himself free.
Having left that soldier who was evidently drunk, Rostóv stopped the horse of a batman or groom of some important personage and began to question him. The man announced that the Tsar had been driven in a carriage at full speed about an hour before along that very road and that he was dangerously wounded.
“It can’t be!” said Rostóv. “It must have been someone else.”
“I saw him myself,” replied the man with a self-confident smile of derision. “I ought to know the Emperor by now, after the times I’ve seen him in Petersburg. I saw him just as I see you. … There he sat in the carriage as pale as anything. How they made the four black horses fly! Gracious me, they did rattle past! It’s time I knew the Imperial horses and Ilyá Iványch. I don’t think Ilyá drives anyone except the Tsar!”
Rostóv let go of the horse and was about to ride on, when a wounded officer passing by addressed him:
“Who is it you want?” he asked. “The commander in chief? He was killed by a cannon ball—struck in the breast before our regiment.”
“Not killed—wounded!” another officer corrected him.
“Who? Kutúzov?” asked Rostóv.
“Not Kutúzov, but what’s his name—well, never mind … there are not many left alive. Go that way, to that village, all the commanders are there,” said the officer, pointing to the village of Hosjeradek, and he walked on.
Rostóv rode on at a footpace not knowing why or to whom he was now going. The Emperor was wounded, the battle lost. It was impossible to doubt it now. Rostóv rode in the direction pointed out to him, in which he saw turrets and a