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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 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.
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