War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [167]
The sovereign drew even with Rostov and stopped. Alexander’s face was still more beautiful than three days before at the review. It shone with such cheer and youth, such innocent youth that it reminded one of a boyish fourteen-year-old friskiness, and at the same time it was still the face of a majestic emperor. Looking the squadron over at random, the sovereign’s eyes met the eyes of Rostov and rested on them for no more than two seconds. The sovereign may or may not have understood everything that was going on in Rostov’s soul (it seemed to Rostov that he had understood everything), but for about two seconds he looked with his pale blue eyes into Rostov’s face. (A soft, mild light poured from them.) Then he suddenly raised his eyebrows, spurred his horse with a sharp movement of his left foot, and rode on at a gallop.
On hearing gunfire in the vanguard, the young emperor could not restrain his desire to be present at the battle, and, despite all the remonstrations of his courtiers, at noon, having separated from the third column with which he was proceeding, he rode to the vanguard. Before he reached the hussars, several adjutants met him with news of the successful outcome of the action.
The battle, which consisted merely in the capture of a French squadron, was presented as a brilliant victory over the French, and therefore the sovereign and the whole army, especially while the powder smoke still hung over the battlefield, believed that the French were defeated and were retreating against their will. A few minutes after the sovereign rode by, the Pavlogradsky division was ordered to advance. In Wischau itself, a small German town, Rostov saw the sovereign once more. On the town square, where a rather intense exchange of gunfire had taken place before the sovereign’s arrival, lay several dead and wounded men, whom there had been no time to pick up. The sovereign, surrounded by his suite of military and non-military men, was on a bobtailed chestnut mare, already different from the one at the review, and, leaning to one side, holding a gold lorgnette to his eyes with a graceful gesture, was looking through it at a soldier who lay facedown, without his shako, his head bloody. The wounded soldier was so dirty, coarse, and vile that Rostov was offended by his nearness to the sovereign. Rostov saw how the sovereign’s stooping shoulders shuddered as if a chill ran through them, and how his left foot convulsively began to spur the horse’s side. The well-trained horse looked about indifferently and did not stir from its place. Getting off their horses, some adjutants took the soldier under the arms and began laying him on a stretcher which had just appeared. The soldier groaned.
“Gently, gently, can’t you do it gently?” said the sovereign, clearly suffering more than the dying soldier, and he rode off.
Rostov saw the tears that filled the sovereign’s eyes, and heard him say in French to Czartoryski, as he rode off:
“What a terrible thing war is, what a terrible thing! Quel terrible chose que la guerre!”
The troops of the vanguard were positioned before Wischau within sight of the enemy line, which yielded ground to us throughout the day at the least exchange of fire. The sovereign’s gratitude was announced to the vanguard, with a promise of rewards, and the men were given a double ration of vodka. The bivouac fires crackled and the soldiers’ songs rang out still more merrily than the previous night. Denisov celebrated his promotion to major that night, and Rostov, who had already drunk quite a bit, proposed a toast at the end of the party to the health of the sovereign, “but not of the sovereign emperor, as they say at official dinners,” he said, “but to the health of the sovereign, that kind, enchanting, and great man. We drink to his health and to certain victory over the French!”
“If we fought before,” he said, “and gave no quarter to the French, as at Schöngraben, how will it be now when he himself is at our head? We’ll all die,