men. And it was not Napoleon who directed the course of the battle, for none of his orders were executed and during the battle he did not know what was going on before him. So the way in which these people killed one another was not decided by Napoleon’s will but occurred independently of him, in accord with the will of hundreds of thousands of people who took part in the common action. It only seemed to Napoleon that it all took place by his will. And so the question whether he had or had not a cold has no more historic interest than the cold of the least of the transport soldiers. Moreover, the assertion made by various writers that his cold was the cause of his dispositions not being as well-planned as on former occasions, and of his orders during the battle not being as good as previously, is quite baseless, which again shows that Napoleon’s cold on the twenty-sixth of August was unimportant. The dispositions cited above are not at all worse, but are even better, than previous dispositions by which he had won victories. His pseudo-orders during the battle were also no worse than formerly, but much the same as usual. These dispositions and orders only seem worse than previous ones because the battle of Borodino was the first Napoleon did not win. The profoundest and most excellent dispositions and orders seem very bad, and every learned militarist criticizes them with looks of importance, when they relate to a battle that has been lost, and the very worst dispositions and orders seem very good, and serious people fill whole volumes to demonstrate their merits, when they relate to a battle that has been won. The dispositions drawn up by Weyrother for the battle of Austerlitz were a model of perfection for that kind of composition, but still they were criticized - criticized for their very perfection, for their excessive minuteness. Napoleon at the battle of Borodino fulfilled his office as representative of authority as well as, and even better than, at other battles. He did nothing harmful to the progress of the battle; he inclined to the most reasonable opinions, he made no confusion, did not contradict himself, did not get frightened or run away from the field of battle, but with his great tact and military experience carried out his role of appearing to command, calmly and with dignity. CHAPTER XXIX On returning from a second inspection of the lines, Napoleon remarked: "The chessmen are set up, the game will begin tomorrow!" Having ordered punch and summoned de Beausset, he began to talk to him about Paris and about some changes he meant to make in the Empress’ household, surprising the prefect by his memory of minute details relating to the court. He showed an interest in trifles, joked about de Beausset’s love of travel, and chatted carelessly, as a famous, self-confident surgeon who knows his job does when turning up his sleeves and putting on his apron while a patient is being strapped to the operating table. "The matter is in my hands and is clear and definite in my head. When the time comes to set to work I shall do it as no one else could, but now I can jest, and the more I jest and the calmer I am the more tranquil and confident you ought to be, and the more amazed at my genius." Having finished his second glass of punch, Napoleon went to rest before the serious business which, he considered, awaited him next day. He was so much interested in that task that he was unable to sleep, and in spite of his cold which had grown worse from the dampness of the evening, he went into the large division of the tent at three o’clock in the morning, loudly blowing his nose. He asked whether the Russians had not withdrawn, and was told that the enemy’s fires were still in the same places. He nodded approval. The adjutant in attendance came into the tent. "Well, Rapp, do you think we shall do good business today?" Napoleon asked him. "Without doubt, sire," replied Rapp. Napoleon looked at him. "Do you remember, sire, what you did me the honor to say at Smolensk?" continued Rapp. "The wine is drawn and must be drunk." Napoleon frowned and sat silent for a long time leaning his head on his hand. "This poor army!" he suddenly remarked. "It has diminished greatly since Smolensk. Fortune is frankly a courtesan, Rapp. I have always said so and I am beginning to experience it. But the Guards, Rapp, the Guards are intact?" he remarked interrogatively. "Yes, sire," replied Rapp. Napoleon took a lozenge, put it in his mouth, and glanced at his watch. He was not sleepy and it was still not nearly morning. It was impossible to give further orders for the sake of killing time, for the orders had all been given and were now being executed. "Have the biscuits and rice been served out to the regiments of the Guards?" asked Napoleon sternly. "Yes, sire." "The rice too?" Rapp replied that he had given the Emperor’s order about the rice, but Napoleon shook his head in dissatisfaction as if not believing that his order had been executed. An attendant came in with punch. Napoleon ordered another glass to be brought for Rapp, and silently sipped his own. "I have neither taste nor smell," he remarked, sniffing at his glass. "This cold is tiresome. They talk about medicine - what is the good of medicine when it can’t cure a cold! Corvisart gave me these lozenges but they don’t help at all. What can doctors cure? One can’t cure anything. Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself, it will do more than if you paralyze it by encumbering it with remedies. Our body is like a perfect watch that should go for a certain time; the watchmaker cannot open it, he can only adjust it by fumbling, and that blindfold.... Yes, our body is just a machine for living, that is all." And having entered on the path of definition, of which he was fond, Napoleon suddenly and unexpectedly gave a new one. "Do you know, Rapp, what military art is?" asked he. "It is the art of being stronger than the enemy at a given moment. That’s all." Rapp made no reply. "Tomorrow we shall have to deal with Kutuzov!" said Napoleon. "We shall see! Do you remember at Braunau he commanded an army for three weeks and did not once mount a horse to inspect his entrenchments.... We shall see!" He looked at his watch. It was still only four o’clock. He did not feel sleepy. The punch was finished and there was still nothing to do. He rose, walked to and fro, put on a warm overcoat and a hat, and went out of the tent. The night was dark and damp, a scarcely perceptible moisture was descending from above. Near by, the campfires were dimly burning among the French Guards, and in the distance those of the Russian line shone through the smoke. The weather was calm, and the rustle and tramp of the French troops already beginning to move to take up their positions were clearly audible. Napoleon walked about in front of his tent, looked at the fires and listened to these sounds, and as he was passing a tall guardsman in a shaggy cap, who was standing sentinel before his tent and had drawn himself up like a black pillar at sight of the Emperor, Napoleon stopped in front of him. "What year did you enter the service?" he asked with that affectation of military bluntness and geniality with which he always addressed the soldiers. The man answered the question. "Ah! One of the old ones! Has your regiment had its rice?" "It has, Your Majesty." Napoleon nodded and walked away. At half-past five Napoleon rode to the village of Shevardino. It was growing light, the sky was clearing, only a single cloud lay in the east. The abandoned campfires were burning themselves out in the faint morning light. On the right a single deep report of a cannon resounded and died away in the prevailing silence. Some minutes passed. A second and a third report shook the air, then a fourth and a fifth boomed solemnly near by on the right. The first shots had not yet ceased to reverberate before others rang out and yet more were heard mingling with and overtaking one another. Napoleon with his suite rode up to the Shevardino Redoubt where he dismounted. The game had begun. CHAPTER XXX On returning to Gorki after having seen Prince Andrew, Pierre ordered his groom to get the horses ready and to call him early in the morning, and then immediately fell asleep behind a partition in a corner Boris had given up to him. Before he was thoroughly awake next morning everybody had already left the hut. The panes were rattling in the little windows and his groom was shaking him. "Your excellency! Your excellency! Your excellency!" he kept repeating pertinaciously while he shook Pierre by the shoulder without looking at him, having apparently lost hope of getting him to wake up. "What? Has it begun? Is it time?" Pierre asked, waking up. "Hear the firing," said the groom, a discharged soldier. "All the gentlemen have gone out, and his Serene Highness himself rode past long ago." Pierre dressed hastily and ran out to the porch. Outside all was bright, fresh, dewy, and cheerful. The sun, just bursting forth from behind a cloud that had concealed it, was shining, with rays still half broken by the clouds, over the roofs of the street opposite, on the dew-besprinkled dust of the road, on the walls of the houses, on the windows, the fence, and on Pierre’s horses standing before the hut. The roar of guns sounded more distinct outside. An adjutant accompanied by a Cossack passed by at a sharp trot. "It’s time, Count; it’s time!" cried the adjutant. Telling the groom to follow him with the horses, Pierre went down the street to the knoll from which he had looked at the field of battle the day before. A crowd of military men was assembled there, members of the staff could be heard conversing in French, and Kutuzov’s gray head in a white cap with a red band was visible, his gray nape sunk between his shoulders. He was looking through a field glass down the highroad before him. Mounting the steps to the knoll Pierre looked at the scene before him, spellbound by beauty. It was the same panorama he had admired from that spot the day before, but now the whole place was full of troops and covered by smoke clouds from the guns, and the slanting rays of the bright sun, rising slightly to the left behind Pierre, cast upon it through the clear morning air penetrating streaks of rosy, golden-tinted light and long dark shadows. The forest at the farthest extremity of the panorama seemed carved in some precious stone of a yellowish-green color; its undulating outline was silhouetted against the horizon and was pierced beyond Valuevo by the Smolensk highroad crowded with troops. Nearer at hand glittered golden cornfields interspersed with copses. There were troops to be seen everywhere, in front and to the right and left. All this was vivid, majestic, and unexpected; but what impressed Pierre most of all was the view of the battlefield itself, of Borodino and the hollows on both sides of the Kolocha. Above the Kolocha, in Borodino and on both sides of it, especially to the left where the Voyna flowing between its marshy banks falls into the Kolocha, a mist had spread which seemed to melt, to dissolve, and to become translucent when the brilliant sun appeared and magically colored and outlined everything. The smoke of the guns mingled with this mist, and over the whole expanse and through that mist the rays of the morning sun were reflected, flashing back like lightning from the water, from the dew, and from the bayonets of the troops crowded together by the riverbanks and in Borodino. A white church could be seen through the mist, and here and there the roofs of huts in Borodino as well as dense masses of soldiers, or green ammunition chests and ordnance. And all this moved, or seemed to move, as the smoke and mist spread out over the whole space. Just as in the mist-enveloped hollow near Borodino, so along the entire line outside and above it and especially in the woods and fields to the left, in the valleys and on the summits of the high ground, clouds of powder smoke seemed continually to spring up out of nothing, now singly, now several at a time, some translucent, others dense, which, swelling, growing, rolling, and blending, extended over the whole expanse. These puffs of smoke and (strange to say) the sound of the firing produced the chief beauty of the spectacle. "Puff!" - suddenly a round compact cloud of smoke was seen merging from violet into gray and milky white, and "boom!" came the report a second later. "Puff! puff!" - and two clouds arose pushing one another and blending together; and "boom, boom!" came the sounds confirming what the eye had seen. Pierre glanced round at the first cloud, which he had seen as a round compact ball, and in its place already were balloons of smoke floating to one side, and - "puff" (with a pause) - "puff, puff!" three and then four more appeared and then from each, with the same interval - "boom - boom, boom!" came the fine, firm, precise sounds in reply. It seemed as if those smoke clouds sometimes ran and sometimes stood still while woods, fields, and glittering bayonets ran past them. From the left, over fields and bushes, those large balls of smoke were continually appearing followed by their solemn reports, while nearer still, in the hollows and woods, there burst from the muskets small cloudlets that had no time to become balls, but had their little echoes in just the same way. "Trakh-ta-ta-takh!" came the frequent crackle of musketry, but it was irregular and feeble in comparison with the reports of the cannon. Pierre wished to be there with that smoke, those shining bayonets, that movement, and those sounds. He turned to look at Kutuzov and his suite, to compare his impressions with those of others. They were all looking at the field of battle as he was, and, as it seemed to him, with the same feelings. All their faces were now shining with that latent warmth of feeling Pierre had noticed the day before and had fully understood after his talk with Prince Andrew. "Go, my dear fellow, go... and Christ be with you!" Kutuzov was saying to a general who stood beside him, not taking his eye from the battlefield. Having received this order the general passed by Pierre on his way down the knoll. "To the crossing!" said the general coldly and sternly in reply to one of the staff who asked where he was going. "I’ll go there too, I too!" thought Pierre, and followed the general. The general mounted a horse a Cossack had brought him. Pierre went to his groom who was holding his horses and, asking which was the quietest, clambered onto it, seized it by the mane, and turning out his toes pressed his heels against its sides and, feeling that his spectacles were slipping off but unable to let go of the mane and reins, he galloped after the general, causing the staff officers to smile as they watched him from the knoll. CHAPTER XXXI Having descended the hill the general after whom Pierre was galloping turned sharply to the left, and Pierre, losing sight of him, galloped in among some ranks of infantry marching ahead of him. He tried to pass either in front of them or to the right or left, but there were soldiers everywhere, all with the same preoccupied expression and busy with some unseen but evidently important task. They all gazed with the same dissatisfied and inquiring expression at this stout man in a white hat, who for some unknown reason threatened to trample them under his horse’s hoofs. "Why ride into the middle of the battalion?" one of them shouted at him. Another prodded his horse with the butt end of a musket, and Pierre, bending over his saddlebow and hardly able to control his shying horse, galloped ahead of the soldiers where there was a free space. There was a bridge ahead of him, where other soldiers stood firing. Pierre rode up to them. Without being aware of it he had come to the bridge across the Kolocha between Gorki and Borodino, which the French (having occupied Borodino) were attacking in the first phase of the battle. Pierre saw that there was a bridge in front of him and that soldiers were doing something on both sides of it and in the meadow, among the rows of new-mown hay which he had taken no notice of amid the smoke of the campfires the day before; but despite the incessant firing going on there he had no idea that this was the field of battle. He did not notice the sound of the bullets whistling from every side, or the projectiles that flew over him, did not see the enemy on the other side of the river, and for a long time did not notice the killed and wounded, though many fell near him. He looked about him with a smile which did not leave his face. "Why’s that fellow in front of the line?" shouted somebody at him again. "To the left!... Keep to the right!" the men shouted to him. Pierre went to the right, and unexpectedly encountered one of Raevski’s adjutants whom he knew. The adjutant looked angrily at him, evidently also intending to shout at him, but on recognizing him he nodded. "How have you got here?" he said, and galloped on. Pierre, feeling out of place there, having nothing to do, and afraid of getting in someone’s way again, galloped after the adjutant. "What’s happening here? May I come with you?" he asked. "One moment, one moment!" replied the adjutant, and riding up to a stout colonel who was standing in the meadow, he gave him some message and then addressed Pierre. "Why have you come here, Count?" he asked with a smile. "Still inquisitive?" "Yes, yes," assented Pierre. But the adjutant turned his horse about and rode on. "Here it’s tolerable," said he, "but with Bagration on the left flank they’re getting it frightfully hot." "Really?" said Pierre. "Where is that?" "Come along with me to our knoll. We can get a view from there and in our battery it is still bearable," said the adjutant. "Will you come?" "Yes, I’ll come with you," replied Pierre, looking round for his groom. It was only now that he noticed wounded men staggering along or being carried on stretchers. On that very meadow he had ridden over the day before, a soldier was lying athwart the rows of scented hay, with his head thrown awkwardly back and his shako off. "Why haven’t they carried him away?" Pierre was about to ask, but seeing the stern expression of the adjutant who was also looking that way, he checked himself. Pierre did not find his groom and rode along the hollow with the adjutant to Raevski’s Redoubt. His horse lagged behind the adjutant’s and jolted him at every step. "You don’t seem to be used to riding, Count?" remarked the adjutant. "No it’s not that, but her action seems so jerky," said Pierre in a puzzled tone. "Why... she’s wounded!" said the adjutant. "In the off foreleg above the knee. A bullet, no doubt. I congratulate you, Count, on your baptism of fire!" Having ridden in the smoke past the Sixth Corps, behind the artillery which had been moved forward and was in action, deafening them with the noise of firing, they came to a small wood. There it was cool and quiet, with a scent of autumn. Pierre and the adjutant dismounted and walked up the hill on foot. "Is the general here?" asked the adjutant on reaching the knoll. "He was here a minute ago but has just gone that way," someone told him, pointing to the right. The adjutant looked at Pierre as if puzzled what to do with him now. "Don’t trouble about me," said Pierre. "I’ll go up onto the knoll if I may?" "Yes, do. You’ll see everything from there and it’s less dangerous, and I’ll come for you." Pierre went to the battery and the adjutant rode on. They did not meet again, and only much later did Pierre learn that he lost an arm that day. The knoll to which Pierre ascended was that famous one afterwards known to the Russians as the Knoll Battery or Raevski’s Redoubt, and to the French as la grande redoute, la fatale redoute, la redoute du centre, around which tens of thousands fell, and which the French regarded as the key to the whole position. This redoubt consisted of a knoll, on three sides of which trenches had been dug. Within the entrenchment stood ten guns that were being fired through openings in the earthwork. In line with the knoll on both sides stood other guns which also fired incessantly. A little behind the guns stood infantry. When ascending that knoll Pierre had no notion that this spot, on which small trenches had been dug and from which a few guns were firing, was the most important point of the battle. On the contrary, just because he happened to be there he thought it one of the least significant parts of the field. Having reached the knoll, Pierre sat down at one end of a trench surrounding the battery and gazed at what was going on around him with an unconsciously happy smile. Occasionally he rose and walked about the battery still with that same smile, trying not to obstruct the soldiers who were loading, hauling the guns, and continually running past him with bags and charges. The guns of that battery were being fired continually one after another with a deafening roar, enveloping the whole neighborhood in powder smoke. In contrast with the dread felt by the infantrymen placed in support, here in the battery where a small number of men busy at their work were separated from the rest by a trench, everyone experienced a common and as it were family feeling of animation. The intrusion of Pierre’s nonmilitary figure in a white hat made an unpleasant impression at first. The soldiers looked askance at him with surprise and even alarm as they went past him. The senior artillery officer, a tall, long-legged, pockmarked man, moved over to Pierre as if to see the action of the farthest gun and looked at him with curiosity. A young round-faced officer, quite a boy still and evidently only just out of the Cadet College, who was zealously commanding the two guns entrusted to him, addressed Pierre sternly. "Sir," he said, "permit me to ask you to stand aside. You must not be here." The soldiers shook their heads disapprovingly as they looked at Pierre. But when they had convinced themselves that this man in the white hat was doing no harm, but either sat quietly on the slope of the trench with a shy smile or, politely making way for the soldiers, paced up and down the battery under fire as calmly as if he were on a boulevard, their feeling of hostile distrust gradually began to change into a kindly and bantering sympathy, such as soldiers feel for their dogs, cocks, goats, and in general for the animals that live with the regiment. The men soon accepted Pierre into their family, adopted him, gave him a nickname ("our gentleman"), and made kindly fun of him among themselves. A shell tore up the earth two paces from Pierre and he looked around with a smile as he brushed from his clothes some earth it had thrown up. "And how’s it you’re not afraid, sir, really now?" a red-faced, broad-shouldered soldier asked Pierre, with a grin that disclosed a set of sound, white teeth. "Are you afraid, then?" said Pierre. "What else do you expect?" answered the soldier. "She has no mercy, you know! When she comes spluttering down, out go your innards. One can’t help being afraid," he said laughing. Several of the men, with bright kindly faces, stopped beside Pierre. They seemed not to have expected him to talk like anybody else, and the discovery that he did so delighted them. "It’s the business of us soldiers. But in a gentleman it’s wonderful! There’s a gentleman for you!" "To your places!" cried the young officer to the men gathered round Pierre. The young officer was evidently exercising his duties for the first or second time and therefore treated both his superiors and the men with great precision and formality. The booming cannonade and the fusillade of musketry were growing more intense over the whole field, especially to the left where Bagration’s fleches were, but where Pierre was the smoke of the firing made it almost impossible to distinguish anything. Moreover, his whole attention was engrossed by watching the family circle - separated from all else - formed by the men in the battery. His first unconscious feeling of joyful animation produced by the sights and sounds of the battlefield was now replaced by another, especially since he had seen that soldier lying alone in the hayfield. Now, seated on the slope of the trench, he observed the faces of those around him. By ten o’clock some twenty men had already been carried away from the battery; two guns were smashed and cannon balls fell more and more frequently on the battery and spent bullets buzzed and whistled around. But the men in the battery seemed not to notice this, and merry voices and jokes were heard on all sides. "A live one!" shouted a man as a whistling shell approached. "Not this way! To the infantry!" added another with loud laughter, seeing the shell fly past and fall into the ranks of the supports. "Are you bowing to a friend, eh?" remarked another, chaffing a peasant who ducked low as a cannon ball flew over. Several soldiers gathered by the wall of the trench, looking out to see what was happening in front. "They’ve withdrawn the front line, it has retired," said they, pointing over the earthwork. "Mind your own business," an old sergeant shouted at them. "If they’ve retired it’s because there’s work for them to do farther back." And the sergeant, taking one of the men by the shoulders, gave him a shove with his knee. This was followed by a burst of laughter. "To the fifth gun, wheel it up!" came shouts from one side. "Now then, all together, like bargees!" rose the merry voices of those who were moving the gun. "Oh, she nearly knocked our gentleman’s hat off!" cried the red-faced humorist, showing his teeth chaffing Pierre. "Awkward baggage!" he added reproachfully to a cannon ball that struck a cannon wheel and a man’s leg. "Now then, you foxes!" said another, laughing at some militiamen who, stooping low, entered the battery to carry away the wounded man. "So this gruel isn’t to your taste? Oh, you crows! You’re scared!" they shouted at the militiamen who stood hesitating before the man whose leg had been torn off. "There, lads... oh, oh!" they mimicked the peasants, "they don’t like it at all!" Pierre noticed that after every ball that hit the redoubt, and after every loss, the liveliness increased more and more. As the flames of the fire hidden within come more and more vividly and rapidly from an approaching thundercloud, so, as if in opposition to what was taking place, the lightning of hidden fire growing more and more intense glowed in the faces of these men. Pierre did not look out at the battlefield and was not concerned to know what was happening there; he was entirely absorbed in watching this fire which burned ever more brightly and which he felt was flaming up in the same way in his own soul. At ten o’clock the infantry that had been among the bushes in front of the battery and along the Kamenka streamlet retreated. From the battery they could be seen running back past it carrying their wounded on their muskets. A general with his suite came to the battery, and after speaking to the colonel gave Pierre an angry look and went away again having ordered the infantry supports behind the battery to lie down, so as to be less exposed to fire. After this from amid the ranks of infantry to the right of the battery came the sound of a drum and shouts of command, and from the battery one saw how those ranks of infantry moved forward. Pierre looked over the wall of the trench and was particularly struck by a pale young officer who, letting his sword hang down, was walking backwards and kept glancing uneasily around. The ranks of the infantry disappeared amid the smoke but their long-drawn shout and rapid musketry firing could still be heard. A few minutes later crowds of wounded men and stretcher-bearers came back from that direction. Projectiles began to fall still more frequently in the battery. Several men were lying about who had not been removed. Around the cannon the men moved still more briskly and busily. No one any longer took notice of Pierre. Once or twice he was shouted at for being in the way. The senior officer moved with big, rapid strides from one gun to another with a frowning face. The young officer, with his face still more flushed, commanded the men more scrupulously than ever. The soldiers handed up the charges, turned, loaded, and did their business with strained smartness. They gave little jumps as they walked, as though they were on springs. The stormcloud had come upon them, and in every face the fire which Pierre had watched kindle burned up brightly. Pierre standing beside the commanding officer. The young officer, his hand to his shako, ran up to his superior. "I have the honor to report, sir, that only eight rounds are left. Are we to continue firing?" he asked. "Grapeshot!" the senior shouted, without answering the question, looking over the wall of the trench. Suddenly something happened: the young officer gave a gasp and bending double sat down on the ground like a bird shot on the wing. Everything became strange, confused, and misty in Pierre’s eyes. One cannon ball after another whistled by and struck the earthwork, a soldier, or a gun. Pierre, who had not noticed these sounds before, now heard nothing else. On the right of the battery soldiers shouting "Hurrah!" were running not forwards but backwards, it seemed to Pierre. A cannon ball struck the very end of the earth work by which he was standing, crumbling down the earth; a black ball flashed before his eyes and at the same instant plumped into something. Some militiamen who were entering the battery ran back. "All with grapeshot!" shouted the officer. The sergeant ran up to the officer and in a frightened whisper informed him (as a butler at dinner informs his master that there is no more of some wine asked for) that there were no more charges. "The scoundrels! What are they doing?" shouted the officer, turning to Pierre. The officer’s face was red and perspiring and his eyes glittered under his frowning brow. "Run to the reserves and bring up the ammunition boxes!" he yelled, angrily avoiding Pierre with his eyes and speaking to his men. "I’ll go," said Pierre. The officer, without answering him, strode across to the opposite side. "Don’t fire.... Wait!" he shouted. The man who had been ordered to go for ammunition stumbled against Pierre. "Eh, sir, this is no place for you," said he, and ran down the slope. Pierre ran after him, avoiding the spot where the young officer was sitting. One cannon ball, another, and a third flew over him, falling in front, beside, and behind him. Pierre ran down the slope. "Where am I going?" he suddenly asked himself when he was already near the green ammunition wagons. He halted irresolutely, not knowing whether to return or go on. Suddenly a terrible concussion threw him backwards to the ground. At the same instant he was dazzled by a great flash of flame, and immediately a deafening roar, crackling, and whistling made his ears tingle. When he came to himself he was sitting on the ground leaning on his hands; the ammunition wagons he had been approaching no longer existed, only charred green boards and rags littered the scorched grass, and a horse, dangling fragments of its shaft behind it, galloped past, while another horse lay, like Pierre, on the ground, uttering prolonged and piercing cries. CHAPTER XXXII Beside himself with terror Pierre jumped up and ran back to the battery, as to the only refuge from the horrors that surrounded him. On entering the earthwork he noticed that there were men doing something there but that no shots were being fired from the battery. He had no time to realize who these men were. He saw the senior officer lying on the earth wall with his back turned as if he were examining something down below and that one of the soldiers he had noticed before was struggling forward shouting "Brothers!" and trying to free himself from some men who were holding him by the arm. He also saw something else that was strange. But he had not time to realize that the colonel had been killed, that the soldier shouting "Brothers!" was a prisoner, and that another man had been bayoneted in the back before his eyes, for hardly had he run into the redoubt before a thin, sallow-faced, perspiring man in a blue uniform rushed on him sword in hand, shouting something. Instinctively guarding against the shock - for they had been running together at full speed before they saw one another - Pierre put out his hands and seized the man (a French officer) by the shoulder with one hand and by the throat with the other. The officer, dropping his sword, seized Pierre by his collar. For some seconds they gazed with frightened eyes at one another’s unfamiliar faces and both were perplexed at what they had done and what they were to do next. "Am I taken prisoner or have I taken him prisoner?" each was thinking. But the French officer was evidently more inclined to think he had been taken prisoner because Pierre’s strong hand, impelled by instinctive fear, squeezed his throat ever tighter and tighter. The Frenchman was about to say something, when just above their heads, terrible and low, a cannon ball whistled, and it seemed to Pierre that the French officer’s head had been torn off, so swiftly had he ducked it. Pierre too bent his head and let his hands fall. Without further thought as to who had taken whom prisoner, the Frenchman ran back to the battery and Pierre ran down the slope stumbling over the dead and wounded who, it seemed to him, caught at his feet. But before he reached the foot of the knoll he was met by a dense crowd of Russian soldiers who, stumbling, tripping up, and shouting, ran merrily and wildly toward the battery. (This was the attack for which Ermolov claimed the credit, declaring that only his courage and good luck made such a feat possible: it was the attack in which he was said to have thrown some St. George’s Crosses he had in his pocket into the battery for the first soldiers to take who got there.) The French who had occupied the battery fled, and our troops shouting "Hurrah!" pursued them so far beyond the battery that it was difficult to call them back. The prisoners were brought down from the battery and among them was a wounded French general, whom the officers surrounded. Crowds of wounded - some known to Pierre and some unknown - Russians and French, with faces distorted by suffering, walked, crawled, and were carried on stretchers from the battery. Pierre again went up onto the knoll where he had spent over an hour, and of that family circle which had received him as a member he did not find a single one. There were many dead whom he did not know, but some he recognized. The young officer still sat in the same way, bent double, in a pool of blood at the edge of the earth wall. The red-faced man was still twitching, but they did not carry him away. Pierre ran down the slope once more. "Now they will stop it, now they will be horrified at what they have done!" he thought, aimlessly going toward a crowd of stretcher bearers moving from the battlefield. But behind the veil of smoke the sun was still high, and in front and especially to the left, near Semenovsk, something seemed to be seething in the smoke, and the roar of cannon and musketry did not diminish, but even increased to desperation like a man who, straining himself, shrieks with all his remaining strength. CHAPTER XXXIII The chief action of the battle of Borodino was fought within the seven thousand feet between Borodino and Bagration’s fleches. Beyond that space there was, on the one side, a demonstration made by the Russians with Uvarov’s cavalry at midday, and on the other side, beyond Utitsa, Poniatowski’s collision with Tuchkov; but these two were detached and feeble actions in comparison with what took place in the center of the battlefield. On the field between Borodino and the fleches, beside the wood, the chief action of the day took place on an open space visible from both sides and was fought in the simplest and most artless way. The battle began on both sides with a cannonade from several hundred guns. Then when the whole field was covered with smoke, two divisions, Campan’s and Dessaix’s, advanced from the French right, while Murat’s troops advanced on Borodino from their left. From the Shevardino Redoubt where Napoleon was standing the fleches were two thirds of a mile away, and it was more than a mile as the crow flies to Borodino, so that Napoleon could not see what was happening there, especially as the smoke mingling with the mist hid the whole locality. The soldiers of Dessaix’s division advancing against the fleches could only be seen till they had entered the hollow that lay between them and the fleches. As soon as they had descended into that hollow, the smoke of the guns and musketry on the fleches grew so dense that it covered the whole approach on that side of it. Through the smoke glimpses could be caught of something black - probably men - and at times the glint of bayonets. But whether they were moving or stationary, whether they were French or Russian, could not be discovered from the Shevardino Redoubt. The sun had risen brightly and its slanting rays struck straight into Napoleon’s face as, shading his eyes with his hand, he looked at the fleches. The smoke spread out before them, and at times it looked as if the smoke were moving, at times as if the troops moved. Sometimes shouts were heard through the firing, but it was impossible to tell what was being done there. Napoleon, standing on the knoll, looked through a field glass, and in its small circlet saw smoke and men, sometimes his own and sometimes Russians, but when he looked again with the naked eye, he could not tell where what he had seen was. He descended the knoll and began walking up and down before it. Occasionally he stopped, listened to the firing, and gazed intently at the battlefield. But not only was it impossible to make out what was happening from where he was standing down below, or from the knoll above on which some of his generals had taken their stand, but even from the fleches themselves - in which by this time there were now Russian and now French soldiers, alternately or together, dead, wounded, alive, frightened, or maddened - even at those fleches themselves it was impossible to make out what was taking place. There for several hours amid incessant cannon and musketry fire, now Russians were seen alone, now Frenchmen alone, now infantry, and now cavalry: they appeared, fired, fell, collided, not knowing what to do with one another, screamed, and ran back again. From the battlefield adjutants he had sent out, and orderlies from his marshals, kept galloping up to Napoleon with reports of the progress of the action, but all these reports were false, both because it was impossible in the heat of battle to say what was happening at any given moment and because many of the adjutants did not go to the actual place of conflict but reported what they had heard from others; and also because while an adjutant was riding more than a mile to Napoleon circumstances changed and the news he brought was already becoming false. Thus an adjutant galloped up from Murat with tidings that Borodino had been occupied and the bridge over the Kolocha was in the hands of the French. The adjutant asked whether Napoleon wished the troops to cross it? Napoleon gave orders that the troops should form up on the farther side and wait. But before that order was given - almost as soon in fact as the adjutant had left Borodino - the bridge had been retaken by the Russians and burned, in the very skirmish at which Pierre had been present at the beginning of the battle. An adjutant galloped up from the fleches with a pale and frightened face and reported to Napoleon that their attack had been repulsed, Campan wounded, and Davout killed; yet at the very time the adjutant had been told that the French had been repulsed, the fleches had in fact been recaptured by other French troops, and Davout was alive and only slightly bruised. On the basis of these necessarily untrustworthy reports Napoleon gave his orders, which had either been executed before he gave them or could not be and were not executed. The marshals and generals, who were nearer to the field of battle but, like Napoleon, did not take part in the actual fighting and only occasionally went within musket range, made their own arrangements without asking Napoleon and issued orders where and in what direction to fire and where cavalry should gallop and infantry should run. But even their orders, like Napoleon’s, were seldom carried out, and then but partially. For the most part things happened contrary to their orders. Soldiers ordered to advance ran back on meeting grapeshot; soldiers ordered to remain where they were, suddenly, seeing Russians unexpectedly before them, sometimes rushed back and sometimes forward, and the cavalry dashed without orders in pursuit of the flying Russians. In this way two cavalry regiments galloped through the Semenovsk hollow and as soon as they reached the top of the incline turned round and galloped full speed back again. The infantry moved in the same way, sometimes running to quite other places than those they were ordered to go to. All orders as to where and when to move the guns, when to send infantry to shoot or horsemen to ride down the Russian infantry - all such orders were given by the officers on the spot nearest to the units concerned, without asking either Ney, Davout, or Murat, much less Napoleon. They did not fear getting into trouble for not fulfilling orders or for acting on their own initiative, for in battle what is at stake is what is dearest to man - his own life - and it sometimes seems that safety lies in running back, sometimes in running forward; and these men who were right in the heat of the battle acted according to the mood of the moment. In reality, however, all these movements forward and backward did not improve or alter the position of the troops. All their rushing and galloping at one another did little harm, the harm of disablement and death was caused by the balls and bullets that flew over the fields on which these men were floundering about. As soon as they left the place where the balls and bullets were flying about, their superiors, located in the background, re-formed them and brought them under discipline and under the influence of that discipline led them back to the zone of fire, where under the influence of fear of death they lost their discipline and rushed about according to the chance promptings of the throng. CHAPTER XXXIV Napoleon’s generals - Davout, Ney, and Murat, who were near that region of fire and sometimes even entered it - repeatedly led into it huge masses of well-ordered troops. But contrary to what had always happened in their former battles, instead of the news they expected of the enemy’s flight, these orderly masses returned thence as disorganized and terrified mobs. The generals re-formed them, but their numbers constantly decreased. In the middle of the day Murat sent his adjutant to Napoleon to demand reinforcements. Napoleon sat at the foot of the knoll, drinking punch, when Murat’s adjutant galloped up with an assurance that the Russians would be routed if His Majesty would let him have another division. "Reinforcements?" said Napoleon in a tone of stern surprise, looking at the adjutant - a handsome lad with long black curls arranged like Murat’s own - as though he did not understand his words. "Reinforcements!" thought Napoleon to himself. "How can they need reinforcements when they already have half the army directed against a weak, unentrenched Russian wing?" "Tell the King of Naples," said he sternly, "that it is not noon yet, and I don’t yet see my chessboard clearly. Go!..." The handsome boy adjutant with the long hair sighed deeply without removing his hand from his hat and galloped back to where men were being slaughtered. Napoleon rose and having summoned Caulaincourt and Berthier began talking to them about matters unconnected with the battle. In the midst of this conversation, which was beginning to interest Napoleon, Berthier’s eyes turned to look at a general with a suite, who was galloping toward the knoll on a lathering horse. It was Belliard. Having dismounted he went up to the Emperor with rapid strides and in a loud voice began boldly demonstrating the necessity of sending reinforcements. He swore on his honor that the Russians were lost if the Emperor would give another division. Napoleon shrugged his shoulders and continued to pace up and down without replying. Belliard began talking loudly and eagerly to the generals of the suite around him. "You are very fiery, Belliard," said Napoleon, when he again came up to the general. "In the heat of a battle it is easy to make a mistake. Go and have another look and then come back to me." Before Belliard was out of sight, a messenger from another part of the battlefield galloped up. "Now then, what do you want?" asked Napoleon in the tone of a man irritated at being continually disturbed. "Sire, the prince..." began the adjutant. "Asks for reinforcements?" said Napoleon with an angry gesture. The adjutant bent his head affirmatively and began to report, but the Emperor turned from him, took a couple of steps, stopped, came back, and called Berthier. "We must give reserves," he said, moving his arms slightly apart. "Who do you think should be sent there?" he asked of Berthier (whom he subsequently termed "that gosling I have made an eagle"). "Send Claparede’s division, sire," replied Berthier, who knew all the division’s regiments, and battalions by heart. Napoleon nodded assent. The adjutant galloped to Claparede’s division and a few minutes later the Young Guards stationed behind the knoll moved forward. Napoleon gazed silently in that direction. "No!" he suddenly said to Berthier. "I can’t send Claparede. Send Friant’s division." Though there was no advantage in sending Friant’s division instead of Claparede’s, and even an obvious inconvenience and delay in stopping Claparede and sending Friant now, the order was carried out exactly. Napoleon did not notice that in regard to his army he was playing the part of a doctor who hinders by his medicines - a role he so justly understood and condemned. Friant’s division disappeared as the others had done into the smoke of the battlefield. From all sides adjutants continued to arrive at a gallop and as if by agreement all said the same thing. They all asked for reinforcements and all said that the Russians were holding their positions and maintaining a hellish fire under which the French army was melting away. Napoleon sat on a campstool, wrapped in thought. M. de Beausset, the man so fond of travel, having fasted since morning, came up to the Emperor and ventured respectfully to suggest lunch to His Majesty. "I hope I may now congratulate Your Majesty on a victory?" said he. . 1 2 , 3 4 . 5 6 , 7 . 8 . 9 10 . 11 12 , 13 - 14 , 15 , , 16 - . 17 18 , 19 , . 20 - , 21 . 22 23 . 24 , 25 , , 26 , 27 , 28 . 29 30 31 , 32 - , 33 . 34 35 36 , , 37 . ; 38 , , 39 , 40 , 41 , . 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 , : 50 51 " , ! " 52 53 , 54 55 , 56 . 57 58 , 59 , , , - 60 61 . " 62 . 63 , , 64 65 , . " 66 67 , 68 , , . 69 , 70 71 , 72 , . 73 , 74 . . 75 76 . 77 78 " , , ? " 79 . 80 81 " , , " . 82 83 . 84 85 " , , ? " 86 . " . " 87 88 89 . 90 91 " ! " . " 92 . , . 93 . , , 94 ? " . 95 96 " , , " . 97 98 , , . 99 . 100 , 101 . 102 103 " 104 ? " . 105 106 " , . " 107 108 " ? " 109 110 , 111 112 . . 113 , 114 . 115 116 " , " , . 117 " . - 118 ! 119 . ? . 120 . , 121 . , 122 . 123 ; 124 , , 125 . . . . , , . " 126 127 , , 128 . 129 130 " , , ? " . " 131 . . " 132 133 . 134 135 " ! " . " 136 ! 137 . . . . 138 ! " 139 140 . . 141 . . 142 , , , 143 . , 144 . , 145 , 146 . , 147 148 . 149 150 , 151 , 152 , 153 , 154 . 155 156 " ? " 157 158 . 159 160 . 161 162 " ! ! ? " 163 164 " , . " 165 166 . 167 168 169 - . 170 171 , , 172 . 173 . 174 175 176 . . 177 , 178 . 179 180 181 . 182 183 184 . . 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 , 193 , 194 195 . 196 197 198 . 199 . 200 201 " ! ! ! " 202 203 , . 204 205 " ? ? ? " , . 206 207 " , " , . " 208 , 209 . " 210 211 . , 212 , , . , 213 , , 214 , , 215 - , , 216 , , . 217 . 218 . 219 220 " , ; ! " . 221 222 , 223 224 . , 225 , 226 , 227 . 228 . 229 230 , 231 . 232 , 233 , 234 , , 235 , - 236 . 237 - 238 ; 239 . 240 . 241 , 242 . , , ; 243 , 244 . 245 246 , , 247 248 , , , 249 250 . , 251 252 , , 253 , 254 . 255 , 256 , . 257 , , 258 . - , 259 260 , 261 , 262 , , , , 263 , , , , , , 264 . 265 266 ( ) 267 . 268 269 " ! " - 270 , " ! " 271 . 272 273 " ! ! " - 274 ; " , ! " 275 . 276 277 , 278 , 279 , - " " ( ) - " , ! " 280 , - " - , 281 ! " , , . 282 , 283 , . , 284 , 285 , , 286 , 287 , . 288 " - - - ! " , 289 . 290 291 , , 292 , . , 293 . 294 , , , 295 . 296 297 . 298 299 " , , . . . ! " 300 , 301 . 302 303 304 . 305 306 " ! " 307 . 308 309 " , ! " , . 310 311 . 312 , , 313 , , 314 , 315 , 316 , 317 . 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 , , , 327 . 328 , 329 , 330 . 331 , 332 333 . 334 335 " ? " . 336 337 , , 338 , 339 . 340 341 , . 342 . 343 , 344 ( ) 345 . 346 , 347 - 348 ; 349 . 350 , 351 , 352 , , 353 . 354 . 355 356 " ? " . 357 358 " ! . . . ! " . 359 360 , 361 . , 362 , . 363 364 " ? " , . 365 366 , , , 367 , . 368 369 " ? ? " . 370 371 " , ! " , 372 , 373 . 374 375 " , ? " . " 376 ? " 377 378 " , , " . 379 380 . 381 382 " , " , " 383 . " 384 385 " ? " . " ? " 386 387 " . 388 , " . " ? " 389 390 " , , " , . 391 392 393 . 394 , , 395 . 396 397 " ? " , 398 , 399 . 400 401 402 . 403 . 404 405 " , ? " . 406 407 " , , " 408 . 409 410 " . . . ! " . " 411 . , . , , 412 ! " 413 414 , 415 , 416 , . , 417 . 418 . 419 420 " ? " . 421 422 " , " , 423 . 424 425 . 426 427 " , " . " 428 ? " 429 430 " , . , 431 . " 432 433 . 434 , 435 . 436 437 438 , 439 , , , 440 , 441 . 442 443 , 444 . 445 . 446 447 448 . . 449 , 450 , 451 . 452 453 , 454 . 455 456 , 457 458 . 459 , 460 , , 461 . 462 , 463 . 464 465 , 466 467 , 468 . 469 470 471 . 472 . 473 , , - , , 474 . 475 476 - , 477 , 478 , . 479 480 " , " , " . 481 . " 482 483 . 484 485 , 486 , , 487 , 488 489 , , 490 , , 491 . , , 492 ( " " ) , 493 . 494 495 496 . 497 498 " , , ? " - , 499 - , 500 , . 501 502 " , ? " . 503 504 " ? " . " , 505 ! , . 506 , " . 507 508 , , . 509 , 510 . 511 512 " . ! 513 ! " 514 515 " ! " 516 . 517 518 519 520 . 521 522 523 , 524 , 525 . , 526 - 527 - . 528 529 , 530 . , , 531 . 532 533 534 ; 535 . 536 , 537 . 538 539 " ! " . 540 541 " ! ! " , 542 . 543 544 " , ? " , 545 . 546 547 , 548 . 549 550 " , , " , 551 . 552 553 " , " . " 554 . " 555 556 , , 557 . . 558 559 " , ! " . 560 561 " , , ! " 562 . 563 564 " , ! " - 565 , . " ! " 566 567 . 568 569 " , ! " , , 570 , . 571 572 " ? , ! ! " 573 574 . 575 576 " , . . . , ! " , " 577 ! " 578 579 , 580 , . 581 582 583 , , 584 , 585 . 586 587 588 ; 589 590 . 591 592 593 . 594 595 . , 596 597 , 598 . 599 600 , 601 . 602 603 604 , , 605 . 606 607 608 - . 609 - 610 . 611 . . 612 . 613 . 614 . , 615 . , 616 , . 617 , , , 618 . , 619 . 620 621 , 622 . 623 . , , 624 . 625 626 " , , . 627 ? " . 628 629 " ! " , , 630 . 631 632 : 633 . 634 , , . 635 636 , 637 , . , , 638 . 639 " ! " , . 640 641 642 , ; 643 . 644 . 645 646 " ! " . 647 648 649 ( 650 ) . 651 652 " ! ? " , 653 . 654 655 656 . 657 658 " ! " , 659 . 660 661 " , " . 662 663 , , . 664 665 " . . . . ! " . 666 667 668 . 669 670 " , , , " , . 671 672 , 673 . 674 675 , , , , 676 , . . " ? " 677 678 . , . 679 . 680 , 681 , , . 682 683 684 ; , 685 , 686 , , , 687 , , , 688 . 689 690 691 692 693 694 695 696 , 697 . 698 699 700 . 701 . 702 703 704 " ! " 705 . 706 . 707 708 , 709 " ! " , 710 , 711 , - , 712 , . 713 - 714 - 715 ( ) 716 . , , 717 . 718 719 720 721 . " 722 ? " . 723 724 , , 725 . , 726 , , , 727 , 728 . 729 730 . 731 , 732 , 733 , . 734 , 735 , , , 736 . ( , 737 : 738 . 739 740 . ) 741 742 , 743 " ! " 744 . 745 746 747 , . 748 - - , 749 , , , 750 . 751 , 752 . 753 , . 754 , , 755 . - , 756 . 757 758 . 759 760 " , 761 ! " , 762 . 763 764 , 765 , , 766 , , 767 , , 768 . 769 770 771 772 773 774 775 776 777 . 778 , , 779 , , , 780 ; 781 782 . , 783 , 784 . 785 786 787 . 788 789 , , 790 , , 791 . 792 793 794 , 795 , , 796 . 797 798 799 . , 800 801 . 802 - - 803 . , 804 , . 805 806 807 , , 808 . , 809 , . 810 , 811 . 812 813 , , , 814 , 815 , , 816 . 817 818 . 819 820 , , 821 . 822 823 824 , 825 , - 826 , 827 , , , , , 828 - 829 . 830 , , , 831 , : , , , , 832 , , . 833 834 , 835 , 836 , , 837 838 839 ; 840 841 842 . 843 844 . 845 ? 846 . - 847 - 848 , 849 . 850 851 852 , 853 , ; 854 , 855 , 856 . 857 , 858 . 859 860 , 861 , , 862 , 863 864 . 865 , , , 866 . . 867 ; 868 , , 869 , , 870 . 871 872 873 . , 874 875 . , 876 - 877 878 , , , , 879 . 880 , 881 - - 882 , ; 883 884 . , , 885 . 886 , 887 888 . 889 , 890 , , - 891 892 , 893 894 . 895 896 897 898 899 900 901 902 - , , , 903 - 904 - . 905 , , 906 . 907 - , . 908 909 . 910 911 , , 912 913 . 914 915 " ? " , 916 - 917 - . 918 919 " ! " . " 920 921 , ? " 922 923 " , " , " , 924 . ! . . . " 925 926 927 928 . 929 930 931 . 932 933 , 934 , , 935 . . 936 937 938 . 939 . 940 941 942 . 943 . 944 945 " , , " , 946 . " . 947 . " 948 949 , 950 . 951 952 " , ? " 953 . 954 955 " , . . . " . 956 957 " ? " . 958 959 , 960 , , , , 961 . 962 963 " , " , . 964 " ? " ( 965 " " ) . 966 967 " , , " , 968 , . 969 970 . 971 972 973 . 974 . 975 976 " ! " . " . 977 . " 978 979 980 , 981 , . 982 983 - 984 . 985 986 987 . 988 . 989 990 991 . 992 993 , . 994 995 . , , , 996 997 . 998 999 " ? " . 1000