Book Three: 1805 - Chapter XVI

by Leo Tolstoy

　　Kutuzov accompanied by his adjutants rode at a walking pace behindthe carabineers.

　　When he had gone less than half a mile in the rear of the columnhe stopped at a solitary, deserted house that had probably once beenan inn, where two roads parted. Both of them led downhill and troopswere marching along both.

　　The fog had begun to clear and enemy troops were already dimlyvisible about a mile and a half off on the opposite heights. Downbelow, on the left, the firing became more distinct. Kutuzov hadstopped and was speaking to an Austrian general. Prince Andrew, whowas a little behind looking at them, turned to an adjutant to askhim for a field glass.

　　"Look, look!" said this adjutant, looking not at the troops in thedistance, but down the hill before him. "It's the French!"

　　The two generals and the adjutant took hold of the field glass,trying to snatch it from one another. The expression on all theirfaces suddenly changed to one of horror. The French were supposed tobe a mile and a half away, but had suddenly and unexpectedlyappeared just in front of us.

　　"It's the enemy?... No!... Yes, see it is!... for certain.... Buthow is that?" said different voices.

　　With the naked eye Prince Andrew saw below them to the right, notmore than five hundred paces from where Kutuzov was standing, adense French column coming up to meet the Apsherons.

　　"Here it is! The decisive moment has arrived. My turn has come,"thought Prince Andrew, and striking his horse he rode up to Kutuzov.

　　"The Apsherons must be stopped, your excellency," cried he. But atthat very instant a cloud of smoke spread all round, firing washeard quite close at hand, and a voice of naive terror barely twosteps from Prince Andrew shouted, "Brothers! All's lost!" And atthis as if at a command, everyone began to run.

　　Confused and ever-increasing crowds were running back to wherefive minutes before the troops had passed the Emperors. Not only wouldit have been difficult to stop that crowd, it was even impossiblenot to be carried back with it oneself. Bolkonski only tried not tolose touch with it, and looked around bewildered and unable to graspwhat was happening in front of him. Nesvitski with an angry face,red and unlike himself, was shouting to Kutuzov that if he did notride away at once he would certainly be taken prisoner. Kutuzovremained in the same place and without answering drew out ahandkerchief. Blood was flowing from his cheek. Prince Andrew forcedhis way to him.

　　"You are wounded?" he asked, hardly able to master the tremblingof his lower jaw.

　　"The wound is not here, it is there!" said Kutuzov, pressing thehandkerchief to his wounded cheek and pointing to the fleeingsoldiers. "Stop them!" he shouted, and at the same moment, probablyrealizing that it was impossible to stop them, spurred his horse androde to the right.

　　A fresh wave of the flying mob caught him and bore him back with it.

　　The troops were running in such a dense mass that once surrounded bythem it was difficult to get out again. One was shouting, "Get on! Whyare you hindering us?" Another in the same place turned round andfired in the air; a third was striking the horse Kutuzov himself rode.Having by a great effort got away to the left from that flood ofmen, Kutuzov, with his suite diminished by more than half, rode towarda sound of artillery fire near by. Having forced his way out of thecrowd of fugitives, Prince Andrew, trying to keep near Kutuzov, saw onthe slope of the hill amid the smoke a Russian battery that wasstill firing and Frenchmen running toward it. Higher up stood someRussian infantry, neither moving forward to protect the battery norbackward with the fleeing crowd. A mounted general separated himselffrom the infantry and approached Kutuzov. Of Kutuzov's suite only fourremained. They were all pale and exchanged looks in silence.

　　"Stop those wretches!" gasped Kutuzov to the regimental commander,pointing to the flying soldiers; but at that instant, as if topunish him for those words, bullets flew hissing across the regimentand across Kutuzov's suite like a flock of little birds.

　　The French had attacked the battery and, seeing Kutuzov, were firingat him. After this volley the regimental commander clutched at hisleg; several soldiers fell, and a second lieutenant who was holdingthe flag let it fall from his hands. It swayed and fell, but caught onthe muskets of the nearest soldiers. The soldiers started firingwithout orders.

　　"Oh! Oh! Oh!" groaned Kutuzov despairingly and looked around...."Bolkonski!" he whispered, his voice trembling from a consciousness ofthe feebleness of age, "Bolkonski!" he whispered, pointing to thedisordered battalion and at the enemy, "what's that?"

　　But before he had finished speaking, Prince Andrew, feeling tears ofshame and anger choking him, had already leapt from his horse andrun to the standard.

　　"Forward, lads!" he shouted in a voice piercing as a child's.

　　"Here it is!" thought he, seizing the staff of the standard andhearing with pleasure the whistle of bullets evidently aimed at him.Several soldiers fell.

　　"Hurrah!" shouted Prince Andrew, and, scarcely able to hold up theheavy standard, he ran forward with full confidence that the wholebattalion would follow him.

　　And really he only ran a few steps alone. One soldier moved and thenanother and soon the whole battalion ran forward shouting "Hurrah!"and overtook him. A sergeant of the battalion ran up and took the flagthat was swaying from its weight in Prince Andrew's hands, but hewas immediately killed. Prince Andrew again seized the standard and,dragging it by the staff, ran on with the battalion. In front he sawour artillerymen, some of whom were fighting, while others, havingabandoned their guns, were running toward him. He also saw Frenchinfantry soldiers who were seizing the artillery horses and turningthe guns round. Prince Andrew and the battalion were already withintwenty paces of the cannon. He heard the whistle of bullets abovehim unceasingly and to right and left of him soldiers continuallygroaned and dropped. But he did not look at them: he looked only atwhat was going on in front of him- at the battery. He now sawclearly the figure of a red-haired gunner with his shako knocked awry,pulling one end of a mop while a French soldier tugged at the other.He could distinctly see the distraught yet angry expression on thefaces of these two men, who evidently did not realize what they weredoing.

　　"What are they about?" thought Prince Andrew as he gazed at them."Why doesn't the red-haired gunner run away as he is unarmed? Whydoesn't the Frenchman stab him? He will not get away before theFrenchman remembers his bayonet and stabs him...."

　　And really another French soldier, trailing his musket, ran up tothe struggling men, and the fate of the red-haired gunner, who hadtriumphantly secured the mop and still did not realize what awaitedhim, was about to be decided. But Prince Andrew did not see how itended. It seemed to him as though one of the soldiers near him hit himon the head with the full swing of a bludgeon. It hurt a little, butthe worst of it was that the pain distracted him and prevented hisseeing what he had been looking at.

　　"What's this? Am I falling? My legs are giving way," thought he, andfell on his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the struggleof the Frenchmen with the gunners ended, whether the red-haired gunnerhad been killed or not and whether the cannon had been captured orsaved. But he saw nothing. Above him there was now nothing but thesky- the lofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty, withgray clouds gliding slowly across it. "How quiet, peaceful, andsolemn; not at all as I ran," thought Prince Andrew- "not as we ran,shouting and fighting, not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman withfrightened and angry faces struggled for the mop: how differently dothose clouds glide across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I didnot see that lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have found itat last! Yes! All is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinitesky. There is nothing, nothing, but that. But even it does notexist, there is nothing but quiet and peace. Thank God!..."