll of volleys of musketry from the
slopes of the hill before Pratzen, interrupted by
such frequent reports of cannon that sometimes several
of them were not separated from one another but merged
into a general roar.
He could see puffs of musketry smoke
that seemed to chase one another down the hillsides,
and clouds of cannon smoke rolling, spreading, and
mingling with one another. He could also, by the
gleam of bayonets visible through the smoke, make
out moving masses of infantry and narrow lines of
artillery with green caissons.
Rostov stopped his horse for a moment
on a hillock to see what was going on, but strain
his attention as he would he could not understand or
make out anything of what was happening: there
in the smoke men of some sort were moving about, in
front and behind moved lines of troops; but why, whither,
and who they were, it was impossible to make out.
These sights and sounds had no depressing or intimidating
effect on him; on the contrary, they stimulated his
energy and determination.
“Go on! Go on! Give
it them!” he mentally exclaimed at these sounds,
and again proceeded to gallop along the line, penetrating
farther and farther into the region where the army
was already in action.
“How it will be there I don’t
know, but all will be well!” thought Rostov.
After passing some Austrian troops
he noticed that the next part of the line (the Guards)
was already in action.
“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 dièse 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.