【有声英语文学名著】战争与和平 Book 10（30）

 Chapter 30 - Pierre views the battlefield from the knoll 1 at Górki

 
On returning to Gorki after having seen Prince Andrey, Pierre ordered his groom 2 to get the horses ready and to call him early in the morning, and then immediately fell asleep behind a partition in a corner Boris had given up to him.
Before he was thoroughly 3 awake next morning everybody had already left the hut. The panes 4 were rattling 5 in the little windows and his groom was shaking him.
“Your excellency! Your excellency! Your excellency!” he kept repeating pertinaciously 6 while he shook Pierre by the shoulder without looking at him, having apparently 7 lost hope of getting him to wake up.
“What? Has it begun? Is it time?” Pierre asked, waking up.
“Hear the firing,” said the groom, a discharged soldier. “All the gentlemen have gone out, and his Serene 8 Highness himself rode past long ago.”
Pierre dressed hastily and ran out to the porch. Outside all was bright, fresh, dewy, and cheerful. The sun, just bursting forth 9 from behind a cloud that had concealed 10 it, was shining, with rays still half broken by the clouds, over the roofs of the street opposite, on the dew-besprinkled dust of the road, on the walls of the houses, on the windows, the fence, and on Pierre’s horses standing 11 before the hut. The roar of guns sounded more distinct outside. An adjutant accompanied by a Cossack passed by at a sharp trot 12.
“It’s time, Count; it’s time!” cried the adjutant.
Telling the groom to follow him with the horses, Pierre went down the street to the knoll from which he had looked at the field of battle the day before. A crowd of military men was assembled there, members of the staff could be heard conversing 13 in French, and Kutuzov’s gray head in a white cap with a red band was visible, his gray nape sunk between his shoulders. He was looking through a field glass down the highroad before him.
Mounting the steps to the knoll Pierre looked at the scene before him, spellbound by beauty. It was the same panorama 14 he had admired from that spot the day before, but now the whole place was full of troops and covered by smoke clouds from the guns, and the slanting 15 rays of the bright sun, rising slightly to the left behind Pierre, cast upon it through the clear morning air penetrating 16 streaks 17 of rosy 18, golden tinted 19 light and long dark shadows. The forest at the farthest extremity 20 of the panorama seemed carved in some precious stone of a yellowish-green color; its undulating outline was silhouetted 21 against the horizon and was pierced beyond Valuevo by the Smolensk highroad crowded with troops. Nearer at hand glittered golden cornfields interspersed 22 with copses. There were troops to be seen everywhere, in front and to the right and left. All this was vivid, majestic 23, and unexpected; but what impressed Pierre most of all was the view of the battlefield itself, of Borodino and the hollows on both sides of the Kolocha.
Above the Kolocha, in Borodino and on both sides of it, especially to the left where the Voyna flowing between its marshy 24 banks falls into the Kolocha, a mist had spread which seemed to melt, to dissolve, and to become translucent 25 when the brilliant sun appeared and magically colored and outlined everything. The smoke of the guns mingled 26 with this mist, and over the whole expanse and through that mist the rays of the morning sun were reflected, flashing back like lightning from the water, from the dew, and from the bayonets of the troops crowded together by the riverbanks and in Borodino. A white church could be seen through the mist, and here and there the roofs of huts in Borodino as well as dense 27 masses of soldiers, or green ammunition 28 chests and ordnance 29. And all this moved, or seemed to move, as the smoke and mist spread out over the whole space. Just as in the mist-enveloped hollow near Borodino, so along the entire line outside and above it and especially in the woods and fields to the left, in the valleys and on the summits of the high ground, clouds of powder smoke seemed continually to spring up out of nothing, now singly, now several at a time, some translucent, others dense, which, swelling 30, growing, rolling, and blending, extended over the whole expanse.
These puffs 32 of smoke and (strange to say) the sound of the firing produced the chief beauty of the spectacle.
“Puff 31!”— suddenly a round compact cloud of smoke was seen merging 33 from violet into gray and milky 34 white, and “boom!” came the report a second later.
“Puff! puff!”— and two clouds arose pushing one another and blending together; and “boom, boom!” came the sounds confirming what the eye had seen.
Pierre glanced round at the first cloud, which he had seen as a round compact ball, and in its place already were balloons of smoke floating to one side, and — “puff” (with a pause)— “puff, puff!” three and then four more appeared and then from each, with the same interval 35 — “boom — boom, boom!” came the fine, firm, precise sounds in reply. It seemed as if those smoke clouds sometimes ran and sometimes stood still while woods, fields, and glittering bayonets ran past them. From the left, over fields and bushes, those large balls of smoke were continually appearing followed by their solemn reports, while nearer still, in the hollows and woods, there burst from the muskets 36 small cloudlets that had no time to become balls, but had their little echoes in just the same way. “Trakh-ta-ta-takh!” came the frequent crackle of musketry, but it was irregular and feeble in comparison with the reports of the cannon 37.
Pierre wished to be there with that smoke, those shining bayonets, that movement, and those sounds. He turned to look at Kutuzov and his suite 38, to compare his impressions with those of others. They were all looking at the field of battle as he was, and, as it seemed to him, with the same feelings. All their faces were now shining with that latent warmth of feeling Pierre had noticed the day before and had fully 39 understood after his talk with Prince Andrey.
“Go, my dear fellow, go . . . and Christ be with you!” Kutuzov was saying to a general who stood beside him, not taking his eye from the battlefield.
Having received this order the general passed by Pierre on his way down the knoll.
“To the crossing!” said the general coldly and sternly in reply to one of the staff who asked where he was going.
“I’ll go there too, I too!” thought Pierre, and followed the general.
The general mounted a horse a Cossack had brought him. Pierre went to his groom who was holding his horses and, asking which was the quietest, clambered onto it, seized it by the mane, and turning out his toes pressed his heels against its sides and, feeling that his spectacles were slipping off but unable to let go of the mane and reins 40, he galloped 41 after the general, causing the staff officers to smile as they watched him from the knoll.