The day after Rostov’s visit to Boris there was to be a general review of the troops, Austrian and Russian, including the reinforcements freshly arrived from Russia and the troops back from campaigning with Kutuzov. The Russian Emperor was accompanied by his heir, the Tsarevich, and the Austrian by the archduke, and together they were to review the allied forces, an army of eighty thousand men. From early morning the troops, all spick and span, had begun moving out on to the plain before the fortress and lining up. Banners flapped in the breeze, legs marched and bayonets moved in thousands, halting at the word of command, turning, forming up and spacing out, blocks of infantry in different uniforms wheeling around each other. The cavalry jingled into position with a steady clip-clop, smartly turned out in blue, red and green braided uniforms and riding black, chestnut and grey horses, the bandsmen in front covered with frills. Between the infantry and the cavalry came the artillery, a long line of buffed and gleaming cannons trembling on their carriages, clanging as they trundled past, linstocks reeking, and rolled into their appointed places. Not only the generals in full dress uniform with scarves and medals, all of them, fat or thin, impossibly squeezed in at the waist, and with red necks squashed into stiff collars; not only the pomaded, dandified officers, but every last well-scrubbed and clean-shaven soldier with his weapons buffed to the last degree of brilliance, every horse groomed till its coat shone like stain, with every hair lying true on its dampened mane – all of them felt they were doing something profound, solemn and serious. Every general and every soldier was aware of his own insignificance, like a tiny grain of sand in an ocean of humanity, yet as a part of that vast whole they sensed a huge collective strength. Since early morning it had been all tension, bustle and hard work, but by ten o’clock everything was in place. Serried ranks of soldiers stood upon the vast plain, an entire army stretched out in three lines: cavalry in front, artillery next, infantry at the rear.
The different branches of service were separated by gaps almost as wide as streets, and the army was sharply divided into three sections: Kutuzov’s men (with the Pavlograd hussars front right), the newly arrived line-regiments and guards, and the Austrian troops. But they all stood in a single line, under a single command, and in similar order.
Like a wind rustling the leaves a murmur of excitement swept through the ranks. ‘They’re here! They’re here!’ nervous voices called out, and the troops stirred with a flurry of finishing touches.
A group of horsemen came into sight moving towards them from Olmütz, and at that very moment, although there hadn’t been any wind before, a faint breeze fluttered over the army, stirring the streamers on the lances and setting the unfurled colours flapping against their staffs. It was as if the army were quivering with joy as the Emperors approached. A single voice called out, ‘Atten-shun!’ Other voices took up the call like cockerels crowing at dawn. Then silence.
The deathly stillness was broken only by the clip-clop of hooves. It was the Emperors and their suite. As the two monarchs rode up to one flank, the trumpets of the first cavalry regiment struck up a military march. The sound appeared not to come from the buglers but as a spontaneous burst of music from the army itself, delighted at the Emperors’ arrival. Through the music only one voice could be heard clearly, the genial, youthful tones of Emperor Alexander. He gave a few words of greeting, and the first regiment roared out, ‘Hurrah!’ The sound was so deafening, so prolonged and ecstatic that the men themselves felt a great shock, realizing the strength and enormity of their mass.
Rostov was standing in the front ranks of Kutuzov’s army, those which the Tsar approached first, and he was seized by the same feeling as every other soldier in that army, a feeling of utter self-forgetfulness, a proud sense of mighty power and a passionate devotion to the man who was the cause of this sensation of solemn triumph.
Feeling as he did that at a single word from this man the entire vast mass of them (including him, no more than a grain of sand) would go through fire and water, commit any crime, face death or fight on to glory, he could not suppress a shivering thrill at the immanency of that word.
‘Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!’ thundered on all sides, and one regiment after another greeted the Tsar with the strains of the march followed by another ‘Hurrah!’ . . . then the music again, then more and more hurrahs surging louder and expanding until they merged into one solid, deafening roar.
