Chapter 16 Chapter Sixteen

Accompanied by his adjutants, Kutuzov ambled step by step behind the carbine. He rode about half a mile behind the column, and stopped beside a solitary unattended house (probably a former tavern) near the fork of two main roads.The two roads extended down the mountain, and the troops advanced along the two roads. The mist began to gradually dissipate, and Moyo was about two versts away, and he could see the enemy army on the opposite high ground.Below the hill to the left, the sound of shooting became clearer.Kutuzov stopped to talk to an Austrian general.Prince Andrei, standing a little behind them, staring at them, turned his face to an adjutant, asking him for a telescope.

"Look here, look here," said the adjutant, not looking at the troops in the distance but looking down a mountain ahead of him. "It's French!" The two generals and several adjutants fought each other and grabbed a telescope.Everyone's complexion suddenly changed, and everyone showed a look of horror.Everyone thought the French were two versts away, but unexpectedly they appeared before us. "Is this the enemy?... No! Yes, you see, the enemy... must be... What's going on?" Everyone's voices could be heard. On the lower right, at a distance of no more than five hundred paces from Kutuzov, Prince Andrew could see with the naked eye the dense French column rushing up the hill to meet the officers and men of the Apsheron regiment.

"Look, French column, the critical moment has come! This matter concerns me." Prince Andrew thought for a while, and rode up to Kutuzov. "The Apsherons must be stopped," he cried, "My lord!" But at this moment, everything was covered by gunpowder smoke, and there was a nearby gunshot.Two steps away from Prince Andrei could be heard a childish cry of panic: "Hey, brothers, stop!" This cry seemed to be a password.Everyone ran for their lives as soon as they heard the shout. The chaotic crowd, growing in number, retreated in unison to the spot where the troops had passed by the two emperors five minutes before.Not only is it very difficult to stop this group of people, but I also have to retreat with the crowd.Bolkonski just tried not to fall behind the crowd, he kept looking around, embarrassed, unable to comprehend what was happening in front of him.Nesvitsky, putting on an air of ferocity, flushed and completely transformed, shouted to Kutuzov that if he did not leave at once he would be captured.Kutuzov remained where he had been, took out a handkerchief, and made no answer.Blood flowed from his cheeks.Prince Andrew pushed his way through the crowd and came up to him.

"Are you injured?" he asked, holding back his jaw so that his jaw did not tremble. "The wound is not here, but there!" said Kutuzov, pressing his handkerchief to his wounded cheek, and pointing to the running officers and men. "Stop them!" he cried, and at the same time, convinced, perhaps, that it was impossible to stop them, he galloped off to the right. Another group of escapees swarmed in, dragged him together and retreated. The densely packed troops ran desperately, and once they got into the crowd, it was difficult to get out.Someone shouted: "Let's go! Why dawdle!" At that moment, someone turned and shot into the sky, and someone whipped Kutuzov's own steed.The number of attendants was reduced by more than half, and Kutuzov and them managed to emerge from the crowd on the left with great difficulty, and galloped towards the faintly audible boom of cannons nearby.Prince Andrew managed to squeeze his way out of the running crowd, trying not to fall behind Kutuzov, and from the smoky hillside he saw the Russian battery still firing and the French officers and soldiers running towards it.The Russian infantry, stationed on a slightly higher ground, neither went to support the artillery nor retreated in one direction with the running soldiers.A general on horseback left the infantry and approached Kutuzov.There were only four of Kutuzov's attendants left, all pale and looking at each other in silence.

"Stop these rascals!" Kutuzov panted to the regimental commander, pointing at the running soldiers, but at that moment, as if in retribution for these words, bullets shot like a flock of chicks. There was a swishing sound as it passed over the regiment and Kutuzov's entourage. The French attacked the fort, and when they saw Kutuzov, they shot at him. Following the volley, the regimental commander hurriedly grabbed his leg, several soldiers fell, and a junior warrant officer who was standing with his flag up , let go of the military flag in his hand, the military flag wobbled, fell down, and rested on the guns of the neighboring soldiers.The soldiers started shooting without hearing the order.

"Ah!" Kutuzov muffled with despair, looking back. "Bolkonski," he whispered, his voice trembling with the realization of his old age and frailty. "Bolkonsky," he said in a low voice, pointing to the broken battalion and then to the enemy, "what's the matter?" But before he had finished these words, Prince Andrew felt tears of shame and anger welling up in his throat, and he dismounted from his horse, and went to the banner. "Forward, comrades!" he cried in a child's shrill voice. "Look, here is the military standard!" thought Prince Andrei, taking hold of the flagpole, and listening with joy to the whistling of the bullets that must have been fired at him.Several soldiers fell.

"Hurrah!" shouted Prince Andrei, barely holding up a heavy standard, and ran forward, convinced in his heart that the whole battalion would run after him. True, he had only run a few steps by himself.A soldier, and another soldier moved.Shouting "Hurrah," the whole battalion ran forward and got ahead of him.The sergeant of the battalion ran up to the front, picked up the banner, which was dangling from its weight in Prince Andrew's hands, but was shot dead immediately.Prince Andrew hastily picked up the flag again, dragged the flagpole, and led the battalion at a run.He saw our artillery ahead, some of them fighting, others abandoning the cannon, and running towards him; and he saw the French infantry, holding on to the artillery's horse, and turning the cannon.Prince Andrew led a battalion to within twenty paces of the cannon.He heard the bullets roaring in the sky, and the soldiers on the left and right sides of him kept moaning and fell down one by one.But he didn't look at them, all he was gazing at was what was happening in front of him—on the battery.He clearly saw the figure of a red-haired artilleryman with his shackle askew on one side, pulling the evisceration pole by one end, while the French soldiers dragged it across by the other end.Prince Andrew clearly saw the bewildered and fierce expressions on the faces of the two men, who did not seem to understand what they were doing.

"What are they doing?" thought Prince Andrew, looking at them. "Why didn't the red-haired artilleryman run, since he was unarmed? Why didn't the French kill him? If the French remembered their guns and stabbed him with a bayonet, he wouldn't even have time to run." It is true that another Frenchman ran towards these two struggling men with his gun tilted forward. The red-haired artilleryman was full of joy as the winner of the evisceration rod, and he did not yet understand what awaited him. What, his fate has been sealed.But Prince Andrew did not see how the matter ended.It seemed to him that some soldier close at hand seemed to swing his arm and hit him hard on the head with a hard stick.The pain was not too severe, but mainly he felt bad, because the pain distracted him from seeing clearly what he was looking at.

"What's going on here? Did I fall? My legs are weak." He thought for a while, then fell on his back.He opened his eyes, wishing to see the outcome of the struggle between the two Frenchmen and the artilleryman, and to know whether the red-haired artilleryman had been killed, and whether the cannon had been taken or preserved.But he couldn't see anything.Except for the sky—the high sky, which is not very clear, but it is a vast high sky after all, there is nothing above him, and gray clouds are slowly moving across the sky. "How silent, how majestic, not at all like when I was running," thought Prince Andrew, "not like when we were running, shouting and fighting, not at all like two Frenchmen and an artilleryman with a fierce look on their faces It is not like when the clouds are moving slowly in the vast high sky. How could I not see this high sky before? I finally know it, and I feel how happy I am. Yes! All is illusion, all is deceit but this vast sky. Apart from it, nothing, nothing. But there is not even sky, nothing but silence and peace. Thank God! ..."