It was not now as before an unseen river flowing in the darkness, but a gloomy sea subsiding and still agitated after a storm. Rostov gazed vacantly and listened to what was passing before him and around him. An infantry soldier came up to the fire, squatted on his heels, held his hands to the fire, and turned his face.
“You don’t mind, your honour？” he said, looking inquiringly at Tushin. “Here I’ve got lost from my company, your honour; I don’t know myself where I am. It’s dreadful！”
With the soldier an infantry officer approached the fire with a bandaged face. He asked Tushin to have the cannon moved a very little, so as to let a store waggon pass by. After the officer two soldiers ran up to the fire. They were swearing desperately and fighting, trying to pull a boot from one another.
“No fear！ you picked it up！ that’s smart！” one shouted in a husky voice.
Then a thin, pale soldier approached, his neck bandaged with a bloodstained rag. With a voice of exasperation he asked the artillerymen for water.
“Why, is one to die like a dog？” he said.
Tushin told them to give him water. Next a good-humoured soldier ran up, to beg for some red-hot embers for the infantry.
“Some of your fire for the infantry！ Glad to halt, lads. Thanks for the loan of the firing; we’ll pay it back with interest,” he said, carrying some glowing firebrands away into the darkness.
Next four soldiers passed by, carrying something heavy in an overcoat. One of them stumbled.
“Ay, the devils, they’ve left firewood in the road,” grumbled one.
“He’s dead; why carry him？” said one of them.
“Come on, you！” And they vanished into the darkness with their burden.
“Does it ache, eh？” Tushin asked Rostov in a whisper.
“Yes, it does ache.”
“Your honour’s sent for to the general. Here in a cottage he is,” said a gunner, coming up to Tushin.
“In a minute, my dear.” Tushin got up and walked away from the fire, buttoning up his coat and setting himself straight.
In a cottage that had been prepared for him not far from the artillerymen’s fire, Prince Bagration was sitting at dinner, talking with several commanding officers, who had gathered about him. The little old colonel with the half-shut eyes was there, greedily gnawing at a mutton-bone, and the general of twenty-two years’ irreproachable service, flushed with a glass of vodka and his dinner, and the staff-officer with the signet ring, and Zherkov, stealing uneasy glances at every one, and Prince Andrey, pale with set lips and feverishly glittering eyes.
In the corner of the cottage room stood a French flag, that had been captured, and the auditor with the na？ve countenance was feeling the stuff of which the flag was made, and shaking his head with a puzzled air, possibly because looking at the flag really interested him, or possibly because he did not enjoy the sight of the dinner, as he was hungry and no place had been laid for him. In the next cottage there was the French colonel, who had been taken prisoner by the dragoons. Our officers were flocking in to look at him. Prince Bagration thanked the several commanding officers, and inquired into details of the battle and of the losses. The general, whose regiment had been inspected at Braunau, submitted to the prince that as soon as the engagement began, he had fallen back from the copse, mustered the men who were cutting wood, and letting them pass by him, had made a bayonet charge with two battalions and repulsed the French.
“As soon as I saw, your excellency, that the first battalion was thrown into confusion, I stood in the road and thought, ‘I’ll let them get through and then open fire on them’; and that’s what I did.”
The general had so longed to do this, he had so regretted not having succeeded in doing it, that it seemed to him now that this was just what had happened. Indeed might it not actually have been so？ Who could make out in such confusion what did and what did not happen？
“And by the way I ought to note, your excellency,” he continued, recalling Dolohov’s conversation with Kutuzov and his own late interview with the degraded officer, “that the private Dolohov, degraded to the ranks, took a French officer prisoner before my eyes and particularly distinguished himself.”
“I saw here, your excellency, the attack of the Pavlograd hussars,” Zherkov put in, looking uneasily about him. He had not seen the hussars at all that day, but had only heard about them from an infantry officer. “They broke up two squares, your excellency.”
When Zherkov began to speak, several officers smiled, as they always did, expecting a joke from him. But as they perceived that what he was saying all redounded to the glory of our arms and of the day, they assumed a serious expression, although many were very well aware that what Zherkov was saying was a lie utterly without foundation. Prince Bagration turned to the old colonel.
“I thank you all, gentlemen; all branches of the service behaved heroically—infantry, cavalry, and artillery. How did two cannons come to be abandoned in the centre？” he inquired, looking about for some one. （Prince Bagration did not ask about the cannons of the left flank; he knew that all of them had been abandoned at the very beginning of the action.） “I think it was you I sent,” he added, addressing the staff-officer.
“One had been disabled,” answered the staff-officer, “but the other, I can’t explain; I was there all the while myself, giving instructions, and I had scarcely left there.… It was pretty hot, it’s true,” he added modestly.