dew-besprinkled dust of the road, on the walls of the houses, on the
windows, the fence, and on Pierre's horses standing before the hut. The
roar of guns sounded more distinct outside. An adjutant accompanied by a
Cossack passed by at a sharp trot.

"It's time, Count; it's time!" cried the adjutant.

Telling the groom to follow him with the horses, Pierre went down the
street to the knoll from which he had looked at the field of battle the
day before. A crowd of military men was assembled there, members of the
staff could be heard conversing in French, and Kutuzov's gray head in
a white cap with a red band was visible, his gray nape sunk between his
shoulders. He was looking through a field glass down the highroad before
him.

Mounting the steps to the knoll Pierre looked at the scene before him,
spellbound by beauty. It was the same panorama he had admired from that
spot the day before, but now the whole place was full of troops and
covered by smoke clouds from the guns, and the slanting rays of the
bright sun, rising slightly to the left behind Pierre, cast upon it
through the clear morning air penetrating streaks of rosy, golden tinted
light and long dark shadows. The forest at the farthest extremity of
the panorama seemed carved in some precious stone of a yellowish-green
color; its undulating outline was silhouetted against the horizon and
was pierced beyond Valuevo by the Smolensk highroad crowded with troops.
Nearer at hand glittered golden cornfields interspersed with copses.
There were troops to be seen everywhere, in front and to the right and
left. All this was vivid, majestic, and unexpected; but what impressed
Pierre most of all was the view of the battlefield itself, of Borodino
and the hollows on both sides of the Kolocha.

Above the Kolocha, in Borodino and on both sides of it, especially to
the left where the Voyna flowing between its marshy banks falls into
the Kolocha, a mist had spread which seemed to melt, to dissolve, and to
become translucent when the brilliant sun appeared and magically colored
and outlined everything. The smoke of the guns mingled with this mist,
and over the whole expanse and through that mist the rays of the morning
sun were reflected, flashing back like lightning from the water, from
the dew, and from the bayonets of the troops crowded together by the
riverbanks and in Borodino. A white church could be seen through the
mist, and here and there the roofs of huts in Borodin