e would
into that foggy distance: now something gleamed gray, now there was
something black, now little lights seemed to glimmer where the enemy
ought to be, now he fancied it was only something in his own eyes.
His eyes kept closing, and in his fancy appeared--now the Emperor, now
Denisov, and now Moscow memories--and he again hurriedly opened his eyes
and saw close before him the head and ears of the horse he was riding,
and sometimes, when he came within six paces of them, the black figures
of hussars, but in the distance was still the same misty darkness. "Why
not?... It might easily happen," thought Rostov, "that the Emperor will
meet me and give me an order as he would to any other officer; he'll
say: 'Go and find out what's there.' There are many stories of his
getting to know an officer in just such a chance way and attaching him
to himself! What if he gave me a place near him? Oh, how I would guard
him, how I would tell him the truth, how I would unmask his deceivers!"
And in order to realize vividly his love devotion to the sovereign,
Rostov pictured to himself an enemy or a deceitful German, whom he would
not only kill with pleasure but whom he would slap in the face before
the Emperor. Suddenly a distant shout aroused him. He started and opened
his eyes.

"Where am I? Oh yes, in the skirmishing line... pass and
watchword--shaft, Olmutz. What a nuisance that our squadron will be in
reserve tomorrow," he thought. "I'll ask leave to go to the front, this
may be my only chance of seeing the Emperor. It won't be long now before
I am off duty. I'll take another turn and when I get back I'll go to the
general and ask him." He readjusted himself in the saddle and touched up
his horse to ride once more round his hussars. It seemed to him that it
was getting lighter. To the left he saw a sloping descent lit up, and
facing it a black knoll that seemed as steep as a wall. On this knoll
there was a white patch that Rostov could not at all make out: was it
a glade in the wood lit up by the moon, or some unmelted snow, or some
white houses? He even thought something moved on that white spot. "I
expect it's snow... that spot... a spot--une tache," he thought. "There
now... it's not a tache... Natasha... sister, black eyes... Na...
tasha... (Won't she be surprised when I tell her how I've seen the
Emperor?) Natasha... take my sabretache..."--"Keep to the right, your
honor, there are bushes here," came the voice of an hussar,