A Year of War and Peace + Day 31

In which we cross the River Enns with some disturbing soldier talk and, contemplating the wide expanse of the bridge over the river, we see how small we truly are

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War and Peace — Book One, Part Two

Chapter Six

Kutúzov fell back toward Vienna, destroying behind him the bridges over the rivers Inn (at Braunau) and Traun (near Linz). On October 23 the Russian troops were crossing the river Enns. At midday the Russian baggage train, the artillery, and columns of troops were defiling through the town of Enns on both sides of the bridge.

It was a warm, rainy, autumnal day. The wide expanse that opened out before the heights on which the Russian batteries stood guarding the bridge was at times veiled by a diaphanous curtain of slanting rain, and then, suddenly spread out in the…