look in other directions, thought only of what was there on
the hilltop, and kept constantly looking at the patches appearing on the skyline, which they knew to be the enemy’s
troops. The weather had cleared again since noon and the
sun was descending brightly upon the Danube and the dark
hills around it. It was calm, and at intervals the bugle calls
and the shouts of the enemy could be heard from the hill.
There was no one now between the squadron and the enemy
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except a few scattered skirmishers. An empty space of some
seven hundred yards was all that separated them. The enemy ceased firing, and that stern, threatening, inaccessible,
and intangible line which separates two hostile armies was
all the more clearly felt.
‘One step beyond that boundary line which resembles
the line dividing the living from the dead lies uncertainty,
suffering, and death. And what is there? Who is there?there
beyond that field, that tree, that roof lit up by the sun? No
one knows, but one wants to know. You fear and yet long
to cross that line, and know that sooner or later it must be
crossed and you will have to find out what is there, just as
you will inevitably have to learn what lies the other side of
death. But you are strong, healthy, cheerful, and excited,
and are surrounded by other such excitedly animated and
healthy men.’ So thinks, or at any rate feels, anyone who
comes in sight of the enemy, and that feeling gives a particular glamour and glad keenness of impression to everything
that takes place at such moments.
On the high ground where the enemy was, the smoke of
a cannon rose, and a ball flew whistling over the heads of
the hussar squadron. The officers who had been standing
together rode off to their places. The hussars began carefully aligning their horses. Silence fell on the whole squadron.
All were looking at the enemy in front and at the squadron
commander, awaiting the word of command. A second and
a third cannon ball flew past. Evidently they were firing at
the hussars, but the balls with rapid rhythmic whistle flew
over the heads of the horsemen and fell somewhere beyond
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them. The hussars did not look round, but at the sound of
each shot, as at the word of command, the whole squadron
with its rows of faces so alike yet so different, holding its
breath while the ball flew past, rose in the stirrups and sank
back again. The soldiers without turning their heads glanced
at one another, curious to see their comrades’ impression.
Every face, from Denisov’s to that of the bugler, showed one
common expression of conflict, irritation, and excitement,
around chin and mouth. The quartermaster frowned, looking at the soldiers as if threatening to punish them. Cadet
Mironov ducked every time a ball flew past. Rostov on the
left flank, mounted on his Rooka handsome horse despite its
game leghad the happy air of a schoolboy called up before a
large audience for an examination in which he feels sure he
will distinguish himself. He was glancing at everyone with
a clear, bright expression, as if asking them to notice how
calmly he sat under fire. But despite himself, on his face too
that same indication of something new and stern showed
round the mouth.
‘Who’s that curtseying there? Cadet Miwonov! That’s not
wight! Look at me,’ cried Denisov who, unable to keep still
on one spot, kept turning his horse in front of the squadron.
The black, hairy, snub-nosed face of Vaska Denisov, and
his whole short sturdy figure with the sinewy hairy hand
and stumpy fingers in which he held the hilt of his naked saber, looked just as it usually did, especially toward evening
when he had emptied his second bottle; he was only redder
than usual. With his shaggy head thrown back like birds
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when they drink, pressing his spurs mercilessly into the
sides of his good horse, Bedouin, and sitting as though falling backwards in the saddle, he galloped to the other flank
of the squadron and shouted in a hoarse voice to the men to
look to their pistols. He rode up to Kirsten. The staff captain
on his broad-backed, steady mare came at a walk to meet
him. His face with its long mustache was serious as always,
only his eyes were brighter than usual.
‘Well, what about it?’ said he to Denisov. ‘It won’t come to
a fight. You’ll seewe shall retire.’
‘The devil only knows what they’re about!’ muttered
Denisov. ‘Ah, Wostov,’ he cried noticing the cadet’s bright
face, ‘you’ve got it at last.’
And he smiled approvingly, evidently pleased with the
cadet. Rostov felt perfectly happy. Just then the commander
appeared on the bridge. Denisov galloped up to him.
‘Your excellency! Let us attack them! I’ll dwive them
off.’
‘Attack indeed!’ said the colonel in a bored voice, puckering up his face as if driving off a troublesome fly. ‘And why
are you stopping here? Don’t you see the skirmishers are retreating? Lead the squadron back.’
The squadron crossed the bridge and drew out of range
of fire without having lost a single man. The second squadron that had been in the front line followed them across and
the last Cossacks quitted the farther side of the river.
The two Pavlograd squadrons, having crossed the bridge,
retired up the hill one after the other. Their colonel, Karl
Bogdanich Schubert, came up to Denisov’s squadron and
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rode at a footpace not far from Rostov, without taking any
notice of him although they were now meeting for the first
time since their encounter concerning Telyanin. Rostov,
feeling that he was at the front and in the power of a man
toward whom he now admitted that he had been to blame,
did not lift his eyes from the colonel’s athletic back, his nape
covered with light hair, and his red neck. It seemed to Rostov that Bogdanich was only pretending not to notice him,
and that his whole aim now was to test the cadet’s courage, so he drew himself up and looked around him merrily;
then it seemed to him that Bogdanich rode so near in order
to show him his courage. Next he thought that his enemy
would send the squadron on a desperate attack just to punish himRostov. Then he imagined how, after the attack,
Bogdanich would come up to him as he lay wounded and
would magnanimously extend the hand of reconciliation.
The high-shouldered figure of Zherkov, familiar to the
Pavlograds as he had but recently left their regiment, rode
up to the colonel. After his dismissal from headquarters
Zherkov had not remained in the regiment, saying he was
not such a fool as to slave at the front when he could get
more rewards by doing nothing on the staff, and had succeeded in attaching himself as an orderly officer to Prince
Bagration. He now came to his former chief with an order
from the commander of the rear guard.
‘Colonel,’ he said, addressing Rostov’s enemy with an
air of gloomy gravity and glancing round at his comrades,
‘there is an order to stop and fire the bridge.’
‘An order to who?’ asked the colonel morosely.
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‘I don’t myself know ‘to who,’’ replied the cornet in a serious tone, ‘but the prince told me to ‘go and tell the colonel
that the hussars must return quickly and fire the bridge.’’
Zherkov was followed by an officer of the suite who rode
up to the colonel of hussars with the same order. After him
the stout Nesvitski came galloping up on a Cossack horse
that could scarcely carry his weight.
‘How’s this, Colonel?’ he shouted as he approached. ‘I
told you to fire the bridge, and now someone has gone and
blundered; they are all beside themselves over there and one
can’t make anything out.’
The colonel deliberately stopped the regiment and turned
to Nesvitski.
‘You spoke to me of inflammable material,’ said he, ‘but
you said nothing about firing it.’
‘But, my dear sir,’ said Nesvitski as he drew up, taking off
his cap and smoothing his hair wet with perspiration with
his plump hand, ‘wasn’t I telling you to fire the bridge, when
inflammable material had been put in position?’
‘I am not your ‘dear sir,’ Mr. Staff Officer, and you did
not tell me to burn the bridge! I know the service, and it is
my habit orders strictly to obey. You said the bridge would
be burned, but who would it burn, I could not know by the
holy spirit!’
‘Ah, that’s always the way!’ said Nesvitski with a wave of
the hand. ‘How did you get here?’ said he, turning to Zherkov.
‘On the same business. But you are damp! Let me wring
you out!’
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‘You were saying, Mr. Staff Officer…’ continued the colonel in an offended tone.
‘Colonel,’ interrupted the officer of the suite, ‘You must
be quick or the enemy will bring up his guns to use grapeshot.’
The colonel looked silently at the officer of the suite, at
the stout staff officer, and at Zherkov, and he frowned.
‘I will the bridge fire,’ he said in a solemn tone as if to
announce that in spite of all the unpleasantness he had to
endure he would still do the right thing.
Striking his horse with his long muscular legs as if it
were to blame for everything, the colonel moved forward
and ordered the second squadron, that in which Rostov was
serving under Denisov, to return to the bridge.
‘There, it’s just as I thought,’ said Rostov to himself.
‘He wishes to test me!’ His heart contracted and the blood
rushed to his face. ‘Let him see whether I am a coward!’ he
thought.
Again on all the bright faces of the squadron the serious expression appeared that they had worn when under
fire. Rostov watched his enemy, the colonel, closelyto find in
his face confirmation of his own conjecture, but the colonel
did not once glance at Rostov, and looked as he always did
when at the front, solemn and stern. Then came the word of
command.
‘Look sharp! Look sharp!’ several voices repeated around
him.
Their sabers catching in the bridles and their spurs jingling, the hussars hastily dismounted, not knowing what
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they were to do. The men were crossing themselves. Rostov no longer looked at the colonel, he had no time.
