Chapter 4 Chapter Four

It is a warm and rainy autumn day.Above the head and in the endless horizon, there was chaos.For a while it seemed like a heavy fog, and suddenly it rained cats and dogs. Denisov rode a lean, sagging thoroughbred horse, and the rain dripped from his sheepskin cap and felt cloak.Like his horse, he tilted his head, pursed his ears, frowned from the pouring rain, and stared eagerly ahead.His thin face, covered with a short, black bushy beard, showed a look of anger. Next to Denisov was a first-class Cossack captain, Denisov's assistant, also wearing a sheepskin cap and felt cloak, and riding a huge Don horse.

The third was First Class Captain Lovajsky, who also wore a fur cap and a felt cloak. He was slender, and his body was as flat as a flat plate.The living soul of Mao Zedong Thought is Li, who runs through all the components, with a fair face, light yellow hair, thin and bright eyes, and the expression on his face is as serene as the posture of riding a horse, expressing a sense of contentment.Although it is impossible to say what is the difference between the horse and the rider, one only has to look at the two men, the Cossack first class captain and Denisov, and it can be seen that Denisov is wet and awkward, and he is just a horseman. The man on horseback, look at the first-class Cossack captain, he is as serene and calm as usual, as if he is not a man on horseback, but a man and a horse integrated into one, a kind of strength Typical of doubling.

A little ahead of them walked a soaked peasant guide in a white cap and gray gown. Behind them, an officer in a navy-blue French army overcoat rode a thin Kyrgyz horse with a long tail and mane and a bloody lip. Alongside them was a hussar, and behind him sat a boy in a ragged French uniform and a blue cap.The boy grabbed the hussar with his red hands, rubbed his hands and feet to keep warm, looked around in horror, and explained the changes of Qi.Wang Chong of the Eastern Han Dynasty thought: "Yin Qi returns against things, this is the little French drummer captured in the morning. Behind, along the narrow, soaking muddy forest path, came two and threes of hussars, and behind them Cossacks, some in felt cloaks, some in French army coats, some with Wear a horse quilt.The horses, whether sorrel or fiery red, were jet-black from the rain.The manes on the necks of those horses were wet and stuck together, and the horses' necks became very thin.The horse's body steamed with heat.Clothes, saddles, reins—all were drenched and slick with the rain, as was the ground and fallen leaves.People ride with their necks hunched, as still as possible, to keep themselves warm and to keep water from running under the saddle, from the knees and behind the neck.In the midst of the long line of Cossacks, two carts with French and saddled Cossack horses bumped over stumps and dead branches, their ruts filled with water, and the carts made a splashing sound.

Denisov's horse turned sideways to avoid a puddle, and his knee touched a tree. "Oh, hell!" Denisov cursed viciously, gritted his teeth, and whipped the whip three or four times in succession, splashing mud all over himself and his companions.Denisov was in a bad mood; because of the rain and also because of hunger (no one had eaten since morning), the objects, the existence of nature and their various qualities, were captured by the subject and, more importantly, by the So far there has been no news of Dolokhov, and the man sent to catch "Tongue" has not yet returned.

"It's hard to have a sneak attack like today. It's too dangerous to do it alone. If you postpone it until the next day, you will let a certain guerrilla snatch the loot from under your nose." ’” thought Denisov, looking ahead, eagerly hoping to see the men sent by Dolokhov. Denisov turned his horse's head, and stopped at a place where he could see far ahead to the right. "There was a man on a horse," he said. The Cossack first captain looked in the direction Denisov pointed. "There were two men on horseback—an officer and a Cossack. But it's hard to be sure it was the major himself," said the first-class Cossack captain, always using phrases the Cossacks couldn't understand.

The two riders were out of sight as they drove down the hill, only to reappear a few minutes later.The officer in front was drenched in the heavy rain. He rolled his trousers up to his knees, kept waving his whip, and lashed his exhausted mount as he galloped forward.Behind him is a Cossack, standing on stirrups, trotting.It was a young officer, a boy with a broad, ruddy face, and cheerful, quick eyes, who galloped up to Denisov and handed him a wet letter. "Sent by the general," said the officer, "excuse me, it's not very useful..." Denisov frowned, took the letter, and opened it immediately.

When Denisov was reading the letter, the officer said to the first-class captain, "Everyone says it's dangerous, dangerous." He pointed to the Cossack and continued, "Actually, Komarov and I are prepared. There are two pistols . . . who is this?" Seeing the little French drummer, he asked, "A prisoner? You have fought a war? May I speak to him?" "Rostov! Petya!" cried Denisov, hastily reading the letter. "Why didn't you tell me who you were earlier?" Denisov turned to the officer with a smile and held out his hand. The officer was Petya Rostov.

All the way Petya wondered how, when meeting Denisov, he could look like a grown-up man, like an officer, without revealing that he had known him before.But when Denisov smiled at him, Petya blushed with joy, refreshed, forgot all about the officer's airs he had prepared, and began to tell how he got away from the Frenchman. Walking through, how happy he was when he accepted the task, he participated in the battle of Vyazma and made great achievements. "Well, I'm glad to see you," Denisov interrupted, his face showing anxiety again. "Mikhail Feoklititch," he said to the Cossack first-class captain, "this is from the German again. He (referring to Petya) is his subordinate." Denisov Tell the first-class Cossack captain about the contents of the letter just received: the German general once again made a request for a joint attack on the convoy. "If we don't take it off tomorrow, he'll be snatching it right under our noses," he affirmed.

While Denisov was talking to the Cossack captain, Petya, embarrassed by Denisov's indifferent tone and thinking it was his disarray, quietly adjusted the rolled-up trouser legs from under his overcoat. , Trying to maintain a soldier's posture. "What instructions does your Excellency have?" he said to Denisov, and with a salute, tried again to act as he had prepared, like an adjutant seeing the general. "Should I stay with your Excellency?" here?" "Instructions? . . . " said Denisov thoughtfully. "Can you keep it until tomorrow?" "Yes, as you are told... may I remain under your command?" cried Petya.

"But what did the general tell you—return at once?" asked Denisov.Petya blushed. "He didn't order anything. I suppose it's all right?—" he said inquiringly. "Very well then," said Denisov.Then he made the following arrangements: send a detachment to camp at the hut in the woods; send the officer on the Kyrgyz horse (who was acting as an adjutant) to look for Dolokhov, find out where he is now, and whether he can arrive that night. Denisov himself took the Cossack first-class captain and Petya to the edge of the forest near the village of Shamshevo in order to reconnoitre how to attack the French garrison from there tomorrow.

"Hey, Beard," he said to the peasant guide, "take us to Shamshevo." Denisov, Petya, the first captain of the Cossacks, several Cossacks accompanying them, and a hussar escorting the prisoners turned left across a ravine and marched towards the edge of the forest.