War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [174]
“And still the only thing I love and cherish is triumph over all of them, I cherish that mysterious power and glory hovering over me here in this mist!”
XIII
That night Rostov was on the picket line with his platoon forward of Bagration’s detachment. His hussars were scattered in pairs along the line; he himself rode the line on horseback, trying to fight off the sleep that was irresistibly overcoming him. Behind him could be seen the immense expanse of our army’s campfires burning dimly in the mist; ahead of him was misty darkness. However much Rostov peered into this misty distance, he saw nothing: now some grayish, some blackish shape seemed to appear; now it was as if lights flickered where the enemy ought to be; now it seemed only some glimmer in his own eyes. His eyes kept closing, and in his imagination the sovereign appeared, then Denisov, then Moscow memories, and he hurriedly opened his eyes again and saw close in front of him the head and ears of the horse he was riding, sometimes the black figures of hussars, when he came within six paces of them, and in the distance the same misty darkness. “Why not? It might well be,” thought Rostov, “that the sovereign, meeting me, gives me some assignment, saying as to any officer: ‘Go and find out what’s there.’ There are many stories about how he got to know some officer quite by chance and attached him to himself. What if he attached me to himself? Oh, how I’d protect him, how I’d tell him the whole truth, how I’d expose the deceivers!” And so as to picture vividly to himself his love and devotion for the sovereign, he pictured to himself an enemy or a deceitful German, whom he delighted not only in killing, but in slapping in the face before the sovereign’s eyes. Suddenly a distant cry aroused Rostov. He gave a start and opened his eyes.
“Where am I? Ah, yes, in the line; watchword and password—‘shaft,’ ‘Olmütz.’ How vexing that our squadron will be in reserve tomorrow…” he thought. “I’ll ask to be sent into action. That may be the only chance I’ll get to see the sovereign. Yes, it’s not long now till we’re relieved. I’ll make another round, and as soon as I get back, I’ll go to the general and ask him.” He righted himself in the saddle and touched up his horse, in order to make one more round of his hussars. He thought it was getting lighter. To the left he could see a sloping, lit-up hillside and across from it a black knoll that seemed steep as a wall. On this knoll was a white spot that Rostov could not make sense of: was it a moonlit clearing in the woods, or some leftover snow, or some white houses? It even seemed to him that something was moving on that white spot. “It must be snow—this spot; a spot—une tache,” thought Rostov. “Tache or no tache…”
“Natasha, my sister, dark eyes. Na…tashka…(She’ll be so surprised when I tell her how I saw the sovereign!) Natashka…take the…tashka…” “Keep to the right, Your Honor, there’s bushes here,” said the voice of a hussar whom Rostov, falling asleep, was riding past. Rostov suddenly raised his head, which had already dropped to his horse’s mane, and stopped beside the hussar. A young, childish sleep was irresistibly coming over him. “But what was I thinking? I mustn’t forget. How am I going to speak with the sovereign? No, not that—that’s for tomorrow. Yes, yes! Na-tashka…at-tack a…attack who? Hussars. Whose hussars? The hussar you saw ride down the boulevard, remember, just across from Guryev house…Old man Guryev…Eh, nice fellow, Denisov! But that’s all trifles. The main thing now is that the sovereign’s here. How he looked at me, and he wanted to say something, but he didn’t dare…No, it was I who didn’t dare. But that’s all trifles, the main thing is not to forget that I was thinking of something important, yes. Na-tashka, at-tack a…yes, yes, yes. That’s good.” And again his head dropped to his horse’s neck. Suddenly it seemed to him that he was being shot at. “What? What?…Cut them down! What?…” said Rostov, coming to his senses. The moment he opened his eyes, Rostov heard ahead of him, where