onto the wagon and sat on its edge. The Cossack was sharpening the saber under the wagon.
‘I say! Are the lads asleep?’ asked Petya.
‘Some are, and some aren’tlike us.’
‘Well, and that boy?’
‘Vesenny? Oh, he’s thrown himself down there in the
passage. Fast asleep after his fright. He was that glad!’
After that Petya remained silent for a long time, listening to the sounds. He heard footsteps in the darkness and a
black figure appeared.
‘What are you sharpening?’ asked a man coming up to
the wagon.
‘Why, this gentleman’s saber.’
‘That’s right,’ said the man, whom Petya took to be an
hussar. ‘Was the cup left here?’
‘There, by the wheel!’
The hussar took the cup.
‘It must be daylight soon,’ said he, yawning, and went
away.
Petya ought to have known that he was in a forest with
Denisov’s guerrilla band, less than a mile from the road,
sitting on a wagon captured from the French beside which
horses were tethered, that under it Likhachev was sitting
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sharpening a saber for him, that the big dark blotch to the
right was the watchman’s hut, and the red blotch below to
the left was the dying embers of a campfire, that the man
who had come for the cup was an hussar who wanted a
drink; but he neither knew nor waited to know anything of
all this. He was in a fairy kingdom where nothing resembled
reality. The big dark blotch might really be the watchman’s
hut or it might be a cavern leading to the very depths of the
earth. Perhaps the red spot was a fire, or it might be the eye
of an enormous monster. Perhaps he was really sitting on a
wagon, but it might very well be that he was not sitting on a
wagon but on a terribly high tower from which, if he fell, he
would have to fall for a whole day or a whole month, or go
on falling and never reach the bottom. Perhaps it was just
the Cossack, Likhachev, who was sitting under the wagon,
but it might be the kindest, bravest, most wonderful, most
splendid man in the world, whom no one knew of. It might
really have been that the hussar came for water and went
back into the hollow, but perhaps he had simply vanisheddisappeared altogether and dissolved into nothingness.
Nothing Petya could have seen now would have surprised him. He was in a fairy kingdom where everything
was possible.
He looked up at the sky. And the sky was a fairy realm
like the earth. It was clearing, and over the tops of the trees
clouds were swiftly sailing as if unveiling the stars. Sometimes it looked as if the clouds were passing, and a clear
black sky appeared. Sometimes it seemed as if the black
spaces were clouds. Sometimes the sky seemed to be rising
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high, high overhead, and then it seemed to sink so low that
one could touch it with one’s hand.
Petya’s eyes began to close and he swayed a little.
The trees were dripping. Quiet talking was heard. The
horses neighed and jostled one another. Someone snored.
‘Ozheg-zheg, Ozheg-zheg…’ hissed the saber against
the whetstone, and suddenly Petya heard an harmonious
orchestra playing some unknown, sweetly solemn hymn.
Petya was as musical as Natasha and more so than Nicholas, but had never learned music or thought about it, and
so the melody that unexpectedly came to his mind seemed
to him particularly fresh and attractive. The music became
more and more audible. The melody grew and passed from
one instrument to another. And what was played was a
fuguethough Petya had not the least conception of what a
fugue is. Each instrumentnow resembling a violin and now
a horn, but better and clearer than violin or hornplayed its
own part, and before it had finished the melody merged
with another instrument that began almost the same air,
and then with a third and a fourth; and they all blended into
one and again became separate and again blended, now into
solemn church music, now into something dazzlingly brilliant and triumphant.
‘Ohwhy, that was in a dream!’ Petya said to himself, as he
lurched forward. ‘It’s in my ears. But perhaps it’s music of
my own. Well, go on, my music! Now!..’
He closed his eyes, and, from all sides as if from a distance, sounds fluttered, grew into harmonies, separated,
blended, and again all mingled into the same sweet and sol
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emn hymn. ‘Oh, this is delightful! As much as I like and as
I like!’ said Petya to himself. He tried to conduct that enormous orchestra.
‘Now softly, softly die away!’ and the sounds obeyed
him. ‘Now fuller, more joyful. Still more and more joyful!’
And from an unknown depth rose increasingly triumphant sounds. ‘Now voices join in!’ ordered Petya. And at
first from afar he heard men’s voices and then women’s. The
voices grew in harmonious triumphant strength, and Petya
listened to their surpassing beauty in awe and joy.
With a solemn triumphal march there mingled a song,
the drip from the trees, and the hissing of the saber, ‘Ozhegzheg-zheg…’ and again the horses jostled one another and
neighed, not disturbing the choir but joining in it.
Petya did not know how long this lasted: he enjoyed himself all the time, wondered at his enjoyment and regretted
that there was no one to share it. He was awakened by Likhachev’s kindly voice.
‘It’s ready, your honor; you can split a Frenchman in half
with it!’
Petya woke up.
‘It’s getting light, it’s really getting light!’ he exclaimed.
The horses that had previously been invisible could now
be seen to their very tails, and a watery light showed itself
through the bare branches. Petya shook himself, jumped
up, took a ruble from his pocket and gave it to Likhachev;
then he flourished the saber, tested it, and sheathed it. The
Cossacks were untying their horses and tightening their
saddle girths.
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‘And here’s the commander,’ said Likhachev.
Denisov came out of the watchman’s hut and, having
called Petya, gave orders to get ready.
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The men rapidly picked out their horses in the semidarkness, tightened their saddle girths, and formed companies.
Denisov stood by the watchman’s hut giving final orders.
The infantry of the detachment passed along the road and
quickly disappeared amid the trees in the mist of early dawn,
hundreds of feet splashing through the mud. The esaul gave
some orders to his men. Petya held his horse by the bridle,
impatiently awaiting the order to mount. His face, having
been bathed in cold water, was all aglow, and his eyes were
particularly brilliant. Cold shivers ran down his spine and
his whole body pulsed rhythmically.
‘Well, is ev’wything weady?’ asked Denisov. ‘Bwing the
horses.’
The horses were brought. Denisov was angry with the
Cossack because the saddle girths were too slack, reproved
him, and mounted. Petya put his foot in the stirrup. His
horse by habit made as if to nip his leg, but Petya leaped
quickly into the saddle unconscious of his own weight and,
turning to look at the hussars starting in the darkness behind him, rode up to Denisov.
‘Vasili Dmitrich, entrust me with some commission!
Please… for God’s sake…!’ said he.
Denisov seemed to have forgotten Petya’s very existence.
He turned to glance at him.
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‘I ask one thing of you,’ he said sternly, ‘to obey me and
not shove yourself forward anywhere.’
He did not say another word to Petya but rode in silence
all the way. When they had come to the edge of the forest
it was noticeably growing light over the field. Denisov talked in whispers with the esaul and the Cossacks rode past
Petya and Denisov. When they had all ridden by, Denisov
touched his horse and rode down the hill. Slipping onto
their haunches and sliding, the horses descended with their
riders into the ravine. Petya rode beside Denisov, the pulsation of his body constantly increasing. It was getting lighter
and lighter, but the mist still hid distant objects. Having
reached the valley, Denisov looked back and nodded to a
Cossack beside him.
‘The signal!’ said he.
The Cossack raised his arm and a shot rang out. In an
instant the tramp of horses galloping forward was heard,
shouts came from various sides, and then more shots.
At the first sound of trampling hoofs and shouting, Petya
lashed his horse and loosening his rein galloped forward,
not heeding Denisov who shouted at him. It seemed to
Petya that at the moment the shot was fired it suddenly became as bright as noon. He galloped to the bridge. Cossacks
were galloping along the road in front of him. On the bridge
he collided with a Cossack who had fallen behind, but he
galloped on. In front of him soldiers, probably Frenchmen,
were running from right to left across the road. One of them
fell in the mud under his horse’s feet.
Cossacks were crowding about a hut, busy with some
1991
thing. From the midst of that crowd terrible screams arose.
Petya galloped up, and the first thing he saw was the pale
face and trembling jaw of a Frenchman, clutching the handle of a lance that had been aimed at him.
‘Hurrah!… Lads!… ours!’ shouted Petya, and giving rein
to his excited horse he galloped forward along the village
street.
He could hear shooting ahead of him. Cossacks, hussars, and ragged Russian prisoners, who had come running
from both sides of the road, were shouting something loudly and incoherently. A gallant-looking Frenchman, in a blue
overcoat, capless, and with a frowning red face, had been
defending himself against the hussars. When Petya galloped up the Frenchman had already fallen. ‘Too late again!’
flashed through Petya’s mind and he galloped on to the
place from which the rapid firing could be heard. The shots
came from the yard of the landowner’s house he had visited
the night before with Dolokhov. The French were making a stand there behind a wattle fence in a garden thickly
overgrown with bushes and were firing at the Cossacks
who crowded at the gateway. Through the smoke, as he approached the gate, Petya saw Dolokhov, whose face was of a
pale-greenish tint, shouting to his men. ‘Go round! Wait for
the infantry!’ he exclaimed as Petya rode up to him.
‘Wait?… Hurrah-ah-ah!’ shouted Petya, and without
pausing a moment galloped to the place whence came the
sounds of
