The Sky Above Napoleon — War and Peace

On the Pratzen Heights, where he fell with the flagstaff in his hand, Prince Andrew Bolkónski lies bleeding, unconsciously uttering a gentle, childlike moan. Toward evening he becomes still. He does not know how long the unconsciousness lasts. Suddenly he feels alive again, with a burning, lacerating pain in his head. Where is that lofty sky he did not know till today? He had not known this suffering either; he had not known anything at all. He hears horses and French voices but does not turn his head. Above him is the same sky, clouds floating higher, blue infinity between them.

Napoleon, with two aides, is riding the field, giving orders to strengthen the batteries firing at the Augesd Dam. "Fine men!" he says over a dead Russian grenadier, face buried, arm already stiff. An adjutant reports the guns' ammunition exhausted; bring some from the reserve. A few steps on, Bonaparte stops before Andrew, lying on his back beside the dropped staff (the flag already a French trophy). "That's a fine death!" Andrew understands that it is said of him and that the speaker is his hero, addressed as Sire. He hears the words as he might the buzzing of a fly, takes no notice, and forgets them. His head burns; he is bleeding to death; Napoleon seems a small, insignificant creature beside what is passing between himself and that infinite sky. He only wishes the people standing near would help him back to life, which seems beautiful now that he understands it differently. He moves a leg and utters a weak groan that arouses his own pity. "Ah! He is alive. Lift this young man up and carry him to the dressing station." Napoleon rides on to meet Marshal Lannes, hat in hand, smiling congratulations. Andrew loses consciousness from the pain of being lifted, the jolting, and the probing of the wound, and does not come to until he is carried, with other captured officers, toward the hospital.

The first words he hears are that they must halt: the Emperor will pass and it will please him to see these gentlemen prisoners. Nearly the whole Russian army is taken; one white Horse Guards coat is said to be the commander of Alexander's Guards. It is Prince Repnín, whom Andrew knows from Petersburg; beside him a nineteen-year-old, Lieutenant Sukhtélen. Napoleon asks who is senior, praises the regiment, smiles that Sukhtélen is very young to meddle with them, and calls the lad's answer about youth and courage splendid. Andrew is brought forward to complete the show. "Well, and you, young man. How do you feel, mon brave?" Five minutes earlier he could speak to the soldiers carrying him; now, eyes on Napoleon, he is silent. All that engrosses the little conqueror seems futile beside the lofty sky and the nearness of death. The Emperor does not wait: have them attended at his bivouac; let Larrey examine their wounds. The soldiers who had taken Mary's little gold icon hasten to put it back on Andrew's chest. It would be good, he thinks, if everything were as clear as it seems to her; but to whom should he say "Lord, have mercy"? To an indefinable All or Nothing, or to the God sewn into this amulet? Nothing is certain except the unimportance of everything he understands. At every jolt the pain returns; fever and delirium mix father, wife, sister, a future son, insignificant Napoleon, and the sky. Bald Hills' quiet happiness appears, then the little man's shortsighted delight in others' misery. Toward morning the dreams melt into darkness which, in Larrey's opinion, is much more likely to end in death than in convalescence. "He is a nervous, bilious subject, and will not recover." Andrew, with others fatally wounded, is left to the care of the inhabitants of the district.