War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy [interesting novels to read .TXT] 📗

near together that the men could see one another’s faces and speak to one another. Besides the soldiers who formed the picket line on either side, there were many curious onlookers who, jesting and laughing, stared at their strange foreign enemies.

Since early morning⁠—despite an injunction not to approach the picket line⁠—the officers had been unable to keep sightseers away. The soldiers forming the picket line, like showmen exhibiting a curiosity, no longer looked at the French but paid attention to the sightseers and grew weary waiting to be relieved. Prince Andréy halted to have a look at the French.

“Look! Look there!” one soldier was saying to another, pointing to a Russian musketeer who had gone up to the picket line with an officer and was rapidly and excitedly talking to a French grenadier. “Hark to him jabbering! Fine, isn’t it? It’s all the Frenchy can do to keep up with him. There now, Sídorov!”

“Wait a bit and listen. It’s fine!” answered Sídorov, who was considered an adept at French.

The soldier to whom the laughers referred was Dólokhov. Prince Andréy recognized him and stopped to listen to what he was saying. Dólokhov had come from the left flank where their regiment was stationed, with his captain.

“Now then, go on, go on!” incited the officer, bending forward and trying not to lose a word of the speech which was incomprehensible to him. “More, please: more! What’s he saying?”

Dólokhov did not answer the captain; he had been drawn into a hot dispute with the French grenadier. They were naturally talking about the campaign. The Frenchman, confusing the Austrians with the Russians, was trying to prove that the Russians had surrendered and had fled all the way from Ulm, while Dólokhov maintained that the Russians had not surrendered but had beaten the French.

“We have orders to drive you off here, and we shall drive you off,” said Dólokhov.

“Only take care you and your Cossacks are not all captured!” said the French grenadier.

The French onlookers and listeners laughed.

“We’ll make you dance as we did under Suvórov⁠ ⁠… ,”35 said Dólokhov.

“Qu’ est-ce qu’il chante?”36 asked a Frenchman.

“It’s ancient history,” said another, guessing that it referred to a former war. “The Emperor will teach your Suvara as he has taught the others⁠ ⁠…”

“Bonaparte⁠ ⁠…” began Dólokhov, but the Frenchman interrupted him.

“Not Bonaparte. He is the Emperor! Sacré nom⁠ ⁠… !” cried he angrily.

“The devil skin your Emperor.”

And Dólokhov swore at him in coarse soldier’s Russian and shouldering his musket walked away.

“Let us go, Iván Lukích,” he said to the captain.

“Ah, that’s the way to talk French,” said the picket soldiers. “Now, Sídorov, you have a try!”

Sídorov, turning to the French, winked, and began to jabber meaningless sounds very fast: “Kari, mala, tafa, safi, muter, Kaská,” he said, trying to give an expressive intonation to his voice.

“Ho! ho! ho! Ha! ha! ha! ha! Ouh! ouh!” came peals of such healthy and good-humored laughter from the soldiers that it infected the French involuntarily, so much so that the only thing left to do seemed to be to unload the muskets, explode the ammunition, and all return home as quickly as possible.

But the guns remained loaded, the loopholes in blockhouses and entrenchments looked out just as menacingly, and the unlimbered cannon confronted one another as before.

XVI

Having ridden round the whole line from right flank to left, Prince Andréy made his way up to the battery from which the staff officer had told him the whole field could be seen. Here he dismounted, and stopped beside the farthest of the four unlimbered cannon. Before the guns an artillery sentry was pacing up and down; he stood at attention when the officer arrived, but at a sign resumed his measured, monotonous pacing. Behind the guns were their limbers and still farther back picket ropes and artillerymen’s bonfires. To the left, not far from the farthest cannon, was a small, newly constructed wattle shed from which came the sound of officers’ voices in eager conversation.

It was true that a view over nearly the whole Russian position and the greater part of the enemy’s opened out from this battery. Just facing it, on the crest of the opposite hill, the village of Schön Grabern could be seen, and in three places to left and right the French troops amid the smoke of their campfires, the greater part of whom were evidently in the village itself and behind the hill. To the left from that village, amid the smoke, was something resembling a battery, but it was impossible to see it clearly with the naked eye. Our right flank was posted on a rather steep incline which dominated the French position. Our infantry were stationed there, and at the farthest point the dragoons. In the center, where Túshin’s battery stood and from which Prince Andréy was surveying the position, was the easiest and most direct descent and ascent to the brook separating us from Schön Grabern. On the left our troops were close to a copse, in which smoked the bonfires of our infantry who were felling wood. The French line was wider than ours, and it was plain that they could easily outflank us on both sides. Behind our position was a steep and deep dip, making it difficult for artillery and cavalry to retire. Prince Andréy took out his notebook and, leaning on the cannon, sketched a plan of the position. He made some notes on two points, intending to mention them to Bagratión. His idea was, first, to concentrate all the artillery in the center, and secondly, to withdraw the cavalry to the other side of the dip. Prince Andréy, being always near the commander in chief, closely following the mass movements and general orders, and constantly studying historical accounts of battles, involuntarily pictured to himself the course of events in the forthcoming action in broad outline. He imagined only important possibilities: “If the enemy attacks the right flank,” he said to himself, “the