War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [426]
“Andrei Sevastyanych,” said Rostov, “you know, we could crush them…”
“It would be a daring thing,” said the captain, “and in fact…”
Rostov, not hearing him out, nudged his horse, leaped ahead of the squadron, and before he had time to command it to move, the whole squadron, feeling the same as he, set out after him. Rostov did not know himself how and why he was doing it. He did it all as he did at the hunt, not thinking, not reflecting. He saw that the dragoons were near, that they were galloping in disorder; he knew that they would not hold, and he knew that there was only one moment, which would not return if he missed it. Bullets whined and whistled so stirringly around him, his horse strained forward so ardently, that he could not control himself. He spurred his horse, gave the command, and at the same moment, hearing the hoofbeats of his deployed squadron behind him, started down at a full trot towards the dragoons at the foot of the hill. They had barely reached the foot of the hill when their trot involuntarily turned into a gallop, which became faster and faster as they drew nearer to our uhlans and the French dragoons pursuing them. The dragoons were near. The ones in front, seeing the hussars, began to turn back; the ones behind began to slow down. With the feeling with which he raced to intercept a wolf, Rostov, giving his Don horse free rein, galloped to intercept the disordered lines of the French dragoons. One uhlan stopped, one on foot fell to the ground to avoid being crushed, one riderless horse mingled with the hussars. Almost all the French dragoons were galloping away. Rostov, picking himself one on a gray horse, raced after him. On the way he galloped into a bush; the good horse carried him over it, and, barely straightening himself in the saddle, Nikolai saw that in a few seconds he would overtake the enemy he had picked out as his target. The Frenchman—probably an officer, by his uniform—hunched over, was galloping along on his gray horse, urging it on with his saber. A moment later Rostov’s horse struck the officer’s horse in the rump with its breast, almost knocking it down, and at the same moment Rostov, not knowing why himself, raised his saber and struck the Frenchman with it.
The moment he did this, all Rostov’s animation suddenly vanished. The officer fell, not so much from the stroke of the sword, which only cut his arm slightly above the elbow, as from the jolt to his horse and from fear. Reining in his horse, Rostov sought his enemy with his eyes, to see whom he had vanquished. The French dragoon officer was hopping on the ground with one foot, the other being caught in the stirrup. Narrowing his eyes fearfully, as if expecting a new blow any second, he winced, glancing up at Rostov from below with an expression of terror. His face, pale and mud-spattered, fair-haired, young, with a dimple on the chin and light blue eyes, was not at all for the battlefield, not an enemy’s face, but a most simple, homelike face. Before Rostov decided what to do with him, the officer cried out: “Je me rends!”*427 He hurriedly tried but was unable to disentangle his foot from the stirrup, and his frightened, light blue eyes were fixed on Rostov. Some hussars galloped up to him, freed his foot, and sat him in the saddle. Hussars on all sides were busy with the dragoons: one was wounded, but, with his face all covered with blood, refused to surrender his horse; another, his arms around a hussar, sat on his horse’s croup; a third, supported by a hussar, was getting on his horse. In front of them, French infantry came running and shooting. The hussars hurriedly galloped away with their prisoners. Rostov galloped away with the others, experiencing some unpleasant feeling which wrung his heart. Something unclear, confused, something he was unable to