War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [458]
“It’s the owner himself,” voices said.
“So, then,” said Prince Andrei, turning to Alpatych, “convey everything as I’ve told you.” And without saying a word to Berg, who stood silent beside him, he spurred his horse and rode down the lane.
V
From Smolensk the troops continued to retreat. The enemy followed after them. On the tenth of August, the regiment under Prince Andrei’s command was going down the high road past the avenue that led to Bald Hills. The heat and drought had lasted for more than three weeks. Every day fleecy clouds crossed the sky, occasionally covering the sun; but towards evening it cleared up again, and the sun set in a reddish brown murk. Only the heavy dews at night refreshed the earth. The standing wheat was scorched and spilled its grains. The swamps dried up. The cattle lowed from hunger, finding no food in the sun-parched meadows. It was cool only at night and in the woods, while the dew lasted. But on the road, on the high road along which the troops were marching, there was not that coolness even at night and in the woods. There was no dew to be seen on the sandy dust of the road, churned up more than half a foot deep. As soon as dawn broke, movement began. Baggage trains and artillery went noiselessly, sunk to the hubs, and infantry sunk to the ankles in the soft, suffocating, hot dust that did not cool down overnight. Part of this dust was kneaded by feet and wheels, the rest rose and hung in a cloud over the troops, filling the eyes, hair, ears, nostrils, and, above all, the lungs of the men and animals moving along this road. The higher the sun rose, the higher rose the cloud of dust, and through this fine, hot dust one could look with the naked eye at the sun, not covered by clouds. The sun looked like a large crimson ball. There was no wind, and the men suffocated in this unstirring atmosphere. They walked on, tying handkerchiefs over their noses and mouths. When they came to a village, they all rushed to the wells. They fought over the water and drank it down to the mud.
Prince Andrei was in command of a regiment, and the organization of the regiment, the well-being of his men, the necessity of receiving and giving orders, diverted him. The burning and abandoning of Smolensk marked an epoch for Prince Andrei. The new feeling of anger against the foe made him forget his own grief. He was devoted entirely to the affairs of his regiment, he was solicitous of his men and officers and affectionate with them. In his regiment he was known as our prince; they were proud of him and loved him. But he was kind and mild only with the men of his regiment, with Timokhin and the rest, totally new people and in strange surroundings, who could not know and understand his past; but as soon as he ran into someone from his former life, some staff officer, he at once bristled up again; he became spiteful, mocking, and contemptuous. He was repulsed by everything that bound him to the memory of the past, and therefore he tried, in relation to his former world, only not to be unfair and to fulfill his duty.
True, everything presented itself in a dark, gloomy light to Prince Andrei—especially after the abandoning of Smolensk (which, to his mind, could and should have been defended) on the sixth of August, and after his ailing father had to flee to Moscow and leave to be pillaged his beloved Bald Hills, which he had built and peopled; but despite that, thanks to his regiment, Prince Andrei could think about a subject completely independent of general problems—about his regiment. On the tenth of August, the column of which his regiment formed part drew level with Bald Hills. Two days earlier, Prince Andrei had received news that his father, son, and sister had left for Moscow. Though Prince Andrei had nothing to do there, he, with his own peculiar wish to exacerbate his grief, decided that he had to stop and see Bald Hills.
He ordered a horse saddled for him and while on the march rode to his father’s estate, where he was born and spent his childhood. Going past the pond where there were always