War And Peace полностью

Prince Andrey mounted his horse but stayed at the battery for a while, staring at the smoke rising from the cannon that had fired the ball. His eyes swept the wide open spaces. What registered with him was that the previously solid masses of the French were beginning to move, and there really was a battery on the left-hand side, the smoke above it having not yet cleared. Two French horsemen, probably adjutants, were galloping across the hill. A small column of enemy troops was clearly visible, moving downhill, probably to strengthen the line. Before the smoke of the first shot had cleared there came another puff of smoke and another report. The battle was beginning. Prince Andrey turned his horse and galloped back to Grunth to find Prince Bagration. Behind him he could hear the bombardment getting louder and more frequent – a sign that our guns were beginning to respond. Musket-fire rang out down below at the spot where the lines were closest.

Lemarrois had only just delivered Napoleon’s ominous letter, and the humiliated Murat, desperate to make up for his mistake, rapidly moved his forces for an attack from the centre and a double flanking manoeuvre, hoping to destroy the puny detachment facing him before evening and before the arrival of the Emperor.

‘It’s started! This is it!’ thought Prince Andrey, feeling the blood surging around his heart. ‘But where do I look? How do I find my Toulon?’ he wondered.

Riding through companies that only a quarter of an hour earlier had been eating porridge and drinking vodka, he could see the same rapid movement everywhere as soldiers fell in and got their muskets ready, and on every face he could see the same excitement that he felt in his heart. ‘It’s here! This is it! God, I’m scared, but it’s marvellous!’ said every face of officer and man. Before he got back to the unfinished earthworks, through the late afternoon gloom of a dull autumn day he saw several men riding towards him. The first of them, wearing a cloak and an astrakhan cap, and riding a white horse, was Prince Bagration. Prince Andrey stopped and waited for him to come on. Prince Bagration reined in his horse, recognized Prince Andrey and nodded to him. He continued to gaze ahead while Prince Andrey told him what he had seen.

A touch of It’s here! This is it! was noticeable even on Prince Bagration’s strong brown face, with his half-closed, dull-looking eyes that betrayed a lack of sleep. With excited curiosity Prince Andrey kept glancing at that impassive face, wondering whether this man was thinking and feeling anything at this moment, and then what he was thinking and feeling. ‘Is there anything there behind that straight face?’ Prince Andrey asked himself as he watched him. Prince Bagration nodded to acknowledge Andrey’s words, and said, ‘Carry on,’ in a tone which implied that all these events, everything reported to him, were going to plan. Prince Andrey was out of breath from his hard riding, and he spoke rapidly. Prince Bagration had an oriental accent and now pronounced his words with great deliberation, as if to impress upon him that there was no need to hurry. He did, however, spur his horse to a trot before riding towards Tushin’s battery. Prince Andrey went after him as part of the entourage. The party consisted of an officer of the suite, Bagration’s personal aide, Zherkov, an orderly officer, the duty staff officer on a handsome bobtailed horse and a civil servant, an auditor, who had asked permission to watch the action. The auditor, a podgy man with a podgy face, looked around with a naive smile of amusement, flopping about on his horse, a preposterous figure among the hussars, Cossacks and adjutants with his camel-hair coat and borrowed saddle.

‘He wants to see some action,’ said Zherkov to Bolkonsky, with a nod towards the auditor, ‘but his tummy’s playing up already.’

‘That’s enough of that,’ beamed the auditor, with a simple but knowing smile, as if he felt quite flattered to be ridiculed by Zherkov, and wanted to make himself seem stupider than he really was.

‘Most amusing, my Mr Prince,’ said the duty staff officer, who knew there was a special way of using the Russian title knyaz (prince) in French, but kept getting it wrong. By this time they had all ridden up close to Tushin’s battery, and a cannonball hit the ground not far ahead of them.

‘What was that?’ asked the auditor with his naive smile.

‘A French pancake,’ said Zherkov.