the village of Hosjeradek there were Russian troops retiring from
the field of battle, who though still in some confusion were less
disordered. The French cannon did not reach there and the musketry fire
sounded far away. Here everyone clearly saw and said that the battle
was lost. No one whom Rostov asked could tell him where the Emperor
or Kutuzov was. Some said the report that the Emperor was wounded was
correct, others that it was not, and explained the false rumor that had
spread by the fact that the Emperor's carriage had really galloped from
the field of battle with the pale and terrified Ober-Hofmarschal Count
Tolstoy, who had ridden out to the battlefield with others in the
Emperor's suite. One officer told Rostov that he had seen someone from
headquarters behind the village to the left, and thither Rostov rode,
not hoping to find anyone but merely to ease his conscience. When he had
ridden about two miles and had passed the last of the Russian troops, he
saw, near a kitchen garden with a ditch round it, two men on horseback
facing the ditch. One with a white plume in his hat seemed familiar to
Rostov; the other on a beautiful chestnut horse (which Rostov fancied he
had seen before) rode up to the ditch, struck his horse with his spurs,
and giving it the rein leaped lightly over. Only a little earth crumbled
from the bank under the horse's hind hoofs. Turning the horse sharply,
he again jumped the ditch, and deferentially addressed the horseman with
the white plumes, evidently suggesting that he should do the same. The
rider, whose figure seemed familiar to Rostov and involuntarily riveted
his attention, made a gesture of refusal with his head and hand and
by that gesture Rostov instantly recognized his lamented and adored
monarch.

"But it can't be he, alone in the midst of this empty field!" thought
Rostov. At that moment Alexander turned his head and Rostov saw the
beloved features that were so deeply engraved on his memory. The Emperor
was pale, his cheeks sunken and his eyes hollow, but the charm, the
mildness of his features, was all the greater. Rostov was happy in the
assurance that the rumors about the Emperor being wounded were false. He
was happy to be seeing him. He knew that he might and even ought to
go straight to him and give the message Dolgorukov had ordered him to
deliver.

But as a youth in love trembles, is unnerved, and dares not utter the
thoughts he has dreamed of for nights, but looks