Chapter 67

Book Three: 1805. Chapter XVIII

Rostov had been ordered to look for Kutuzov and the Emperor near the village of Pratzen. But neither they nor a single commanding officer were there, only disorganized crowds of troops of various kinds. He urged on his already weary horse to get quickly past these crowds, but the farther he went the more disorganized they were. The highroad on which he had come out was thronged with caleches, carriages of all sorts, and Russian and Austrian soldiers of all arms, some wounded and some not. This whole mass droned and jostled in confusion under the dismal influence of cannon balls flying from the French batteries stationed on the Pratzen Heights.

"Where is the Emperor? Where is Kutuzov?" Rostov kept asking everyone he could stop, but got no answer from anyone.

At last seizing a soldier by his collar he forced him to answer.

"Eh, brother! They've all bolted long ago!" said the soldier, laughing for some reason and shaking himself free.

Having left that soldier who was evidently drunk, Rostov stopped the horse of a batman or groom of some important personage and began to question him. The man announced that the Tsar had been driven in a carriage at full speed about an hour before along that very road and that he was dangerously wounded.

"It can't be!" said Rostov. "It must have been someone else."

"I saw him myself." replied the man with a self-confident smile of derision. "I ought to know the Emperor by now, after the times I've seen him in Petersburg. I saw him just as I see you.... There he sat in the carriage as pale as anything. How they made the four black horses fly! Gracious me, they did rattle past! It's time I knew the Imperial horses and Ilya Ivanych. I don't think Ilya drives anyone except the Tsar!"

Rostov let go of the horse and was about to ride on, when a wounded officer passing by addressed him:

"Who is it you want?" he asked. "The commander in chief? He was killed by a cannon ball- struck in the breast before our regiment."

"Not killed- wounded!" another officer corrected him.

"Who? Kutuzov?" asked Rostov.

"Not Kutuzov, but what's his name- well, never mind... there are not many left alive. Go that way, to that village, all the commanders are there," said the officer, pointing to the village of Hosjeradek, and he walked on.

Rostov rode on at a footpace not knowing why or to whom he was now going. The Emperor was wounded, the battle lost. It was impossible to doubt it now. Rostov rode in the direction pointed out to him, in which he saw turrets and a church. What need to hurry? What was he now to say to the Tsar or to Kutuzov, even if they were alive and unwounded?

"Take this road, your honor, that way you will be killed at once!" a soldier shouted to him. "They'd kill you there!"

"Oh, what are you talking about?" said another. "Where is he