ngs of smoke.

"Yes, that was fine," said Rostov, smiling.

But Boris noticed that he was preparing to make fun of Berg, and
skillfully changed the subject. He asked him to tell them how and where
he got his wound. This pleased Rostov and he began talking about it, and
as he went on became more and more animated. He told them of his Schon
Grabern affair, just as those who have taken part in a battle generally
do describe it, that is, as they would like it to have been, as they
have heard it described by others, and as sounds well, but not at all as
it really was. Rostov was a truthful young man and would on no
account have told a deliberate lie. He began his story meaning to tell
everything just as it happened, but imperceptibly, involuntarily, and
inevitably he lapsed into falsehood. If he had told the truth to his
hearers--who like himself had often heard stories of attacks and had
formed a definite idea of what an attack was and were expecting to hear
just such a story--they would either not have believed him or, still
worse, would have thought that Rostov was himself to blame since what
generally happens to the narrators of cavalry attacks had not happened
to him. He could not tell them simply that everyone went at a trot and
that he fell off his horse and sprained his arm and then ran as hard as
he could from a Frenchman into the wood. Besides, to tell everything as
it really happened, it would have been necessary to make an effort of
will to tell only what happened. It is very difficult to tell the truth,
and young people are rarely capable of it. His hearers expected a story
of how beside himself and all aflame with excitement, he had flown like
a storm at the square, cut his way in, slashed right and left, how his
saber had tasted flesh and he had fallen exhausted, and so on. And so he
told them all that.

In the middle of his story, just as he was saying: "You cannot imagine
what a strange frenzy one experiences during an attack," Prince Andrew,
whom Boris was expecting, entered the room. Prince Andrew, who liked
to help young men, was flattered by being asked for his assistance and
being well disposed toward Boris, who had managed to please him the day
before, he wished to do what the young man wanted. Having been sent with
papers from Kutuzov to the Tsarevich, he looked in on Boris, hoping to
find him alone. When he came in and saw an hussar of the line recounting
his military exploits (Prince Andrew could