From early morning strenuous bustling and efforts had begun, and by ten o’clock everything had reached the required order. The ranks were drawn up on the enormous field. The entire army was stretched out in three lines. In the front, the cavalry; behind them, the artillery; further behind, the infantry.
Between each kind of troops was a sort of street. The three parts of this army could be clearly distinguished from each other: Kutuzov’s fighting force (in which the Pavlogradsky regiment stood on the right flank in the front line), the infantry and guards regiments come from Russia, and the Austrian troops. But they all stood in one line, under one command, and in the same order.
Like wind in the leaves, an excited whisper passed: “They’re coming! they’re coming!” Frightened voices were heard, and the bustle of final preparations rippled through the troops.
Before them, coming from Olmütz, a moving group appeared. And at the same time, though it was a windless day, a light current of wind ran through the army and barely stirred the lance pennants and slack standards, which began to flutter against their staffs. It seemed the army itself, by this slight movement, was expressing its joy at the approaching sovereigns. A single voice was heard: “Attention!” Then, like cocks at dawn, voices repeated it from all ends. And everything became still.
In the deathly silence only the thud of hooves could be heard. This was the emperors’ suite. The sovereigns rode up to the flanks, and the trumpets of the first cavalry regiment rang out, playing the general march. It seemed it was not the trumpeters playing, but the army itself, rejoicing at the sovereigns’ approach, that naturally produced these sounds. Through these sounds the one young, gentle voice of the emperor Alexander was distinctly heard. He uttered a greeting, and the first regiment bawled out such a deafening, prolonged, and joyful “Hurrah!” that the men themselves were awestruck at the multitude and strength of the huge bulk they made up.
Rostov, standing in the front ranks of Kutuzov’s army, which the sovereign rode up to first, had the same feeling that was experienced by every man in that army—a feeling of self-forgetfulness, a proud awareness of strength, and a passionate attraction to him who was the cause of this solemnity.
He felt that it would take only one word from this man for that whole mass (and he himself bound up with it—an insignificant speck) to go through fire and water, to crime, to death, or to the greatest heroism, and therefore he could not but tremble and thrill at the sight of that approaching word.
“Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” thundered on all sides, and one regiment after another received the sovereign to the strains of the general march; then “Hurrah!” and the general march, and again “Hurrah!” and “Hurrah!”—which, ever growing and swelling, merged into a deafening roar.
Before the approach of the sovereign, each regiment, in its speechlessness and immobility, seemed a lifeless body; but as soon as the sovereign drew level with it, the regiment came alive and thundered, joining the roar of the entire line which the sovereign had already passed. To the terrible, deafening sound of these voices, amidst the masses of troops, motionless, as if petrified in their rectangles, the hundreds of horsemen of the suite moved casually, asymmetrically, and, above all, freely, and in front of them two men—the emperors. Upon them was concentrated the restrainedly passionate, undivided attention of this entire mass of men.
The handsome young emperor Alexander, in the uniform of the horse guards, in a triangular hat, worn brim first, with his pleasant face and sonorous but not loud voice, attracted the full force of attention.
Rostov stood not far from the trumpeters, and with his keen-sighted eyes he recognized the sovereign from afar and followed his approach. When the sovereign had approached to within twenty paces, and Nikolai could make out clearly, in all its details, the handsome, young, and happy face of the emperor, he experienced a feeling of tenderness and rapture such as he had never experienced before. Every feature, every movement of the sovereign seemed lovely to him.
Having stopped facing the Pavlogradsky regiment, the sovereign said something in French to the Austrian emperor and smiled.
Seeing that smile, Rostov involuntarily began to smile himself and felt a still stronger surge of love for his sovereign. He wanted to show his love for the sovereign in some way. He knew that this was impossible and wanted to cry. The sovereign summoned the regimental commander and said a few words to him.
“My God! what would happen to me if the sovereign addressed me!” thought Rostov. “I’d die of happiness.”
The sovereign also addressed the officers.
“I thank you all, gentlemen” (every word Rostov heard was like a sound from heaven), “with all my heart.”
How happy Rostov would be if he could die now for his sovereign!
“You have merited the St. George standards and will be worthy of them.”
“Just to die, to die for him!” thought Rostov.
The sovereign said something more which Rostov did not hear, and the soldiers, straining their chests, shouted: “Hurrah!”
Rostov also shouted with all his might, leaning towards his saddle, wishing to hurt himself with this cry, only so as to express fully his rapture for the sovereign.
The sovereign stood for a few seconds facing the hussars, as if undecided.
“How can a sovereign be undecided?” thought Rostov, and then even this indecision seemed majestic and enchanting to Rostov, like everything the sovereign did.
The sovereign’s indecision lasted only a moment. The sovereign’s foot, in the narrow, sharp toe of its boot, as they wore them then, touched the belly of the bobtailed bay mare he was riding; the sovereign’s hand in its white glove picked up the reins, and he set off, accompanied by a disorderly swaying sea of adjutants. He rode further and further, stopping by other regiments, and at last Rostov could only see his white plumes beyond the suite that surrounded the emperors.
Among the gentlemen of the suite, Rostov noticed Bolkonsky, sitting his horse lazily and casually. Rostov remembered his quarrel with him yesterday, and the question arose whether he should or should not challenge him. “Of course not,” Rostov thought now…“And is it worth thinking and talking about it at a moment like this? At a moment of such a feeling of love, rapture, and self-denial—what are all our quarrels and offenses?! I love everybody, I forgive everybody now,” thought Rostov.
When the sovereign had ridden by almost all the regiments, the troops began a ceremonial march past him, and Rostov, on Bedouin, newly purchased from Denisov, rode at the tail end of his squadron—that is, alone and in full view of the sovereign.
Before he reached the sovereign, Rostov, an excellent horseman, twice put the spurs to his Bedouin and happily brought him to that furious-paced trot which Bedouin was prone to when excited. Lowering his foaming muzzle to his chest, his tail extended, and as if flying through the air without touching the ground, gracefully lifting his legs high as he shifted them, Bedouin, who also felt the sovereign’s gaze upon him, passed by superbly.
Rostov himself, flinging his legs back, drawing his stomach in, and feeling himself one piece with his horse, with a frowning but blissful face, like the “very devil,” as Denisov used to say, rode past the sovereign.
“Bravo, Pavlogradskies!” said the sovereign.
“My God! How happy I’d be if he ordered me right now to throw myself into the fire,” thought Rostov.