《War And Peace》 Book2 CHAPTER XIX
by Leo Tolstoy
THE ATTACK of the Sixth Chasseurs covered the retreat of the right flank. In
the centre Tushin's forgotten battery had succeeded in setting fire to
Schöngraben and delaying the advance of the French. The French stayed to put out
the fire, which was fanned by the wind, and this gave time for the Russians to
retreat. The retreat of the centre beyond the ravine was hurried and noisy; but
the different companies kept apart. But the left flank, which consisted of the
Azovsky and Podolosky infantry and the Pavlograd hussars, was simultaneously
attacked in front and surrounded by the cream of the French army under Lannes,
and was thrown into disorder. Bagration had sent Zherkov to the general in
command of the left flank with orders to retreat immediately.
Zherkov, keeping his hand still at his cap, had briskly started his horse and
galloped off. But no sooner had he ridden out of Bagration's sight than his
courage failed him. He was overtaken by a panic he could not contend against,
and he could not bring himself to go where there was danger.
After galloping some distance towards the troops of the left flank, he rode
not forward where he heard firing, but off to look for the general and the
officers in a direction where they could not by any possibility be; and so it
was that he did not deliver the message.
The command of the left flank belonged by right of seniority to the general
of the regiment in which Dolohov was serving—the regiment which Kutuzov had
inspected before Braunau. But the command of the extreme left flank had been
entrusted to the colonel of the Pavlograd hussars, in which Rostov was serving.
Hence arose a misunderstanding. Both commanding officers were intensely
exasperated with one another, and at a time when fighting had been going on a
long while on the right flank, and the French had already begun their advance on
the left, these two officers were engaged in negotiations, the sole aim of which
was the mortification of one another. The regiments—cavalry and infantry
alike—were by no means in readiness for the engagement. No one from the common
soldier to the general expected a battle; and they were all calmly engaged in
peaceful occupations—feeding their horses in the cavalry, gathering wood in the
infantry.
“He is my senior in rank, however,” said the German colonel of the hussars,
growing very red and addressing an adjutant, who had ridden up. “So let him do
as he likes. I can't sacrifice my hussars. Bugler! Sound the retreat!”
But things were becoming urgent. The fire of cannon and musketry thundered in
unison on the right and in the centre, and the French tunics of Lannes's
sharpshooters had already passed over the milldam, and were forming on this side
of it hardly out of musket-shot range.
The infantry general walked up to his horse with his quivering strut, and
mounting it and drawing himself up very erect and tall, he rode up to the
Pavlograd colonel. The two officers met with affable bows and concealed fury in
their hearts.
“Again, colonel,” the general said, “I cannot leave half my men in the wood.
I beg you, I beg you,” he repeated, “to occupy the position, and
prepare for an attack.”
“And I beg you not to meddle in what's not your business,” answered the
colonel, getting hot. “If you were a cavalry officer …”
“I am not a cavalry officer, colonel, but I am a Russian general, and if you
are unaware of the fact …”
“I am fully aware of it, your excellency,” the colonel screamed suddenly,
setting his horse in motion and becoming purple in the face. “If you care to
come to the front, you will see that this position cannot be held. I don't want
to massacre my regiment for your satisfaction.”
“You forget yourself, colonel. I am not considering my own satisfaction, and
I do not allow such a thing to be said.”
Taking the colonel's proposition as a challenge to his courage, the general
squared his chest and rode scowling beside him to the front line, as though
their whole difference would inevitably be settled there under the enemy's fire.
They reached the line, several bullets flew by them, and they stood still
without a word. To look at the front line was a useless proceeding, since from
the spot where they had been standing before, it was clear that the cavalry
could not act, owing to the bushes and the steep and broken character of the
ground, and that the French were out-flanking the left wing. The general and the
colonel glared sternly and significantly at one another, like two cocks
preparing for a fight, seeking in vain for a symptom of cowardice. Both stood
the test without flinching. Since there was nothing to be said, and neither was
willing to give the other grounds for asserting that he was the first to
withdraw from under fire, they might have remained a long while standing there,
mutually testing each other's pluck, if there had not at that moment been heard
in the copse, almost behind them, the snap of musketry and a confused shout of
voices. The French were attacking the soldiers gathering wood in the copse. The
hussars could not now retreat, nor could the infantry. They were cut off from
falling back on the left by the French line. Now, unfavourable as the ground
was, they must attack to fight a way through for themselves.
The hussars of the squadron in which Rostov was an ensign had hardly time to
mount their horses when they were confronted by the enemy. Again, as on the Enns
bridge, there was no one between the squadron and the enemy, and between them
lay that terrible border-line of uncertainty and dread, like the line dividing
the living from the dead. All the soldiers were conscious of that line, and the
question whether they would cross it or not, and how they would cross it, filled
them with excitement.
The colonel rode up to the front, made some angry reply to the questions of
the officers, and, like a man desperately insisting on his rights, gave some
command. No one said anything distinctly, but through the whole squadron there
ran a vague rumour of attack. The command to form in order rang out, then there
was the clank of sabres being drawn out of their sheaths. But still no one
moved. The troops of the left flank, both the infantry and the hussars, felt
that their commanders themselves did not know what to do, and the uncertainty of
the commanders infected the soldiers.
“Make haste, if only they'd make haste,” thought Rostov, feeling that at last
the moment had come to taste the joys of the attack, of which he had heard so
much from his comrades.
“With God's help, lads,” rang out Denisov's voice, “forward, quick,
gallop!”
The horses' haunches began moving in the front line. Rook pulled at the reins
and set off of himself.
On the right Rostov saw the foremost lines of his own hussars, and still
further ahead he could see a dark streak, which he could not distinguish
clearly, but assumed to be the enemy. Shots could be heard, but at a
distance.
“Quicker!” rang out the word of command, and Rostov felt the drooping of
Rook's hindquarters as he broke into a gallop. He felt the joy of the gallop
coming, and was more and more lighthearted. He noticed a solitary tree ahead of
him. The tree was at first in front of him, in the middle of that border-land
that had seemed so terrible. But now they had crossed it and nothing terrible
had happened, but he felt more lively and excited every moment. “Ah, won't I
slash at him!” thought Rostov, grasping the hilt of his sabre tightly. “Hur … r
… a … a!” roared voices.
“Now, let him come on, whoever it may be,” thought Rostov, driving the spurs
into Rook, and outstripping the rest, he let him go at full gallop. Already the
enemy could be seen in front. Suddenly something swept over the squadron like a
broad broom. Rostov lifted his sabre, making ready to deal a blow, but at that
instant the soldier Nikitenko galloped ahead and left his side, and Rostov felt
as though he were in a dream being carried forward with supernatural swiftness
and yet remaining at the same spot. An hussar, Bandartchuk, galloped up from
behind close upon him and looked angrily at him. Bandartchuk's horse started
aside, and he galloped by.
“What's the matter? I'm not moving? I've fallen, I'm killed …” Rostov asked
and answered himself all in one instant. He was alone in the middle of the
field. Instead of the moving horses and the hussars' backs, he saw around him
the motionless earth and stubblefield. There was warm blood under him.
“No, I'm wounded, and my horse is killed.” Rook tried to get up on his
forelegs, but he sank again, crushing his rider's leg under his leg. Blood was
flowing from the horse's head. The horse struggled, but could not get up. Rostov
tried to get up, and fell down too. His sabretache had caught in the saddle.
Where were our men, where were the French, he did not know. All around him there
was no one.
Getting his leg free, he stood up. “Which side, where now was that line that
had so sharply divided the two armies?” he asked himself, and could not answer.
“Hasn't something gone wrong with me? Do such things happen, and what ought one
to do in such cases?” he wondered as he was getting up. But at that instant he
felt as though something superfluous was hanging on his benumbed left arm. The
wrist seemed not to belong to it. He looked at his hand, carefully searching for
blood on it. “Come, here are some men,” he thought joyfully, seeing some men
running towards him. “They will help me!” In front of these men ran a single
figure in a strange shako and a blue coat, with a swarthy sunburnt face and a
hooked nose. Then came two men, and many more were running up behind. One of
them said some strange words, not Russian. Between some similar figures in
similar shakoes behind stood a Russian hussar. He was being held by the arms;
behind him they were holding his horse too.
“It must be one of ours taken prisoner.… Yes. Surely they couldn't take me
too? What sort of men are they?” Rostov was still wondering, unable to believe
his own eyes. “Can they be the French?” He gazed at the approaching French, and
although only a few seconds before he had been longing to get at these Frenchmen
and to cut them down, their being so near seemed to him now so awful that he
could not believe his eyes. “Who are they? What are they running for? Can it be
to me? Can they be running to me? And what for? To kill me? Me, whom
every one's so fond of?” He recalled his mother's love, the love of his family
and his friends, and the enemy's intention of killing him seemed impossible.
“But they may even kill me.” For more than ten seconds he stood, not moving from
the spot, nor grasping his position. The foremost Frenchman with the hook nose
was getting so near that he could see the expression of his face. And the
excited, alien countenance of the man, who was running so lightly and
breathlessly towards him, with his bayonet lowered, terrified Rostov. He
snatched up his pistol, and instead of firing with it, flung it at the Frenchman
and ran to the bushes with all his might. Not with the feeling of doubt and
conflict with which he had moved at the Enns bridge, did he now run, but with
the feeling of a hare fleeing from the dogs. One unmixed feeling of fear for his
young, happy life took possession of his whole being. Leaping rapidly over the
hedges with the same impetuosity with which he used to run when he played games,
he flew over the field, now and then turning his pale, good-natured, youthful
face, and a chill of horror ran down his spine. “No, better not to look,” he
thought, but as he got near to the bushes he looked round once more. The French
had given it up, and just at the moment when he looked round the foremost man
was just dropping from a run into a walk, and turning round to shout something
loudly to a comrade behind. Rostov stopped. “There's some mistake,” he thought;
“it can't be that they meant to kill me.” And meanwhile his left arm was as
heavy as if a hundred pound weight were hanging on it. He could run no further.
The Frenchman stopped too and took aim. Rostov frowned and ducked. One bullet
and then another flew hissing by him; he took his left hand in his right, and
with a last effort ran as far as the bushes. In the bushes there were Russian
sharpshooters.
