War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [516]
Above the Kolocha, in Borodino and on both sides of it, especially the left, where the Voyna, between its swampy banks, flows into the Kolocha, hung that mist which melts, dissolves, and turns translucent in the bright sun, and magically colors and outlines everything that shows through it. This mist merged with the smoke of gunfire, and everywhere over this mist and smoke gleams of morning light flashed—on the water, on the dew, on the bayonets of the soldiers who crowded along the banks and in Borodino. Through this mist the white church could be seen, and here and there the roofs of Borodino cottages, here and there solid masses of soldiers, here and there green caissons and cannon. And all this was moving, or seemed to be moving, because of the mist and smoke spreading over the entire expanse. As in this hollow terrain near Borodino, covered with mist, so outside it, higher and especially to the left, along the whole line, over the woods, over the fields, in the hollows, up on the heights, puffs of cannon smoke were ceaselessly born of themselves out of nothing, now singly, now in flocks, now sparse, now in rapid succession, and, swelling, spreading, billowing, merging, could be seen over the whole expanse.
This smoke of gunfire and, strange to say, the sound of it, made up the chief beauty of the spectacle.
Poof! Suddenly a round, compact puff of smoke was seen, a play of purple, gray, and milky white, and boom!—a second later came the sound of this smoke.
Poof-poof! Two puffs of smoke rose up, jostling and merging; and boom-boom!—came sounds confirming what the eyes had seen.
Pierre turned back to the first puff of smoke, which he had left as a round, compact ball, and in its place there were already balloons of smoke drawing to one side, and poof…(with a pause) poof-poof—another three, another four were born, and to each, with the same intervals, boom…boom-boom-boom came the beautiful, firm, sure sounds in response. It seemed that these puffs of smoke now raced along, now stood still, and past them raced woods, fields, and gleaming bayonets. On the left side, over the fields and bushes, these big puffs of smoke with their solemn echoes were ceaselessly being born, and still closer, over hollows and woods, burst out the small puffs of musket smoke, having no time to become round, and in the same way gave their own little echoes. Trat-ta-ta-tat rattled the muskets, rapidly but irregularly and meagerly in comparison with the firing of the ordnance.
Pierre wanted to be there where those puffs of smoke, those gleaming bayonets and cannons, those movements, those sounds were. He turned to look at Kutuzov and his suite, so as to compare his impressions with those of others. Everyone was looking ahead at the battlefield, as he was, and, it seemed to him, with the same feeling. On all faces there now shone that “hidden warmth” (chaleur latente) of feeling which Pierre had noticed the day before and which he had understood perfectly after his conversation with Prince Andrei.
“Go, dear boy, go, Christ be with you,” Kutuzov was saying, without taking his eyes from the battlefield, to a general standing next to him.
Having heard the order, this general walked past Pierre to the path down from the barrow.
“To the crossing!” the general said coldly and sternly in reply, when one of the staff officers asked where he was going.
“So am I, so am I,” thought Pierre, and he went in the same direction after the general.
The general was getting on his horse, brought him by a Cossack. Pierre went over to his groom, who was holding the horses. Asking which was the quieter, Pierre climbed onto the horse, clutched at its mane, pressed the heels of his splayed feet to the horse’s belly, and, feeling that his spectacles were falling off and that he could not let go of the mane and the reins, galloped after the general, provoking smiles from