BOOK TEN: 1812
30. CHAPTER XXX
(continued)
Mounting the steps to the knoll Pierre looked at the scene before
him, spellbound by beauty. It was the same panorama 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
rays of the bright sun, rising slightly to the left behind Pierre,
cast upon it through the clear morning air penetrating streaks of
rosy, golden tinted light and long dark shadows. The forest at the
farthest extremity of the panorama seemed carved in some precious
stone of a yellowish-green color; its undulating outline was
silhouetted against the horizon and was pierced beyond Valuevo by
the Smolensk highroad crowded with troops. Nearer at hand glittered
golden cornfields interspersed with copses. There were troops to be
seen everywhere, in front and to the right and left. All this was
vivid, majestic, 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 banks falls
into the Kolocha, a mist had spread which seemed to melt, to dissolve,
and to become translucent when the brilliant sun appeared and
magically colored and outlined everything. The smoke of the guns
mingled 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 masses of soldiers, or green
ammunition chests and ordnance. 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, growing, rolling, and blending, extended over the
whole expanse.
These puffs of smoke and (strange to say) the sound of sound of
the firing produced the chief beauty of the spectacle.
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