Book Three: 1805 - Chapter XVIII

by Leo Tolstoy

　　Rostov had been ordered to look for Kutuzov and the Emperor near thevillage of Pratzen. But neither they nor a single commanding officerwere there, only disorganized crowds of troops of various kinds. Heurged on his already weary horse to get quickly past these crowds, butthe farther he went the more disorganized they were. The highroad onwhich he had come out was thronged with caleches, carriages of allsorts, and Russian and Austrian soldiers of all arms, some wounded andsome not. This whole mass droned and jostled in confusion under thedismal influence of cannon balls flying from the French batteriesstationed on the Pratzen Heights.

　　"Where is the Emperor? Where is Kutuzov?" Rostov kept askingeveryone he could stop, but got no answer from anyone.

　　At last seizing a soldier by his collar he forced him to answer.

　　"Eh, brother! They've all bolted long ago!" said the soldier,laughing for some reason and shaking himself free.

　　Having left that soldier who was evidently drunk, Rostov stopped thehorse of a batman or groom of some important personage and began toquestion him. The man announced that the Tsar had been driven in acarriage at full speed about an hour before along that very road andthat he was dangerously wounded.

　　"It can't be!" said Rostov. "It must have been someone else."

　　"I saw him myself." replied the man with a self-confident smile ofderision. "I ought to know the Emperor by now, after the times I'veseen him in Petersburg. I saw him just as I see you.... There he satin the carriage as pale as anything. How they made the four blackhorses fly! Gracious me, they did rattle past! It's time I knew theImperial horses and Ilya Ivanych. I don't think Ilya drives anyoneexcept the Tsar!"

　　Rostov let go of the horse and was about to ride on, when awounded officer passing by addressed him:

　　"Who is it you want?" he asked. "The commander in chief? He waskilled by a cannon ball- struck in the breast before our regiment."

　　"Not killed- wounded!" another officer corrected him.

　　"Who? Kutuzov?" asked Rostov.

　　"Not Kutuzov, but what's his name- well, never mind... there are notmany left alive. Go that way, to that village, all the commandersare there," said the officer, pointing to the village of Hosjeradek,and he walked on.

　　Rostov rode on at a footpace not knowing why or to whom he was nowgoing. The Emperor was wounded, the battle lost. It was impossibleto doubt it now. Rostov rode in the direction pointed out to him, inwhich he saw turrets and a church. What need to hurry? What was he nowto say to the Tsar or to Kutuzov, even if they were alive andunwounded?

　　"Take this road, your honor, that way you will be killed at once!" asoldier shouted to him. "They'd kill you there!"

　　"Oh, what are you talking about?" said another. "Where is he togo? That way is nearer."

　　Rostov considered, and then went in the direction where they said hewould be killed.

　　"It's all the same now. If the Emperor is wounded, am I to try tosave myself?" he thought. He rode on to the region where thegreatest number of men had perished in fleeing from Pratzen. TheFrench had not yet occupied that region, and the Russians- theuninjured and slightly wounded- had left it long ago. All about thefield, like heaps of manure on well-kept plowland, lay from ten tofifteen dead and wounded to each couple of acres. The wounded crepttogether in twos and threes and one could hear their distressingscreams and groans, sometimes feigned- or so it seemed to Rostov. Heput his horse to a trot to avoid seeing all these suffering men, andhe felt afraid- afraid not for his life, but for the courage he neededand which he knew would not stand the sight of these unfortunates.

　　The French, who had ceased firing at this field strewn with dead andwounded where there was no one left to fire at, on seeing anadjutant riding over it trained a gun on him and fired severalshots. The sensation of those terrible whistling sounds and of thecorpses around him merged in Rostov's mind into a single feeling ofterror and pity for himself. He remembered his mother's last letter."What would she feel," thought he, "if she saw me here now on thisfield with the cannon aimed at me?"

　　In the village of Hosjeradek there were Russian troops retiring fromthe field of battle, who though still in some confusion were lessdisordered. The French cannon did not reach there and the musketryfire sounded far away. Here everyone clearly saw and said that thebattle was lost. No one whom Rostov asked could tell him where theEmperor or Kutuzov was. Some said the report that the Emperor waswounded was correct, others that it was not, and explained the falserumor that had spread by the fact that the Emperor's carriage hadreally galloped from the field of battle with the pale and terrifiedOber-Hofmarschal Count Tolstoy, who had ridden out to thebattlefield with others in the Emperor's suite. One officer toldRostov that he had seen someone from headquarters behind the villageto the left, and thither Rostov rode, not hoping to find anyone butmerely to ease his conscience. When he had ridden about two milesand had passed the last of the Russian troops, he saw, near akitchen garden with a ditch round it, two men on horseback facingthe ditch. One with a white plume in his hat seemed familiar toRostov; the other on a beautiful chestnut horse (which Rostovfancied he had seen before) rode up to the ditch, struck his horsewith his spurs, and giving it the rein leaped lightly over. Only alittle earth crumbled from the bank under the horse's hind hoofs.Turning the horse sharply, he again jumped the ditch, anddeferentially addressed the horseman with the white plumes,evidently suggesting that he should do the same. The rider, whosefigure seemed familiar to Rostov and involuntarily riveted hisattention, made a gesture of refusal with his head and hand and bythat gesture Rostov instantly recognized his lamented and adoredmonarch.

　　"But it can't be he, alone in the midst of this empty field!"thought Rostov. At that moment Alexander turned his head and Rostovsaw the beloved features that were so deeply engraved on his memory.The Emperor was pale, his cheeks sunken and his eyes hollow, but thecharm, the mildness of his features, was all the greater. Rostov washappy in the assurance that the rumors about the Emperor being woundedwere false. He was happy to be seeing him. He knew that he might andeven ought to go straight to him and give the message Dolgorukov hadordered him to deliver.

　　But as a youth in love trembles, is unnerved, and dares not utterthe thoughts he has dreamed of for nights, but looks around for helpor a chance of delay and flight when the longed-for moment comes andhe is alone with her, so Rostov, now that he had attained what hehad longed for more than anything else in the world, did not knowhow to approach the Emperor, and a thousand reasons occurred to himwhy it would be inconvenient, unseemly, and impossible to do so.

　　"What! It is as if I were glad of a chance to take advantage ofhis being alone and despondent! A strange face may seem unpleasantor painful to him at this moment of sorrow; besides, what can I say tohim now, when my heart fails me and my mouth feels dry at the meresight of him?" Not one of the innumerable speeches addressed to theEmperor that he had composed in his imagination could he now recall.Those speeches were intended for quite other conditions, they were forthe most part to be spoken at a moment of victory and triumph,generally when he was dying of wounds and the sovereign had thankedhim for heroic deeds, and while dying he expressed the love hisactions had proved.

　　"Besides how can I ask the Emperor for his instructions for theright flank now that it is nearly four o'clock and the battle is lost?No, certainly I must not approach him, I must not intrude on hisreflections. Better die a thousand times than risk receiving an unkindlook or bad opinion from him," Rostov decided; and sorrowfully andwith a heart full despair he rode away, continually looking back atthe Tsar, who still remained in the same attitude of indecision.

　　While Rostov was thus arguing with himself and riding sadly away,Captain von Toll chanced to ride to the same spot, and seeing theEmperor at once rode up to him, offered his services, and assisted himto cross the ditch on foot. The Emperor, wishing to rest and feelingunwell, sat down under an apple tree and von Toll remained beside him.Rostov from a distance saw with envy and remorse how von Toll spokelong and warmly to the Emperor and how the Emperor, evidently weeping,covered his eyes with his hand and pressed von Toll's hand.

　　"And I might have been in his place!" thought Rostov, and hardlyrestraining his tears of pity for the Emperor, he rode on in utterdespair, not knowing where to or why he was now riding.

　　His despair was all the greater from feeling that his own weaknesswas the cause his grief.

　　He might... not only might but should, have gone up to thesovereign. It was a unique chance to show his devotion to theEmperor and he had not made use of it.... "What have I done?"thought he. And he turned round and galloped back to the place wherehe had seen the Emperor, but there was no one beyond the ditch now.Only some carts and carriages were passing by. From one of the drivershe learned that Kutuzov's staff were not far off, in the village thevehicles were going to. Rostov followed them. In front of him walkedKutuzov's groom leading horses in horsecloths. Then came a cart, andbehind that walked an old, bandy-legged domestic serf in a peakedcap and sheepskin coat.

　　"Tit! I say, Tit!" said the groom.

　　"What?" answered the old man absent-mindedly.

　　"Go, Tit! Thresh a bit!"

　　"Oh, you fool!" said the old man, spitting angrily. Some time passedin silence, and then the same joke was repeated.

　　Before five in the evening the battle had been lost at all points.More than a hundred cannon were already in the hands of the French.

　　Przebyszewski and his corps had laid down their arms. Othercolumns after losing half their men were retreating in disorderlyconfused masses.

　　The remains of Langeron's and Dokhturov's mingled forces werecrowding around the dams and banks of the ponds near the village ofAugesd.

　　After five o'clock it was only at the Augesd Dam that a hotcannonade (delivered by the French alone) was still to be heard fromnumerous batteries ranged on the slopes of the Pratzen Heights,directed at our retreating forces.

　　In the rearguard, Dokhturov and others rallying some battalions keptup a musketry fire at the French cavalry that was pursuing our troops.It was growing dusk. On the narrow Augesd Dam where for so manyyears the old miller had been accustomed to sit in his tasseled cappeacefully angling, while his grandson, with shirt sleeves rolledup, handled the floundering silvery fish in the watering can, onthat dam over which for so many years Moravians in shaggy caps andblue jackets had peacefully driven their two-horse carts loaded withwheat and had returned dusty with flour whitening their carts- on thatnarrow dam amid the wagons and the cannon, under the horses' hoofs andbetween the wagon wheels, men disfigured by fear of death nowcrowded together, crushing one another, dying, stepping over the dyingand killing one another, only to move on a few steps and be killedthemselves in the same way.

　　Every ten seconds a cannon ball flew compressing the air around,or a shell burst in the midst of that dense throng, killing some andsplashing with blood those near them.

　　Dolokhov- now an officer- wounded in the arm, and on foot, withthe regimental commander on horseback and some ten men of his company,represented all that was left of that whole regiment. Impelled bythe crowd, they had got wedged in at the approach to the dam and,jammed in on all sides, had stopped because a horse in front hadfallen under a cannon and the crowd were dragging it out. A cannonball killed someone behind them, another fell in front and splashedDolokhov with blood. The crowd, pushing forward desperately,squeezed together, moved a few steps, and again stopped.

　　"Move on a hundred yards and we are certainly saved, remain hereanother two minutes and it is certain death," thought each one.

　　Dolokhov who was in the midst of the crowd forced his way to theedge of the dam, throwing two soldiers off their feet, and ran ontothe slippery ice that covered the millpool.

　　"Turn this way!" he shouted, jumping over the ice which creakedunder him; "turn this way!" he shouted to those with the gun. "Itbears!..."

　　The ice bore him but it swayed and creaked, and it was plain that itwould give way not only under a cannon or a crowd, but very sooneven under his weight alone. The men looked at him and pressed tothe bank, hesitating to step onto the ice. The general on horseback atthe entrance to the dam raised his hand and opened his mouth toaddress Dolokhov. Suddenly a cannon ball hissed so low above the crowdthat everyone ducked. It flopped into something moist, and the generalfell from his horse in a pool of blood. Nobody gave him a look orthought of raising him.

　　"Get onto the ice, over the ice! Go on! Turn! Don't you hear? Goon!" innumerable voices suddenly shouted after the ball had struck thegeneral, the men themselves not knowing what, or why, they wereshouting.

　　One of the hindmost guns that was going onto the dam turned off ontothe ice. Crowds of soldiers from the dam began running onto the frozenpond. The ice gave way under one of the foremost soldiers, and one legslipped into the water. He tried to right himself but fell in up tohis waist. The nearest soldiers shrank back, the gun driver stoppedhis horse, but from behind still came the shouts: "Onto the ice, whydo you stop? Go on! Go on!" And cries of horror were heard in thecrowd. The soldiers near the gun waved their arms and beat thehorses to make them turn and move on. The horses moved off the bank.The ice, that had held under those on foot, collapsed in a great mass,and some forty men who were on it dashed, some forward and someback, drowning one another.

　　Still the cannon balls continued regularly to whistle and floponto the ice and into the water and oftenest of all among the crowdthat covered the dam, the pond, and the bank.