Chapter 8

Rostov only bethought him of what he ought to have answered when he had gone. And he was more furious still that he had not thought of saying it. He ordered his horse to be brought round at once, and taking leave of Boris coldly, he rode back. Whether to ride to-morrow to head-quarters and challenge that conceited adjutant, or whether really to let the matter drop, was the question that worried him all the way. At one moment he thought vindictively how he would enjoy seeing the fright that feeble, little, conceited fellow would be in, facing his pistol, at the next he was feeling with surprise that, of all the men he knew, there was no one he would be more glad to have for his friend than that detested little adjutant.

THE DAY AFTER ROSTOV’S VISIT to Boris, the review took place of the Austrian and Russian troops, both the reinforcements freshly arrived from Russia and the troops that had been campaigning with Kutuzov. Both Emperors, the Russian Emperor with the Tsarevitch, and the Austrian with the archduke, were to assist at this review of the allied forces, making up together an army of eighty thousand men. From early morning the troops, all smart and clean, had been moving about the plain before the fortress. Thousands of legs and bayonets moved with flags waving, and halted at the word of command, turned and formed at regular intervals, moving round other similar masses of infantry in different uniforms. With the rhythmic tramp of hoofs, the smartly dressed cavalry in blue, and red, and green laced uniforms rode jingling by on black and chestnut and grey horses, the bandsmen in front covered with embroidery. Between the infantry and the cavalry the artillery, in a long line of polished, shining cannons quivering on their carriages, crawled slowly by with their heavy, brazen sound, and their peculiar smell from the linstocks, and ranged themselves in their places. Not only the generals in their full parade uniform, wearing scarves and all their decorations, with waists, portly and slim alike, pinched in to the uttermost, and red necks squeezed into stiff collars, not only the pomaded, dandified officers, but every soldier, with his clean, washed, and shaven face, and weapons polished to the utmost possibility of glitter, every horse rubbed down till its coat shone like satin, and every hair in its moistened mane lay in place—all alike felt it no joking matter, felt that something grave and solemn was going forward. Every general and every soldier was conscious of his own significance, feeling himself but a grain of sand in that ocean of humanity, and at the same time was conscious of his might, feeling himself a part of that vast whole. There had been strenuous exertion and bustle since early morning, and by ten o’clock everything was in the required order. The rows of soldiers were standing on the immense plain. The whole army was drawn out in three lines. In front was the cavalry; behind, the artillery; still further back, the infantry.