“Don’t raise dust, you footsloggers!” joked a hussar, whose horse, prancing, splashed mud at the infantryman.
“Make a couple of marches with a pack on your back, your fancy trim will turn shabby,” the infantryman said, wiping the mud from his face with his sleeve, “or maybe it’s not a man but a bird perched up there!”
“Wouldn’t you be a nimble one, Zikin, if they set you on a horse,” a corporal joked to a thin little soldier bent under a heavy pack.
“Put a stick between your legs, that’ll do you for a horse,” rejoined the hussar.
VIII
The rest of the infantry hurriedly crossed the bridge, squeezing into a funnel at the entrance. Finally all the carts passed over, the crush eased up, and the last battalion entered the bridge. Only the hussars of Denisov’s squadron remained on the other side of the bridge facing the enemy. The enemy, visible in the distance from the opposite hill, were not yet visible from the bridge below, because, from the bottom where the river flowed, the horizon was bounded by the opposite heights less than half a mile away. Ahead was a deserted space over which clusters of our Cossack patrols moved here and there. Suddenly on the road going up the opposite heights appeared troops in blue coats and artillery. It was the French. A Cossack patrol moved down the hill at a trot. All the officers and men of Denisov’s squadron, though they tried to talk about unrelated things and look elsewhere, constantly thought only about what was there on the hill, and kept peering at the spots that appeared on the horizon, which they recognized as enemy troops. After midday the weather cleared again, the sun shone brightly, going down over the Danube and the dark hills around it. It was still, and once in a while from that hill floated the sounds of bugles and the shouts of the enemy. Between the squadron and the enemy there was now nothing but some small patrols. They were separated by an empty space of about six hundred yards. The enemy stopped shooting, and that strict, menacing, inaccessible, and elusive line that separates two enemy armies became all the more clearly felt.
“One step beyond that line, reminiscent of the line separating the living from the dead, and it’s the unknown, suffering, and death. And what is there? who is there? there, beyond this field, and the tree, and the roof lit by the sun? No one knows, and you would like to know; and you’re afraid to cross that line, and would like to cross it; and you know that sooner or later you will have to cross it and find out what is there on the other side of the line, as you will inevitably find out what is there on the other side of death. And you’re strong, healthy, cheerful, and excited, and surrounded by people just as strong and excitedly animated.” So, if he does not think it, every man feels who finds himself within sight of an enemy, and this feeling gives a particular brilliance and joyful sharpness of impression to everything that happens in those moments.
On a knoll occupied by the enemy, the smoke of a shot appeared, and a cannonball flew whistling over the heads of the hussar squadron. The officers, who were standing together, rode to their posts. The hussars assiduously began lining up their horses. Everything became hushed in the squadron. Everyone kept looking ahead at the enemy and at the squadron commander, awaiting a command. Another cannonball flew over, then a third. Obviously, the shots were aimed at the hussars; but the cannonballs, with a rapid, steady whistling, kept flying over the hussars’ heads and hitting somewhere behind them. The hussars did not look back, but with each sound of a flying cannonball, the whole squadron, as if on command, with all their similarly dissimilar faces, holding their breath while the cannonball flew over, rose in their stirrups, then lowered themselves again. Without turning their heads, the soldiers looked sideways at each other, curious to spy out a comrade’s impressions. On each face, from Denisov’s down to the bugler’s, there appeared around the lips and chin one common trait of a struggle between irritation and excitement. The sergeant major frowned, looking the soldiers over as if threatening them with punishment. Junker Mironov ducked down each time a cannonball flew by. Rostov, standing on the left flank, on his slightly lame but imposing Little Rook, had the happy air of a schoolboy called up before a large public at an examination in which he is sure he will distinguish himself. He looked around at them all serenely and brightly, as if asking them to pay attention to how calmly he stood under fire. But on his face, too, that same trait of something new and stern appeared, against his will, around the mouth.
“Who’s that bowing there? Junker Mironov! Not right, look at me!” shouted Denisov, who could not stay still and fidgeted on his horse in front of the squadron.
Vaska Denisov’s pug-nosed and black-haired face, and his whole small, compact figure with his sinewy hand (the short fingers covered with hair), in which he gripped the hilt of his bared saber, was the same as ever, especially towards evening, after drinking a couple of bottles. Only he was more red than usual and, throwing his shaggy head back, the way birds do when they drink, and mercilessly digging the spurs on his small feet into the sides of the good Bedouin, he galloped off, as if falling backwards, to the other flank of the squadron and shouted in a hoarse voice that they should inspect their pistols. He rode up to Kirsten. The staff captain, on his broad and sedate mare, rode slowly to meet Denisov. The staff captain, with his long mustaches, was as serious as ever, only his eyes shone more than usual.
“Well, what?” he said to Denisov. “It won’t come to a fight. You’ll see, we’ll withdraw.”
“Devil knows what they’re up to!” Denisov grumbled. “Ah! Rostov!” he cried to the junker, noticing his cheerful face. “Well, you’re done waiting!”
And he smiled approvingly, obviously glad for the junker. Rostov felt himself perfectly happy. Just then the commander appeared on the bridge. Denisov galloped towards him.
“Your Excellency! allow us to attack! I’ll crush them!”
“Attack, indeed!” the colonel said in a bored voice, wincing as if a fly was pestering him. “And why are you standing here? You can see the flanks are retreating. Bring the squadron back across.”
The squadron crossed the bridge and moved out of the range of fire without losing a single man. After them the second squadron, forming a line, also crossed, and the last Cossacks cleared off from that side.
Having crossed the bridge, the two squadrons of the Pavlogradsky hussars went back up the hill one after the other. The regimental commander, Karl Bogdanovich Schubert, rode over to Denisov’s squadron and fell in step with them not far from Rostov, paying no attention to him, though this was the first time they had seen each other since their confrontation over Telyanin. Rostov, feeling himself at the front and in the power of a man before whom he now considered himself guilty, fixed his eyes on the athletic back, blond nape, and red neck of the regimental commander. At first it seemed to Rostov that Bogdanych was only pretending to be inattentive and that his whole goal now consisted in testing the junker’s courage, and he sat up straight and looked around cheerfully. Then it seemed to him that Bogdanych was deliberately riding close to him in order to show Rostov his own courage. Then he thought that his enemy would now deliberately send the squadron into a desperate attack in order to punish him, Rostov. Then he thought that, after the attack, he would come to him as he lay wounded and magnanimously offer him a conciliatory hand.
Zherkov, with his shoulders raised high, a familiar figure to the Pavlogradsky hussars (he had recently quit their regiment), rode up to the regimental commander. After his expulsion from the head staff, Zherkov had not remained with the regiment, saying that he was no fool to drudge away at the front when he could get more decorations while doing nothing on the staff, and he had managed to set himself up as an orderly officer for Prince Bagration. He came to his former superior with an order from the commander of the rear guard.