to the Emperor and he had not
made use of it.... "What have I done?" thought he. And he turned round
and galloped back to the place where he had seen the Emperor, but there
was no one beyond the ditch now. Only some carts and carriages were
passing by. From one of the drivers he learned that Kutuzov's staff were
not far off, in the village the vehicles were going to. Rostov
followed them. In front of him walked Kutuzov's groom leading horses
in horsecloths. Then came a cart, and behind that walked an old,
bandy-legged domestic serf in a peaked cap and sheepskin coat.

"Tit! I say, Tit!" said the groom.

"What?" answered the old man absent-mindedly.

"Go, Tit! Thresh a bit!"

"Oh, you fool!" said the old man, spitting angrily. Some time passed in
silence, and then the same joke was repeated.

Before five in the evening the battle had been lost at all points. More
than a hundred cannon were already in the hands of the French.

Przebyszewski and his corps had laid down their arms. Other columns
after losing half their men were retreating in disorderly confused
masses.

The remains of Langeron's and Dokhturov's mingled forces were crowding
around the dams and banks of the ponds near the village of Augesd.

After five o'clock it was only at the Augesd Dam that a hot cannonade
(delivered by the French alone) was still to be heard from numerous
batteries ranged on the slopes of the Pratzen Heights, directed at our
retreating forces.

In the rearguard, Dokhturov and others rallying some battalions kept up
a musketry fire at the French cavalry that was pursuing our troops. It
was growing dusk. On the narrow Augesd Dam where for so many years the
old miller had been accustomed to sit in his tasseled cap peacefully
angling, while his grandson, with shirt sleeves rolled up, handled the
floundering silvery fish in the watering can, on that dam over which for
so many years Moravians in shaggy caps and blue jackets had peacefully
driven their two-horse carts loaded with wheat and had returned dusty
with flour whitening their carts--on that narrow dam amid the wagons and
the cannon, under the horses' hoofs and between the wagon wheels, men
disfigured by fear of death now crowded together, crushing one another,
dying, stepping over the dying and killing one another, only to move on
a few steps and be killed themselves in the same way.

Every ten seconds a cannon ball flew compressing the air around, or
a shell burst in th