“If he, however, is senior to mine in the ranking,” the German hussar colonel said, turning red and addressing an adjutant who had ridden up, “leave him to do as he wants. I my hussars cannot sacrifice. Bugler! Sound the retreat!”
But things were becoming urgent. Cannonades and gunfire, blending, rumbled on the right and in the center, and the French greatcoats of Lannes’s riflemen were already passing the mill dam and forming up on this side, two musket shots away. The infantry general went up to a horse with his bouncing gait, mounted it, becoming very straight and tall, and rode to the Pavlogradsky commander. The regimental commanders came together with polite bows and with concealed spite in their hearts.
“Once again, Colonel,” the general said, “I cannot in any case leave half my men in the woods. I beg you, I beg you,” he repeated, “to take up your position and prepare for the attack.”
“And I beg you not to interfieren in vat is not your business,” the colonel replied hotly. “If you vere a cavalryman…”
“I am not a cavalryman, Colonel, but I am a Russian general, and if that is not known to you…”
“Very much known, Your Excellency,” the colonel suddenly cried, starting his horse and turning a reddish purple. “Be so kind please to go to the front, and you vill see that this position is good für nothing. I do not vant to destroy my regiment für your pleasure.”
“You forget yourself, Colonel. I am not concerned with my own pleasure, and I will not allow you to say so.”
The general, accepting the colonel’s invitation to a tournament of courage, drew himself up and, frowning, rode with him in the direction of the front, as if all their differences had to be resolved there, at the front, amidst the bullets. They reached the front, several bullets flew over them, and they stopped in silence. There was nothing to look at there, because even from the place where they had been standing before, it had been clear that cavalry could not operate in the bushes and ravines, and that the French were turning their left wing. The general and the colonel stared sternly and significantly at each other, like two cocks preparing to fight, vainly waiting for signs of cowardice. Both passed the examination. Since there was nothing to say, and neither of them wanted to give the other a pretext for claiming he had been the first to run away from the bullets, they would have stood there for a long time, testing each other’s courage, if at that moment, in the woods, almost behind them, there had not come a crackle of musket fire and a muffled, merging cry. The French had attacked the soldiers who had gone there for firewood. The hussars could no longer retreat together with the infantry. They were cut off from the path of retreat to the left by the French line. Now, however inconvenient the terrain was, it was necessary to attack in order to cut a path for themselves.
The squadron in which Rostov served had just had time to mount its horses when it was halted facing the enemy. Again, as on the Enns bridge, there was no one between the squadron and the enemy, and there lay between them, separating them, that same terrible line of the unknown and of fear, like the line separating the living from the dead. All the men sensed that line, and the question of whether they would or would not cross that line, and how they would cross it, troubled them.
The colonel rode up to the front, angrily gave some answer to the officers’ questions, and, like a man desperately insisting on having his own way, gave some order. No one said anything definite, but the rumor of an attack swept through the squadron. The command to form up was heard, then sabers shrieked as they were drawn from their scabbards. But still no one moved. The troops of the left flank, both infantry and hussars, sensed that their superiors themselves did not know what to do, and the indecisiveness of the superiors communicated itself to the troops.
“Hurry up, hurry up,” thought Rostov, sensing that the time had come at last to experience the delight of an attack, of which he had heard so much from his hussar comrades.
“God be with us, lads,” Denisov’s voice rang out. “At a trot, march!”
The croups of the horses in the front row moved. Little Rook pulled at the reins and started off himself.
To the right Rostov saw the first rows of his hussars, and still further ahead he could see a dark strip, which he could not make out but thought to be the enemy. Shots were fired, but in the distance.
“Quicken the trot,” came the command, and Rostov felt his Little Rook kick up his rump, switching to a canter.
He guessed his movements ahead of time, and felt merrier and merrier. He noticed a solitary tree ahead. This tree was first ahead of him, in the middle of the line that seemed so terrible. But then they crossed that line, and not only was there nothing frightening, but everything became merrier and livelier. “Oh, how I’m going to slash at him,” thought Rostov, gripping the hilt of his saber.
“Hur-r-ra-a-ah!” voices droned.
“Well, now let anybody at all come along,” thought Rostov, spurring Little Rook and, outstripping the others, sending him into a full gallop. The enemy could already be seen ahead. Suddenly something lashed at the squadron as if with a broad besom. Rostov raised his sword, preparing to strike, but just then the soldier Nikitenko galloped past, leaving him behind, and Rostov felt, as in a dream, that he was still racing on with unnatural speed and at the same time was staying in place. The familiar hussar Bandarchuk galloped towards him from behind and looked at him angrily. Bandarchuk’s horse shied, and he swerved around him.
“What is it? I’m not moving ahead? I’ve fallen, I’ve been killed…” Rostov asked and answered in the same instant. He was alone now in the middle of the field. Instead of moving horses and hussar backs, he saw the immobile earth and stubble around him. There was warm blood under him. “No, I’m wounded, and my horse has been killed.” Little Rook tried to get up on his forelegs, but fell back, pinning his rider’s leg. Blood flowed from the horse’s head. The horse thrashed and could not get up. Rostov went to get up and also felclass="underline" his pouch caught on the saddle. Where ours were, where the French were—he did not know. There was no one around.
Having freed his leg, he got up. “Where, on which side now was that line which had so sharply separated the two armies?” he asked himself, and could not answer. “Has something bad happened to me? There are such cases, and what must be done in such cases?” he asked himself, standing up; and just then he felt that something superfluous was hanging from his numb left arm. His hand was like someone else’s. He examined the hand, vainly looking for blood on it. “Well, here are some people,” he thought joyfully, seeing several men running towards him. “They’ll help me!” In front of these people ran one in a strange shako and a blue greatcoat, dark, tanned, with a hooked nose. Two more and then many came running behind him. One of them said something strange, non-Russian. Among the men in the back, wearing the same shakos, stood a Russian hussar. He was being held by the arms; behind him they were holding his horse.
“He must be one of ours taken prisoner…Yes. Can it be they’ll take me, too? What men are these?” Rostov kept thinking, not believing his eyes. “Can they be Frenchmen?” He looked at the approaching Frenchmen and, though a moment before he had been galloping only in order to meet these Frenchmen and cut them to pieces, their closeness now seemed so terrible to him that he could not believe his eyes. “Who are they? Why are they running? Can it be they’re running to me? Can it be? And why? To kill me? Me, whom everybody loves so?” He remembered his mother’s love for him, his family’s, his friends’, and the enemy’s intention to kill him seemed impossible. “But maybe even—to kill me!” He stood for more than ten seconds without moving from the spot or understanding his situation. The first Frenchman with the hooked nose came so close that the expression on his face could already be seen. And the flushed alien physiognomy of this man who, with lowered bayonet, holding his breath, was running lightly towards him, frightened Rostov. He seized his pistol and, instead of firing it, threw it at the Frenchman, and ran for the bushes as fast as he could. He ran not with the feeling of doubt and conflict with which he had gone to the Enns bridge, but with the feeling of a hare escaping from hounds. One undivided feeling of fear for his young, happy life possessed his entire being. Quickly leaping over the hedges, with that swiftness with which he had run playing tag, he flew across the field, turning his pale, kind young face back from time to time, and a chill of terror ran down his spine. “No, it’s better not to look,” he thought, but, running up to the bushes, he turned once more. The Frenchmen lagged behind, and even as he looked back, the front one had just changed his trot to a walk and, turning around, shouted something loudly to his comrade behind him. Rostov stopped. “Something must be wrong,” he thought, “it’s impossible that they should want to kill me.” And meanwhile his left arm was as heavy as though a twenty-pound weight was hanging from it. He could not run any further. The Frenchman also stopped and took aim. Rostov closed his eyes and crouched down. One, two bullets flew whistling past him. He gathered his last strength, held on to his left arm with his right hand, and ran to the bushes. In the bushes there were Russian riflemen.