Book Ten: 1812 - Chapter XXX

by Leo Tolstoy

　　On returning to Gorki after having seen Prince Andrew, Pierreordered his groom to get the horses ready and to call him early in themorning, and then immediately fell asleep behind a partition in acorner Boris had given up to him.

　　Before he was thoroughly awake next morning everybody had alreadyleft the hut. The panes were rattling in the little windows and hisgroom was shaking him.

　　"Your excellency! Your excellency! Your excellency!" he keptrepeating pertinaciously while he shook Pierre by the shoulder withoutlooking at him, having apparently lost hope of getting him to wake up.

　　"What? Has it begun? Is it time?" Pierre asked, waking up.

　　"Hear the firing," said the groom, a discharged soldier. "All thegentlemen have gone out, and his Serene Highness himself rode pastlong ago."

　　Pierre dressed hastily and ran out to the porch. Outside all wasbright, fresh, dewy, and cheerful. The sun, just bursting forth frombehind a cloud that had concealed it, was shining, with rays stillhalf broken by the clouds, over the roofs of the street opposite, onthe dew-besprinkled dust of the road, on the walls of the houses, onthe windows, the fence, and on Pierre's horses standing before thehut. The roar of guns sounded more distinct outside. An adjutantaccompanied by a Cossack passed by at a sharp trot.

　　"It's time, Count; it's time!" cried the adjutant.

　　Telling the groom to follow him with the horses, Pierre went downthe street to the knoll from which he had looked at the field ofbattle the day before. A crowd of military men was assembled there,members of the staff could be heard conversing in French, andKutuzov's gray head in a white cap with a red band was visible, hisgray nape sunk between his shoulders. He was looking through a fieldglass down the highroad before him.

　　Mounting the steps to the knoll Pierre looked at the scene beforehim, spellbound by beauty. It was the same panorama he had admiredfrom that spot the day before, but now the whole place was full oftroops and covered by smoke clouds from the guns, and the slantingrays of the bright sun, rising slightly to the left behind Pierre,cast upon it through the clear morning air penetrating streaks ofrosy, golden tinted light and long dark shadows. The forest at thefarthest extremity of the panorama seemed carved in some preciousstone of a yellowish-green color; its undulating outline wassilhouetted against the horizon and was pierced beyond Valuevo bythe Smolensk highroad crowded with troops. Nearer at hand glitteredgolden cornfields interspersed with copses. There were troops to beseen everywhere, in front and to the right and left. All this wasvivid, majestic, and unexpected; but what impressed Pierre most of allwas the view of the battlefield itself, of Borodino and the hollows onboth sides of the Kolocha.

　　Above the Kolocha, in Borodino and on both sides of it, especiallyto the left where the Voyna flowing between its marshy banks fallsinto the Kolocha, a mist had spread which seemed to melt, to dissolve,and to become translucent when the brilliant sun appeared andmagically colored and outlined everything. The smoke of the gunsmingled with this mist, and over the whole expanse and through thatmist the rays of the morning sun were reflected, flashing back likelightning from the water, from the dew, and from the bayonets of thetroops crowded together by the riverbanks and in Borodino. A whitechurch could be seen through the mist, and here and there the roofs ofhuts in Borodino as well as dense masses of soldiers, or greenammunition chests and ordnance. And all this moved, or seemed to move,as the smoke and mist spread out over the whole space. Just as inthe mist-enveloped hollow near Borodino, so along the entire lineoutside and above it and especially in the woods and fields to theleft, in the valleys and on the summits of the high ground, cloudsof powder smoke seemed continually to spring up out of nothing, nowsingly, now several at a time, some translucent, others dense,which, swelling, growing, rolling, and blending, extended over thewhole expanse.

　　These puffs of smoke and (strange to say) the sound of sound ofthe firing produced the chief beauty of the spectacle.

　　"Puff!"- suddenly a round compact cloud of smoke was seen mergingfrom violet into gray and milky white, and "boom!" came the report asecond later.

　　"Puff! puff!"- and two clouds arose pushing one another and blendingtogether; and "boom, boom!" came the sounds confirming what the eyehad seen.

　　Pierre glanced round at the first cloud, which he had seen as around compact ball, and in its place already were balloons of smokefloating to one side, and- "puff" (with a pause)- "puff, puff!"three and then four more appeared and then from each, with the sameinterval- "boom- boom, boom!" came the fine, firm, precise sounds inreply. It seemed as if those smoke clouds sometimes ran andsometimes stood still while woods, fields, and glittering bayonets ranpast them. From the left, over fields and bushes, those large balls ofsmoke were continually appearing followed by their solemn reports,while nearer still, in the hollows and woods, there burst from themuskets small cloudlets that had no time to become balls, but hadtheir little echoes in just the same way. "Trakh-ta-ta-takh!" came thefrequent crackle of musketry, but it was irregular and feeble incomparison with the reports of the cannon.

　　Pierre wished to be there with that smoke, those shining bayonets,that movement, and those sounds. He turned to look at Kutuzov andhis suite, to compare his impressions with those of others. Theywere all looking at the field of battle as he was, and, as it seemedto him, with the same feelings. All their faces were now shiningwith that latent warmth of feeling Pierre had noticed the day beforeand had fully understood after his talk with Prince Andrew.

　　"Go, my dear fellow, go... and Christ be with you!" Kutuzov wassaying to a general who stood beside him, not taking his eye fromthe battlefield.

　　Having received this order the general passed by Pierre on his waydown the knoll.

　　"To the crossing!" said the general coldly and sternly in reply toone of the staff who asked where he was going.

　　"I'll go there too, I too!" thought Pierre, and followed thegeneral.

　　The general mounted a horse a Cossack had brought him. Pierre wentto his groom who was holding his horses and, asking which was thequietest, clambered onto it, seized it by the mane, and turning outhis toes pressed his heels against its sides and, feeling that hisspectacles were slipping off but unable to let go of the mane andreins, he galloped after the general, causing the staff officers tosmile as they watched him from the knoll.