บทที่ บทที่ 36 · 第36章

The last of the infantry hurriedly crossed the bridge, squeezing

together as they approached it as if passing through a funnel. At last

the baggage wagons had all crossed, the crush was less, and the last

battalion came onto the bridge. Only Denísov’s squadron of hussars

remained on the farther side of the bridge facing the enemy, who could

be seen from the hill on the opposite bank but was not yet visible from

the bridge, for the horizon as seen from the valley through which the

river flowed was formed by the rising ground only half a mile away.

At the foot of the hill lay wasteland over which a few groups of our

Cossack scouts were moving. Suddenly on the road at the top of the high

ground, artillery and troops in blue uniform were seen. These were the

French. A group of Cossack scouts retired down the hill at a trot. All

the officers and men of Denísov’s squadron, though they tried to talk

of other things and to look in other directions, thought only of what

was there on the hilltop, and kept constantly looking at the patches

appearing on the skyline, which they knew to be the enemy’s troops.

The weather had cleared again since noon and the sun was descending

brightly upon the Danube and the dark hills around it. It was calm, and

at intervals the bugle calls and the shouts of the enemy could be heard

from the hill. There was no one now between the squadron and the enemy

except a few scattered skirmishers. An empty space of some seven hundred

yards was all that separated them. The enemy ceased firing, and that

stern, threatening, inaccessible, and intangible line which separates

two hostile armies was all the more clearly felt.

“One step beyond that boundary line which resembles the line dividing

the living from the dead lies uncertainty, suffering, and death. And

what is there? Who is there?—there beyond that field, that tree, that

roof lit up by the sun? No one knows, but one wants to know. You fear

and yet long to cross that line, and know that sooner or later it must

be crossed and you will have to find out what is there, just as you will

inevitably have to learn what lies the other side of death. But you are

strong, healthy, cheerful, and excited, and are surrounded by other such

excitedly animated and healthy men.” So thinks, or at any rate

feels, anyone who comes in sight of the enemy, and that feeling gives

a particular glamour and glad keenness of impression to everything that

takes place at such moments.

On the high ground where the enemy was, the smoke of a cannon rose,

and a ball flew whistling over the heads of the hussar squadron. The

officers who had been standing together rode off to their places. The

hussars began carefully aligning their horses. Silence fell on the whole

squadron. All were looking at the enemy in front and at the squadron

commander, awaiting the word of command. A second and a third cannon

ball flew past. Evidently they were firing at the hussars, but the balls

with rapid rhythmic whistle flew over the heads of the horsemen and fell

somewhere beyond them. The hussars did not look round, but at the sound

of each shot, as at the word of command, the whole squadron with its

rows of faces so alike yet so different, holding its breath while the

ball flew past, rose in the stirrups and sank back again. The soldiers

without turning their heads glanced at one another, curious to see their

comrades’ impression. Every face, from Denísov’s to that of the

bugler, showed one common expression of conflict, irritation, and

excitement, around chin and mouth. The quartermaster frowned, looking

at the soldiers as if threatening to punish them. Cadet Mirónov ducked

every time a ball flew past. Rostóv on the left flank, mounted on his

Rook—a handsome horse despite its game leg—had the happy air of a

schoolboy called up before a large audience for an examination in which

he feels sure he will distinguish himself. He was glancing at everyone

with a clear, bright expression, as if asking them to notice how calmly

he sat under fire. But despite himself, on his face too that same

indication of something new and stern showed round the mouth.

“Who’s that curtseying there? Cadet Miwónov! That’s not wight!

Look at me,” cried Denísov who, unable to keep still on one spot,

kept turning his horse in front of the squadron.

The black, hairy, snub-nosed face of Váska Denísov, and his whole

short sturdy figure with the sinewy hairy hand and stumpy fingers in

which he held the hilt of his naked saber, looked just as it usually

did, especially toward evening when he had emptied his second bottle; he

was only redder than usual. With his shaggy head thrown back like birds

when they drink, pressing his spurs mercilessly into the sides of his

good horse, Bedouin, and sitting as though falling backwards in the

saddle, he galloped to the other flank of the squadron and shouted in

a hoarse voice to the men to look to their pistols. He rode up to

Kírsten. The staff captain on his broad-backed, steady mare came at a

walk to meet him. His face with its long mustache was serious as always,

only his eyes were brighter than usual.

“Well, what about it?” said he to Denísov. “It won’t come to a

fight. You’ll see—we shall retire.”

“The devil only knows what they’re about!” muttered Denísov.

“Ah, Wostóv,” he cried noticing the cadet’s bright face,

“you’ve got it at last.”

And he smiled approvingly, evidently pleased with the cadet. Rostóv

felt perfectly happy. Just then the commander appeared on the bridge.

Denísov galloped up to him.

“Your excellency! Let us attack them! I’ll dwive them off.”

“Attack indeed!” said the colonel in a bored voice, puckering up his

face as if driving off a troublesome fly. “And why are you stopping

here? Don’t you see the skirmishers are retreating? Lead the squadron

back.”

The squadron crossed the bridge and drew out of range of fire without

having lost a single man. The second squadron that had been in the front

line followed them across and the last Cossacks quitted the farther side

of the river.

The two Pávlograd squadrons, having crossed the bridge, retired up the

hill one after the other. Their colonel, Karl Bogdánich Schubert, came

up to Denísov’s squadron and rode at a footpace not far from Rostóv,

without taking any notice of him although they were now meeting for the

first time since their encounter concerning Telyánin. Rostóv, feeling

that he was at the front and in the power of a man toward whom he now

admitted that he had been to blame, did not lift his eyes from the

colonel’s athletic back, his nape covered with light hair, and his red

neck. It seemed to Rostóv that Bogdánich was only pretending not

to notice him, and that his whole aim now was to test the cadet’s

courage, so he drew himself up and looked around him merrily; then it

seemed to him that Bogdánich rode so near in order to show him his

courage. Next he thought that his enemy would send the squadron on a

desperate attack just to punish him—Rostóv. Then he imagined how,

after the attack, Bogdánich would come up to him as he lay wounded and

would magnanimously extend the hand of reconciliation.

The high-shouldered figure of Zherkóv, familiar to the Pávlograds as

he had but recently left their regiment, rode up to the colonel.

After his dismissal from headquarters Zherkóv had not remained in the

regiment, saying he was not such a fool as to slave at the front when he

could get more rewards by doing nothing on the staff, and had succeeded

in attaching himself as an orderly officer to Prince Bagratión. He now

came to his former chief with an order from the commander of the rear

guard.

“Colonel,” he said, addressing Rostóv’s enemy with an air of

gloomy gravity and glancing round at his comrades, “there is an order

to stop and fire the bridge.”

“An order to who?” asked the colonel morosely.

“I don’t myself know ‘to who,’” replied the cornet in a

serious tone, “but the prince told me to ‘go and tell the colonel

that the hussars must return quickly and fire the bridge.’”

Zherkóv was followed by an officer of the suite who rode up to the

colonel of hussars with the same order. After him the stout Nesvítski

came galloping up on a Cossack horse that could scarcely carry his

weight.

“How’s this, Colonel?” he shouted as he approached. “I told you

to fire the bridge, and now someone has gone and blundered; they are all

beside themselves over there and one can’t make anything out.”

The colonel deliberately stopped the regiment and turned to Nesvítski.

“You spoke to me of inflammable material,” said he, “but you said

nothing about firing it.”

“But, my dear sir,” said Nesvítski as he drew up, taking off his

cap and smoothing his hair wet with perspiration with his plump hand,

“wasn’t I telling you to fire the bridge, when inflammable material

had been put in position?”

“I am not your ‘dear sir,’ Mr. Staff Officer, and you did not tell

me to burn the bridge! I know the service, and it is my habit orders

strictly to obey. You said the bridge would be burned, but who would

burn it, I could not know by the holy spirit!”

“Ah, that’s always the way!” said Nesvítski with a wave of the

hand. “How did you get here?” said he, turning to Zherkóv.

“On the same business. But you are damp! Let me wring you out!”

“You were saying, Mr. Staff Officer...” continued the colonel in an

offended tone.

“Colonel,” interrupted the officer of the suite, “You must be

quick or the enemy will bring up his guns to use grapeshot.”

The colonel looked silently at the officer of the suite, at the stout

staff officer, and at Zherkóv, and he frowned.

“I will the bridge fire,” he said in a solemn tone as if to announce

that in spite of all the unpleasantness he had to endure he would still

do the right thing.

Striking his horse with his long muscular legs as if it were to blame

for everything, the colonel moved forward and ordered the second

squadron, that in which Rostóv was serving under Denísov, to return to

the bridge.

“There, it’s just as I thought,” said Rostóv to himself. “He

wishes to test me!” His heart contracted and the blood rushed to his

face. “Let him see whether I am a coward!” he thought.

Again on all the bright faces of the squadron the serious expression

appeared that they had worn when under fire. Rostóv watched his enemy,

the colonel, closely—to find in his face confirmation of his own

conjecture, but the colonel did not once glance at Rostóv, and looked

as he always did when at the front, solemn and stern. Then came the word

of command.

“Look sharp! Look sharp!” several voices repeated around him.

Their sabers catching in the bridles and their spurs jingling, the

hussars hastily dismounted, not knowing what they were to do. The men

were crossing themselves. Rostóv no longer looked at the colonel, he

had no time. He was afraid of falling behind the hussars, so much afraid

that his heart stood still. His hand trembled as he gave his horse into

an orderly’s charge, and he felt the blood rush to his heart with

a thud. Denísov rode past him, leaning back and shouting something.

Rostóv saw nothing but the hussars running all around him, their spurs

catching and their sabers clattering.

“Stretchers!” shouted someone behind him.

Rostóv did not think what this call for stretchers meant; he ran on,

trying only to be ahead of the others; but just at the bridge, not

looking at the ground, he came on some sticky, trodden mud, stumbled,

and fell on his hands. The others outstripped him.

“At boss zides, Captain,” he heard the voice of the colonel, who,

having ridden ahead, had pulled up his horse near the bridge, with a

triumphant, cheerful face.

Rostóv wiping his muddy hands on his breeches looked at his enemy and

was about to run on, thinking that the farther he went to the front

the better. But Bogdánich, without looking at or recognizing Rostóv,

shouted to him:

“Who’s that running on the middle of the bridge? To the right! Come

back, Cadet!” he cried angrily; and turning to Denísov, who, showing

off his courage, had ridden on to the planks of the bridge:

“Why run risks, Captain? You should dismount,” he said.

“Oh, every bullet has its billet,” answered Váska Denísov, turning

in his saddle.

Meanwhile Nesvítski, Zherkóv, and the officer of the suite were

standing together out of range of the shots, watching, now the small

group of men with yellow shakos, dark-green jackets braided with cord,

and blue riding breeches, who were swarming near the bridge, and then at

what was approaching in the distance from the opposite side—the blue

uniforms and groups with horses, easily recognizable as artillery.

“Will they burn the bridge or not? Who’ll get there first? Will they

get there and fire the bridge or will the French get within grapeshot

range and wipe them out?” These were the questions each man of the

troops on the high ground above the bridge involuntarily asked himself

with a sinking heart—watching the bridge and the hussars in the bright

evening light and the blue tunics advancing from the other side with

their bayonets and guns.

“Ugh. The hussars will get it hot!” said Nesvítski; “they are

within grapeshot range now.”

“He shouldn’t have taken so many men,” said the officer of the

suite.

“True enough,” answered Nesvítski; “two smart fellows could have

done the job just as well.”

“Ah, your excellency,” put in Zherkóv, his eyes fixed on the

hussars, but still with that naïve air that made it impossible to know

whether he was speaking in jest or in earnest. “Ah, your excellency!

How you look at things! Send two men? And who then would give us the

Vladímir medal and ribbon? But now, even if they do get peppered, the

squadron may be recommended for honors and he may get a ribbon. Our

Bogdánich knows how things are done.”

“There now!” said the officer of the suite, “that’s

grapeshot.”

He pointed to the French guns, the limbers of which were being detached

and hurriedly removed.

On the French side, amid the groups with cannon, a cloud of smoke

appeared, then a second and a third almost simultaneously, and at the

moment when the first report was heard a fourth was seen. Then two

reports one after another, and a third.

“Oh! Oh!” groaned Nesvítski as if in fierce pain, seizing the

officer of the suite by the arm. “Look! A man has fallen! Fallen,

fallen!”

“Two, I think.”

“If I were Tsar I would never go to war,” said Nesvítski, turning

away.

The French guns were hastily reloaded. The infantry in their blue

uniforms advanced toward the bridge at a run. Smoke appeared again

but at irregular intervals, and grapeshot cracked and rattled onto the

bridge. But this time Nesvítski could not see what was happening there,

as a dense cloud of smoke arose from it. The hussars had succeeded in

setting it on fire and the French batteries were now firing at them, no

longer to hinder them but because the guns were trained and there was

someone to fire at.

The French had time to fire three rounds of grapeshot before the hussars

got back to their horses. Two were misdirected and the shot went too

high, but the last round fell in the midst of a group of hussars and

knocked three of them over.

Rostóv, absorbed by his relations with Bogdánich, had paused on the

bridge not knowing what to do. There was no one to hew down (as he

had always imagined battles to himself), nor could he help to fire the

bridge because he had not brought any burning straw with him like the

other soldiers. He stood looking about him, when suddenly he heard a

rattle on the bridge as if nuts were being spilt, and the hussar nearest

to him fell against the rails with a groan. Rostóv ran up to him with

the others. Again someone shouted, “Stretchers!” Four men seized the

hussar and began lifting him.

“Oooh! For Christ’s sake let me alone!” cried the wounded man, but

still he was lifted and laid on the stretcher.

Nicholas Rostóv turned away and, as if searching for something, gazed

into the distance, at the waters of the Danube, at the sky, and at the

sun. How beautiful the sky looked; how blue, how calm, and how deep!

How bright and glorious was the setting sun! With what soft glitter the

waters of the distant Danube shone. And fairer still were the faraway

blue mountains beyond the river, the nunnery, the mysterious gorges, and

the pine forests veiled in the mist of their summits... There was peace

and happiness... “I should wish for nothing else, nothing, if only I

were there,” thought Rostóv. “In myself alone and in that sunshine

there is so much happiness; but here... groans, suffering, fear, and

this uncertainty and hurry... There—they are shouting again, and

again are all running back somewhere, and I shall run with them, and it,

death, is here above me and around... Another instant and I shall never

again see the sun, this water, that gorge!...”

At that instant the sun began to hide behind the clouds, and other

stretchers came into view before Rostóv. And the fear of death and of

the stretchers, and love of the sun and of life, all merged into one

feeling of sickening agitation.

“O Lord God! Thou who art in that heaven, save, forgive, and protect

me!” Rostóv whispered.

The hussars ran back to the men who held their horses; their voices

sounded louder and calmer, the stretchers disappeared from sight.

“Well, fwiend? So you’ve smelt powdah!” shouted Váska Denísov

just above his ear.

“It’s all over; but I am a coward—yes, a coward!” thought

Rostóv, and sighing deeply he took Rook, his horse, which stood resting

one foot, from the orderly and began to mount.

“Was that grapeshot?” he asked Denísov.

“Yes and no mistake!” cried Denísov. “You worked like wegular

bwicks and it’s nasty work! An attack’s pleasant work! Hacking

away at the dogs! But this sort of thing is the very devil, with them

shooting at you like a target.”

And Denísov rode up to a group that had stopped near Rostóv, composed

of the colonel, Nesvítski, Zherkóv, and the officer from the suite.

“Well, it seems that no one has noticed,” thought Rostóv. And this

was true. No one had taken any notice, for everyone knew the sensation

which the cadet under fire for the first time had experienced.

“Here’s something for you to report,” said Zherkóv. “See if I

don’t get promoted to a sublieutenancy.”

“Inform the prince that I the bridge fired!” said the colonel

triumphantly and gaily.

“And if he asks about the losses?”

“A trifle,” said the colonel in his bass voice: “two hussars

wounded, and one knocked out,” he added, unable to restrain a happy

smile, and pronouncing the phrase “knocked out” with ringing

distinctness.