《War And Peace》　Book10 　CHAPTER XXX
　　　　by Leo Tolstoy

PIERRE, on returning to Gorky from seeing Prince Andrey, gave directions to
his postillion to have horses ready and to call him early next morning, and
promptly fell fast asleep in the corner behind a screen which Boris had put at
his disposal.

When Pierre was fully awake next morning, there was no one in the hut. The
panes were rattling in the little windows. The postillion was at his side,
shaking him. "Your excellency, your excellency, your excellency ..." the groom
kept saying persistently, shaking him by the shoulder, without even looking at
him, apparently having lost all hope of ever waking him up.

"Eh, has it begun? Is it time?" said Pierre, waking up.

"Listen to the firing, your excellency," said the postillion, an old soldier;
"all the gentlemen are gone already; his highness set off long ago."

Pierre dressed in haste, and ran out into the porch. It was a bright, fresh,
dewy, cheerful morning. The sun had just broken through the cloud that had
screened it, and its rays filtered through the rent clouds, and over the roofs
of the street opposite on to the dew-drenched dust of the road, on to the fences
and the windows of the houses, and Pierre's horses standing by the cottage. The
roar of the cannon could be heard more distinctly in the open air. An adjutant
galloped down the street, followed by a Cossack.

"It's time, count, it's time!" cried the adjutant. Pierre gave orders that he
should be followed with a horse, and walked along the street to the knoll from
which he had viewed the field of battle the day before. On this knoll was a
crowd of officers, and Pierre heard the French chatter of the staff, and saw
Kutuzov's grey head sunk in his shoulders, and his white cap, with red braiding
on it. Kutuzov was looking through a field-glass along the high-road before
him.

Mounting the steps of the approach to the mound, Pierre glanced before him,
and felt a thrill of delight at the beauty of the spectacle. It was the same
scene that he had admired from that mound the day before. But now the whole
panorama was filled with troops and the smoke of the guns, and in the pure
morning air the slanting rays of the sun, behind Pierre on the left, shed on it
a brilliant light full of gold and pink tones, and broken up by long, dark
shadows. The distant forests that bounded the scene lay in a crescent on the
horizon, looking as though carved out of some precious yellow-green stone, and
through their midst behind Valuev ran the great Smolensk road, all covered with
troops. In the foreground lay golden fields and copses glittering in the sun.
Everywhere, to right, to left, and in front were soldiers. The whole scene was
inspiriting, impressive, and unexpected; but what struck Pierre most of all was
the aspect of the field of battle itself, of Borodino, and the hollow on both
sides of the Kolotcha.

About the Kolotcha, in Borodino, and both sides of it, especially to the left
where the Voina runs through swampy ground into the Kolotcha, a mist still hung
over the scene, melting, parting, shimmering with light in the bright sunshine,
and giving fairy-like beauty to the shapes seen through it. The smoke of the
guns mingled with this mist, and everywhere gleams of sunlight sparkled in it
from the water, from the dew, from the bayonets of the soldiers crowding on the
river banks and in Borodino. Through this mist could be seen a white church,
here and there roofs of cottages in Borodino, and fitful glimpses came of
compact masses of soldiers, and green ammunition-boxes and cannons. And the
whole scene moved, or seemed to move, as the mist and smoke trailed over the
wide plain. In this low ground about Borodino in the mist, and above it, and
especially along the whole line to the left, in the copses, in the meadows
below, and on the tops of the heights, clouds of smoke were incessantly
springing out of nothing, now singly, now several at once, then at longer
intervals, then in rapid succession. These clouds of smoke, puffing, rolling,
melting into one another, and sundering apart, trailed all across the wide
plain. These puffs of smoke, and the reports that followed them, were, strange
to say, what gave the chief charm to the scene.

"Poooff!" suddenly there flew up a round, compact ball of smoke, with
shades of purple, grey, and milk-white in it, and "booom!" followed the
roar of the cannon a minute later.

"Pooff-pooff!" two clouds of smoke rose, meeting and mingling into
one; and "boom-boom," the sound repeated what the eye had seen.

Pierre looked round at the first puff of smoke, which he had seen a second
before a round, compact ball, and already in its place were wreaths of smoke
trailing away to one side, and "pooff"...(then a pause)
"pooff-pooff"-three more flew up, and another four at once, and at the
same intervals after each other "boom...boom-boom-boom," rang out the
sonorous, resolute, unfailing sounds. At one moment it seemed that those clouds
of smoke were scudding across the plain, at the next, that they were stationary,
and the copses, fields, and glittering bayonets were flying by them. From the
left side these great clouds of smoke were incessantly flying over the fields
and bushes, with the stately roar resounding after each of them. Still nearer,
in the low meadows and copses, there darted up from the musket-fire tiny puffs
that hardly formed into balls of smoke, and each of these, too, had its tiny
report echoing after it. Tra-ta-ta-ta sounded the crack of the muskets at
frequent intervals, but thin and irregular in comparison with the rhythmic roar
of the cannon.

Pierre longed to be there in the midst of the smoke, the glittering bayonets,
the movement, and the noise. He looked round at Kutuzov and his suite to compare
his own impression with that of others. All like him were looking before them at
the field, and, he fancied, with the same feeling. Every face now was lighted up
by that latent heat of feeling that Pierre had noticed the day before,
and understood perfectly after his talk with Prince Andrey.

"Go, my dear fellow, go, and Christ be with you!" said Kutuzov, never taking
his eyes off the field of battle, to a general standing beside him. The general,
who received this order, ran by Pierre down the descent from the mound.

"To ride across!..." the general said coldly and severely, in answer to a
question from one of the staff.

"And I too, I too," thought Pierre, and he went in the same direction.

The general mounted a horse, led up to him by a Cossack. Pierre went up to
the groom, who was holding his horses. Asking him which was the quietest, Pierre
got on it, clutched at the horse's mane, pressed his heels into the beast's
stomach, and feeling that his spectacles were slipping off, and that he was
incapable of letting go of the mane and the reins, he galloped after the
general, followed by smiles from the staff officers staring at him from the
mound.