War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [175]
“What is it? What do you think?” Rostov turned to the hussar standing beside him. “Is it from the enemy?”
The hussar did not reply.
“What, don’t you hear it?” Rostov asked again, after waiting some time for a reply.
“Who knows, Your Honor,” the hussar replied reluctantly.
“By the place, it should be the enemy,” Rostov repeated.
“Maybe him, or maybe just so,” the hussar said, “a night thing. Easy, now!” he cried to his horse, who was stirring under him.
Rostov’s horse was also restive, stamping its hoof on the frozen ground, listening to the sounds and looking at the fires. The cries of the voices grew louder and louder and merged in a general clamor that only an army of several thousand could produce. The lights spread more and more, probably along the line of the French camp. Rostov was no longer sleepy. The cheerful, triumphant cries from the enemy army had an exhilarating effect on him. Rostov could now hear clearly: “Vive l’empereur, l’empereur!”
“It’s nearby—must be across the stream,” he said to the hussar standing beside him.
The hussar only sighed, making no reply, and cleared his throat angrily. Down the line of hussars the hoofbeats of a trotting horse were heard, and suddenly out of the night mist, looking like a huge elephant, emerged the figure of a hussar sergeant.
“The generals, Your Honor!” said the sergeant, riding up to Rostov.
Rostov, still looking towards the fires and cries, rode with the sergeant to meet several horsemen who were riding along the line. One was on a white horse. Prince Bagration and Prince Dolgorukov, with their adjutants, had ridden out to look at the strange phenomenon of the fires and cries in the enemy army. Rostov, riding up to Bagration, reported to him and joined the adjutants, trying to hear what the generals were saying.
“Believe me,” said Prince Dolgorukov, addressing Bagration, “this is nothing but a ruse: he has retreated and has ordered the rear guard to light fires and make noise in order to deceive us.”
“Hardly,” said Bagration. “I saw them on that knoll this evening; if they had left, they would have pulled out from there as well. Officer,” Prince Bagration turned to Rostov, “are his pickets still posted there?”
“This evening they were. But now I can’t tell, Your Excellency. Give the order, and I’ll go there with my hussars,” said Rostov.
Bagration stopped and, without replying, tried to make out Rostov’s face in the mist.
“Go, then,” he said, after a brief silence.
“Yes, sir.”
Rostov spurred his horse, called Sergeant Fedchenko and two more hussars, told them to follow him, and rode at a trot down the hill in the direction of the continuing cries. Rostov felt both frightened and elated to be riding alone with three hussars into that mysterious and dangerous misty distance, where no one had been before him. Bagration shouted to him from above not to go beyond the brook, but Rostov pretended not to hear his words, and, without stopping, rode further and further on, constantly making mistakes, taking bushes for trees and hollows for people, and constantly explaining his mistakes to himself. Having trotted down the hill, he no longer saw either our own or the enemy’s fires, but he heard the cries of the French more loudly and clearly. In the bottom he saw before him something like a stream, but when he reached it, he recognized it as a trodden road. Coming out onto the road, he reined in his horse, undecided whether to follow it or to cross and ride over the black field up the hillside. To ride along the road, which stood out lighter in the mist, was less dangerous, because