“It’s all the same now. If the Emperor is wounded, am I to try to save myself?” he thought. He rode on to the region where the greatest number of men had perished in fleeing from Pratzen. The French had not yet occupied that region, and the Russians⁠—the uninjured and slightly wounded⁠—had left it long ago. All about the field, like heaps of manure on well-kept plowland, lay from ten to fifteen dead and wounded to each couple of acres. The wounded crept together in twos and threes and one could hear their distressing screams and groans, sometimes feigned⁠—or so it seemed to Rostóv. He put his horse to a trot to avoid seeing all these suffering men, and he felt afraid⁠—afraid not for his life, but for the courage he needed and which he knew would not stand the sight of these unfortunates.

886