War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [421]
The troops retreated from Vilno for various complex governmental, political, and tactical reasons. Every step of the retreat was accompanied by a complex play of interests, conclusions, and passions in the general staff. Yet for the hussars of the Pavlogradsky regiment, this whole march in retreat, during the best period of summer, well provided with supplies, was the simplest and merriest affair. To be despondent, to worry, to intrigue was possible at general headquarters, but in the depths of the army no one even asked himself where he was going or why. If they were sorry to be retreating, it was only because they had to leave their homey quarters or a pretty Polish panna. If it did enter anyone’s head that things were bad, then, as a good military man should, the one whose head it had entered would try to be cheerful and not think about the general course of things, but about the matters closest to him. First they cheerfully camped near Vilno, making the acquaintance of the Polish landowners, and waiting, and performing reviews for the sovereign and other high commanders. Then orders came to retreat to Swienciany and destroy the provisions that could not be taken along. Swienciany was memorable to the hussars only because it was a drunken camp, as the whole army named their stopping place there, and because there were many complaints against the troops, who, taking advantage of the order to gather provisions, also gathered horses, carriages, and rugs from the Polish gentry. Rostov remembered Swienciany because, on the first day they entered this little town, he had dismissed his sergeant major and had been unable to handle all the drunken men of the squadron, who, without his knowledge, had got hold of five barrels of old beer. From Swienciany they retreated further and further towards the Drissa, then again retreated from the Drissa, and were now approaching the Russian border.
On the thirteenth of July, the Pavlogradskies were to take part in serious action for the first time.
During the night of the twelfth of June, on the eve of action, there was violent rain and a thunderstorm. The summer of 1812 was generally remarkable for its storms.
Two of the Pavlogradsky squadrons made their bivouac in the middle of a rye field, already in ear but totally trampled down by cattle and horses. It was pouring rain, and Rostov, with the young officer Ilyin, whom he patronized, was sitting under a hastily slapped-together lean-to. An officer of their regiment, with long mustaches that continued across his cheeks, who was coming back from the staff and got caught by the rain, stopped to see Rostov.
“I’m coming from the staff, Count. Have you heard about Raevsky’s feat?” And the officer recounted the details of the battle of Saltanovo, which he had heard at the staff.
Rostov, hunching his shoulders as water ran down his neck, was smoking his pipe and listening inattentively, glancing now and then at the young officer Ilyin, who huddled up to him. This officer, a sixteen-year-old boy who had recently joined the regiment, was now in relation to Nikolai what Nikolai had been in relation to Denisov seven years ago. Ilyin tried to imitate Rostov in everything, and was in love with him like a woman.
The officer with the double mustaches, Zdrzhinsky, was pompously telling about how the Saltanovo dam was the Russian Thermopylae, and that on that dam General Raevsky had performed a deed worthy of antiquity. Zdrzhinsky recounted the deed of Raevsky, who had led his two sons onto the dam under fierce gunfire and had gone into the attack alongside them.23 Rostov was listening to the story, and not only said nothing to confirm Zdrzhinsky’s raptures, but, on the contrary, had the look of a man who is ashamed of what he is being told, though he has no intention of objecting. After the campaigns of Austerlitz and of 1807, Rostov knew from his own experience that, when telling about military events, people always lied, as he himself had lied in telling about them;