Page 105 of 470

“What’s that? What do you make of it?” said Rostv to the hussar beside him. “That must be the enemy’s camp!”

The hussar did not reply.

“Why, don’t you hear it?” Rostv asked again, after waiting for a reply.

“Who can tell, your honor?” replied the hussar reluctantly.

“From the direction, it must be the enemy,” repeated Rostv.

“It may be he or it may be nothing,” muttered the hussar. “It’s dark... Steady!” he cried to his fidgeting horse.

Rostv’s horse was also getting restive: it pawed the frozen ground, pricking its ears at the noise and looking at the lights. The shouting grew still louder and merged into a general roar that only an army of several thousand men could produce. The lights spread farther and farther, probably along the line of the French camp. Rostv no longer wanted to sleep. The gay triumphant shouting of the enemy army had a stimulating effect on him. “Vive l’Empereur! l’Empereur!” he now heard distinctly.

“They can’t be far off, probably just beyond the stream,” he said to the hussar beside him.

The hussar only sighed without replying and coughed angrily. The sound of horse’s hoofs approaching at a trot along the line of hussars was heard, and out of the foggy darkness the figure of a sergeant of hussars suddenly appeared, looming huge as an elephant.

“Your honor, the generals!” said the sergeant, riding up to Rostv.

Rostv, still looking round toward the fires and the shouts, rode with the sergeant to meet some mounted men who were riding along the line. One was on a white horse. Prince Bagratin and Prince Dolgorkov with their adjutants had come to witness the curious phenomenon of the lights and shouts in the enemy’s camp. Rostv rode up to Bagratin, reported to him, and then joined the adjutants listening to what the generals were saying.

“Believe me,” said Prince Dolgorkov, addressing Bagratin, “it is nothing but a trick! He has retreated and ordered the rearguard to kindle fires and make a noise to deceive us.”

“Hardly,” said Bagratin. “I saw them this evening on that knoll; if they had retreated they would have withdrawn from that too.... Officer!” said Bagratin to Rostv, “are the enemy’s skirmishers still there?”

“They were there this evening, but now I don’t know, your excellency. Shall I go with some of my hussars to see?” replied Rostv.

Bagratin stopped and, before replying, tried to see Rostv’s face in the mist.

“Well, go and see,” he said, after a pause.

“Yes, sir.”

Rostv spurred his horse, called to Sergeant Fdchenko and two other hussars, told them to follow him, and trotted downhill in the direction from which the shouting came. He felt both frightened and pleased to be riding alone with three hussars into that mysterious and dangerous misty distance where no one had been before him. Bagratin called to him from the hill not to go beyond the stream, but Rostv pretended not to hear him and did not stop but rode on and on, continually mistaking bushes for trees and gullies for men and continually discovering his mistakes. Having descended the hill at a trot, he no longer saw either our own or the enemy’s fires, but heard the shouting of the French more loudly and distinctly. In the valley he saw before him something like a river, but when he reached it he found it was a road. Having come out onto the road he reined in his horse, hesitating whether to ride along it or cross it and ride over the black field up the hillside. To keep to the road which gleamed white in the mist would have been safer because it would be easier to see people coming along it. “Follow me!” said he, crossed the road, and began riding up the hill at a gallop toward the point where the French pickets had been standing that evening.

“Your honor, there he is!” cried one of the hussars behind him. And before Rostv had time to make out what the black thing was that had suddenly appeared in the fog, there was a flash, followed by a report, and a bullet whizzing high up in the mist with a plaintive sound passed out of hearing. Another musket missed fire but flashed in the pan. Rostv turned his horse and galloped back. Four more reports followed at intervals, and the bullets passed somewhere in the fog singing in different tones. Rostv reined in his horse, whose spirits had risen, like his own, at the firing, and went back at a footpace. “Well, some more! Some more!” a merry voice was saying in his soul. But no more shots came.

Only when approaching Bagratin did Rostv let his horse gallop again, and with his hand at the salute rode up to the general.

Dolgorkov was still insisting that the French had retreated and had only lit fires to deceive us.

“What does that prove?” he was saying as Rostv rode up. “They might retreat and leave the pickets.”

“It’s plain that they have not all gone yet, Prince,” said Bagratin. “Wait till tomorrow morning, we’ll find out everything tomorrow.”

“The picket is still on the hill, your excellency, just where it was in the evening,” reported Rostv, stooping forward with his hand at the salute and unable to repress the smile of delight induced by his ride and especially by the sound of the bullets.

“Very good, very good,” said Bagratin. “Thank you, officer.”

“Your excellency,” said Rostv, “may I ask a favor?”

“What is it?”

“Tomorrow our squadron is to be in reserve. May I ask to be attached to the first squadron?”

“What’s your name?”

“Count Rostv.”

“Oh, very well, you may stay in attendance on me.”

“Count Ily Rostv’s son?” asked Dolgorkov.

But Rostv did not reply.

“Then I may reckon on it, your excellency?”

“I will give the order.”

“Tomorrow very likely I may be sent with some message to the Emperor,” thought Rostv.

“Thank God!”

The fires and shouting in the enemy’s army were occasioned by the fact that while Napoleon’s proclamation was being read to the troops the Emperor himself rode round his bivouacs. The soldiers, on seeing him, lit wisps of straw and ran after him, shouting, “Vive l’Empereur!” Napoleon’s proclamation was as follows:

Soldiers! The Russian army is advancing against you to avenge the Austrian army of Ulm. They are the same battalions you broke at Hollabrnn and have pursued ever since to this place. The position we occupy is a strong one, and while they are marching to go round me on the right they will expose a flank to me. Soldiers! I will myself direct your battalions. I will keep out of fire if you with your habitual valor carry disorder and confusion into the enemy’s ranks, but should victory be in doubt, even for a moment, you will see your Emperor exposing himself to the first blows of the enemy, for there must be no doubt of victory, especially on this day when what is at stake is the honor of the French infantry, so necessary to the honor of our nation.