Getting his leg free, he stood up. “Which side, where now was that line that had so sharply divided the two armies？” he asked himself, and could not answer. “Hasn’t something gone wrong with me？ Do such things happen, and what ought one to do in such cases？” he wondered as he was getting up. But at that instant he felt as though something superfluous was hanging on his benumbed left arm. The wrist seemed not to belong to it. He looked at his hand, carefully searching for blood on it. “Come, here are some men,” he thought joyfully, seeing some men running towards him. “They will help me！” In front of these men ran a single figure in a strange shako and a blue coat, with a swarthy sunburnt face and a hooked nose. Then came two men, and many more were running up behind. One of them said some strange words, not Russian. Between some similar figures in similar shakoes behind stood a Russian hussar. He was being held by the arms; behind him they were holding his horse too.
“It must be one of ours taken prisoner.… Yes. Surely they couldn’t take me too？ What sort of men are they？” Rostov was still wondering, unable to believe his own eyes. “Can they be the French？” He gazed at the approaching French, and although only a few seconds before he had been longing to get at these Frenchmen and to cut them down, their being so near seemed to him now so awful that he could not believe his eyes. “Who are they？ What are they running for？ Can it be to me？ Can they be running to me？ And what for？ To kill me？ Me, whom every one’s so fond of？” He recalled his mother’s love, the love of his family and his friends, and the enemy’s intention of killing him seemed impossible. “But they may even kill me.” For more than ten seconds he stood, not moving from the spot, nor grasping his position. The foremost Frenchman with the hook nose was getting so near that he could see the expression of his face. And the excited, alien countenance of the man, who was running so lightly and breathlessly towards him, with his bayonet lowered, terrified Rostov. He snatched up his pistol, and instead of firing with it, flung it at the Frenchman and ran to the bushes with all his might. Not with the feeling of doubt and conflict with which he had moved at the Enns bridge, did he now run, but with the feeling of a hare fleeing from the dogs. One unmixed feeling of fear for his young, happy life took possession of his whole being. Leaping rapidly over the hedges with the same impetuosity with which he used to run when he played games, he flew over the field, now and then turning his pale, good-natured, youthful face, and a chill of horror ran down his spine. “No, better not to look,” he thought, but as he got near to the bushes he looked round once more. The French had given it up, and just at the moment when he looked round the foremost man was just dropping from a run into a walk, and turning round to shout something loudly to a comrade behind. Rostov stopped. “There’s some mistake,” he thought; “it can’t be that they meant to kill me.” And meanwhile his left arm was as heavy as if a hundred pound weight were hanging on it. He could run no further. The Frenchman stopped too and took aim. Rostov frowned and ducked. One bullet and then another flew hissing by him; he took his left hand in his right, and with a last effort ran as far as the bushes. In the bushes there were Russian sharpshooters.