athlike stillness only the tramp of horses was heard. This
was the Emperors' suites. The Emperors rode up to the flank, and the
trumpets of the first cavalry regiment played the general march. It
seemed as though not the trumpeters were playing, but as if the army
itself, rejoicing at the Emperors' approach, had naturally burst into
music. Amid these sounds, only the youthful kindly voice of the Emperor
Alexander was clearly heard. He gave the words of greeting, and the
first regiment roared "Hurrah!" so deafeningly, continuously, and
joyfully that the men themselves were awed by their multitude and the
immensity of the power they constituted.

Rostov, standing in the front lines of Kutuzov's army which the Tsar
approached first, experienced the same feeling as every other man in
that army: a feeling of self-forgetfulness, a proud consciousness of
might, and a passionate attraction to him who was the cause of this
triumph.

He felt that at a single word from that man all this vast mass (and he
himself an insignificant atom in it) would go through fire and water,
commit crime, die, or perform deeds of highest heroism, and so he could
not but tremble and his heart stand still at the imminence of that word.

"Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!" thundered from all sides, one regiment after
another greeting the Tsar with the strains of the march, and then
"Hurrah!"... Then the general march, and again "Hurrah! Hurrah!" growing
ever stronger and fuller and merging into a deafening roar.

Till the Tsar reached it, each regiment in its silence and immobility
seemed like a lifeless body, but as soon as he came up it became alive,
its thunder joining the roar of the whole line along which he had
already passed. Through the terrible and deafening roar of those voices,
amid the square masses of troops standing motionless as if turned to
stone, hundreds of riders composing the suites moved carelessly but
symmetrically and above all freely, and in front of them two men--the
Emperors. Upon them the undivided, tensely passionate attention of that
whole mass of men was concentrated.

The handsome young Emperor Alexander, in the uniform of the Horse
Guards, wearing a cocked hat with its peaks front and back, with his
pleasant face and resonant though not loud voice, attracted everyone's
attention.

Rostov was not far from the trumpeters, and with his keen sight had
recognized the Tsar and watched his approach. When he was within twenty
paces