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By Root 4170 0

officer of the suite, who turned away from him. “There, kindly see!” He drew attention to the bullets that constantly shrieked, sang, and whistled around them. He spoke in the same tone of entreaty and reproach in which a carpenter speaks to a gentleman who has picked up an ax: “We’re used to it, but you’ll get blisters on your hands.” He spoke as if he himself could not be killed by these bullets, and his half-closed eyes gave his words a still more persuasive expression. The staff officer joined in the regimental commander’s admonitions; but Prince Bagration did not respond to them and merely ordered the men to stop shooting and line up so as to make room for the two expected battalions. While he was speaking, the rising wind, as with an invisible hand, drew from right to left the curtain of smoke that had concealed the hollow, and the hill opposite, with the French moving over it, opened out before them. All eyes were involuntarily turned to this French column that was moving towards them, winding down the terraces of the slope. The soldiers’ shaggy hats were already visible; one could already distinguish the officers from the men; one could see their standard fluttering against its staff.

“Nice marching,” said someone in Bagration’s suite.

The head of the column was already down in the hollow. The confrontation was to take place on this side of the slope…

The remnants of our regiment which had been in action, lining up hastily, moved to the right; from behind them, scattering the stragglers, came the two battalions of the sixth chasseurs in good order. They had not yet reached Bagration, but one could already hear the heavy, weighty tread of a whole mass of men marching in step. On the left flank, closest of all to Bagration, marched a company commander, a round-faced, stately man with a stupid, happy expression on his face, the same one who had come running from the lean-to. He was obviously thinking of nothing at that moment but the fine figure he would cut as he marched past his superior.

With a parade-like self-satisfaction, he marched lightly on his muscular legs, as if floating, holding himself straight without the least effort, and distinguishing himself by this lightness from the heavy tread of the soldiers who marched in step with him. He carried by his leg an unsheathed, thin, and narrow sword (a curved little sword, not resembling a weapon), and he lithely turned his whole strong body, looking now at his superior, now behind him, without losing step. It seemed that all the forces of his soul were aimed at marching past his superior in the best possible way, and, feeling that he was doing it well, he was happy. “Left…left…left…” he seemed to be saying to himself at every other step, and the wall of soldiers’ figures, burdened by packs and muskets, with variously stern faces, moved to this rhythm, as if each of those hundreds of soldiers was mentally saying: “Left…left…left…” at every other step. A fat major, puffing and breaking the step, turned around a bush that was in his way; a lagging soldier, breathless, with a frightened face because of his negligence, trotted to catch up with his company; a cannonball, pushing through the air, flew over the heads of Prince Bagration and his suite, and to the rhythm of “Left…left…left!” struck the column. “Close ranks!” came the dashing voice of the company commander. The soldiers curved around something at the spot where the cannonball had landed, and a decorated old soldier, a sergeant on the flank, after lingering by the dead men, caught up with his line, skipped to change feet, fell into step, and looked back angrily. “Left…left…left…” seemed to be heard through the ominous silence and the monotonous sound of feet simultaneously tramping the ground.

“Bravo, lads!” said Prince Bagration.

“Glad to be of…Your Ex-ex-ex-ex-ex!…” rolled through the ranks. A sullen soldier, marching on the left, turned his eyes to Bagration as he shouted, with an expression that seemed to say: “We know it ourselves” another, without looking and as if fearing to be distracted, opened