Читать книгу War and Peace: Original Version - Лев Толстой, Leo Tolstoy, Liev N. Tolstói - Страница 56

The remaining infantry hurriedly crossed the bridge, funnelling in tightly at the entrance. Eventually the carts all got across, the crush became less heavy and the final battalion stepped onto the bridge. Only the hussars of Denisov’s squadron were left at the other end of the bridge to face the enemy. The enemy, visible in the far distance from the facing mountain, could still not be seen from the bridge below, since the horizon of the depression along which the river flowed was bounded by the opposing elevation at a distance of no more than half a verst. Ahead of them lay a wasteland, across which a mounted patrol of our Cossacks was moving here and there in little clusters. Suddenly troops in blue coats and artillery appeared on the opposite elevation of the road. It was the French. The Cossack patrol withdrew downhill at a canter. All the officers and men of Denisov’s squadron, although they tried to talk about something else and look somewhere else, could not stop thinking about what was up there on the hill, and they all kept glancing constantly at the spots of colour appearing on the horizon, which they recognised as enemy troops. After midday the weather had cleared up again, the sun was bright as it moved lower over the Danube and the dark mountains surrounding it. It was quiet, and occasionally the sounds of horns and the shouts of the enemy reached them from that mountain. There was no one left now between the squadron and the enemy soldiers, apart from small mounted patrols. An empty space, about three hundred sazhens across, separated them from the enemy, who had stopped firing, so that the stern, menacing, unassailable and imperceptible line that separates two hostile forces could be sensed even more clearly.

A single step across that line, which resembles the line separating the living from the dead, and there is the mystery of suffering and death. And what is over there? Who is there? There, beyond this field and village and roof lit up by the sunlight? Nobody knows, you want to know and at the same time you are afraid to cross this line, and you want to cross it, and you know that sooner or later you will have to cross it and learn what is over there, on the far side of the line, just as you will inevitably learn what is over there, on the far side of the death. And you are so strong, healthy, merry and excited and surrounded by such healthy and boisterously excited men. Although no one thinks this, every man senses it when he is within view of the enemy, and this feeling lends a particular brilliance and joyful clarity to the impressions of everything that takes place at such moments.

The smoke-puff of a shot appeared on a hillock beside the enemy and the shot whistled over the heads of the squadron of hussars. The officers, who had been standing together, each went to their own places and the hussars began painstakingly drawing the horses up in lines. Everyone in the squadron fell silent. They all kept glancing straight ahead at the enemy and the squadron commander, waiting for the command. Another shot, the third, flew past. It was obvious that they were firing at the hussars; but the shot flew past over the hussars’ heads with a swift, uniform whistle and struck somewhere behind them. The hussars did not look round, but every time there was the sound of a shot flying over, the whole squadron, with its faces that were all identical but different, and its trimmed moustaches, held its breath as if by command while the shot was in the air and, tensing the muscles of all its legs in their tight blue breeches, half-stood in the stirrups and then sank down again. Without turning their heads, the soldiers squinted sideways at each other, curious to spy out the impression made on their comrades. On every face, from Denisov to the bugler, the single common expression of the struggle between irritation and excitement appeared around the lips and the chin. The sergeant-major frowned, surveying the soldiers as though he were threatening them with punishment. The cadet Mironov bent down every time a shot flew over. Rostov, standing on the left flank on his mount Grachik, handsome but with the bad legs, had the happy air of a pupil called out in front of a large audience to answer an examination question in which he was certain that he would distinguish himself. He glanced round at everyone with a clear, bright gaze, as though asking them to notice how calmly he stood his ground under fire. But in his face also, even against his will, that same expression of something new and stern appeared around the mouth.

NAPOLEON IN 1807 Engraving by Debucourt

“Who’s that bowing over there? Cadet Miwonov! That won’t do, look at me!” shouted Denisov, who could not stay still and was whirling round on his horse in front of the squadron. Vaska Denisov’s face, with its snub nose and black hair, and his entire stocky little figure with the short, hair-covered fingers of the sinewy hand in which he was grasping the hilt of his drawn sabre, was exactly the same as it always was, especially in the evening after he had drunk two bottles. He was only redder than usual and, throwing his shaggy head back and up as birds do when they sing, pressing his spurs mercilessly into the sides of his good Bedouin with his small feet and appearing to fall backwards, he galloped off to the other flank of the squadron and shouted in a hoarse voice that they should inspect their pistols. As he rode by he glanced at the handsome officer Peronsky in the rear and hastily turned away.

In his semi-dress hussar uniform, on his steed that cost thousands, Peronsky was very handsome. But his handsome face was as white as snow. His thoroughbred stallion, hearing the terrible sounds above its head, had entered into that fervent fury of the well-trained thoroughbred of which children and hussars are so fond. He kept snorting, jingling the chain and rings of his bit and striking at the ground with his slim, muscular leg, sometimes not reaching it and waving his foot through the air, or, turning his lean head to the right and the left as far as his bit allowed, he squinted at his rider with a black, bulging bloodshot eye. Turning fierily away from him, Denisov set off towards Kiersten. The staff-captain was riding at a walk towards Denisov on a broad, sedate mare. The staff-captain, with his long moustaches, was serious as always, only his eyes were gleaming more than usual.

“What is this?” he said to Denisov. “This action won’t get as far as an attack. You’ll see, we’ll withdraw.”

“God only knows what they’re doing!” shouted Denisov. “Ah! Wostov!” he cried to the cadet as he noticed him. “Well, here you are at last.” And he smiled approvingly as he looked at the cadet, evidently pleased for him.

Rostov felt perfectly happy. Just at that moment the commander appeared on the bridge. Denisov galloped towards him.

“Your excellency! Permission to attack! I’ll thwow them back!”

“What do you mean, attack?” said the commander in a bored voice, frowning as though at some tiresome fly. “And why are you holding position here? Can’t you see the flankers are withdrawing? Pull your squadron back.”

The squadron crossed the bridge and moved out of range without losing a single man. They were followed across by the second squadron, which had been on the skirmish line, and the final Cossacks withdrew, clearing that side of the river.