《War And Peace》Book2 CHAPTER VIII

《War And Peace》　Book2 　CHAPTER VIII
　　　　by Leo Tolstoy

THE REST of the infantry pressed together into a funnel shape at the entrance
of the bridge, and hastily marched across it. At last all the baggage-waggons
had passed over; the crush was less, and the last battalion were stepping on to
the bridge. Only the hussars of Denisov's squadron were left on the further side
of the river facing the enemy. The enemy, visible in the distance from the
opposite mountain, could not yet be seen from the bridge below, as, from the
valley, through which the river flowed, the horizon was bounded by rising ground
not more than half a mile away. In front lay a waste plain dotted here and there
with handfuls of our scouting Cossacks. Suddenly on the road, where it ran up
the rising ground opposite, troops came into sight wearing blue tunics and
accompanied by artillery. They were the French. A scouting party of Cossacks
trotted away down the hillside. Though the officers and the men of Denisov's
squadron tried to talk of other things, and to look in other directions, they
all thought continually of nothing else but what was there on the hillside, and
kept constantly glancing towards the dark patches they saw coming into sight on
the sky-line, and recognised as the enemy's forces. The weather had cleared
again after midday, and the sun shone brilliantly as it began to go down over
the Danube and the dark mountains that encircle it. The air was still, and from
the hillside there floated across from time to time the sound of bugles and of
the shouts of the enemy. Between the squadron and the enemy there was no one now
but a few scouting parties. An empty plain, about six hundred yards across,
separated them from the hostile troops. The enemy had ceased firing, and that
made even more keenly felt the stern menace of that inaccessible, unassailable
borderland that was the dividing-line between the two hostile armies.

“One step across that line, that suggests the line dividing the living from
the dead, and unknown sufferings and death. And what is there? and who is there?
there, beyond that field and that tree and the roofs with the sunlight on them?
No one knows, and one longs to know and dreads crossing that line, and longs to
cross it, and one knows that sooner or later one will have to cross it and find
out what there is on the other side of the line, just as one must inevitably
find out what is on the other side of death. Yet one is strong and well and
cheerful and nervously excited, and surrounded by men as strong in the same
irritable excitement.” That is how every man, even if he does not think, feels
in the sight of the enemy, and that feeling gives a peculiar brilliance and
delightful keenness to one's impressions of all that takes place at such
moments.

On the rising ground occupied by the enemy, there rose the smoke of a shot,
and a cannon ball flew whizzing over the heads of the squadron of hussars. The
officers, who had been standing together, scattered in different directions. The
hussars began carefully getting their horses back into line. The whole squadron
subsided into silence. All the men were looking at the enemy in front and at the
commander of the squadron, expecting an order to be given. Another cannon ball
flew by them, and a third. There was no doubt that they were firing at the
hussars. But the cannon balls, whizzing regularly and rapidly, flew over the
heads of the hussars and struck the ground beyond them. The hussars did not look
round, but at each sound of a flying ball, as though at the word of command, the
whole squadron, with their faces so alike, through all their dissimilarity, rose
in the stirrups, holding their breath, as the ball whizzed by, then sank again.
The soldiers did not turn their heads, but glanced out of the corners of their
eyes at one another, curious to see the effect on their comrades. Every face
from Denisov down to the bugler showed about the lips and chin the same lines of
conflict and nervous irritability and excitement. The sergeant frowned, looking
the soldiers up and down, as though threatening them with punishment. Ensign
Mironov ducked at the passing of each cannon ball. On the left flank, Rostov on
his Rook—a handsome beast, in spite of his unsound legs—had the happy air of a
schoolboy called up before a large audience for an examination in which he is
confident that he will distinguish himself. He looked serenely and brightly at
every one, as though calling upon them all to notice how unconcerned he was
under fire. But into his face too there crept, against his will, that line about
the mouth that betrayed some new and strenuous feeling.

“Who's bobbing up and down there? Ensign Mironov! Not the thing! look at me!”
roared Denisov, who could not keep still in one place, but galloped to and fro
before the squadron.

The snub-nosed, black, hairy face of Vaska Denisov, and his little, battered
figure, and the sinewy, short-fingered hand in which he held the hilt of his
naked sword—his whole figure was just as it always was, especially in the
evening after he had drunk a couple of bottles. He was only rather redder in the
face than usual, and tossing back his shaggy head, as birds do when they drink,
his little legs mercilessly driving the spurs into his good horse Bedouin, he
galloped to the other flank of the squadron, looking as though he were falling
backwards in the saddle, and shouted in a husky voice to the men to look to
their pistols. He rode up to Kirsten. The staff-captain on his stout, steady
charger rode at a walking pace to meet him. The staff-captain's face with its
long whiskers was serious, as always, but his eyes looked brighter than
usual.

“Well,” he said to Denisov, “it won't come to a fight. You'll see, we shall
retreat again.”

“Devil knows what they're about!” growled Denisov. “Ah, Rostov!” he called to
the ensign, noticing his beaming face. “Well, you've not had long to wait.” And
he smiled approvingly, unmistakably pleased at the sight of the ensign. Rostov
felt perfectly blissful. At that moment the colonel appeared at the bridge.
Denisov galloped up to him.

“Your excellency, let us attack! we'll settle them.”

“Attack, indeed!” said the colonel in a bored voice, puckering his face up as
though at a teasing fly. “And what are you stopping here for? You see the flanks
are retreating. Lead the squadron back.”

The squadron crossed the bridge and passed out of range of the enemy's guns
without losing a single man. It was followed by the second squadron, and the
Cossacks last of all crossed, leaving the further side of the river clear.

The two squadrons of the Pavlograd regiment, after crossing the bridge, rode
one after the other up the hill. Their colonel, Karl Bogdanitch Schubert, had
joined Denisov's squadron, and was riding at a walking pace not far from Rostov,
taking no notice of him, though this was the first time they had met since the
incident in connection with Telyanin. Rostov, feeling himself at the front in
the power of the man towards whom be now admitted that he had been to blame,
never took his eyes off the athletic back, and flaxen head and red neck of the
colonel. It seemed to Rostov at one time that Bogdanitch was only feigning
inattention, and that his whole aim was now to test the ensign's pluck; and he
drew himself up and looked about him gaily. Then he fancied that Bogdanitch was
riding close by him on purpose to show off his own valour. Then the thought
struck him that his enemy was now sending the squadron to a hopeless attack on
purpose to punish him, Rostov. Then he dreamed of how after the attack he would
go up to him as he lay wounded, and magnanimously hold out his hand in
reconciliation. The high-shouldered figure of Zherkov, who was known to the
Pavlograd hussars, as he had not long before left their regiment, rode up to the
colonel. After Zherkov had been dismissed from the staff of the
commander-in-chief, he had not remained in the regiment, saying that he was not
such a fool as to go to hard labour at the front when he could get more pay for
doing nothing on the staff, and he had succeeded in getting appointed an orderly
on the staff of Prince Bagration. He rode up to his old colonel with an order
from the commander of the rear guard.

“Colonel,” he said, with his gloomy seriousness, addressing Rostov's enemy,
and looking round at his comrades, “there's an order to go back and burn the
bridge.”

“An order, who to?” asked the colonel grimly.

“Well, I don't know, colonel, who to,” answered the cornet, seriously,
“only the prince commanded me: ‘Ride and tell the colonel the hussars are to
make haste back and burn the bridge.' ”

Zherkov was followed by an officer of the suite, who rode up to the colonel
with the same command. After the officer of the suite the stout figure of
Nesvitsky was seen riding up on a Cossack's horse, which had some trouble to
gallop with him.

“Why, colonel,” he shouted, while still galloping towards him, “I told you to
burn the bridge, and now some one's got it wrong; they're all frantic over
there, there's no making out anything.”

The colonel in a leisurely way stopped the regiment and turned to
Nesvitsky.

“You told me about burning materials,” he said; “but about burning it, you
never said a word.”

“Why, my good man,” said Nesvitsky, as he halted, taking off his forage-cap
and passing his plump hand over his hair, which was drenched with sweat, “what
need to say the bridge was to be burnt when you put burning materials to
it?”

“I'm not your ‘good man,' M. le staff-officer, and you never told me to set
fire to the bridge! I know my duty, and it's my habit to carry out my orders
strictly. You said the bridge will be burnt, but who was going to burn it I
couldn't tell.”

“Well, that's always the way,” said Nesvitsky, with a wave of his arm. “How
do you come here?” he added, addressing Zherkov.

“Why, about the same order. You're sopping though, you want to be rubbed
down.”

“You said, M. le staff-officer …” pursued the colonel in an aggrieved
tone.

“Colonel,” interposed the officer of the suite, “there is need of haste, or
the enemy will have moved up their grape-shot guns.”

The colonel looked dumbly at the officer of the suite, at the stout
staff-officer, at Zherkov, and scowled.

“I will burn the bridge,” he said in a solemn tone, as though he would
express that in spite of everything they might do to annoy him, he would still
do what he ought.

Beating his long muscular legs against his horse, as though he were to blame
for it all, the colonel moved forward and commanded the second squadron, the one
under Denisov's command, in which Rostov was serving, to turn back to the
bridge.

“Yes, it really is so,” thought Rostov, “he wants to test me!” His heart
throbbed and the blood rushed to his face. “Let him see whether I'm a coward!”
he thought.

Again all the light-hearted faces of the men of the squadron wore that grave
line, which had come upon them when they were under fire. Rostov looked steadily
at his enemy, the colonel, trying to find confirmation of his suppositions on
his face. But the colonel never once glanced at Rostov, and looked, as he always
did at the front, stern and solemn. The word of command was given.

“Look sharp! look sharp!” several voices repeated around him.

Their swords catching in the reins and their spurs jingling, the hussars
dismounted in haste, not knowing themselves what they were to do. The soldiers
crossed themselves. Rostov did not look at the colonel now; he had no time. He
dreaded, with a sinking heart he dreaded, being left behind by the hussars. His
hand trembled as he gave his horse to an orderly, and he felt that the blood was
rushing to his heart with a thud. Denisov, rolling backwards, and shouting
something, rode by him. Rostov saw nothing but the hussars running around him,
clinking spurs and jingling swords.

“Stretchers!” shouted a voice behind him. Rostov did not think of the meaning
of the need of stretchers. He ran along, trying only to be ahead of all. But
just at the bridge, not looking at his feet, he got into the slippery, trodden
mud, and stumbling fell on his hands. The others out-stripped him.

“On both sides, captain,” he heard shouted by the colonel, who, riding on
ahead, had pulled his horse up near the bridge, with a triumphant and cheerful
face.

Rostov, rubbing his muddy hands on his riding-breeches, looked round at his
enemy, and would have run on further, imagining that the forwarder he went the
better it would be. But though Bogdanitch was not looking, and did not recognise
Rostov, he shouted to him.

“Who will go along the middle of the bridge? On the right side? Ensign,
back!” he shouted angrily, and he turned to Denisov, who with swaggering bravado
rode on horseback on to the planks of the bridge.

“Why run risks, captain? You should dismount,” said the colonel.

“Eh! it'll strike the guilty one,” said Vaska Denisov, turning in his
saddle.

Meanwhile Nesvitsky, Zherkov, and the officer of the suite were standing
together out of range of the enemy, watching the little group of men in yellow
shakoes, dark-GREen jackets, embroidered with frogs, and blue riding-breeches,
swarming about the bridge, and on the other side of the river the blue tunics
and the groups with horses, that might so easily be taken for guns, approaching
in the distance.

“Will they burn the bridge or not? Who'll get there first? Will they run
there and burn it, or the French train their grape-shot on them and kill them?”
These were the questions that, with a sinking of the heart, each man was asking
himself in the GREat mass of troops overlooking the bridge. In the brilliant
evening sunshine they gazed at the bridge and the hussars and at the blue
tunics, with bayonets and guns, moving up on the other side.

“Ugh! The hussars will be caught,” said Nesvitsky. “They're not out of range
of grape-shot now.”

“He did wrong to take so many men,” said the officer of the suite.

“Yes, indeed,” said Nesvitsky. “If he'd sent two bold fellows it would have
done as well.”

“Ah, your excellency,” put in Zherkov, his eyes fixed on the hussars, though
he still spoke with his naïve manner, from which one could not guess whether he
were speaking seriously or not. “Ah, your excellency. How you look at things.
Send two men, but who would give us the Vladimir and ribbon then? But as it is,
even if they do pepper them, one can represent the squadron and receive the
ribbon oneself. Our good friend Bogdanitch knows the way to do things.”

“I say,” said the officer of the suite, “that's grape-shot.”

He pointed to the French guns, which had been taken out of the gun-carriages,
and were hurriedly moving away.

On the French side, smoke rose among the groups that had cannons. One puff, a
second and a third almost at the same instant; and at the very moment when they
heard the sound of the first shot, there rose the smoke of a fourth; two booms
came one after another, then a third.

“Oh, oh!” moaned Nesvitsky, clutching at the hand of the officer of the
suite, as though in intense pain. “Look, a man has fallen, fallen,
fallen!”

“Two, I think.”

“If I were Tsar, I'd never go to war,” said Nesvitsky, turning away.

The French cannons were speedily loaded again. The infantry in their blue
tunics were running towards the bridge. Again the puffs of smoke rose at
different intervals, and the grape-shot rattled and cracked on the bridge. But
this time Nesvitsky could not see what was happening at the bridge. A thick
cloud of smoke had risen from it. The hussars had succeeded in setting fire to
the bridge, and the French batteries were firing at them now, not to hinder
them, but because their guns had been brought up and they had some one to fire
at.

The French had time to fire three volleys of grape-shot before the hussars
got back to their horses. Two were badly aimed, and the shot flew over them, but
the last volley fell in the middle of the group of hussars and knocked down
three men.

Rostov, absorbed by his relations with Bogdanitch, stepped on the bridge, not
knowing what he had to do. There was no one to slash at with his sword (that was
how he always pictured a battle to himself), and he could be of no use in
burning the bridge, because he had not brought with him any wisps of straw, like
the other soldiers. He stood and looked about him, when suddenly there was a
rattle on the bridge, like a lot of nuts being scattered, and one of the
hussars, the one standing nearest him, fell with a groan on the railing. Rostov
ran up to him with the others. Again some one shouted. “Stretchers!” Four men
took hold of the hussar and began lifting him up. “Oooo! … Let me be, for
Christ's sake!” shrieked the wounded man, but still they lifted him up and laid
him on a stretcher. Nikolay Rostov turned away, and began staring into the
distance, at the waters of the Danube, at the sky, at the sun, as though he were
searching for something. How fair that sky seemed, how blue and calm and deep.
How brilliant and triumphant seemed the setting sun. With what an enticing
glimmer shone the water of the faraway Danube. And fairer still were the
far-away mountains that showed blue beyond the Danube, the nunnery, the
mysterious gorges, the pine forests, filled with mist to the tree-tops … there
all was peace and happiness.… “There is nothing, nothing I could wish for, if
only I were there,” thought Rostov. “In myself alone and in that sunshine there
is so much happiness, while here … groans, agonies, and this uncertainty, this
hurry.… Here they are shouting something again and again, all of them are
running back somewhere, and I'm running with them, and here is it,
it, death hanging over me, all round me.… One instant, and I shall never
see that sunshine, that water, that mountain gorge again.…” At that moment the
sun went behind the clouds; more stretchers came into view ahead of Rostov. And
the terror of death and of the stretchers, and the loss of the sunshine and
life, all blended into one sensation of sickening fear.

“Good God, Thou who art in that sky, save and forgive, and protect me,”
Rostov whispered to himself.

The hussars ran back to their horses; their voices GREw louder and more
assured; the stretchers disappeared from sight.

“Well, lad, so you've had a sniff of powder!” Vaska Denisov shouted in his
ear.

“It's all over, but I am a coward, yes, I am a coward,” thought Rostov, and
with a heavy sigh he took his Rook, who had begun to go lame of one leg, from
the man who held him and began mounting.

“What was that—grape-shot?” he asked of Denisov.

“Yes, and something like it too,” cried Denisov; “they worked their guns in
fine style. But it's a nasty business. A cavalry attack's a pleasant thing—slash
away at the dogs; but this is for all the devil like aiming at a target.”

And Denisov rode away to a group standing not far from Rostov, consisting of
the colonel, Nesvitsky, Zherkov, and the officer of the suite.

“It seems as if no one noticed it, though,” Rostov thought to himself. And
indeed no one had noticed it at all, for every one was familiar with the feeling
that the ensign, never before under fire, was experiencing for the first
time.

“Now you'll have something to talk about,” said Zherkov; “they'll be
promoting me a sub-lieutenant before I know where I am, eh?”

“Inform the prince that I have burnt the bridge,” said the colonel, in a
cheerful and triumphant tone.

“And if he inquires with what losses?”

“Not worth mentioning,” boomed the colonel; “two hussars wounded and one
stark dead on the spot,” he said, with undisguised cheerfulness. The German was
unable to repress a smile of satisfaction as he sonorously enunciated the
idiomatic Russian colloquialism of the last phrase.