e enemy column was moving down the hill,
probably to strengthen the front line. The smoke of the first shot had
not yet dispersed before another puff appeared, followed by a report.
The battle had begun! Prince Andrew turned his horse and galloped back
to Grunth to find Prince Bagration. He heard the cannonade behind him
growing louder and more frequent. Evidently our guns had begun to reply.
From the bottom of the slope, where the parleys had taken place, came
the report of musketry.

Lemarrois had just arrived at a gallop with Bonaparte's stern letter,
and Murat, humiliated and anxious to expiate his fault, had at once
moved his forces to attack the center and outflank both the Russian
wings, hoping before evening and before the arrival of the Emperor to
crush the contemptible detachment that stood before him.

"It has begun. Here it is!" thought Prince Andrew, feeling the blood
rush to his heart. "But where and how will my Toulon present itself?"

Passing between the companies that had been eating porridge and drinking
vodka a quarter of an hour before, he saw everywhere the same rapid
movement of soldiers forming ranks and getting their muskets ready,
and on all their faces he recognized the same eagerness that filled his
heart. "It has begun! Here it is, dreadful but enjoyable!" was what the
face of each soldier and each officer seemed to say.

Before he had reached the embankments that were being thrown up, he saw,
in the light of the dull autumn evening, mounted men coming toward him.
The foremost, wearing a Cossack cloak and lambskin cap and riding a
white horse, was Prince Bagration. Prince Andrew stopped, waiting for
him to come up; Prince Bagration reined in his horse and recognizing
Prince Andrew nodded to him. He still looked ahead while Prince Andrew
told him what he had seen.

The feeling, "It has begun! Here it is!" was seen even on Prince
Bagration's hard brown face with its half-closed, dull, sleepy eyes.
Prince Andrew gazed with anxious curiosity at that impassive face
and wished he could tell what, if anything, this man was thinking and
feeling at that moment. "Is there anything at all behind that impassive
face?" Prince Andrew asked himself as he looked. Prince Bagration bent
his head in sign of agreement with what Prince Andrew told him, and
said, "Very good!" in a tone that seemed to imply that everything that
took place and was reported to him was exactly what he had foreseen.
Prince Andrew,