บทที่ บทที่ 309 · 第309章

The men rapidly picked out their horses in the semidarkness, tightened

their saddle girths, and formed companies. Denísov stood by the

watchman’s hut giving final orders. The infantry of the detachment

passed along the road and quickly disappeared amid the trees in the mist

of early dawn, hundreds of feet splashing through the mud. The esaul

gave some orders to his men. Pétya held his horse by the bridle,

impatiently awaiting the order to mount. His face, having been bathed

in cold water, was all aglow, and his eyes were particularly brilliant.

Cold shivers ran down his spine and his whole body pulsed rhythmically.

“Well, is ev’wything weady?” asked Denísov. “Bwing the horses.”

The horses were brought. Denísov was angry with the Cossack because the

saddle girths were too slack, reproved him, and mounted. Pétya put his

foot in the stirrup. His horse by habit made as if to nip his leg, but

Pétya leaped quickly into the saddle unconscious of his own weight and,

turning to look at the hussars starting in the darkness behind him, rode

up to Denísov.

“Vasíli Dmítrich, entrust me with some commission! Please... for God’s

sake...!” said he.

Denísov seemed to have forgotten Pétya’s very existence. He turned to

glance at him.

“I ask one thing of you,” he said sternly, “to obey me and not shove

yourself forward anywhere.”

He did not say another word to Pétya but rode in silence all the way.

When they had come to the edge of the forest it was noticeably growing

light over the field. Denísov talked in whispers with the esaul and

the Cossacks rode past Pétya and Denísov. When they had all ridden by,

Denísov touched his horse and rode down the hill. Slipping onto their

haunches and sliding, the horses descended with their riders into the

ravine. Pétya rode beside Denísov, the pulsation of his body constantly

increasing. It was getting lighter and lighter, but the mist still hid

distant objects. Having reached the valley, Denísov looked back and

nodded to a Cossack beside him.

“The signal!” said he.

The Cossack raised his arm and a shot rang out. In an instant the tramp

of horses galloping forward was heard, shouts came from various sides,

and then more shots.

At the first sound of trampling hoofs and shouting, Pétya lashed his

horse and loosening his rein galloped forward, not heeding Denísov who

shouted at him. It seemed to Pétya that at the moment the shot was

fired it suddenly became as bright as noon. He galloped to the bridge.

Cossacks were galloping along the road in front of him. On the bridge

he collided with a Cossack who had fallen behind, but he galloped on.

In front of him soldiers, probably Frenchmen, were running from right

to left across the road. One of them fell in the mud under his horse’s

feet.

Cossacks were crowding about a hut, busy with something. From the midst

of that crowd terrible screams arose. Pétya galloped up, and the

first thing he saw was the pale face and trembling jaw of a Frenchman,

clutching the handle of a lance that had been aimed at him.

“Hurrah!... Lads!... ours!” shouted Pétya, and giving rein to his

excited horse he galloped forward along the village street.

He could hear shooting ahead of him. Cossacks, hussars, and ragged

Russian prisoners, who had come running from both sides of the road,

were shouting something loudly and incoherently. A gallant-looking

Frenchman, in a blue overcoat, capless, and with a frowning red face,

had been defending himself against the hussars. When Pétya galloped

up the Frenchman had already fallen. “Too late again!” flashed through

Pétya’s mind and he galloped on to the place from which the rapid firing

could be heard. The shots came from the yard of the landowner’s house

he had visited the night before with Dólokhov. The French were making

a stand there behind a wattle fence in a garden thickly overgrown with

bushes and were firing at the Cossacks who crowded at the gateway.

Through the smoke, as he approached the gate, Pétya saw Dólokhov, whose

face was of a pale-greenish tint, shouting to his men. “Go round! Wait

for the infantry!” he exclaimed as Pétya rode up to him.

“Wait?... Hurrah-ah-ah!” shouted Pétya, and without pausing a moment

galloped to the place whence came the sounds of firing and where the

smoke was thickest.

A volley was heard, and some bullets whistled past, while others plashed

against something. The Cossacks and Dólokhov galloped after Pétya into

the gateway of the courtyard. In the dense wavering smoke some of the

French threw down their arms and ran out of the bushes to meet the

Cossacks, while others ran down the hill toward the pond. Pétya was

galloping along the courtyard, but instead of holding the reins he waved

both his arms about rapidly and strangely, slipping farther and farther

to one side in his saddle. His horse, having galloped up to a campfire

that was smoldering in the morning light, stopped suddenly, and Pétya

fell heavily on to the wet ground. The Cossacks saw that his arms and

legs jerked rapidly though his head was quite motionless. A bullet had

pierced his skull.

After speaking to the senior French officer, who came out of the house

with a white handkerchief tied to his sword and announced that

they surrendered, Dólokhov dismounted and went up to Pétya, who lay

motionless with outstretched arms.

“Done for!” he said with a frown, and went to the gate to meet Denísov

who was riding toward him.

“Killed?” cried Denísov, recognizing from a distance the unmistakably

lifeless attitude—very familiar to him—in which Pétya’s body was lying.

“Done for!” repeated Dólokhov as if the utterance of these words

afforded him pleasure, and he went quickly up to the prisoners, who

were surrounded by Cossacks who had hurried up. “We won’t take them!” he

called out to Denísov.

Denísov did not reply; he rode up to Pétya, dismounted, and with

trembling hands turned toward himself the bloodstained, mud-bespattered

face which had already gone white.

“I am used to something sweet. Raisins, fine ones... take them all!” he

recalled Pétya’s words. And the Cossacks looked round in surprise at the

sound, like the yelp of a dog, with which Denísov turned away, walked to

the wattle fence, and seized hold of it.

Among the Russian prisoners rescued by Denísov and Dólokhov was Pierre

Bezúkhov.