War and Peace
baby, an old woman, and a healthy German girl with bright red cheeks
were sitting on some feather beds. Evidently these fugitives were
allowed to pass by special permission. The eyes of all the soldiers
turned toward the women, and while the vehicle was passing at foot pace
all the soldiers’ remarks related to the two young ones. Every face
bore almost the same smile, expressing unseemly thoughts about the
women.
“Just see, the German sausage is making tracks, too!”
“Sell me the missis,” said another soldier, addressing the German,
who, angry and frightened, strode energetically along with downcast
eyes.
“See how smart she’s made herself! Oh, the devils!”
“There, Fedótov, you should be quartered on them!”
“I have seen as much before now, mate!”
“Where are you going?” asked an infantry officer who was eating an
apple, also half smiling as he looked at the handsome girl.
The German closed his eyes, signifying that he did not understand.
“Take it if you like,” said the officer, giving the girl an apple.
The girl smiled and took it. Nesvítski like the rest of the men on the
bridge did not take his eyes off the women till they had passed. When
they had gone by, the same stream of soldiers followed, with the same
kind of talk, and at last all stopped. As often happens, the horses of
a convoy wagon became restive at the end of the bridge, and the whole
crowd had to wait.
“And why are they stopping? There’s no proper order!” said the
soldiers. “Where are you shoving to? Devil take you! Can’t you wait?
It’ll be worse if he fires the bridge. See, here’s an officer jammed
in too”—different voices were saying in the crowd, as the men looked
at one another, and all pressed toward the exit from the bridge.
Looking down at the waters of the Enns under the bridge, Nesvítski
suddenly heard a sound new to him, of something swiftly approaching...
something big, that splashed into the water.
“Just see where it carries to!” a soldier near by said sternly,
looking round at the sound.
“Encouraging us to get along quicker,” said another uneasily.
The crowd moved on again. Nesvítski realized that it was a cannon ball.
“Hey, Cossack, my horse!” he said. “Now, then, you there! get out
of the way! Make way!”
With great difficulty he managed to get to his horse, and shouting
continually he moved on. The soldiers squeezed themselves to make way
for him, but again pressed on him so that they jammed his leg, and those
nearest him were not to blame for they were themselves pressed still
harder from behind.
“Nesvítski, Nesvítski! you numskull!” came a hoarse voice from
behind him.
Nesvítski looked round and saw, some fifteen paces away but separated
by the living mass of moving infantry, Váska Denísov, red and shaggy,
with his cap on the back of his black head and a cloak hanging jauntily
over his shoulder.
“Tell these devils, these fiends, to let me pass!” shouted Denísov
evidently in a fit of rage, his coal-black eyes with their bloodshot
whites glittering and rolling as he waved his sheathed saber in a small
bare hand as red as his face.
“Ah, Váska!” joyfully replied Nesvítski. “What’s up with
you?”
“The squadwon can’t pass,” shouted Váska Denísov, showing his
white teeth fiercely and spurring his black thoroughbred Arab, which
twitched its ears as the bayonets touched it, and snorted, spurting
white foam from his bit, tramping the planks of the bridge with his
hoofs, and apparently ready to jump over the railings had his rider let
him. “What is this? They’re like sheep! Just like sheep! Out of the
way!... Let us pass!... Stop there, you devil with the cart! I’ll hack
you with my saber!” he shouted, actually drawing his saber from its
scabbard and flourishing it.
The soldiers crowded against one another with terrified faces, and
Denísov joined Nesvítski.
“How’s it you’re not drunk today?” said Nesvítski when the
other had ridden up to him.
“They don’t even give one time to dwink!” answered Váska
Denísov. “They keep dwagging the wegiment to and fwo all day. If they
mean to fight, let’s fight. But the devil knows what this is.”
“What a dandy you are today!” said Nesvítski, looking at
Denísov’s new cloak and saddlecloth.
Denísov smiled, took out of his sabretache a handkerchief that diffused
a smell of perfume, and put it to Nesvítski’s nose.
“Of course. I’m going into action! I’ve shaved, bwushed my teeth,
and scented myself.”
The imposing figure of Nesvítski followed by his Cossack, and
the determination of Denísov who flourished his sword and shouted
frantically, had such an effect that they managed to squeeze through
to the farther side of the bridge and stopped the infantry. Beside the
bridge Nesvítski found the colonel to whom he had to deliver the order,
and having done this he rode back.
Having cleared the way Denísov stopped at the end of the bridge.
Carelessly holding in his stallion that was neighing and pawing the
ground, eager to rejoin its fellows, he watched his squadron draw
nearer. Then the clang of hoofs, as of several horses galloping,
resounded on the planks of the bridge, and the squadron, officers in
front and men four abreast, spread across the bridge and began to emerge
on his side of it.
The infantry who had been stopped crowded near the bridge in the
trampled mud and gazed with that particular feeling of ill-will,
estrangement, and ridicule with which troops of different arms usually
encounter one another at the clean, smart hussars who moved past them in
regular order.
“Smart lads! Only fit for a fair!” said one.
“What good are they? They’re led about just for show!” remarked
another.
“Don’t kick up the dust, you infantry!” jested an hussar whose
prancing horse had splashed mud over some foot soldiers.
“I’d like to put you on a two days’ march with a knapsack! Your
fine cords would soon get a bit rubbed,” said an infantryman, wiping
the mud off his face with his sleeve. “Perched up there, you’re more
like a bird than a man.”
“There now, Zíkin, they ought to put you on a horse. You’d look
fine,” said a corporal, chaffing a thin little soldier who bent under
the weight of his knapsack.
“Take a stick between your legs, that’ll suit you for a horse!”
the hussar shouted back.
CHAPTER VIII
The last of the infantry hurriedly crossed the bridge, squeezing
together as they approached it as if passing through a funnel. At last
the baggage wagons had all crossed, the crush was less, and the last
battalion came onto the bridge. Only Denísov’s squadron of hussars
remained on the farther side of the bridge facing the enemy, who could
be seen from the hill on the opposite bank but was not yet visible from
the bridge, for the horizon as seen from the valley through which the
river flowed was formed by the rising ground only half a mile away.
At the foot of the hill lay wasteland over which a few groups of our
Cossack scouts were moving. Suddenly on the road at the top of the high
ground, artillery and troops in blue uniform were seen. These were the
French. A group of Cossack scouts retired down the hill at a trot. All
the officers and men of Denísov’s squadron, though they tried to talk
of other things and to 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
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 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 Denísov’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 Mirónov ducked
every time a ball flew past. Rostóv on the left flank, mounted on his
Rook—a handsome horse despite its game leg—had 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 Miwónov! That’s not wight!
Look at me,” cried Denísov who, unable to keep still on one spot,
kept turning his horse in front of the squadron.
The black, hairy, snub-nosed face of Váska Denísov, 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
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
Kírsten. 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 Denísov. “It won’t come to a
fight. You’ll see—we shall retire.”
“The devil only knows what they’re about!” muttered Denísov.
“Ah, Wostóv,” he cried noticing the cadet’s bright face,
“you’ve got it at last.”
And he smiled approvingly, evidently pleased with the cadet. Rostóv
felt perfectly happy. Just then the commander appeared on the bridge.